Best thing I ate this weekend

The chorizo verde from the fresh meat counter at El Burrito Mercado is an unusual and dare I say off-putting shade of green. You’ll need to buy some for yourself to know what I’m talking about. But don’t let the color deter you. It’s fabulous. This fresh chorizo is made with tomatillos and cilantro, giving it a bright and tangy flavor.

The chapatis I made on Friday night were renamed flour tortillas and re-purposed for quesadillas on Saturday night. I layered browned chorizo (the color improves upon frying), queso fresca and ancho-chili cheddar for some awesome quesadillas. Extra chorizo was stirred into leftover channa masala (instead of refried beans).

The flavors of Indian and Mexican food play extremely well together and this is a combination definitely worth exploring.

A Cure for the Common Ramen: Four Pork Ramen

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At least once a year I do a multi-day cooking project.  The past couple of years I’ve chosen dishes from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc.  This year inspiration came from David Chang’s Lucky Peach magazine and his Momofuku cookbook:  Homemade ramen soup.

While instant ramen is known as one of the quickest and cheapest meals a person can prepare, homemade ramen is the total opposite. This turned out to be an amazing cooking adventure!

Ramen is made of up many components and the variations are endless. I chose to make the ramen broth, tare, roasted pork belly, and roasted pork shoulder.

David Chang’s broth recipe is a moving target, so I ended up combining two or three different versions. This included 5 pounds of roasted meaty pork bones, kombu (dried sea kelp), four pounds of chicken, and a pound of bacon. I  had a “scare” when I dumped out the raw pork bones into the roasting pan and found a mysterious appendage pointing up at me. On closer inspection it turned out to be a pig tail. Whew. The broth was the biggest time commitment:  I started the broth at 11 am and at 10 pm that night I finished reducing it. Next time I will make it in my pressure cooker to save time.

The tare is a kind of seasoning sauce to add to the broth when it’s served.  This was easier to throw together, but still started with roasting chicken necks until they’re mahogany-colored and then simmering with mirin, sake and soy sauce. It makes a delicious sweet/savory addition to the soup.

Both the pork belly and shoulder were rubbed with salt and sugar and cured overnight in the refrigerator.  Roasting times were largely unattended and pretty straight forward. I had made char siu (barbequed pork) last year and still had some in the freezer. I reheated it in a saute pan, glazing it with honey.

It felt wrong not to make the noodles but I ran out of time and energy.  Making noodles is a lot of work in itself.  Now that I have quarts of ramen broth and tare in the freezer I will have more time to make noodles the next round.

I decided to get fancy with the poached egg garnish and cooked them in cute little cling-wrapped pouches.  Next time I will be more mindful of not leaving air in the packages, as they had an annoying tendency to float on top of the simmering water.

We invited friends over and had a cozy dinner where everyone built their own bowl of soup.  Even their dog scored a little pork shoulder.

A couple of days later when the broth ran out, I made homemade Chinese steamed buns to spread with hoison sauce and stuff with pork and pickle. The buns are incredibly easy to make and the recipe makes about 50 buns.  They  supposedly freeze well and can be reheated in the steamer.  So I have a stockpile of those in the freezer too.

I’m trying something new with my photos this time. Enjoy the slideshow.

Mojo Monkey Donuts

Mojo Monkey Donuts
1169 7th Street West
Saint Paul, MN 55102

It’s well documented on this blog that my favorite donuts are the pink-frosted cruellers at Sunrise Donuts in Bloomington. But I have been know to stray and I was led into temptation on Friday morning

We were in the neighborhood, and a friend guided us to Mojo Monkey donuts in St. Paul. The name reminds me of Mojo JoJo, the monkey on PowerPuff Girls, but that’s another story. I only had my iPod with, so I don’t have great photos. But we did have great donuts.

It was difficult to make a choice, and they don’t have all varieties available all the same time, but we finally settled on a German chocolate cake, mocha mousse bismark with dark chocolate glaze, maple bacon bar, and and a vanilla custard filled bismark with dark chocolate glaze.

The cake donut was moist, yet still crispy on the outside. The maple bacon bar was luscious, scoring points in the one area where maple bacon bars usually fall short: The bacon was incredible; thick-cut, salty and very flavorable. A great foil for the maple glaze. The vanilla custard donut was luscious as well, filled with a delicious pastry cream. We haven’t tried the mocha mousse bismark yet, but it’s taunting me from the box.

I met Lisa, one of the lucky donut makers. She was very friendly and it sounded like she really loves her job and says she’s not tired of donuts yet.

I’m glad we tried it on a slow Friday morning. It looks like they could use some bigger donut cases, and I’ve heard the shop can be overwhelmed on weekends. I’m kind of puzzled by the complaining I read that they can run out of donuts mid-morning when they’re really busy. That’s what happens at good donut shops. I’ve learned that if I get to Sunrise past 8 am, I’m not guaranteed a crueller that day. Them’s the breaks!

But hopefully these are just growing pains, and I hope they’re around for a long time, because I don’t get over to St. Paul a lot and I still need to try a vanilla cream filled bismark with banana and chai donut holes and an apple fritter and a cake donut with mango glaze and coconut and . . .

P.S. It’s 4 pm and my husband just got home and had his mocha mousse donut. He made num-num noises while he inhaled it and didn’t offer me a bite, so I assume it was really good.

September 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Croissants

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

Download a pdf of the challenge.

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Croissants are made from a laminated dough, which is made by wrapping dough around a layer of chilled butter and then rolling, folding, and chilling, and then repeating the process. Each roll and fold is called a “turn.” This creates the flaky texture found in pastries like Danish and puff pastry. The more times you turn your dough, the more layers you have. It’s not a difficult process, but the chilling between turns takes a lot of time.

The recipe provided for this month’s challenge is from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two” by Julia Child. Since I’ve made croissants before, I chose to mash this recipe up a bit with techniques I learned when I made croissants from Julia’s more recent book, “Baking with Julia.”

Just like for our candy making challenge last month, a marble slab comes in handy for keeping the butter and dough cold.

I strayed from Mastering the Art of French cooking in a couple of ways:

• I doubled the butter and mixed it with 1 Tbsp. of flour in a KitchenAid mixer. Then I formed it into a log and wrapped it in plastic wrap to chill, before rolling it out between two layers of waxed paper. Rolling the dough between the waxed paper makes it easier to move it back to the refrigerator for additional chilling, if necessary.
• When I rolled out the dough to cut and form the croissants, I trimmed off the uneven edges. I used these scraps to make small balls of dough. I placed one at the wide end of each croissant and then rolled the ball up inside the croissant. It gives the croissant a nice fat, fluffy belly.

Since making croissants is so time consuming, you need to plan accordingly if you want fresh croissants with a meal. I planned it right and made my favorite meal of breakfast at 8 pm: Scrambled eggs, sausage, and croissants with strawberry jam. Breakfast is always better at night.

August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Not Schweddy Balls

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

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When my husband asked me on Sunday if I was making Schweddy balls, we hadn’t even heard about the new Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy balls ice cream. But it’s always good for a laugh. And no, I wasn’t making Schweddy balls, I was making raspberry cream-filled chocolates.

Cream-filled chocolates have been a weakness of mine since I was a little girl. If you buy me a box of candy, skip the chocolate-covered nuts and caramels. I want the biggest box of buttercreams I can afford.

Another weakness of mine has been my fear of tempering chocolate. I couldn’t imagine success. So when I saw that this month’s challenge including tempering chocolate, I knew it meant it was time. I decided it didn’t matter if I failed or succeeded, but that I had to try. That I would make a buttercream was a given.

After dithering between making maple or raspberry creams, my son chose raspberry. I found a recipe on About.com for a Raspberry fondant that included cream and fresh raspberries. The corn syrup and marshmallow creme would add a little insurance against crystalization.

I’m getting more comfortable with a candy thermometer but still feel some foreboding when I start making candy. Fortunately the weather had finally turned cooler and drier, so I felt as ready as I would ever be.

I’ve come a long way from my attempt to make caramel corn as a newlywed. I boiled the caramel on high for ten minutes, because anything that needs to boil should be cooked on high heat, shouldn’t it? I had a pot of tar at the end. I’m surprised I didn’t burn down the kitchen.

Making candy is a fascinating form of chemistry. I love to watch the changes as the syrup boils down. As the water boils out of the mixture the color changes, the syrup thickens, and the sound of the bubbles changes pitch. Cool stuff.

Here is the fondant at the beginning of the boil. Notice how light the color is and how foamy the bubbles look.

Here is the fondant as the temperature rises and the raspberries release their juices. It looks so pretty and smells divine. Notice the definition of the bubbles.

I worried about having too many seeds in my candy centers, but since the candy isn’t stirred while cooking, most of them settled to the bottom of the pan and I was careful to leave them there when I poured the syrup out.

Some candy recipes call for citric acid, to enhance fruit flavors. I knew I had some but I didn’t find my bag until I’d completely finished my candy. My grocery story didn’t have any either. So as a little cheat I bought a big bag of Sour Patch Kids. After rubbing the closed package between my hands, I had rubbed off more than enough citric acid for my recipe. Plus the bonus of having Sour Patch Kids to eat.

I felt success within my grasp. I poured the syrup onto a baking sheet to cool before I started kneading it. It was during the kneading that I started worrying this wasn’t going to turn out. I have carpal tunnel and I stirred and then kneaded that mixture for as long as I physically could, but it was becoming too painful. But the fondant was still shiny, with a texture like caramel. It definitely was not creamy like I needed.

I set down the fondant and walked away for some pouting on the couch. I tried to tell myself that raspberry caramels would still taste good. But then it hit me; if I can knead bread in the KitchenAid mixer, why couldn’t I knead fondant? It was worth a try.

I threw the fondant in the mixing bowl, attached the paddle (not the kneading attachment), turned it on and, once again, walked away. When I checked it after some time, I was amazed that the mixture was dull and creamy, just like it was supposed to be! I was ecstatic.

I rested the fondant overnight and then shaped the centers into bonbons.

After the drama with the fondant, tempering chocolate wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. It’s mainly about paying attention, and having a chocolate thermometer and a lot of patience. I have the chocolate thermometer. It’s the other two qualities I sometimes lack.

The big mystery, to me, about tempering chocolate has always been how to hold the chocolate at a steady temperature for dipping. It turns out the temperature doesn’t fluctuate as quickly as I thought it would. After reaching dipping temperature I kept the pan on a heating pad. When I needed to, I would put the chocolate back over hot water and stir for about 15-30 seconds to bring the temperature back up. Of course, the temperature will drop faster if you use chilled centers.

I dipped all the chocolates without getting more chocolate on my kitchen than on my fondant centers, and I didn’t get any my pink t-shirt! I guess I really didn’t have anything to worry about. My big worry now is how many buttercream chocolates I’ll be eating now that I can make them myself!