mizchef

posted by admin on Jun 12

Photo: Good Housekeeping

Today is a most sacred day for peanut butter cookie lovers. It is, my friends, National Peanut Butter Cookie Day. PB cookies is one of life’s gifts to us. Peanut butter, credited to George Washington Carver, is believed to have been created by the Aztecs, which wouldn’t surprise me, since they utilized nuts, seeds, and legumes in every possible way.

But however peanut butter originated, it is the genius of using it in cookie dough that deserves kudos. With its salty-sweet taste, reminiscent of molasses, and its trademark  fork-made cross-hatch pattern, PB cookies have become a staple of the American pantry.

According to Whatscookingamerica.com:

It is not until the early 1930s that peanut butter was listed as an ingredient in cookies. The 1933 edition of Pillsbury’s Balanced Recipes by Mary Ellis Ames, Director of the Pillsbury Cooking Service, contains a recipe for Peanut Butter Balls. It instructs the cook to roll the dough into balls and press them down with the tines of a fork. This practice is still common in America today.

I remember very vividly learning how to make peanut butter cookies in Home Ec class in junior high school. (Do they still teach Home Ec in school?) I only remember three things from that class: 1) Stainless steel sinks stain (from water), 2) how to make peanut butter cookies, and 3) practicing fire safety procedures by rolling ourselves up in asbestos blankets. Yeah, good times.

I’m not a huge cookie monster, but put PB cookies in front of me, and I’m done. I have a tremendous weakness for them. So, today is a day of reverence for me, and in honor of the day, here is a PB cookie recipe from Epicurious.com, originally appearing in the January 1998 issue of Bon Appétit. Enjoy! (I know I will.)

posted by admin on Jun 10

This week’s class at Natural Gourmet Institute was hors d’oeuvres. We made vegetarian, vegan, fish, and chicken hors d’oeuvres, including:

Hor d'Oeuvres at Natural Gourmet Institute

* Phyllo Triangles with Savory Mushrooms
*Tempeh Nori Packages
*Fried Shrimp with Wasabi Garnish
*White Bean Spread with Sundried Tomato/Kalamata Tapenade on Rosemary and Garlic Pizzelle
*Curried Chicken Salad on Papadam with Yogurt Raita
*Rosemary, Pumpkin, and Leek Dumplings
*Mini Salmon Cakes with Lemon Dill Aioli
*Parmesan Tacos Filled with Baby Mesclun Greens
*Pine Nut Ricotta on Endive
*Pumpkin Cornmeal Tartlet with Avocado Cream
*Phyllo Triangles with Herbed Greens

The staple of any party or gathering is the hors d’oeuvre. Whether it’s an intricately constructed piece of art or just a bowl of salsa and chips, everyone loves them.

White Bean Sundried Tomato/Kalamata Tapenade on Pizzelle

As a guest, you want something to nibble on while you’re talking, walking, listening, whatever. As a host, you want to make sure that your guests have a little something to put in their stomachs so they don’t roll out of your home stinking drunk. (They might anyway, but at least you’ll know it wasn’t your fault.)

The hors d’oeuvre (which literally means “outside the work”) has been around almost as long as people have been eating foods other than brontosaurus drumsticks. Romans, Greeks, and other ancient civilizations had little bite-sized snacks before their main meals.

Tempeh Nori Packages

Hors can be as simple as crudités and dip; however, “pretty” hors d’oeuvres are labor intensive. But an outstanding hors d’oeuvre is what people often remember most about a meal, even more so than dessert (unless that dessert was out of this world).

For a bunch of students, we made some very nice plates (see photos).

Pumpkin Cornmeal Tartlet with Avocado Cream

And they tasted pretty damn good, too.

I’m wrapping up work on a book of hors d’oeuvres for my second cookbook. I’ve been working on it for years and I’m hoping that a publisher picks it up. Wish me luck.

Here’s the recipe for Parmesan Tacos Filled with Baby Mesclun Greens, which is what I made in class. You’ll find it’s fairly easy and not overly time consuming. Let me know what you think.

Parmesan Tacos Filled with Baby Mesclun Greens

© Natural Gourmet Institute

For tacos:
9 oz. Parmigiano reggiano, freshly grated on small microplane grater
1 tbsp unbleached white flour, sifted

For filling:
1 tbsp + 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 small shallot, minced
1 tsp Dijon mustard
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 oz. baby mesclun greens, washed and spin dried

Procedure:

Parmesan Tacos Filled with Baby Mesclun Greens

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line standard size baking sheet with Silpatbaking mat or parchment paper.
2. In small mixing bowl, toss grated Parmigiano Reggiano with flour.Sprinkle 1 ½ tbs cheese mixture onto Silpat mat to form a 3-inch circle and flatten. Six will fit on a standard baking sheet.
3. Bake until cheese is melted and very lightly golden brown (about 10 minutes) after 5 minutes rotate pan. Remove from oven and let sit 30 seconds. With a spatula, remove one baked round to a paper towel and hold it in the palm of your hand, folding up the edges. Depress a butter knife or small offset spatula adown the middle to form a taco shape. Make sure bottom is flat. Transfer to paper towels to cool. Repeat with remaining cheese.
4. While cheese is baking, in small mixing bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, shallot, and mustard. Whisk in the olive oil slowly. Add salt and pepper to taste. When all of the crisps are made a cooled, toss the greens with vinaigrette. Place the greens carefully into the tacos and serve. Assemble as close to serving time as possible.

posted by admin on Jun 5

I’ve said it before—when cooking gourmet food, making perfect little potato squares and joli carrot juliennes is pretty but impractical, there is something to be said about food used to create art. Food is a beautiful medium—colorful, fresh, aromatic, living. I mean, who doesn’t appreciate a beautifully constructed plate of food?

Food styling is a specialty skill and a career in and of itself. (It’s not as easy as it looks.) Magazines (and cookbook publishers) rely on food stylists to make the recipes look enticing to readers so that they will want to make them. They want readers to drool. If the recipes are a food magazine’s foundation, and cooking information its structure, then food styling is its paint and flower garden. The photos are used to captivate people and lure those who would otherwise ignore a recipe, or the magazine, or food altogether.

This past week’s class at the Natural Gourmet Institute was Food as Art, which was about plating techniques, making food look beautiful and appealing on the plate. We whipped out the ring molds and squeeze bottles and created plates of fancy. Teams of two had to make an appetizer and an entrée, and each person made a dessert. It was kind of like Iron Chef or Chopped, where we were given certain ingredients and we had to come up with stuff to make.

Crostini from mommiecooks.com

For the appetizer, my partner and I made tofu steak with persimmon coulis, sautéed oyster mushroom, and blanched string beans for garnish. For the entrée, we made warm beluga lentil salad with ricotta salata and spinach on a bed of grilled zucchini and green sauce (this was really brown lentils and crumbled tofu–the object of the exercise was not taste but appearance only, so we were able to pretend that one kind of food was really another). For dessert we had almond cake, chocolate sauce, chocolate sheets with pretty designs on them, custard from Egg class, nuts, and various fruits, and we could use any of these items as we wished. I scooped out the custard and mixed it with passion fruit and put it on top of a cake round. I then sliced and fanned out a strawberry, put it on top, and drizzled it with chocolate. Yum.

Of course, I forgot yet again to bring my camera so I have no photos of anything.

I got some beautiful baby lettuces to take home, which provided me with the base for a great salad that I had for two lunches. Below are the elements of my salad (plus a few suggestions, what I marked as “optional”). You can add or eliminate anything you like.

Lettuce-Chick Pea Summer Salad

This makes one very big dinner salad or two smaller lunch salads.

1 packed cup baby romaine
1 packed cup baby red leaf lettuce
¼ cup grated carrot
1 cup chick peas
1/3 cup walnut pieces or pecans
¼ cup shaved Parmigiano
¼ cup cooked quinoa
¼ cup cooked forbidden rice
¼ cup Kalamata olives (optional)
2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
¼ cup corn (optional)
½ cup croutons (optional)
Honey-mustard dressing

Combine all ingredients, except the eggs, croutons, and dressing in a medium bowl and toss together. Sprinkle the croutons and lay the egg quarters over the top. Pour the dressing over the salad and enjoy. To bring this somewhere for lunch, combine the salad as instructed in a tight-sealing bowl and bring the dressing in a separate container. Add the dressing when you’re ready to eat.

posted by admin on Jun 2

The other day, a co-worker of mine walked into the office with a mesh bag full of some kind of round, dark fruit. I knew it was fruit because of the kind of mesh bag it was and because this person is always bringing in interesting foods to eat. Her background is Asian, so she can be relied upon to bring in things like Malaysian sweets, Chinese noodles, and natto (Japanese fermented soybeans).

So, she came up to my desk and pulled out one of these fruits and handed it to me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Mangosteen,” she responded.

Mangosteen?! No way. I’d been hearing about this exotic fruit for years but had never actually had one. The reason is that up until 2007, mangosteens were banned from the U.S. The FDA feared that mangosteens harbored the Asian fruit fly and would damage American crops. The ban was lifted because —and here’s the sad part—the FDA approved irradiated mangosteens, which means that gamma rays are shot through the fruit to kill bacteria and pests. So, while it’s great to have access to this fruit, there’s a price we pay for it.

But even after the ban, I still never saw any because they are very hard to find, and if you do find them, be prepared to pay a hefty price. My friend paid $20 for the bag she brought in, which probably held about 10 mangosteens. However, it’s not unheard of to see $45 a pound. Originally from Southeast Asia, the mangosteen is believed to be an antiinflmmatory, and it can be found as a juice, in cans, and frozen.

I didn’t try the mangosteen right then and there. I decided to take it home, where I could really experience it (and take pictures of it). The outer shell looks thick and hard, and it is. But you’d be surprised and how fragile it is. I was told to smash it with the palm of my hand to break it open, but it took a lot less force that I thought was needed. The shell is a purplish color, much like an eggplant (although, it also comes in reddish hues). The inside of the shell is ruby red, and the flesh is white and separated into segments, like an orange. A couple of my segments were smashed from the force of my hand, but its flavor was unaffected. And what was its flavor?

It was like nothing I’ve ever tasted. It was creamy, juicy, and delectably sweet with a flavor that was―to me―a cross between a sweet plum and a ripe strawberry. It was truly a treat for my tongue. And although it’s called The Queen of Fruit because Queen Victoria offered 100 pounds sterling to anyone who could deliver to her fresh mangosteens, it’s tempting to think that it was nicknamed that because it truly deserves royal status.

For some great mangosteen recipes, visit Samartfoods.com. They have a Mangosteen Yogurt Panna Cotta, Mangosteen and Lime Sorbet, and Mangosteen Jelly. Below is their recipe for Mangosteen Mousse. But before you try out any recipes, have a mangosteen fresh. It truly is the Queen of Fruit.

Mangosteen Mousse

Ingredients:
1 envelope (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
¼ cup mangosteen juice*
2 cups Mangosteen Puree
1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

In a medium saucepan, combine gelatin with ¼ cup of the mangosteen juice. Stir to soften, about 1 minute

Cook over low heat 1 to 2 minutes until gelatin dissolves. Add Mangosteen Puree and cook, stirring, over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Remove mixture from heat and set aside to cool completely.

In a large bowl, beat the cream, sugar, and salt until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

Whisk in vanilla extract.

Whisk about ½ cup of the cream mixture into the cooled mangosteen mixture until fully incorporated.

Add about a quarter of the mangosteen mixture to the whipped cream, whisking until fully incorporated.

Repeat 3 more times until all of the mangosteen mixture has been incorporated into the cream.

Spoon mixture into small individual serving dishes and chill until set, at least 2 hours. Makes about 8 cups.

*Note: This is not in the original recipe ingredients list, but it appears in the instructions, so I added it. To make the puree, juice put puree mangosteen (or frozen, thawed mangosteen) in a blender until smooth.

posted by admin on May 19

Oh. My. God. It’s National Devil’s Food Cake Day. I don’t know many people who don’t enjoy a piece of devil’s food cake every now and then. It’s decadent, rich, delicious, and tempting. Hence it’s name. It was considered so sinful that the Devil himself had to have created it. I’m not a huge chocolate fan. I mean, I like chocolate, but I don’t crave it like other people do. I’ll usually take a bag of Doritos over chocolate. But I love me some devil’s food. What I like about it is that it’s chocolatey without being overpoweringly so.

The first devil’s food cake recipe appears in the very early 20^th century, around 1900 or 1905. However, some food historians point out that food writer Caroline King mentions devil’s food cake in her 1920s memoir of her childhood in the 1880s.

But what exactly is a Devil’s Food Cake? What makes it different from ordinary chocolate cake? Some sources say that it’s the use of coffee and cocoa, rather than melted chocolate, that distinguishes it. It also tends to be a darker, richer color, perhaps due to the use of baking soda (instead of baking powder), which brings out the cocoa color). Some say that the richer color is merely from using more chocolate (vs. cocoa). Fannie Farmer doubled her chocolate quantity from 2 oz. to 4 oz., thus turning a chocolate cake into a devil’s food cake. In Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer wrote, “When the larger amount of chocolate is used, it is a black, rich Devil’s Food.”

Below is a recipe for Devil’s Food Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream from the January 2001 issue of Gourmet. Life is good.

Devil’s Food Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream

Yield: Makes 10 servings

• 1 cup boiling water
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• Brown sugar buttercream or chocolate sour cream frosting

• Garnish: chocolate curls tipped with gold leaf

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 3 (8- by 2-inch) round cake pans and line bottoms of each with rounds of wax or parchment paper. Butter paper and dust pans with flour, knocking out excess.

Whisk together boiling water and cocoa powder in a bowl until smooth, then whisk in milk and vanilla. 3Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in another bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in flour and cocoa mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture (batter may look curdled).

Divide batter among pans, smoothing tops. Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of pans halfway through baking, until a tester comes out clean and layers begin to pull away from sides of pans, 20 to 25 minutes total. Cool layers in pans on racks 10 minutes, then invert onto racks, remove wax paper, and cool completely.

Put 1 cake layer, rounded side up, on a cake plate and spread with about 1 cup buttercream. Top with another cake layer, rounded side up, and spread with another cup buttercream. Top with remaining cake layer and frost top and sides of cake with remaining buttercream.

Cooks’ notes:

• Cake layers may be made 2 days ahead of assembling and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature or frozen up to 1 week.

• Cake may be assembled 1 day ahead and chilled in a cake keeper or loosely covered with plastic wrap (use toothpicks to hold wrap away from frosting). Bring to room temperature before serving.

• This batter can be baked in 2 (9- by 1-inch) round cake pans 25 to 30 minutes; in a 13- by 9- by 2-inch pan 35 to 40 minutes; in a 12-cup bundt pan 35 to 40 minutes; or in 24 (1/2-cup) muffin cups 20 to 25 minutes.

posted by admin on Apr 4

April is National Soy Foods Month, which is quite timely for me because we just had a soy foods lecture in class the other day. We learned about all the different soy products on the market and how they are made.

FYI regarding soy as the miracle food: It’s not the panacea the scientific community thought it was a few years ago. It became a particularly big issue when doctors started prescribing a high-soy diet to menopausal women in lieu of estrogen-replacement therapy, thinking that it would help prevent cancer. It turns out that, among other things, soy can actually feed estrogen-dependent cancers. This is not to say soy is bad. Soy has many good nutritional properties, but it should be ingested in moderation. Just like anything else, I always say. For the scoop on soy—both good and bad—try these links:

Weston A. Price Foundation

Savvy Vegetarian

WebMD

Natural News.com

Health.com

posted by admin on Mar 25

Hi, all. This past week at school we had bean and grain practicum, as well as the Biochemistry of Fats and Oils. That was exactly what it sounds like—a science class. We learned about carbon chains, hydrogen atoms, and double bonds. What does any of that have to do with cooking? Well, that all lead into the construction of fatty acids and what makes them saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated, and what causes a fatty acid to become a trans fat (hydrogenation). Science was never one of my best subjects, so my brain hurt a little bit from all this information. But I can sleep at night now that I know the molecular structure of a trans fatty acid. J

Anyway, a couple of weeks back, a classmate brought in a batch of homemade kombucha, which generated interest in some of the other students. Another classmate got really excited because she’d found a source to get an organic kombucha starter culture (called a “Scoby” and also referred to as a “mushroom” or “mother”) for a really good price. Most starters will run from about $20 to $50. Local Harvest has them for $12.95 each, including shipping. If you’re not up to making your own, it’s also available commercially.

For those of you who don’t know what kombucha is, it’s a “living” beverage made by fermenting tea with sugar and a starter culture. Seedsofhealth.co.uk describes the flavor as “something between sparkling apple cider and champagne.” It’s been around for centuries and is believed to originate in either East Asia or Russia. It’s known to have many beneficial health properties, and two things that it’s considered particularly good in fighting are cancer and candida. Some people have touted kombucha as a miracle beverage.

Once you have your kombucha, you can drink it straight or use it in recipes. Here’s one for Kombucha Banana Strawberry Smoothie, courtesy of DrinkHealthyDrinks.com.

Kombucha Banana Strawberry Smoothie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 10 ounces orange juice
• 4 ounces Kombucha tea.
• One piece of fresh Kombucha colony (sized to palate)
• 5-6 large fresh strawberries
• 1-2 large banana

Blend all ingredients at high speed in your blender until smooth.

For more detailed information about the history and health benefits of kombucha or how to make your own, go to

Mayo Clinic

Kombuchacultures.com

Seeds of Health

Wikipedia

posted by admin on Mar 24

Okay, I’m a day late, but I was inspired to write this post by Grilled Cheese Invitational, which took place yesterday (3/23/11) in Los Angeles. I don’t know why I haven’t done this before because grilled cheese is a staple food for me. There have been times when I was practically living off of them.

It’s believed that the first grilled cheese, as we know it today, was invented in the 1920s. Why? Think about it. That’s about the time when sliced bread hit the market. It quickly became a go-to food, even by the military, because it was easy and economical to make. (The whole tomato-soup-as-accompaniment thing is a whole different story.)

I love grilled cheese because it’s easy, yes, economical, yes, delicious, yes, but it’s convenient as well. You can keep the necessary items—two, basically: bread and cheese—on hand over a long period of time.  And you can gussy up a grilled cheese in a million different ways with whatever else you have on hand. Below is a fairly simple yet tantalized version. Grilled cheese truly is the best thing since sliced bread.

MizChef’s Grilled Cheese

2 slices whole-grain bread
¼ oz. cheddar cheese, shredded
Two slices medium tomato
Romaine lettuce
1 tsp flavored mustard of your choice

Toast the bread. Spread the cheese on one slice of toast and place in a broiler. (This is where a countertop broiler comes in handy.) Broil or toast until the cheese melts and remove. Place the tomato slices and a piece of romaine lettuce on the cheese. Spread the mustard on the other slice of bread and close up the sandwich with it.

Makes 1 tasty sandwich.

Copyright © Roberta Roberti. All rights reserved. You are free to re-post this recipe, as long as you attribute it to the author and provide a link back to this page.

posted by admin on Mar 22

Hey, folks! Came across Food Reference, a great site that lists events related to food and drink around the world, provides food-related quotes, and just fun info about food.

Coming up in the next few days, for example, is the 3rd international Fair of Food, Drinks, and Innovative Gastronomy in Croatia, in conjunction with the 16th annual Fair of Wine and Equipment for Viniculture, also in Zagreb? Or how about the Craft Brewers Conference and Expo in San Francisco? The National Barbecue Association is meeting in Greenville, SC this year. And the New Orleans Roadfood Festival is coming up this weekend.

Point is, there is ALWAYS something foodish going on. So check out Food Reference to see if anything’s in your neck of the woods.

posted by admin on Feb 4

Hi, all. Well, my first day of culinary school finally arrived. Like any first day of any school or job, it was all about orientation. We went over policies, procedures, requirements, assignments, etc. As I sat there with all this material in front of me, I thought, “I haven’t been a student in a really, really long time.” It was slightly overwhelming for me.

The bulk of the class (14 students in total) was made up of very young people and at least one was fresh out of college. So classes, projects, and assignments are not that far in their pasts. For me, it’s another story. I’m going to have to reach far back to grab hold of my student days to get into the groove. And between my work schedule, commute, and writing, it’s going to be quite a ride. Oh, and I’ll have to do the laundry once in a while. Not sure when that’s going to happen, though.

Now, on to more food holidays!

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