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The secret is in the salt sear and the bacon fat-butter basting to finish.
Happy New Year!!!
Years Past
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
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The more I say yes to things I would normally say no to, the more I find myself with clearer observations and so many more smiles.
Years Past
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
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Finding an ingredient, that normally takes time to be ready to use, ripe and fragrant is magical. Yesterday we picked up a flat of hachiya persimmons. They were wrinkled, ripe and ready to eat and create with. We have a running list of persimmon potential projects.
Persimmon
However, with any list there are always a few entries that take precedence. These persimmons are destined to become blended with habanero peppers to become a favorite hot sauce we have not visited for over ten years.
Years Past
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
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Tempura shumai are purely brilliant. Sure, we have eaten shumai before. We have eaten shrimp tempura before. But battering and frying shumai, I had never seen it, heard of it or tried it. Today that changed. I experienced shumai tempura at Terakawa Ramen in Princeton. They were delicious with a light crispy exterior and the soft juicy dumpling beneath. Of course this then leads me to a number of paths. What other dumplings, gnocchi or small meat(or fish)balls should we be battering and frying?
Years Past
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
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It can totally change your perspective.
Years Past
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
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We were preparing breakfast. I opted to slow down. I sliced onions thinly. I soaked them in cold water to rinse off some of their astringent bite. We patted them dry and dressed the onions with olive oil and salt. Aki asked Amaya if we could add some black pepper. Amaya responded, "Nope, but we can use the fresh red pepper flakes." Amaya does not like the taste or aroma of black pepper and its heat source piperine. She has become a fan of chili peppers and the heat from capsaicin. The small adjustment from black to red was one I would not have explored on my own. I would have just gone without the spice. Amaya's openness to interchangeable parts reminded me that finding the right component can work better than simple eliminations.
Years Past
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
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Instead of sugar cookies, we do shortbread cut-outs. We roll them out twice and after the second roll, any large pieces of scrap are baked off as they are for tasters and house snacks. The pretty ones go into the gift boxes and the interesting ones are for us.
Years Past
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
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Traditional.
After an earthquake (because apparently that's how Alex's mind works).
Years Past
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
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Finding well marbled thick cut steaks is a magical experience. It also means I'm setting off the smoke detectors, especially in winter. I recommend opening a few windows and turning your vent on high before salt searing your steaks.
Years Past
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
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I do use a good percentage of my own cookie recipes at Christmas time. But I always want a few extras, that change from year to year. I usually take at least one recipe from this book. Tracey Zabar's One Sweet Cookie: Celebrated Chefs Share Favorite Recipes and it is one of my favorites. It has a wide range of cookie recipes, from the mundane to the uncommon. Every cookie has a story and the pictures are very tempting. It's one of those books that never fails to provide inspiration when I flip through its pages--even if I don't make any cookies at all. That's the hallmark of a good cookbook.
Years Past
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
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The flavor of mint, particularly peppermint, is insanely strong. We have previously tempered its strength on doughnuts by grinding it with white chocolate kit kats. For this years holiday season we bounced the idea of candy canes around and BJ asked about a glaze. Ask the question, make it happen. We integrated candy canes into our milk glaze. The result was a subtle and creamy liquid candy cane. For this years crumbs we pulverized candy canes with vanilla sandwich cookies and white chocolate. The crumbs are a delicate expression of a candy cane.
At the shop we have used both candy cane forms on there own. Together they overlap and increase in intensity, a necessary flavor enhancement on our chocolate glazed super cake doughnuts.
Years Past
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I have wanted to make boiling water extruded noodles for too long. Fear of the unknown (messing up our extruder) has kept the idea on the sidelines. Thankfully I gathered enough moral fortitude and emotional support to make the idea happen. For our first run I used the smaller Arcobaleno home machine. It is a powerful wonder that facilitates small idea testing. I tried a few shapes: campanelle, lumache, and ridged super thick bucatini. The first two shapes did not extrude all that well. I am not sure if it was there shapes or perhaps I did not allow for enough mixing. But, I did not allow the two failures deter me. The thick ridged bucatini extruded beautifully. I let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before putting it into zip top bags in the refrigerator. The pasta had a visual dryness and durability that we had not experienced with regularly extruded noodles. This morning the pasta held its coil and was nicely dry to the touch. I cooked a few coils for 2 minutes and finished them in butter enriched tomato sauce. The noodles had a bite and a resiliency that was exciting. Now I need to revisit the failed attempts to see if it was patience or process that caused the initial flawed results.
Years Past
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
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We take pictures as reminders. Too often we do not go back and look at what we needed to remember. Today I looked back at what I deemed photo-worthy.
Years Past
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
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The outside is silky. The inside is chewy. The noodles are slurp-able and elastic. Three thumbs up for tonight. We are making progress. We ate these in a sauce of broth, butter and soy sauce.
Udon Noodles v3
100 grams AP flour
100 grams durum flour
100 grams water
3 grams salt
0.5 grams baking soda
Dissolve salt and baking soda in water.
Combine the flours in a medium bowl. Add the water. Knead the flour and water together in a bowl into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest 10 minutes.
Unwrap and knead for 1-2 minutes until the dough is silky. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest 10 minutes.
Unwrap and knead for another 1-2 minutes. Wrap the dough and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature, about an hour. Roll the dough through a pasta sheeter or by hand until it is 1/8 inch thick. Cut the dough into 1/8 inch strips.
Boil the noodles for 7 minutes until they are cooked through and chewy.
Years Past
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
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When you have to protect your livestock, you can come up with incredible ideas and figure out how to make them happen. Sometimes we all need a little motivation to push us into becoming the creators and inventors we truly are inside.
Years Past
December 15, 2008
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
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Because toasted marshmallows make everything better. The question is, how many will make it onto the houses and how many will simply disappear?
Years Past
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
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Amaya asks questions and tests out ideas freely. Not everything is a success. Not everything is a failure. Today she tested blood orange and chocolate. It looks like we will be borrowing her idea in the near future.
Years Past
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
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The list of noodle ideas and flavors is long. It can feel dauntingly large. I often procrastinate, intimidated by the amount of work and the lack of a consuming audience. It's a form of writers block, one where I create the plan and then choose not to put it into action because no one besides us will eat it. The "why bother?" sentiment tends to scream loudly in my ear. It is in these moments when I realize that in order to create, to get things done, to explore--it is necessary to silence that voice. It is the process and practice of making that allows us to improve, discover, and be delighted.
Today I looked at the flavor list in our American Noodles outline and picked a few to begin working on. The first was green curry. I started with a prepared green curry paste and mixed it with some water to make a flavorful liquid to hydrate pasta. I strained the mixture in order to remove any solids that could clog the pasta die. I mixed the green curry liquid with semolina in the pasta machine. I chose campanelle because I enjoy alliterations. I extruded the pasta and the campanelle curled into aromatic trumpets. I let the pasta air dry for half an hour before I put it into zip top bags in the refrigerator, reserving it for cooking later.
The aroma of the curry is intense. The raw dough captures the essence of the flavor. The cooking will show that the infused flavor will stand up to the dilution of boiling and saucing. For a first version we are on the right path. I believe it's important to force myself to take the steps forward and not just think about where I want to go.
Years Past
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
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I ended up not tying our pork shoulder. I put it in a roasting pan with about an inch of white wine and a bit of chicken stock and cooked it at 250°F with convection for 10 hours and 15 minutes. I cooked it until it reached 192°F internal temperature. I was shocked that it took that long to cook. Somehow I thought that a pork shoulder would cook in about 6-7 hours. Fortunately we started early. Once it was cooked I let it rest for an hour before carving.
The roast carved cleanly and was tender. The sausage and meat became one. My critical side has me looking at keeping the meat juicier. The sausage can use some refinement, first off less salt. But as a first run it a delicious start to refining our complete pork shoulder.
Years Past
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
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This one's for Grandpa Steve and all of our other Jewish family, friends and readers. Happy Chanukah!
Years Past
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
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Everyone knows that we like a good hot sauce. Our current all-purpose hot sauce is Valentina Black Label. It's considered their spicier sauce, but we would place it firmly in the mild to medium category. It has a slight smokiness to it and a bright, clean heat that goes with almost everything from pizza to fried chicken. It's a great all purpose sauce with a little more character than Crystal or Tabasco.
Years Past
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
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There are a lot of influences here. The first is my fascination with the outer layer of meat and fat below the skin on a pork shoulder. The second is the variety of textures inside a slow cooked pork shoulder. The third is my distaste for the need to overcook and pulverize whole pork shoulder, either roasted or smoked, in order to fully cook all the parts and pieces. The fourth, as far as I can pinpoint, is a frugality that drives a need to utilize the whole of an ingredient.
I started by salting a pork shoulder and brushing it with a blend of mustard and sake. After it sat overnight, I removed the shoulder blade and unrolled the shoulder keeping the exterior cap of meat intact. I removed the remaining meat from the shoulder blade bone and ground it into a sausage with prosciutto and white wine. I layered the sausage over the spread out shoulder. Finally I rolled the shoulder and wrapped it in plastic wrap. Tomorrow I will tie it and slow roast it. We shall see how my influences taste.
Years Past
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
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First up, Today Marks 15 Years of Ideas in Food
take a moment and dive into the links below to see what we have been up to on this day over the years.
Now onto the Ideas in Food:
I continue to explore the benefits, functionality and inspirations in using sake to flavor foods. I salted our pork shoulder and let it season overnight in the refrigerator. This morning I combined yellow mustard and sake. I brushed the entire shoulder with the mixture and will now let it infuse and hopefully dry overnight.
The blend of sake and mustard creates an aromatic, savory, slightly boozy mustard. My first application is with the shoulder. But I see many openings in the future from thick cut fish to hangar steak. Time and availability of ingredients will determine our next directions.
Years Past
December 5, 2004: when it all began
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Years ago we used corn nuts as a topping for calamari bolognese, that we spooned over fresh corn polenta. Since then I have quietly forgotten about them. Today Aki picked up a container of salty, crunchy, nutty corn nuts and my eyes were opened again. Funny enough I had already bought a few cans of corn to make a popcorn glaze for doughnuts. The connection was made and I realized the corn nuts would be an insane topping for the popcorn glaze. The finished doughnut will be a corn-Nut.
Of course outside doughnutland these corn nuts will gain some new uses from a pasta to polenta to a crunchy topping for roasted shrimp and grilled beef.
Years Past
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
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I was in LA last week and was fortunate to make a trip to Sidecar Doughnuts. I was intrigued by their Doughnut Benedict. They wrapped a poached egg in doughnut dough, deep fried it. They stuffed the filled doughnut with hollandaise sauce and topped it with fresh basil. I am intrigued by the savory breakfast in a doughnut. Now I need to figure out how to wrap my head and dough around the idea and see if we can integrate savory into our Doughnutland.
Years Past
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
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...surprising someone with chocolates just because you know it will make them happy.
Years Past
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
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We have been asked, on occasion, for jelly doughnuts. We used to make thumbprints. But as a whole we have found jelly doughnuts don't sell. Today, we brought jelly doughnuts back. I figured they would fly off the shelf because recently there have been lots of jelly requests. It turns out there were not as many requests as it seemed. There were a few loud requests. The jellies found a few happy homes. They did not grow wings and fly out the door. We will continue down the jelly path and see if the loud voices are joined by other, softer, voices leading to greater consumption.
Years Past
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
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Michael Solomonov: Federal Donuts: The (Partially) True Spectacular Story
Chris Cosentino: Offal Good: Cooking from the Heart, with Guts
Deb Perelman: Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites
Samin Nosrat: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
Michelle Tam: Ready or Not!: 150+ Make-Ahead, Make-Over, and Make-Now Recipes by Nom Nom Paleo
Lee Brian Schrager: America's Best Breakfasts: Favorite Local Recipes from Coast to Coast
Jacqueline An: An: To Eat: Recipes and Stories from a Vietnamese Family Kitchen
Carolyn Phillips: All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China
Alexandra Stratou: Cooking with Loula: Greek Recipes from My Family to Yours
Meathead Goldwyn: Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling
Tal Ronnen: Crossroads: Extraordinary Recipes from the Restaurant That Is Reinventing Vegan Cuisine
Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez: The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal Baking from Around the World
Nancy Harmon Jenkins and Sara Jenkins: The Four Seasons of Pasta
Editors of Food52: Food52 Baking: 60 Sensational Treats You Can Pull Off in a Snap (Food52 Works)
Gena Hamshaw: Food52 Vegan: 60 Vegetable-Driven Recipes for Any Kitchen (Food52 Works)
Blaine Wetzel and Joe Ray: Sea and Smoke: Flavors from the Untamed Pacific Northwest
Eric Werner: Hartwood: Bright, Wild Flavors from the Edge of the Yucatán
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