Chocoholic

So I made chocolate.

No really, I did. I mean, I didn't hop off to Belize and harvest cacao pods by hand and dry the seeds in the sun or anything.  But I did take ordinary bars of dark chocolate and transform them into infused bites of deliciousness.

Michael Recchuiti's book, Chocolate Obsession,  which I've checked out from the library about 27 times, will be the death of me for certain. But it includes a recipe for earl grey tea-infused ganache, which sounds exactly like a chocolate truffle I had in Florence and haven't found anywhere else. Plus, there are about a thousand of his other recipes that are calling my name. So I got started.

I'd been scared of candy-making for a while, as I mentioned in my caramel-into-toffee post this past winter. But really, I've started to believe that candy-making is all about temperatures, and not much more. The ingredients are simple: in this case, chocolate, cream, sugar, butter, and tea. The problem is, it's easy to blast way past the desired temperature, and then the very small window of opportunity is gone. Or maybe it's just my problem, since I get impatient waiting around for the Perfect Temperature, and start doing other things. You know, multitasking. And then when I check on the chocolate, its temperature is sky high. Fortunately for me, chocolate-making is more forgiving than hard candy making, since all I have to do is wait a little while for it to cool down to The Right Temperature. Whereas with hard candy, once I've hit Hard Crack, I'm f*cked. (Oh wow. SO not what I meant.)

        The first batch came out well. Well enough to impress people, even. The ganache in the middle was the perfect consistency, and the tea infusion was just like the one I ate while prancing around in my new Italian leather boots and pretending I was a bona fide italiana under the shadow of Il Duomo... I had poured the ganache into a square baking dish, but had a hard time evening it out before it set, so the pieces I wound up with were of many sizes, shapes, and thicknesses. Some of the lopsidedness was masked by the tempered chocolate coating, but the bigger pieces were on the verge of being sickening.

Perfectionists hate imperfection. Which is why one of them invented chocolate molds. So for Round 2, I made a small batch of chili-spiced dark chocolate ganache and set it in molds that create perfect two-bite pieces. This flavor combination has been one of my favorites since "Chocolat" (if you are a teacher or parent, your kids can read about it here. Plus Robert Burleigh is a super-nice guy.). Recchiuti says to rap on the backside of the molds to release the chocolate once it has set. Evidently one can rap too hard, since I left nicks on the tops of my pieces from all the knife-rapping I did.  Note to self.

Molds are great. But it turns out that round pieces are hard to coat evenly since they have no edges. SO not perfect.

Now that I have the whole temperature-plus-perfect-size-and-shape thing down, I need to work on my decorating skills. Recchiuti suggests gold dust, which sounds like a recipe for A Huge Mess, along with microscopic drizzled lines of tempered chocolates, which sound like a recipe for It Looks Like a Three-Year-Old Made This. But then again, I was once afraid of the Perfect Temperature, and look at me now.

The square one on the right isn't quite dry. And I'm not sure what the swirly streaks are on the round and other squares-- cocoa butter rising to the top?

And by the way, Sur La Overpriced Table, it is unbelievably irritating that you sell candy thermometers that don't gauge below 100 degrees when you know perfectly well that tempering chocolate requires said chocolate to be at either 87 or 90 degrees. Crate and Barrel sells one for half your price that drops to a precarious 60 degrees, so now I own two candy thermometers. Which has turned out to be remarkably convenient.

Yes, I realize the SLT one is in the chocolate. That's because I'm not tempering it yet. Smarty pants.

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish

I'd been meaning to make a Moroccan recipe, Fish Baked with Almond Paste, for a while. The author of the cookbook where I found it tends to present needlessly elaborate recipes that sometimes take days to prepare, but I am starting to think that's what comes of Americans learning the "authentic" way to do something-- a romantic adherence to medieval methods of food preparation.

I don't eat fish very often, for many reasons.   One, it's fishy. Two, oceans are depleted. Three, I'm a woman of childbearing age. Standing at the fish counter trying to remember which fish are practically near extinction and which aren't is usually too overwhelming, especially since waiting my turn at Berkeley Bowl gives me plenty of time to contemplate the global consequences of my own consumption. Well, now there's an app for that. Yep, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's free "Seafood Watch" (category: Lifestyle) gives alternatives to overfished species, and lets you know when your favorite little fishy is relatively safe to eat. 

As it turns out, the striped bass listed as one of the kinds of fish I could use in this recipe is sustainably farmed in the US, and its wild US populations are well-managed too, so I figured it was time to give it a go. Even though the recipe called for a whole fish with tail and head intact, I figured Berkeley Bowl would have a nice tail-free fillet waiting for me.
 

Not ready to deal with the eyeballs.

Apparently not. The smallest of the bunch was two and a half pounds. It was definitely the longest packet I'd ever gotten from the meat counter. And it was the packet I least looked forward to opening. Once I got it home, I procrastinated in every way imaginable, not knowing quite how to deal with a whole fish.

After a phone conversation with my dad that confirmed that indeed, I needed to cut off the head and tail (and that the meat counter people would have done this for me with their super-sharp cleavers), I knew I couldn't put it off any longer, since the real offense would have been letting all that fresh fish go to waste. Forget the authenticity of the Moroccan preparation-- I was stuck in what seems to be a uniquely American dilemma: dealing with the too-vivid reminders that our food was a recently alive and sentient being. We only eat animals that have been skinned, drained, cleaned, ground, and sealed in cellophane.  We don't want to know where it came from or how it died.

Not ready to take the plastic bag off.

I buy whole chickens regularly, and don't really like when a few feathers are still left in the skin. I can't stand when I can tell the chicken has a bruise, since I am quite sure it happened during slaughter and am dismayed to know that the bird was handled roughly enough to bruise (granted, it was also handled roughly enough to die, but aren't there humane standards of slaughter that are intended to prevent unnecessary suffering?). The chickens, though, have been relieved of their heads, feet, and innards, and all that's left for me to do is rinse and roast, or rinse, cut, and freeze.

This fish staring at me had not been relieved of its anything. Its glittery scales kept coming off and landing on the floor. I discovered its mouth opened when I prodded its gills with my knife. I swear I wasn't playing with my food. I was just looking for the right placement of my knife to cut off the head. 

Scale, or contact lens?

Ultimately, I left the head on. I really didn't want to risk mangling the head and having the eyeballs pop out or something, or listen as the mouth gaped open while I cut through the neck. (Plus, I remembered a horrendous story my old veterinarian boss told me once about cutting off a dead Rottweiler's head for mandatory rabies testing...) I created two nice fillets for freezing, but was left with jiggly stomach stuff and a very gape-y head. I spent several minutes trying to disconnect the stomach parts from the throat parts, and really didn't need to see the hole in the fish's mouth from up through its stomach. Yet I found it all so logical and oddly interesting, like a biology class dissection that I never did in p.c. Berkeley.

This was not at all the Moroccan feast I'd planned. I wasn't one hundred percent sure I even wanted to eat the bass anymore. I took my dad's advice and used a few herbs and a few seasonings and a little lemon juice in the baking dish. While the finished product was tasty and my cats LOVED it, I am certain I would rather eat mountains of plain couscous than deconstruct a fish again. Am I guilty of being typically American? Perhaps. But perhaps also the authentic Moroccan method is to have the fishmonger gut the fish, since the recipe mentions not one word about doing it myself.

Moroccan almond mixture on the side, just for kicks.

Green Things

I love love love the idea of growing one's own food, being a localvore, and reclaiming urban spaces for farming. In the past, though, my container gardens have died died died and I decided long ago to leave the growing to farmers. And hipsters.

Emboldened by my neighbor who has similar fantasies of lush green fire escapes, I am nurturing a few plants in containers once again. We decided to be particularly ambitious and start our garden from seeds.  We planted two varieties of tomato, some cilantro, two kinds of basil, three kinds of lettuce, and cheated only once by planting parsley that was already growing in a four-inch pot. A veritable salad growing right there on the fire escape.

The lettuce is dead. Truth be told, we killed it. On purpose. It became infested with aphids. The ol' soap n' water spray didn't help in the slightest. I thought aphids chewed holes in leaves. But they didn't. They just hung out. En masse.

The tomatoes are still alive. Sort of. A colleague showed up at work one day with several varieties of heirloom seedlings that were healthy-looking and much bigger than the ones I was becoming so proud of. Her housemate is a gardener at Filoli House, so I knew these were the Real McCoy. I wasn't sure if I wanted to cheat and plant these seedlings, but all doubt was erased when I noticed a flat of Cherokee Purples. OH. MY. GOD. It was, like, destiny. I ripped out all but one of the from-seed plants in the container, and planted the Cherokee Purples and an Arnie's Round. I hoped my neighbor wouldn't notice. She noticed.  

Survival of the fittest

The parsley has made a miraculous comeback from the brink of death. Not sure why or how, but I'm glad. I used several sprigs in the salad dressing I made this weekend-- an herb-anchovy-lemon juice concoction. The cilantro is getting rather leggy in the middle, so I keep cutting it back. No idea if that's the right thing to do or not. The basil has been culled ruthlessly. My neighbor planted many seeds in a little container, which we figured was a way to hedge our bets, so to speak. But the basil seedlings were crowded, we realized, so the dead are fertilizing the survivors in a Darwinian tribute to the cycle of life. I considered swapping out the seedlings for one of those very bushy and healthy-looking one-gallon pots of basil that taunt me each time I walk in to Trader Joe's, but my neighbor would definitely notice. 

A few weeks ago, we were at Berkeley Bowl, and saw some well-established-yet-still-young-enough-to-qualify-as-grown-by-us vegetable pots for sale. I grabbed a six-flat of yellow wax beans while my neighbor wasn't looking, and then saw the most irresistible plant ever bred: a chocolate bell pepper. The first pepper, of course, is practically ready to eat, though its tag says it will turn a lovely chocolate brown when it's really ready. But there's a new pepper coming along,

which will be all ours to take credit for on our very urban, third-floor, totally local fire escape. 

Beanie babies

The Holy Grail of vegetables

Frosty B*tch

Yeah, I've been called that a few times in my life. But this post ain't about my attitude.

Frosting's never been my thing.
-Gobs of it on store-bought cakes make me ill. I can't stand corner pieces with frosting on three sides; I eat middle pieces that only have frosting on top.
-I got into a tiff once with a college housemate who insisted I ate her Betty Crocker frosting that was wallowing in the fridge.
-My Thank-God-the-CSTs-Are-Over Cupcakes were frosted with what was supposed to be buttercream but which was really just a big pile of fat and sugar. Several hours after inhaling his, one student asked me, "Um, Ms. DiStasi, did you make that frosting?"

Yet I can't quite give up on frosting altogether, and am determined earn my title in the gastronomic realm, not just the interpersonal realm. Michael Recchiuti's Chocolate Obsession  has a decadent yet simple recipe for Devil's Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate-Espresso Frosting. I've made it twice now, and both times the cupcakes were perfect. The first batch of frosting was tasty also. Too bad it was the consistency of gravy. The cupcakes were drowning in it. Of course, those close to me know the first question to ask me is, "Did you actually follow the recipe?" The answer was "No," as it usually is, but my improvisations generally don't lead me so far astray. I guess adding liquid espresso in place of instant-dissolve espresso powder isn't quite an even exchange.

The second batch of frosting was equally tasty, but I followed the recipe more closely (note I didn't say exactly) and after a stint in the refrigerator, I got frosting that stayed in place. At least until the frosting reached room temperature.

Tasty, but espresso granules are too easily mistaken for pieces of dirt.

 For my third batch, I have returned to the use of liquid espresso instead of espresso granules, as the recipe calls for, since the granules make the frosting gritty. At least, mine do, since I refuse to buy the instant-dissolve stuff Recchiuti suggests. I cut back on the cream to compensate for the extra liquid, and added a bit more white chocolate to increase the solid-at-room-temperature fat content. I dumped a bit in the stand mixer, along with a few heaping tablespoons of confectioners' sugar, which I figured was sort of like an ode to my failed buttercream. This frosting is verging on cloying thanks to the extra white chocolate and sugar, but pipes quite nicely.

EPILOGUE:  

ALMOST PERFECTION

The cupcakes and pseudo-buttercream frosting turned out as well as I could have hoped for, and I prepared a batch to bring to friends I met for drinks last night. I even added a little decorative espresso bean atop each one. However, since my car had been sitting in the sun all day, the frosting didn't even make it out of Oakland, much less to the peninsula. Guess I'm not a frosty enough b*tch to keep the cupcakes cool. 

TOTAL DISASTER

Devil's Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate-Espresso Topping
adapted from Chocolate Obsession by Michael Recchiuti

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup whole milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup espresso

1/4 tsp grated lemon or orange zest

2 + 3/4 oz white chocolate, chopped

1 TBSP espresso

1/2 cup (minus 1-2 TBSP) heavy cream

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 12 muffin cups, or spray with cooking spray.

2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

3. Combine egg, milk, oil, vanilla, and espresso in another bowl and whisk by hand. Grate zest directly into bowl.

4. Pour wet ingredients into dry. Whisk to combine. Distribute batter evenly among muffin cups (they should be about half-full). 

5. Bake until cupcakes are puffed and springy to the touch, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on wire rack, then remove from pan.

For the topping:

1. Put white chocolate in bowl. Set aside.

2. Combine espresso and cream in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour hot cream over chocolate and whisk until melted. 

3. Recchiuti says to place bowl in ice-water bath for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. I just stuck the bowl in the fridge for an hour. Either way.

4. Place frosting in pastry bag or zipper bag with corner snipped off. Pipe frosting in swirl pattern over cupcakes and garnish with cocoa powder or a single espresso bean.

She's Such a Granola

Last week, I was supervising three students while eighty-something of their peers went on an end-of-year field trip. As these three watched a movie, one began helping herself to a bag of granola that belonged to the teacher whose room we were using had broken into. A second student commented, "That stuff is so NASTY. Ugh. How can you eat that?" The first replied, "Well, Mr. [Granola Owner] loves it. He eats it all the time. So." The third kept quiet, but also didn't eat a single clustered oat out of that bag.

I was reminded of similar conversations at my own high school in which we labeled health- and environmentally-conscious students "granolas." I don't think I got labeled a granola, though I not only ate granola, but ate HOMEMADE granola, which is even more granola than eating the store-bought kind.

Years later, I craved my dad's homemade granola, and wanted to change the stigma of granola from Something That Burned-Out Hippies Eat to Something That Martha Stewart Would Make. I called my dad for the recipe, thinking he had invented his, or at least had modified it significantly from its original source. But no, his recipe was lifted directly from some 1970s vegan how-to-get-holy-while-chanting-naked-with-of-all-your-white-hippie-friends cookbook that was probably printed on reclaimed toilet paper and bound with recycled inner tubes. He told me he began making it during his kitchen shifts at sesshin, his Zen Buddhist meditation retreats. While he was fully clothed, I'm sure, this news was not any I intended to spread around my social circles, and would definitely not convince skeptics of the merits of granola.

Mr. Granola Owner Teacher, though, may be just the ally granola and I need. He happens to be in the middle of a health and fitness campaign whereby he has lost over 30 pounds and competed successfully in his first triathlon. All this, of course, is attributable to his love for and liberal use of granola. 

Non-flavored, Non-Naked Granola
adapted from Some Hippie Cookbook

4 cups rolled oats
1/4 to 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup walnuts (sometimes I like to add halved almonds too)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup honey (I use agave)
1/8 cup oil, such as canola
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
1. Mix together oats, salt, sunflower seeds, and walnuts. 
2. In a separate bowl, combine oil, honey or agave, and vanilla. 
3. Add wet ingredients to dry, and coat oat mixture evenly. Spread on shallow baking sheet. 
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 8-10 minutes. Mixture will be slightly wet but golden brown. 
5. Add raisins. Store in airtight container.

NOTES

*The original recipe says to add the walnuts at the end, but I like them toasted, so I include them in the mix to be baked. 

* You can add other goodies to the mix, such as cranberries, dried apple bits, or cherries. Other nuts work well, too. One of my recent batches included unsweetened shredded coconut. Fabulous.

*This recipe is fairly low in sugar, so it doesn't form the clusters that commercial granola does. This is great for those monitoring their sugar intake, but less great for teachers and their students who like to eat granola straight out of the bag. I like eating it as a cereal in the morning with a bit of milk. 

*Fresh fruit is fantastic in the bowl in the morning. Sliced banana and blueberries are my favorites.

R & R

I don't subscribe to Sunset magazine. A random copy of it arrived in my mailbox the other day anyway. Thumbing through it, I realized it was not the same magazine my mother used to subscribe to, with Michigan-ized enchilada recipes and how-to-build-your-own-deck instructions. Instead, I found a recipe developed by some organic farmer-restaurateur in Canada for Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Caramel-Rosemary Sauce.

Putting aside for a moment the fact that the title of this dessert is far too long, it occurred to me that rosemary, cream, and sugar just might work drizzled over a cake with fruit on top. Or on bottom. Hard to say with an upside-down cake. Regardless of direction, I got started. An acquaintance has a lovely rosemary bush growing in his yard; he donated a healthy sprig to this endeavor. Green & Black's makes the best white chocolate bar I've ever had (let's face it, white chocolate doesn't excite anyone); it imparted a lovely vanilla flavor to the cake.  Berkeley Bowl, of course, supplied the rhubarb.

The cake was perfectly edible on its own. The flavor and texture were pleasing, and the tart rhubarb is always a nice contrast to anything sweet. But the sauce... oh, the sauce! Cream, infused with rosemary, gets stirred into caramelized sugar with a touch of lemon juice. First the sweetness hits the taste buds, and then the rosemary, yet the rosemary is anything but an afterthought. After the cake was gone-- I had help eating it, I swear-- I found excuses to dip a spoon into the remaining sauce: my smoothie needed a boost, my coffee wasn't sweet enough (whoa-- not delicious), my tongue needed some rosemary cream sauce, etc...  I love that rosemary, usually an herb reserved for savory dishes, is featured so prominently in this dessert, and it works. 

Truthfully, I omitted half the recipe: the cake is also supposed to have a warm rhubarb compote poured over it, alongside the rosemary caramel sauce. Next to all that should be a scoop of Sour Cream Chamomile Ice Cream. Handmade, of course, featuring chamomile I grow myself. I admit I am curious about the ice cream. But in addition to this dessert's title becoming Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Rosemary-Caramel Sauce and Warm Rhubarb Compote Accompanied by Sour Cream Chamomile Ice Cream, its being also becomes too complicated. The unexpectedness of the rosemary is the limit for one dessert. More herbs, flavors, and sauces would just make it garish.

I suppose that's the trouble with getting pretentious-- it's hard to know when enough is enough.

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Rosemary-Caramel Sauce
(adapted from Sunset magazine, April 2011)
Cake
1/2 lb rhubarb, cut into 1/2-in slices (2 cups)
1/2 C + 3 TBSP granulated sugar
3 oz white chocolate, chopped
1/3 C unsalted butter, room temperature
2 egg whites, room temperature
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 C cake flour 

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C milk

Sauce **

1 C whipping cream

1 rosemary sprig

1 C granulated sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a 9-in round cake pan (or 8 one-cup ramekins). [Optional: line pans with parchment paper cut to fit bottom. Butter/spray paper.] 

2. In a bowl, toss rhubarb with 3 tsp granulated sugar. Spoon evenly into pan or ramekins.

3. Melt white chocolate in a double boiler. Whisk until smooth, 2-4 minutes. Let cool.

4. Beat butter and 1/2 C sugar in a bowl until fluffy. Add egg whites and vanilla. Beat until well-blended. 

5. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl. Beat flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with milk (half at a time), until smooth. Stir in chocolate. 

6. Spread batter evenly over rhubarb. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean (28-35 minutes). Let cool in pan. 

7. Meanwhile, heat cream and rosemary in small saucepan over medium heat until bubbles form at edge of pan, stirring occasionally, about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Discard rosemary. 

8. Stir granulated sugar with lemon juice and 2 TBSP water in a 12-in frying pan. Cook over medium-high heat, occasionally swirling mixture around sides to wash down sugar crystals, until deep golden, 5-6 minutes. Immediately remove pan from heat, add cream (it will bubble up), and whisk until smooth. Transfer to serving bowl.

9. Loosen cake from pan/ramekins. Invert over serving plate(s). Remove paper, if used. Spoon a bit of sauce over slices, and serve. 

 ** My sauce turned out more custardy than caramely. This is probably due to my impatience with all things sweet. To achieve a more golden sticky caramel sauce, one must follow the recipe.

Names that Start with J

Most people react positively to the news that I have started this blog.  A few (including one notable co-worker) wrinkle their noses, raise their eyebrows, and make remarks such as, "Seriously? A food blog?" as if it were the most trite waste of bytes on the Internet.  And it may be, but such a reaction from ordinarily positive people confused me.

Then last month, in a friendly red Netflix envelope, "Julie & Julia" arrived. I knew the premise: Julie cooks her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, something I was eager to see since my mother cooked her way through at least some of the recipes.  I still have her tattered, splattered copy, the spine of which has disintegrated; the book is held closed with a rubber band. I didn't know much about the life of Julia Child before watching the movie, though I'd suspected there was something decidedly un-French about her all the times I'd seen her on public television, eating her way through piles of ingredients ready for whatever she cooked with Jacques Pepin that day. Meryl Streep was perfect in that role, and I loved the movie, even if Julie got a little whiny at times.

Of course, it turns out that Julie, whiny or not, started a food blog about her year-long project with Child's book, which I imagine spawned a hot trend of food blogs in the last few years. Now I understand that nauseated reaction from a select few; clearly my idea was far from novel and I have been living under a large rock for the past few years, which is why I hadn't seen the movie yet and didn't know that everybody and her grandmother writes one of these. 

I'm not cooking my way through anything, except perhaps several bags of flour and sugar, but I am blogging about whatever I manage to accomplish, wrinkled noses be damned.