Hazelnut hot chocolate, adult version

Monique's in Palo Alto makes wonderful truffles. The dark chocolate bites induce a ridiculous degree of pleasure. However, my favorite indulgence at Monique's is their hot chocolate. You pick the chocolate, you pick the liquid and flavorings, and they do the magic to combine the ingredients into a memorable experience. While I prefer, by far, very dark chocolate truffles, when it comes to hot chocolate I am all about milky. My favorite is hazelnut flavored chocolate with hazelnut hot milk.

I challenged myself to come close to Monique's level. Today I gave it a shot, and according to Jasna, Monique's now has a rival. I personally think I found a fabulous excuse to experiment and make much more hot chocolate, yet I don't entirely disagree with Jasna's assessment.

Note that this is a pretty adult version of hot chocolate. It is not very sweet, the combination of hazelnuts and chocolate makes it pretty thick. I am sipping it as I type this ...

First, I had to make hazelnut milk. The ingredients are simple, roasted hazelnuts and milk. I added a fistful or so of hazelnuts and a good cup of milk to the blender. I started blending at the lowest speed to chop the hazelnuts, then I gradually increased the speed to the max, and finally it was turbo-speed time. I let the blender run at its top speed until the milk and hazelnuts became quite hot, but not boiling. I did not time the blending action, but I am sure it was at least 5 minutes. The result was a frothy and thick liquid with hazelnuts completely emulsified. This is where Vitamix truly shines and this is how one justifies the expensive purchase!

While the blender was running, I put a stainless steel pan, 2.5 quarts, on the stove at a very low heat and I put in one row of milk chocolate, and half a row of medium dark chocolate, both the Belgian variety from Trader Joe's. The heat was low enough to slowly melt the chocolate, but did not scorch it. Then I added the hazelnut milk, increased the heat to medium and stirred with a spatula for a few minutes. The chocolate was completely dissolved in milk, there was no trace of chocolate chunks or particles. I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract and about a teaspoon of hazelnut extract. That is because I am nuts for hazelnuts.

I made sure the hot chocolate did not come to the boil, both to prevent scorching, and also to retain the frothiness.

Addendum, March 22, 2014: Lately I have been using milk frother to "whisk" the hot chocolate after stirring it well with a spatula. The additional airiness is a substantial improvement over the previous iteration. I also discovered that chilled hot chocolate, meaning straight from the fridge, is addictive.

Addendum, February 27, 2018: This hot chocolate remains our favorite. I adjusted a little bit how I make it, hence this update:

• I still blend the hazelnuts and milk until I get a total emulsion. No chunks. I am pretty sure one needs a powerful blender like a Vitamix. I blend until the liquid is pretty hot.
• I still melt my chocolate on the stove, though one could also use the microwave. I started to use dark chocolate only, 72% cocoa if I have it.
• Now I add melted chocolate into the hot milk-hazlenut emulsion in the blender and blend some more. This emulsifies the chocolate really well.
• I add some hazelnut extract, and some vanilla extract to the blender along with the chocolate.
• I tend to finish the heating the mixture up on the stove, though one could also pour the hot chocolate into cups and put them into a microwave for a few seconds.

Pizza consistency

I grew up close to Italy and got used to good pizza. Coming to north America was somewhat sobering in terms of pizza experience. In Waterloo, Canada, good pizza was very hard to find - after years a bakery opened where the standards were respectable. It is much better in the SF Bay area.

So, being a cooking nut, I have been trying to find a way to make good pizza consistently. Until last year, consistency has been evasive. One time the pizza was great, and the other time it was either too soggy, or too cracker-like, or the toppings burned or whatever. Frustrating.

Last year I decided to ditch my non-stick pans and adopt cast-iron cookware. As I was becoming increasingly impressed by cast iron, I started to look for a large cast-iron griddle. I discovered the Lodge pizza pan that some people recommended using as a griddle. I ordered one with some trepidation. Where will I store it? It seemed big and heavy enough that one could use it as a shield in a medieval sword fight, so will the heft be too much?

The pan arrived, and I decided that or the time being I will store it in the oven. I think I can sweep issues under the rug with the best of them. I wonder whether this is why I got a broom as a gift at work one day... But I so digress.

So now I had the pizza pan AKA a giant griddle. Reviewers on Amazon swore the pan helped them bake the best pizza ever. Of course I had to try. The result was great, and I have been able to repeat it consistently. Go cast iron!

Half of the pizza, the other half has been consumed promptly

The first step in making pizza is pizza dough. Any respectable cook makes that from scratch. There is lots of fuss about making a perfect pizza dough, all the way to people getting water from New York that is apparently critical. I turned to breadtopia.com, my favorite bread-making site, and found a recipe that I could build on without starting a water transportation business. I highly recommend you watch their video on making sourdough pizza dough. What I do is a simple variation and a simplification. It is all about trivial food, after all.

To make the dough, I use about one-to-one ratio of sourdough starter and flour. If you follow breadtopia, you take 1.5 cups of sourdough and 1.5 cups of flour, but you can start with any amount you want. I eyeball the quantities as I find measuring sourdough starter messy. Remember to add a good pinch of salt to the flour, a teaspoon or so.

Sourdough starter that was just fed

In a case you wonder what sourdough starter looks like, here is a picture. One needs to feed sourdough periodically. As a part of feeding, one throws away about half of the starter, adds flour and water, and mixes everything together. Instead of throwing the starter away, I am using that as an opportunity to make some pizza dough, or to make bread.

Mix the starter and the flour with a spoon and then start mixing it with hands to get the feel for the moisture. If needed, add water by the tablespoon. If it is too wet, add a bit of flour. With some practice one develops a feel for what the dough should feel like. In an industrial setting one would weigh everything carefully and have a precisely repeatable process, always using exactly the same ingredients down to the brand. For small quantities, one can get away with some shooting from the hip.

Frankly, I usually add a bit too much water, which is easy to recover from when you knead the dough. The kneading is the fun part. I really like the stretch-and-fold move the Breadtopia dude does. Essentially you stretch the dough a bit and fold it together, turn a bit and repeat. the dough does tend to become sticky to me, so I add a pinch of four to the bowl, roll the dough in the flour, and repeat. Note that the Breadtopia dude adds some olive oil before kneading. I tried that and found it did not have much effect for me, other than making an additional mess. So I add a bit of flour. Let me make it clear - the Breadtopia dude tends to know what he is doing, so all I am saying is that my skills are lacking.

Nice and smooth pizza dough, ready to rise

Back to kneading: Repeat the stretch-and-fold routine with an occasional flour sprinkle until the dough becomes soft and elastic. I sometimes mix it up a bit and knead the dough in the old-fashioned way for a bit and then go back to stretch-and-fold.

Make a nice ball of dough, add a splash of oil in the bowl, and roll the ball in it.. If you want to use the dough right away, cover the bowl with the plastic wrap and let it rise until it about doubles.

More often than not, I want to use the dough later. I simply put the dough in a plastic bag, clip the bag at the end to give the dough the room to rise, and put the dough in the refrigerator. There the dough will rise slowly. Some say that slow rising develops a better flavor. I don't have a strong opinion about the flavor, but I do have a strong opinion about the convenience of slow rising :)

When I want to make pizza, take the dough from the fridge and leave it in a warm spot for about 1/2 hour to an hour so that the dough warms up. To preheat, set the oven to 450F, convection. For my oven, this means the temperature will be 425F. I used to bake pizza in 525F oven on a pizza stone, and oven-burning ovens go to 600-700F. So 425F is not all that hot, and your oven can surely go that high. Interestingly enough, one doesn't really need the 700F blast to make a great pizza! I still keep my pizza stone in the oven. mostly to collect and retain the heat for when I open the oven door.

While the oven is getting hot, assemble the pizza. You need enough dough to spread it over the pizza pan. I learned that if I start with about 3/4 cup of starter and 3/4 cup of flour, I get enough dough for one pizza. I grease the pan very very lightly, and then I use my fingers to stretch the dough in my hands, and then I simply press it across the pan in a very thin layer.

When the dough is in the pan, set the pan on top of a large burner and turn it on the medium heat. The purpose is that the pan starts to heat up while you finish the pizza assembly. At this point, you really cannot get distracted and walk away for half an hour, unless you want flat-bread overcooked or charred on one side only. Or a kitchen fire.

My goal is to have the dough that is not too thick, so the first step is to poke holes evenly all over the dough. I use a fork, and serious gadgeteers use a dough dock.

Now the pizza is ready for toppings. First brush the dough very lightly with olive oil. Then spread the pizza sauce, leaving some room at the edge. You can use any good tomato sauce as pizza sauce. If you don't make it yourself, I recommend the pizza sauce from Trader Joe's. I find it excellent!

The toppings are your call, just don't go too heavy. The dough needs an opportunity to bake through while the toppings heat through. My favorite pizza toppings are prosciutto with capers and mozzarella. To make it, tear up a few slices of prosciutto and distribute across the pie. Sprinkle with capers, but don't go too heavy on capers, they are quite salty. Finally, tear up some slices of fresh mozzarella and distribute those over the pie. The pizza is ready for the oven!

Remember that we set the pizza pan on a medium-hot burner, and remember that cast iron gets hot. It is kevlar-glove time! Any other oven mitt is totally inferior.

Place the pizza pan in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Don't forget to turn off your burner! Depending on your oven, baking times may vary. This is where experimenting comes in place.

When the pizza is done, you can cut it directly in the pan, or slide it on a wooden board and cut it there. Do not use your expensive knife, the pizza is hot and the heat, I am told, affects the hardening of your knife. A cheap knife or a rotary pizza cutter work very well. If you place the pizza slices back on the pan, it will stay warm longer.

Korean-style vegetable stew with quinoa

Weekly, we pick a box of vegetables from our CSA, the excellent Live Earth Farm.They are nice enough, that each week, they provide recipes for the vegetables in the box. The recipes tend to be great, we have tried several, each resulted in a tasty outcome.

Of course, I tend to be too lazy to look up the recipes they send us and plan what to cook. For some reason, I am never too lazy to fire off a Google search and look for recipe ideas that I can apply to the content of our refrigerator. Recently, I decided to explore Korean cooking, to complement the much harder task Jasna has undertaken - learning the language. I came across doenjang jjigae. It is a vegetable stew made with fermented soy bean paste, vegetables, tofu, maybe seafood and what not.

After a few experiments, I came with a fusion variant that has been a hit: Tasty, healthy, and makes a great leftover. And it is trivial to make. We like to consume it with quinoa.

Start by soaking about half a cup to a cup of red lentils in hot water. That will prepare them for cooking.

Chop a small to medium onion and start sauteeing it in at a medium heat. I like to use a 3-quart pan.

Chop about 3 cloves of garlic and if you feel like it, about an inch cube of ginger.

Assemble an assortment of vegetables from your fridge. The wintery kind works great. The last time I used three small-to-medium carrots, one parsnip, a bag of king oyster mushrooms, the core of a smallish romanesco cauliflower, and a fistful of tiny brussels sprouts. In the past I used butternut squash as the main vegetable. Adding some potatoes is nice as well.

You'l need to cut all the vegetables to chunks of about the same size, so that they cook equally. Also chop tofu to chunks of about the same size as vegetables. 1/2 inch cubes are a respectable target.

I first.added carrots to the onion, and I stirred a bit After a minute or so I add garlic and ginger and stir again. I prefer to add garlic and ginger late so that they don't burn. Then gradually add the rest of the vegetables, gently stirring as you go. I don't add all the veggies at once so that I don't cool the pot off, but that probably does not mater.

Once all the vegetables are in the pot, add hot water or stock so that the vegetables are well covered. A lot of the liquid will be absorbed by the lentils that you will add a bit later. Instead of pre-made stock, I use the excellent Better-than-Bullion low sodium organic vegetable stock base, one of my favorite things from Costco. Cover the pot with the lid. I use hot water so that it comes to the boil faster.

While you are waiting for the water to boil, I suggest not watching the pot. It is a boring activity. But do not leave the kitchen. Instead, start your quinoa. I tend to cook 1/2 cup of dry quinoa, this quantity is enough for the two of us and we have enough for the next time. The basic recipe is that for each part of quinoa you add two parts of liquid. So, 1/2 cup of quinoa calls for one cup of water. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, and simmer gently for about 12 minutes. Set a timer, it is very easy to forget and burn your tasty quinoa. If you want to add more taste to quinoa, use stock instead of water. I use vegetable stock.

By now the stew is likely boiling. Reduce to simmer and add one heaping tablespoon of doenjang. You can push it to the pot through a sieve, or use the spoon to dissolve it completely. Then add one heaping tablespoon of miso paste, and also dissolve it completely. To me, the combination of the two produces a stew that is better if you just use miso or just doenjang. You taste buds may have a different opinion. I suggest you experiment and decide what it is that you like.

Drain the water from the lentils. They will swell nicely. Add the lentils to the stew and stir.

Add tofu and stir gently. I used extra firm tofu, because that is what we had in the fridge. Firm tofu would likely be better, soft may fall apart all too willingly.

If you like it spicy, you can add additional chili powder to the stew. I became partial to the sweet heat of Korean chili powder that I buy in the excellent local Korean market. Again, experiment with what you have.

Set the timer to about 10 minutes for the stew to be done. Yes, having more than one timer is useful!

By now the 12 minutes have likely passed and quinoa is cooked. Taste for doneness. If the quinoa is cooked, turn off the heat and let it absorbe the remaining liquid. Keep the pot covered, so that the quinoa remains warm.

Stir and taste the stew periodically. When the vegetables reach your desired level of doneness, the stew is done.

Garnish with chopped green onions. We server the stew in a bowl along with quinoa. Of course you can use rice instead of quinoa!

Raw beets are sweet

It is only fitting to being with something trivial that I bet many have not tried: RAW beets. I grew up with canned beets and hated them passionately. I think this is where the beets adventure stops for most of the first world. We eat beets as adults because some article mentioned beets were healthy, and we all know that healthy and tasty do not go together. So we eat some beets and attempt to feel good about ourselves.

When I learned about slow roasting and caramelization, I was receptive to learning that roasted beets are delicious, that they become very sweet. Maybe at some point later I'll tackle roasted beets with nuts and feta cheese, and an appropriate smothering of butter. A dish that can convert a hard-core beet hater.

Today, however, we go a degree simpler. I hesitated when I read somewhere that one can make a salad from grated beets. After all, beets contain beet juice, and the idea of spraying the unwashable blood-like red liquid all over the place lack appeal. I also expected raw beets to taste like cardboard. Or like canned beets. They had to, there was no caramelization.

My assumptions called to be validated on a very regular basis. Our CSA, the most excellent Live Earth Farm, insists on supplying us with a bunch of beets pretty much weekly. At least that is true during the winter. It takes an hour or more to roast beets, so that made me wonder about the flavor or the lack of flavor of a raw beet. I was a convert immediately after consuming my first slice. It was mildly sweet, and there was no beet flavor that I learned to loathe during my younger days. Surely no cardboard. I promptly gave a raw beets salad a try, and it stayed in my repertoire. Jasna kept educating me that each meal should contain some raw food to temper one's metabolism. Clearly the beets cause lobbied the effective person.

This is how easy this is: Take some super fresh beets and peel them. I find a paring knife suitable for the task. A vegetable peeler works as well. Then grate the beets in a bowl. Do use a bowl to collect the juice and make sure that you don't loose your composure when your hands turn bright red. It will wash off, but do avoid touching your clothes, or that pretty white dish cloth. After you have washed your hands, add a pinch of salt, some olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar or lemon juice. Toss. Serve in bowls, garnish with either something green like parlsey, chives, or chopped green onion. Or with something white like grated parmesan or crumbled feta. Or don't bother garnishing. I do recommend plating in the kitchen. Remember the potent red juice...

Where are the quantities, you ask! Well, all is flexible, and I surely don't measure. Taste as you go and you'll see what you like. For example, I don't like my salads very acidic, and Jasna does. Both of us are right, clearly. Moreover, tasting and adjusting is the only way you'll develop your palate and figure out how to adjust your dishes.

Confession: I like to use pumpkin seed oil in this salad. My uncle and my parents grow extra pumpkins so that Jasna and I can take some of the very finest pumpkin seed oil with us. It is total green gold. The super pricey stuff that claims to be 100% pumpkin seed oil is shamefully inferior to the real thing, so I'd avoid that purchase.

Equipment note: Microplane graters are the one and only kind one should ever use. Not only is Microplane a Canadian invention, it is the only kind of grater that works. The beets are pretty hard, so I use my box grater that I acquired years ago in BBB. This is the model closest to mine. I wonder whether a grating disk on the food processor could handle a beet. This clearly calls for an experiment.