This morning I was pummeled awake at 7 am by a 3 year old and his 65 pound puppy. It was chilly and rainy and grey, so I pulled on my big brown socks with the orange stripes (damn sexy, they are) and went downstairs, made oatmeal for W, put on his beloved (and very dated) Green Eggs and Ham DVD, and made cream puffs.
Today is the day for my Daring Bakers challenge - and this month our assignment was chocolate eclairs. Happy is the day when someone else tells me I have to make eclairs, absolving me of any guilt.
When I was a kid, I literally used to fantasize about chocolate eclairs. I would choose a cream-filled chocolate eclair over almost anything; it seemed to me the biggest and best thing with the most elements - doughnut, chocolate and cream. If the choice was between cream puffs and Nanaimo bars, I would have had a hard time. Fortunately I can’t remember ever being in that predicament.
It turned into a good eating day, albeit an extraordinarily unhealthy one; kind of like Christmas and my birthday all at once. Mike and I got to be judges at the BBQ on the Bow barbecue competition this afternoon - our categories were chicken and pork ribs - a tough job, but somebody’s gotta. So we sampled 6 barbecue teams’ chicken and 5 teams’ ribs - each judge is given a large baggie so that he/she may take just a nibble and then doggie-bag the rest, but you must all know by now I’m not one for restraint. I made another judge laugh so hard a rib almost came out her nose when I scarfed down our first in its entirety while everyone else sniffed and licked and pondered their dainty bites. (We weren’t allowed to talk - it was like laughing at your friend in math class, which made it even funnier.)
That was mid-afternoon, and afterward we were so cold and damp that we needed big cafe mochas, and then ate a few handfuls of Glossette peanuts at Mom & Dad’s when we went to pick up W. We were then supposed to go for a barbecue at C & J’s, and my plan was to pile the cream puffs into a rough mountain and stick a sparkler in the tippy-top one for J’s belated birthday, but the party got rained out and we got stuck at home with an entire batch of freshly made eclairs. NOT GOOD. Unless you’re one of our neighbours. So I guess dinner was a long procession of chicken, ribs, Glossette peanuts, cafe mochas and chocolate eclairs with espresso-mascarpone cream. Talk about the stuff dreams are made of.
Under the motto Culinary Liberty for All, we were given the freedom to do what we liked with our eclairs, provided at least one chocolate element remained. I chose to keep the chocolate glaze and fill them with a mascarpone cream. (I didn’t want to stray too far from a creamy filling; I’m fairly picky when it comes to fillings, especially of the creamy sort. It was always a disappointment to find them filled with some sort of pudding. I even prefer real cream to pastry cream.) And when I went to the Italian market to pick up my tub of mascarpone, it occurred to me that the cherry preserves I always pick up while there (for some reason I can buy a jar of morello cherry jam at many small ethnic groceries for around $2.50) would go just swell; especially if I swirled the cherry jam throughout the mascarpone-cream mixture, then I’d really have morello cherry-mascarpone fool, which sounds so much more elaborate, don’t you think? But for some reason I was set on a chocolate-espresso combination, so I made those. And then I quickly beat a little more whipping cream and swirled in some cherry jam, just to try it. Yet more evidence of my complete infatuation with eclairs and food in general.
You could use any pate au choux recipe to make cream puffs, but we used Pierre Hermé’s, from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé, written by Dorie Greenspan. Here are my immediate thoughts:
- I don’t like having to make one recipe in order to make another (in this case, a specific chocolate sauce in order to use 7 tablespoons of it - not 1/2 cup, but 7 tablespoons - to make the chocolate glaze, when you don’t need the chocolate sauce for anything else) - instead I mixed up a batch with just chocolate, cream and honey; the recipe is below
- I’ve made choux pastry many a time using just water, butter, flour and eggs, so I didn’t see the need for whole milk mixed with the water - I used 1%, because that’s what was in my fridge, and it worked just fine
- I also don’t see the need for unsalted butter, especially since you’re adding 1/4 tsp. salt anyway; I used salted butter and omitted the salt
- anytime you make cream puffs of any shape, pierce them through their sides as soon as they come out of the oven, otherwise they tend to collapse on themselves as they cool
- you don’t need things like a pastry bag or metal icing spatula. You can use a big ziploc bag and cut off the corner to pipe out your dough, and I drizzled the glaze overtop using the whisk I used to make it
I hope they don’t kick me out of the Daring Bakers for my delinquency.
Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé
(from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé)
Éclairs consist of 3 elements:
- Pâte à Choux (also known as choux pastry or cream puff dough)
- Pastry Cream (or other cream filling - in my case, mascarpone cream)
- Chocolate glaze
Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough
½ cup (125 mL) whole milk
½ cup (125 mL) water
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature
In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the boil.
Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough will be very soft and smooth. (And it will have pulled away from the sides of the pan.)
Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.
The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs.
Preheat your oven to 375F. Divide the oven into thirds by positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with waxed or parchment paper.
Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough. (Alternatively, you could use a heavy-duty ziploc bag and snip a chunk off the corner to squeeze the batter out.) Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inch chubby fingers. Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff. The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.
Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep it ajar. After 5 more minutes, when the éclairs have been in the oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking time should be approximately 20 minutes.
The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling. (Careful not to seal them in a plastic bag, which will make them go soft.)
Mascarpone Cream
1 8 oz. container mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. instant espresso, dissolved in 1 Tbsp. water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup whipping cream
Using electric mixer, beat the mascarpone, sugar, espresso and vanilla . Add 1/2 cup cream; beat until soft peaks form. Add the rest of the cream and beat until thick and stiff. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour or up to 5 hours.
(My) Chocolate Glaze
3/4 cup whipping or coffee (18%) cream
6 oz. chocolate, chopped
1 Tbsp. honey or corn syrup
Bring the cream to a simmer in a saucepan; take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate and honey. Let it sit to allow the warmth of the cream to melt the chocolate, stir until smooth and use immediately.
Chocolate Glaze
(from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé)
1/3 cup (80 mL) heavy cream
3½ oz (100 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
7 Tbsp. (110 mL) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature
In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula. Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.
Chocolate Sauce
(from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé)
4½ oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup water
½ cup crème fraîche, or heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
Place all the ingredients into a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens. It may take 10-15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.
Makes 1 1/2 cups.
To assemble the éclairs:
Slice them horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.
The glaze should be barely warm to the touch and spreadable. Spread (or drizzle) the glaze over the tops of the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the bottoms with the pastry cream.
Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream and wriggle gently to settle them.
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August 31 2008 | dessert and sweet stuff | 6 Comments »
I know, it doesn’t seem much like a Saturday-night-of-the-last-long-weekend-of-the-summer dinner; I would have expected something more celebratory, but in reality it’s sort of cool and grey and I spent the day helping my parents pack (they are moving next week) and working on various assignments, so dinnertime wasn’t much of an occasion anyway. I had a lot of produce that needed to be used up, and not much gumption to come up with a creative use for them.
The easiest way to use up a yukkaflux of veg, in my mind at least, is to chop them all up, spread them on a rimmed cookie sheet, toss them with oil, salt and pepper and roast them (450F for half an hour or so, depending on the type of veg you use and how finely you chop); the resulting roasted veg would do well in a lasagna, or spread onto pizza, or turned into pasta salad. What we often do (have I yet this year? I can’t remember) is scrape all the crispy-sweet vegetables into a bowlful of couscous, and crumble in some feta. When I went to pull the couscous off my shelf I realized I had none. Unusual, especially when you consider the sheer number of bulk-section plastic bags full of grains and pastas and lentils in my cupboard. I dug around and located 3 bags and one jar of quinoa (pronounce it keen-wah, so tried it that way instead. It worked out just fine, and was probably for the best, nutritionally speaking. (Nothing wrong with couscous, but it’s just itty nubbins of pasta, so unless you buy whole wheat it doesn’t do a whole lot for you. Quinoa, on the other hand, is a nutritional superstar.)
You have to wash quinoa in three changes of water to get rid of any bitter residue; after that, boil it like you would pasta - in lots of water, for about 20 minutes, until the grains are tender and the little rings around them kind of separate from the grains. There are no measurements here - I diced a small sweet potato, two red peppers, a small zucchini, three already-roasted beets I had in my fridge (wrap them in foil and slip them into the oven when it’s on for something else - I think I put them in with the vegetable lasagna - then put the foil package right into the fridge and they’re there when you need them), and the peeled cloves from half a head of garlic. I put the zucchini in about halfway through since it’s far more fragile, and had I had a purple onion I would have added it too. The roasted beets, also, went in at the end, since they were already roasted and would otherwise turn the whole lot purple. Not that it matters, but it is having its photo taken. I ended up with a rimmed baking sheet-full, and cooked 1/3 cup of quinoa, and about 1/3 cup of crumbled feta, and it was far more than enough for the two of us.
Also - we didn’t eat all the veg; I pulsed half in the food processor with some jarred tomato sauce and poured it over spaghetti for W. The beets in the sauce turned the pasta a creepy red, but W didn’t seem to notice. The rest will make a nice pizza tomorrow.
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August 30 2008 | grains and one dish and vegetarian | 2 Comments »
Aw shucks you guys.
I am starting to realize that I of course have the option to continue on with this blog despite its expiry date; my worry, I think, is whether or not I’ll keep on top of it when I don’t really have to, without the overlying obligation to post every single day. So much of the appeal is that I have to post every night, even when, like right now, Mike is sitting downstairs with the movie cued up and waiting for me to finish to start. That, and the nagging guilt that really if I’m going to spend time at something every day of my life, shouldn’t it be productive either in a financial way or promoting W’s healthy development? But then again people have all sorts of hobbies that they spend time and money on just because it’s fun.
So I had heard, or read, or seen someone roasting sausages with grapes at some point in the past year or so, and made a mental post-it note to try it sometime. Last weekend I was excited to bring a little cardboard basket of Concorde grapes home from the market. (When I got home, the interaction went something like this: Mike: “no way! Concorde grapes!” Me: “How did you remember that these were Concorde grapes?” Mike: “because they are the most awesome fruit in the world” - he earned a few bonus points in those few seconds, let me tell you.)
But they were a little on the sour side; a bit too hard-core for us to make it through half the basket, and when W ate one he blasted it back out like it was poison. (Not as violently, though, as he did the first time he ate a mouthful of olives, mistaking them for grapes. Mommy, those are angry grapes!) So a half basket of dark grapes thinking about going south is a perfect opportunity to put the aforementioned sausage experiment to the test.
It turned out to be one of the simplest things I’ve made, ever, and perfect for company, which we had for lunch. (Confession: this was technically lunch, but since it was consumed mid-afternoon and then we didn’t feel much like eating at dinnertime, save for a small stack of chocolate-covered digestive cookies and a bowl of Raisin Bran for W, and because we hardly ever eat lunches like this, I think it becomes dinner by default.) Twelve people came and went through the afternoon (half of them under 12), and this is as easy to make for 12 as it is for 2. I laid a base of grapes and about half a slivered purple onion in a baking pan and laid 8 big sausages overtop (mild and hot Italian, alternately, although I suspect any kind would do just fine), drizzled with a tad of oil (I don’t think this was necessary, but more an act of habit whenever I roast anything) and at the last minute thought to lay a few sprigs of rosemary on top.
The grapes, of course, gave up their juices along with the sausages, making a tangy sort of sauce to drizzle over them. Next time I’ll add a splash of balsamic, I think, and perhaps cook the sauce down to a stickier consistency after removing the sausages.
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To go with, roasted potatoes; since the sausages needed to roast for about 45 minutes at 400F, I just slid a rimmed baking sheet of chunked new potatoes tossed in oil underneath. Next time I’ll make smashed or mashed potatoes - a better vehicle I think for all that meaty sweet-sour sauce. I can’t wait to make this combo when it’s minus 30 outside. Maybe in January.
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August 29 2008 | one dish and pork | 5 Comments »
I don’t think I ate dinner tonight. I cooked dinner for 15 people at a private event in Red Deer (a class/dinner party at the Cooking Room) and before I left assembled a pulled pork pizza for the boys from a baggie of pulled pork I squirreled away on Tuesday morning before bringing the rest in to CBC.
The beauty of a pulled pork pizza is that the pork delivers the sauce as well, so all you need to do is spread it over the (whole wheat) crust and top it with some (part-skim, in this case) mozzarella and bake it. If you’re partial to cilantro, a bit is good on top once it’s out of the oven. I felt guilty enough about leaving for the evening that I couldn’t put something leafy and green on W’s dinner as well. (He will eat spinach, if it’s cooked and enveloped in pizza or pasta.)
I thought too much on the drive home, as usual, and got a little heavy-hearted upon realizing that a) it was almost midnight and although I was exhausted I still actually looked forward to writing a blog post before crawling into bed, and b) I only have 124 days left, and what am I going to do on January 1? After 365 days (and nights) of documenting dinner, will I even be able to stop? And do I even want to?
Mike suggested I continue on but with a weekly post, summing up the week’s eats and offering my few favourite recipes, but will that sour the real-time daily-news appeal? If I don’t do it every night, is there a point to it? And how can it possibly be the Labour Day weekend already? So much food, so little time.
Basic Pizza Crust
Pizza dough is a wonderfully versatile thing. I know you can buy pre-baked crusts at the grocery store for a few dollars, but pizza crust made from scratch is far better, costs practically nothing, and I find the process of mixing and kneading the dough by hand therapeutic. (Besides, Mike does it most of the time.) Once the dough has risen it can be twisted into bread sticks or pretzels, patted into focaccia, or topped with whatever you like and baked into a pizza or flatbread.
1 cup lukewarm water
1 pkg. (or 2 tsp.) active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar or honey
2 1/2 - 3 cups flour - all purpose, whole wheat, or any combination of the two (I usually use about 2 3/4 cups)
1 tsp. salt
a drizzle (1 tsp. - 1 Tbsp.) olive oil
In a large bowl, stir together the water, yeast and sugar; set aside for 5 minutes, until it’s foamy. (If it doesn’t get foamy, either your water was too hot and killed the yeast or it was inactive to begin with – toss it and buy fresh yeast or try again!)
Add 2 1/2 cups of the flour, salt and oil and stir until the dough comes together. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for about 8 minutes, until it’s smooth and elastic, adding a little more flour if the dough is too sticky.
Place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn to coat all over. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for about an hour, until doubled in bulk. If you want you can let it rise more slowly in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours.
Punch the dough down, cover again and let it rest for 5 minutes. Divide it in half and shape each into a circle (or make individual mini pizzas) and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprinkled with flour or cornmeal.
Spread the pizza dough with tomato sauce, sprinkle with desired toppings and bake at 450 F for 15-20 minutes, until bubbly and golden.
Makes enough dough for 2 - 9” pizzas, or one big rectangular one (I do these on a large rimmed baking sheet).
Per slice (based on 12 slices): 111 calories, 0.7 g total fat (0.1 g saturated fat, 0.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.2 g protein, 22.5 g carbohydrate, 0 mg cholesterol, 1.1 g fiber. 6% calories from fat.
To make flavored pizza dough: add a generous pinch of chopped fresh or dried basil, rosemary or oregano, a clove of minced garlic, a few finely chopped olives or sun dried tomatoes (if they come packed in oil, use it in place of the olive oil) or 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper along with the flour. Flavored pizza dough makes great breadsticks – roll the risen dough into sticks as thin or fat as you like, sprinkle with coarse salt or grated Parmesan cheese and bake until golden.
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August 28 2008 | bread and pork | 16 Comments »
I’m not really a steak and potatoes gal. Which isn’t to say I don’t love steak or potatoes; I just don’t come to a meal by considering the meat first and then filling the space around it with the requisite starch and veg. As you may have noticed over the past 239 (!) days, I tend toward meals that combine all elements into one.
Or maybe I’m just lazy.
But I was perusing Stephanie’s blog - she is using her Crockpot every night for a year (a braver soul than I, I think) and came across a recipe for a layered dinner - the name of which shot me straight back to the 70s - where you tuck your steak, potato and corn in the crockpot and leave for 7 hours, and come back to them all cooked. And it worked, technically, although it all came out roughly the same shade of beige, and was a litte… utilitarian. This photo gives it a little more justice than it likely deserves. It may be plasphemous to a nice steak, but low-slow heat works wonders on a cheap one. I told Mike to pick some up and he grabbed eye of round, which turned out a little on the dry and stringy side. This would be a great way to do bison, I think. I browned it quickly first in a bit of oil in a hot pan, just to give it colour and flavour. Whether a recipe instructs to or not, I generally brown meat before I throw it in the slow cooker; it makes a huge difference, flavour-wise.
The corn was grimly overdone, particularly where it had come in contact with the edge of the bowl; there it was dark, dry and shriveled. If I ever do it again, and I don’t arrive home five minutes before we eat, I’ll throw the corn in only for the last hour. However. I noticed just now that I was supposed to wrap the corn in foil; I had seen the same instructions for the potatoes and didn’t bother - the smallish, nubbly potatoes I threw in turned out wonderfully soft - and must have skimmed over the part that told me to wrap the corn too. Oops.
I also opted against the tequila, as tequila and I have not gotten along since the mid-90s, but did add a splash of stock and some Worcestershire sauce. So under these potatoes and veg, which I did nothing to besides wash and poke (the potatoes), are sitting on two steaks, over which I poured about 1/4 cup of chicken stock. I didn’t have onion flakes either, and was too lazy to slice a bit of onion into the mix. A few fresh garlic cloves would have gone well too. I cooked the lot on low heat for 8 hours, but probably could have gotten away with 6.
So today I’m Mary Tyler Moore, working all day in the newsroom and then coming home to a steak and potato dinner for my happy family.
I’m going to make it after all.
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August 27 2008 | beef and one dish and slow cooker | No Comments »
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