Cranberry Chocolate Cake

To celebrate TripleQ's birthday, I made this 6" (almost) molten chocolate cake. I was hoping to take this opportunity to clear up our dark chocolate inventory(~1 lb). And I did. In fact, there was barely any chocolate left to make enough ganache to cover the cake. If you're health-conscious, WALK AWAY. The cake itself is packed with 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar and 3/4 lb of chocolate. It is truly "death by chocolate" (one good way to die for btw).

The recipe is loosely based on Chef Michael Smith's brownie recipe. There happened to be a jar of dried cranberries in the pantry so I used cranberries instead of walnuts (called in the original recipe).

Servings: one 6" cake + two ramekins


Note: for this recipe, you'll need to bake the cake & let it sit (at least to room temperature) before applying the jam glaze & ganache glaze. You'll have plenty of time to make other components while the cake is baked in the oven or cooling down on the rack. To make this post easier to follow, the ingredient list & instruction for each component are grouped together.


~ for the cake

INGREDIENTS (Cake)

• Bittersweet dark chocolate, 12 ounces (339g)
• Butter,2 sticks (8 ounces)
• Flour, 1 cup
• Salt, a pinch
• Baking powder, 1 tbsp
• Eggs, 4-5*
• Sugar, 1/2 cup
• Brown sugar (packed), 1/2 cup
• Splash of liqueur** or vanilla extract
• Dried cranberries, 1 cup
• More liqueur** for reconstituting cranberries

NOTE* Depends on the size of eggs & your fridge space
NOTE** I use creme de cassis, Grand Marnier and orange liqueur to achieve the balance I'm after. If you are not a self-proclaimed mixologist like me, you can reconstitute cranberries in orange juice or cranberry juice and add vanilla extract to the cake batter.


PROCESS (Cake)

• Melt butter and chocolate over a double boiler
• In a small sauce pan, pour in generous amount of liqueur. Heat over stove to burn off as much alcohol as possible.
• Saucepan off the heat. Add cranberries and soak.
• Sieve and mix all dry ingredients
• Pre-heat the oven to 350F Note: this step can occur whenever convenient. My oven takes 5 minutes to pre-heat.
• Use the mixer to beat eggs & sugar. Add chocolate butter mix. Add dry ingredients.
• Drain cranberries. Reserve the liquid. Add cranberries to the batter.
• Butter & lightly flour a 6" spring foam. Pour batter in. Gently tap the mold to remove big air voids.
• Bake @ 350F for 40 minutes or until set.
• Let the cake cool on the rack
• (Optional) Chill in the fridge if you want to make a "proper-looking" cake. See PROCESS (Assembling).

~ for the jam (sealer layer)

INGREDIENTS (Raspberry)

• Raspberry jam (few tbsp)
• Liqueur reserved from reconstituting cranberries

PROCESS (Raspberry)

• Gently heat jam on the stove until the jam melts slightly (it should be runnier than at room temperature)
• Thin the jam with liqueur (reserved from soaking cranberries) until the mixture has the consistency of raw egg white.
• Strain the mixture if your jam contains fruit bits. (Skip this step if you don't mind bumpy surface on your cake)

~ for the ganache glaze

INGREDIENTS (Ganache)
Original recipe is from joyofbaking.com.

• Cream, 1 part
• Chocolate, 1-3 parts
• Butter (about 1 tbsp butter to 1/2 lb chocolate)
• Splash of your choice of liqueur
• Sugar to taste

Note: I'm the type who can snack on 85% chocolate so no more sugar for me. But it's purely personal preference.


PROCESS (Ganache)

Many tutorials available on the internet. The rule of thumb is to melt chocolate in warm cream without scorching the milk or burning the chocolate.

PROCESS. (Assembling)

What I did:

• Trim the top of the cake.
• Brush on a thick layer of raspberry jam glaze to seal crumbs & also act as filling
• Spread ganache on the cake
• Garnish with star-shaped sprinkles (if everything fails, this is the last resort to wow the audience)

What you can do ("the proper-looking cake"):
Assuming the cake has been in the fridge for minimum 2 hours.

• Trim the top of the cake. Slice the cake in half horizontally.
• Brush on a thick layer of raspberry jam glaze all over the cake (top, sides, in between layers) to seal crumbs & also act as filling
• Whip the ganache until it's nice & fluffy
• Spread ganache all over the cake

Note: When the cake is warm, the center is soft & runny. Put the cake in fridge for few hours if you want to slice it in half for the ganache filling. I didn't do so because we like it as molten chocolate cake.

I want another enameled cast iron pot - part 2

A KitchenAid pot similar to the one mentioned in this post was on sale at CanadianTire again. Except this time it was 70% off (so cheap you almost wonder if people ever pay full price). For CD$30 we almost got nothing to lose; worst comes worst I can use it as a planter.

This KitchenAid cast iron pot is 3.5 qt (smaller than the 5qt Staub pot we have), in dark red. The handle is silicon/stainless steel so the whole pot can go in the oven. Although it has the glossy interior (like Le Creuset) and the self-basting dips (like Staub), the finish is not comparable to either. But hey! it's only 10-15% $ of the "real thing".

Comments after the initial use:

• TripleQ used it to make no-knead bread. It does produce thinner crust than with regular baking mold.
• I braised pork shoulder in it. The steam came out from the edge and over-flew. This never happens with our other pot.

(TripleQ) "What's the point of putting silicon on handle if I still need an oven mitt to lift the pot?"

Brioche - revised

After couple more batches of brioche, I finally figure out the formula we enjoy the most. So here it is:

INGREDIENTS:

• flour, 3 cups
• sugar, 6 tbsp
• salt, 2 tsp
• butter, 10 tbsp
• eggs (medium-large), 5
• warm milk, 0.25 cup (or 60mL)
• dry yeast, 1 package (8g)

PROCESS:

• Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl, stir gently with a spatula
• Mix with a dough hook in the lowest speed until it's well-blended (about 2 minutes).
• Increase the speed and mix for 5 minutes. Stop and scrape the side. Repeat 3 times (basically you make the mixer do the kneading for you)
• Cover the dough and let it sit for about 4 hours (at around 25 C)
• Divide the dough into 12 muffin cups. Let it sit for 1 hour. (The dough will continue to puff up)
• Bake for 15 minutes at 375 F in a convection oven. Turn off the heat and let brioche stay in the oven for another 5 minutes.

LESSONS LEARNED:

• Just for the record, I did try to follow the original recipe and store the dough in the fridge over night. The dough was hard enough that we could roll it into small balls (Baby Martini enjoyed doing it tremendously). If you go with this recipe, the dough will be too sticky and too soft to roll.
• For the dough stored in the fridge, the brioche turned out to be pretty dense (more like bread). But brioche from this recipe has the texture between croissant and bread.
• I added a handful of lavender bloom in this batch. It was subtle, like biting off lavender-scented clouds. I might get braver and start to incorporate more flavors in brioche.

FINAL VERDICT:

• Stick to this recipe! Some people might snarl at how simplified the steps are and claim the end result is not brioche. Fine, buttery bun it is. But this is the recipe the Martinis will go by.

Brioche - first take

I couldn't forget the wonderful brioche from Victoire I had when I visited Sydney, Australia. I decided to make one batch just to see how difficult it is. I found this link. The recipe seems to be straight-forward enough, judging by the first picture that all the ingredients are in the mixing bowl at the same time.

As straight-forward as it seems, I still made some modification (whether it's intentional or not). Here's what happened:

• I don't have milk powder at home so I have to improvise. I had 1/2 cup of warm milk to replace 1/4 cup milk powder and 1/4 warm water.
• instead of 1 tablespoon yeast, I put 1 package of instant dry yeast (8g).
• This is the second time our mixer reached its limit. Instead of using flat beater for 5 min after all ingredients were fully incorporated, I had to switch to bread hook to knead the dough after couple of minutes.
• The dough didn't go in the fridge for minimum 2 hours (to overnight); instead, it was sitting in the kitchen for about 2 hours (the first stage and last stage of fermentation were same as instructions in the recipe).

Results and lessons learned:

The end result looked similar to the pictures on the recipe page. It has the matte finish as opposed the "glossy finish" (by applying egg wash (egg yolk) on the surface of the dough).

Flavor-wise, it's neither sweet nor salty. I might need to increase the amount of seasoning next time. It goes well with marmalade or banana compote with orange juice reduction though.

In terms of texture, it is a tad dry (for brioche). Somehow I suspect it's due to the fact that I went the shortcut on the fermentation process. The dough wasn't stored in the fridge. Maybe I'll try to make softer dough next time as well.

Reference link for troubleshooting:
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007zip

Final verdict
It's unanimous (including Baby Martini's vote) that I should make it again.

Sapphire Martini, "How come the brioche from Victoire tasted so flaky and buttery?"
TripleQ, "I think you just mentioned the keyword."

Recipe see Brioche - revised.

Tequila braised beef with apples and onions

 I find it's interesting that when some of my Mexican friends hear the brand José Cuervo, they have that same expression like the Aussies to Yellow Tail. Anyhow. I don't remember why I have a bottle of tequila (as suggested by my name, I'm a gin drinker). I do notice that I cook with tequila more often than drinking it. Tequila adds interesting flavor to a dish and its full body goes well with meat.

Ingredients:

• Beef blade roast (oven roast)
• onion, 1 large or 2 mediums, peeled and quartered
• 1 or 2 apples, peeled and quartered
• 1 bunch green onions, cut about 5cm-long
• Garlic, 4 cloves
• Sage. We have abundant supply of sage from our garden, so I use a lot. About handful of fresh leaves
• Seasonings: soy sauce, sugar, black peppers, Worcestershire and last but not the least, a generous splash or tequila!

Note: a bit of kick from chipotle, jalapeno or other chili peppers will be nice. Alas! that's too much for a 3-year-old.

Process:

• Marinate the beef (with seasonings, water and all the ingredients) overnight
• Heat the pot with a splash of olive oil
• Drain and pat-dry the beef, sear it in the pot until the brown crust develops.
• Remove the beef from the pot, deglaze with the marinade.
• Add all ingredients and beef back to the pot, cover with lid. Simmer for 2 hours

Beef marinated with apples & onions

Searing the beef

There is no picture for the final product; everyone was hungry.

The verdict:
Not sure if it's due to the cut or the cooking. It was too tough to TripleQ's liking. It is indeed on the tough side, despite I cut against the grains. Maybe I'll try to cook it in the oven (with low temperature) next time.

The pot - Staub Dutch oven

I just realize that I never post any information about our enameled cast iron pot.

Picture from Staub USA website.

Staub round cocotte, size 26, 5qt. Royal blue.
This is probably the most versatile size: big enough for a chicken (and other trimmings) yet not too heavy to handle. And I love that glossy gradient blue.

MINI on duty

MINI's first nursery run

She was the only MINI in every nursery I visited today. No Smart car in sight. She was surrounded by SUVs, vans and grand sedans. Some people smirked at her presence in a garden center parking lot. WELL... how many plants can you fit in a MINI?

Quite a lot, actually. That's pretty much all the plants we need this year (I hope).

Carrot and potato stew

Earlier this year, I posted a different version of vegetable stew. This one takes a different direction (although still savory).

5 ingredients:

• carrots: peeled and chopped
• potatoes: peeled and cut in chunky pieces
• deep-fried bean curd: rinsed and drained. If you can't find this from your regular grocery stores, try a Chinese grocery store.
• garlic, about 3 cloves
• Chives: handful, about 0.5 cm long

Seasonings: sugar, soy sauce, garlic fermented black bean paste, worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, cooking wine.

Process:

• Heat the pot with a splash of olive oil
• Carrots, in. Add a table spoon of sugar to help caramelization.
• Deglaze with balsamic vinegar and cooking wine
• Push carrots to the side, add bean curd.
• Deglaze with cooking wine
• Add potatoes, seasonings and water in the pot. Bring to boil. Cover with the lid then simmer with low-medium heat.
• Stir in chives prior to serving.

For this dish, I like to have the carrots cooked through and the potatoes all starchy and soft. So I'll let it simmer for an hour or so. And don't stress about the seasoning for this dish. If it's too
light, reduce the liquid further. If it's too salty, add water. No one will know what you do in the kitchen anyway. The only rule is you have to taste it and adjust the seasoning accordingly.

Note: for Buddhists who can't have wine, garlic and perhaps chives, replace the garlic fermented black bean sauce with regular one or vegetarian oyster sauce, and add minced ginger to this dish.

I want another enameled cast iron pot

Last week, CanadianTire had a promotion for KitchenAid (5qt oval?) enameled cast iron pot; it was $59.99 after 40% off. I wanted to get one but TripleQ was against the purchase.

"We have one already. And we don't use it that often."
"But this one is so much cheaper! It can be for everyday-use."
"Why can't the other pot (the one we have) be for everyday-use then?" (Implying that we don't use the pot that often because we just don't find the need for it.)


Just to prove my point (look! This pot is su~per useful in the kitchen!), I made three pots of stew/braised meat in one week! Notes and pictures for each dish will be posted separately.

Creme brulee

I'm so glad that Baby Martini might have grown out of the egg allergy. Creme brulee! soufflé! tira misu (ok, not this one yet)! Mama is going to show you what Mama is capable of!!

It has been a long time since I last made creme brulee. The recipe I use is from Michael Smith's "Chef At Home", one of my favorite cooking shows on Food Network Canada.

Use the best ingredients available to you when you make the original flavor of creme brulee. There are only few ingredients: cream and/or milk, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Any mediocre component will greatly impede quality of the end result. In Chef Smith's recipe he uses vanilla extract; however, he demonstrated more than once in his show on preparing home-made vanilla extract. This leads me to believe the flavor should be just as pungent.

Ingredients:
Please refer to this recipe. I used 1:1 in cream:milk ratio. Also, I used a vanilla pod instead of 1 tbsp vanilla extract.

Notes: (lots of notes!)
Armed with scribble of instructions quickly copied to a scrap paper and my memory of all the creme brulee making I've seen/read, my process actually deviated from the instruction.

• I didn't remember that Michael clearly specified that "the caramel will harden" after you pour the milk and cream in it. When I poured caramel into the milk/vanilla mixture (yes, I got it wrong, too), I heard caramel turning into hard sugar lump, like lava cooled down in the water. My brain just went blank. "How can I make freaking mistake like this?" I told myself. So I quickly scooped out sugar with a slotted spatula then started again. This time I kept the milk mixture in low heat while preparing caramel, then poured caramel in the milk mixture. I think I'll do so from now on unless someone convinces me not to.
• The end result yields more than 6 ramekins. Do I happen to have smaller ramekins or is it because the water in caramel wasn't reduced enough? (I did use less water than recommended to begin with, in case there was too much liquid)
• "Preheat oven to 325 degrees"...is this for a normal oven or a convection oven? I used "auto" setting on our convection oven so the temperature was automatically adjusted to 275F. My theory is it's better to use lower temperature for a creamier, more smooth texture. Still, I want to know.
• I covered the custard with foil during the cooking process. Combined with the low cooking temperature, it took about 50 minutes in the oven for the custard to set properly. And the texture was still on the soft side (a bit too runny).
• Last but not the least, I am getting unsatisfied with the mini torch but still don't feel comfortable to use a "regular" torch (from hardware store) in the house. I tried broil once and it didn't turn out well. Tough choice.

Verdict:
Really creamy and delicious. Too sweet if we finish one serving at once. I will need to reduce the sugar/caramel next time.
After knowing how simple to make creme brulee taste good (really, it's all about ingredients and patience), I don't think we'll order it when we dine out.

Braised pork shoulder

Picture of braised pork shoulder

It's time to do some braising with our almighty Staub cast iron pot!

TQ is so tired of my cooking with root beer (I'd love to use coke but it's caffeinated) so I try to come out w/ different sauce for braising pork shoulder. Unlike many other recipes, mine doesn't call for (lots of) vinegar.

Ingredients:
Pork shoulder (2 lb this time), onions, green onions, garlic, chives (for garnish), wine, rice vinegar, Chinese fermented black bean sauce, sugar, sesame oil, olive oil

Process:

• Heat the pot with sesame oil and olive oil
• Brown all sides of pork shoulder. Remove the meat from the pot to rest.
• Sautee onions, garlic and green onions in the same pot, deglaze with cooking wine and rice vinegar. Scrap gently to get all the goodies off the pot.
• Meat back to the pot, pour in the sauce mix (which is composed of wine, rice vinegar, Chinese fermented black bean sauce, sugar, sesame oil), cover the lid. Cook in the oven at 325F for 2 hours or until the meat is cooked thoroughly and tender.
• Garnish with chives and serve

Notes:

• The meat should be able to be separated by a fork with little resistance
• Lots of onions & garlic to boost up the flavor
• Taste the sauce mix before you add in. With a tight lid the liquid shouldn't reduce much
• There's probably no need to caramelize the onions since they will be after 2 hours of cooking
• I'll add more liquid last time, maybe 1" in the pot to begin. It was too dry when it first came out of oven. I had to remove the meat then "thin" the sauce with a bit of water.

Final verdict:
It is unanimous: DO IT AGAIN!

Banana compote orange juice reduction

We have ridiculous amount of bananas in the kitchen now so we have to come out with creative ways to eat them. I would love to call it banana flambee but I can't. I didn't set my kitchen on fire. No, I mean, I didn't ignite the rum.

Ingredients:
Bananas, sugar, butter, orange juice and (golden/dark) rum.

Process:

• Bananas halved & cut in big chunks
• Caramelize sugar (about 2 tbsp) in non-stick pan
• Add butter (it browns quickly at this stage)
• Add bananas, quickly flip them to coat the caramel
• Deglaze with rum. Remove bananas out of the pan soon after the alcohol is burned off so they don't become mushy
• Add orange juice to the same pan, scrape the goodies off the pan. Reduce oj until it becomes syrupy. (Be patient, it will get there)

Serve it with our equally surplus frozen cheesecake (made it originally for a party which got canceled at the last minute). Drizzle with the oj reduction.

Verdict:
I made two batches. Was planning to freeze the 2nd batch but it was almost gone after breakfast (served it w pancakes). I suppose I can use up the rest of the bananas by making more banana compote.

Coconut Shrimp

No this is not the deep-fried version coated with shredded coconuts. But it is just as satisfying. Good with pita, bread or just served over the rice.

I think the task I was facing when creating this dish can be a (quick fire) challenge for Iron Chef/Top Chef or any sort of cooking reality shows. How can u create a South East Asia-influenced dish WITHOUT using curry, licorice, cardamom, chili, cayenne, ginger and peanuts/peanut oil? There's a long not-eat/cannot-eat list shared among us:
(TripleQ) Peanuts, peanut oil, curry paste (some does contain ground peanuts or peanut oil),licorice, cardamom.
(Baby Martini) Nuts, eggs(except in baked goods), anything peppery or spicy.
(MIL) Meat (so there has to be at least one vegetarian dish on the table)
(Myself) Green onions (clearly no one cares), leek (again I just have to pick it out myself), goat cheese.

Sometimes I feel there's nothing I can make other than tofu and veggie stir-fry in teriyaki sauce.

Anyhow. Life goes on.

Ingredients:
Shrimp, mixed vegetables, cilantro, green onions, garlic, coconut milk(1 can roughly 400mL), sesame oil, olive oil, soy sauce, cooking wine, rice vinegar, salt, sugar, corn starch (optional for thickening).
Yes, I did cheat:

• Tiny bit of Chinese five spice. So it acts as "undertone" flavor.
• Ginger, grated. Strain with a sieve in the coconut milk mixture.
• Tiny bit of white pepper, stir thoroughly

Process:

• Shrimp, shelled and deveined. Marinate in salt and cooking wine.
• Slowly warm coconut milk in a deep pan, stir in spices.
• Sautee vegetables, garlic and green onions with sesame oil and olive oil in a separate pan, season with salt. Make sure the green onions are cooked through but not burned to bring out the sweetness. Pick out garlic before it burns.
• Move the vegetables to the pan where coconut milk simmers.
• Sautee shrimp with sesame oil and olive oil. Season with salt. Deglaze the pan with cooking wine.
• Move shrimp to the coconut milk pan. Toss in cilantro. Serve.

P.S. I think I added a splash of rice vinegar at one point. I don't remember when though. It is important to have vinegar to balance the richness of coconut milk.

The verdict:
A keeper. Baby Martini likes the shrimp. TQ also enjoys it; he thinks it's quite addictive (because of the rich coconut milk and seasoning?).

Vanilla Cheesecake with Berry Compote

As usual. I was going through the prerecorded TV shows while running like a hamster on the elliptical machine. This recipe from Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word Restaurant" caught my eyes. It looks pretty straight-forward and we happened to have most of the ingredients at home.

The process
I did few things differently from the original recipe:

• Used a rolling pin to crush the cookies instead of a food processor
• Replaced vanilla pod with vanilla extract
• Replaced digestive cookies with graham wafers
• Used only strawberries for the berry compote since we didn't have blueberries
• Used a stand mixer for both whipping the cream and cream cheese mixture. Gordon used a hand mixer for the cream and hand-blended the cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice. I'm too lazy to dig out the hand mixer from our kitchen.

Things I wish I have done differently:

• Use a food processor to generate finer crumbs
• Use a stainless steel pan instead of nonstick to make caramel. I know the sugar melting point (around 160C/320F) is way below the max temperature a Teflon pan can handle, I still feel uncomfortable to do so.
• I should have dumped out the crumbs instead of letting it sit in the frying pan and cool on the rack. Heat wasn't dissipated fast enough and they were a bit burned.
• Only make the berry compote right before serving, otherwise it discolor.

Results:
We all love the outcome. Baby Martini didn't like the crispy crumbs but she finished the cake in lightening speed. All the ingredients are pretty generic but it's the trial and true formula. I find that the sugar caramelisation before adding butter (for the crisp) and strawberries (for the compote) is a nice touch. So is to deglaze the berry compote with creme de cassis.

Another Cooking Channel report from Globe and Mail

This article was published late February (and yes, I have been going through newspapers slowly). Personally I have no problem with another food channel (the more the merrier, as long as they are not just re-runs). We have PVR so a 24-hour channel really doesn't matter to us.

What bothers me is certain terms used in the article, especially the phrase "food p@rn". I find it extremely offensive. Since I can't even bring myself to type this term, let's just call it FP.

I don't understand why some people think the current food tv is flooded with programs which only show you the fancy food you can not make at home. If you are content with frozen food, sure, that's out of your scope. When I was a student, I lived on KD just like many others. However, if you are interested in food and hand-on, it just comes naturally that you want to learn more about cooking. For me, it's so much easier to watch TV than to follow a recipe book; you get to see how to execute each step and how the food should turn out (e.g. Consistency of the sauce).

Obviously you can't learn much from reality shows such as Iron Chef America. You can, however, learn to prepare food from shows such as "Chef At Home", "Ricardo and Friends" and "Tyler's Ultimate", just to name a few. Those shows cover a lot of basics with interesting recipes. Actually the most informative shows by far are "Cook Like A Chef" and "Good Eats", some episodes do make me wonder "Who's going to do that at home?" That being said, I enjoy watching all those shows and get inspired to experiment in my own kitchen.

Now to think about it, if cooking something "out of ordinary" is FP, Ms Julia Child ought to be "the first lady of FP" in North America history because her work encouraged so many of us to fantasize about food. There are super FP stars who are known for their uber-cutting-edged, artsy creations. Examples are Ferran Adrià(El Bulli), Grant Achatz(Alinea) and Heston Blumenthal(The Fat Duck). Let's just say that the tools and substances they use and the complexity of their work discourage the mass from trying. Like the real p@rn which cater to different audience, there are FP stars who are classically-trained, they emphasize that things need to be "done properly" for the ultimate pleasure. Oh and of course, there are tv hosts who show you how to cook at home. They always like to tell you just relax and enjoy it.

Can we get any more DISRESPECTFUL than this? There are so many people who devote their life on perfecting their skills, to make delicious food (and pleasant for the eyes). They go through vigorous training, long hours of shifts with relatively low pay. Without the passion for food, I doubt this is a desired career path.
In my opinion that article doesn't provide any valid information; just a collection of quotations from various sources. Maybe that's why the author was eager to use provocative words to draw our attention, be it good or bad.

Food Network Canada Mobile app

I must say this is a really sleek app; Clearly a lot of efforts were put in designing the interface. I especially like the 3-tabbed layout. When you read recipes online, ingredients are first listed followed by the instructions. With the tabbed layout, you don't need to scroll all the way down on a small screen.

Pros:
- Recipes from Food Network Canada shows.
- Sleek and efficient GUI (user interface).
- This app also saves your laptop/desktop keyboard from being covered by sticky or floury finger prints!
- Pictures of recipes from the Rubino brothers' Made To Order look stunning!

Cons:
- Some units in the ingredients section don't show up properly. E.G. # of eggs. This is definitely a high-severity defect for a recipe app! How are we supposed to bake a cake if we don't know how many eggs it calls for?
- Some recipes don't show up after clicking it.
- Not all the recipes are included. E.g. No recipe from people such as Alton Brown, Gordon Ramsay, James Martin ("Sweet Baby James") and Tyler Florence.
- Why's Michael Smith's name in all capital letters? That looks odd.

The Food Network Canada Mobile App can be downloaded from
m.foodnetwork.ca

Five-spice roast chicken

We use this Staub pot so frequently it is really no point in counting.

Ingredients and preparation:

• Chicken brined over night, rinsed and dried (same as in this).
• Coating: sesame oil, olive oil, ginger, minced garlic, five-spice and soy sauce.
• Stuffing: lemon (juiced), cinnamon, cardamon, licorice, garlic and green onions
• A bed of vegetables: celery, onions and carrots. Seasoned w salt and coated with olive oil.

Cooked the chicken the same way as in this post.

Lessons learned:

• We found that even after it reached 160F the chicken juice didn't come out clear. Not sure if the probe wasn't inserted at the right place or we need to re-calibrate it.
• The vegetables were cooked at various speed so not a good combination. Carrots and potatoes will work better.

Final verdict:
The licorice or cardamon was too strong for TripleQ; he's never a fan of it. The flavor reminds me of the roast chicken I had when I was young (in Taiwan). I am kind of proud of myself that I was able to replicate the flavor (well, close enough) by memory of the taste. But since TripleQ isn't fond of it, ("I still prefer lemon garlic chicken") I won't have chance to perfect it.

My Perplexing Lemon Butter Emulsion Shrimp Pasta

Perplexing in a way that at the first glance, those ingredients don't go well together. I didn't have a clear idea what the dish should be, just tried to use ingredients available. Flavor was developed along the way.

Ingredients:

• lemon juice (leftover from making lemon curd)
• green onions (whole bunch of them for making Chinese scallion pancakes)
• garlic, sliced
• asparagus (another item to be used up ASAP)
• shrimp, peeled and deveined
• Chinese flat noodles which look like linguine
• salt, sugar, cooking wine, oil, butter

What happened:

• Marinated shrimp in salt and cooking wine
• Green onions + garlic + olive oil + butter in a frying pan, cooked until the green onion flavor mellowed. Seasoned with salt.
• Shrimp, in the same pan. Removed from the heat as soon as the shrimp was just done
• Prepared noodles according to the instruction on the package. Drained. Reserve a little liquid for later use.
• Cooked asparagus (more details below)
• Used the same pan which cooked the shrimp, added lemon juice and sugar mixture, added butter, gently whisked until uh...it looked good
• Tossed everything in a pot. Served.

The verdict:
Overall the response was quite positive. TripleQ requested less butter next time (again, I was just trying to use up the butter so I did put in a bit more butter than usual).

The what-was-I-doing moments:

• tasted the shrimp right after it was cooked. I had a bite and realized it was too hot. Just when I said "Hot!" it slipped down my throat. OUCH!
• instead of blanching asparagus in the pot, I dumped it in the pan which I was planning to prepare the lemon butter sauce. It turned out ok but really didn't plan to do so.

Lemon Chicken Simply Ming

I watched this episode of Simply Ming then decided to try the recipe.

Recipe is available on Simply Ming website.

I absolutely do NOT want to pre-heat my Staub pot at 525F; instead, we first cooked chicken at 450F for 20 minutes, cover with foil and roast at 400F until the thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh reaches 160F.

Instead of making the wild rice, we got lazy; just had root vegetables on the bottom to suck up the chicken juice/grease.

While chicken was resting, I deglazed the pot with wine, reduced and thickened. Vegetables, back in the pot. Stir and coat with the jus. Done.

Lessons learned:

• It is important to brine the chicken, overnight preferably. It adds a lot of flavor.
• We will season the carrots and potatoes and drizzle with olive oil before they go in the oven with the chicken next time.
• Some burned garlic bits were stuck on the chicken skin. We will try to use garlic-infused olive oil or mash the garlic next time

Birthday breakfast

I finally understand why TripleQ said, "You ate part of your birthday present!"

Normally I start my day by getting ready for work, packing breakfast/snacks, finishing cafe au latte then heading out. Today TripleQ asked me to take breakfast at home. And this was what awaited me.

Eggs Benedict! My all-time favorite breakfast!! Poached eggs topped with shredded cheese and HOMEMADE hollandaise on waffles. Eh, waffles? I took the last two English muffins to work the day before..me BAD...

It will be nice to have smoked salmon and cream cheese but again it will be just the icing on the cake. The fact that I received this as a birthday present makes me in good mood the whole day. Thank you, TripleQ, for getting up early to make this!

Vegetable stew

"Pot" 2 - second use of the Staub cast iron pot

My intention was to make a vegetarian dish; however, I poured in about 1/3 cup liquid from coq au vin leftover. So it was no longer vegetarian.

Heat the pot with a splash of olive oil.

Chop leeks and onions, surplus ingredients from making coq au vin. Into the pot. Lightly season with kosher salt.

While waiting for onions to become translucent, prepare the following ingredients:
- Carrots, peeled and chopped.
- Chinese mushroom, rinsed. (Reconstituted dried porcini mushroom would do too)
- Fried bean curd, blanched, rinsed under cold water and drained.

Deglaze with a splash of wine.

Carrots, in. Season with a bit of salt and sugar. Cover and simmer.

Mushroom and bean curd, in. Stir occasionally. Pour in coq au vin leftover liquid (optional). Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Final seasoning to taste. Done.

Lessons learned:

• I was surprised to see the amount of liquid just from cooking leeks, onions and carrots. Self-basting feature really shines here.
• The lid smelled like staled Chinese mushroom and onions after rinsing with soap and hot water; it took several cycles to reduce the odor.
• Patience. Allow time to harmonize the ingredients and create big flavor.

Coq au vin

While I was shopping for an enameled cast iron pot, I also did research on what we could use it for (I suppose the later should have taken place first. Now it sounds like I just try to justify the expense).

Coq au vin seems the natural fit. The phrase had such magic that it was constantly chanted in my brain before I even got the pot. *chanting* Coq au vin...coq au vin...must...make...coq au vin *chanting*

Tons of coq au vin recipes out there. The one we eventually used is from the book "Gordon Ramsay's Maze". But WAIT! there's one line in smaller font: "recipes by Jason Atherton". Normally I would smirk at things like this. Do people really have to capitalize their name/brand to that extent? As I quickly flipped through the pages, one recipe caught my eyes: coq au vin! *chanting* Coq au vin...coq au vin...must...make...coq au vin *chanting* Before I realized what I was doing, I already swiped my credit card. Heck! Now we really have to make coq au vin.

According to the recipe, the chicken needs to be marinated in the red over night. So we did the prep work while seasoning the pot before its first use.

TripleQ did the cooking the next day. Originally I planned to do some errands after work. Got a message from him,
"You'd better come home straight from work."
"Why?"
"It smells so good there might not be any left."

Lessons learned:

• Pearl onions look pretty and have the delicate taste, but they're labor-intensive and slightly expensive. We can live with only leeks, onions and shallots
• We did not discard the vegetables, as instructed by the book. Instead, we scooped out the veggies before reducing the liquid. After a steamy hot bath in the wine, chicken stock and bacon grease, how can they NOT taste good?
• This is peasant food which makes any king green with envy. And serve it with the veggies from the same pot.

First post

First post is always a dreaded post. So just get it over with!
With the crazy schedule we have these days, micro-blogging (aka Twitter) works great for me to instantly express my thoughts. Somehow I have the feeling that tweets are disposable, judging by how difficult to dig through tweets to find certain pictures or recipes posted before. In addition, it isn't always easy to fit all I want to say in 140 char (I suppose I can post a photo which is worth 1000 words).
So here I am.