As you may have guessed, dinner wasn’t at home tonight.
I was cooking for a private event at Willow Park, a wine tasting with food paired at each station. The satay, meatballs and salmon were nothing new, but I hadn’t made gougères before. Gougères are choux pastry - cream puffs - with cheese stirred into the batter and baked into these unbelievable little cheesy puffs. That was paired with the bubbly to begin, and they were fantastic warm from the oven.
Choux pastry is actually incredibly easy to make, and there’s no need to pipe it out onto your baking sheet. Dropped from a spoon, they turn out beautifully rustic.
Mike shopped, and picked up some Swiss gruyère, which I requested and is traditional for gougères, but the theme last night was Canadian food. Oops. So I made a trial batch in the morning at home using the gruyère, and as they baked and filled the house with that cheesy gruyere smell, my 5 year old nephew, Ben, ran upstairs saying “Julie! Something doesn’t smell very good!” and then proceeded to gag and dry heave - seriously, and not even for dramatic effect - until the gougères came out of the oven and cooled down and the smell dissipated. When W tried one it quickly came back up and he tried desperately to wipe the taste off his tongue. So my point is, choose your cheese carefully. At the event, I made a couple batches using grated old Sylvan Star gouda (made in Alberta!) and they were wonderful.
Gouda or Gruyère Gougères
1 1/2 cups coarsely grated Gruyère or old Gouda cheese
For pâte à choux:
1 cup water
1/2 cup unsalted or salted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 tsp. salt (if using unsalted)
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups grated Gouda or gruyère
In a saucepan bring water and butter to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down to low and add flour all at once, then stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from side of pan.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time with an electric mixer on high speed, beating well after each addition. The batter should have the consistency and colour of thick pudding; thicker than cake batter but thinner than cookie dough.
Preheat oven to 375°F and spray two baking sheets with nonstick spray or line them with parchment paper. Stir the cheese into the pâte à choux and spoon about a tablespoon at a time an inch apart on baking sheets. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until puffed, golden and crisp. Gougères keep, chilled in sealable plastic bags, 2 days or frozen 1 week. Reheat gougères uncovered in a preheated 350°F oven for 10 minutes if chilled or 15 minutes if unthawed frozen. You must serve gougères warm.
Makes about 2 dozen.
Chicken Satay
1 1/2 lb. skinless, boneless chicken or turkey breast
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 small onion, grated (optional)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
bamboo skewers
Cut chicken lengthwise into strips and place in a bowl or zip lock bag. Combine all the marinade ingredients and pour over the chicken; toss well to coat and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.
Thread the chicken onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water for at least 10 minutes. Grill or broil for a few minutes on each side, until just cooked through. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold with peanut sauce for dipping.
Makes about 20 satay.
Per satay: 46 calories, 0.7 g total fat (0.2 g saturated fat, 0.2 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 8 g protein, 1.5 g carbohydrate, 20 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 14% calories from fat.
The panna cotta spoons are one of my favourite things to make at functions like these; Willow Park has a drawerful of Chinese soup spoons, and so I stir up a batch of panna cotta (the easiest dessert on the planet - honestly, it’s just cream Jell-O) and pour it into the soup spoons - 1L of cream turns out about 60 of the things - and chill. When they are about halfway set, I sit a fresh raspberry in the middle of each one - just so that they don’t roll around on the surface. I learned this from experience. You end up with one perfect, slurpy bite of panna cotta.
Classic Vanilla Panna Cotta
Do these in individual martini glasses, ramekins or Chinese soup spoons. A good variation is maple-blueberry panna cotta: replace the honey with pure maple syrup and put blueberries on top.
1 package plain gelatin (or 1 Tbsp. if you buy it in bulk)
1 L half & half or 18% coffee cream
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract or a vanilla bean
Fresh raspberries or blueberries, for on top
Pour about a cup of the cream into a medium pot and sprinkle the gelatin over the surface. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the gelatin soften.
Set the pot over medium heat and stir, without letting the cream boil, until the gelatin is completely dissolved. This should take 2-3 minutes. (If you are using a whole vanilla bean, cut it in half lengthwise using the tip of a sharp knife and scrape the seeds out and add it to the cream, along with the scraped pod.)
Add the rest of the cream, the honey and sugar and cook for another 5 minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
If you used a vanilla bean, remove the pod. Pour the mixture into individual wine glasses, small dishes, ramekins or soup spoons. Put them in the fridge for at least 2 hours, until set. Top with berries.
Serves about 8, or makes about 60 soup spoons.
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June 25 2008 | appetizers and dessert and sweet stuff | 3 Comments »
And we didn’t even order in! I was mighty proud of myself for pulling off the daal and naan, although later on not so proud anymore, having eaten the better part of four fresh naan breads warm from the skillet. Not a good idea. My only consolation was that the rest of the meal consisted entirely of vegetables.
This whole Indian theme came about because I’ve been buying far more tomatoes than is absolutely necessary, and as a result have a few going wrinkly on top of my breadbox. Once, when we lived in Vancouver about 5 years ago, I made a potato curry from my friend Tahera Rawji’s cookbook Simply Indian, and because I didn’t have any crushed tomatoes I whizzed a couple of tomatoes in the food processor that were at the time going wrinkly on my minescule Vancouver countertop. It was one of those minor events that lodged itself firmly in my brainpan, and now whenever I see an aging tomato, I want curried potatoes.
Tomato Curried Potatoes
a variation of “Potato Curry” in Simply Indian
4-5 Yukon gold or baby new potatoes, cut into large chunks (I don’t bother to peel them - a bonus when you use thin-skinned potatoes like YG)
canola oil, for cooking
1 cup crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, or 2 tomatoes pureed in the food processor
2 tsp. paprika
1 1/2 tsp. curry powder or paste
1 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
Boil the potatoes until tender. In a large skillet, heat a drizzle of oil and add the potatoes; toss them around a bit. Add the tomatoes, paprika, curry powder, chili powder, sugar and salt and cook for 5-10 minutes, until the potatoes are well coated and the extra moisture has cooked off.
Serves 4.
Also, I had the most enormous cauliflower you ever saw left over from Ramsay Rocks, where it was supposed to go onto the veggies and dip tray in the volunteer’s tent. I hardly ever buy cauliflower. I’m not a huge fan. Or I wasn’t; I am now. My favorite way to cook any kind of veg is to roast it, so why not cauliflower? I gave it a try, and even W liked it. To roast cauliflower, separate it into florets and toss with canola or olive oil and salt; spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and roast at 450°F for about half an hour, until it’s all golden and charred.
The daal was something I flipped past en route to the curried potato recipe; it had me at the first line: “in a large saucepan with plenty of water, bring to a boil and cook lentils until overdone and mushy.” Hey, I can do that. Beyond that, the recipe pointed me in the right direction and I went on my way. This is definitely a keeper. Funny that I’ve never made this before, but looking at the recipe it seems so completely obvious.
Daal Curry
1 1/2 cups dried orange lentils
canola oil, for cooking
1 large onion, chopped
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. curry paste or powder
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2-1 cup half & half or evaporated milk or coconut milk (optional)
1/2 tsp. garam masala (optional)
a handful of cilantro, chopped (optional)
Put the lentils in a pot and boil for 15-20 minutes, until very well done and mushy. Drain. Meanwhile, heat a good drizzle of oil and sauté the onions until dark golden. Add the tomatoes and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the curry paste, sugar, chili powder, and salt, then the lentils and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the half & half and cook until it has the consistency you want - they can be runny, or thicken up if you cook it for a few more minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the garam masala, then sprinkle with cilantro, if you like. Serves 4-6.
The tangy, pillowy naan is from Tahera’s book. It seemed at first to be a little over the top to make naan from scratch, but then again it isn’t any different than making pizza dough. Next time, I’ll brush the outside of the rolled dough with melted butter spiked with garlic before cooking it, and I am so using this as a base for Indian-influenced pizzas on the barbecue. Tandoori chicken, perhaps?
Naan
a variation from Simply Indian
1/2 cup warm water
2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1 tsp. sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg, beaten
5 Tbsp. powdered milk (optional - I didn’t use any)
5 Tbsp. plain yogurt
melted butter or oil, for frying
In a large bowl, stir together the water, yeast and sugar and let stand for 5 minutes, until foamy. If it doesn’t foam, the yeast is inactive; toss it out!
Stir in the flour, salt, canola oil, egg and powdered milk, and stir until almost combined. Add the yogurt and work into a soft, pliable dough.
Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled in size; about an hour or two.
Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and on a lightly floured surface, roll out each piece into an oval. Brush both sides with melted butter or oil. (Tahera instructs to brush one side with butter, the other with milk.)
Cook each naan in a very hot skillet until blistered and cooked, flipping as necessary.
Makes 6-8 naan.
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June 24 2008 | beans and bread and veg and vegetarian | 5 Comments »
Since I was 15 and hung out at Earls with my friend J, who had a real job as a busgirl there, back in the day of the giant papier-mâché parrots and green and white umbrellas and Mocha Kahlúa Pie, I have been a fan of their Hot Chicken Caesar Salad. That is, until I discovered that (not really suprisingly) one contains 1120 calories and 77 grams of fat. Only 12 saturated, but still… and then there’s the 1531 mg of sodium. So. I figure for that price, I might as well get a burger and fries out of the deal.
But I still do love Caesar salad, and today it occurred to me that it would make good use of the bag of frozen shrimp that I so often call into service on days like today when I haven’t really planned anything. It would have made good use of a deli roasted chicken, too.
The chunk of leftover baguette I had frozen was chopped, tossed with canola oil and toasted in a 400 degree oven to make croutons, an essential part of any Caesar. (I would have sprinkled them with some garlic powder or salt if I had any. If I wasn’t so lazy, I would have pressed a clove of garlic into the oil that I tossed the bread chunks in.) The shrimp came cooked in a bag, and only needed thawing under running water in a colander.
For the dressing, I consulted my salad binder (I have 14 binders full of recipes I’ve been collecting over the years, plus a yellow milk crate, plus assorted surfaces throughout the house, plus my computer, plus about ten thousand cookbooks - I exaggerate only slightly) and sort of morphed a bunch of Caesar dressing recipes together. I wish I had a tube of anchovy paste - I love anchovies in my Caesars - but it’s not something I normally keep on hand. The dressing was good, if a little lemony… I know a lot of people like it like that, but I’ve never been one to squeeze that wedge of lemon over my salad. Next time I think I’ll try half lemon, half balsamic vinegar, for a creamy but balsamic-y Caesar dressing. A roasted head of garlic would have been fantastic, too.
In fact, next time I think I’ll try grilling whole hearts of Romaine like they used to do at that restaurant over on 4th Street, and grill the shrimp, and maybe even grill oil-brushed and garlic-rubbed bread to tear into croutons, too.
Caesar Dressing
1/4 cup lemon juice (or half lemon juice, half balsamic vinegar)
1/4 cup low fat mayo
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, finely crushed
2 tsp. grainy (or not) Dijon mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
lots of freshly ground black pepper
Whisk it all together in a bowl or shake it up in a jar.
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June 23 2008 | salads and seafood | 3 Comments »
Who remembers this?
Sturdy Danny McGee was up his fifty-ninth tree; he said “I work as fast as I can” when he suddenly saw two scoops of raisins in a package of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran! Well he rushed to the ground ’cause ol’ Danny had found what’s important to a raisin fan, ’cause Kellogg’s puts two scoops of raisins in those nutritious flakes of bran! When he got to the truck Danny sure was in luck, he was one happy man ’cause only Kellogg’s puts two scoops of raisins in a package of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran!
This is the (completely unedited) self portrait W took as I was trying to photograph the bowl of cereal we were sharing.
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June 22 2008 | leftovers | 3 Comments »
Happy birthday Dad.
It was a potluck last night for my Dad’s birthday; ribs by his request, and potato salad, and we filled it out with corn and greens and asparagus.
To be honest, I passed on the potato salad, which my sister had thoughtfully made with fat-free Miracle Whip in consideration of my Dad’s high cholesterol, and which as a result had that unappealing translucent sheen to it. It did remind me though that I need to make roasted potato salad soon in order to illustrate my favourite cooking method for potato salad: roasting, which not only adds far more flavour and a better texture than boiling (which would you rather eat on its own?) but creates this crispy crust that doesn’t allow the potatoes to absorb as much mayo as they otherwise would, had they been boiled. If you really want to win friends and influence people, you could cook a few slices of bacon and then roll the potato chunks around in some oil and the bacon drippings before roasting them. You then of course add the crumbled bacon back to the salad along with the chopped celery, hard boiled egg, and all that.
My Mom had been to the market and bought some kettle corn, which we all picked at while preparing dinner. So it wasn’t homemade, but I do have a recipe anyway:
Kettle Corn
This is a little more caramelly than regular kettle corn, but it’s the same perfect marriage of salty, sweet and crunchy. It’s really fast and easy to make when you need a caramel corn fix.
1 bag light butter-flavored microwave popcorn, popped
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. water
1 tsp. butter
Place the popcorn in a large bowl. If you like, spray the bowl first with nonstick spray to keep it from sticking.
Combine sugar, water and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes, swirling pan occasionally but not stirring, until the sugar is deep golden. Immediately pour over the popcorn and quickly stir to coat. Tongs work great for this!
Cool and eat. (It’s usually cool enough for me by the time I get from the kitchen to the living room.)
Per serving, divided by 4: 200 calories, 3.7 g total fat (0.6 g saturated fat, 3 g monounsaturated fat, 0 g polyunsaturated fat), 2.1 g protein, 40.7 g carbohydrate, 2.6 mg cholesterol, 0 g fiber. 16% calories from fat
Chocolate Popcorn: once the sugar is deep golden, quickly stir in 2 tbsp. cocoa and pour over the popcorn, tossing to coat.
Banana Split Popcorn Mix: add 1 cup banana chips, 1/2 cup dried cherries, 1/2 cup peanuts and 1/4 cup chocolate chips to the cooled popcorn.
Dad also requested a flourless sunken chocolate cake, one he remembered having years ago that he described as “meringue-y”, which my Mom had found in a magazine that has since been packed away in preparation for their move. So she flipped through her Joy of Cooking and found another sunken chocolate cake, which was not at all meringue-y but made with a full pound of bittersweet chocolate, no flour and very little sugar, it was as my sister described: “like chocolate fudge sauce in cake form”. But not puddingy; very dense, and softly, finely crumbly, and just intense. Like the very best kind of chocolate cake (I’m not really a fan of traditional chocolate cakes), it was perfect with ice cream and berries. It very nearly didn’t happen at all after one of the grandkids (not mine) spooned a big glop of melted chocolate into her ten carefully separated egg whites just as she was about to beat them to stiff peaks (she doubled the recipe to feed 8 adults and 3 kids).
Flourless Chocolate Decadence
from the 1997 Joy of Cooking, page 960
1 lb. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
10 Tbsp. butter, cut into pieces (although I suspect you could get away with much less)
5 large eggs, separated
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 Tbsp. sugar
Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and fresh berries, for serving
Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease an 8″ or 9″ round cake pan, then line the bottom with a circle of parchment or waxed paper.
Put the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl, and set it over a pot of simmering water. Stir until melted and smooth.
Separate the eggs, being careful not to get any yolks in the whites. Whisk the yolks into the melted chocolate. Beat the whites along with the cream of tartar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar and continue beating until the eggs are stiff but not dry.
Using a rubber spatula, fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture about a third at a time, being careful not to deflate the eggs. (Don’t worry if the mixture is still a little streaky.) The recipe instructs to put the pan into another pan and pour enough boiling water into the outer pan to come halfway up the side of the cake pan, but since it was doubled and divided among three 8″ pans, my mom didn’t have a big enough roasting pan, and dinner was ready, and so we just threw them in the oven as is and they were just fine.
Bake for “exactly 30 minutes”. The recipe further says that the top of the cake will have a thin crust and the middle will be gooey, which it was not. I don’t think I’d want it gooey though, now that I’ve had it thoroughly cooked through. It also tells us to refrigerate overnight, which we obviously didn’t do; rather, the cake was warm when we served it, and delicious.
Serve with whipping cream or vanilla ice cream and fresh berries. Serves 10-12.
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June 22 2008 | cake and snacks | 1 Comment »
