Raccoon and Lobster

Coming from a culture where the nasty bits of animals have always been considered food, I sometimes forget that other people weren’t raised the same way I was. Oxtail stew seems pretty self explanatory to me, just like trotters or tongue. Ages ago, during one of the first times I had cooked for The Boyfriend, I made him a fragrant stir-fried shrimp dish that I was quite fond of. He looked at it, blinked a few times, and looked back at me, and did not touch the shrimp.

“Is something wrong?”

“The shells are still on it.”

It had never occurred to me that anyone could fail to figure out what to do in that scenario. I don’t think the shrimps even had their heads on. Thirteen years later, to my great dismay,  he still expresses disgust at the idea of shrimp heads. And trotters. Some people.

Oxtail stew is a good gateway to the stranger cuts of meat. It’s hearty and filling and full of flavor and eat it is a lot less work than getting the meat from around the incredibly anatomical setup of pig’s feet. The Boyfriend still needed a little guidance on getting to the good bits, but I have confidence that you’ll figure it out. Keep napkins handy.

The original recipe also uses puréed olives (1/2 cup olives to 1 tablespoon olive oil) and Kalamata olives. To reincorporate them, add the olive paste an hour before the stew is done and the whole olives about 2 minutes before.

Oxtail Stew adapted from Staff Meals from Chanterelle

olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
1 piece bacon, diced (or  lardo*, finely diced)
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3 pounds meaty oxtails, cut into 2″ sections
4 cups canned whole tomatoes with liquid
2 cups beef broth
1 cup red cooking wine
3 bay leaves
thyme
oregano
salt and pepper

*Somehow we are the household that always has lardo and crème fraiche but rarely has bacon and sour cream. I know it’s weird. I’m sorry.

Brown the oxtails in a large pot with some olive oil over medium-high heat. Remove the oxtails and add in a tablespoon or so of olive oil  to cook the onions.

Cook the onions until softened and add the bacon and garlic, cooking for about 2 minutes more, until the bacon and garlic are both softened but not burning. Add the oxtails, tomatoes, broth, wine, and herbs and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook, partially covered, for about 3 hours, until the meat is tender and falling away from the bowl.

Season with salt and pepper and discard the bay leaves before serving.

As I’ve said in the past, I’m not really one for sweets. My preference is to bake and then give away any desserts I make, as I’m usually sick of whatever it is by the time it comes out of the oven. Between checking the batter and testing for doneness, I’ve usually had enough. My mother started complaining about losing her sweet tooth when she was in her twenties, and her mother used to do the same to her, so it with a strong sense of family tradition that I grump to my pups about how I just don’t have an appetite for sweets anymore.

And yet it came to be that after baking these cookies last night, I forced The Boyfriend to join me in a midnight cross-town schlep to give these damn things away. Even in the course of wrapping them up for the delivery, a few of the chocolate devils managed to find their way into my mouth. And somehow during the car ride over, the plate got lighter again. I managed to save some so that I could take pictures in the sun, but as I sit here typing, my mouth is suspiciously covered in crumbs.

I just ate another one. Dammit.

The last time I made these was for a cookie exchange, and they were flown across the continent not long after coming out of the oven so I was spared this horribly delicious fate. This time, I had no one ready to remove them from my presence and I had ran out of chocolate chips and was forced to use chopped Valrhona fèves to make them even more tempting. Help. Another one just found its way into my mouth.

World Peace Cookies by Dorie Greenspan via Smitten Kitchen

makes about 40 cookies

1¼ cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons or 150 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (120 grams) packed light brown sugar
¼ cup (50 grams) sugar
½ teaspoon fleur de sel or ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup  (150 grams) chopped Valrhona fèves or chocolate chips.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking soda and set aside.

Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the salt and vanilla and mix to combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter and pulse a few times to combine, covering the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel to prevent flyaway. Stir in chocolate.

Gather the dough and divide into two. Roll each half out into a smooth log about 1½ inches in diameter and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 3 days (you can shorten the cooling time by sticking it in the freezer for 20 minutes immediately after wrapping and then moving it to the fridge for 30-40 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Slice the cookies into ½ inch slices and bake for 12 minutes. Dough will still be soft. Serve warm or at room temperature with milk.

I couldn’t allow this enormous head of cauliflower to remain where I found him, silently plotting whatever it is that giant cauliflowers plot. Look at the tendrils of his green cauliflower leaf-hands. Can’t you see them unfurling oh-so-slowly? No? Just wait. You will.

Cauliflower, like trolls, are well known for their ability to regenerate, and the only defense against them rising up is to attack with fire or acid.

I chose to do both, first pummeling them with a blast of heat from my burners, and then finishing them off with the slow burn of my stomach acid.

My good deed for the day is done. You’re welcome, universe.

Sautéed Cauliflower

Cauliflower
vegetable oil
salt
pepper
minced garlic
chopped chives
crushed cayenne pepper flakes
grated Asiago cheese

Tear off leafy cauliflower hands and trim the stem. Rinse the monstrous creature under running water and cut it into small florets of roughly equal size.

Sauté in a skillet over medium heat with vegetable oil until golden brown. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add in the garlic. Remove from heat when the garlic is softened and fragrant and toss with the chives, cayenne pepper, and cheese. Eat with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Do me a favor and click  to see the large version of this picture. Please.

I don’t really care for Valentine’s Day, but once I saw the recipe, I couldn’t resist making this rich, fudgy, chocolate cake. I just can’t stop baking from this cookbook. The cakes that come out have great texture and flavor and the pairings with frostings and glazes are spot on. If you are looking for a cake recipe book to buy, this one is it. Just stock up on eggs and butter and renew your gym membership first.

Double Chocolate Valentine from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9 x 2 cake pan with a cake strip, coat the bottom with a thin layer of shortening and top with a sheet of parchment cut to shape. Butter and lightly flour the inside. Turn the cake upside down and tap to remove excess flour.

Whisk together the cocoa and boiling water until smooth and cover and let cool to room temperature. Whisk together the egg yolks, the 3 tablespoons water and the vanilla until just combined and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well combined and any clumps are broken up. Add the butter and the cocoa mixture and slowly increase the speed to medium and beat for 1½ minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. The batter should be light and fluffy.

Add half of the egg mixture and beat for 30 seconds, then the other half and beat for another 30 seconds. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a cake tester comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center, about 30-40 minutes.

Ganache Glaze

Scald the cream and pour it into a bowl over the chopped chocolate. Whisk until smooth and set aside. By the way, if you taste the ganache glaze by itself, it will seem a little too dark. Paired with the cake though, the two complement each other beautifully.

When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes into the top and brush half of the glaze onto the cake. Wait 10 minutes and flip the cake onto a flat surface covered with plastic wrap. Remove the parchment paper and brush the remaining glaze onto the cake. Cool until the chocolate is firm to the touch, at least 1 hour.

If the chocolate is set you can now transfer the cake by flipping it onto a flat, plastic-wrapped plate, and then again onto your final cake destination*.

Cover the cake with fresh raspberries (one of the perks of living where I do is that fresh raspberries are available at the farmer’s market in February) and dab with warmed red currant jelly.

*Final Cake Destination would be an awesome movie. Or a truly terrible one.

Submitted to Yeastspotting

I coarsely grated the cheese for this bread, and it ended up disappearing into the dough after being cooked. Instead of distinct bites of cheese, there’s more of a general cheesiness infused into the dough even though I used almost double the amount of cheese in the man-bread recipe. If you want distinct bites of cheese, stick with cubes of cheese about 1/4″ instead of grating.

Cheddar Potato Jalapeño Chive Bread adapted from the Ultimate Man Bread

8 ounces potato water
18 ounces bread flour
10 ounces sourdough starter
2 tablespoons yeast
2 teaspoons salt
6 ounces potatoes, cubed and cooked
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
2 scallions, diced
1 jalapeño, minced and pan fried

Combine the water, flour, starter, and yeast and knead into a shaggy dough. Let rest for 5 minutes. Add the salt and knead for 5 more minutes. The dough should come together enough for you to continue kneading using the french fold for 8-10 minutes. Add in the potatoes, cheese, scallions, and jalapeño and knead until evenly distributed. Shape into a rough boule and cover and let rise until double it’s original size, about 90 minutes to 2 hours. You can also choose to refrigerate the bread overnight at this point to further develop flavor and continue as normal.

Divide into 2 loaves and shape into boules. Let rise in a brotform until it increases in size by half and the dough doesn’t fully spring back when poked, about 60 minutes, more if the bread has been chilled.

Turn out the boules, slash, and bake at 475°F for 15 minutes and then turn down to 450°F for 20 minutes.

When I made the almond cake for Tim last week, I asked him if he had any whipped cream in the house.

Tim: Nope. I can bring a ziploc bag? Spray a little?

Spray a little? What did that even mean? It took me several minutes to parse that statement.

When I informed him that we didn’t serve whipped cream from a can in this house, he replied that it was the only source that he knew of. Somewhere in Wisconsin, there is apparently a pasture of cows with nozzles on their udders, grazing peacefully on hydrogenated palm kernel oil and nitrous oxide.

Since he was coming over for dinner tonight, I couldn’t resist taking a little jab by baking a whipped cream cake.

Whipped Cream Cake from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes

All the recipes in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes come with weight measurements in ounces and grams, and baking with gram precision just feels like serious business.

8 oz or 225 grams cake flour (I subbed 200 grams AP flour and 25 grams corn starch)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 oz or 348 grams heavy cream
3 large eggs or 150 grams
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons or 225 grams baker’s sugar

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a 10 cup tube pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In a medium bowl, whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks.

Whisk together the eggs and vanilla and gradually beat into the whipped cream. Add the sugar and beat until fully incorporated. Fold in half of the flour mixture and then the other half until just combined.

Scoop the batter into the pan and use a spatula to smooth the surface. Shake the pan gently to remove any large air bubbles and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Let cool for 10 minutes before inverting.

Serve with strawberry coulis, meyer lemon curd, or

Blueberry Compote
3 cups fresh blueberries
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and let cool. Blend in a blender or food processor until uniform. Cover and refrigerate.

I was informed too late that today is National Chocolate Cake Day, a day that I am sorely unprepared for. This cake, tucked at the back of Bouchon, is one that I had been eyeing as a project to tide me over until the arrival of my cake book. It has absolutely no chocolate in it. Damn. Just a few hours after I had purchased the ingredients for the cake and the strawberry coulis to go with it, I was informed that the intended recipient of my cake is allergic to strawberries, or as he calls them, murderberries. It also pairs pretty well with meyer lemon curd, in case you were wondering.

Strawberry Coulis

12 oz hulled strawberries
1/4 cup water
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Strain with a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds and cover and refrigerate until cold.

Gâteaux aux Amandes adapted from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon

7 oz almond paste
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 oz unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons honey
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon almond extract (or 2 tablespoons amaretto)
1/3 cup (I used 1.5 oz) all purpose flour, sifted
pinch of salt
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
confectioner’s sugar
sugar syrup (1 oz sugar and 1 oz water, heated to a boil in a small pan) or amaretto

3/4 cup  crème fraîche, whipped to soft peaks

The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of amaretto in the batter and more to brush on top of the cake. Here, it has been replaced with almond extract and sugar syrup, respectively.

Edit: I have since obtained amaretto and baked a cake using it as the original recipe intended, and it was even better, so it is totally  worth your time to pick some up.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour an 8 inch pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. I only have a 9 inch pan so my cake is a bit thinner than intended

Beat the almond paste and sugar in a large bowl on low speed until the paste is broken up. Increase the speed to medium for about 2 minutes, until the paste mixture is broken into fine particles. Add the butter and beat for 5 minutes until the mixture is light and airy, stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary. Beating enough air into the mixture at this stage is key to avoiding a dense cake.

Mix in the honey and add the eggs one at a time, beating until each one is fully mixed in and the mixture remains fluffy. Add the almond extract, flour, salt and mix until just combined.

Pour the batter into the pan and shake or smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for about 25 minutes for an 8 inch pan, or until the cake is golden and springs back when pressed. It took me about 30 minutes in a 9 inch pan. Let cool on a rack.

When the cake is cool, invert the cake onto the rack, remove the parchment paper and invert again. Brush the top of the cake with sugar syrup and sprinkle with sliced almonds. Dust with confectioner’s sugar. Serve with a dollop of the whipped crème fraîche and the strawberry coulis or lemon curd.

Shortly before I succumbed the the death plague that landed The Boyfriend in the ER for a few hours, I managed to bake up a loaf of bread. I knew that chances were good that he had managed to infect me with his germs with all of his abnormal insistence on breathing so I stocked up on groceries and made up some household staples so that when I got sick as he was getting better we would have something to eat besides dog food and ice cubes.

I halved the dough intending to make two loaves but it didn’t look as they were going to rise enough to fill two loaf pans, so I rolled them into 2 round boules and dropped them into a pan. This amused me greatly because it looked an awfully lot like a butt (which, by the way, is a totally legitimate bread shaping technique). I’d tell you that I was already a little feverish at this point, but to be honest I would be giggling even if I wasn’t coming down with something that would eventually swell my lymph nodes up to the side of golf balls.

The recipe is Nancy Silverton’s Pain de Mie, baked in a regular loaf pan instead of a pullman pan. Pain de mie is a pretty dense bread, and I’m not entirely sure that I’m sold on it as a day to day sandwich bread since I prefer an airier loaf, but the flavor was good and it worked very well as french toast the next morning.

Pain de Mie adapted from Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery

makes one 9×5 sandwich loaf

7 oz water
8 oz milk
2 teaspoons yeast
24 oz bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, softened

Combine the water, milk, yeast, flour, and sugar in a bowl and mix for 2-3 minutes. Add the salt and butter and continue mixing until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 more minutes. Place into an oiled bowl and cover until the dough doubles in volume, about 45 to 60 minutes.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and gently deflate. Roughly shape into a boule and cover with a cloth and let rest for 15 minutes. If you want to do any shaping, cut the dough into the sizes you need before you shape the dough and let it rest.

Grease a 9×5 loaf pan and set aside. Shape the dough into a loaf and place into your loaf pan. In my case, I simply formed two boules and dropped them into the pan. Let the dough proof one last time until the dough just barely springs back when poked, about 90 minutes at room temperature. Of course if The Boyfriend has seen fit in his fever delirium to turn the heat up to 85°F, it may take a lot less time and you may end up with slightly overproofed bread that has a dimple in the butt.

Bake in a preheated 475°F oven and bake for 40 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped and has an internal temperature of 200°F. You may need to tent the bread with aluminum foil after 30 minutes to prevent the outside from browning too much.

Submitted to Yeastspotting

This fragrant risotto was so delicious that I went back for seconds and thirds and then made it again the very next day. Even now I am fighting the urge to make more. One minor adjustment and I could eat this every day until I die of the inevitable heart attack. A local restaurant makes a risotto that is brought to the table in a enormous wedge of parmesan. As the server stirs, the risotto is crammed with cheese, and then when portions are doled out, you are offered a sprinkling of even more cheese if you like. If someone were to buy me a giant wedge of parmesan, I would never leave my house again. By which I mean I will soon grow too fat to fit through the door. But don’t let that deter you from being a generous person and making a dream come true.

Mushroom Risotto

1/2 tablespoon butter
1 bunch green onion, finely chopped
6 oz crimini mushrooms
6 oz Arborio rice
2 oz white wine
2.5 cups chicken stock, heated
heavy cream
3 oz (or more!) grated parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the green onions and mushrooms and cook until soft, stirring often. Add the rice and stir until translucent.

Add the wine and stir until it is cooked off. Add about a cup of chicken stock, stirring frequently until it is absorbed. Add the remainder of the stock a half cup at a time, stirring until all the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Continue until the rice is tender but still firm, approximately 20 minutes. Add a few tablespoons of heavy cream and the parmesan cheese and remove from heat. Stir until combined and season to taste with salt and pepper.

What started as a simple roast chicken has turned into a multi-part cooking project. First, there was brining, roasting, and carving the chicken, which was a brief lesson on avian anatomy. Then I turned the chicken carcass into a homemade chicken stock, which meant making a mirepoix. Finally, I used the chicken stock to make a delicious mushroom risotto.

Mirepoix is just a fancy name for onions, celery, and carrots, and since I am looking to improve my knife skills, I actually did the small dice on all the attendant vegetables. As a quick aside, Knife Skills Illustrated has been a good resource for learning proper techniques. Each chapter has instructions and lots of pictures for both right-handed and left-handed cooks. This seemed slightly redundant to me, but it’s probably a godsend for lefties who are often ignored as the sinister deviants they are. There’s a sample chapter here on how to cut onions if you are interested. I ended up picking up a giant bag of onions and an even giant-er bag of potatoes at Costco to practice my skills on.

A pasta pot with a built in colander is ideal for making stock as you can easily separate all the solids from the broth.

Chicken Stock

1 chicken carcass
4 carrots, diced
4 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion , diced
2 tablespoons whole peppercorns
4 garlic cloves
bay leaves
parsley
thyme
5 quarts of water

Combine all ingredients  in a large pot and simmer for about 4-6 hours. Skim the surface of impurities as needed. Sieve and chill in a water bath until cool enough to refrigerate.