souffle

The november challenge was hosted by Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.


The November challenge for daring cooks was a souffle - accent on the e. In an amazing twist of fate, we actually did three different souffle's (accent on the e) this month.
















The first was done in a large souffle dish. We found out later, like Carla on top chef, that we actually curdled the egg whites by beating them too much. Consequently, the souffle did not rise as expected.

















After trying to serve the souffle from the large souffle dish, we realized the presentation was horrible, and decided henceforth we would use individual souffle dishes (my wife has always been a fan of these, and we have been collecting them for years. I am ecstatic that we have actually now used them for the purpose they were intended for!)

Next we tried a rockforte souffle, and knowing our downfall from our first foray, were able to correct our massacre of the eggwhites.

















this one was money! Great for breakfast.

Mustardy Potoato Pierogi


The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.



Rolled and cut pierogi dough.



Pierogi with mustardy potato filling.



Finished Pierogi.



Garden plot.

The versatile nut butter

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

While Mike and I have plenty of experience with peanut butter, our experience with other nut butters was pretty much nonexistent. For this reason, we chose to make a nut butter with which we had no experience, almond butter, and then to make peanut butter also.


Peanut butter. (roasted peanuts pulsed in a cuisinart with a teaspoon of canola oil).


Almond butter. While not noticeable in this photo, this was much darker than the peanut butter. We used almonds that had the skins on, which is why it was dark. Because almonds are less oily than peanuts, this butter had about a tablespoon of oil in it, to make it more liquidy.

The challenge required us to use the nut butter in a savory recipe, as nut butters so commonly appear in desserts. We used the almond butter to make one of the four challenge recipes provided by the hosts, chicken with curried tomato almond sauce, and then used our peanut butter to make spicy peanut noodles.

Both recipes turned out great, and I think turned out better than they would have had we used commercial peanut butter. We didn't season the nut butters at all as they were going to be used in savory recipes, which allowed us to season the dishes we made according to taste.

The chicken with curried tomato almond sauce was very reminiscent of butter chicken, but was made in a much healthier way. Mike and I both noted that while we could taste the almond butter in the dish we made we weren't sure that we would have recognized the nutty background had we been in a restaurant or had the "almond" not been in the title of the recipe. The almond butter in this regard was a heart healthy way to thicken the sauce.

Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
4 (6 oz / 170 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
Salt to taste

Spice Blend:
1.5 tablespoons (20 ml) garam masala seasoning
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) black pepper

Sauce:
4 tablespoons (60 ml) butter
1 large onion, cut in half pole to pole
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15-ounce/425 g) can tomato sauce
⅓ cup (80 ml) almond butter
⅓ cup (80 ml) milk
½ to ¾ cup (120 to 180 ml) chicken broth or water, more as needed
1 cup (240 ml) frozen peas (optional)

Hot basmati rice for serving
Chopped parsley (optional garnish)
Sliced almonds (optional garnish)

Directions:

1. Cook the chicken. If desired, pound chicken to ¼ inch (6 mm) thickness to promote even cooking. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Heat 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken; sauté 3 to 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Cook the chicken in 2 batches, adding more oil if needed for second batch. Dice chicken into bite-sized pieces; set aside on clean plate and keep warm.
2. Prepare spice blend. Stir garam masala, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper together in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Melt the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook gently for several minutes to infuse the butter with onion flavor. Keep the heat low to avoid burning the butter; a little color is fine. Add the spice blend and garlic and cook for 1 minute or till fragrant, stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, stir well, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Whisk in almond butter and milk until thoroughly combined with tomato sauce. The almond butter is thick so it takes a while to make a smooth sauce. Return to simmer. Add broth (or water) to sauce to reach desired consistency; return to simmer. Add more broth (or water) as needed to thin sauce as desired.
4. Remove onion from sauce and discard. Stir frozen peas (if using) into sauce. Transfer sliced chicken to sauce. Simmer gently for a few minutes until peas and chicken are heated through.
5. Serve chicken and sauce over rice. Garnish with chopped parsley and/or sliced almonds if desired.

Spicy Peanut Noodles

Ingredients

1 pound spaghetti
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
6 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
One 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 large garlic clove
3 celery ribs, thinly sliced
1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems
Lime wedges, for serving

Directions:

1. In a pot of boiling salted water, cook the spaghetti until tender. Drain and rinse under cold water until cooled. Drain well.
2. In a blender, puree the peanut butter with 6 tablespoons of the vinegar, 3 tablespoons of the sugar, the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, crushed red pepper, ginger and garlic. Transfer 1/2 cup of the peanut dressing to a bowl and toss with the noodles.
3. In another bowl, toss the celery with the cilantro and the remaining 2 tablespoons of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of sugar.
4. Transfer the noodles to bowls and drizzle with the remaining peanut dressing. Top with the celery and serve with lime wedges.
   

American meal

In honor of America's last and unfortunately final game in the world cup, Jason and I decided to go all-american for dinner. And I'm posting now as it's also the perfect 4th of July meal (we think). The menu:

-Hamburgers with homemade Semi-Brioche buns
-Homemade potato chips

Living in a country that doesn't have hamburgers, or that much beef for that matter, hamburger buns are hard to come by. So, in search of a bun recipe that would bring back memories of our favorite burger in Brooklyn, from Dumont in Williamsburg, I stumbled on this one from the New York Times and decided to give it a try:

Light Brioche Buns

Adapted from Hidefumi Kubota, Comme Ça, Los Angeles
Published: June 30, 2009

Time: 1 hour, plus 2 to 4 hours’ rising

-3 tablespoons warm milk

-2 teaspoons active dry yeast

-2 1/2 tablespoons sugar

-2 large eggs

-3 cups bread flour

-1/3 cup all-purpose flour

-1 1/2 teaspoons salt

-2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened.

1. In a glass measuring cup, combine 1 cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat 1 egg.

2. In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Using a dough scraper, stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto clean, unfloured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes.

3. Shape dough into a ball and return it to bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours. (only took ours one hour)

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using dough scraper, divide dough into 8 equal parts. Gently roll each into a ball and arrange 2 to 3 inches apart on baking sheet. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and let buns rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours. (only took ours one hour)

Buns before and after second rise

5. Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with 1 tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Yield: 8 buns.

_____________

The recipe was a hit, both J and I loved the flavor and texture of these. I am convinced that the egg wash deflated the buns a bit and made them slightly denser, so I'd like to try them without next time. They do look great though!

As for the chips - super easy. We didn't have a fancy mandolin and were worried about how to get the right thinness of chips. Well turns out that section of everyone's standard grater I've never used before (the long slot in the middle between the fine holes and big) created the PERFECT chip. I was thrilled that we didn't have to buy something we didn't need and this was under our noses the whole time!

Large quantity of frying oil/fat of your choice (we used a combo of veggie and sunflower)
thin sliced potato chips
salt (and seasonings)

-Slice potatoes and soak in a cold water bath for 30-60 minutes. Remove from bath and pat dry right before frying.

-Heat oil to 350 degrees F (anywhere from 350 to 390 is ok) and fry in batches, flipping chips at least once so they fry evenly. Remove from oil into a paper or papertowel lined bowl after they begin to brown (1-2 minutes) and Salt/flavor immediately and shake around in the bowl to evenly distribute. They cool down almost immediately so you can taste test right away.

OK, so we actually made these chips twice and the second time we decided to try flavoring them. We made one with BBQ seasoning and the other with curry (of course!). They both turned out totally delicious - the BBQ tasted exactly like store-bought chips which I can't decide is good or bad, but the curry was our favorite. The flavor wasn't as overpowering and had a hint of sweetness to it (due to a touch of sugar) that really suited it perfectly.


For the seasonings:
BBQ
-1 1/2 TBS smoked Paprika
-1/2 TBS hot Paprika
-1 tsp sugar
-1/2 TBS salt

CURRY
-1 1/2 TBS Curry powder
-1 tsp sugar
-1/2 TBS salt

Pate and Baguettes

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Simone and I decided to make the chicken liver pate... Ok, it was mostly my decision. She's not a big pate fan. Some people just don't understand the finer things in life. I really wanted to make some venison pate with the mule deer liver hanging out in the freezer but she said that was out of the question. Next time.

We used the chicken liver pate recipe provided by Evelyne and Valerie with a couple adaptations:

1 tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves
300g (11 oz) chicken livers, trimmed
3 tbsp Whiskey - the only other option sanctioned in my book is bourbon
100g (3 1/2 oz, 1/2 cup) smoked bacon, diced
300g (11 oz) boneless pork belly, coarsely ground
200g (7 oz) boneless pork shoulder - coarsely chopped
1 tsp quatre-épices (or 1/4tsp each of ground pepper, cloves, nutmeg and ginger is close enough)
2 eggs
200 ml (7 fl oz, 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) heavy cream
2 fresh thyme sprigs, chopped
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400ºF (200ºF for "Z-Germans").

Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute, until just slightly browned. Add the chicken livers and cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, until browned but still slightly pink on the inside.

Remove the pan from heat. Pour in the Whiskey... river take my mind, light a match and carefully ignite the alcohol to flambé. Wait for the flames to go out on their own, carefully tilting the pan to ensure even flavoring. Set aside.

Put the minced pork belly and shoulder in a food processor, then add the garlic-liver mixture and pulse until you obtain a homogenous mixture.

Transfer to a bowl, and gradually stir in the chopped bacon, quatre-épices, cream, eggs, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well. Spoon the mixture into a terrine or loaf pan, and cover with the terrine lid or with aluminum foil.

Prepare a water bath: place the loaf pan in a larger, deep ovenproof dish (such as a brownie pan or a baking dish). Bring some water to a simmer and carefully pour it in the larger dish. The water should reach approximately halfway up the loaf pan.

Put the water bath and the loaf pan in the oven, and bake for 2 hours. Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes. The terrine should be cooked through, and you should be able to slice into it with a knife and leave a mark, but it shouldn’t be too dry. Refrigerate, as this pâté needs to be served cold. Unmold onto a serving platter, cut into slices, and serve with bread.

For the Bread:

It was my first foray into baking a french baguette. I used the recipe from Peter Reinhart's bread bakers apprentice. A solid recipe.

I created the Pate Fermente ( I chose this recipe to accompany the Pate recipe considering the confluence of Pate's) the night before baking and stuck it in the fridge.

The following day I removed the Pate fermente, cut it into approximately 10 small pieces and allowed to warm up.

Then I mixed it with additional flour and yeast, kneaded it for 15 minutes, let it rise for two hours, lighly punched it,


formed it into three baguettes, and let it proof for another 45 minutes until the loaves increase in size about 1.5 times.
















Then I scored the loaves and stuck them in a 450 degree oven containing a dry cast iron skillet, poured a cup of hot water in the skillet to steam the oven, closed the oven door, and at 30 second intervals for a total of four times, sprayed the sides of the oven with water from a spray bottle (this ensures the oven is the appropriate humidity to mimic that of a professional bakers). I baked for ~ 30 minutes until browned.
















I really enjoyed this challenge. I loved making the pate, and the bread turned out better than expected. It is nice to know that pate is only a recipe away.

Stacked Green Chile and Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

The Daring Cooks continue to keep us on our toes. Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

I think this might be my favorite challenge yet, and if not, it definitely ranks in the top 2. Of course, I could probably eat something like this everyday for the rest of my life and not lament the lack of variety.

The challenge required us to make a sauce from scratch, although we weren't limited to the sauce suggested by the hosts. Given our love for tomatillos, though, we decided this sounded too good not to try. Even better was the suggestion that the skins of the anaheim chiles be charred on the grill. And since I've got a husband who loves to show off his grilling skills, something I encourage at every opportunity, I knew this one was going to be a recipe worth keeping before we even had the ingredients.

Because we weren't experimenting with the sauce, Mike decided he would go an extra step with the chicken. For the first time ever, he added hickory chips to the grill, which created a lightly smoked flavor that really complemented the grilled flavor of the chiles. Having eaten these enchiladas that way once, I don't know if I could go without the hickory-smoked chicken.

The difference between this recipe and other enchilada recipes was that the ingredients were stacked as opposed to rolled inside a tortilla. While the presentation suffered a bit because of this technique, at least in our case because we did not use individual gratin dishes, the ease of the preparation more than compensated for the "comfort-food" look of the dish.

Already I'm thinking of the many sleepless nights I've got ahead of me, once ******** arrives, and thinking of how I can stock this away in my freezer, and how I can come up with other sauces that would be equally delicious. Nothing like a challenge that encourages further experimentation.

Thanks to our hosts for this seasonal and fun challenge!

Mike was quite proud of these action grill shots, which I have to say impressed me. My take on roasted peppers is forever changed!

Ingredients

1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles)

24 ounces 678 grams - roast, peel, remove seeds, chop coarsely.

7-8 ounces Tomatillos (about 4-5 medium) - peel, remove stems

4 cups Chicken broth (32 ounces/920 grams)

1 clove Garlic, minced

2 teaspoons yellow onion, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ tsp Kosher salt (add more to taste)

¼ tsp Black Pepper (add more to taste)

2 tablespoons Cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening)

Hot sauce, your favorite, optional

2 Boneless chicken breasts (you can also use bone-in chicken breasts or thighs)

3 tablespoons Olive oil or other neutral vegetable oil (use more as needed)

Kosher salt and pepper

12 Small Corn tortillas (5-6 inch/13-15 cm)

6 ounces grated Monterey Jack, 170 grams

Cilantro for garnish, chopped and sprinkled optional

Directions

Roasting Fresh Chiles

1. Coat each chile with a little vegetable oil. If you are doing only a couple chiles, using the gas stove works. For larger batches (as in this recipe), grilling or broiling is faster.

2. Lay the oiled chiles on the grill or baking sheet (line pan with foil for simpler clean-up). Place the grill or broil close to the element, turning the chiles so they char evenly. They should be black and blistered.

3. As they are completely charred (they will probably not all be done at once), remove them to a bowl and cover with plastic, or close up in a paper bag. Let them rest until they are cool.

4. Pull on the stem and the seed core MAY pop out (it rarely does for me). Open the chile and remove the seeds. Turn the chile skin side up and with a paring knife, scrape away the skin. Sometimes it just pulls right off, sometimes you really have to scrape it.

5. DO NOT RINSE!

Green Chile Sauce

1. Put a medium saucepan of water on to boil and remove the papery outer skin from the tomatillos. Boil the tomatillos until soft, 5 to 10 minutes. You can also grill the tomatillos until soft.

2. Drain and puree in a blender or food processor.

3. Return the tomatillos to the saucepan along with the chicken broth, chopped green chiles, minced onion, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper.

4. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and stir well. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thickened and reduced to 4-5 cups, another 10-15 minutes.

6. Adjust seasonings and add hot sauce if you want a little more heat.

Stacked Green Chile and Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

1. Heat a gas grill to medium high or build a medium-hot charcoal Coat the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Grill the chicken until just cooked through, 4-5 minutes a side for boneless chicken breasts.

3. Cool and then slice into thin strips or shred.

4. In a small skillet, heat 3 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat until very hot. Dip the edge of a tortilla into the oil to check – it should sizzle immediately.

5. Using tongs, put a tortilla into the pan and cook until soft and lightly brown on each side, about 15-20 seconds per side (at the most).

6. Drain on paper towels.

7. Add oil as needed and continue until all 12 tortillas are done.

8. In a baking dish large enough to hold four separate stacks of tortillas, ladle a thin layer of sauce.

9. Lay four tortillas in the dish and ladle another ½ cup (4 ounces/112 grams) of sauce over the tortillas.

10. Divide half the chicken among the first layer of tortillas, top with another ½ cup of sauce and 1/3 of the grated cheese.

11. Stack another four tortillas, top with the rest of the chicken, more sauce and another third of the cheese.

12. Finish with the third tortilla, topped with the remaining sauce and cheese.

13. Bake until the sauce has thickened and the cheese melted, about 20 minutes. Let rest for 5-10 minutes.

14. To serve, transfer each stack to a plate. Spoon any leftover sauce over the stacks and sprinkle with cilantro, if you wish. The stacks may also be cooked in individual gratin dishes.

No Baozi Here

Oh, to have been a fly on your wall while you put together your baozi.

What we made more closely resembled enormous pot stickers than your "simple and delicious" baozi.


(shrimp baozi prior to steaming)


(post-steaming)

Our fillings were amazing, and had our little dumplings come out as they were supposed to, I think we would have had two serious successes on our hands. Our first mistake, as always, was leaving this challenge until we had no time to try to rectify our mistakes. For there were many.

We made two fillings: The first a combination of shrimp, mango, lime juice, garlic, and asian chile sauce; and the second a mixture of ground turkey, garlic, cilantro, lemongrass, and cabbage. Both were really, really delicious. The downfall was our dough. Had you been a fly on our wall, you likely would have had a hard time containing your laughter.


(turkey baozi, after steaming)

While we loved the free form nature of the challenge, I have to assume that we were at least a small disadvantage not having seen these made before. We had no idea how big to roll out each piece of dough, nor how much filling to place inside. The pictures on the reference blog looked to us to be about the size of tortillas, and that is where I am guessing we made our first mistake. I think our dough was much too thinly rolled. There was very little dough to rise, and as a result, we didn't have much "fluff" and nearly no "light and airy."

The second mistake was likely overstuffing. The amount of filling we put in probably contributed to the thinness of our dough. I would also take care not to allow excess liquid in the filling, as our shrimp-filled baozi turned out so badly that we declined to even take photos. The bottoms separated from the tops once we attempted to lift them.



I assume that the thinness of our dough also contributed to our steamer problems. We used a bamboo steamer and for the first group (shrimp) didn't put anything down in the basket to prevent sticking. That was a huge mistake. For the second batch, we placed cabbage leaves down, which prevented sticking, but contributed to sogginess on the bottom. I'm not sure how to fix that.

Our last mistake seemed to have been in the rising. While the recipe noted that the dough would rise very little, the ones we cooked last turned out the best, which was either a result of extra time to rise, or the fact that at the end we started rolling the dough a little less thinly.

I so wish we had not left this until so late because I would love to have had the opportunity to try to understand where exactly we went wrong before posting. Now, though, I'm determined to get this right. The possibilities are endless! I can think of a bau for everyone, and love the idea of the self-contained package.

Don't be surprised if in the near future you see another attempt at baozi!

This was a great challenge, and what cooking is all about. Despite our mistakes, I can see the beauty of these dumplings, and am eager to figure out how to create our own "surprisingly easy and quick" baozi.