Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Xan: brownie-in-a-mug!

OMG YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS!!!!1!!1

Greetings Vongsas, we have attained middle school reading level.

Brownie in a mug.



Brownie in a mug, with ice cream on top.


brownie in a mug with ice cream on top and coconut inside


BROWNIE IN A MUG


I can has browneez in a mug?  (Okay that time was a cat)

This is currently the best dessert recipe I own:

Brownie in a mug (modified from Internet):
Prep time: 3 minutes
Cooking time: 90 seconds.  90 SECONDS

  1. In a coffee mug, mix 2T water, 2T olive oil (or melted butter), 1/4t vanilla, dash of salt, and half an egg (can do up a full egg, but half an egg is better.  Save the other half for a friend...or for yourself tomorrow!)
  2. Add 2T cocoa powder, mix well.  Add 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup flour, mix well.
  3. Optional: add whatever mix-ins you want (coconut, chocolate chips, etc)
  4. Microwave for 60-90 seconds, to your liking.  Center should be slightly molten.  
  5. Add ice cream and enjoy!  This is a very important step.


This is really more like chocolate cake in a mug, but seriously: MAKE THIS NOW.  Still tinkering with it, but already it's pretty good.  Who knew you could make cake in a microwave?  But then, why not?

On the one hand, this is a good recipe for people who don't want to be tempted by an entire pan of brownies.  On the other hand, I predict that with this recipe in hand, your brownie consumption will go up LOL

^this concludes the posting marathon, kthxbye

Seriously, that is how we used to talk in middle school.  Actually I found it was really hard to communicate precise, meaningful information so I just gave up at parts where that was actually important.  Probably best if we never speak of (or like) this again. And don't worry parents: they grow out of it.  (mostly).

I know I am going to regret this post in the morning.

Xan: Squishity Squash

The butternut squashes were all gouged and dented and misshapen.  Thus was I nudged into buying my first acorn squash.  I found a youtube recipe and the results were excellent!



Unfortunately, Catherine does not like squishy-textured vegetables, although I have previously won her over to sweet potatoes and butternut squash by sufficiently crispying them.  But acorn squash seems to be softer.  Does anyone have any advice here?

I mean, how could you say no to this?  She ate the heart, begrudgingly.




I learned from the youtube lady that you can eat the skin, which is crispy.  By the way, can someone educate me on the edibility of different squashy skins?

In any case, I enjoyed my squash with pasta:


I actually liked this better than the carnitas.  That's how good it was.  Do you realize the magnitude of that endorsement?!?  Well technically there was some leftover carnita meat in the pasta.  But mostly it was the squash.

As you can see, my writing style devolves as the hour latens, and the marathon isn't even finished!  Current level: high school. (shudders)

Xan: Pollo a la Brasa!

Well I did some searching and found a few recipes for the Peruvian-style chicken we ate growing up at Crisp & Juicy.  I did not know it was Peruvian before, only that it was delicious.

Tonight I tried out a baby recipe which required no special ingredients. The results were excellent!  It's going on the menu!




It did have something in common, flavorwise, with the Crisp & Juicy chicken.  The next step is to go to a latin american grocer to get the right ingredients.

No fried plantains but we do have broccoli and delicious coconut rice of greatest whiteness.  Mix 1/3 cup sugar with a can of coconut milk and 2 cups of water in a saucepan, bring to a boil, add 1.5 cups rice, cover and simmer, stirring periodically, until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender (may need to add more water), about 20 minutes.

Xan: Daily cooking and a Tammy moment

For a couple years, I kept a spreadsheet of everything I cooked, how much we liked it, where to find the recipe.  It was a great idea, and I still regularly search that document for information on past dishes.  But most of those dishes I will never cook again.  

These days, by the end of a meal, I have a pretty good idea if I'm likely to ever cook that meal again (and thus whether it's worth recording).  It mostly comes down to (a) how much work it is to cook and clean up, (b) how much Catherine likes it, and (c) how much I like it.   In case you're wondering, (a) is more important than (b) is more important than (c), as sources of motivation go.

Cooking things for the first time is exciting.  Experimenting is exciting.  And there's enough food out there that I could probably do that for my whole life and never run out of new items.  My tastes are broad and broadening, so I almost always like the outcomes of my cooking adventures, even when they take me into previously uncharted territories.  I will cook most anything once, and I am never disappointed with having done it. 

But daily cooking becomes a job.  I don't actually remember the last time Catherine cooked dinner, which is to say, it is definitely becoming my job.  And that's fine.  I like it.  It's a pretty good job, as jobs go.  Nevertheless, my focus is shifting.  Now, instead of a spreadsheet for new items, I actively maintain a menu of items in regular rotation.  It's an evolving work in progress, but already I love how much easier it has made my life.

WHAT TO COOK??? I still run a lot of experiments on any given week; for instance, in the last week I made carnitas, acorn squash, Peruvian chicken (pollo a la brasa), and brownies-in-a-mug, all for the first time.  (See forthcoming posts).  But as a daily cook, it's really nice to have a menu of standards to fall back on.  Furthermore, Catherine actually wants me to allocate a higher portion of meals to old favorites she is guaranteed to like.  So a running list of favorites is convenient. Does anyone else have something like this in digital form and is there any interest in sharing?

A great recipe is a Quest Item you get to carry with you for the rest of your life.  So it can be worth a bunch of questing up front; experiments are partly an investment in the future.  But they are also fun for the experimenter to perform.  So, I don't completely deny the possibility that I'm overexperimenting, although I don't think so.  Experimenting is exploring.  The world is a big place, whether you spend your life exploring it or not.  The more you explore, the  better your overall feel for the way the world works.  I didn't become a decent cook by cooking the same 20 things over and over again, and I am still constantly learning.  

*

By the way, I absolutely have to write down the following story before I forget any of the details. Tammy is my primary example of a person who has long existed in this world but never explored it.  I thought I would go to my grave with "Are those...artichoke hearts?" as my favorite Tammy moment, but just today she furnished me with this new gem:

Xan: Tammy, do you prefer white meat or dark meat?
Tammy:  I guess I don't have a preference.
Xan: Uhhh how can you get this far in life without having a preference over white versus dark meat?
Tammy: I guess I just never knew the difference.
Xan: Well, okay then, I will give you some of each! Here, I'll give you the left leg of the chicken.  The left leg is half dark meat and half light meat:


Tammy: Okay.  Wait, is that different from the right leg?
Xan: Yes, because of the way the chicken uses its legs differently, the right leg is only dark meat.
Tammy: Oh...is that on this chicken? or on all chickens?

[I pause the story at this juncture just to say that, while you could be forgiven for your disbelief, I am truly not making any of this up.  Catherine can swear to every detail of this story.]

Xan: On all chickens, Tammy.  The left leg is half white meat, it has to do with slow twitch versus fast twitch muscles.
Tammy: Ohhhh....
Xan: Yes, you see the chicken uses its legs constantly unlike its breast muscles, so the legs are full of the darker slow twitch muscles powered by fat, while the breast is full of white fast twitch muscles for quick bursts of activity when startled...
Tammy (turns to Catherine): Wait, is he just messing with me again?!?

Let the record state that Tammy is the world's most clueless and gullible person of all time.  She actually believed that the half-breast and drumstick I put on her plate were the left leg of a chicken, which is composed of white and dark meat.  Let the record also state that she only cottoned on to me when I started to explain the actual reason dark meat is dark and white meat is white.

Well, as they say, Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me thrice, I am Tammy.  

Fool me 4ice, I am Tammy.  Fool me 5ice, I am Tammy.  Fool me 6ice, I am still Tammy.

Grandma: No Knead Monkey Bread!



From Grandma: "...a photo of the monkey bread I just baked and is now almost gone!"


Looks delicious!

Yes, monkey bread does have a way of disappearing, bit by bit...by bit, by bit...


She continues: "I did find the batter a bit runny though.  Do you think the humidity here has anything to do with this?  Next time I shall increase the flour.  Correct?  Anyway a delicious and easy snack.  Thank you for the recipe."

I don't know about the effect of humidity, but yes, I would add more flour if it is too runny.  Flour is tricky to get right, since the volume can vary so much depending on how packed it is.  The best solution is to weigh it, but most recipes don't have flour amounts by weight, so often we must rely on our intuitions.  That said, no knead breads (of which this is an example) tend to have much wetter doughs than a normal bread.  Even so, this dough needs to be firmer than a typical no knead bread because you have to form it into little balls instead of just plopping it into the oven.



This is a follow-up to my previous monkey bread post, which means Vongsafood is doing its job!  May we continue to share our foods and recipes with each other, though we may be separated by many thousands of miles.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Xan's guide to roasting a chicken

Summary:  Here is a roast chicken for people who are having trouble achieving browning without simultaneously drying out the chicken.  Salt a chicken with 1 TBS kosher salt, place on a plate uncovered in the fridge for 1-2 days.  Stuff with a quartered lemon and a halved head of garlic.  Coat with 1 TBS melted butter, sprinkle with pepper and thyme, surround with vegetables, and roast at 425 F (or, Lin, as close as you can get in your oven) until breast is 150 and thigh is 170. Let rest 15 minutes, continuing to cook the vegetables.  Carve and serve.

*

I have lately been roasting a chicken at least once a week, refining my approach to the point where I'm pretty happy with the results.

My personal criteria are as follows: The chicken should be impressive yet easy.  It should be flavorful, not at all dry, and have browned, crispy skin.  The chicken should not be too much work to prepare or clean up, although I don't mind if it takes some foresight.  The approach should ideally scale up from a 2-3 lb bird to a 7 lb bird so I can use it for feeding 2 to 6 people.

And here is a chicken that satisfies all of those criteria:




If you would like to achieve this, I will dispense my secrets now.


Here is the same chicken moments before going in the oven:



This is a regular 6.5 lb unfancy supermarket roasting chicken, which I bought two days earlier for about $12.

Step 1: Salt.  Brining is a great way to keep a chicken moist and give it flavor.  But in my opinion, it's a pain in the neck.  You need to make the brine, find a container big enough to hold the brining chicken, and find a space in the fridge big enough to hold the brining container!  So instead, I will salt (or "dry brine") a chicken by sprinkling a tablespoon of kosher salt (or 1/2 TBS table salt) all over the chicken, and setting it on a plate in the fridge for 1-2 days.  The salt will initially draw out moisture, dissolve, and then migrate inside the chicken, drawn continually inward by the magic of osmotic pressure.  You'll know it worked because the meat will taste salty; of course, you can adjust the amount of salt to your liking.

It couldn't be easier, and furthermore this method produces superior results to wet brining.  Both dry and wet brining will solve the problem of dry chicken meat, but for crispy browned skin, we actually want the outside of the chicken to be dry.  As the dry brining chicken sits uncovered in the fridge, the surface of the chicken has a chance to dry out.

If you are roasting a chicken and you don't have time for the above, consider at least patting down your chicken with paper towels.  In fact, if you are cooking any meat and you're having trouble browning it, the problem can often be solved by drying it as much as possible with paper towels before cooking.

Step 2: Once the chicken is brined, I stick it in a roasting pan and coat it with 1 TBS melted butter.  I ate my way through many inferior chickens on the path to perfection, and a few weeks ago I did a not-particularly-well-controlled experiment and found that butter browned much better than olive oil or nothing:

The right (from our POV) breast had butter, the left breast and leg had olive oil, and the right leg had nothing.
Butter also tastes good.  And 1 TBS is not an unhealthy amount of butter on a 6 lb chicken.

From this point, you can do whatever you like. I like to sprinkle the buttered chicken with pepper and thyme.  I will stuff the cavity with a quartered lemon and a head of garlic cut in half (so that each clove is cut in half).  It surprises me, but somehow this actually does get garlic and lemon flavor into the chicken.  Once I used two large heads of garlic and it was almost overpowering.

Then scatter whatever vegetables around the chicken -- potatoes, carrots, onions, butternut squash -- with some salt and pepper, and roast the whole thing at 425 F.  Stir the veggies occasionally, and cook till the breast is about 150 and the thigh about 170.  It should take about 1.5 hours.  Depending on the cooking time and your veggies, you will probably need to put them back in for another 15 minutes, which is great since the chicken should rest for at least that long before being carved anyway.

The result will be a moist and flavorful and beautiful chicken!  How To Carve It!



The brining keeps the chicken moist whatever the size and cooking time.  And the veggies make this a one-pot meal, which covers easy clean up.  My only problem is the unfortunate tradeoff between number of vegetables and how well they brown.

mega-veg = poor browning

semi-veg=excellent browning
But truth be told, it is impossible for chickeny vegetables not to be delicious, so I'm happy.


If you are still having trouble with browning and your oven doesn't go up any farther, another thing you can do is sprinkle a little baking powder over the chicken.  This raises the pH and will help the skin get shatteringly crisp.

Xan: Iceland and England (Part 7): Punting!

I know I am getting further and further behind, so this will probably be my last Iceland/England post.  We need to cover Oxford with Kathleen, and then we have at least something of everything.

The first thing I did upon arriving in England was to patronize this piratical purveyor of pasties:

Yes please!
The first thing Catherine did was cream tea:



We also went punting:

Here's me doing a fine job...

...and Catherine making friends with a tree...

(close friends!)
Our goal was the Victoria Arms where we had Pimms & Lemonade at Kathleen's insistence:



We also went to the Turf Tavern...




...and an amazing Greek restaurant where I had lamb shoulder, among other things:





Finally, here are some Morris dancers!