Financiers

Posted on February 26, 2012 by ben

The first time I had financiers was at Arcaffé. I was 10 years old, and it was the most special cookie I had encountered. It is known that taste is related to memory, and that sometimes food is tasty because it brings back past moments. This is certainly the case with financiers for me. I still find myself tempted to take home a box full of them whenever I’m at Arcaffé.

I tried the recipe from Joy of Baking, and it was my first time making financiers. The result was fine for a first time. The texture was exactly as it should be, but the taste was a bit off. Still tasty, but no as good as it could be. I think I might have under-browned the butter, under-roasted the almond meal, or under-baked the cookies. I also blame the vanilla extract which I used, going to try something better next time.

To make things interesting, I doubled the recipe, and mixed half of the batter with 1tbsp of cocoa powder and pistachios. I really liked the taste of the chocolate financiers – but it was a chocolate taste. It overshadowed the subtle almond taste that makes financiers special. Still worthwhile though, as the texture was just fantastic.

RECIPE

Chicken Liver and Onion Jam Pie

Posted on February 24, 2012 by ben

This is the first pie on Pie or Die, and it’s a meaty one! It is also the first post shot with my new camera instead of my iPhone – still much room for improvement though…

It is an experimental pie that resulted from an idea that I had some time ago. I’ve wanted to try this for very long, and it finally happened. I dare to say it was very successful, and one of the best tasting things I ever made. My only critique is that the filling was a little too sweet, so I would try less sugar next time.

As an experiment, the ratio of dough to filling was way off, but I decided to list the amounts I used regardless – adjust it as you like. The dough was enough for 2.5 pies, and the filling for 4-5.

Ingredients

For the pie crust:

160gr butter
240gr flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium egg
1 tbsp water

For the filling:

300gr chicken liver, cut to bite size
two large red onions
2 tbsp water
1/2 cup (100ml) red wine
1/2 cup (100ml) white sugar
few sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil for frying

Start by making the pie dough, as it should refrigerate for about 1 hour. In a bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter using a k-beater. Add flour and salt, and mix on low speed until the mixture resembles coarse sand with few butter “rocks”:

Add egg and switch to the dough hook, mixing on low speed until the dough just begins to come together, and looks like ice-cream:

If necessary, add about 1 tbsp of water to help the dough stick together. Remove the dough from the bowl onto plastic wrap. Wrap it tightly and press into a thin disc. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Start making the filling. Slice onion to thin strips. Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in a pot or saucepan and stir-fry the onion on high heat, until it begins to lose some of its volume.

Add thyme and continue sautee-ing on medium-high heat. When the onion becomes more tender, add two tablespoons of water and sugar. Once the sugar dissolves, add wine and continue cooking on medium heat.

Continue reducing until very thick, and season with salt and pepper.

Move on to preparing the liver. In order to avoid overcooking the liver, we will only sear it very shortly in a pan with little vegetable oil. Let the oil heat up before you add the liver, and stir fry for 30 seconds to 1 minute, just to change the outside color of the liver chunks. Remove from pan immediately to avoid further cooking.

Now comes the fun part of assembling the pies. Roll out the dough and fill the pies, as illustrated in the following animated GIF:

Brush with egg, and bake in an oven, preheated to 180°C, until golden. Cool on a wire rack and dig in!

Homemade Bacon

Posted on February 22, 2012 by ben

Bacon – the tasty word made flesh. There’s not much I can add about this most popular cured meat that (hopefully) you don’t already know.

When I bought “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing” about a year ago, one of the first thing I wanted to try was making bacon. I wanted to try making it myself, because I never thought it could be made without smoking, and I wanted to experiment with different seasonings. And, it was a great excuse to have a constant supply of bacon in the fridge.

I bought a small piece of pork belly for the experiment, about 300gr, so that failure would not lead me to waste good belly. I rubbed it in a cure of kosher salt, honey, crushed dried chilies and cumin. I like the combination of pork and cumin, and I thought that cumin’s smokey taste would compensate not being able to smoke the bacon. Covered with the rub, the belly went for a week in a zip-lock bag in the fridge. It was later rinsed and dried, and this is what it looked like:I did not use Pink Salt for curing (you should read about it if you consider curing meat) so my bacon did not get the typical pink hue. The final step was then oven-curing the bacon at 90°C until it reached internal temperature of 65°C.

Unfortunately, it turned out that I used too much salt, as the finished bacon was too salty to eat. I managed to use it in other dishes (like the spinach spaghetti) without adding additional salt – but it was not edible on its own. I also could not determine whether the seasoning was good or not, because it was completely shadowed by salt.

As I wrote before, I’ll post a recipe when I get it right

Light Rye Bread

Posted on February 15, 2012 by ben

After some failed attempts in the past, I finally managed to bake good rye bread. The key difference between making rye bread and regular bread, is the different consistency of the dough. Rye dough should be sticky, and doesn’t become smooth and elastic like regular dough. When I tried to make smooth non-sticky rye dough, I ended up with condensed bread which did not raise. My cousin Ran (who also bakes, and gave me my sourdough starter) was the one to tell me that rye dough should be sticky and contain around 60% water. I followed his advice and my rye bread turned out great.

I used my new kitchen scale to measure ingredients for keeping the water content around 60%. If you don’t have a scale (buy one, or) you can google conversion rates like “200gr flour to ml”.

Ingredients

100gr sourdough starter
240gr water
200gr rye flour
200gr plain wheat flour
1tbsp honey
2tsp salt
1tbsp vegetable oil
1tbsp caraway seeds (optional)

In a bowl, mix sourdough starter with water using a spoon. Add the rest of the ingredients and start kneading. If using an electric mixer just run it on low speed for a few minutes. Otherwise, knead using a wooden spoon, as the dough is too sticky to knead by hand. When the dough becomes consistent, leave it to rest for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes rest (for both you and the dough), knead again for a few minutes. The dough should be consistent, but sticky and tough. It reminded me of cupcake batter, but much tougher. At this point the dough should be left for proving overnight. I used an English cake tin:

Before

After

If you want round bread, you can let the dough prove in a bowl lined with a heavily floured towel – when ready to bake, take it out of the bowl and free-form your loaf, working the dough as little as possible.

Bake at 190°C. It took me 30 minutes, but it can vary. To check if your bread is done, take it out of the oven, and knock on its bottom – you should hear a hollow sound. When ready, remove from the oven and tin, and let it cool on a wire rack. Allow to cool completely before slicing.

Serve with herring or Brie

Spinach Spaghetti

Posted on February 13, 2012 by ben

I love spinach in every possible form. This is the first time I tried it with pasta, for a quick dinner.

Ingredients

cooked pasta
4 slices of bacon, or pancetta
2 cloves garlic
spinach
double cream
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
Roquefort (optional garnish)

Chop bacon and put in a non-stick skillet on high heat. Be sure not to preheat the skillet though, as this will burn the bacon instead of rendering the fat out (a lesson learned the hard way…) When the bacon begins to brown, lower to medium heat, add chopped garlic, and sauteé until it starts to brown. Add spinach – how much? as much as fits:

I did not chop the spinach because my garlic was about to burn, and I liked the result of having concentrated lumps of spinach in the pasta. If you prefer less chewy, more evenly distributed spinach, then chop it. Let the spinach cook for 1-2 minutes until it looses all volume, then add the cream, and put the heat back on high. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice. If you have an open bottle of white wine in your fridge, you can add some of it too. When the cream starts bubbling, lower to low heat and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve with precooked pasta.

Homemade Gravlax (Guest Post)

Posted on February 11, 2012 by omer

I’ve never paid too much attention to smoked salmon. The supermarket smoked salmon should take the blame for it – industrialized production, and, possibly, freezing and thawing, have made this unique fish suitable only for residing in boring sandwiches.

A few months ago I went to the Minzar pub. I was in a mood for vodka and a simple side dish to accompany it, and Gravlax served with a Pretzel and sour cream seemed appropriate. I wasn’t expecting much of the Gravlax, and I was blown away: The salmon, crossway sliced, had a flexible texture (not a rubbery one), full flavor and, most of all, a rich, open sea aroma. It was exceptional, a true proper use of a fine raw material.

I was also as surprised when I found out that making it is a pretty simple task.

Gravlax is basically salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill. You can add spices to the curing, and some recommend alcohol (such as vodka, aquavit or schnapps). I’ve only added some ground black pepper. Cure the raw salmon for 48 hours and you have Gravlax, as simple as that.

This is how I prepared my Gravlax:

Ingredients

650 gr of salmon fillet, deboned
4 Tablespoons of sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
4 Tablespoons of coarse salt
1 Tablespoon of ground black pepper
Fresh dill (enough to cover the salmon)

Preparation

Wash and lay salmon in a bowl adequately large, flesh side up. Mix dry ingredients and spread over the salmon’s flesh (If you want to add spices or alcohol, this is the time). Crush dill stems to extract flavor and slice dill coarsely. Cover the salmon with dill, and then with a plastic wrap.
Use weights to create pressure on the wrapped salmon (I used a bowl filled with water) and refrigerate.

After 48 hours

Remove plastic wrapper and dill. A lot of water is extracted from the salmon during the curing process, so it should be drained. Then, using paper towels, clean the salmon from any trace of salt / sugar left.
Using a sharp knife, slice finely and serve.

It was fantastic with some danish cream cheese on an earthy rye bread.

A note on the ingredients

In this method of preparation the salmon, as a raw material, is completely in light, with no cooking or flavoring to overshadow it’s natural flavor. This means you should use the freshest salmon you can possibly get. If you don’t go fishing regularly in the Northern Atlantic, you should check and see on which days fresh fish arrive to your local fish store and buy your salmon then.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, you can’t find raw wild salmon in Israel, only industrially farmed salmon. If you get your hands on one of these, your’e probably in for a treat.

Pork Chops with Whiskey Braised Apples

Posted on February 10, 2012 by ben

This dinner dish was fairly easy to make and surprisingly cheap. I bought 6 chops for around 30 NIS (that’s $8) to feed 3, including myself. I think pork is greatly complimented by sweet flavors, so I paired the chops braised apples.

I’m still not used to taking pictures while I cooked, so I only have the complete dish pictured. Use your imagination for the rest of the process

Ingredients

For the chops:

6 pork chops (about 1kg)
2 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp ground cumin
coarse salt and pepper
olive oil

For the apples:

3 Granny Smith apples
1 stick celery
2 tbsp butter
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 shot whiskey/rum/calvados
2 tbsp sugar/brown sugar
salt

Preheat oven to 190°C

Start with peeling, slicing and chopping the apples. Put them in a bowl and add the lemon juice, toss around to coat. Using a mortar and pestle, crush fennel and caraway seeds lightly to release their aromas, mix with cumin.

Score the rind of the chops using a small pairing knife. Coat an oven tray with tin foil, spread some coarse salt, black pepper and half of the spices mixture. Place chops on they tray, and cover again with salt, pepper and the rest of the spices. Drizzle with some olive oil. See how Gordon Ramsay does it (but with different flavors):

Start making the apples: Melt the butter in a saucepan, and sauteé apples and celery on medium-high heat. You can now put the chops in the oven, they need to be cooked for an internal temperature of 65°C, for me it took around 10 minutes.

Add the whiskey, cinnamon, sugar and salt to the apples, cover and lower heat, to medium-low. You can add some water to if the mixture is too dry. When the chops are ready, take them out of the oven and cover with tin foil. At this point the apples should be soft enough to be mashed with a wooden spoon. You can mash them a little if you want, then taste them and fix seasoning. Leave uncovered to reduce sauce to the degree of your liking. Uncover chops, and serve.

Fennel Butter Cookies

Posted on February 6, 2012 by ben

These anise flavored cookies are just great with tea. I took the butter cookies recipe from Joy of Baking, omitted the orange zest and vanilla extract, and added 1 tbsp of fennel seeds instead. I tried to crush them in a mortar and pestle, but I only have a wooden one, and it didn’t really cut it…

They turned out great, but perhaps they could benefit from some lemon zest, and better-crushed seeds.

Heart Attack Dinner

Posted on February 5, 2012 by ben

It all started with a tray of frozen chicken wings. My roommate has asked me to make them. Circumstances have then changed, and instead of my roommate Yagil, these were shared with my friend Dan.

I knew I wanted to deep fry the wings, and match them with butter-chili sauce – similar to Buffalo wings – but actually trying to imitate the famous wings at Tel-Aviv’s Dixie. Knowing I’ll be already deep frying, I decided to make some French fries too.

Then came along Dan with Bacon, Raclette, Mozarella and Roquefort. The Roquefort was intended for a dip, Raclette and bacon were paired with the fries, and Mozarella was to be breaded and deep fried too!

First, the potatoes were cut and blanched in cold water in the fridge:

30 minutes later they went in for a first fry. After a few minutes we replaced them with the wings:

Meanwhile bacon was being roasted in the oven, and butter melted with chili for sauce. When the wings were all ready, we coated them with the sauce and put them in the oven:

Then a second fry for the fries, later topped with Raclette and bacon, and in the oven:

Lastly Mozarella was fried very shortly. I did the mistake of piling the fried Mozarella, and, within a minute, instead of Mozarella sticks there was a blob of melted cheese and fried coating…

I really liked how the Roquefort dip turned out:Overall, the meal was decadent and tasty – but it wasn’t perfect. The fries turned out soggy, and the wings were more dry than crunchy. Also chili-butter sauce was lacking some punch – perhaps hot sauce, perhaps some spices. I tried to keep it simple, but I did not aim for simple and mediocre.

There are tons of recipes online for chicken wings and french fries, and many variations. I’m not posting recipes here because I don’t feel the result was good enough. The only thing that came out perfect was the Roquefort dip (mix Roquefort, mayonnaise and sour cream to taste). I’ll post a recipe when I get it right.

Sourdough In a Tin

Posted on February 2, 2012 by ben

This is a sourdough loaf which I baked in haste this morning. I’ve had some fun with a sourdough starter over the last few months, but lately it was somewhat neglected. I tried reviving it and was left with a small amount of starter. I then went on to make some bread, but given the small amount of starter and doubt in its liveliness, I did not put too much effort in making the dough. Ingredients were freestyle’d so I don’t have a real recipe.

When I was done kneading the dough, I decided to use an English cake tin for proofing and baking, instead of proofing in a bowl and baking free-form. The cake tin was oiled with olive oil, which gave the bread a golden crust with excellent taste. The next unconventional decision was to bake it in the toaster oven, instead of the usual oven with pizza stone (my oven is outdoors and it was raining).

I was very surprised with the result, it was one of the best tasting breads I ever made.

So thanks to some improvisation, I got great bread which was very easy and hassle-free to make. I will definitely try to make it again and write down exact amounts for a complete recipe.

Next bread conquest – Rye!