Livin' the kosher dream
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a tad awol lately. Now, it’s not because I haven’t been cooking and taking pictures, but to be brutally honest with you, I kind of forgot how to blog. You think it’s easy being a world renowned blogger? Well, it’s not. Truth is, I started feeling a lot of pressure to have these super awesome posts, that I ended up not posting anything…and that’s how I found coffee.
Ok that’s not true, but I wasn’t really sure how to end our little therapy session, and I’m still a little rusty in the intro part…gimme some time to get back into the thick of things.
Also, as I’m sure you no doubt noticed, this is part of this month’s Kosher Connection Link Up, on the Best Food I Ever Ate…I know, coffee? The best food you ever ate? Totally weak sauce, but to be honest, I’ve never had a “best” food. I always hated that question. I like everything, and I especially like coffee, so coffee it is.
Anyway, on to coffee.
I am crazy about my coffee. It’s the one thing that I consider myself a real snob about. When people start to tell me about how passionate they are about their coffee also, all I have to say is “I grind my coffee every morning, and I weigh the beans and water out, on a scale.” Now, iI’m not necessarily proud of my weird obsession, and it’s not like it’s a competition of who’s the craziest about their coffee (although if it was, I would win some weird pretentious hipster prize, like a handle-bar moustache, or maybe a gift card to urban outfitters, or something like that), but that’s how much I love my coffee. There really is a difference between bad, mediocre, good, and great coffee, and I’m here to tell you that you can learn to love your coffee too.
Let’s start from the beginning. Coffee starts out as a fruit that kind of resembles a cherry, with a “seed” on the inside. That seed is then fermented (in one particular weird example, this takes place in the stomach of a small animal known as the civet, and the seeds are then harvested from the fecal matter of the civet…yay science!), then they’re dried, and finally roasted. Depending on how long they’re roasted for, the beans go from light to medium to dark. As the beans roast, they darken with a little help from the Maillard reaction (remember Monsieur Maillard from famous applications such as Toast – a lifelong obsession with coloring bread, and of course who could forget: Browning Meat – making meat taste better, and NOT because I seal in juices!) and will start to develop it’s characteristic flavors. Generally speaking, medium roasts are the best full flavored, combining coffee and roast flavors well; Whereas with dark roasts, you only taste the roast, and not the actual coffee.
There’s also the whole thing about where your beans come from. There are a whole bunch of places that grow coffee (Fun Fact – Hawaii is the only US state that grows coffee), and it’s hard to say which one is better, but famous coffees to name just two from the many are Blue Mountain from Jamaica and Kona from Hawaii. That being said, it’s pretty rare to get these coffees without it being a blend with other varieties, or without costing a ton of money. And to be honest with you, I think it’s better to buy fresh coffee, and grind it yourself daily, than to buy a fancy pre-ground coffee…but that’s just my opinion, man.
Ok so now that you’ve procured your coffee, you want to brew it, so you can get it into your gluttonous face correct? Well, we have to talk science for just one second, k? Your cup o` joe is what it is because it extracts all of it’s super goodness out of the ground beans, and the whole process of extraction is about a few things 1) time 2) temperature 3) particle size, and each one is dependant on the other, so if we increase one we decrease the other.
To get the right particle size, we need to grind up the coffee beans. There are two ways to grind up the beans. You can either use a spice grinder, which is like a mini food processor, and has a blade whirring around on the bottom. Or you can use what’s called a burr grinder, which is like two cones inverted into one another, and you can control the amount of space in between. The main difference between the two is a burr grinder has much better control over the size of the grind.
When does this matter? Well the size of the grind is what determines the surface area of the coffee that’s in contact with the water, which will extract the goodness out of the coffee, and that gets into the two other components, time and temperature.
Let’s say you wanted to make your coffee in about 15 seconds, you would need a really small grind so there is more surface area in contact with the water, so you would need a really really small grind, and a very high temperature; so high in fact, you would need to boil the water under a lot of pressure, so the temperature of the water can be higher than a measly 212 (-ish depending on where you are), so you can really get the water hotter, and by doing all this you would have espresso (which is also why a really good espresso machine costs a lot of money). Now on the other end of the spectrum, what if you wanted to make coffee that would sit over night, and brew for a really long time. Well you have to use a really large grind, and cooler temperature; and there you have cold brewed coffee.
Ok, so now that we’ve covered the basics, and pretty much lost any semblance of an audience (Hi mom and dad!), let’s get into how I make coffee pretty much every day; The drip method. It’s a really simple way to make one cup of awesome coffee (and not a whole pot of crappy coffee).
It starts with grinding your beans, to a medium consistency (not the smallest, but also not the biggest), a scale (yes, a scale for making coffee…I know you think I’m weird, but you’re weird also), water that’s just under a boil (optimum temperature for making coffee is 195-205, and water boils at 212, so boil your water, and let it sit uncovered for a 2 minutes or so). The rest is pretty simple.
Gather your drip cone, and paper filter, and wash it out with some water (there might be dirt and particles in the paper, that if you’re going through the trouble of making awesome coffee, what’s another few seconds to make sure it really is awesome). Then place it on your cup, on the scale, and tare (zero) the scale.
Place you coffee grind, and since we’ve established I’m a certified weirdo, I have a chart that I wrote down exactly how much water correlates to how much coffee grind. (In case you’re wondering, by weight the ratio of coffee to water is 1:22.26…did y’all know I was this OCD?)
I then pour a little of the water just to moisten the beans, and let it sit for 30 seconds or so. This is called “blooming” the coffee, and starts the process of releasing the essential oils from the beans.
Then I pour the remainder of the water, stir with a spoon, and allow it to finish dripping.
I then pour in a splash of whole milk (sometimes I even go for an even smaller splash of half and half), and that’s it. I know it sounds complicated, but it really is a simple process.
Questions? Comments? Just miss me so much, that you want to chat? Well I’m back baby, and the phone lines are open, so comment away, let’s talk food.
I know there’s a lot more to talk about in regards to coffee. Like, what’s the deal with a French press? The newfangled aero press? What about the chemex system? Well, it’s too much to get into, but ask away, and I can pretend like I know what I’m talking about.
Are you really still reading? You must be super bored at work, well since you’re so bored, as usual check out the other posts as part of the Link Up, by clicking on the funny frog guy on the bottom here.
Hey friend, so you know I like you right? Well that’s why I am nice enough to let you in on the secret to perfect beer battered onion rings. No more will you be forced to eat onion rings which have no coating. We’re talking crisp, yet airy onion rings. That’s something you want isn’t it? Of course it is. If you tell me you don’t like onion rings, I don’t know if we could be friends.
That being said, I do have one caveat. You see apparently someone over at Joy Of Kosher thought I was pretty cool, and they actually asked me to do this guest post over on their blog, so if you want the ultimate secret to perfect Beer Battered Onion Rings, you’re just going to have to click on any of these shiny words. Or this one. You can also try this word…they all work. While you’re over there you can also vote for me as one of the Best Kosher Food Blogs, but you’re going to have to scroll all the way to the bottom, because I currently have a grand total of 2 votes (thanks mom and dad!)!
Anyway, go over there and make those onion rings, because they’re really awesome, but while you’re at it, and you have all that oil ready for some frying, why not make a blooming onion??? Genius, right? The batter is different than the one for the beer battered ones, and really the only thing that makes a blooming onion, is the preparation.
Take your onion, oh and we’re using the sweet Vidalia types, and peel the skin off while keeping the onion whole. Then you’re going to want to cut it into wedges without going all the way through the onion. Kind of like cutting a pizza, I guess…somehow…So start by making a cut from pole to pole, but don’t go all the way through. Then make a cut perpendicular to that one, again avoiding cutting all the way through, and keep on going until you have wedges.
Place the onion in some ice water, and gently start teasing apart the “leaves.”
Mix together 2 eggs, and set aside.
Also mix together 1 cup of flour, with whatever spices you see fit (I used, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and cayenne…but use whatever you want, you can’t really go wrong). Pour enough hot water into the flour mixture that a thickish batter forms (like a thin pancake batter).
Dip the onion into the eggs, and then the flour mixture, and fry until golden-brown, about 15 minutes.
If we’re making blooming onions, you got to have a dipping sauce right? So I threw together mayo (about 1/3 cup), a splash of cider vinegar, sriracha, paprika, and mustard, and mixed it all together.
Now the only issue I had with the blooming onion is it’s a pain in the butt to handle, and trying to keep all the leaves together, and all that…so I thought to myself, why not screw the whole blooming onion thing, but make those leaves anyway. So for batch #2, I did the same exact thing, but this time, I cut all the way through. That way, every last part of the onion was coated with the coating, and it fried up so much nicer. Plus, it was easier to handle post-frying, and also easier to dip. So unless you’re after the esthetics of a blooming onion, I say, go for the second way, it’ll be much easier for everyone.
Another note – if you haven’t read the beer battered onion ring post (and seriously, why haven’t you yet?…oh you’re not sure where the actual post is?? Well why didn’t you say so…click here), the onions were soaked in a salt-water type of soak (we used beer in that recipe, but any salt water solution will work) to pull out the moisture from the onions, which if you use sweet onions, will have a lot of moisture so it will really benefit from the soak, which I didn’t do, and the final product did end up a little mushier than I wanted, and I think now’s a good time to end this extremely long run on sentence, no?
I’d love to hear what you’re planning on making for your superbowl party.
Another month, and another Kosher Connection Link-Up thingy. This month’s theme – Miniatures, which is great, because I made these here eclairs a little while back, and it was totally on purpose that they came out way smaller than I was expecting. Well then, let’s get going shall we?
Of course we shall, what a ridiculous question.
Anywhoo, so eclairs, they’re pretty much awesome, correct? So why aren’t we making it more often? Well I don’t know, I guess most people assume that they’re pretty difficult to make, well I’m here to tell you not to assume (you probably think I’m going to say not to assume because it makes an ass out of you and me right? Wrong! You never assume because it makes an ass out of Uma Thurman, and that’s never a good thing). An eclair is simply baked pate a choux, filled with pastry cream, and topped with chocolate, and I intend to tackle each one starting…now.
Pate a choux, which translates into cabbage paste, luckily stuck around even after those damn Frenchies gave it that ridiculous name. Choux paste in it’s most simplistic form is melted butter with some water mixed together with flour, and then mixed together with eggs. It’s really a thing of beauty; It relies on the simple conversion of water to steam to deliver its lift, and what ends up happening is you end up with one giant bubble stuck inside the final product, which is perfect for filling.
In order to make choux paste. First butter is melted in some water, and when ready, flour is added, and cooked for a little to remove any flour-y taste.
The resulting batter is left to cool, and then eggs are added and mixed in, which will take a little time to fully incorporate, and the resulting dough will go from the consistency of a paste to more like a thick pancake batter.
The batter can then be “cooked” in a few different ways, and one of those ways is to bake it for eclairs/profiteroles. (frying would be another great way which would get you beignets, but that’s another post). I based the recipe off of Michael Ruhlman’s ratio for pate a choux, which means you need a scale (I’m telling you, if there’s one piece of equipment you really should have, it’s a scale, but you know me, I’m not preachy). The ratio he uses (in his book Ratio, which is a great book by the way) is: 2 parts water: 1 part butter : 1 part flour : 2 parts eggs. For me the eggs are usually the rate limiting step, and I base how big/small the recipe will be on the eggs. Since one large egg weighs 50 grams, if you use 1 large egg, you end up with: 50grams water, and 25 grams butter and flour (besides salt, and other flavorings like sugar and vanilla if you want).
For the pastry cream filing, I based it on another ratio in Ruhlman’s book, the ratio for Creme anglais. Creme anglais is a loose custard (whereby custard is defined by – a mixture of eggs and a liquid, which can either be free standing [eg – quiches, cheesecakes…] or not [ex – creme anglais, which includes French style ice creams, creme brulee, pastry cream]). For the non free standing types, there are different ways to thicken the resulting cream, and for our pastry cream (or Crème Pâtisserie if you want to be fancy) it gets thickened by a starch (cornstarch being the first choice since it’s pure starch, but flour, potato, tapioca/cassava would also work). The ratio he uses for creme anglais is: 4 parts Milk/cream: 1 part yolk : 1 part sugar.
The general idea for making any type of custard usually is to mix the eggs and sugar together, to start dissolving the sugar, and to lighten the eggs with thorough whipping.
Then the milk is heated up, along with your vanilla bean.
In our case, I used some ground vanilla bean, which I got so graciously from Bakto Flavors via Kosher Scoop because I’m one of the taste testers…more on that in the future.
Once the milk is at the desired temperature, it’s slowly added to the eggs a little at a time to temper the eggs (temper means to slowly bring the temperature of one thing that’s colder to the temperature of another thing that’s warmer, but done slowly and gently to avoid overcooking), once tempered, the remaining milk/cream is added to the eggs, and then it’s all poured back into the pot to cook a little more, and if needed strained out. In our case, to incorporate the starch, you first have to mix the cornstarch with some cold milk until it makes a slurry, and then you add the slurry to the heating up milk, and it will then start to thicken (starch only thickens at a specific temperature, which is also why you don’t want to dump it all in dry, because it will begin to thicken the second it hits the hot milk, and form clumps). Set aside to allow to cool.
To cook the eclairs, preheat an oven to 450, transfer the batter to a piping bag (what you really need is a tip coupler, which can turn any cut ziploc bag into a real piping bag), and pipe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, although you might want to pipe them a little bigger than I did. (You can push down any irregularities, by dabbing at it with a wet finger)
Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, and then lower to 350 for the last 10-20 minutes, until nicely browned. Take out of the oven, and pierce with tip of paring knife to allow steam to vent out. When cooled enough to handle, use the star tip to pipe the pastry cream inside the eclairs (this will be hard if you don’t have the tips). Set aside on cooling rack.
To make the chocolate topping, melt a whole bunch of chocolate in a double boiler with a little bit of some sort of fat (butter, vegetable oil, whatever), and dip eclairs into the chocolate. Allow the chocolate tool cool and it will slightly harden, but not too much because of the addition of the fat. (I tried making a ganache by mixing equel parts chocolate and hot milk, but it didn’t work as I had planned, but if I were to make it now, I would do it this way)
Comments: So I made a few mistake – From the beginning in order of appearance:
And there ya have it – eclairs. So it might seem like it’s a lot, with fancy words like: scale, piping bag, temper…oooh that sounds like it’s too much…too much of a patchke…well, it’s not, and you should do it. But do it better than I did.
And to the three people who read this much and haven’t been referred here from another blog (Hey mom, dad, and fan favorite Phoenix Fresser), don’t’ forget to Check out all the other participants in this months Kosher Link-up, by clicking on the funny frog thin-a-ma-bob under here.
adapted from Ratio by Ruhlman
For the pate a choux:
For the Pastry cream
For the Chocolate sauce:
To make the pate a choux:
For the custard:
For the chocolate:
To assemble -
This month’s Kosher Connection Linkup’s theme is Chinese Food, and pretty much any dish you get in a chinese restaurant is a stir fry. A stir fry, is my go to for a really quick weeknight supper. It comes together really quick, and can literally be on the table in like 10 minutes, provided you do some preparation work, and have everything ready to go (ie – mise en place). Now don’t get me wrong, I am the most unprepared cook in the history of preparedness, however, when it comes to throwing down a stir fry, you need to have it all ready, because it comes together quick.
Here’s what makes a stir fry a stir fry. First thing first, like we said, everything comes together really quickly, which is why it’s crucial you have a good pan. Whether you use a wok (which might not be the best option, depending on what type of wok you have, and whether it’s suitable for your stove), or you have a heavy bottomed cast iron skillet (which is what I use), or a tri-ply type of skillet (a “metal” type of pan, that has a layer of copper sandwiched between 2 layers of aluminum, to ensure even cooking; these pans are usually very expensive [eg – all-clad]), you need to heat the bejessus out of it, to make sure it’s super duper hot. This will ensure everything cooks quickly. Second, you want uniform sized pieces, so whatever you decide to put into the stir fry, should all be about the same size.
Now onto the food. There’s really three components. The protein, the vegetables, and the sauce. As for the protein, whether it’s chicken, beef, tofu, or whatever, the principles are the same. You want to cook them, really quickly, and with high heat, so you can develop maximum browning, but without overcooking. So you have to wait for the pan/oil to be really hot, and not overcrowd the pan (or you’ll end up steaming the meat, and not sautéing it). I usually cook the protein first, and when it’s ready I take it out of the pan, and let it sit on the side, and then add it back at the last second to mix together with everything else. (This is when a spider (that mesh looking device below) is really helpful)
For the vegetables, I like to keep it simple, and not overwhelm the dish with too many different vegetables. 1 or 2 different vegetables would be the maximum. Now in regards to cooking the vegetable, it has be done with order also. First rule – garlic and ginger always gets added at the last second, and is only sautéed for like 20 seconds. This prevents the garlic and ginger from burning, which they can do pretty easily. Other wise, the other vegetables, will cook much the same way the chicken is cooked, fast, over high heat (again, to maximize browning, while retaining their crispy-ness).
For the garlic, there are those who are against garlic presses, saying garlic presses mush the garlic too fine, and can cause the flavor of the final product to be too harsh, and instead they make a garlic paste on their cutting board. Now, I’m not one of those people, but sometimes I’m too lazy to clean the garlic press, so I make the paste instead. It’s not that hard once you get the hang of it. You take your knife and using the sides, you just keep on smushing it, until a paste forms. Some people will add salt, saying it will help (the salt abrades against the garlic), but I never do that.
For the sauce, this is really where you can just make anything up. Usually, the sauce will have soy sauce, and a vinegar in it, and a spicy component, but that’s not a hard fast rule. And you add the sauce once the vegetables is done. Since your pan is super hot, the sauce will immediately start to sizzle. You let it cook for 20 seconds or so, and then another classical addition is corn starch, to thicken the sauce.
Starch thickens sauces by absorbing water, but they only do that at a certain temperature, so typically, you take 1-2 teaspoons of cornstarch and dissolve it in 1-2 teaspoons of water, and then add that to the sauce as the finishing touch. The reason you can’t just add corn starch straight to the sauce (without dissolving it first), is because the second the starch hits the hot sauce it starts absorbing water, and if you add it straight it would clump up.
So for our dish, we went with chicken (deboned thighs) as our protein, which we “marinated” in egg whites and corn starch (it’s not really a marinade, in that it doesn’t effect the chicken’s tenderness, but we did let it soak in it for a little while…the egg whites and corn starch coat the chicken, and form somewhat of a barrier, and are a kind of insurance to prevent over cooking), quick cooking scallions and garlic, and for the sauce, it was composed of – ketchup, white vinegar, white wine, sugar, and soy sauce, served over rice.
Obviously the ingredients are listed below, but feel free to tinker around.
Don’t forget to check out the other blogs that participated, by clicking on the funny looking frog thingy below.
adapted from Joy of cooking (pg 594)
