Risotto

A local twist to the Italian staple. Italian rice is replaced with Japanese rice. As I don't have a bottle of white wine around which my husband has not already consumed, white wine was not used.

Ingredients:

Japanese rice

Bacon

Garlic and onions

Carrots

Lettuce

Chicken Stock

Spring Onions (or any other herb, i.e. Parsley, Thyme, Chives, Coriander, etc)

Steps:

1. Cook the chopped onions in olive oil until tender. Add in garlic and cook until changes colour.

2. Add in bacon bits and cook until slightly crispy. Add carrots after bacon is cooked.

3. Add in rice. Toss the rice around until all rice is coated with the oil.

4. If you have white wine, add it in and reduce. If not, skip this step.

5. Add in stock one ladle at a time. Remember to keep stock warm. If stock is not, the starch in the rice will solidify and separate. Not good for texture...

6. Keep stirring as you as stock. Roughly takes 30 minutes from the start until the rice is done.

7. When the rice changes colour to become translucent, it is almost ready. Toss in lettuce and herbs at this stage and stir.

8. Once lettuce and herbs have wilted, turn off the stove, cover pan with the lid and let it sit for at least 1 minute. Recommended 5 minutes.

9. Serve immediately.

Notes:

Italian restaurants DO NOT give you this authentic style of risotto. They tend to cook the rice first with a normal rice cooker. When you order your risotto dish, the cook will take the rice, add it into a pot of stock with the necessary ingredients and boil it for around 5 minutes. And in 15 minutes, they would serve you a hot un-authentic rice dish to pass off as risotto.

How do I know this? We Chinese do that with our leftover rice...

The Machine...

It is now a couple of years ago that I discovered the heavenly sound of your throat and force of your letters, those that make your vocal cords vibrate. Screaming lessons in our ears; lessons that everyone should have already learned but that sometimes we are unable to assimilate. Whispering that we must be run through everything we love, and that sometimes we should leave behind what we love; running for our mother, fighting for what we believe. Stopping being a rabbit girl to become a lion girl, ready for battle. Jumping into the void, letting the happiness we get hit us like a train; stumbling, falling and getting up again, because that's life.

Today I dedicate my lines once again on your red head, your sighs and your passions, today I dedicate my words to you once again because sometimes when I feel sluggish, you take my smile away with every little piece of your sound ... and I smile even more thinking that I want to express this.

Today I want to scream something everybody already knows, but I do not care.

I am part of the machine. We are all parts of this machine that moves, based on valves, inspirations, throbbing and tears. Everyone, whether you like it or not, settle for a fraction of a heavy equipment: life. And within this machinery, there are sometimes sounds that guide us. The sound of Florence, among other very important sounds, guides me.

And yes, I am also a part of the machine. 


You've got the Love is original from The Source featuring Candi Staton; but I love Florence's cover too.

 

I didn't say anything about Daul's dead because I really think that there's nothing more about to say, except that we'll keep her in our mind :(

Kurve unkurving

November 20

On Monday Pichet Ong was busily plating yuzu cheesecake and jackfruit cake and passing out peanut butter cookies at a press event for his new dessert venture on St. Mark's Place with Michael Bao Huynh, called Spot, when ponytailed Andy Yang walked in and started telling me about new activities in his world.

Andy’s the owner of Rhong Tiam, my favorite Thai restaurant in the city and the recipient of a Michelin star (something that improved my opinion of the tire company’s New York guide considerably). He’s also the owner of one of Eater.com’s favorite punching bags, Kurve.

Rhong Tiam serves quite traditional Thai food, with an occasional Indonesian dish such as rendang dropped in here and there, the spice toned down to suit the New York palate. Kurve, on the other hand, was Andy’s attempt at a sort of nouvelle Thai, which I enjoyed, but I guess it was too high-concept for people not so familiar with Thai food (I wrote about all of that in more detail than necessary awhile back).
Pichet did the desserts there, by the way.

Anyway, Kurve is finally giving up the ghost, soon to be reborn as another Rhong Tiam.

But that’s not all. Andy’s also working with the people at Collective Hardware, at Bowery and Delancey, to open a Rhong Tiam there, to be called Rhong Tiam at Collective Hardware (not a particularly imaginative name, but clear enough). He’s currently working on getting a full liquor license for that location — which will also have a rooftop bar, maybe with a celebrity cocktail maker behind the stick — and then he’ll try to get one for his original location at 541 LaGuardia Place (between Bleecker and W. 3rd), which currently just serves beer and wine.

Andy’s also expanding beyond the New York market, and opening a Rhong Tiam just outside of Princeton, N.J., in the town of Plainsboro. He says it will probably open in about a month.

After catching up with Andy and eating Pichet's desserts, I felt a need for something savory, so I walked upstairs to Pho 32 and Shabu. Pho, as you probably know, is a type of Vietnamese noodle soup. Shabu is actually shabu shabu, a sort of Japanese hot pot of thinly sliced beef.

But the menu was in English and Korean, which actually was the second indication to me that Pho 32 was a Korean chain. The first was that the instant I sat down I was presented with a cold vegetable — in this case one of those "Asian" salads with a peanut vinaigrette. The servers all wore stylized sarongs that looked basically Burmese. I’m not sure why they were wearing sarongs, but hey, if you’re a Korean chain serving Vietnamese and Japanese food, why not?

I had Pho #3, which has brisket, flank and soft tendon. I would have had a beer, but the license is pending.

Pieces Parts

So here is a picture of my "tupperware" drawer.  I probably don't even need to say it, but of course you can tell from this that I am a Virgo.  I mean, who in the world has an organized drawer, or cabinet or whatever of perfectly aligned plastic stuff?  Gulp, that would be me.

And yeah, my spices are organized alphabetically.  Don't pity me, though.  I am perfectly happy in my madness.

Which brings me to the cake marathon.  I had it all organized.  Day by day.  I finally figured out what I wanted to make (hummingbird cake, chocolate peanut butter cake, coconut cake and four dozen assorted cupcakes).  I crafted out what I needed to accomplish each day (including shopping).  I kicked into catering mode.

And then it all went to hell.  Wednesday night.  Henry called me at 4:30 to say he was headed to the ER at a local hospital.  WHAT?????  He had been experiencing severe abdominal pain for a couple of days (unbeknownst to me) and it got the best of him.  He was headed for the hospital.

Of course I met him there immediately, leaving all of my cake-making in the dust.  You don't even want to know what the kitchen looked like.  At the end of the day (that would be the next day, as we didn't get home until 1:30 a.m.), he was basically okay.  Diverticulitis, but he can live with that.  It wasn't anything worse, thank God.  My kitchen was still a mess, though.

So that left me pretty much in the weeds.  Didn't get much done yesterday as I had to deal with what was going on with my sweet husband (he will be happy to read that as he gets tired of my referring to him as "that old, bald man").  I am happy he is okay.  I'm even happier that Eric is showing up tonight and Andy will be here on Monday.  When you can be in the same room with your kids and your husband and breathe the same air - well, it doesn't get better than that.

But back to the cake project.....in a perfect world, I would easily make all of these cakes in no time at all, post the recipes and the final (gorgeous) pictures.  My kitchen would be perfectly clean and all my plasticware would be neatly stored away.

That is so not happening .  You're going to get the photos as I take them from my iPhone in any given sequence.  Random pieces, parts.  It's pretty much a hodgepodge.  Wish me luck today as I will be finishing it all off - at least, I hope.  I'm sure there will be some road bumps along the way!

                                                        

I began by baking off all of my cake layers, starting with the chocolate ones for the Peanut Butter Cake.  This is a moist and dark cake, very tender and soooooo good when loaded up with that peanut butter frosting!  Here's the recipe:

CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING 

(From "Sky High" by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne)

For the cake:

2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup unsweeted cocoa powder (I used Droste)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt (I used Kosher)

1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)

1 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups water

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 extra-large eggs

Preheat oven to 350-degrees.  Spray 3 8-inch round cake pans with cooking spray.  Line bottom and sides with parchment and spray again.

Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.  Add oil and sour cream and whisk to blend.  Gradually whisk in the water, then the vinegar and vanilla.  Whisk in the eggs and combine until well-blended, scraping down sides of bowl.  Divide batter among the three prepared cake pans (I use a

4 2/3-oz. ice cream scoop for this).

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until center is done and a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 20 minutes then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Frost with peanut butter frosting, then drizzle glaze over top, letting it run down the sides of the cake.  If needed, refrigerate uncovered for 30 minutes until glaze and frosting are set.

For the frosting:

10 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

4 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature

5 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted

2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (I used Jiff - you don't want freshly ground for this)

Beat cream cheese and butter in electric mixer until smooth and fluffy, with no lumps remaining.  Gradually add sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bolw often.  Continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.  Add peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

For the glaze:

8 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/2 cup half-and-half

Yield:  1 8-inch triple layer cake

Okay, so here comes the disclaimer.  I figured that if an 8-inch cake was good, a 9-inch one would be even better.  Thus, I made the cake recipe x 1.5.  Since the frosting is my favorite part, I doubled that recipe (you don't have to do that but I would much rather have too much than too little - besides, this way you can lick the bowl or rip off several large spoonfuls and still have enough left to frost the cake).  I only made 1 recipe of the glaze.

I'm about to go and frost the thing right now.  Will let you know how it turns out.  In the meantime, here are a few more photos!

Out of the oven - not bad!

Liz's Baking Factory

9-inch chocolate, 5-inch chocolate and hummingbird,

9-inch hummingbird

Lotta prep!

Roast Turkey Secrets

     

    
This is the first Thanksgiving in many years that I will not cook Thanksgiving dinner and that makes me sad.  I love to cook on all the holidays and have recipes and menus for each.  My Thanksgiving menu is traditional with Roast Turkey, Gravy, Sausage and Apple Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans with Slivered Almonds, and Cranberry Sauce.  Although, I am more than happy to share the table with guests who bring their own favorites including oyster stuffing, sweet potatoes (with marshmellows), braised pearl onions, etc.  I love to entertain, strengthening bonds over the giving and sharing of a meal, and holidays can be the pinnacle of that experience.  While I am not cooking this year, I would like to share my keys to roasting a Thanksgiving turkey.  Hopefully, buried in the past that dry bird roasted for hours in low heat until every drop of moisture is drained from its flesh.  Modern cooking techniques are not just fads, but a better understanding and sharing of cooking recipes to allow fine dining at home.  When it comes to turkeys, the two keys are brining and a period of high heat.  Brining allows the turkey meat to soak in and retain moisture that will stay throughout the cooking process.  Likewise, a period of high heat browns the skin and shortens the cooking time allowing less time for the bird to dry out.  The last key is to ignore the little plastic pop out indicator that comes with many birds.  That thing might as well have been made by lawyers, because it will only pop out when its temperature reaches 185 degrees F.  This is way too warm for breast meat, especially since the bird will continue to cook after it is removed from the oven.  The result is a turkey guaranteed to be absolutely cooked, but also quite likely dry.  The brining recipe below is from Emeril Lagasse, but all brining recipes are essentially the same:  salt, brown sugar, citrus, vegetables and herbs.  It doesn't really matter which one you use, just make sure you do. 

Ingredients:
1 cup salt
1 cup brown sugar
3 oranges
2 lemons
8 sprigs thyme
4 sprigs rosemary
1 10 to 12 pound fresh or completely thawed turkey
8 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
2 yellow onions
2 celery stalks
2 carrots
3 bay leaves
5 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup flour
salt/pepper

Directions:
To make the brining solution, dissolve the salt and sugar in 2 gallons of cold water in a non-reactive container, such as a plastic bucket.  Add 2 oranges and the lemons quartered, 6 sprigs of thyme and the rosemary.  Remove the neck and giblets from the cavity of the turkey and rinse the turkey inside and out with cold running water.  Soak the turkey in the brine, covered and refrigerated, for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours.
For the turkey, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Remove the turkey from the brine and rinse well under cold running water.  Pat dry with paper towels inside and out.  Season lightly inside and out with salt and pepper.  Stuff the turkey with 1 onion and orange each cut into 8ths, 1 stalk celery and carrot each cut into 1-inch peices, 2 bay leaves and 2 sprigs thyme.  Loosely tie the drumsticks together with kitchen string.  Tuck the wings under the breast and coat the bird liberally with 4 tbsp melted butter. Place in the preheated oven and roast for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, begin the turkey broth gravy recipe below.  After 30 minutes of turkey roasting time, baste the turkey with 1/2 cup chicken stock, reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and continue roasting for another approximately 2 hours until a thermometer stuck in the thigh meat (without touching bone) registers 165 degrees F.  Baste the turkey every half hour with a 1/2 cup chicken stock and begin testing its temperature towards the end.   When done, remove the turkey and place on a platter to rest while the gravy is finished.
For the turkey broth gravy, heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat.  Add the turkey neck and saute until beginning to brown, a few minutes.   Chop the remaining vegetables and add along with the bay leaf.  Soften for a few minutes.  Add 3 cups of stock and 3 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer until the stock is reduced to 4 cups, about 1 hour.  Strain the stock and reserve until the turkey is finished roasting.  When the turkey is out of the roasting pan, pour off the juices to a glass separating cup.  Place the roasting pan on 2 stovetop burners over medium heat and deglaze with the wine, scraping up the browned bits.  Pour the mixture into the pot with the turkey stock.  Pour the separated turkey juice into the stock.  In a separate heavy sauce pan, melt 4 tbsp butter over medium heat.  Stir in the flour to make a roux and cook for 2 minutes more.  Add the stock, increase the heat to high and stir to remove lumps until the mixture comes to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes to form the gravy.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve.
     

A breakfast of champions: turkey meatballs!

Kidding. But I have to fess-up to eating a meatball at 7am this morning!!! Actually 6:56am...

Ew, right? Nooo! I swear, meatballs are typically THE easiest thing for me to zoom by at a cocktail party or array of hors d'oeuvres (I am 99% sure that's the first time I spelled that French word correctly on my first try...even after 9 years of French classes!). These meatballs, however, are phenom! And...healthy! Spicy, too! Mmmm!

Juuuuicay!!

Sweet 'n Sassy Meatballs

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp + 1 cup chipotle sauce, divided

1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

2 Tbsp dried, minced onion

1 tsp dried oregano

3/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 lb lean ground turkey breast

1 lb Italian turkey sausage links, casings removed

1/2 cup reduced-sugar, all-natural apricot preserves

Directions

In a large bowl, combine eggs, Worcestershire sauce, and 2 tablespoons chili sauce. Stir in bread crumbs, onion, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Crumble turkey sausage and ground turkey breast over mixture and mix well (hands may be required!). Shape into 1-inch balls.

Place on a rack coated with cooking spray in a shallow baking pan. Bake at 375 F for 15-20 minutes or until meat is no longer pink.

In a large bowl, combine apricot preserves and remaining chili sauce. Add meatballs and toss gently to coat. Place in a 15-inch x 10-inch x 1 inch baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake 5-10 minutes longer or until glazed, stirring every 3 minutes*.

*I omitted this last step as I transferred my meatballs to a crock pot for buffet serving.

Yield: 4 dozen

Serving size: 1 meatball

Nutrition Information (per serving): 42 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 179 mg sodium, 3 grams carbohydrate, 0 grams fiber, 3 grams protein

Had to whip out the big bertha of crock pots from the attic to fit all the balls...

I even had to cut my crock pot liner (upper left) to make it fit!

And another great appetizer recipe which is also very colorful and fun...

Cold Chicken-Cheese Kabobs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tsp olive oil

5 ounces part-skim mozzarella cheese, cubed

16 cherry tomatoes

Combine salt, pepper, and chili powder; rub into chicken cubes. Transfer to a large bowl and add vinegar. Cover and refridgerate 3-4 hours or overnight.

In a large skillet, cook chicken in oil until no longer pink. Cool slightly. Alternately tread chicken, cheese, and tomatoes onto wooden toothpicks. Serve cold.

Yield: 16 servings

Serving size: 1 skewer

Nutrition information (per serving): 48 calories, 2 grams of fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 13 mg cholesterol, 132 mg sodium, 2 grams carbohydrate, 0 grams fiber, 6 grams protein

With the holidays coming up, these are 2 hors d'oeuvres worth some serious consideration in adding to or changing in your line-up!

Well, I've played hookie all morning from work cooking away for this afternoon's holiday party for our patients. Considering the circumstances, I am opting out of wearing scrubs to work for the second time this week...gasp! I know, right. So, off I go to put effort into myself. Have a wonderful weekend...

...anyone have any exciting weekend plans? Do tell! I've got nuttin'!

And if you had to choose TWO favorite TV shows currently in-season, what would they be? (I can't choose just one, so that's why I'm asking for 2!)

Modern Family (highly rec!) and 90210 for me!
Yes, I realize this makes me completely lame!

And for all you Biggest Loser fans...this is a must-see!