Sunday, November 7, 2010

Another cup of coffee

Last thursday I helped Laia with a photoshoot that she was making for Miau Magazine... and in less than two week I'm making mine, oh, I hope it would be ok!!

Unfortunately, I can't show you pictures of the photoshoot, but here you can see a few pictures!

Arashi dying of love with her cupcake!
Me & Rocío!



And yes, as you might guess... I'm in love with my blue hat!!

Who was your weekend? Mine was good, but I'm still a little bit ill... sigh!

Pork Chop with Apple Sauce, Baked Potato Cups and Sauteed Shiitake Mushrooms


Pork and apple sauce is a very popular combination. When I decided to make a pork chop and apple sauce for dinner tonight, however, I had a little bit of a think about what I could come up with that was slightly different to accompany it. This recipe is the result and I hope that you try it out and enjoy it as much as I did.

Ingredients per Person

1 large pork chop (bone in)
2 small to medium potatoes
1 small Bramley apple, or other cooking apple
5 or 6 Shiitake mushrooms
1 clove of garlic
Pinch of dried sage
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt and white pepper


Method

The potatoes will take around an hour and a quarter to bake. They should be washed, dried and skewered through the centre with a metal skewer. This helps to conduct the heat through the potato and allows them to cook more evenly. It is important also to pierce each potato a couple of times with a fork, to allow steam to escape during cooking. They should then be wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in to the oven, preheated to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6.


The apple sauce can be made in advance and either re-heated or served cold. Alternatively, it can be made in conjunction with the remainder of the meal. The apple should be peeled, cored and roughly chopped. It should be added to a pot with a couple of tablespoons of cold water, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a half teaspoon of sugar, or to taste. It should be put on a medium heat until the water begins to simmer and the apple breaks down. This will take approximately ten minutes and therefore can be done while the pork chop is frying.


There has been much contentious debate recently as to whether pork does indeed have to be fully cooked - like chicken - or whether it can be eaten a little bit rare, like beef. I am still of the opinion that I prefer to take no chances and continue to ensure that pork is cooked fully and well. A pork chop like this of around 1" thick will therefore take around ten minutes each side, in sunflower oil over a medium heat. The chop should be put on to cook when the potatoes have been in the oven for around an hour.


When the pork chop has been turned, the potatoes should be ready. They should be removed from the oven, carefully unwrapped and slid from the skewer. If they are cooked, they will slide off very easily. They should then be halved and a little bit sliced off each end, so as they are capable of free-standing. The majority of the insides should then be carefully scooped out of each half with a teaspoon and added to a small plate or bowl. Do not scoop out too much, or the skins will collapse. The potato flesh should then be seasoned with salt and white pepper, a little butter should be added and - if desired - some fresh herbs such as dill or coriander/cilantro can be included. These ingredients should be combined with a fork or spoon, before the mixture is carefully spooned back in to the potato shells. The potatoes can then be returned to the baking tray and the oven until the remainder of the meal is ready.


The Shiitake mushrooms can be roughly chopped but I cooked them whole. I added a little olive oil and a little butter to a small frying pan, gently heated it and put in the sliced garlic clove, pinch of sage and mushrooms. Five minutes on a moderate heat, stirring frequently with a spatula, will saute the mushrooms and the meal can then be plated and served.

Orange Cupcakes with Nutella



I am back with something sweet this time :) Yes, I have decided to improve my baking skills :) This recipe is adapted from 2 different places: Orange cake from the digital magazine Sweet Paul (which I really like!): www.sweetpaulmag-digital.com I used the muffin tins instead of the cake baking pan and the other one is from one of my favorite sites run by a sweet lady called Cherine: Chicho's Kitchen. I took her advice on adding Nutella to cupcakes and muffins and it turned yummy!!! I loved the idea that the cake was made with fresh oranges. The taste was wonderful!

So the main recipe for the cake from Sweet Paul is as follows:
Makes 2 cakes (3x6 pans) according to the original recipe. I got about 20 cupcakes from this batch depending on the size of the tin or paper cups you are using.
6 sweet oranges (I used 5 big ones)
6 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cups ground almonds
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Nutella or any equivalent

Powdered sugar, for dusting (I skipped that)

Wash the oranges and place them whole and unpeeled in a pot filled with water.
Bring to a boil and let simmer for about two hours. Remove the oranges, let cool then cut in half and remove seeds. Place half the amount of oranges in a food processor and purée and set aside. Now, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the orange purée, vanilla then beat all well. Add flour, baking powder, almonds, salt and mix all until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Grease the baking pan, pour half the batter, add some Nutella then add the rest. This way the chocolate will be right in the middle. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes. Stick a toothpick and if it comes out clean then it's ready. Transfer to a on a wire rack and let cool off.

Meanwhile for the topping:
Chop the remaining oranges and place in a small saucepan with sugar and water. Let all simmer until liquid transforms into a thick syrup (about 10 to 12 minutes or so). Let it cool. Then serve as the topping of the cupcakes.

Dust with powdered sugar before serving. (I skipped that step) but next time I would love to drizzle some melted chocolate instead.

Enjoy!!!!

Takashi’s dashi

November 6

“Look, I have goose bumps,” Suvir Saran told me.

It was true. He had goose bumps.

Suvir, Indian chef extraordinaire, chairman for Asian culinary studies at The Culinary Institute of America, and just a puppydog of a sweet guy, had just finished telling Takashi Yagihashi how awesome he was for figuratively staring his Japanese compatriots down.

Takashi, you see, had — on stage, in front of everybody at the Worlds of Flavor conference — added ground duck to dashi and then used a coffee siphon to infuse it with lemon grass and kaffir lime leaf.

It seemed to me like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Indeed, I'd seen a coffee siphon — you might have seen these things, especially if you were drinking coffee in a hotel in Bangkok in the mid-’90s as they were all over that city at the time; they look like glass, high-tech percolators — used to infuse similar herbs into lobster stock at David Burke Town House in New York last year.

But Suvir told me that Japanese chefs would have regarded such acts as desecration of sacred dashi — the broth made by steeping kombu seaweed and then skipjack flakes (often called bonito flakes, but I’m told it’s really skipjack) in hot water. Dashi is the Great Mother Broth of Japanese cuisine, the source of much of the umami that makes their food so delicious.

For the record, and I wish this were the last time I’d have to write this but I know it's not, umami is basically just the flavor of protein. That’s it. It can be enhanced by exposing more of the bits of protein that trigger the umami receptors in our mouths — the amino acid glutamate along with certain nucleotides and other assorted protein components — but that’s all it is. It's one of our five tastes, along with sweetness, sourness, bitterness and saltiness. It’s not some mystical quality from the mysterious Orient. It’s just a taste. If you want to know what it tastes like, put some powdered MSG on your tongue.

If I’d taken a shot of shochu every time someone on stage said “umami” during the conference I’m pretty sure I would have died from alcohol poisoning.

Anyway, Takashi — who is the chef-owner of his eponymous restaurant in Chicago, although he’s probably better known for his work as executive chef of Tribute in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Mich. — souped up his dashi and served it around sashimi of geoduck clam that he garnished with sliced lotus root that sandwiched a shrimp mousseline and then was dipped in cornstarch and sautéed. Also in the dish was shiso leaf and two pieces of daikon, and the picture of it that accompanies this blog entry was sent to me from the smart phone of Will Dunbar, food & beverage director for the River Rock Casino in Geyserville, Calif., who had the presence of mind to take the picture.

In his notes, Will declared the dish to be “ridiculous,” but that, I soon learned, is the word he uses for foods that are unexpected, extraordinary and brilliant.

But Suvir was sure that the 39 chefs visiting from Japan would have found Takashi’s dish to be ridiculous in the more usual sense of the word and were possibly ridiculing it at that moment, while we were enjoying the day’s buffet lunch and congratulating Takashi, who gave us fist bumps and wandered off.

Then Suvir showed me his goose bumps.

DIWALI NOSTALGIA...Rangoli at work!