Duck Fat Fries

So much has been eaten (by me) in the past month or more that I hardly know where to start. For one, I was obsessed with the October 2008 issue of Eating Well and kept repeating the pineapple coffeecake (with nectarines instead of pineapple) because it was at once so "healthy" and delicious. Ok, it wasn't fat-free or anything, but it had a hearty cup or more of whole wheat flour, adding some much needed fiber to my diet. (ha ha, or not!) All in all, it was delicious. I made a teryaki chicken dish from the same issue, also delicious. And I have been wanting to make a turkey meatloaf from said issue, that uses bulgur as a fibrous filler. I shelled out the big bucks for the bulgur, but still haven't gotten around to making the meatloaf. Turkey meat sauce and spaghetti is just way too easy for me to make, and prevents me from getting round to the meatloaf.

Also, I was weighed down with some stomach troubles for awhile, and was trying to eat only bland foods. That wasn't so much fun. When I started feeling better for maybe a day, my boyfriend decided that it was time to try making double fried french fries (fried in duck fat a la Vegas, baby) AT HOME! Thankfully, this is San Francisco, and finding duck fat was as easy as typing "google.com" in the url. I can always count on the Chow threads. While the duck fat didn't leave a poultry-ish taste, the fries were crispy, golden, and looked super professional. Good job, Joe! The tasty shoestrings called for meaty steaks, which I topped with a wine/broth/shallot/basalmic/mustard reduction which was sweet, acidic and heavenly. All this, and a bottle of 2 buck Chuck called for nothing less than a flourless chocolate cake for dessert. It was a real bistro meal. So good. Of course, it wasn't the best meal for a rebounding stomach, but it certainly dazzled my tastebuds.

And so I leave you with a few pictures...


Start off by peeling and chopping your potato into desired width:

Next, place shoestrings in big vat of hot oil, or melted duck fat:

Then drain on paper towel (and prepare for 2nd fying---not shown here, unfortunately. I can vouch for the fact that the end result produces a deep golden, crispy fry.)

Finish it all off with chocolate cake for dessert!

Tomato Tarte Tatin

A friend's lunch visit yesterday (Saturday last) inspired me to make something from Chocolate & Zucchini, (the cookbook derived from the eponymous blog,) which my old roommate gave to me for my birthday. I enjoy the blog and was taken with the book, which is a surprisingly rich compendium (for a blog-turned-book) with color pictures of many of the recipes. Since it's summer, the idea of slightly caramelized, oven roasted tomatoes was very appealing. I've made a traditional tarte tatin before--basically an upside down apple tart--and liked the idea of turning it into a savory lunch dish.

The recipe turned out great, and the tart looked just as it did in Clotilde's book. I modified her recipe slightly (of course!) and in the future I would add even more tomatoes, because, well, why not?

Tomato Tarte Tatin
(adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini, Broadway Books, 2007)

pate brisee (recipe to follow):

1 c. bleached flour

1/3 c. cake flour
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, chilled and diced
large pinch of salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
ice water

tart filling:
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 lbs Roma tomatoes (about 8 tomatoes), washed, seeded and sliced in rounds 1/2" thick (or thicker, depending on your preference
2-3 oz goat cheese
1/2 c. fresh basil, washed and dried
salt
pepper
spices: thyme, dried basil, rosemary--whatever you have on hand will work.

Begin by working on the pate brisee, as this will need to chill in the fridge before tart dough can be rolled out. Using a food processor, combine flours, salt and butter. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Then add egg and pulse until mixture starts to come together in a ball. If this doesn't happen within a minute or so, add a teaspoon of ice water to the mix. Add a teaspoon at a time until the dough starts to form a ball. At that point, remove dough from the food processor and shape into a ball. Flatten slightly, then cover tightly in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, and let dough sit outside of fridge for at least 10 minutes before rolling out.

While dough is in fridge, work on the tomatoes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9" pie pan with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Sprinkle on a teaspoon of a sugar. Then arrange your tomato slices in the pan in a circular formation, layering slices if necessary. Try to squeeze in as much tomato as possible on the bottom of the pan. Season with salt, pepper and additional spices, and a little more olive oil. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until soft. Remove pan from oven.
When tomatoes have cooled, sprinkle on the goat cheese.

Sprinkle your work surface with a little flour. Roll dough out into a circle about 11" in diameter, or even larger if you prefer a thinner crust (which you can then chop down). Prick the dough with a fork (to help prevent it from puffing up while cooking). When the tart pan has cooled off, cover the tart with the crust. Chop off unnecessary borders, leaving an extra 1/4" around the edge of the pan. Then, tuck this extra crust into the pie pan; this will help form a nice crust. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until crust turns a nice golden brown cover. Let tart cool on a rack before flipping it over. I tend to use the tart-to-plate method, placing a plate face down over the crust, then flipping the pie over with the plate simultaneously. Spoon up the remaining juices from the pan and pour over tart. Sprinkle with fresh basil. Best served still slightly warm, with a side of salad and a slice of bread. Bon appetit!

Blueberry Tart

Summer is here, but the only way I notice it is from the appearance of "classic" summer fruits in the markets. Not to get too down about the weather here, but SF is not known for its warm, languid summers. Instead, we get wind, fog, mist (imagine the combination of all three at once), and occasionally a sunny day. (Today happens to be one of those, hooray!)

It's a good thing that the farmers in the North Bay area and Central California get lots of summer sun, providing juicy and ripe fruit to this windy city. Nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, blueberries--I like just knowing that they're readily available for purchase.

I love blueberries the most, especially when ripe, plump, and sweet. For what I imagine will be a limited time only, the big chain groceries seem to have an abundance of the bluebs. 22 ounces on sale for $4! That's an amazing deal, considering that throughout the year imported berries cost about $4-5 per half pint. I can eat through that in one day.

But with my surplus of cheap berries, I actually have a hard time eating all of them in a week. This, in spite of my throwing about 1 cup and a half of berries into my cereal each morning. And I have been buying more berries before running out of the old batch, for fear that the following week's shipment won't be on sale. (And I'm not going to buy the same clamshell I'm currently getting at $4, for $8, when the price goes back up.) As a result, I'm always thinking about what I can bake with the excess blueberries. A week or so ago I made a delicious lemon blueberry coffeecake with pecan crumble topping (thanks to Cooks Illustrated), and the blueberry tart shown above. I cobbled the tart together from several recipes, baking the crust from the tarta de naranjas recipe that I made back in February, and topping it with cooked vanilla pastry cream and fresh blueberries. The three layers come together nicely in spite of their differences: buttery pastry crust with creamy topping and crunchy berries whose juice is released in the mouth. I can assure you, the combination is quite good.

Blueberry Tart

1 prebaked tart pastry (adapted from The New Spanish Table)

1 pastry cream recipe

1-2 cups fresh blueberries (washed & dried)

prebaked tart pastry shell:

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

2/3 c confectioner's sugar

1 pinch salt

10 tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1 large egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp chilled heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp ice water, if needed

Place flour, sugar, and salt in food processor and pulse 5 or 6 times til mixture is combined. Add the butter and pulse until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Remove mixture to a bowl and stir in the egg yolk mixture with a fork until evenly distributed. If the dough has started to stick together, shape it into a ball and flatten slightly. Cover tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 day. When ready to use dough, remove and let sit out on the counter for about 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into an 11 inch circle. Transfer the dough to a 9 inch tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing it into the sides of pan. Trim any excess dough that hangs over. Prick bottom of dough all over with a fork. Freeze dough for about 20 minutes, and meanwhile preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Remove from freezer and cover tart shell with aluminum foil, then add pie weights (or something heavy to keep dough from puffing up while baking) and and bake crust for 25 minutes. Remove pie weights and foil and keep baking for another 8-10 minutes. Cool tart shell in pan on a baking rack completely before filling.

While tart shell is in the oven, prepare pastry cream:

1 c milk

3 egg yolks

1/4 c sugar

1 1/2-2 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk 1/4 cup cold milk, egg yolks, sugar, and flour together. Gradually add remaining milk (warmed, then mixed with cornstarch) and stir until smooth. Heat in double boiler, beating until cream becomes thick, stirring constantly to prevent burning. When thickened, remove from stove and transfer cream to a bowl to let cool. Stir in vanilla extract. Place bowl in a shallow pan of cold water to help cool, and stir cream mixture from time to time to prevent skin forming on top of cream. When mixture is room temperature, use it to fill tart shell. Or, cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for up to 8 hours.

Once tart shell has been filled with pastry cream, smooth it out with a spoon or spatula. Then add blueberries, and voila, the tart is ready to eat.

what's new.

Some of you may well be wondering "Just what is going on in Jessica's food life? Her absence is driving me mad, knowing that she's cooking up something delicious and refusing to share it (visually) with the rest of us. She's so selfish." Ha ha, I'm sure that evil thought has never crossed your innocent minds. Instead you may have chalked up my blog-absence to laziness. Now that's more like it!

To brief you all on what I've been up to, I have a quick pictoral collection of a few goodies I made over the past month or two. Or three. Listen! I came back from Europe bummed out in general to be back, so please! I'm finally coming out of the mourning period.

Vanilla applesauce cupcakes with strawberry frosting:

1 vanilla cake mix (from a box!)

I followed the recipe for the lowfat version of these cupcakes, which involved "no sugar added" applesauce in place of butter. The result: I couldn't tell the difference than if I had used butter. As long as you're using a chemical mix, might as well through in some fruit and kick up the vitamin quotient, right? The frosting was a concoction purely my own. Take a stick (or two) of (very) softened butter, add a tablespoon or two of vanilla extract, and 2-3 cups of powdered sugar. Stir together til ingredients form a smooth frosting-like substance. For the true strawberry flavor I poured half a cup of frozen strawberries into a blender, pulsing until they formed a puree. Then I add about a third of this mix to the frosting, stirring completely until well-mixed. This made for true strawberryliciousness. Believe me, you'll impress everybody with the intense flavor in this homemade frosting. And then for the big reveal before your crowd: there are two fruit involved in the making of this cupcake!

Oh, and well, I lied about the pictoral collection I was going to show you. I'll have to save the next few for upcoming blog posts. It'll give me a reason to keep on.

Baked samosas

A few nights ago I was sitting around, perusing my roommate's Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's cookbook and came upon this interesting recipe for Indian-style baked samosas. While I wasn't sure about the book--a lot of the "recipes" seem to involve emptying the contents of one TJ's item, like hummus, onto a plate and serving with TJ's organic baby carrots--this recipe caught my eye. It's essentially a rip-off of the Moosewood cookbook's vegetarian samosa recipe, but they've adapted it to involve those pre-washed/peeled/cut sweet potatoes and frozen TJ peas. I was inspired by the simple crust recipe, involving nothing more than flour and buttermilk, and adapted the already-adapted recipe into my own version. I made samosas with the sweet potato/pea filling and a second version of my own creation, a sort of curried ground turkey meat filling with onions and raisins. This raisins balance the spice and saltiness of the curried meat perfectly. Once you make the crust, whose buttermilk lends a gentle tang to the dough, you are free to create just about any filling you wish. Both of these are winners though, in case you're tempted to try them!

Baked Samosas, adapted from Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's, by Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati, Brown Bag Publishers, 2007.

Buttermilk crust

2 1/2 c white flour

1 c buttermilk (or plain yogurt--not fat-free)

1/2 tsp salt

Sweet potato filling

1 large sweet potato, or 2 smaller ones

1/2 c frozen peas

dash of coriander (dried)

dash of cumin

fresh chopped cilantro (can omit if unavailable)

Curried ground turkey filling

1/2 cup raw ground turkey

1/4 c minced onion

2 tbsp raisins

pinch salt

1 tbsp curry powder

*pepper, coriander, cumin should be added to taste

oil

To make the crust:

Mix flour and salt in a medium bowl and then create a well in the middle. Pour in buttermilk and stir the mixture until the dough forms a ball. Add a little flour if dough is too sticky, but remember that dough should be soft. Cover with plastic and set aside in fridge for 30 minutes to an hour while preparing the filling(s).

To prepare the sweet potato filling:

Wash sweet potatoes and place in a pyrex or microwave-safe dish. Use a knife to make cuts in the raw potatoes. Then cover the dish tightly with plastic wrap. Place in microwave and cook on high. This may take from 6 to 11 minutes. When cooked/soft throughout, remove sweet potato, and peel when cool enough to handle. In a small bowl, mash the cooked sweet potato with a fork, and stir in the frozen peas and spices. Set aside--in fridge if samosa assembly will be further delayed.

To prepare turkey filling:

Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a frying pan on the stove. Add minced onion and let cook for a minute over medium heat. Add turkey meat and break up with spatula to avoid large clumps of meat from forming. Once meat loses its pinkish hue throughout, add curry powder and additional spices. Once mixture is thoroughly combined, add raisins. Remove from heat and let cool.

To assemble and bake the samosas:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove dough from fridge. Break the dough evenly into about 10 small balls. Roll (or flatten with your hands) each one out to be about 6 inches in diameter. Smaller balls will work too; the dough will just be thicker and you can fit less filling in each one. Place about a heaping tablespoon of your filling of choice into each samosa. Fold the dough over the filling to create mini crescents, and press the edges of the dough firmly together to close off. Place samosas on a greased or floured baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until slightly golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 minutes before serving. Best served with mango chutney!

*Note on the cookbook: Bizarrely, the authors of this Trader Joe's book have nothing to do with the company, and merely set out to create as many recipes as they could with the products that Trader Joe's carries. A nice idea, (think "stuff white people like") but one problem with trying to follow all the recipes is the lack of consistency in TJ's store-to-store stock. The authors have a nice-looking recipe for Green Garbanzo Salad, but I was only able to purchase frozen green garbanzos at TJ's for one week at the Geary/Masonic San Francisco location in 2007. They were great, but unfortunately, one bag was all I got. This book could just as easily be called "easy weeknight dinners;" you can buy the same products at a different grocer and probably get the same results from the recipes.

Faux Coussins de Lyon

I am a glutton, a gourmande, a golosa. In any language, the fact is, I love sweets and will not pass up an opportunity to eat sugar spun into a fancy confection. When I traveled with my parents to Lyon in 2002 or 2003, we discovered the city's historical sweet: the coussin de Lyon (or pillow of Lyon). This marvelous treat does look like a miniature pillow fit for royalty. The center is a rich ganache with a splash of curaçao or other liqueur (the recipe for the coussin is under lock and key, and noone except the confectionery who produces it know the exact recipe. There are coussin knock-offs as well, and I don't think their recipes are well-known either.). The ganache is surrounded by a layer of almond paste that is finely candied on the top. The pillow is distinguished with its pale aqua-green color and a fine stripe of darker green running down the length. It's an intense bite. It'll cost you, too. I figure that with the dollar so low right now, I'll end up paying more than three dollars per square inch coussin (when I go to France and hunt down a bag of these later in May). But those are the lengths I like to go to for sweets.

According to Wikipedia (and my loose translation), in 1643, the mayors of Lyon decided to plead to the Virgin Mary to spare the town from the plague epidemic. In so doing, they lit a 7 pound wax candle and put a gold piece on a silk pillow (is it just me, or does something here not make sense?). Jump forward over 300 years to 1960, where the Lyonnais chocolatier Voisin decided to make a candy in the shape of very same pillow. Well, that's one theory, anyway.

The exterior is hard, with its crystallized sugar coating. Take a bite and the candy softens into ganache, with the flavors of almond, orange, and chocolate coming through.

I ran out of my last bag of these candies shortly following a trip to Nice in 2006, where I've actually found some of the best coussins de Lyon. It's been over two years, and with the European trip looming, I'm looking forward to more of them, at any cost, as I mentioned. But there's a blip in my waiting period for coussins. Last weekend I went to the Fillmore Street's Patisserie Delanghe, a French bakery that is less well-known than the neighboring French rival/giant Bay Bread/Boulangerie. (The pastries looked less glamorous at Delanghe, the croissants forming a less-than-perfect crescent, providing less reason to spend $2.75 for just one.) But then I turned to the second pastry case where the fancy cakes and pastry puffs with hardened caramel sit. Underneath those I saw a platter of the little chocolate logs, one of which is pictured above. As far as I know, these have no official name. The cashier called them marzipans, which they are. But they're more, and they're perhaps the closest thing I've tasted to a coussin lyonnais.

One of these rouleaux (rolls, as I've taken to calling them) was not enough for me, so I went back the next day for another. This time, M Delanghe was working alone. He didn't notice me when I entered the shop, and was in fact reading a magazine. Lazy Sunday! I took a minute to admire the French authenticity of it all--the patissier relaxing, paying no notice to a customer. Who am I to trouble him, after all? Finally, he took his notice of me and walked over to greet me with a pleasant smile.

"Could I get two of those--those rouleaux?" I stammered, eager to impress with my French accent.

He gazed over the countertop at the other pastry case to see what I was talking about, but I was met only with his blank stare.

"Those rouleaux, the little logs." Silence. "The marzipan." I finally said, remembering the cashier's name for them. "They remind me of the coussins de Lyon," I went on, trying to get something out of him, a sign of recognition, or acknowledgment that I was in on the secret--he was creating his own version of the coussins. How many people know about the coussins outside of France? I thought. I've even met French people who don't know what they are. I was futilely looking for a connection to this French baker.

"Ah, they remind you of the coussins de Lyon," he repeated with a playful smile, and pulled two of the freshest looking marzipans off the plate and put them into a pastry bag for me.

"Three-Ninety." He asked for the cash.

That's $1.95 each, much less than the actual coussin will cost me in France, and twice its size. I didn't figure out what the patissier meant that day, if he knew what the coussins are (I am fairly certain that he did, if he's an expert in his craft) or if he thought I was trying to say something in French but had no clue. "She thinks my candy tastes like the pillows in Lyon?! Stupid girl!" Perhaps he thought the less of me. But I don't care. I'll go back again for these--probably a couple of times--before my trip to France.

Actual coussins de Lyon in a fancy "pillow" case.

Crab Cakes

Good evening friends! I regret to inform you that I forgot to take a picture of this evening's crab cakes. Let that be a testament to their mouth-watering, pan-fried and crispy golden glow coming off the pan. They offered no choice but to be eaten immediately. In lieu of a picture, I have a recipe. I began by following a recipe from this month's Olive magazine (a BBC publication), throwing in my own touches and changing the recipe along the way. You can pretty much get away with whatever you want where crab cakes are concerned. Use fresh chopped onion if you have it, or dried, and throw in dried or fresh herbs as desired.

Crab Cakes for Two
2 tins crab meat (120 grams each)
1 heaping tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 egg, beaten
1 tsp sweet smoky paprika
1 dash dried onion pieces
1/2-3/4 c bread crumbs (I used matzoh meal)
pepper
cayenne
1 lemon, cut into wedges

Drain crab meat, then add to a bowl along with all the ingredients and mix thoroughly with spoon or hands. Make sure mixture clings together in one large clump. Then divide into 6 individual "cakes." Place cakes onto a plate or baking sheet and press down slightly to flatten. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes to firm.

Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet (or frying pan). When hot, add crab cakes and cook over medium high heat, adjusting if cakes seem to brown too quickly on the bottom. (Add more oil upon flipping cakes; this will help prevent them from sticking to pan.) Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove from stove and serve warm, with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

Suggested accompaniment: Baked sweet potatoes.