A taste of Tahiti

5 August 2012

3 Comments

Until Saturday, I had never attempted to make ice cream. Every recipe I’d ever seen required an ice cream maker, and I never felt that was worth the investment. When I turned on the Food Network on Saturday morning, Giada De Laurentiis was doing a show on foods inspired by her Tahitian vacation. One of the things she was making was Tahitian Ice Cream. Her recipe didn’t require an ice cream maker, so I decided to try it.

The process of making the ice cream was a lot simpler and quicker than I had anticipated. Once the cream is whipped to the proper consistency, just mix in the rest of the ingredients, put it in the dish and freeze it.

Toasting the coconut proved to be more difficult. The first time I tried toasting it in the oven, as Giada’s recipe instructed, it burned. I checked it and stirred it after four minutes and put it in for another two, but it was completely black after those two minutes. The second time I tried doing it in a pan and pulled it off the burner when it turned golden brown, but I didn’t consider that it would keep cooking in the pan after I took it off the burner. It burned again. The third time I watched it more carefully and took it off the burner when it was light brown. It cooked until it was golden brown. Third time’s a charm.

The recipe calls for light rum, but all I had was dark rum, so the flavor dominated the ice cream. Next time I’ll reduce the amount of dark rum or use light rum, as the recipe says. The consistency was not as thick as store-bought ice cream, but it was still good. The toasted coconut added a nice contrast to the texture of the ice cream. I bet this would also be good served with fresh pineapple as a topping.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon gelatin
1 vanilla bean, preferably Tahitian
2 cups heavy whipping cream, chilled
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup light rum
1/2 cup toasted coconut, see Cook’s Notes

Place 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and allow softening, about 2 minutes. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the water mixture using a paring knife. Add the empty vanilla pods. Stir the water mixture over medium heat until the gelatin has dissolved. Set aside to cool slightly. Remove and discard the vanilla pods.

Beat the cream until thick using an electric hand mixer in a medium bowl. Add the sugar and continue to beat until the cream holds soft peaks. Add the water mixture, coconut milk and rum. Beat until thick and light.

Pour the mixture into an 8-by-8-inch glass baking dish. Freeze until the mixture is the texture of soft-serve ice cream, about 2 1/2 hours.

Scoop the mixture into small glasses using an ice cream scoop. Garnish with toasted coconut and serve. Freeze any unused ice cream in an airtight container.

Cook’s note: To toast coconut, place sweetened or unsweetened, shredded or flaked coconut in a single layer in a small frying pan over medium heat. Stir the coconut every couple minutes. Remove from heat when it is just starting to turn light brown. If you leave it in the pan, watch the coconut and continue to stir it until golden brown.

If freezing the ice cream for longer than 2 1/2 hours, allow the ice cream to stand at room temperature until softened, about 30 minutes before serving. Whisk the ice cream until smooth and serve.

Dessert for breakfast?

29 July 2012

2 Comments

Sometimes I crave something sweet for breakfast; something other than jam on toast or orange juice or a muffin. When I have berries in the fridge and a bit of time to cook, I’ll whip up a clafouti (pronounced klä-fü-ˈtē). “The Joy of Cooking” has a Cherry Clafouti, described as a simple French country dessert, in its “pies and pastries” chapter. It’s like a baked custard. But, once in a while, it can also serve as a treat for breakfast.

I like to use fresh fruit in this recipe. I’ve made the clafouti with both cherries and blueberries, but usually use blueberries because I don’t have a cherry pitter. I find the process of cutting and pitting the cherries makes the process take much longer than I want it to.

It’s nice to have options for breakfast. Give it a shot.

Ingredients
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon Cognac or rum
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 pound of sweet cherries or blueberries (frozen fruit, thawed and patted dry, or canned fruit, drained and dried, can be used)

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Butter a 10-inch, deep-dish pie pan. Beat the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until frothy, about two minutes.

Add the milk, Cognac and vanilla and beat the mixture until smooth.

Stir in the flour and salt.

Pour the fruit into the bottom of the pan.

Pour the batter over the fruit and place the pie pan on a baking sheet. Bake the clafouti for 10
minutes. Reduce the over temperature to 350 F and bake until the top has puffed (it will sink on cooling) and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool for about 20 minutes before serving.

World’s greatest sandwich?

22 July 2012

3 Comments

When I first saw “Spanglish” a few years ago, the scene in which Adam Sandler’s character makes a sandwich caught my attention. His character, a chef, is making himself a late-night snack. He takes his time crafting exactly what he wants to eat — frying the egg, cooking the bacon, broiling the cheese on the bread. After a long day, it’s his reward for himself.

I tried to make a version of it at the time and remember it being delicious. I recently found myself thinking about that sandwich again, but couldn’t remember everything that was on it, so I turned to the Internet to see if I could find it anywhere.

I found a DVD extra, titled “The World’s Greatest Sandwich,” on YouTube. It turns out the movie producers called Thomas Keller, chef and owner of The French Laundry, in to make what a chef would want as a late-night snack. He said he enjoys something salty with a beer, and the sandwich is what he came up with for Sandler’s character.

The result really hits the spot. I don’t know about it being the world’s greatest sandwich, but it’s pretty damn good.

Late-night BLT sandwich with fried egg and cheese
3 to 4 thick slices of bacon
2 slices Monterey Jack cheese
2 slices pain de campagne (rustic country loaf), whole-grain bread or sourdough bread, toasted
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
4 slices tomato
2 leaves butter lettuce
1 teaspoon butter
1 egg

Cook the bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Place the slices of cheese on one slice of the toasted bread and place in a toaster oven or under a broiler to melt the cheese.

Spread the other slice of toast with the mayonnaise, top with the cooked bacon, the sliced tomato and the lettuce.

In a nonstick skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Fry the egg, turning over briefly when the bottom is set (keep the yolk runny).

Slide the finished egg on top of the lettuce. Top with the other slice of toast, melted cheese side down. Place the sandwich on a plate and slice in half, letting the yolk run down the sandwich.

Makes one late-night sandwich.

Strawberry Bavarian Pie

15 July 2012

1 Comment

Strawberry pie

I grew up in Watsonville, Calif., the land of strawberries. Around this time of year, the summer scent of strawberries fills the air on San Andreas Road between Manresa Beach and Beach Road. Taking that drive on a summer night is one of my favorite things.

Having recently moved from the area, I’ve been missing that drive quite a bit. I miss seeing the setting sun over the ocean in one direction and the rolling strawberry fields in the other. I miss being able to pull over at a farm stand and buy beautiful, fragrant strawberries directly from the grower, often at a lower price than many stores offer.

The last time I was at the store, strawberries were on sale. Though not as fragrant as the ones I’m used to, I figured they were the best I could get. I decided to use them to make one of my favorite summer treats: a strawberry Bavarian pie.

The pie doesn’t have the heft of most fruit pies. Instead, it combines crushed fresh fruit with gelatin and cream. I got the recipe from “The Joy of Cooking,” one of my go-to reference books for kitchen projects. For now, it will have to satisfy my longing for those sweet summer drives.

Crust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 + 1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter or shortening + 3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
6 tablespoons ice water
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon ice water

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Combine the flour and salt in medium bowl. Cut half of the butter into the mixture, working it in with the tips of your fingers until it has the consistency of cornmeal. Cut the rest of the butter into the dough and work in until the dough turns into pea-sized balls. Sprinkle the dough with 6 tablespoons of ice water.

Using a fork, blend the water into the dough. If needed to hold the ingredients together, add the remaining water.

Either roll the dough out and fit it into a pie dish or pat it into the dish. Prick the crust with a fork.

Put a piece of foil in the crust and fill with pie weights. The pie weights will keep the crust from slipping into the dish and keep the bottom from bubbling.

Bake in an oven preheated to 425 F for 15 minutes or until golden. Cool.

Filling
1 quart (about 4 cups) strawberries, hulled
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cold water
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons boiling water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice
1 cup cold heavy cream

Crush the strawberries in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup sugar and let stand for 30 minutes.

Pour the cold water into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Let stand for 5 minutes. Add the boiling water and stir to dissolve the gelatin. Stir mixture into the berries. Add the lemon juice. Chill the gelatin until it is the thickness of unbeaten egg whites.

Whip the heavy cream until firm peaks form. Fold the cream into the berry mixture and pour into the cooled pie crust.

BLT Linguine

8 July 2012

2 Comments

I was feeling ambitious last weekend. I had already decided to make BLT Linguine for dinner but, when I went to check to see whether I had all the ingredients, I noticed I didn’t have any linguine. I considered going to the store, but then decided I was up to the challenge of making linguine from scratch. In “High Flavor, Low Labor,” Associated Press Food Editor J.M. Hirsch says pasta is easy to make. I decided to see if he was right. It turns out making the pasta dough is easy, but the shaping process is challenging if you’re doing it by hand.

The second batch of pasta

The first batch I made turned out way too thick after it was boiled. I thought I had rolled it out thin enough, but it bulked up considerably during the cooking process. It was unpleasant to eat and I ended up throwing it out. The second time around, I cut the dough into larger sections after rolling it out, rolled out each section, then cut each section into strips and rolled the strips out. It was a lot of work and the pasta still ended up slightly thicker than I wanted it to be, but this batch was much better than the first. I have a tall kitchen table, and I’m an average height, but even kneeling on one of the chairs didn’t give me enough leverage to roll the dough out as thin as it should have been.

I’ve only made pasta one other time, and that was a few years ago when I made gnocchi, which is a long process, but completely worth it. For this recipe, making pasta by hand was more trouble than it was worth. Unless you have a pasta maker, I’d recommend using store-bought pasta. However, if you’re feeling ambitious, I’ve included the instructions to make linguine.

BLT Linguine is easy to make for a weeknight dinner. Instead of sauce, it calls for cream cheese, which might be off-putting to some, but it works. For a lower-fat version of this recipe, Hirsch recommends substituting Greek-style yogurt for the cream cheese and prosciutto for the bacon.

Ingredients
10 slices smoked bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch scallions, whites and light green sections, chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 12-ounce package fresh linguine, or one recipe linguine (below)
4 ounces cream cheese, cut into small chunks
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. While the water heats, in a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until it is crisp, 6 to 7 minutes. Add the scallions and tomatoes, then sauté for 2 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the mixture to a bowl, draining any excess fat.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Reserve 1⁄4 cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and return it to the saucepan.

Add the cream cheese and half of the reserved cooking water to the pasta. Toss until the cheese is melted and forms a creamy sauce.

Add three-quarters of the bacon and tomato mixture, then toss again. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit more of the reserved cooking water. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Divide the pasta among four plates, then top each serving with some of the remaining bacon and tomato mixture.

Linguine
2 cups flour
3 eggs

Knead eggs into flour until ball of dough forms. Put bowl over ball of dough and let rest for 30 minutes. Roll dough into a thin sheet and cut into strips. Put strips of pasta into a pot of salted, boiling water.