Livin' the kosher dream
Yes, I am aware Chanukka is over, but you know what? I decided to turn over a new leaf, and get started on next year. You know me, my motto is you can never be too prepared.
Anyway, back to real life; Sufganiyot, for the un-initiated, are jelly doughnuts, but they really apply to any sort of stuffed doughnuts, like caramel, chocolate, or whatever.
To make the dough, I saw an interesting recipe in the “The Joy of Cooking,” which essentially utilizes the creaming method for this yeasted dough. The reason why I find it interesting is when making any yeasted dough, we take advantage of gas by-products from the yeast to get trapped in a gluten network, which then when baked will expand. When making cookies however, you want some lift, but not too much, and that’s where the creaming method comes in. When you take soft butter and cream it together with sugar, what you’re doing is punching thousands of tiny little holes into the dough, which then expands also, and makes the cookie fluffy. The recipe I used for the sufganiyot, starts by creaming butter and sugar, and then adding some yeast, and some more flour, and allowing it to rise. So by doing the whole creaming thing first, it incorporates all of those air bubbles, which then can add to an even fluffier end result…Well I thought it was cool.
I allowed them to rise overnight in the fridge, which helps develop flavor, without causing them to rise too much (which is a thing), and then the next day, I punched the dough down, and allowed it to rise again.
When ready to roll, I decided to follow the instructions in the book, and rolled it thinner than normal (1/4 of an inch, as opposed to 1/2”), cut out rounds, placed the jelly filling inside, brushed egg white around, and topped each round with another round. I made some with jelly, some with homemade caramel sauce, and some with chocolate.
To fry, I brought the oil up to 350 degrees, which if you don’t have a thermometer, or if your thermometer sucks like mine, you can test it with a kernel of popcorn, and when it pops, you’re good to go.
Let them rest on a cooling rack, and when ready dust the hell out of them with confectionary sugar.
I did the same thing for the caramel, I placed a dollop of the caramel on one of the rounds, and topped with another
Now for the chocolate, I tried making a ganache, and doing the same thing, but it didn’t work out as I expected, so I tried stuffing them the classical approach, by injecting the chocolate inside. Well that was quite the disaster. I mean it somewhat worked out, but it made a mess, and then the chocolate pretty much oozed out, as you can see.
All in all, the dough came out really good. But I didn’t like the laying the two pieces on top of each other. A bunch of them opened up when frying. I would rather stuff them afterwards, the only problem is getting something to make that task easier. (I’ve used a piping bag with metal tip, and a plastic syringe, both didn’t do such a good job).
Well I hope you had a good Chanukka, and that you gained at least 5 pounds strictly from oil, however if you didn’t you can always make a batch of these.
adapted from Joy of Cooking (pg – 810)
So you want to be a food blogger on this the biggest food day in `Merica, but you’re not sure where to start? Well fear not, because I have the perfect guide for you.
1) Tell people they’ve been cooking their turkeys wrong, and tell them you have a new and improved method - You see every year you somehow manage to screw up your turkey, wanna know why? It’s because you didn’t roast the bird upside down, place an ice pack on top of the breast before raosting, place aluminum foil on top of the breast, cook it in parts, Spatchcock (gigidy) your turkey. That’s the only way to ensure your turkey will come out moist and delicious…this year at least.
My prediction for next year? Deep Fried Turkey! Youtube “deep fried turkey” just to see how easy and simple it is!
2) Make everything “traditional but with a twist of modern” - pumpkin pie is so boring, solution? Delicata squash pie, now there’s an improvement.
Green beans have you down? How about okra!
Mashed potatoes making you frown? Well turn that frown upside down, with mashed celery root!
Can’t stand that poor excuse you call cranberry sauce? Why not try making it fresh instead of plopping it out of a can!
3) Come up with a wine list - This is a little tricky, because some people aren’t that “into” wines, but it doesn’t matter! You can still impress them. All you have to do is say how “_______” (insert name of wine) is the wine that pairs the best with turkey, not even a question. And it helps if it’s somewhat of an odd sounding wine. Beujolais is perfect. But it doesn’t have to be odd, it can be somewhat retro, like rose. What you don’t want to do is say something that’s too well known, like a merlot, or cabernet sauvignon. As long as it’s somewhat less than ordinary, it will work.
Prediction for next year – Moscato!
4) Tell everyone how much you’re making, and then tell everyone to “relax” - one of the best parts about being a blogger is you can lie to everyone, and no one will know! If you can come up with a few recipes that have an ingredient list longer than Anna Karenina that would be ideal, but obviously the more the merrier. And if you can throw in a few things that need specific instructions where to get it (kind of like what Bon Appetit does) that’s even better. Sassafaras root? Hazelnut Oil? Tamarind? Black truffles? Great! But to really top it all off, you have to make everyone feel like it’s super easy, and you have your life in order, and everything is ready to go, and you’re just busy feeding the horses in your stable.
On that note – Happy Thanksgiving! I’m all done cooking for the 17 people we’re having, and I’m going to go take a leisurely walk to my stables to feed my horses.
Enjoy!
For some reason, fish is one of those foods that either you hate or love. There’s really no in between. So if you’re a hater, well then all I can say is – haters gonna hate. You see there are so many different types of fish, and to say you hate fish, is just short sighted. That’s like eating the white meat on chicken, and saying “Bah Humbug (yeah apparently you’re Ebenezer Scrooge in this little ditty), I hate all forms of cooked animal!” Saying you hate fish encompasses tuna, salmon, flounder, halibut (i think you get the point) and all of those taste differently, so how can one make a broad sweeping statement, that they don’t like fish? Well in my meaningless opinion I think it has to do with the fact that most people aren’t treating fish properly. Fish are very technique sensitive that a lot of the times the reason why the fish isn’t good, isn’t because you just don’t like it, but more because it probably wasn’t handled right. The real nutsos will bring a cooler filled with ice to the store, so the fish won’t get below the proper temperature. And the smell? Well fish isn’t supposed to smell. Crazy right? If your fish smells fishy, well then chances are it’s not at it’s ideal.
All this is not to say that it will be spoiled, and in-edible, but I guess what I’m really trying to say is, with every corner we try to cut the end result is your food won’t taste as great as it could have. I’m a firm believer of this. We all cut corners, but knowing what we do in the kitchen, will greatly help to know which corners can be cut, and which can’t.
There are a few reasons why fish break down much more easily than say chicken or beef. First off, they don’t need the body structure to support themselves considering they have the luxury of lounging around all day in water. So there’s very little connective tissue, and most of their muscles aren’t really used that much. (Think about bottom dwellers like flounder, and how white their meat is, versus a salmon, which has to work pretty hard to go upstream at the end of its life, versus how red tuna is, which exerts a lot more energy to travel the distances it goes). Another nice thing about being in water all day, fish aren’t really subjected to great changes in temperatures, so they can’t really handle when the temperature does drop when you put it in your hot car. Another reason fish break down easily, is most fish tend to have this nasty habit of eating other fish, and in order to properly digest those fish, they need certain enzymes to break them down. Well can you guess what happens when said fishy dies? Yup, it’s own enzymes will have a field day, free food! Which is also why you want to gut the fish as soon as possible. All right so bottom line – fish are temperamental creatures, and are technique sensitive, and it responds greatly to slight changes, so what I guess I’m saying is – Don’t say you hate fish until you’ve tried it prepared properly.
All right, enough of my diatribe, on to cooking, shall we?
I really can’t say much about what traditionally makes a classic fish taco. From what I understand, it was born in the Baja region in Mexica (the little strip that continues south of California). I guess that makes sense, seeing the people of the land were used to eating tacos, and they had a ton of fish around, bingo bango let’s make some fish tacos.
Now which fish make up a traditional Baja fish taco? No idea, probably whatever was available, and whatever was cheap. So it’s probably not tuna or salmon, but I couldn’t tell you exactly which fish is traditional. Although I can tell you it’s probably not bronzini, which is what I used, and guess what? I don’t care! I saw these bronzini (which are apparently also called European sea bass), in my local Whole Foods, and decided it was taco time.
I chopped them up, coated them in flour, and sauteed them in some butter.
That’s it, well at least for the fish part. From what I understand, fish tacos are traditionally served with something called “crema” which is spanish for “cream,” so again, I’m not 100% sure what constitutes traditional crema, but we’ll try and make something that we can pretend is like it, right? Grrrr-ate.
I pride myself in stocking a pretty good pantry, and one of the things that I’ve seen are pretty useful are dried chilis. I have dried chilis de arbol, New Mexico, and chipotle, and they’re really a great way to add spice to any dish you want. You can re-hydrate them by letting them seep in some hot water, and presto, you got some chipotle peppers. So that’s what I did…I added hydrated chipotle, and new mexico chilis, some sour cream, some mayo, and some milk to thin it out, with some salt and pepper, and whirred it all together, and whaddya know, it was pretty freaking amazing.
Now it was all about bringing it together.
Taco + fish + red onions + crema = Fish Taco awesomeness
For the Fish Tacos
For the Crema
Seriously, this is like my 6th thermometer, and they all end like this…I have yet to find one (cheap, because I’m super cheap) that works well
