Flambeed apples

This is our goto dessert in the fall. A no-brainer to make, very fast, and quite healthy as far as desserts go. And one gets to flambé, which is always fun.

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS unsalted butter
• 4 apples - use organic, the peel adds to the trxture
• ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup Grand mariner, measured into a small bowl
• juice of one lemon

Method:

• Core apples, chop them into 1/4 inch pieces
• Melt butter in a large pan, until it bubbles
• Add apples, sprinkle them with cinnamon.
• Sauté apples until they soften a bit. About 5 minutes.
• Take the pan off the heat, add Grand Mariner, place the pan back to heat, and either light the alcohol with a lighter or tilt the pan if you have a gas stove. Keep your head back to avoid the flames.
• If you prefer there is no need to light the alcohol, it will evaporate. The fire is literally just for show and fun, if that is your thing.
• When the alcohol evaporates or flames out, take the pan off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
• Serve right away.
• You can, if you wish, add ice cream or whipped cream, or chocolate topping. We don't.

Chocolate Huzarski Krapki AKA Chocolate and Nuts Butter Cookies

My mom makes these wonderful cookies that she finishes with a dot of apricot jam. I look forward to them every time I visit. At the last visit I asked for the name, and a simple search led me to a recipe. Sadly, I was not capable of following the recipe, which tends to be the case with me. My usual ridiculous ability to focus turns into ADD when I am to follow a recipe. Oh well, the cookies turned out amazing and now it is time to record the recipe. Not to be followed the next time, of course.

Ingredients:

• 180g millet flour. All purpose flour works well, too.
• 70g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• rind of one lemon, grated
• 2 eggs, separated. Very lightly whip the egg whites, just enough to break them down.
• 80g to 100g softened unsalted butter. The original recipe calls for 140g, that seems too much.
• 100g chopped pecans
• 50g grated semi-sweet chocolate
• 100g chopped almonds

Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a mixer at a low speed mix flour, sugar, salt, and lemon rind.
• Mix in egg yolks and butter.
• Mix in pecans and chocolate, just enough that the mixture holds together.
• From the mix, make 1'' balls. Dip each ball into egg whites, then roll in almonds. Place each ball on the baking sheet and flatten it a bit.
• The mixture should yield about 20 cookies.
• Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes, until cookies are firm but not dried out.
• Cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Update June 1, 2020

I finally tried this recipe with millet flour and it worked fabulously well. In the process I also reduced the amount of butter by quite a bit, and the cookies were still amazing.

Basic crepes ratios

Crepes, savory or sweet, are a culinary wonder and should be practiced as often as feasible. I always have to look up ingredient ratios for no-egg crepes, so let us record them.

The trick is to blend the ingredients in a blender and pour them into a hot pan straight from the blender.

Oat crepes:

• 1 cup quick oats; use the blender to grind them
• 1/2 TBS ground flax seed
• 1.5 cups of liquid
• butter or oil for cooking

Buckwheat crepes:

• 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 TBS ground flax seed
• 1.5 cups of liquid
• butter or oil for cooking

Classic wheat crepes:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• pinch of salt, pinch of sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4-1/3 cup unsalted butter

Classic crepes a-la Jacques Pepin:

• 3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour.
• 2 large Eggs.
• 1/2 cup milk.
• 1 tablespoon Unsalted Butter, melted, plus 1 teaspoon for the pan.
• 1/8 teaspoon Salt.
• 1/2 teaspoon Sugar.
• 1/3 cup Cold Water.
• 2 tablespoons Canola Oil.

Salmon chowder with saffron

I am not sure I have ever had a really good chowder. Stuff one usually gets in restaurants is heavy and very thick. As a result I have been avoiding the chowder for quite some time. This changed today.

Jasna brought home a beautiful fillet of fresh salmon. It is the season, and we have been fortunate to have a good supply locally. I decided to hit the web in a hunt for ideas. Given that I am just coming over a bad cold, I thought a somewhat spicy fish stew would hit the spot. As I was poking around the recipes, a salmon chowder recipe seemed to stand out. It had no thickener in it! And it used 1/2 lb of bacon, yet it claimed it was light. I was not quite buying that!

I decided to lighten the recipe up substantially by skipping the cream and the bacon, and I enriched it by using miso paste. The result was a truly outstanding dish that we polished off with giant smiles on our faces. It was light, yet not too light. Spicy, yet not too spicy. Comfort food, yet it tasted and looked really fancy. Definitely a keeper recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 potato, about 1/2 lb, peeled, cubed to 1/2 inch pieces
• salted butter, 1-2 TBS
• 1 onion, diced; I used a red onion
• garlic - 1 tsp or so dry, or a couple of cloves, chopped
• red and/or  yellow bell pepper - between 1/2 to 1 cup, diced to 1/4 inch
• 1 ear of corn worth of corn kernels
• 1-2 dry bay leaves
• a pinch of gochu, Korean chili flakes, or regular chili flakes
• 3 cups or so milk
• 1 tsp saffron
• 1 TBS white miso paste
• salmon - about 1/2 lb or so, boneless, skinless, cut into 1 inch pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper liberally
• 2 green onions, chopped
• lemon juice to taste

Procedure:

• Boil salted water in a small/medium pan, and cook potatoes for 6 or so minutes, until they are just tender. Drain.
• In the mean while, melt the butter in a pot - I used a 3 quart chef's pan, which tends to be my go-to pot. I usually replace butter with cooking oil, avocado being my favorite.
• Once the butter bubbles, add onions, garlic, pepper, corn, bay leaf, and a pinch of gochu or cili flakes. I've even added a bit of cubed rutabaga. Cook on medium heat until it softens.
• Add the milk, miso paste, and optionally saffron. Cover, bring to boil, still on medium heat. Watch the pot because milk likes to boil over.
• If you want to lighten the dish even further, replace up to 3/4 of the milk with dashi or kelp water. That shoots umami through the roof and ligtens the soup considerably. In my opinion that is definitely an upgrade.
• One day I will test how the soup turns out completely without milk.
• Blend with immersion blender or in a stand-alone blender and transfer back to the pot. I prefer to use a blender because I like the smooth texture and the color that comes from saffron.
• Add the potatoes, bring to boil, lower the heat to a mere simmer, cover, cook for about 5 minutes.
• Uncover, increase the heat to medium, add the salmon and turn the heat off. The salmon will be cooked in about 3-4 minutes.
• Add green onions and lemon juice to taste, adjust the seasoning.

Eat with:

• I suggest a side of vegetables that one could also use as garnish. For example, I made blanched turnip greens sauteed with garlic and yellow bell pepper. It worked well.

Souffles with sour creme

Soufflés! I love to make it when we have guests. One reason is that making a soufflés is a very easy way to impress almost anyone. After all, soufflés is supposed to be super hard and no ordinary mortal is supposed to attempt making it. The other reason is to dispel that myth. In fact, I find making soufflés easy and quick. It really fits my definition of trivial food.

My favorite way to make soufflés is a variation on Wofgang Puck's kaizerschmarrn recipe. The sour cream or creme fraiche really makes a big difference. In fact, I started using sour cream in savory soufflés recipes with great success. It also works vey well with chocolate, though I'll admit that chocolate souflés is not my favorite.

Ingredients for 6 6oz-ramekins 

Base:

4 egg yolks

3 oz = 85g sugar for the base

a splash of Grand Mariner. Frangelico works too, and so does rum.

8 oz = 225g of the best full fat sour cream you can find (TJ organic, Humboldt organic)

a handful of raisins, preferably soaked in rum for 30 mins, then drained.

zest and juice of one lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 TBS four, one TBS also suffices

Meringue:

4 egg whites

1.5 oz = 40g sugar for meringue

Optional: 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Optional and recommended: a handful of roughly chopped hazelnuts, sliced almonds, or pecans.

butter and sugar for ramekins

Preparation:

Start preheating the oven to 425F.

Mix all the ingredients for the base, starting with egg yolks, sugar, and liqueur, then add other ingredients. You can make the base a day ahead and keep it refridgerated.

Next butter the 6 ramekins. You can melt some butter and brush them on the inside, or you can be lazy like me and smear the butter with your fingers. Coat the inside of each ramekin with sugar - simply put some sugar into a ramekin, swirl around, and then dump the sugar into the next ramekin - as demonstrated in this video.

Next is meringue. I find it that meringue withstands folding better than just whipped egg whites. To make meringue, have egg whites at the room temperature for best volume. Add them to a clean bowl. Any fat in your bowl will cause problems whipping the egg whites. My preference is a copper bowl, but any clean bowl will do. Add the cream of tartar if you have it, and beat the egg whites, slowly increasing the speed of the mixer. When the eggs are starting to foam and and are about to form soft peaks, add the sugar gradually.  Beat the meringue to a soft peak.

Gently fold the meringue into your base. Add a bit of meringue first, fold it in, then add the rest. Avoid tapping on the bowl - we want to keep those little bubbles in the meringue, they are responsible for soufflés rising.

Fill each ramekin. If you are using the nuts, sprinkle the nuts on the top. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet, and put the baking sheet into the hot oven.

Bake for 12-15 minutes - in my new hotter oven it takes only 12 minutes. The perfect souffles texture is still very moist in the middle, but not runny. Serve and eat right away - as the soufflés cool down, it will fall because the air bubbles will shrink. In my opinion these soufflés need no sauce. If you insist on the sauce, Wolfgang Puck recommends strawberry compote, or plum compote.

Soufflés can be stored in a fridge - I cover it with plastic wrap. I warm it in the microwave for about 30 seconds before eating. That may inflate it a bit, but it will be far from what one gets straight from the oven.

Note:

I have had decisive success using this recipe as a starting point for savory soufflés. The main difference is that one uses no sugar. Coat the buttered ramekins with parmesan cheese, use no sugar in the base, and use no sugar when whipping egg whites. My favorite flavoring for the base is to use about 1/2-3/4 cup of thick creamed spinach or creamed kale, and I tend to add a 2-3 TBS of ground parmesan or other cheese. The baking time remains the same.

The savory souffléss is heavier than the dessert soufflés, so it may rise a bit less. But it should still rise nicely.

Savory sour dough cumin pancakes

Once we discovered sourdough pancakes, there simply was no other way to make them. Kind of. Neither of us is too fond of excessively sweet food, and adding even maple syrup to pancakes was always met with a bit of a frown. We started to experiment with savory pancakes, inspired by my correspondence with Kekoa and Cynthia who have been enjoying their life at 9000 feet of elevation. 

One day our sourdough starter needed feeding, and I was contemplating what to do with the starter that I would otherwise be destined for garbage. I craved something flavored with cumin, and the result were pancakes that we just had to make again, and for which we had to record the recipe. The texture is a bit chewy, it reminds me of Korean pancakes, and I think I like that better than the more standard American pancakes.

Ingredients:

• sour dough, roughly one cup
• ground cumin, roughly 1.5TBS
• ground coriander, roughly 1/2 TBS
• salt, a good pinch
• optional - gochu, ground korean chili, a pinch
• one egg
• soy milk, milk, or water - roughly 1/2 cup, to achieve the desired consistency
• flour, roughly 1/2 cup, I used freshly milled whole wheat, to achieve desired consistency
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup of melted coconut oil, or another oil, even butter. I think this is optional.

Procedure:

If you are using cast-iron pan, start preheating the pan on medium heat.

Mix everything together very well in a tall enough bowl so that the content doesn't splash around. Adjust the amount of flour and/or milk to achieve the desired consistency. I like my batter pretty thick.

When the pan is hot, add just a bit of high-heat oil such as avocado oil. Add the batter, about 1/4 cup per pancake, and cook then on one side until the batter shows bubbles, then flip and another minute or two on the other side. Keep the heat low enough so that the pancakes do not burn.

Eat with:

Guacamole, hummus, vegetable purees or sauces, cottage cheese, any cheese, really, smoked salmon... Use it as starch in your meal. Or eat it straight as a snack.