Dishing up thoughts on food and food-related topics.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Chocolate, Caramel and Candied Oranges
Easter is often seen as a time of rebirth, with archtypical symbols of birth, rebirth, rejuvenation. Trees gently unfold their new foliage, flowers push their way through the detritus of the colder seasons and dot the landscape. The food tends to get lighter, too. Cassoulet is removed from menus, replaced by asparagus flans, ramps, and morels. Fondue pots are placed on the back shelf as the julep glasses and garden gloves are retrieved. Spring lamb is served by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. It all makes so much sense, except the Easter candy: rocky road eggs, solid-chocolate bunnies, foil-wrapped eggs of chocolate mixtures. Why do we do this to ourselves? Swimsuit season is right around the corner people!
Yet when I was requested to make dessert for Easter dinner, this dish immediately came to mind. Although extremely rich, it is not heavy. It is cool, neither hot from the oven nor frozen. the brightness of the oranges is a nice counterpoint to the darkrichness of the mousse. And there are lots of leftovers, which makes up for the fact that no one gave you an Easter basket of Neuhaus chocolates this year.
This is another Mark Bittner recipe that ranks as one of the best. Not surprisingly it is not of his own invention, but oddly enough, it is another Seattle restaurant, and the main ingredient is caramel. Bittner covered the Seattle chef Scott Carsberg and his restaruant Lampreia. The article is a great tribute to a great chef and restaurant. Yes, it is expensive, and the servings are beautiful and small, what one friend calls "precious food." But maybe we have settled for too long on fast food, huge portions, and lackluster presentation. After all if our body is a temple, shouldn't what we eat be treated as an offering?
Chocolate Caramel Mousse(Adapted from Scott Carsberg of Lampreia) Time: 45 minutes, plus 4 hours' chilling Yield: 16 servings
1 cup sugar 5 tablespoons butter, cut into bits 3 cups heavy cream 8 ounces high quality unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks, about 1 1/2 cups.
1. Put sugar in a heavy stainless steel pan, and turn heat to medium. When sugar warms and begins to liquefy, add 1/2 cup water. Cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until mixture bubbles, then becomes foamy, then dry again. Keep cooking until it liquefies again, stirring often and breaking up any chunks that form. When it is all dissolved and brown, remove from heat, and stir in butter a bit at a time. Standing back to avoid spattering, add 1 cup cream, then stir until blended. Let sit until cool enough to touch. 2. Meanwhile beat remaining cream until it holds soft peaks; refrigerate. Melt chocolate over very low heat or in a double boiler or microwave. 3. Mix melted chocolate into caramel. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to caramel, and stir to combine. Add remaining whipped cream and gently fold, just until combined. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours. 4. Scoop mousse with a spoon dipped in a hot water. Serve alongside a piece of orange confit.
Orange Confit(Adapted from Scott Carsberg) Time: 9 to 16 hours plus overnight resting Yield: 16 servings.
4 big navel oranges 2 1/2 pounds sugar
1. Fill a saucepan large enough to hold oranges with water; bring to a boil. Blanch oranges for 30 seconds, then remove, change water and repeat. (This blanching will get rid of the bitterness found in the white pith. Some chefs will do this as many as 5 times.) Carefully quarter oranges through their poles. Return them to saucepan with half the sugar and water to cover. Bring to a boil, then cook over lowest possible heat, adding water as necessary to keep them covered. Cook for 8 hours, then remove from heat and let sit overnight. 2. Drain oranges and repeat process with remaining sugar and water to cover. Oranges are done when very tender but not falling apart, from 1 to 8 hours. Remove pot from heat and let cool, then refrigerate oranges with their syrup. Oranges will keep, refrigerated, for several weeks. 3. Serve an orange segment with a scoop of chocolate caramel mousse, or by itself.
Maybe it was the frogs croaking in the farm’s reclaimed wetlands outside the dining room window, and the tapioca’s resemblance to frog eggs and caviar, but Tom didn’t lick his bowl. You see, Tom defies Larry's look of judgement to lick his plate when the food is really good, and that has become my touchstone for when a dish is totally awesome. But this time, he didn't even finish his bowl becuse it urns out he doesn't care for tapioca's texture. Dale and I had formed a "dinner club" with Larry and Tom and my old friends Joe and Tony. I have known Joe since I graduated from high school, and as a favor to my parents he landed me a job at the stock brokerage at which he worked. Back then he didn’t touch coffee or alcohol, which in my younger eyes made him sort of sad. But he’s come a long way since then--sometimes insufferably so--and I can usually depend on him to comment one way or another on food stuff, politics, or the economy.
This week we were out on the Joe and Tony's farm. The theme was "vegetarian" but I took the easy way and settled on a soup and dessert. I knew the soup had to be Daniel Boulud's Spring Pea Soup, but I wasn’t sure what to make for dessert. Earlier in the week, though, at Buddha Ruksa, which must be metropolitan Seattle’s best Thai food, we had a warm coconut milk dessert with cold small pearl tapioca and cold melon balls. Actually we didn’t order it; Kevin, our houseguest, did, but once we had a taste, we went in for the kill. The contrast of textures (oozy, gooey, and tender) and the warm vs cold was amazing—the contrast in textures and temperature actually made the parts much bigger than the sum of the whole. I remembered reading something similar to this, and went on a search through my "clippings". I eventually found this article in the New York Times Guest Chef column from several years ago. Pichet Ong of Spice Market developed the recipe when he combined Vietnamese coffee with the Italian dessert affogato and the tapioca of “bubble” tea he told Melissa Clark in the article. It is this amazing hybrid of three cultures: Vietnamese, Italian and children. For the past few years Asian children have been crazy for a very sweet concoction of iced tea and large tapioca, um, blobs. The mixture is known as "bubble tea" and can be either addictive or cloying. The ice cream is a simple custard but the sweetened condensed milk takes it a step out of the usual ice cream ingredients, adding a milkier flavor and what Clark calls a “candied marshmallowlike undertone”. It really was good, if I dare say so myself. I can only imagine how rich of a yellow color I would have achieved if I had used the organic eggs from the farm. I would recommend making espresso if you have a machine or using a Vietnamese coffee maker or the Italian stovetop coffee maker, the Moka. Super strong coffee is essential, so if all you have is regular coffee pot, make it triple strength.
Vietnamese Coffee Tapioca Affogato With Condensed Milk Ice Cream(Adapted fromPichet Ong of Spice Market) Time: 1 hour, plus 4 hours chilling and freezing 8servings For the ice cream: 2 cups whole milk 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk 2 tablespoons heavy cream (or milk) 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 5 large egg yolks 1/2 teaspoon salt For the tapioca: 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup small tapioca pearls (available at most large grocery stores but are three times that price of Asian grocery stores) For serving: 2 cups coffee (espresso, Vietnamese or Italian Moka coffee or triple-strength coffee)
1. For the ice cream, set a mesh strainer over a bowl. In a pot over medium heat, combine milk, condensed milk and cream. Bring to a simmer. In a bowl, whisk egg yolks, then drizzle a little hot milk mixture into yolks, whisking constantly. Reduce heat to low and pour yolk mixture back into pot. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Strain custard into bowl and stir in salt and vanilla extract. Let cool, then refrigerate at least 3 hours. Churn in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions, then transfer to freezer.
2. For the tapioca, combine 6 cups water, the sugar and salt in a pot and bring to a boil. Add tapioca and simmer, stirring, until pearls are tender yet not mushy, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool tapioca in liquid for at least 30 minutes, and use immediately or store in refrigerator for up to one day.
3. To serve, strain tapioca pearls, discarding liquid. Divide tapioca among 8 red wine glasses. Put 2 scoops of condensed milk ice cream in each glass. Pour about 1/4 cup hot or warm coffee or espresso into each glass. Serve.
Last night I had my last meal as a single guy. (Marriage has never been one of my priorities, but I like to keep my options open—what bachelor, straight or gay, doesn’t?) Saturday night we attended a Masquerade Ball for the Seattle Opera, which is not nearly as high brow as it sounds, and had lots of fun, and I have no idea when we got home. Sunday morning, I barely had time to skim the NY Times before Dale and I started laying and rearranging all the carpet samples that I had scrounged up from the office in what has gone from my “office/guestroom/storage room/intimations of my father’s housekeeping” to the “rabbits’ room”.
I got so caught up in cleaning, or what I truly believe passes as cleaning, that I forgot to prepare dinner for myself while Dale was off getting the rabbits and packing up their gear. After eating the gift bag of Dilettante chocolates (Dilettante take note: Czar Nicholas has been dead nearly 100 years and was a lousy ruler—get over using “By appointment to Czar Nicholas II” already) suddenly I remembered one of the few things I actually read that morning: Julie Powell’s article in the NY Times Magazine about cooking her first meal as a single woman again.
It was a nice article, albeit not as crazed and fresh as her Julie/Julia blog. She and her husband had separated, and were now living apart. You can sense the sadness, the longing, but also the determination to not wallow in pathetic misery. I mean this is the woman who embarked on cooking the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days as a way of working her way through the tedium of a miserable job.
Although she ordered takeout the first night, she knew she couldn’t order take out on her second night lest it become the start of a downward spiral. Instead she turned to this soup as part of her first meal on her own. I turned to it as the last meal on my own.
Powell’s recipe is a simplified version of MAFC’s, which involves emulsifying the olive oil and eggs in with the garlic broth like in a mayonnaise. It is so altered from the original recipe that I made few changed, except to reduce the salt, and use fresh herbs. (I used one of my last heads of hard-neck Korean garlic. It is getting a little soft, and the green germ within each clove is getting bigger every week, but it has lasted months longer than I thought it would. Expect more garlic recipes as I use them up.) Korean garlic tends to be hotter, and even the Parmesan did little to temper its heat. Still, her take is more rustic, and the breaking of the yolk and mixing it within your bowl certainly makes for a certain meditative means to slow down at the table, and enjoy the comforts of soup at any time of change.
Garlic Soup With Poached Eggs(Adapted from Julie Powell) 1 head garlic, separated into cloves and peeled 1 teaspoon kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 3/4 teaspoon fresh sage 3/4 teaspoon fresh thyme 1 bay leaf 4 parsley sprigs 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 6 eggs, as needed Chopped parsley, for garnish Freshly grated Parmesan cheeseCrusty bread, optional. 1. In a large saucepan, combine the garlic, salt, pepper, sage, thyme, bay leaf, parsley sprigs and olive oil. Add 2 quarts of water. Place over high heat and bring to a boil; then reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. 2. Pour through a fine-meshed strainer into a heatproof bowl, pressing on the garlic to squeeze out as much flavor into the broth as possible. Let cool and then transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until needed. 3. To prepare a serving for one, ladle about 1 1/3 cups of broth into a small saucepan. Place over medium-low heat and bring to a simmer. Carefully break an egg into the broth (do not break the yolk) and poach until the white is just set, about 1 ½ minutes—do not overpoach. (It will continue to cook off the heat.) Transfer the egg to a soup bowl and pour the broth gently over it. Garnish with parsley and cheese. If desired, serve with crusty bread. Makes 6 servings for one. Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
