I know it has been a while since I posted, I lost my login info for a while, or was trying the wrong one or did I lose my camera? Anyway I am sure it was something stupid and Paris-like. But I am back, just in time to tell you about one of my new favorite cookbooks(and cookbook author!). I enjoy reading Fine Cooking magazine, everything I have made out of it has been quite good.
A while ago we decided to try to make their French Macaroons. They turned out excellent, as documented in this official photo:
Don't those look delicious?
Well that might have been the end of that, except when watching a cooking show I have been enjoying lately, Simply Ming(good show, you should check it out), the author of the article(Joanne Chang) and recipe showed up as a guest, and I discovered that she had a baking cookbook out! So we rushed out to Barnes and Nobles to get a copy.
As Rachel mentioned below in her Seattle post, I made her birthday cake out of this book. We also made the Brioche au Chocolate. And since then I have made the lime cornmeal
cookies and the parsley-sage biscuits. All of which have been excellent!
In fact the cornmeal-lime cookies inspired me to play around with them and I made the lime glaze with tequila instead of water, and sprinkled a bit of pink sea salt on top. It was very tasty, but a little too salty, I need to play around with it more. I can't wait to make more stuff out of the book.
The recipes can be a little involved, for example the brioche was about a 3 day project. Be sure the read the directions all the way through before starting. We learned that the hard way.
I think you should pick up the book, and pay attention if you see an article by Joanne Chang or see her on TV. She hasn't failed me yet!
By the way, I think I read she has a degree in physics from Harvard and decided to become a pastry chef instead. I admire the hell out of her.
One of my favorite things to do on a day off is bake while listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. One of my favorite songs is Breakdown.
When I moved to San Francisco seven years ago my palate was limited. I didn’t eat goat cheese. I didn’t like tomatoes, or avocado. To say the least, my food world was limited. But yesterday, I was about to order geoduck sashimi for lunch! It didn’t happen for a two reasons; 1. It was priced at 30 dollars a pound, while the required amount to purchase was at least 2 pounds, and 2. There were only 2 of us. Today, I made rosemary polenta cake with peaches and honey whipped cream for dessert. For dinner, we’re having enchiladas verde, refried beans, with guacamole and chips for starters. All made by ME! Okay, I didn’t make the chips, but 4 out of 5’s pretty good. A few years ago, I would have never considered a savory dessert, but today I’m excited to try it. I did turn 30 this year, so that may have something to do with my new found love of eating delicious, interesting food.
Paris recently gave me his recipe for homemade refried beans. I’m using it again tonight, and I’ve gotta say, I will never eat canned beans EVER again. It’s too easy to make them from scratch. There’s a little more work involved besides popping open a can, but the reward for flavorful beans is so worth it. I’ll never go back! Make your own beans!
No surprise here that the recipe for the cake comes from America’s Test Kitchen. I’m hooked. But, if it weren’t for some of my favorite shows like ATK, Top Chef, and No Reservations, I just may be relegated to eating beans from a can, and never enjoying savory sweet baked goods like this…
Cake: 1 cup whole milk 2 sprigs fresh rosemary 1 ½ cups instant polenta 3 large eggs ¼ cup honey 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup cake flour ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened
Topping: 2 large ripe peaches, peeled and sliced into ¼ inch thick wedges 1 sprig fresh rosemary 1 tablespoon sugar Pinch salt ½ cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon honey
1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 350. Grease a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Bring the milk and rosemary sprigs to a simmer in a medium saucepan, then let steep off the heat for 10 minutes: discard the rosemary sprigs. Meanwhile, spread the polenta over a rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant and lightly golden, about 10 mins. Carefully whisk the hot toasted polenta into the steeped milk.
3. Whisk the egg, honey, and vanilla together in medium bowl. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. Using an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat the butter into the flour mixture, one piece at a time, about 30 seconds. Continue to beat the mixture until it resembles moist crumbs, 1 to 3 minutes.
4. Beat in the egg mixture until combined, about 30 seconds. Break up any large clumps of the polenta with your fingers, then beat it into the batter, one handful at a time, until combined, about 30 seconds. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat the batter until smooth and uniform 2 to 4 mins.
5. Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and gently tap the pan on the counter to settle the batter. Bake the cake until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 mins, rotating the pan halfway through baking.
6. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 mins. Run a knife around the edge of the cake, then flip it out onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper, then flip the cake right side up, and let cool completely, 1-2 hours.
7. For the topping: While the cake cools, toss the peaches, rosemary, sugar, and salt together in a medium bowl and let sit until the peaches release their juices, about 20 mins. Before serving, whip the cream and honey together with an electric mixer on medium-low until frothy, about 1 min. Increase the mixer speed to high and continue to whip until the cream forms soft peaks, 1-3 mins.
8 To assemble: Spread the whipped cream over the top, leaving ½ inch border around the edge. Discard the rosemary sprig from the peaches and arrange them in a concentric patter over the cream. Voila! I am considering messing around with the peaches. My peaches were ripe and tasted great, but weren’t soft enough for the fork to slide through them while they were on top of the cake. Had to push them off and construct the perfect bite. Maybe I didn’t let them macerate long enough, maybe they weren’t ripe enough, but would love to find a way to have softer peaches consistently, maybe sauté, or bake them.
R and G Lounge San Francisco. Monico and I have walked by here a few times, while either on our way from, or headed toward Chinatown. I heard it was good. Well, mostly from Monico, saying this is where his Chinese friends bring their parents when they visit. And and...Anthony Bourdain ate here when he filmed his SF episode of No Reservations. Needless to say, we've been wanting to try it, plus I've been in serious need of a crab fix lately. The crab was 38 bucks (market price) and we paid it. It is there signature dish, so we kind of had to get it, plus did I mention I was in a bad way about needing crab! It was delicious! It was everything I wanted it to be and more. Using the tools they provided I broke into the crab. My fingers were greasy. The coke I ordered was a perfect compliment to my salty-meaty pieces of crab. We ordered a side of rice and something else called, something like, three delights, I don't know really, because the crab, the crab, it's all I wanted, it's all I can remember!
After lunch I had to urge Moni to walk slower on account I didn't want to get a cramp. Since I'm a fatty, of course I ate too much, as I often do, I don't know my limit. When something's this good, I just don't want it to stop.
With dreams of my very own bakery dancing in my head, I made mini-tarts this weekend. I’m calling them cutiepies! Paris had made these amazing looking mini blueberry pies, so I wanted to make minis too. I knew exactly what I’d make, I went right for a recipe I got from a Food and Wine magazine. A Food and Wine magazine that I picked up after visiting Portland, because Noel and James get Food and Wine, so I’m scoping it out to see whether or not it’ll be the next one I order. Recipe for free form tarts:
Pastry
2 cups all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 1 ½ sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces ½ cup ice water
Filling
Use whatever fruit you want, cut it up of course, the magazine suggested mango, and it’s absolutely the best fruit in these tarts, amazingly yummy! They also suggest pineapple and berries, use your imagination! I also like the way bananas taste after they’ve been baked, they have their own natural sweetness.
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted Sugar, for sprinkling Crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream, for serving. But these suckers taste amazing the next day as is as a breakfast treat.
Now that you’ve got everything together, Do This:
1. Make the Pastry- In a food processor, pulse the flour and salt. Add the butter and pulse until it’s the size of small peas. Sprinkle the ice water over the mixture and pulse until it comes together. Transfer pastry to work surface and knead a few times until it comes together. Divide in half and flatten into disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour, can be made a day ahead.
2. Preheat oven to 400. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. On lightly floured surface roll out a disk to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out rounds that are 5 inches in diameter, can make 4 per disk. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with second disk. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
3. Arrange the fruit on dough rounds. Bring the pastry edges up and around the fruit, pinching firmly to form pleated edges around fruit. Refrigerate 10 minutes more.
4. Brush tarts with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 35 minutes, until pastry is browned and fruit is bubbling. Cool on wire rack.
-If you want to make them super tiny like I did…I made them 3 inch rounds, and decreased the temperature of the oven to 350 for the first 15 minutes, after that, I rotated the pan and turned the oven up to the standard 400 for the rest of the time, still cooking them for a total of 35 minutes. I made some with tops too, just remember to make holes in the top crust. Enjoy!
