0dense | Entries tagged with baking

I've turned out to be the one most interested in cooking around here lately, but I've also just got the one day free lately, so it was a very kitchen day! I made: chickpea-sweet potato stew, red lentil soup, chicken paprikash, pickles, rendered schmaltz, and prepped fava beans :D most of the stew is frozen, and two units of soup, and one unit of paprikash (just one because I'm not sure it'll reheat as well as the veggies) so that's looking forward. chickpea/sweet potato and paprikash are my go-tos these days, and I'll get more feedback on the lentil soup but I generally think it'll be good for the shortlist too. Credit there to Chef Lola! I also did all of them rolling by starting with all the onions at once: about 6 (4 yellow, 2 red, 1/2 pale onion that was hanging out in the fridge) cooking down while I did all the other prep. I wouldn't have the confidence to do this with any higher proportion of new recipes, but I'm very very proud of how smoothly everything went for this cycle :)

In other thoughts: the wedding was altogether a blast! they played a bunch of pop/love songs covered in [bride's family's language], the best man read a poem he'd written them, there were four generations on the dance floor at once, the bride and groom both did lifts for their first dance, and yes, I did have a classy new mask just for the occasion.

And: I did a first potato harvest for the season! Emptied out the two big buckets and left one small planter where the stalks still look happy. There's been some overlap so I'm a little unsure, but I think I currently have my own fourth-generation russet line going on :) and second-generation purple skin/white flesh variety from a neighbor who grew it for a while. I'm phasing out one russet-ish line because they didn't keep well and I don't want to bother with that, but I'll give another shot to some fingerlings :) but honestly I'd rather give the dirt a break from solanums entirely for a while, you know? just for the principle of the thing! the problem being that I've got a bunch of seed ready to go in, and can't find my beet seeds to jump in with :/ maybe I'll just sow potatoes in one of the big buckets, and see if the nursery has something fun to take the other for a few months? I've got a nice pinch of clover mix to put out when it gets wet enough for things to stick, so I do hope that'll reinforce the general groundcover situation for next year.

And speaking of the garden: I also did plant a rosemary! I need to find more time to transplant some more, but the first one I got to is SO happy about it :D all fluffy little leaves and handfuls of little flowers around! hopefully next week I can put more in the dirt :)

Current Music: lenka - everything at once

lol I did not mean to color-coordinate my plate but it's fun when it happens. Chana masala from indianhealthyrecipes (backup) and carrot roti from Meena Pathak (( recipe )). The roti are fine, a mild base for whatever you please -- M had it plain with yogurt, why not. I'm most excited about the chana masala, because we've tried a few recipes and I think this is the most interesting by far. I followed it fairly closely, leaving off the cloves because I don't like them as much, and substituting gochujaru for kashmiri chili powder and sumac for amchoor because that's what we have, and just left off the methi because I don't have it lol. Also nb that our garam masala rn is apparently more Chennai style, which def worked for a good dish but is probs a different slant than the recipe originally meant!

Thoughts as to why this recipe worked better than the others we've done:

better spice profile in the first place. one of them was also a slow cooker recipe, which I assume can work, but I'm very <.< about singeing the spices, so I feel much better about the hands-on process to begin with.
pureeing at the tomato-onion-spice step. I like the gravy not to fall off, so homogenise the thing, yeah! I may have added too much chickpea to the pureeing step lol because it has a biiiit much chickpea taste itself, but it serves well. I blitz down the palak for paneer but hadn't tried it outside of that before.
use the aquafaba in the 'add water' step. of course, remember to get chickpeas with as little salt added as possible, but then that's a known starch carrier and will help the consistency too. and less waste anyway!

Current Music: Non dormo più - Gian Cane

bread news!

minced up about three tablespoons (total) of thyme and rosemary and kneaded it in to my favorite easy recipe - it's marked as bread rolls but it really works like a pull-apart focaccia in my hands
- double everything for twelve solid rolls for three people
- I've been subbing butter for olive oil according to what we've got and it works perf
- goes great with chana masala
also, got a dose of sourdough starter from a neighbor! I have no idea how to do right by this thing! but it smells nice? I gave it some flour and water according to King Arthur Flour and now it's hanging out on the counter, so *fingers crossed*
- tbh what's giving me the most confidence right now that I might be able to manage a starter is Ned the Try Guy's troubleshooting: if he can start from zero, I'll take notes from along the way!

Watch on YouTube

I do very much like the focaccia, but it doesn't have the same structure or crust. Worth a shot!

So as of this week, SF is Strongly Discouraging large gatherings, so the entire venue for the show we were going to go to as a family has closed for the next few weeks. Best to be careful, but that's a bummer, and boy howdy is this feeding my sense of drama. I just suck at online classes; I’m not looking forward to sucking at learning if campus closes. Lysol’d the bejeesus out of my office's fomites before leaving for the weekend though, so that’s something.

Anyway! So instead of going to Midsummer, we stayed in and watched Hairspray, and I made palak paneer and papadum. The papadum are still a work in progress but it was tasty, and the palak paneer is my favorite thing to make lately. I’m not claiming authenticity, but it’s simple and delicious, so my recipe (for three people when accompanied by a flatbread) is:

One onion, diced
About five cloves garlic + 5x4x3cm ginger, crushed or grated together
Garam masala, 1½ tsp
Cumin, ½ tsp
Coriander, ½ tsp
Turmeric, ¼ tsp
½ pound paneer, diced. I imagine that you could sub in firm tofu? It just occurs to me now bc I’m marinating some tofu too, so I’ll get back to that after this.
- If your paneer is hard from the fridge, dice and let it soak in warm water for a bit before adding it to the veg
Salt
A pound of spinach

Blanch and drain the spinach
In a medium saucepan, melt the onion with ghee/butter
Add in the gigi about ⅔ of the way through
Add the spinach
Blend together. If you don’t have an emulsion blender, leave the spinach in the boiling water for a little longer and just go to town with a potato masher, maybe? TBH I like it with some texture anyway. The flavor’ll be the same.
Add your salt and spices to taste. The masala from the shop down the street is hotter than the Sadaf version, so it varies. They’re both good, but listen to your own palate and ingredients.
Mix in the paneer and let rest for a bit as you do the other dish of the meal, so that the paneer takes on a bit more of the flavor. Or don’t wait, it’s still tasty!

It’s got to be the simplest main course I’ve got in my bag of tricks, and it’s wildly green and very delicious. The only tedious part is waiting for the onions to clarify and melt down, but the closer I keep the bottom of the pan to 300F, the easier that is. I’ve probably made it three times in the past two months, so it’s quite a winner around here.

Speaking of tofu, though, I’ve gotten into the habit of using our favorite soy sauce marinade on firm tofu! We just sorta eyeball it, but if you melt about a teaspoon of honey or sugar in about half a cup of warm water, and add about three asian soup spoons worth of soy sauce, one soup spoon of white or rice vinegar, and some red pepper flakes if you feel like it, it’s a delicious overnight marinade on softboiled eggs or afternoon marinade on 1cm-sliced tofu. Hm, I should prep those eggs for breakfast on workdays! :)

the latest contender in the genre of Yolo Cake - this weekend, I did a pomegranate mousse cake with a genoisesque base and glaze of crème de cassis ;D

Yolo Cake, though? what does that mean?? Well, the one element that can unify my baking tag is, purely, me looking at the kitchen and deciding life's too short not to have more desserts around! I don't know what the real difference between a génoise or sponge cake is, I've never done mousse or a fruit glaze and somehow I have only half-achieved génoise once, but hey, let's see what happens :D This time, I looked at a bunch of recipes, shrugged, approximated, and succeeded at:

( Read more... )

on a food tangent, today we went to lunch with Grandma and as we were passing dishes around, she announced me as having "always been the hot kind," which is generally true, but also pretty funny to me and little sister, what with my being Secretly A Guy this whole time lmao. I'm gonna get my validation wherever it comes!

Current Mood: Popo: I diagnose you with Boy
Current Music: MIKA - Tomorrow

quick update on the PG&E folderol: we've mostly stayed on, but my classes were much smaller over the last few days, because so many people couldn't make it to campus. Also, this is hearsay, but if it's true that Piedmont was kept off of yesterday's map of planned outages but the rest of Oakland was left on, then I smell a rat. Piedmont is absolutely in fire country - think of the hills fire - so you would think it would be on the shutoff list, but it is also a very wealthy community. >:/?

anyway, good news instead! With my day off, I have made:

peanut-butter cookies!
and then M had a steamed squash so she suggested pie-ing it, so I did that from scratch
1. including the crust
but we had accidentally gotten condensed milk instead of evaporated, so after some substitution guesswork, I figured we need to finish it somehow now that it's open, so I closed out the evening by steaming up some mantou!

Four items - not a bad day's baking :)

Also, I've been craving white sugar cake, but apparently bakeries don't carry it as much these days. But I realise, hey, I've done mantou a few times now, so what's stopping me from making some myself?? Maybe that'll happen next weekend, then!

Current Mood: sadly not making batidos
Current Location: good night!
Current Music: in a crowd of thousands (dmitry you're killing me here)

a round loaf of bread sits on a wire cooling rack. The bread has a golden crust and three slashes.

hello world it is nearly 3am and I am cooling a semi-experimental loaf of bread. My oven doesn’t circulate properly so this side is more photogenic, but I’m more concerned about crumb structure. Hopefully the slow rise will’ve helped? the morning will tell!

also, shostakovitch’s waltz n.2 on classical guitar, because the original is sublime but I haven’t got the energy

"Waltz n°2 (D. Chostakovich) Classical guitar" (Watch on YouTube)

Current Music: listen dima you know I love you but you've really got too much energy for 3am

When exactly is tangyuan time?? Technically for new year's or spring, but realistically, whenever I feel like something that feels as good to make as to eat with folks :)
Specifically, our favorite is heizhima tangayuan/黑芝麻汤圆, hot dumplings with sweet black sesame filling. Structurally, think jiandui, but boiled instead of deep fried, and with sweet black sesame paste inside, instead of plain white sesame on the outside. It's soft and chewy and comes in ginger soup! The sesame is rich and sweet without being overpowering, and honestly they're extremely easy to make, albeit repetitive. Dumplings aren't exciting prepwork lol, part of my recipe is putting on a show to watch while my hands are busy. It's a great combo for unwinding!

My favorite recipe is by Elaine of China Sichuan Foods, which goes into detail on why to use hot water for the dough, how to toast the sesame, includes pictures, and is generally very helpful! After getting comfortable with the process, my version of the recipe has become:

Ingredients
- For black sesame filling
  - 1/2 cup toasted black sesame
  - 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  - 1/8 tsp. salt
  - about 1/4 cup melted coconut oil - behaves differently when liquid; melt before measuring
- For dough
  - 2 cups glutinous rice flour
    - 3/4 cup cold water
    - 1/4 cup hot water
Instructions:
- To make the black sesame filling:
  - Rinse the sesames off
  - Toast until dry and fragrant
  - Grind into powder with a coffee grinder, not the bigger one
- In a bowl, mix black sesame with salt and sugar
- Melt the fat in a measuring cup, then add to dries
  - when in doubt, add oil slowly, overly oily tangyuan aren't pleasant
- With a small melon baller or 1/2 teaspoon, form paste into balls about 3/4in in diameter
- Cool in the fridge until solid.
  - If it's too hot for coconut oil to solidify at room temp, and they melt flat before you can put them in the fridge, add a step: pull them out of the fridge when stiff and reshape into real ball shapes. Awkward discs will cut through the dumpling skin.
To make the dough:
- Pull out a medium-sized bowl
- Make the dough.
  - No, this doesn’t have sugar.
  - For sweet dumplings, add powdered sugar and a little less water; the sugar makes it stickier.
- The earlobe test: does the raw dough feel about like an earlobe? Too dry and it will crack, too wet and it's a mess
- Depending on your order of operations, be ready to wrap the dough in plastic to wait or add water as it dries on its own
To make the balls:
- For each chilled sesame ball, pinch off about two or three balls worth of dough and flatten to about a quarter of an inch thick. Place the sesame in the middle and press the skin smooth
  - I find that a tricorn shape is good to start with
  - close the seams and pull the excess off where it breaks above the surface, to reuse
- roll into a ball!
- NB:
  - This week was so hot that I could only take about five balls out of the freezer before they would start being deformed
  - It was also hot enough that I had to put each completed dumpling in the fridge as I went, or they would flatten out on the counter
- If you somehow (lol) don't want to eat two dozen tangyuan right this minute, I've found that they freeze very well: Lay them out on a cookie sheet to solidify without touching, and then seal in a plastic freezer bag
To cook:
- Boil a pot of water with ginger and sugar. Adjust to taste and remember the ginger will strengthen.
  - We take ginger seriously, so I'll have the ginger steeping on the stove the whole time I've been prepping things.
- Drop tangyuan into the boiling water and stir a bit, so they don't stick to the bottom.
  - Cook like any dumpling!
    - Yes, they will grow; a certain size is my sign that they're done. We err on a bit longer when in doubt, because under-done dumpling skin is gross
Serve!
Thoughts:
- Remember to freeze as you go
- Do Not let the filling get wet!
- Don't use baking sugar either! The filling shouldn't be gritty :(
- Starting with fresh sesame is best, or else the nuttyness is generally lost in pre-toasted packages, I find.
  - otoh, rancid sesame is certifiably awful, so 'ware that :p
- The filling makes around two dozen dumplings, depending on expertise, but that leaves me with a large handful of dough left
  - add a single drop of yellow liquid color and a dash of powdered sugar (or to taste) and form into smaller balls! they're a fun addition to the final soup : D

and, yes - Grandmother did like when I made them for her ;D

Current Music: Ramy Essam - Daboura we Short we Cap / رامي عصام - دبورة وشورت وك

It is Too Hot Out, to the tune of san francisco breaking its own record high with 97F. san francisco should not get that hot; the same city as "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco" should not get that hot. It hasn't gone under 80 in the house for two nights and we woke up yesterday morning smelling smoke from across the hills. They contained/put it out yesterday as well, but I miss not expecting smoke as soon as it gets properly warm. I got a coupon from the hardware store for my birthday, and I should stock up on n95s, because we get shortages of them by august.

anyway

summer means delicious fruit! what you do is, you get the bags of ugly fruit they put up for cheap instead of throwing out, and if it's got a good skin, you have smoothie fruit! pulp and measure and freeze them quick so they don't go off, and this week has been mango time, so pull out a blender and go to town on:

Lassi:

1 cup mango
1 cup yoghurt
½ cup milk

Surprisingly Good Green Drink, I loathe all other forms of raw spinach:

1 cup mango
1 banana, broken up
½ avocado
¼ cup full-fat coconut milk
2 cups raw spinach
Maybe a bit of cinnamon (no thank you, but mom likes it)
Maybe an inch of cucumber (ditto but no thank you!!)

Both of these are fairly thick, so feel free to thin them out with icewater or iced milk. They also only do about 4-5 servings, between three of us, so I'd certainly double the lassi for company, and make them ahead of time to keep cool in the fridge.

(baking was my cooking tag in winter, and now it's just gonna be the all-purpose food tag because no way the oven is going on in this weather)

Current Music: collar full - panic at the disco

Tonight's highlights from the Chernobyl podcast:

"The Chernobyl Podcast | Part Three | HBO" (Watch on YouTube)

Peter from Wait Wait Don't Tell me defending radio plays ;D
I'm very glad to hear about the abject avoidance of gratuitous horror, that the worst parts weren't ever even filmed. It's one thing to have the acting response, but no one went into the worst makeup in the first place. There's a line before sensationalism, and I'm glad they didn't want to cross that.
and the scientist as the pursuer of truth, I exclaim, as I skitter away from writing about testimonial in/justice:

35:48 CRAIG: But this notion of what it means to be a scientist...and what it means to pursue the truth...is at the center of all of this. And there is a moment immediately following it where Khomyuk tells Legasov, listen, this is what they said. They said that they did shut the reactor down. They pressed AZ-5 and then it exploded. And you see on Legasov's face a very strange reaction which Jared Harris performed to perfection. And it is a sense-- we have at least, even if Khomyuk doesn't notice it, that this is not altogether shocking to him. [... He] is starting to suddenly realize something and it is making him feel a bit sick. And yet what he says to her after is, "Pursue this at all cost, no matter who is to blame."

PETER: Right.

CRAIG: And so, there is the scientist saying, "Regardless of how I feel, and regardless of how this turns out, the truth must be told."

PETER: Right, there's obviously a character moment there for both of them as you just described. But the series began with the words, "What are the cost of lies?"

CRAIG: Right.

PETER: So, it almost seems as if this is a counterpoint to that. Like-- because lies, as we have seen and we'll see more of, are so devastating, the only response to that problem is to seek the truth no matter what.

Also I'm making Friendly Quiche, because no procrastination spat is complete without some anxious cooking! Friendly Quiche is an alsacienne, made in the name of my good friend who doesn't eat cheese :) It's not a quick bake, but the prep is simple and it's just a few familiar ingredients - all I got at the store today today was pie crust, to supplement the eggs, milk, onion, and bacon:
( recipe under the cut! )

Current Mood: anxious

Something's been percolating in the back of my mind for a while, and it being new year's brought it to the fore, so -

See, we don't speak a lick of chinese in our house. Not mandarin, not canto, not shanghai dialect. When Grandma came over, it was all about assimilation, and then mom was saddled with the model minority shebang, and by our generation, we're just. here. Technically asian, mostly american.
But the thing is, there's been a huge uptick of chinese presence in the bay area since then. Mainland and taiwan alike, as well as other asian groups. It used to be we had to go to the chinese neighborhoods to get bao, and now there's competing bakeries and tea shops in all of my spheres. International students are hanging out with first-gen peers and everyone's chatting in their first language, and part of me wishes I had that. A very massive, huge part of me. But you know what? The asian-american kids now get to have it. We all get to look around and see our own folks right here, we don't have to find enclaves. The bay area is turning into our enclave, altogether. We're getting to exist, more and more.
And sure yes, things are beyond not perfect, but for now, for today, I want to focus on being grateful.

Relatedly, I made nian gao for the first time! I had to teach myself, but you know what, I did it, we have it. I didn't follow one set recipe, but read a bunch and did what felt right, in the greatest tradition of 'make what you have work': (NB that this takes 2 hours on the stove, and cooled in my fridge overnight to set)

A pound bag of rice flour. I used glutinous, because that's what we had, but I might do 50-50 sweet and glutinous next time, for more structure.
About 1.25 c brown sugar, plus molasses for color
About 2 c water
2 tbs oil - some folks talk vegetable oil, some people are into a drop of sesame, I went with coconut because we've got those branches back in taiwan yeaaa
and an egg and some flour, for finishing

melt the oil and sugar in water in a 4-cup saucepan, along with a tablespoon or so of molasses. It doesn't need to come to a boil, this isn't about syrup.
measure out your flour
take the saucepan off heat
slowly start to whisk in the flour. If it gets thicker than a choux, slowly add hot water. Imagine the top of the nian gao - it shouldn't be lumpy when you pour it into the mold.
does it need more molasses, is it red enough? do you want almond? sesame? what floats your boat?
Brush the inside of your tin with oil and steam for two hours. Now, everyone's going on about instant pot and cheesecake liners, but it's just me and the stovetop here, so I ended up molding a sheet of tin foil into shape, based on a bowl, to do the whole batch at once in my little steamer basket. Turns out that was a good idea, because the nian gao absolutely did not want to release, and you can't peel off a springmold or anything. I also made the mistake of not keeping the condensation off of the cake itself, and it puffed up alarmingly. But then I let it finish for a few minutes with the lid off after two hours, and it dropped down.
And after cooling overnight, it's perfect! Fry that up in a thin batter - one egg, a spoonful of flour, and just a pinch of salt was enough to cover about half of the slices of finished cake.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: kitchen

the inside of an oven holding a muffin tin and springmold with hot cheese tarts. the tarts are domed high and cracked

more tarts!
higher proportion of blueberries this time, and as few blackberries as I could manage to pick out, because I was tired of hitting hard pips. I still don't feel like the fruit is right; I'll go for more strawberries, or some stonefruit when I can get my hands on it. Also, sister picked up cream cheese to try, but we all agreed it was nicer with the mascarpone - the first batch was lighter and could be had with tea, while she pointed out that this could stand up to coffee. I mean, I made these hoping I could bring one to work tomorrow morning, so being a bit more robust isn't bad in and of itself. but back to mascarpone, next time!

Current Location: kitchen
Current Music: adele

Half of a small tart sits in the middle of a tea saucer. The crust is cut smooth. The bottom is filled with fruit, and topped with sweet whipped cheese.

With credit to Antosempai on tumblr, I've taken a stab at the Memory Lane Pastry from FFXV. No, I haven't styled it like canon, but I'm certainly pleased with it, and myself - this is all from scratch! The crust is nice and dry, the fruit is bright, and the cheese is light and soft!
With three steps, it's a bit of assembly for an amateur like myself, but the ingredients are all simple. I only had to buy mascarpone!
Recipe under the cut!

( Read more... )

I'm sure I'll make them again, and if I change it up, then that's just in the spirit of things ;) but I'm quite happy with this!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: kitchen