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Monday, February 25, 2013

Lunchboxing

These past days, I've decided that my stomach and campus food aren't ever getting back together.  So, I've taken to packing my own lunches!
The lessons I've learned while packing lunch feel rather valuable, and so I will share with the Internet my lunch ideas from time to time, as well as just some good lunch-packing tips to keep in mind if you want to take a home cooked meal to work.

The sample recipe I've included is Japanese inspired.  The main part of it is rice, fermented soybeans, and an egg.  The side dish is salad, and the snacks are nori and carrots.  The process takes about an hour and a half, but you will be actively working for 15 minutes at most.  The rest of the time is just for the rice to cook.

Rules of Thumb:
♕ If your lunchbox is solid, try to have it just filled completely.  This reduces how much your food jiggles around as you carry it.
♕ While preparing your food, think of meals that you enjoy cold.
♕ Also, think of foods that become better the longer they sit, like marinades or tiramisus which absorb cream.
♕ Try to increase your collection of small containers, a few centimeters tall.  These are excellent for holding garnishes like sauces, berries, nuts, and herbs separate from your meal until right before eating.
♕ Following that strain of thought, try to keep as many things as possible separate in your lunch.  Sandwiches are oft best fresh assembled, so keep the bread away from the soggy components if at all possible.
♕ Invest in reusable plastic eating utensils, plastic baggies, and plastic containers for maximum glass-shard prevention.  Tight screw on lids are nice too, lest your lunch gets leaky and freaky.
♕ Know how you respond to certain foods.  I get very drowsy after eating Greek yoghurt always, so when I want it for lunch I also pack some coffee.
♕ As always, try to keep things healthy.  A multicolored lunch filled with whole grains, good proteins you don't mind eating cold, and many fruits and vegetables will provide great satiety.
♕ If you are worried about having halitosis after finishing lunch, you can pack some foods which naturally cleanse the breath, such as a few cardamom pods or cilantro.

Sample Lunch Ingredients:

 1 cup / 90g forbidden rice (a purple glutinous rice sold in many Asian supermarkets)
 2 cups / 475mL water
 1 pouch (60g) natto
 1 egg
 1T / 15g mustard
 .5T / 7mL soya sauce
 1 cup / 50g torn lettuce
 1t / 3g black sesame seeds
 2T / 5mL salad dressing
 Handful carrots, sliced as you wish.
 1-2 sheets toasted nori, cut into ~6cm by ~3cm rectangles
Under the egg, bottom left, sits the natto, while at the top
you can see the forbidden rice in all of its blackness.
I use a small, rinsed container from peanut butter for my
main dish.

Procedure

For the rice

 Boil the water, add rice, cover
 Simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally
 Take off heat and let sit for 15 more minutes.
 Spoon about a fourth of the recipe into a small sealable plastic container.
note: as soon as you are done with the rice, refrigerate.  Forbidden rice gets its deep purple color from minerals and all sorts of healthy molecules the grains contain inside.  While this makes the food nutritious for you and me, it also makes it delicious for many bacteria.  I left the cooked rice on my stovetop overnight, and in the morning there was so much bacterial growth in it that it had to be disposed of.
If you cook brown or wild rice instead of forbidden, the same warning applies.  The risk is lessened with white rice.  You should still refrigerate it though.
 Top with natto.
 On a pan, break an egg and cook to desired doneness.
 Top natto and rice.
 Into separate container(s), pour mustard and soy sauce. 
note: they are added to the natto and rice.


For the salad

 Tear leaves, cover in sesame seeds.  Put into container.
 Pour dressing into separate container.

Assembly

 Into one plastic bag, place carrots.
 Into another, place nori.
 Arrange your salad and rice containers.
 Into remaining space, put dressing containers.
 Place plastic bags on top of containers.
 Insert eating utensil (chopsticks or fork)  
 Refrigerate until ready to go

♕ The morning of, I made some green tea to go with the meal.


Quick Fragrant Salad

Despite most of the recipes posted on my blog being desserts, I do actually consume not sweet things too, sometimes.  I am a bit embarrassed to post something so simple.
This is a very quick salad that can be made with any crunchy leafy green.  The amount made is very adjustable, so in addition to posting a recipe with volumes of ingredients, I will also post the ingredient ratios.

Ingredients:

For the dressing

♕ 2t / 7mL sesame oil
♕ .5t / 2mL soy sauce
note: I used reduced sodium soy sauce
♕ 1T / 12mL mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking rice wine)
2t / 1g fresh dill, chopped
2t / 1g fresh parsley, chopped

The dressing marinates.
Which translates to
sesame oil:soy sauce:mirin:dill:parsley
4:1:6:4:4
note: it is very viable to mix a bottleworth of the dressing and keep it in the fridge, if you believe you will eat lots of this salad.  In fact, doing so will preserve your fresh herbs and give the dressing a very strong dill/parsley aroma.

For the salad

1.5 cup / 50g torn salad leaves, like boston, romaine, or iceberg
2t / 5g black sesame seeds

Procedure:

Mix the ingredients for the dressing as far in advance as you can.
Combine salad and dressing, garnish with sesame seeds.

Serve.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Healthier 15 Minute Sundaes

 
I realize that most sundaes take approximately three minutes to assemble, so this recipe's main selling point is that it will clog ones' arteries slightly less than a sundae made with all store-bought components: The fats are healthy saturated type, the sugar can be modified (white granulated, honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, or even stevia can all be easily accepted by the recipe).   Most importantly, the flavors compliment each other very well.  I was very happy after eating this.

Ingredients:

1.5 cup / 355mL whipping cream
3T / 45mL brewed coffee no sugar
1.5T / 25mL vanilla
5T / 70g coconut oil, solid
5.5T / 30g cacao powder
1/3 cup+ 3T / 90g+40g sugar (separated)
2-5 bananas
♕Optional: pineapple, berries, raisins, nuts, or even more bananas for topping

Procedure:

Put a large metal bowl and the beaters to an electric mixer into your freezer.
Brew some coffee, make it strong.
Microwave coconut oil to melt it.
Mix in cacao powder and 1/3 cup / 90g sugar, and stir until homogeneous.  Set aside, it should be more or less fluid.
Once the coffee and chocolate sauce is done, remove the metal bowl and beaters from the freezer.
Allow 3T/ 45mL coffee to cool while you pour the cream into the bowl.
Whip the cream, starting at a low speed and ending fast.  Near the end of the whipping process, add vanilla, coffee, and sugar.
Slice your bananas.
Into three or four large serving glasses, layer banana, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.  Top with other things, if you so wish.  The chocolate should become solid soon after being poured.


Serve immediately or after refrigerating, with coffee or strong tea.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Russian Blini

While the French have crepes, the Russians have blini.  Blini have pores in their dough, while crepes do not.  I am almost certain that both foods evolved independently, despite being very similar in taste and appearance.  Blini are normally served with savory stuffings, the most popular being ground beef and onion, and salmon caviar with sour cream.  Although the blini may be served with sugar, that is not considered standard.

Having said that, we served our blini more like crepes, with fruit, stinky cheese, and the leftover trifle.  To make this recipe, you will need a cast iron crepe pan.  Crepe pans differ from sauce pans by having incredibly low sides.  Low sides in the crepe pan allow maximal dehydration of the dough, since the moisture that leaves the batter doesn't get trapped in the sides of the pan, and you get fried blini, not boiled blini.  Since the batter is very watery to begin with (it should be like heavy cream in terms of fluidity), dehydration is extra important.

There's great variety in dough composition for blini, with almost every Russian cook having one or two go-to recipes for blini.  My mother calls these her lazy blini, since it is such an easy, tasty recipe.  My paternal grandmother has a different recipe for similar blini, and yet another for puffier, tangy blini.  My maternal grandmother has a recipe for richer, sweeter blini which she calls "6-by-6".  You get the idea. I hope to post all of these recipes on my blog sooner or later.
A proper crepe pan, which we found in a yard sale.  If you do not have a crepe pan, do look into secondhand sources for one, as many people
give them away without knowing what their purpose is.
Materials:
1 3/4 cup/160g flour
3 large eggs
3 cups/710mL water
3 cups/710mL milk
1 1/2t/9g salt
1 T/20g sugar








Procedure:


Combine flour, salt, and sugar.
Heat the water in the microwave for one minute, so it is warm, but not hot. 
Pour the water into the dry ingredients and let it sit for approximately 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Beat in the eggs, and mix in the milk.
Stir until uniform
Heat up a cast iron crepe pan to high heat (or steel, but you will have much more difficulty cooking, as the temperature of the pan is more influenced by external surroundings)
Pour one teaspoon of oil or butter onto the pan
Using a ladle, pour a blin and let it spread into a thin layer on the pan, maybe 1/4 cup in volume
Allow the blin to sit for 60 to 90 seconds, until the sides detach easily from the pan and small holes appear in the dough.
note: 60 seconds yeilds a white blin, 90 yields a darker, "blushing" crepe
Flip the blin over, using a spatla or a long butter knife, and let it sit for 30 or so seconds
Remove from heat, place onto a plate near your griddle
note: always have two plates beside you as you cook, so you can have someone grab one plate and serve the food, while you start a new stack.
Reduce heat to medium-high, oil your pan again, and pour the dough
Cook for 60-90 seconds, flip, and so on, until you have finished the batter
♕Serve for breakfast with friends.

If your dough rips, don't despair.  If it rips early on into the cooking, just spoon up a few drops of batter and patch the hole.  If it happens a lot, look into the causes.
There are three reasons why your blini could be ripping:
1) the pan isn't hot enough- it must be hot from the moment the batter touches the pan.  Especially if your first blin is a mess, it is due to a cold pan.
2) your batter has too much milk and not enough water, milk must be at most 1/2 of the liquid
70 seconds of cooking gives this blin a few spots,
but leaves the body white.
3) you have too much flour, not enough eggs.  Eggs bind the flour, and adding too many eggs imparts an eggy flavor to the blin, but does not ruin the batter.

This recipe allows some experimentation with the dough.  To change up the flavor, you can substitute up to one half of the flour with:
Glutinous rice flour, for a chewy blin 
recommended: 3T/30g substitution
Buckwheat flour
recommended: 0T substitution.  Buckwheat and blini don't mesh well, and it makes the dough fragile.  If you must, do 3T/30g.
Cacao powder, for a fragrant, silky, chocolatey blin
recommended: 1T/10g substitution.
Whole wheat flour
recommended: up to 1/2 of the flour.






Sunday, February 17, 2013

Insane Trifle

Trifles baffle me.  How on earth can they be so large?  This recipe is for a massive Japanese-inspired Neapolitan trifle.  I found the recipe for the lady fingers I made here.  As I made some changes to the recipe, I will post my process for making the lady fingers on my blog.
The procedure looks daunting as ever, but really, it takes three or four hours of speedy work from start to finish.
As a warning, this recipe requires a lot of bowls that are filled with almost identical ingredients.  In my ingredients section, I have a couple posts written like, "(x+y+z)cups".  They are meant to be read as, "x cups, y cups, z cups, in separate bowls".

Ingredients:

For the lady fingers:

♕(2+2 heaping+2 heaping+2.5)T/(18+20+20+16)g white flour, separated
1t/2g matcha
2t/4g cacao powder
1t/3.5mL vanilla extract
5 strawberries, juiced, no pulp




♕(2+2.5+3 heaping)T/(25+40+30)g sugar
4 small sized (in America, they're called "medium") eggs, separated and at room temperature
0.5t/2mL lemon juice

For the whipped cream:
note: when I made this recipe it fit into a 2 gallon glass bowl.  I realize that this is a lot of cream.  Do not be alarmed.

2 quarts/2.3L heavy whipping cream
(3/4+3/4+3/4+3/4+3/4) cup/(150+150+150+150+150)g sugar (that's five times 3/4 cup/150g)
3T/15g cacao powder
2T/10g matcha powder
left over reduced strawberry juice
2T/30mL vanilla extract, high quality

For the rest of the trifle:

1 bag lady fingers or other dry cookies
note: I had to buy cookies because I seriously miscalculated the amount of lady fingers I would end up baking.  As an informed reader, you have options regarding which cookies you want to use with this recipe:
1) triple or even quadruple the recipe for the lady fingers, depending on how many people you are feeding, and use them as the only cookies in this trifle
2) purchase cookies at the store.  Looking back, if I could, I would buy thin disk-like cookies in strawberry, green tea, vanilla, and chocolate flavors for an excellent Neapolitan look.
3) you could buy all your cookies, but where's the fun in that?
4) just use less cookies in the recipe, instead opting to fill the dish with more mochi (especially if you can buy it in blocks, and cut it into long, 2cm wide rectangles!) and berries
1/2 cup/150g dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup/150g white chocolate chips
200-400g/0.5-1lb mochi, unstuffed and preferably without any flavoring, either in bites or in blocks

Procedure:

For the lady fingers:

Prepare two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and a piping bag (or four, if you don't want to rewash you bag while baking) with a narrow tip
Preheat oven to 350˚F/180˚C
Juice your berries, and place them into a small saucepan with the 2T sugar.  Stir, and reduce over low heat for approximately 20 minutes.  Your goal is to get a syrup.
Get four bowls.  Into two of them, sift 20g white flour.  Into one of them, sift 16g flour, and sift 18g flour into the last one.  Keep track of which bowl is which!
Take your separated egg yolks and beat them with the 30g sugar for approximately five minutes, until glossy and pale.
Beat the egg whites, lemon juice, and 40g sugar on high speed until stiff peaks form.
Into your cocoa powder bowl, pour one fourth of the egg yolks and top with one fourth of the egg whites.  Fold the mixture together until just combined, pour into the piping bag, and pipe lady finger-length strips.  Leave about 1cm between each cookie, they do not spread much.
note: you could be like me, and pipe thin, 4cm long cookies, or you could be bold, piping them long and thick
Bake for 8-10 minutes, turning the tray halfway through the baking process if you have the slightest suspicion that your oven doesn't bake evenly.

While the chocolate lady fingers bake, combine the egg yolks with your 20g flour and egg whites.
Add in the vanilla extract and fold the ingredients together.
Pipe onto your other baking sheet, and as soon as your chocolate cookies are done, bake for 8-10 minutes.
Place the chocolate cookies under a cotton cloth, off of their baking tray but still on their parchment paper.

Combine the egg yolks, other 20g flour, and egg whites.
Add 2tsp or so of your reduced strawberry syrup, and food coloring, if you so wish
note: I did.
Fold together, pipe, and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Combine final egg yolks, final flour bowl, and egg whites.
Fold together, pipe, bake for 8-10 minutes.

If you bake the cookies the day you will assemble the trifle, your cookies will be soft, but they will still absorb much of the whipped cream.  You could also bake them in advance and let them go stale for a crunchy cookie.

For the whipped cream:

Divide the 2 quarts of whipping cream into rough fifths.
As you whip each fifth, add 150g sugar.
To one fifth, add the cacao powder
To one fifth, add the vanilla extract.
To one fifth, add the matcha powder
To one fifth, add the remaining strawberry syrup
To one fifth, add nothing more.
From each whipped batch, save for the one with no flavor additions, reserve about 1 coffee mugworth of cream and refrigerate.

Assembly:

Melt the chocolate chips
If you purchased mochi blocks instead of mochi bites, slice them in an appealing manner.
Layer lady fingers, cookies, mochi and sliced strawberries loosely in a tall dish.  Drip melted chocolate on top.
Cover with plain whipped cream (except for the reserved coffee mugworth)
Make a total of five layers of cookies, being certain to line the walls of your dish with cookies, strawberries, and mochi.  Top each layer with a different flavor of whipped cream.
note: something I thought of only after assembling the trifle was that melted chocolate could be used as a cement to keep the lady fingers and other components sticking to the wall of your trifle dish, as well as their base.
After you have made five layers, your dish should be almost full.  Take out your four mugwoths of flavored whipped cream and plop them down in four mounds.
Top with melted chocolate, mochi, cookies, strawberries, and whatever else you wish.
Serve immediately if you like crunchy trifle, or let it sit in the cold for about two hours to let the cream get into the cookies.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Truffles

These truffles were surprisingly successful.  They have an interesting fruity aroma that can be attributed to the walnuts and strawberries working in tandem.  They are completely raw, vegan, and have about 20 minutes of hands-on time.

Ingredients:

 1 cup/150g walnuts
 4 strawberries
 5T/45g cacao powder note: I used cacao powder without any sugar, but with vanillin added.  If you do want to add a vanilla aroma to your truffles, either use vanilla enriched cacao powder (if you have it), or add powdered vanillin.  the recipe will be too wet to accept liquid vanilla extract.
 2t/6g molasses
 2 T/20g agave
 3T/45mL coconut oil
 pinch salt
 splash strong, unsweetened coffee
 1 cup/100g cacao nibs or unsweetened coconut flakes note: with the cacao nibs these truffles become less sweet than if you just ate the batter.  If you are fond of a higher sweet:bitter ratio in chocolate treats, you can either add more sweetener or roll the truffles in both cane sugar and cacao nibs.



Procedure:

 Soak the walnuts overnight.
 In a food processor, combine all ingredients save for the cacao nibs or coconut flakes.  Process into a smooth paste.
 Scoop out teaspoon-sized balls of your paste and roll in the cacao nibs or coconut flakes.
 Refrigerate for at least two hours, or freeze for at least 10 minutes.
 Serve with coffee.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Rhubarb Fool

There are lots of recipes for fruit fools, and to complicate things further, some people even spell fool "foole".  But regardless of spelling, as a rule, fool(e)s are easy to make successfully.

Ingredients:

 1.5 lb/700g rhubarb stalks
 1/3 cup+1 T+1t/70g+15g+5g cane sugar
 1/4 cup+1T/80g+25g honey note: if I had real maple syrup, I'd use that instead!
 1T/15mL good vanilla extract
 just over 1/2 cup/125g whipping cream
 5 strawberries, sliced

Procedure:

♕ Place a medium-large mixing bowl, preferably metal, and a mixer attachment into your freezer.
♕ Cut your rhubarb into 1 inch/2cm long bits
♕In a pot, cover rhubarb and 80g honey + 70g sugar with boiling water.  Stew on medium-high heat for 3 minutes.
♕ Remove 3/4 cup/220g rhubarb, approximately, from the water and set aside.  Pour off any liquid that you can, but do be gentile with the cubes, as you do not want them to become a stringy mess.
♕ Continue to stew remaining rhubarb for about five more minutes, then use a colander or sieve to separate the matter from the liquid.  With this batch, do not worry about preserving the chunks, they will become mash and that's alright.  Drain the liquid as well as you can and place the rhubarb into a bowl.  Stir in 25g honey. 
♕ Make the whipped cream by getting your frozen bowl and mixer attachment, pouring the 125g of cream into the bowl, and whipping for approximately 7 minutes.  Start on low speed and gradually increase it, adding vanilla and 15g sugar (cane if you like rough texture, plain white or powdered if you want smooth whipped cream) just before the cream begins to form peaks.  Be careful not to overwhip!
♕ Spoon about half of the whipped cream into the mashed rhubarb, mix, and place on the bottom layer of your serving bowl.  Top with sliced strawberries.  Place unmashed rhubarb on top of that, and dust with 5g sugar.  Garnish with remaining strawberry slices, and whipped cream. note: if you have rum raisins, I suggest breaking them out for this recipe as well. 
♕ Refrigerate ASAP


♕ Done!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Apple Charlotte

Looking up "apple charlotte" in English yields recipes that look like a mix between an apple dumpling and an apple pie.  This recipe, instead, is for a Russian apple charlotte.  Russian charlottes are less dense than American ones, and also have a more simple flavor profile.  The current ingredients are not 100% authentic, since Russian charlottes usually don't have yoghurt or sour cream, instead opting to neutralize the baking soda with vinegar.  I hope to make a few more versions of this recipe with different fillings as well as different dough composition.


In this recipe the ratio of dough to apple can be adjusted easily.  The given proportions are for an apple-heavy dish, maybe a 5:1 ratio.  The current dough is very eggy, almost like challah.

Ingredients:

♕ .75kg apples of moderate to low sweetness, like granny smith, golden delicious, and/or gala
♕ 1 cup/150g flour
♕ 1/2 cup/60g sugar
♕ 1 t/5g baking soda
♕ 1/2 cup/60g sour cream or yoghurt
♕ 3 eggs
♕ 1.5 t/7mL vanilla extract

Procedure:

♕ Preheat oven to 350˚F/180˚C
♕ Get a cooking vessel, like a bundt pan or a deep dish cooking tray.  Grease it and coat the inside with breadcrumbs.
♕ Peel and core the apples.  Slice into very thin sheets.
♕ In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients, and before adding apples, stir in the two wet ingredients.  Stir to make a dough, stopping as soon as it is homogeneous.
♕ Place the cut apples on the baking vessel, leaving space between the slices to let the dough go between them.
♕ If you wish, push raisins into the dough, or garnish with nuts or spice.
♕ Bake for 30-40 minutes.  Once the top has browned nicely, remove from heat and let cool under a cotton cloth.
♕ Serve warm or cold.  Since it's Valentine's Day, I melted some chocolate and used that to trace designs on the top.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Sort-of-Healthy Donut Truffles

This recipe is inspired by all those truffle recipes floating around.  It is high in "good" fat and has some plant protein in it, and it tastes nice, too!  The coating of turbandino sugar has them reflect light in a very pretty way.
The truffles were meant to taste like traditional American donuts, and I think they do that pretty well.  Their texture, however, is much more dense than fried dough.














Ingredients:

♕ 1 1/2 cups/220g cashews, soaked overnight (pre-soak amount)
♕ 1/2 cup/75g almonds, whole 
♕ 1/2 cup/85g golden raisins
♕ 3 T/50mL coconut oil, melted
♕ dash nutmeg
♕ 1 t/5mL quality vanilla extract
♕ pinch salt
♕ approximately 1/3 cup/60g turbandino sugar, powdered sugar, or ground almonds
note: if using ground almonds, also add 1/2 t almond extract to this recipe.  The turbandino sugar adds a crunch to an otherwise soft sweet, while powdered doesn't interfere with texture. 

Procedure:

♕ In a food processor, grind the almonds into a very fine powder.  
♕ Dump the raisins in, grind, and then add all other ingredients save for the turbandino sugar or powdered sugar.
♕ Process until the whole mess looks homogenous. 
♕ Dump the mixture into a bowl, and pinch off pieces roughly the size of a ping pong ball.
♕ Roll the pieces into sphered, and coat in the sugar or ground almonds
note: instead of rolling in sugar, you could also make a donut-like glaze from the powdered sugar and a few drops of an extract of choice, and cover the spheres in that.
♕ Place on a plate and refrigerate or freeze until serving.