Garlic Is Love

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Oscars Party Planning

Out of the trifecta of the Emmys, Grammys, and Oscars, the Oscars are my favorite. And not just because my good friend B and I host a party every year. There’s simply something glitzy and glamorous about them in a way that the other two awards shows aren’t, and I like that. It gives me a chance to put on airs, and show off a little bit.

Just putting the finishing touches on my Oscar party menu. I’m part of a year-round CSA and I got a turkey from some family friends in the area, so I have a ton of food on hand to play around with and use for the menu planning. Not only is it thrifty, since all the food’s already paid for, being a localvore is uber trendy right now.

Here’s my menu as it stands right now. I’ll post the final version the Monday after.

Roast Turkey with sage and garlic gremolata
Celeriac and New potato mash
Butternut squash soup with kale and assorted greens
Italian garlic bread
Orange maple ginger glazed carrots
Cheese plate: Smoked cheddar and jalapeno Monterrey
Poached pears in red wine sauce
Warm baked citrus fruits

Until then, please, enjoy some Oscar links, courtesy of Mahalo. These links will be updated to-the-minute on Oscar night.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Improv Recipe: Tangy, creamy, quickie custards

I’ve been having some bad luck with egg-based desserts lately. Well, not bad luck so much as laziness backfiring on me. I haven’t been measuring ingredients.

Yeah, cooking catastrophe waiting to happen, I know. Two pumpkin custards in a row never set on me, and when I tried to wing it and estimate the amounts of a chocolate mousse, which didn’t go well.

But I had some leftover eggs from a souffle I'd made, half a carton of heavy cream, and I wanted custard, and I didn't want to have to find a recipe for it or be bothered with "measuring."

So I knew I was tempting fate here. However, I had learned from my previous mistakes and discovered a few rules:

1. Use a water bath, and use hot water. Doesn’t have to be boiling, but microwaving a cup of water until it’s good and steamy will work.
2. The ratio of eggs to other stuff is important. More eggs is better if you want a custard to thicken properly. When unsure, err on the side of more eggs. You might get something closer to sweet quiche, but at least it will be solid.
3. Baking the custard in smaller containers will help even cooking and setting. One large container will take forever to come to temperature and will cook unevenly. Several smaller containers will prevent this from happening
4. Add less liuqidy ingredients when you can. I added a half a cup of strained greek yogurt (essentially sour cream) to the custard mix to help thicken it up before I put it in the oven.
5. Use a trusted recipe. Even if you’re not measuring your ingredients, it will give you a proper ratio of eggs to liquid.

With these precautions, I successfully made an improve custard, which was quite good. The greek yogurt gave it a denser body and a nice tang, a little like a cheesecake.

Improv custard for two

3-4eggs (at least 3 egg yolks and 3 egg whites)
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons maple syrup
pinch of salt
½ cup of greek strained yogurt (or sour cream is fine)
¼ t cinnamon

Beat eggs until uniform and lighter yellow. Add other ingredients and mix until combined. Pour into ramekins or custard cups. Put cups in a high-sided baking pan or baking dish that will fit both of them without touching.

Microwave 4 cups of water on high for 2 minutes or until steamy. Be careful not to boil. Pour water around cups, but don’t get any into the custard.

Bake at 300 degrees until just set in the center. Check after 40 minutes for doneness. You want the edges to be set but the center to be a little wobbly. Turn off oven, leave custards in oven for at least 30 minutes, up to an hour. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Accidental Awesomeness

Last night I had a hankering for an Amaretto Sour. As I was getting out the sugar, the container of Tang caught my eye.

Lemon juice is sour. Tang is sour. Sugar is sweet. Tang is sweet. Why not kill two birds with one stone and use tang instead? I thought.

I mixed, added a little more sugar for good measure, then, remembering an article from Imbibe magazine about eggs in drinks being trendy, tossed in an egg white to increase the drink’s frothiness.

I shook and shook. At one point, I poured the drink, but noticed the egg had not combined completely, so I poured it back in and shook again.

When I finally poured it out, it was a lovely light orange. I had made not an Amaretto Sour, but a Creamsicle.

The result surprised me, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. I’d known from previous fiddling that a key ingredient that gives the Orange Julius its creamy froth was an egg-based product. Of course, if you are worried about salmonella, or pregnant, or thinking of becoming pregnant, or have a compromised immune system, or think the idea of putting a raw egg white in a drink is icky, you can get pasteurized eggs or you can powdered, pasteurized egg white at the grocery store. The powdered egg white will be somewhat gritty, so fresh egg is really best.

The Creamsicle
This really needs to be shaken well
2 oz Amaretto
1 teaspoon Tang
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 egg white (or 2 teaspoons powdered egg white)
ice
cocktail shaker

Put ice in cocktail shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients. Shake vigorously for at least two minutes. Strain into a highball glass.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Oscar Party Time

Cross-posted at my other blog, The Manic Scribe.

Oscar nominees were just announced today.

I'm a huge Oscar fan. Not so much for the movies but for the social aspect.

I usually do an Oscar party with my good friend B. Last year I skipped it. I hope to get back into the tradition this year. I like to realy glam up the food I serve, but this year, I am just about partied out. Not to mention that I should be more budget-consious than I have been due to the current economic doldrums.

However, I've got a turkey in the freezer and half a lamb's worth of meat. And I've got a steady supply of root and leaf vegetables coming in weekly from my CSA. So I think I'll be able to put together a nice spread for my guests that won't break my budget.

Hm. Maybe I'll even ask them to bring some canned goods to donate to charity, make it something more than appletinis and red carpets.

Gratin Fail; Cast Iron Win

Got a slew of root vegetables from the winter CSA that just started on Jan 8. Tried to make a gratin, which would have beek OK, except for a few issues.

One, I had not sliced the veggies thin enough. Also, since I made the gratin in advance and cooked it from the frigde, I wound up undercooking the thing.

Two, I'd forgotten to salt the layers. Now, the layers also contained some bacon, and I salted the liquid that I added halfway through baking. It was just a touch undersalted when all was said and done. Next time I'll use my common sense and actually stick a fork in the damn thing to make sure it's done.

In other news, I seasoned the cast iron skillets I got for Christmas/My Birthday. They're still in the oven, actually. I'm not 100% sure what I will cook in them. I've got a crowd coming over for my birthday this Saturday, but we're going out to dinner. I'll have to think of something really special to break in the pans.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Happy New Year!

You know it's been a busy year when I don't have time to cook. I LOVE to cook. It's relaxing and therapeutic to me. But I simply haven't had time. Thus, the blog has suffered.

It was a great, but busy, 2008. Several trips out of state for family and for fun, picking up a second job, and getting my first ranking in aikido has kept my life full, but tiring.

I knew on an intellectual level that I was tired for the latter half of the year, but it was only after a good 5 days at my parents, with nothing to do but sleep in late, go shopping, read a book on wine and scarf down Company Potatoes, that I got perspective on how relaxed I felt, and how stressed I was before.

Coming back to reality, I know that I've still got a lot on my plate, but I've tasted the fruits of relaxation, and they will be a part of my diet from now on.

As a symbolic gesture of this, I actually cooked something fancy, from a recipe even, Sunday night. Pears poached in red wine sauce. The lovely thing about this recipe is it's very elegant, but can be broken up into several parts, many of which can be done in advance. It's a good example for me how I can still find ways to cook and relax in 2009 and keep a better balance of work, rest, and play.

Poached pears in wine sauce

Hardware
large, somewhat shallow, saucepan, big enough to fit all pears
Vegetable peeler
spoon or ladle
measuring cups

Software
1 bottle fruity red wine
1/2 cup fortified wine, such as port wine, or sherry (or 1/2 cup sweet wine plus a shot of something strong like vodka or rum).
1/2 cup sugar
4 pears, the ones with the green skins, slightly underripe if you can get them that way.
2 Tablespoons chai loose leaf tea (emphatically not the powdered stuff. It has to have twigs and pods and nibs in it. Can substitute 2 T mulling spices plus a 1 inch section of orange rind)

Keep stems on pears, but peel them. Cut off bottoms of pears a little bit so they stand upright. Heat all other ingredients in saucepan over low heat until sugar is just melted. Add pears. Heat mixture until boiling, then back heat down to a low simmer. Cook 30-40 minutes, turning pears every 10 minutes or so. Baste the pears with the liquid each time you turn them.

Remove pears, then turn the heat up and cook the syrup down until it is reduced to about a cup. Be careful here to make sure the syrup doesn't burn. When bubbles start to "stack" on top of each other, you're good to go.

Strain syrup, pour syrup over pears in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Bring to room temperature before serving. Serve by placing each pear, standing up, then spoon some syrup around. Can add whipped cream or ice cream if you want.

The coolest thing about this recipe is how the pears turn from pale green to ruby red as you cook. Talk about alchemy. Yum.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Transcendent Wings

I drove out to play a couple games of pool (which I lost heinouosly) with a friend last night. During the games, my friend recommended that we order the wing dings.

I'm not a huge hot wing fan. In general, I find sauced wings one-trick ponies that rely exclusively on their sauce to impress. And the breaded-fried wings are usually nothing special, verging on insipid.

this particular friend is known in my social circle as the Brass Chef. He is a cook and foodie of some note. He combines the speed and practicality of a line order cook with the innovation of a Great Chef.

If he says to try the wings, I try the wings, though I wasn't expecting anything too special. They arrived at our table with little fanfare-8 breaded deep-fried wings in a paper-lined mesh basket. They seemed tiny, but they were golden brown and piping hot, plucked moments ago from the fryer.

After giving them a few minutes to cool off, I tried one. And all of a sudden my paradigm shifted.

They were on the small side, but every bit of them but the bone was edible. There was no gristle to be found on them, as evidenced by my friend stripping each of his wings down to the bone like a pirhana strips a cow.

The coating was hot, crispy and thin with just a touch of oil glistening. At the joints, there was a little bit of extra coating that was a little bit crunchier. The chicken was tender and juicy. The flavor and texture was a lot like eating teeny tiny pieces of excellent fried chicken.

The first flavor I could taste was something subtly but intangibly sweet, like cloves or chinese five-spice or curry powder. The sweetness quickly dissapeared as the spiciness began to bloom.

The heat of the wings was well-balanced. The spice developed at a good pace and never got too overpowering. This heat started while I was still eating the wing, and developed just a little bit more as an aftertaste. These are not super-hot, but the heat does build somewhat as you eat more of them.

The drummetes and wings were equally good, though the drumettes had more places where a little more extra coating could accrue. But since the batter was so light, extra coating was a joy, not a chore.

It was as if I'd been eating these wings for years. I even craved them just like someone who'd been eating these wings for years. It was like meeting someone new and instantly having a connection with them as if we were old friends.

I know this sounds silly, anthropormoprhizing wings. But don't laugh until you've actually tried these wings.

We got an order to take home with us. I'm planning to grab an order of the wing dings this weekend when I'm back in the area to satisfy a craving I never new I had.