Macarons- The failure of.

Oh SO. It's been a long time-- what with computer issues, then Photoshop issues, well, I got lazy and complacent (I love that word-- sounds so fat and huggable).

Well, these macarons are something I am quite embarrassed to be blogging about, mostly because they are kind of the biggest failure ever (although not quite as epic as the time my souffle collapsed and turned green). Make matters worse, I cannot for the life of me find the recipe I followed (computer crash, etc.)

But anyways, let's talk about macarons, namely, how they are among my top favorite things EVER.

So once upon a time, I did not know about these little tiny masterpieces that they call macarons. I associated 'macaroons' with coconut flakes, which I absolutely detest, and so never thought it was something worth trying. But then, I was accepted to study abroad in Italy; while planning my journey, I chose to visit London first, since I had family there. And so, I bought this little travel guide, and found this entry on Harrod's Laduree branch. And lo, there were pictures of their famed macarons. And I was bespelled.

I wasn't able to try them the first time I was there, but upon my return journey, in the company of my dear friend J, I whizzed right in there and spent a ridiculous sum of money (About $8-$10, I think) on about four or five of those multi-colored miniature marvels.

It was the most glorious moment of my life. J and I sat in Hyde Park eating those tiny things and wishing we had ten more for each one we ate.

What are they? Beauty. Beauty in your mouth. Delicate, crisp shell on the outside, chewy, fragrant center sealed together with a thin layer of cream or jam. So light, so airy, so perfect.

So maybe I'm a little overboard, but well, hell. I've only got great memories associated with those things.

Until now. (I still love them though).

Me being me, I decided to try making them for my friend P's birthday.

I've lost the online recipe I've tried, but let me point you to Tartelette who makes and documents some amazing looking macarons.

And so, let's begin our disastrous journey.

Here were a couple things I started with.


The sugar and flour and-- mistake: the first-- orange peel zest. Never will I use zest again-- it cloyed up everything and I've been unable to wash the result off my measuring spoon.



Separating the yolk and whites turned out to be the easiest part of this whole recipe for me. Does that let you know how this goes?


I ended up making a really yolky omelet with these later.


Beat those egg whites!


This was how much I beat my whites. Mistake: the second. Definitely not enough, as it turned out later.


Noooot enough.... But the beater sure looks nice.


And here is the mixing in of almond meal. Guys, mistake: the third. USE ALMOND FLOUR.


First batch.... I thought it was bad, until the second batch (ugh, that was NIGHTMARE).


Ahhhhh, the second batch... I may or may not have wept deliriously trying to save them. It didn't work.


How the macarons looked right out of the toaster-- this was the good batch.


Watch me try to pry those motherlovers off an ungreased surface. Ouch.


Putting it alll together now.


In the box they go to P! I ended up transferring them to a plate. Note how at this point, I don't even care how they look, I'm so frustrated!




THIS WAS A SAD, SAD H guys. I am a bit horrified of how much I made a mess of things here! Okay so maybe they weren't thaaaat bad... P still gamely tried them and took them home, and at leas the first batch turned out okay-looking. Perhaps I will try it later, when I have a little more experience with baking under my belt!

Cheeeeze straws

SO I have my computer back, AND my pictures! I do not have Photoshop yet however, so the following pics might not be at their doctored best. But that's okay. These things still look pretty tasty au naturale.

I've been waiting to write about this one for awhile. I decided to try cheese straws, off a smitten kitchen recipe. They looked delicious, seemed pretty easy to make, and I had a whole lotta cheese and butter left over. Actually, I'm a sucker for cheeses, and I'm pretty positive that I eat so much of that stuff that I ate myself out of lactose intolerance (I am exaggerating there. If you do have LI, PLEASE don't eat more of it. Or at least stock up on the Lactaid!)

Here we go!

1.5 cups sharp cheddar (I have no clue what kind of cheese I used. My sisters called it bacon cheese-- I suspect it was some sort of smoked cheddar. Worked fine! Grating things are really time-consuming.)
4 tb butter
3/4 cups flour, plus more for dusting (I used wheat because I figured it'd be... healthier? Yeah, right. It was the only thing I had.)
1/2 tsp kosher salt (rrrrrregular salt. I'm no selmelier, and until someone explains to me why kosher salt is crucial to food making, I'm going to be penny pinching and using regular old salt. I'm very blasphemous, yes I know.)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tb half-and-half (used heavy whipping cream, since I had that leftover from my attempt at butter)

Oven's at 350 degrees.

Take a food processor and combine all the ingredients save the half-and-half in five 5 second pulses until resembles crumbs.



Well, I don't have a food processor. And you know what? It works just fine with your hands and the back of a spoon.



It's a bit chunky, but mleh. No food processor.

Anyhoo, add the half-and-half and process til you get a dough-ball, about 10 secs.



This pat of dough is a lie. I had to mix with my BARE HANDS to get it that way. It's fun getting down and dirty with food.

And then, flour a surface and roll that sucker out into ideally and 8 by 10 inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. I say ideally because I'm crap at that and my "8x10" turned into this:



Take a sharp knife and cut 8 inch strips about 1/4 to 1/3 inch wide. Dip knife into flour every so often to keep it going smooothly.



I will have you know, that I kind of did not do that. My strips turned out way way way too fatty. This will be relevant later!

Transfer those babies onto ungreased cookie sheet with about 1/4 inch between each(I also have no parchment. Know what I used? The dull side of foil. It works.) If it sags and breaks, no biggie. I... didn't have much problem with that, since my strips were fatty.



Bake on middle rack for 12-15 minutes, or til ends are browned. I have a toaster oven, so there's not much of a choice for racks.



Take 'em out, let 'em cool, then EAT IT OMNOM indeed.

Final verdict: I out of BITCH.

Why? TOO WIDE means that it wasn't cheese straw, but like, semi-biscuit-y cheesy cracker.

But It did taste like Cheez-its. Healthy, bacon-y, chewy Cheez-its.

I'd definitely make it again when I get the chance (i.e., when I have butter and cream and cheddar in my pantry again).

Update!

'Lo, guys.
So, I had recipes all set to post, but the Computer has been struck with vicious virus and out of commission for the past month. No worries, help is on his way, about an hour away, actually.

Meanwhile, this past month, I have:
Been to San Francisco
Visited Canada
Ate at Robert Pattinson's favorite restaurant in Vancouver. It was glorious!
Watched a frankly embarrassing amount of television.

No worries! Hopefully, by the latest next week, I'll have something new up.

ummmm meatballs?

Oh hey, Happy 4 of July btw. We're dodging the day and celebrating today with an extended fam bbq, but I've got some downtime waiting for all the relatives to show.

Anyways, I've been trying out quite a couple things, some which are definitely going up on this blog...

Today is the meatball recipe I mentioned last time... And since that time, I've forgotten most of the process of making it. I'll do my best!

We've got:
1 lb ground pork
white wine (rice wine!)
white pepper
salt
1/2 lotus root link
sesame seeds
oil

1. Give the pork a splash of rice wine, flavor with the pepper and salt and sesame seeds.



2. Take the lotus root and grate it. Mix into the pork.



3. Heat up some oil, maybe 3-4 tb, and wait til it's hot.
4. Wet your hands with water, and pinch up a bit of the pork, the size of a pingpong ball. Quickly alternate the ball between your palms so that it flattens out slightly and looks like a fat patty.



5. Lay it down in the grill and let it sizzle.



6. Flip it when the bottom starts turning brown-y.
7. To check if it's done, take something sharp (we used a chopstick) and poke it into the patty. When juice stops leaking out, you may remove from eat and eat it.



So anyways, you can also use this recipe for the more standard Chinese meatball- shaped into a ball, dropped into boiling water, eaten in a bowl lined with steamed cabbage leaf, etc. etc. And after having this, I think that's the better deal. Fried, it didn't taste bad, per se, but the texture was something not like hamburger patties.



So this is a T~H, because I doubt we will ever make this again but it wasn't exactly poisonous tasting either...

Apologies if this is rushed! The relatives are at the door as we speak!!

Coming up:
cheese straws and macarons

I can't believe it's BUTTER.

I decided to get in touch with my Laura Ingalls Wilder side and make my own butter with this ridiculous easy recipe included in the Tasting Table newsletter a couple weeks back. It's from the book Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it: And Other Cooking Projects which I think I might get, it looks like fun!

Anyways, butter! When we ran out after risotto, I was like 'we need more butter! But wait, what's the fun in buying huge sticks of it, when I have this lovely little freebie recipe that looks really simple to try? Also, if my sister could make butter in her kindergarten class with Ziploc bags, then honestly, how hard could it be?'

Funny thing about butter-- my family is pretty shy about using it. We nearly always substitute it with olive oil, that is, we tend to choose health over taste. When I told my mom and dad about making butter, they shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and sternly told me there was to be no such talk about That Substance in this house! Just kidding. But they did shake their heads and tell me not to bother.

Well anyways, I went ahead and made it. And at one point, accidentally dropped the whole bowl into the sink (thankfully, I'd just cleaned up the drain, and also was able to scoop most of it back into the jar and give it a shake with fresh water).

The result? I really can't believe it's butter!

Please refer to the pdf for the recipe. What it basically is though, is just heavy whipped cream that's been shaken for about thirty minutes. It's awesome.

Here's what you need:



Take one cup room temperature heavy whipping cream...


Stick it in a jar... (like my high school biology teacher once said, "You can use any jar... pickle jar... peanut butter jar... jelly jar... mayonnaise jar... canned goods jar... baby food jar..." I believe he was listing, in his slow, melancholy, seventy-year-old-slightly-senile manner the types of jars we could use to make killing jars for our bug project. Ah, high school.) I would recommend a bigger jar. You get more shake.


And now, shake it. Shake it like a 7.0 earthquake. Shake it like a bad kid (guys, please don't shake your children). Shake it like a goddamn Polaroid picture, hey freakin' ya. You'll be doing this for awhile twenty minutes. Take the opportunity to firm up your flabby biceps.


Initially, you'll just get a jar full of whipped cream-- completely coating the jar, and it won't really feel like anything's being shaken (I was too confuzzled by the lack of immediate results too take photos).

After about five~ten minutes, like the sun breaking out behind the clouds (something Southern California really needs right now... this June Gloom? Unreal), the stuff inside will separate into butter and buttermilk.


Hallelujah and praise be! We got ourselves some young butter. Anyways, pour out the buttermilk (yields a little less than 2/3 of a cup). Continue shaking and pouring out the buttermilk.

Then, add water, just enough to cover the butter, screw that cap on, and ready for this? Shake it. Pour out the water (down the sink. I feel I need to clarify that, because the lack of direction in the recipe confused me). Add more. Shake it again.


Repeat until the water is clear (for me, I did it about five times, mostly 'cause I'm a paranoid child).


Finally, spoon into a bowl, add salt if you're so inclined, and set in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. And that's it!


So the butter that turned out is kind of harder than store bought, but it's otherwise exactly the same, and we've already used it to butter biscuits, cook oyster mushrooms (that is one recipe of my mom's I need to weasel outta her), and do other general, buttery stuff.



Overall, I'd give this recipe a B just because it was damn fun to make. Also? My parents loved that it worked. HaHA, BOOyah.

I've got a half-improv'd variation on the Chinese meatball coming up... Actually, it was made before the butter... but the pics suck, so I'm putting off photoshopping them, haha. They'll be up by the weekend's end, likely!

Ciao, bella! Ti piace risotto con funghi?

True fact: I studied abroad in Rome. Also true: My Italian is like my love life, that is, non-existent.

During my stay there, I learned three really crucial things about Italian gastronomic culture:

NUMBER ONE
Everything about food is serious business. Who you eat with, what you eat and when, it's all quite important. Therefore, you NEVER have your cappuccino after 12pm, you NEVER eat alone or on the go (believe me, if you munch a sandwich or chips on the street, the people, they look at you like you're nuts. Pretty different from Taiwanese culture where half our food is made to be eaten on the go), and you NEVER sauce your pasta wrong. Bolognese with spaghetti? Feel the wrath of Italian chefs and wise old nonnas everywhere.

NUMBER TWO
Pasta and pizza every day is totally and completely normal. You will eat very little else for so cheap and so commonly in Italy. I had a professor who swore she had to eat one of each a day, or else she didn't feel right. Guys, this lady was like a size two (that's another thing: I don't think I saw one overweight, badly dressed Italian under thirty, guy or girl, my entire time there; tell me how that is possible with so much carbs and alcohol in their daily diet?! Count me envious)
Best pizza topping ever? A sunny-side up egg. Best pizza I ever had? In Napoli, creamed corn pizza. Damn, people, it was fantastic.

NUMBER THREE
Al dente. Just. Do it. There is nothing worse than overcooked pasta. (That said, when making risotto, I cooked the rice fully because, hello, I'm making food for Chinese family. Undercooked rice is anathema in my household! I still endure teasing for that one little insignificant time when I forgot to add water to the slow cooker and ended up with a pot of uncooked rice after an hour.)

Anyways, I decided on a whim to try something Italian-- it was between polenta and risotto, both northern dishes. The reason risotto won out? Not because the fam likes rice better, but would you believe it? Trader Joe only had tubes of polenta, no dried cornmeal. Fail, Joe the T. So I picked up some arborio rice and fresh mushrooms instead.

The first time I had risotto was in Rome, on a weekend afternoon, at a local cafe in Testaccio where we occasionally studied and watched soccer games (the Italians and their calcio is another area of serious business that shall be summed up in two bits: it's quite intense, and I have a Totti jersey!). Risotto con funghi sounded delicious and simple, and I figured it was going to be my next favorite spin on rice forever.

With one bite, I'd thought my world would change.

Actually, what really happened was, I thought they'd forgotten to fully cook the rice, and I was too embarrassed to say anything to the waiter about it. It wasn't until I faced the same dilemma a couple more times that I realized the Italian taste for al dente ran in their rice dishes as well.

Anyways, there's no point to the story, except that a) I remember my first taste of risotto and b) I probably would have liked it more if the person making the rice had had bad timing. Still, risotto was a dish that stayed with me-- its texture is incredibly creamy and thick, the flavors potent with each bite. There's rarely any cheese involved in its making, except as a garnish or light flavoring; instead, the thick richness comes from being cooked with broth and stirred constantly throughout the process. Making this is rather labor intensive, and not for low-maintenance cookers, but the end result is well-worth it, imho!


Risotto con funghi, or Risotto with mushrooms*

You'll need:

1/3 cup dried wild mushrooms, preferably porcini (I used a dried mushroom mix from Costco that included porcinis, which when making this dish is the mushroom of choice, obvs.)
1 1/2 cups fresh cultivated mushrooms (I used cremini for this, and threw in about two cups)
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/3 cup butter
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley (I used dried)
4 cups beef or chicken stock, preferably home-made (psshhh yeah, whatever. I used canned chicken stock.)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped (I ended up with a medium red one)
1 1/2 cups medium grain risotto rice, such as arborio (just use arborio; you can find it lots of places)
1/2 dry white wine (used rice wine-- woohoo, Asian kitchen!)
salt, pepper
3 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (I caved and actually did buy some fresh Parmesan to grate. I'm a sucker for cheeses)
I also added half a cob worth of corn kernels, because I happened to have some *shrugs*. I tossed them in with the onions.

serves 3-4

1. Place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl with about 1 1/2 cups warm water. Soak for at least 40 minutes. Rinse the mushrooms thoroughly. Filter the soaking water through a strainer lined with paper towels (I folded a bounty in fours for this part), and save the water for later.



2. Wipe the fresh mushrooms with a damp cloth (Bounty again; also, wiping is apparently the correct way to wash a mushroom. I guess you learn something new every day!) and slice finely. Place in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice. In a large heavy frying pan or casserole melt one third of the butter. Stir in the fresh sliced mushrooms and cook over moderate heat until they give up their juices and begin to brown. Stir in the parsley, cook for 30 seconds more, and remove to a side dish.


Look! Creminis. Aren't they just too cute?



3. Place the stock in a saucepan. Add the mushroom water from step one, and simmer until needed.

4. Heat another third of the butter with the olive oil in the same pan the mushrooms were cooked in. Stir in the onion, and cook until it is soft and golden. Add the rice, stirring for 1-2 minutes to coat with the oils. Add the soaked and sauteed mushrooms and mix well.



5. Pour in the wine, and cook over moderate heat until it evaporates.

6. Add one small ladleful of the hot stock. Cook until the stock is absorbed or evaporates, stirring the rice with a wooden spoon to prevent it from sticking to the pan. Add a little more stock, and stir until the rice dries out again. Continue stirring and adding the liquid a little at a time (my ratio was about 1/2 ladle: 1.5-2 minutes)



7. After about 20 minutes of cooking time, taste the rise. Add salt and pepper.

8. Continue cooking, stirring and adding the liquid until the rice is al dente, or tender but still firm to the bite (or, if you prefer, let it cook just a teeny bit longer until it's you know, overcooked by Italian standards). The total cooking time of the risotto may be from 20-35 minutes. If you run our of stock, use hot water, but do not worry if the rice is done before you have used up all the stock.

9. Remove the risotto pan from heat. Stir in the remaining butter and the Parmesan or Romano. Grind in a little black pepper and taste again for salt. Allow the risotto to rest for 3-4 minutes before serving.



Final thoughts? Holy crap, if this is how risotto is made, no wonder grandmothers spend their whole days just cooking. That said, the result is pretty delicious, and I definitely would make this again; plus, the fam did like it. With the amount os sweating and arm-workingouting though, I may wait until the winter to do this again, lol. B!



*recipe, copied with minor adaptations from: p.126, Italian: the essence of mediterranean cuisine by Carla Capalbo.

Fish paste is fishy - Taiwanese pork soup.

Yeah, I know. What? Fish paste? Pork soup? What?

Truth be told, I didn't realize that's what went into making this Taiwanese staple, not until my cousin decided to make the stew from scratch and I happened to stumble into the kitchen when the exciting bit began.

Let's back up a bit. Taiwanese pork soup has a soup base that is pretty typically Taiwanese-- flavored with lots of soy sauce, mushrooms, bamboo, lily flowers, white pepper, cabbage, and thickened with sweet potato starch. The main attraction of this particular stew is the thin strips of pork that have been smothered in fresh fish paste and boiled into lumps of flavorful deliciousness.

To make these little packets of meaty delight though, you gotta get down and dirty (even more so than those burger patties). Lucky me, my sister took some pics for me so Tiberius (my nikon) wouldn't be totally covered in fish goo.

So, this recipe my cousin has is in Chinese, but I will do my level best to translate it.

you need:
1/2 catty* pork butt
1 catty fish paste
8 dried mushrooms (shiitake)
1/2 catty bamboo shreds
chopped cilantro (as much as desired)
3000 cc clear broth (We used canned chicken stock. My mother demands the question of who the hell has time to make it the old fashioned way anymore, lol.)
1 cup sweet potato starch
(we also added lily flowers, sliced cabbage, dried shallots, and black funghi)

*so, like, Chinese people have way different measurements for food. One catty is a little bit more than a pound.

to prepare the meat, you need:
2 tb soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp all-spice
1 tsp finely minced garlic
1 tb starch
(for the fish paste, we also added rice wine and about a teaspoon of ground ginger)

for flavoring the soup, you additionally need:
3 tb soy sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tb sugar
1 tb chicken powder
1 tb dark vinegar
white pepper (as much as desired)
a splash of sesame oil

To make, you stick those dried shiitakes in water 'til they soften up, then slice and stir-fry until aromatic. Set aside.

Slice up the pork into thin strips and put in a mixing bowl. Add the soy sauce, all-spice, and garlic. Mix and let sit for 20 minutes.


(meanwhile, in the bowl of fish paste, my mother advises to add a splash of rice wine or some alcohol to rid the fishy taste. Also, add the ginger.)

Then, add the starch to the meat and mix into the fish paste, thoroughly covering each strip of meat in the paste.



Boil the stock and add the bamboo and mushrooms (and other vegetables).



Wait til it boils, then add the meat, strip by strip. When they are cooked, they will float to the top of the soup.



Then add the soy sauce, salt, sugar, dark vinegar, and chicken powder for flavoring. At this point, my cousin went to town adding white pepper and splashes of sesame oil and dried chopped shallots.

When you are done flavoring, take your sweet potato starch and add water, mixing into a liquid (don't worry about too much or too little water-- you just need it to not be powdery or pasty).

Slowly pour the mixture into your stew while stirring, or else your starch will congeal in little lumps (this is not in the recipe, but from personal experience, from that one time I tried to help my mom with dinner... lol)
The starch will make the stew slightly viscous and thick. How thick really depends on how you like it, so may not necessarily pour the whole cup in if you like your stew a little more liquid.

After ladling into bowls, you can further garnish with minced garlic, cilantro, dark vinegar, and white pepper. It's all good! I'd say an I+, since the pork-fish combo could use a little more flavor-tweaking. The soup part was definitely B.



*if you have leftover meat-fish combos, boil up some water and cook em off that way. Then you can store them as leftovers. If you have leftover pork, we have an easy way to finish that off too!!

Typically you make this dish, called 'minced garlic plain pork', with fatty pork meat (think bacon area) but it works pretty well with lean pork too.

Thoroughly boil the rest of the pork butt (no pinkness!), then slice the meat up very thin. My mother demonstrates:



Anyways, arrange these slices prettily on a plate.
Meanwhile, mince a clove of garlic and mix into a couple tablespoons of thick soy sauce (it's a dark, starchy and sweet version; really good in saucing things.) Use mixture as a dipping sauce for the pork slices. Yum.
This is one of my favorite cold-cut dishes, so natch, it's a B.

In the near future, I'll be trying out a polenta recipe and maybe making some home-made butter. We'll see it goes, oh boy...