IDEAS IN FOOD: 31 entries from July 2017

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31 entries from July 2017

Japanese Sponge Cake

I'm on a sponge cake kick. There's something about its light texture, you can almost feel the tiny bubbles popping against your teeth as they sink into the cake. It's delicate and rich, softly sweet with a hint of almond and vanilla, and so satisfying that I can happily eat it straight from the pan or with fruit and frosting to fancy things up.

Plain sponge cake with a side of fresh berries is one of our favorite things to eat for breakfast at this time of year. I don't even feel guilty about having cake for breakfast because it's so much lighter than your average coffee cake and I find it actually keeps me satisfied for quite a while--perhaps it's all the eggs in the batter.

Needless to say I'm working on the perfect recipe and it's coming along, but in the mean time, this one is a good place to start. I add a few drops, maybe a 1/4 teaspoon, of almond extract just to round out the flavor because that's what I like. If you're not into that almond flavor--though it's delicious, you can stick to recipe as written and it won't steer you wrong.

Years Past

July 31, 2015

July 31, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 31, 2017 at 04:08 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes | Permalink | Comments (2)

Blackberry Dreams and Promises

The perfect blackberry is elusive. It is sweet and slightly musky, bursting with juice and tempered with a hint of acidity. It is almost as hard to find as a unicorn. Blackberries come in all shapes and sizes. Large and small, succulent and seedy. Their flavors range from teeth-clenchingly acidic to sweet and flabby. The quirk about blackberries is that it's almost impossible to look at one and know what to expect. Sometimes the large juicy specimens can be sweet and juicy--though some are too soft and almost fermented and others are surprisingly sour and weedy tasting. The little ones are often crunchy and sharp--but not always. A few are toothsome and fragrant, with a rich berry flavor. There are almost always a few perfect berries hidden in every bowlful, just enough to keep to you coming back for more. It's nature's version of roulette and, as the local berries are suddenly abundant, we are playing with gusto.

Years Past

July 30, 2015

July 30, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 30, 2017 at 04:37 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charcoal Roasting Onions

We've just begun playing around with the KOPA Charcoal Oven. We start with vegetables--in this case Vidalia onions, a true test, to see what's possible.

Years Past

July 29, 2016

July 29, 2015

July 29, 2014

July 29, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 29, 2017 at 05:09 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (1)

Long Hots Summer

Begin with what you know. When the basics are improved the creativity begins.

Years Past

July 28, 2012

July 28, 2010

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 28, 2017 at 06:12 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Making Dough

There are certain processes in the kitchen that are magical. Making dough is one. Whether it's bread or pasta dough, the action of transformation is always striking. As you know, we tinker, we play. We are always changing up ingredients and working off ratios to create something new and delicious. But every now and then, often when we're teaching a workshop, we go back to the basics. We make the original semolina pasta dough that we created for the pasta extruder and the no-knead pizza dough from our first book, Ideas in Food, Great Recipes and Why They Work. Every time we do, we are reminded of how special those original recipes are. You need a solid foundation to support your creative endeavors. Perfectly extruded pasta has a weight to it, it has texture from the combination of heat and pressure inside the machine forcing the flour and water through the die, creating a soft, yet rough pasta. The myriad shapes cook up into a silky, toothsome bite that holds on to sauce and highlights anything you choose to serve beside them. Great pizza dough feels alive beneath your fingertips. It is supple and elastic, there are air bubbles and the dough itself seems to breathe. Eating that homemade pizza, where the crispy air bubbles shatter beneath your teeth, giving way to tender, chewy dough, which highlights the salty, creamy cheese and the acidic bite of tomato is an experience to be savored. Every time we go back to the basics it's a reminder of what cooking is all about.

Years Past

July 27, 2015

July 27, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 27, 2017 at 02:01 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, Impromptu Pizza | Permalink | Comments (0)

Incorporating Mortadella

We started with a batch of our jalapeno/serrano pepper noodles. I was looking to explore that fresh tomato and jalapeno combination that I love so much. In my most recent version, I reached for a large chunk of mortadella. In most scenarios, I prefer it thinly sliced and easy to wrap around ingredients. I love its spiced, succulent flavor and have utilized it in meatballs and sauces. This time I diced the chunk and sauteed it in olive oil. I used it to flavor a pan sauce featuring fresh tomatoes and lovage. It was a long stretch as a spicy BLT. If I was not so obsessed with connections, then the dish was simply a delightfully inspired bowl of spicy noodles with a bright, fresh, herbaceous sauce.

Years Past

July 26, 2015

July 26, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 26, 2017 at 01:25 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes

Our cluster doughnut is a canvas. We press an indentation into the center hole. We fill it with our rhubarb jam. We put a large spoonful of our cannoli filling alongside of the the jam and then top the doughnut with our freeze dried strawberry and white chocolate crumble. A simple representation of an iconic idea that took years to emerge from our kitchen.

Years Past

July 25, 2015

July 25, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 25, 2017 at 02:20 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, Curiosity Doughnuts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sausage and Peppers, An Iconic Inspiration

We started with the classic combination of sausage and peppers. With this in mind, we could explore the ideas of what could be sausage and what could be peppers. We adapted our shrimp sausage recipe from Maximum Flavor, incorporating shishito peppers into the blend. After making the sausage we cooked it in the wood oven, prepping it for the quick pan sauce we were planning to make for the pasta. We adapted our boiling water jalapeno pasta recipe, swapping out gochujang for the jalapenos. We decided to use the cavarola board to texturize the noodles. We roasted additional shishito peppers in the wood oven then sliced them to fold into the pan sauce. To make the sauce we sauteed cherry tomatoes in olive oil, deglazed the pan with white wine, and added a generous spoonful of the shrimp sausage and the sliced shishito peppers. Then we added a ladleful of pasta water, a few knobs of butter, and the cooked gochujang noodles, and we tossed everything together to coat the noodles with the sauce. We finished the pasta with fresh basil and olive oil. Sausage and peppers, familiar and different.

Years Past

July 24, 2015

July 24, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 24, 2017 at 04:21 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seamless Ravioli With Sunchoke Miso And Wood Fired Eggplant Ragout

The development of a dish is dictated guided by what we have, what we want, and what we discover. I try and incorporate seamless ravioli into as many (guest chef, pop up, traveling minstrel) dinners as possible. Burying a filling in durum flour and patiently waiting for the flour to hydrate and form a skin on the outside is as close to culinary magic as I have witnessed. We were sent some amazing new miso and other fermented treats from our friend Isaiah Billington of White Rose MIso. The sunchoke miso caught our attention and we immediately put it to use for our dinner at Inferno Pizzeria Napeletana.

When we were at the farm stand we saw some beautiful eggplant. Immediately there were visions of roasting them in the wood oven and then slowly cooking them down in a tomato sauce, creating a luxuriously silky ragout. At first we thought of seasoning either the eggplant or the ragout with the miso. But, the eggplant and tomatoes bold flavors and overall roubust natures would cause the miso to fall away into the background. But what if we used the miso to flavor the sauce for the seamless ravioli? This sauce would coat and complement the dumplings, while still shining in its own right. The sauce would also blend with the eggplant ragout beneath the dumplings, bringing everything together for the diner with each bite. We made another bulletproof beurre monte to use as the base and incorporated the sunchoke miso to give it that extra punch of flavor. We cooked the seamless ravioli and glazed them in the sauce. Then we spooned the eggplant ragout into the center of the bowls and topped them with the shimmering ravioli. We finished the dish with basil and parley and a flurry of 6 month old manchego. Each bite was decadent, luxurious, and full of flavor.

Years Past

July 23, 2015

July 23, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 23, 2017 at 10:06 AM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (1)

Masa Agnolotti With Sweet Corn, Fermented Black Beans, and Stracciatella

We put our the instant masa grits to use in an agnolotti. The filling was rich with ricotta, parmigiano reggiano, cream cheese, and truffle oil. We spiked it with smoked fermented black beans, which were the starting point for the dish. We encased the filling in long agnolotti. We glazed them in a bulletproof beurre monte seasoned with truffle oil and smoked fermented black beans. For the base of the dish we had two elements that would unite the flavors and textures: wood roasted creamed corn and stracciatella--the stringy and creamy combination of cheese that is the best of burrata and buffalo mozzarella in one. We put a spoonful of the stracciatella in the center of the plate and surrounded it with the creamed corn. We topped them with the heady, glazed agnolotti and finished the dish with a few drops of olive oil and a grating of parmigiano reggiano. It was delicious.

Years Past

July 22, 2015

July 22, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 22, 2017 at 05:01 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vadouvan Casarecce with Green Curry Clam Sauce

The idea of green curry was stuck in my head. What is green curry? What does it actually mean? To me it is the flavors and aromas of lemongrass, ginger, basil, lime, fish sauce, and jalapeno all wrapped together in flavorful bites. I wanted to make a green curry noodle and pair it with a green curry sauce to amplify the flavors. Then Tony unearthed some vadouvan, a French yellow curry enriched with additional onions and garlic. Eureka! It would be delicious to pair the two ideas of curry in one dish. We could use the vadouvan in the noodles and the green curry canvas for the sauce. As we considered this idea against the backdrop of clam sauce, we both reminisced about the ways in which the flavor of bacon enhanced the sauce. No, bacon is not traditional in clam sauce, we were discussing clams casino--as a sauce. At this point my pepperoni fetish reared its head. Instead of bacon, I suggested that we integrate the pepperoni in the style of our salumi soffritos.

Once we had decided upon the noodles, the sauce, and the soffrito we had our framework. We used the vadouvan to flavor the water used to hydrate the extruded noodles. We steamed the clams on a bed of lemongrass, ginger, basil, lime, fish sauce, and jalapeno. We separated the cooked clams from their shells and reserved them to fold into the finished dish. We strained the aromatic clam broth and pureed it with cilantro and butter to make our green curry clam sauce. We ground the onions and pepperoni together and roasted them in the oven to make a roasted pepperoni soffrito.

To serve the dish we put a generous spoonful of the soffrito in the bottom of the bowl. We spooned the pasta, clams, and sauce over the soffrito. Finally we topped the noodles with a generous grating of Parmigiano Reggiano and sent them out to be savored and devoured.

Years Past

July 21, 2015

July 21, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 21, 2017 at 12:40 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Corzetti Cacio e Pepe

Alliterations can do a lot for creativity. We made our pasta dough and flavored it with black pepper and cayenne. We rolled the dough into sheets and punched out corzetti. We cooked the pasta and dressed it with our bulletproof beurre monte enriched with pecorino and black pepper. We topped the stamps with slow roasted walnuts that were previously soaked in several changes of water to remove their tanic undertones. The walnuts were seasoned with black pepper, salt and olive oil to continue the theme. Using walnut oil would have been an even better choice, had we thought of it. We finished the dish with a fresh grating of pecorino and a healthy grating of sea truffles. The dish was intense, rich, and robust. The corzetti allowed us to deliver pasta wafers of flavor. It was a delicious course in our Noodles by Night collaboration with Tony Conte at Inferno Pizzeria Napoletana.

Years Past

July 20, 2015

July 20, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 20, 2017 at 07:45 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Instant Masa Grits With Black Truffle and Fermented Black Bean: A Pasta Filling

Visual and aromatic similarities inspire connections. We have been developing the elements for today's pop up adventure featuring doughnuts by day and noodles by night at Inferno PIzzeria. One of the courses is centered around the first of the season's corn. For years I have struggled with creating a corn filling for pasta. The filling, while delicious, has always been too wet. Finally, I broke from what my idea of what should be a filling and focused on making something amazing. I started with instant masa. It is fast cooking and full of corn flavor. I always enjoy the combination of corn and truffles. And I like the earthy headiness that comes with the controlled use of quality truffle oil. The funkiness of the truffle is similar to the flavor and aroma of fermented black beans. And since we had our smoked black beans on hand, bringing the two together was easy because they were both in the front of our thought process.

We cooked the instant masa with milk and some salt. When it was smooth and creamy I added cream cheese, parmigiano reggiano, ricotta, truffle oil, and minced fermented black beans. The result was decadent corn-centric, truffle-enhanced, creamy, decadent grits. The texture and flavors were intense, ideal for a pasta filling to be paired with creamed corn from the first crop of the season.

Years Past

July 19, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 19, 2017 at 11:01 AM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (2)

Where You Create

By changing the place where you create you can force yourself to discover new ingredients, ideas, thoughts, and techniques. Inspiration and improvisation are directly related to your ability to be open and to explore the unknown. Creativity is the act of revisiting what you already know with a fresh outlook. Take outside influences and directions with an open mind (and a grain of salt) and, if they work for you, integrate them into your world to enhance personal development and ingenuity. Paint the world in your colors, notice the small details, and celebrate the beauty in everything around you. Joy leads to creativity, which leads to more joy. It's the perfect cycle.

Years Past

July 18, 2015

July 18, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 18, 2017 at 10:52 AM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gever Tulley Teaches Life Lessons Through Tinkering

Amaya picked this TED video for the website because it taught her that she can do anything if she uses the materials at hand and her imagination. We should all do a little more tinkering.

Years Past

July 17, 2015

July 17, 2009

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 17, 2017 at 07:22 PM in INSPIRATIONS, Videos | Permalink | Comments (1)

Rethinking The Toad In The Hole

What if we cracked an egg and cooked it in griddled smoked meatloaf instead of using toast?

Years Past

July 16, 2015

July 16, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 16, 2017 at 06:23 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (3)

Smoked Fermented Black Beans

The rich, heady, funky aroma and deep, savory, chocolatey flavors of fermented black beans continue to entice me. I believe they are an unsung hero in the kitchen and will continue to grow in both influence and use in the upcoming years. In my desire to add even more depth to this ingredient and to round out its headier aromas, I smoked the black beans for 2 hours. The smoke adds an alluring campfire aroma to the bigger fermented notes of the beans. These are now an exceptionally special ingredient that needs to not be integrated into our daily cooking as a seasoning and as a flavor enhancer.

Years Past

July 15, 2015

July 15, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 15, 2017 at 05:58 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heavy Cream Burgers

There is our signature butter burger. It eventually sparked the idea that triggered the super moist water burger. Roughly a year later I am now smitten with exploring the heavy cream burger, combining the attributes of both innovations. Heavy cream is 40% fat. Butter is 82% fat. Water is none. In the butter burger we added 10% fat. In the dialed in water burger we added 10% water. For our first run at the heavy cream burger we added 20% heavy cream. The thought process and math follow the same path.

I mixed the cream and 0.75% salt into the meat. It formed a quick sticky burger emulsion. I formed the burgers into patties and put them in a pyrex pan. I cooked the burgers in our CVap, set at 55°C for 1 hour. The most delicious, juiciest burgers we make are always cooked first in the CVap to set the meat like a custard and then are finished on the grill or in a hot skillet.

The heavy cream burger is off to a solid start. It was moist, rich and tender. The next version needs to be done with us grinding the meat in order to control the texture and size. That will really show how the cream behaves, especially in comparison to our previous innovative benchmarks.

Years Past

July 14, 2015

July 14, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 14, 2017 at 02:53 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (1)

Smoked Shio Koji

We started with our brown rice shio koji. We layed it out in a pyrex dish and fired up our tube smoker. We smoked and stirred the shio koji for 3 ish hours. We returned the koji to its jar and returned it to the refrigerator. The smokey aroma should permeate the mixture and add a depth to the savory-centric shio koji.

Years Past

July 13, 2015

July 13, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 13, 2017 at 05:42 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Regional Cookbooks

I love old school regional cookbooks, with their spiral bindings and local flavor. I also enjoy some of the more glossy versions of these regional texts, when they are well done. I was delivering a donation to a local thrift store and I stopped in to check out the cookbook section--yes, clearing out clutter to bring in more books... Anyway I stumbled across Heartland, The Best of the Old and the New from Midwest Kitchens by Marcia Adams. A quick glance through the pages told me I needed to pick it up. Breakfast Cheese Pie, Caviar and Hot Biscuits, Michigan Cassoulet, Corn Cob Jelly, Polish SOur Cream Beets with Horseradish, Dried Cherry Upside Down Cake, and so much more. Each head note explains where the recipe came from and how it ties into the local culture. There are an abundance of baking recipes, jams, and chutneys in addition to the usual appetizers and entrees. It's a pleasure to read and at $2, it was a steal. I've already flagged several recipes I want to tinker with. Digital books can be a wonderful thing but there's nothing like flipping through a cookbook for inspiration.

Years Past

July 12, 2015

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 12, 2017 at 04:26 PM in Books | Permalink | Comments (0)

Melted Butter Biscuits

The goal was to make a laminated biscuit. I also wanted to eliminate the often discussed question of how small or large the chunks of butter should be in the flour. We use melted butter in our doughnuts, so why not in our biscuits? I began with the Honey Glazed Break Apart Biscuits recipe in Gluten Free Flour Power, subbing in all purpose flour for the gluten free blends. I whisked together the dry ingredients and set them aside in a bowl. Then I melted the butter, added the heavy cream to the pot to cool it down, and then added the buttermilk. I mixed the wet mixture with dry mixture. I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and chilled it, for about an hour and a half--I went out and ran some errands so the timing is not exact.

When the dough was cold I started rolling, folding and laminating the dough. I made four folds. After the fourth fold I wrapped the dough and refrigerated it until it was cold again, at least an hour. I removed the chilled dough from the refrigerator and rolled it into a rectangle, trimmed the edges, and cut the biscuits. I brushed the biscuits with heavy cream and slashed the tops for a visual aesthetic. I baked the biscuits for 25 minutes at 400°F. When the biscuits were done they were a gorgeous golden brown. I let them sort of cool on a rack for as long as I could-not very long, before tearing into them, sinking my teeth into the many layers, and savoring the rich, buttery flavor.

Years Past

July 11, 2015

July 11, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 11, 2017 at 06:48 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (1)

Lining Up

It has taken me shy of 2 years to realize a more elegant way to arrange our doughnut holes. Previously I let the doughnut holes fall chaotically over the cooling rack. Then they lined up. When I arranged the holes in rows they looked cleaner, they were easily counted and magically I felt at ease. Sometimes the out of place only becomes apparent when you finally find its proper placement.

Years Past

July 10, 2015

July 10, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 10, 2017 at 07:23 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, Curiosity Doughnuts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Funfetti Streusel

We have explored the idea of funfetti. It adds a smile and a childlike twist to an idea. But isn't funfetti only the addition of rainbow sprinkles? Yes. By sprinklizing a dish it becomes funfettied. I wanted to take the idea of funfetti and add some structure and character to it. We started with shortbread cookies. I pulverized them with white chocolate and salt until a they formed a course struesel-like crumb. At the last moment added rainbow sprinkles and pulsed the mixture just enough to combine everything. The streusel topping is nutty, rich, sweet, and fun. It allows us to either top doughnuts or frozen custard with a flavorful funfetti element. Outside doughnutland the funfetti streusel is destined for cakes, cookies, crumb toppings and more.

Years Past

July 9, 2016

July 9, 2015

July 9, 2012

July 9, 2009

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 09, 2017 at 01:45 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, Curiosity Doughnuts, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shaving Pistachio White Chocolate Puree

After making our pistachio white chocolate puree we set it in a container and refrigerated it. The puree solidified into a hard block. Once I saw it, I immediately knew what we could do, shave it. I removed the puree from its container and roughly cut it in half, to make it easier to handle. I pulled out our Japanese mandoline, adjusted the thickness to a fine sliver, and set it over an empty container. I carefully slid the pistachio white chocolate block over the blade. The block quickly transformed into a light and airy pile of sweetened pistachio shavings. With the puree in a new form its possible applications continues to grow: from topping frozen custard, to sprinkling on the outside of a cake, to serving with fresh peaches and vanilla yoghurt.

Years Past

July 8, 2015

July 8, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 08, 2017 at 05:10 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bucatini with Corn, Basil and Buffalo Mozzarella

My motives and inspirations are often hard to understand and even more difficult to believe. The bowl of noodles became something amazing because of two key factors: a well stocked pantry and a willingness to wash extra dishes. A third factor in the creation of this dish was my desire to eat noodles with a pink sauce but not by blending a tomato sauce with cream.

Dishes are the extra time we don't often have. They are the non glorious element in a recipe, a necessary evil that needs to be taken care of but is never discussed as part of the process. Doing the dishes is to cooking what weeding is to gardening. A necessary chore that is often avoided whenever possible.

Our pantry consistently evolves and is essential to improvisational cooking. Currently, Buf buffalo mozzarella is on hand as an essential staple. Pasta, preferably (but not always) fresh and homemade, is always available. Canned tomatoes are always in stock. As is Parmigiano Reggiano. The weed patch proliferates in the summer providing a few fresh herbs, despite my ability to completely ignore it.

Yesterday we had leftover steamed corn. A pasta dish in the making. Initially I was going to do a cacio pepe, read bunt, with corn folded in. Then came that sudden desire for pink sauce with the fresh bucatini I found in the fridge. I could simmer the corn with garlic, onions, and half and half, and then fold in some hand crushed tomato sauce. The idea to use the half and half was in order to forgo doing extra dishes. What I really wanted to do was sweat the corn with garlic and onions. When it was hot I would puree half of it with water. I could then add the corn puree back to the pot with the remaining corn, add the tomato and cook the pasta. But then I'd have to wash the blender. And if I was going to make the puree I would need to strain it, because an unstrained corn puree is a waste. So there would be even more dishes. I hesitated and finally decided to get over myself and my fear of dishes. I followed my gut and while the sauce cooked, I did the extra dishes: blender, strainer and ladle. It really wasn't that bad.

I cooked the bucatini and added it to the pink corn sauce. Then came the add ons. I kept the sliced buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves, grated cheese and black pepper as options. Aki and I went all in. Amaya went for the Parmigiano Reggiano. Everyone had a crush-worthy bowl of noodles and the dishes proved to be less of an obstacle than I realized.

Years Past

July 7, 2015

July 7, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 07, 2017 at 02:55 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pistachio White Chocolate Puree

We put 1 part roasted, salted pistachios and 2 parts white chocolate chips in the food processor. We turned it on and let it spin. The nuts pulverized and the chips began to melt. A large mass formed in the machine. I remained patient. I let the blade continue to spin. After, approximately, 10 minutes we had a luxurious puree of pistachios and white chocolate. I added a healthy sprinkle of salt to season the white chocolate portion of the mixture. The combination is sweet, nutty, smooth, and intensely flavored by pistachios. Now we get to figure out what the heck to do with this stuff--A.K.A. the fun part of the process.

Years Past

July 6, 2012

July 6, 2010

July 6, 2005

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 06, 2017 at 07:20 PM in Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS, INSPIRATIONS | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pillow Talk: Minor Modifications

We utilized our olive oil enriched pasta dough to make a few trays of agnolotti. In addition to using a dough previously designed for long noodles and textured shapes,\]= we altered the shape of the agnolotti. Instead of the iconic pinching of the dough we used our thumbs to press down on the tube of stuffed, filled pasta to create the pillows. The pressing speeds up the process and limits the chances of tearing the dough while pinching it. It also makes it easier and more efficient to cut between the pillows and seal the seams, creating individual agnolotti. The success of the process was directly improved by using the more elastic dough, made not with tons of egg yolks, but with the addition of a bit of oil.

Years Past

July 5, 2015

July 5, 2012

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 05, 2017 at 06:29 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dragging Noodles

In early April we learned about making a larger, three finger, cavatelli. Since then we have explored other doughs and techniques utilizing the Cavarola board. In a recent workshop we modified our smoked pasta recipe to create an array of noodles. We omited the smoked flour, using all purpose in its place. We added 28 grams of olive oil to the dough to increase elasticity. And of course we vacuum sealed the dough to expedite the hydration. We rolled the dough into pencil thick ropes. We cut the ropes into 3 inch lengths. Instead of using our fingers we used a bench scraper to drag the dough across the board creating a texterized strozzapretti.

Years Past

July 4, 2015

July 4, 2012

July 4, 2005

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 04, 2017 at 05:20 PM in American Noodles, Approach to Cooking, Balancing Tastes, CULINARY EVOLUTIONS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cape Gooseberries

...have been rebranded as "Golden Berries." I saw these today and couldn't help but wonder if "a rose by any other name will smell as sweet" or if marketing will prove that Shakespeare is hopelessly out of date. I didn't buy any, more intrigued by the name change than by the berries themselves, but that doesn't mean that other people won't be drawn in by the new imagery. What would you buy: Gooseberries or Golden Berries?

Years Past

July 3, 2015

July 3, 2012

July 3, 2005

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 03, 2017 at 03:03 PM in Ingredients | Permalink | Comments (1)

Birthday Tart

It's that time of year again, Peg's birthday, right before the Fourth of July. Amaya and I decided to make a fruit tart this year. I made a gluten free almond flour crust, so everyone at the table could partake in the dessert. Then we decided on vanilla pudding. I modified the burnt sugar pudding recipe in our book, Ideas in Food, by increasing the vanilla, decreasing the salt to 3/4 teaspoon (4.5 grams) and leaving the sugar uncooked. I also changed the tapioca starch to corn starch, quite by accident, and discovered that the pudding works just as well with 5 tablespoons of cornstarch, as long as you make a few small modifications. While I was watching the pudding in the blender--not thickening--I realized what I had done. So I returned it to the pot and cooked it, stirring constantly, until it thickened, and then returned it to the blender for a quick puree. Cornstarch pudding always seems to get lumpy on me. It worked out nicely, although next time I will go back to the tapioca starch because it saves me a few steps. Once the pudding had chilled in the shell, Amaya arranged the fruit. I love the way she used some of the raspberries upside down. I never would have thought to do that. Sometimes a change in perspective is a good thing. We're going to dust it with powdered sugar and add candles before serving. A birthday tart may be a little bit unusual but i think the birthday girl will enjoy it. Happy Birthday Peg!

Years Past

July 2, 2015

July 2, 2012

July 2, 2009

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table

Posted on July 02, 2017 at 03:44 PM in Approach to Cooking | Permalink | Comments (0)

Calming with Corzetti

We continue to explore, tinker and wonder. We adapted our smoked pasta dough recipe from Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work to make a more pliable, stretchable pasta. Besides using un-smoked flour we added 28 grams of olive oil to the recipe. The dough became stretchier without becoming wetter. The dough was destined for ravioli production. But in my impatient way I set about rolling the dough into sheets to check out the adjustment. We used our new corzetti cutter to punch out stamps. The pasta rolled smoothly and thinly without any additional bench flour. We could even cut and manipulate the dough with ease and no flouring. The addition of the oil allowed us to produce a fully textured noodle that works great in a multitude of applications from the first run corzetti to the ravioli we made once my impatience was calmed.