Coffee Granita

Another Zuni gem.

I'll paraphrase, but here's the ingredient list:

• 2 cups espresso (I used cold-brewed coffee concentrate, click here for recipe)
• 1 cup sugar
• a few splashes water
• a large flat container
• a plastic container with a tight lid

Melt the sugar into the espresso over low heat. Taste. It should taste slightly too sweet, and mine was actually a little too strong to drink on its own. Add a few splashes of water, and put in a large flat bottomed container. The container should be wide enough that the liquid is about an inch deep. Cover and freeze. Also freeze the plastic container so it will be cold when you need it later.

Check the granita every hour after the first two hours. When a thick layer has frozen over but the bottom half is still liquid, take it out and place on a cool surface. The cookbook suggests two pastry cutters chilled in the freezer. I have plastic pastry cutters so I used those, but anythinng big and flat would work (a plastic pancake flipper or even a rice scoop, for example). Break the frozen layer and fold it over so it's soaked into the liquid. Do this two or three times and return to the freezer before it starts to melt. Wait another hour or two until it's solid enough that you can barely break it by digging into it with a metal spoon. Break the granita into chunks varying from large pieces to fine sand. They should be irregular, but aim for pebbles in general. The freezing times can really vary, so check. It took me four hours for a half batch, and the cookbook says a whole batch can take 4 to 8 hours.

After the final chopping, put in the smaller plastic container and freeze until needed. If you leave this in the freezer overnight, sugary liquid might pool at the bottom, leaving ice crystals on top. The cookbook says to invert the container to let the liquid redistribute if this happens.

The granita's texture will vary depending on the sugar:water ratio, and I plan to experiment some more. I would not recommend eating the granita alone, as it is almost unpleasantly strong. Zuni serves this with delicious whipped cream, but I had some vanilla ice cream that needed sprucing up. Needless to say, it was delicious. As the two started melting together, it was like the most intensely flavored coffee ice cream I've ever had.

To see how Zuni serves their granita, click here and scroll down.

Furikake Fusion

Furikake makes everything better.

Brown rice risotto. I don't know if I'm allowed to call it risotto because the brown rice was actually parboiled for another recipe, meaning it started out half cooked. I took a cup of it and started adding chicken stock to it like I would for a regular risotto. With parboiled rice, it only took about a cup and a half of stock to fully cook the rice. I then added parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and a fourth a cup of cream. Topped with furikake for a fusion flavor. Somehow, it works. I like the brown rice because it has more of a pop than arborio, but I'm going to try short grain brown rice next time instead of this medium grain I had.

Peanut noodles. For one serving, the base is one tablespoon each of hoisin sauce and crunchy peanut butter. Everything else is added according to taste. Personally, I like two teaspoons of fish sauce, a pinch of pepper flakes, a teaspoon or more of sesame seeds, a pinch of ginger powder, a few drops of chili oil, and a teaspoon of neutral oil if I want to thin out the sauce a bit (usually not necessary). Toss with cold noodles and your choice of vegetables, and sprinkle with furikake.

Neatloaf

I talk about this recipe all the time, but I finally made it and took a picture today.

If you follow the exact recipe, you end up with something that tastes incredibly close to real meatloaf in both texture and flavor. It's really quite impressive. Over the years, however, I've stopped measuring the ingredients and gotten used to substituting with whatever's in my pantry. Today's version turned out a little more dry and loose than it's supposed to be, but variation is part of the fun. I'll link the original recipe below, and include substitutions and additions I've used in the past.

Neatloaf is foolproof if you follow the instructions carefully, as it requires no technique and is difficult to overbake. It's great in a sandwich with some greens, or with mashed potatoes and gravy on the side. The link includes a recipe for lazyman's barbeque sauce, but you can use your own (or be even lazier and use one out of a bottle).

Link to recipe

4 eggs
1/3 LB low-fat ricotta cheese (I've substituted plain Greek style yogurt, the thicker the better)
1/3 LB firm tofu, mashed into small pieces(I prefer silken)
1/4 cup oil (canola, vegetable, grapeseed, or olive)
1/3 cup onions, diced and sauteed
3 cloves garlic, diced and sauteed with the onions, then cooled
1/2 cup cooked brown rice (up to 1 cup)
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. rosemary (herbs can be dried or fresh)
4 cups (dry measured) Special K (any cereal with flakes in it is fine)
1/3 package Lipton's onion soup mix (or one tablespoon each of onion and garlic powder)

I've also added frozen spinach, which brightens up the flavor. Basically, the recipe works as long as you have the eggs and a few items for bulk (rice, tofu, cereal).

Tofu Smoothie Basics

Sorry, another post without a photo. I'm trying to get down all my basics so I don't have to rewrite them or dig up e-mails when people ask me how to make things. Plus, we all know how forgetful I am. It's nice to write things down.

Tofu smoothie is a horrible name, but it's really great. Anyone who's tried the soy smoothies at Jamba Juice knows soy milk is great in a smoothie. Tofu, in my opinion, is even better. Nothing's worse than a thin smoothie, and tofu adds bulk without adding much flavor to the fruit. If anything, tofu imparts less flavor than yogurt or frozen yogurt. The resulting drink is not only lighter and fresher tasting, it's also lower in fat and higher in protein.

The basics, for one large mug (double if you want a meal sized smoothie):

• 2 cups frozen fruit
• 2 cups unfrozen fruit
• 1 cup tofu, silken or regular
• 1 or 2 tablespoons sweetener

I like to use frozen fruit instead of ice cubes for extra flavor, but substitute a cup of ice if you don't have frozen fruit. The unfrozen fruit and the tofu provide the liquid needed to blend the smoothie. Four cups of fruit sounds like a lot, but things like whole frozen strawberries don't fit well into a cup so a lot of that is just air. I almost never measure. I use just enough of each fruit to fill my two hands cupped together. If you're going to use this method, remember I have relatively small hands.

Sweetener can be honey, simple syrup, maple syrup, storebought juice with sugar already in it, or a spoonful of granulated sugar. Just be sure to blend well.

Fruit combinations are completely up to you. My favorites are melons and berries followed by citrus. Stonefruit and bananas don't really do it for me in a smoothie. Right now I'm working through a box of frozen strawberries and a tupperware of cantaloupe. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries are great with orange juice, but all those berries can get expensive.

Bonus: since there's zero fat involved, cleaning the blender jar is extremely easy.

Cold-Brewed Coffee

I don't have a photo of this, and frankly it just looks like coffee. But I was intrigued by how well cold-brewing works, so I'm writing it all down before I forget.

Cold brewing proponents claim that it produces a less acidic, smoother coffee than coffee made with hot water. People seem to waver about which type of coffee contains more caffeine. Near as I can tell, the cold version is stronger.

In either case, cold brewing results in a very strong concentrate which can be mixed with hot or cold water or milk. The benefit is that you do your cold brewing once every week or two and don't have to worry about it until you run out of concentrate. The concentrate is kept in the fridge, so you can have iced coffee any time you want without firing up the stove or coffee machine. You can cold brew with a Toddy system, or with a few simple tools:

• large glass jar with a lid
• manual coffee drip
• paper cone coffee filters
• a large mug
• empty bottle with lid

If you don't have a manual coffee drip, a strainer linked with paper basket coffee filters will work but be a little messy. As far as ingredients go, it's even simpler:

• 1 pound coffee, ground for an American drip machine (medium/fine)
• 9 cups cold filtered water

Combine the coffee and water in the glass jar. Stir well so that all the grounds are wet. Place in the fridge for at least 10 hours and up to 24 hours. I put mine in for about 12. I would imagine that the concentrate would start taking on bitter qualities if the grounds are left too long.

Set up your manual cone and paper filter over a mug. Pour in the concentrate and grounds, and let it drip for at least half an hour. Stir periodically and press the grounds gently. You won't be able to get all the water out. Switch filters when one becomes full of grounds. For a pound of coffee you will use four or five paper filters. Yes, it's a lot of filters, but for me it's still cheaper than investing in a $30 Toddy. It occurs to me that a manual drip with a gold filter would be a nice $10 compromise, but oh well. I enjoy working with what I have.

Bottle the concentrate and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. To use, pour two tablespoons into a mug and fill with water or milk. The amount is of course up to you. The coffee is very concentrated, so start light. I'm thinking the concentrate would be awesome for baking and for frozen drinks as well. I can't wait to start experimenting.

Warning: the concentrate is highly addictive. It has a smooth, nutty flavor and pleasant aftertaste.

Foccacia with Caramelized Onions and Herbs

Foccacia's a great bread because it has enough flavor to be eaten alone, but its flavors also work well with almost any meal. Plus, it's the perfect sandwich bread because of its flat shape. I made mine only an inch thick this time because that's what I like for sandwiches, but a two or three inch thick bread would be more traditional.

Today I used plenty of herbs for my foccacia because the garden was getting a bit overgrown. Clockwise from the left there's golden oregano, lemon thyme, Italian sweet basil, and chives. The final product was almost delicious enough to be a meal in and of itself. I wish I had some tomatoes and mozarella to make a caprese sandwich!

The herbs were chopped up and mixed with two tablespoons of olive oil. I sauteed one onion until it was very soft and caramelized, deglazed the pan with a splash of vermouth, cooked down, and stirred in the chopped herbs and olive oil after I turned off the flame. The mix was allowed to cool. After I spread the risen foccacia dough on a rimmed baking sheet, I spread the onion mixture over it and sprinkled the entire thing with kosher salt. After a final fifteen minutes of rising, the dough will puff up around the onions so the onions don't fall off the bread after baking.

Beer-Battered Fried Fish

Nothing says summer like beer battered fish. And like most things, it's easier than the restaurants want you to think. You'll need some special equipment in addition to the ingredients, but it's nothing too obscure. Tonight, our assortment included onion rings, oven-baked frozen fries, pollack, and sage.

Equipment

• Candy or deep frying thermometer. This is different from a meat thermometer in that it reads higher temperatures. Most meat thermometers go up to 220 (you shouldn't be cooking any meat over 160 anyway), and candy thermometers read up to 500.
• Some way to secure the thermometer to the side of the pot. A binder clip works will if the thermometer didn't come with a clip.
• A wide pot or pan at least two inches deel, or a cast iron skillet
• Sturdy tongs

Now gather the ingredients. The recipe below will make plenty of fish for four people.

Things to Fry

You'll have enough batter for four to five pounds of food. If you're not being too crazy, one and a half fish filets plus some side dishes is usually enough for each person.

• Filets of a white, flaky fish. Haddock, pollack, cod, halibut and snapper all work well, but the last too are too expensive for this preparation, in my opinion. I used frozen pollack from the Korean market, which was a steal at $1/lb.
• Other seafood: oysters, scallops, or shrimp
• Herbs: whole sprigs of sage, parsley, basil, or even mint. They get really crispy and are surprisingly refreshing.
• Fruit: lemon and limes work well, but feel free to go crazy.
• Vegetables: onions, artichokes, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, etc.

Beer Batter

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
• 1 bottle of beer
• 2 egg whites

Mix dry ingredients together, then add beer until just combined. Don't worry about small pockets of flour, but there should be no lumps bigger than peas. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Add a cup of the beer batter to the beaten egg whits and fold gently. Then add the egg whites to the beer batter and fold gently with a spatula until just combined. The mixture will be foamy and fluffy. You can make the beer batter up to an hour before you're going to use it, but beat and incorporate the eggs whites right before using.

Dusting Flour

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Mix together and put on a shallow wide plate.

The Frying

Assemble everything within easy reach. Heat the oil to 375 degrees. You want the oil to maintain a temperature between 350 and 375 degrees, but I wouldn't freak out if it goes as low as 325 or as high as 400. If you see it going out of range, just adjust the flame.

Dust the seafood in the flour and pat off any excess. Dredge in the beer batter and lightly place in hot oil. Fry for at least three minutes on each side, or until deep golden. Pick up with tongs and let some oil drip back into the pan, then remove to a paper towel lined plate. I keep the plate in my oven so the fish stays warm, and I pull out the oven tray whenever I'm ready to add more fish to the plate.

There's no need to dust the vegetables. Simply dredge them in the beer batter and fry on both sides. Since vegetables cook more quickly, you can also heat up the oil to 375-400.

Serve with lemon or lime wedges and tartar sauce. My homemade version of tartar sauce is just chopped up pickles mixed into mayonnaise, with a squeeze of lemon, two pinches of salt, a dash of paprika, and a teaspoon of black pepper.

Happy Birthday Wei! We celebrated early, so here's the cake. My first big birthday cake! I made a basic yellow cake but flavored it with plenty of orange zest. The two layers were filled with Grand Marnier whipped cream frosting and pear halves. The outside, to hide my poor frosting skills and prevent damage in transport, was encrusted with ladyfingers and strawberries.

Shameless, non food related bragging alert: I finished three books in under a week. No, they weren't particularly long books, but they weren't Dr. Seuss either! And one really was food related: Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires. It's a combination of her memoirs of being a food critic in disguise, copies of her old columns, and recipes she cooks at home. It's a fun light read. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto was disappointing. It might be the translator's fault, but the writing style is annoyingly clipped and disjointed.

The best book, by far, was Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. If you can find a way to make time to read a 300 page book with relatively big print, get your hands on a copy ASAP. This is easily the best book I've read this year. It's suspenseful, unique, thought provoking, heart wrenching, creepy, and poetic all at the same time. I love Ishiguro's measured writing style and the way his stories unfold as if he's just remembered something and is slowly recounting it to the reader. Some might say he goes off on too many tangents, that he's vague, or that the story is aggravatingly slow. But it's all part of Ishiguro's charm. His narrator's voice is like a warm soft blanket that you can wrap yourself in. And believe me, you'll need either a metaphorical or literal blanket because while the voice is soothing, the story itself is absolutely chilling.

Freaky Fruit!

We went to dinner at a friend's house yesterday, and I got to spend some time picking fruit and playing with his golden retriever. I was thrilled at the prospect of free lemons and oranges, but I soon found out not all was as it seemed. Observe:

A freaky hybrid lemon! I'm pretty sure his tree is a lemon and Buddha's hand citron hybrid. Why else would this fruit look like this? Most of the fruit looks like oversized lemons (disguising the fact that they, like Buddha's hand, have very little juice), but a few gnarly ones gave away the true nature of the plant. Like Buddah's hand, they give off more fragrants than regular lemons. They'll be a nice air freshener and source of zest if nothing else.

Aushak

Something different today: Afghan food!

Aushak is an Afghan dumpling. Traditionally, it's filled with a vegetarian filling that's made with green onions and/or leeks, cilantro, and chili pepper. Then, it's served in pools of garlic yogurt sauce and tomato meat sauce. It's a surprising cross between spaghetti and wontons, spiked with enough garlic to raise the dead or slay the undead. Best of all, it's likely to satisfy adventurous and wary eaters alike.

Meat Sauce

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1 finely diced onion
• 3 cloves of finely diced garlic
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon finely diced fresh ginger
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 cup of water (you might not need it all)

Sautee onions in olive oil until soft. Add beef, garlic, coriander, mace, and ginger and sautee until cooked. Add 1/2 a cup of water and simmer slowly until the water is reduced by half. Stir in the tomato sauce, add salt and pepper to taste, and simmer for five more minutes. Add water if the mix starts to look dry. It should be thicker than spaghetti saucebut still have some moisture to it. Cover and set aside in refrigerator. The meat will absorb the flavors while resting

Yogurt Sauce

• 1 cup Mediterranean style yogurt
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic (2-3 cloves)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients, cover, and set aside in refrigerator. You want to use a very thick yogurt for this. I used Trader Joe's Mediterranean Cheese Style Yogurt with the yellow cap. It's thicker than sour cream and has a great mild, slightly cheesy flavor. It's $2 a pint, and you can mix leftovers with a little milk and honey for breakfast. A Greek style yogurt would work well too, or take your favorite plain yogurt and drain it in a cheesecloth to thicken it.

Dumplings

• 1 package wonton wrappers (Dynasty or Hong Kong brands are widely available)
• 2 bunches of green onions, white parts removed and chopped finely
• handful cilantro (optional)
• 1 teaspoon dried chili flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 egg, lightly beaten and mixed with a teaspoon of water

Using the filling very sparingly, I was able to use up almost an entire package of wonton wrappers. If you want to use up the whole bag and make more substantial aushak, I would multiply this recipe by 1.5. Combine all the ingredients except the wrappers and the egg. Let rest for ten minutes, then gently squeeze out the liquid. Put a teaspoon of filling on a wrapper, dab the edges of the wrapper with a thin layer of egg, fold the wrapper onto itself to form a triangle, and press firmly to seal.

The best way to ensure a tight seal is to press down one side of the triangle and then gently roll your palm over the aushak starting with the sealed side and over to the unsealed side. As you roll your palm over the aushak, gently squeeze out the air from around the filling, being careful not to squeeze more liquid out of the filling. Seal the other side of the triangle. Set on a lightly floured baking sheet, and repeat until you run out of filling. Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap until ready to cook. You can also freeze the aushak on the tray, then put them all in a zip loc bag in the freezer for a few months.

Boil two quarts of water, slightly salted (a teaspoon or two should do it). Turn the water down to a gently rolling boil, and cook the aushak until transluscent. If you're boiling fresh aushak made with thin wonton skins, it should take only two or three minutes. Frozen aushak will take up to five minutes. To serve, heat the meat sauce but not the yogurt sauce. Drain the cooked aushak and arrange them on a warm plate. Dab all over with both sauces (or make stripes) and serve immediately.

Sides today were simple: cauliflower soup and a salad. Cauliflower soup is made by steaming a head of cauliflower, allowing it to cool slightly, then throwing it in a blender with some good chicken stock. Salt, pepper, and some chives complete the simple soup. This needs some chives for color, but no one's being picky tonight.

I decided to make aushak when reading Ruth Reichl's book Garlic and Sapphires reminded me that I loved aushak at Helmand in San Francisco and really wanted to try making them. I had already decided on the soup and salad, but the carnivore in my brain kept nagging me with an incessant "But there's no meat!" Aushak were just what was needed to keep this meal light while simultaneously making it a full dinner.

To see how my aushak compare, click here and look at the second photo for Helmand's rendition. The book, by the way, is a fun easy read full of amazing descriptions of many of Reichl's meals in New York City.

Oh, and I almost forgot. It's officially summer. Margaritas for everyone!

Ribs n' Slaw

Seriously, can I have permission to move to the South already? I say y'all with the greatest of ease, I love my grits, and now this:

Who knew ribs in the oven could be this good? I sure didn't. Unfortunately, ribs are one of those things that defy recipes. Here's my usual mumbo jumbo paraphrase of what I did:

Dry Rub

• paprika
• dry mustard
• seasoned salt
• chili powder blend
• cayenne pepper
• ground black pepper

Stir together about a tablespoon of each, taste, and add more of whatever you want. I also added a dash of ginger this time. Parsley might not be horrible either. But it's really whatever you want and whatever you have handy. Rub the ribs all over, and let sit for up to 6 hours in the fridge or in a cool kitchen.

Wrap the ribs tightly in aluminum foil and bake at 300 degrees for at least an hour and a half. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I actually started them off at 200 degrees for two hours and an extra hour and a half at 300. I also had a large rack of ribs, so it took longer to cook through. Check the ribs by opening the aluminum foil just a little. Be careful, there will be steam. If the ribs aren't yet fork tender, seal the aluminum back up and put the ribs in for another fifteen minutes.

When they're tender, let the ribs rest for half an hour out of the oven but still in the aluminum wrap. Cover with a towel to retain some of the heat. If you're not ready to eat yet, you can leave the ribs like this for an hour or two. When ready to eat, spread a layer of sweet barbeque sauce on the top and bottom sides of the ribs, and put them under the broiler until they're blackened around the edges and top. This should take about ten minutes, but watch the ribs carefully after the first five minutes so they don't burn.

Sweet Barbeque Sauce

• 12 oz. can of diced tomatoes
• 1 finely diced onion
• 4 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1/8 cup brown sugar
• 1/9 cup white or red wine vinegar
• several tablespoons of molasses
• everything you put in the dry rub
• chopped peppers of your choice: bell, serrano, jalepeno, etc.

Combine in a saucepan and simmer on the lowest possible setting for a few hours. You want everything to melt together. Adjust seasoning.

Cole Slaw

Shred some cabbage and carrots into a bowl. You can do this by hand, with a grater, or in a food processor. If you have odds and ends, feel free to add them in. Red cabbage, celery, cucumber--anything you'd eat raw. Add a heaping spoonful of mayonnaise, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, some ground black pepper, and a teaspoon of vinegar. Taste and adjust seasoning to your taste. Cole slaw improves after an hour in the fridge, but starts tasting pretty funky the next day. Some raisins are a nice addition.

Roast Chicken Leg

Sometimes, simple is best.

I couldn't resist the allure of an entire pack of whole chicken legs for 89 cents a pound. I know, Foster Farms chickens are injected with horrible brining solution, their chicken is mushy and flavorless, blah blah blah. With proper cooking technique, it's still a fantastic weekday meal when one doesn't care where one's chicken comes from. And it's way healthier than most restaurants or, heaven forbid, fast food.

Most importantly, bear in mind that this entire leg cost me less than a dollar. You can't beat that.

I salted and peppered the chicken outside and under the skin, then stuffed it under the skin with chopped spices from the herb garden. I love having "free" herbs all the time! Today I used basil, lemon thyme, and parsley. I let that sit while I preheated the oven to 450 degrees with a cast iron skillet inside. When the oven was hot, I put the chicken in skin down. Twenty minutes later, I flipped it. Don't flip it until the skin is quite golden, borderline brown. Cook on the other side for fifteen to twenty minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 160 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh.

Let rest five minutes before cutting into it. The skin should be crispy, and the inside hot and juicy. Enjoy! And if you roast two legs at a time, you can save the second one for later. Personally, I would eat the crispy skin off the second one and then strip the meat for a sandwich.

Creme Brulee

Today, I attempted to fill in one of those glaring gaps in my cooking knowledge.

Turns out, creme brulee does not require the culinary hijinks restaurants would have you believe they engage in in order to justify charging $7 for a ramekin of food. However, it does require a torch. Recipes will tell you you can brown it in a broiler, but then you'll get what I have above: uneven browning, pale edges, and unsightly burn marks on your ramekin. Oh well. You live, you learn. I'll report back if I have better luck with the other two.

Like all simple recipes, custard relies heavily on quality (read: expensive) ingredients and some care in preparation. It's not hard, but it does require attention to detail. For three small ramekins I used:

• One cup pasteurized heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized, if possible)
• 2 extra large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For a party, I would double this recipe and use the sees out of a whole vanilla bean. But moving right along:

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Scald the cream over medium heat until steam rises from it. If you're using vanilla beans, scrape the seeds in before you start scalding, and when the cream starts steaming cover the pan and let it steep for 10-15 minutes. Otherwise, continue.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg and sugar together in a medium bowl until the mixture is pale yellow and fairly thick. Pour in the scalded cream a tablespoon at a time, whisking constantly. Pour less rather than more at a time in this step to avoid curdling the eggs. If you even suspect you have created lumps, run the mixture through a fine strainer. If you're making this for company, you might want to strain it regardless of how it looks.

Pour the custard into ramekins and let sit for a minute. Meanwhile, start boiling enough water to fill a glass baking dish.

When the custard has settled in the ramekins, there will be a thick layer of foam on top. Skim this off carefully with a spoon, then let it sit for another minute. More foam will collect around the edges. Skim this off as well. Above you can see one well skimmed custard (top), one half skimmed (left), and one with the foam still on it.

Place the ramekins in a glass baking dish on a rack set in the middle of the oven. Pour in enough boiling water to fill the pan halfway up the sides of the ramekins. You want enough water to protect the ramekins from uneven heat, but you don't want the water so high that it will splash into the ramekins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. There's no way to know exactly when the custard will be done, since it depends on the size of your eggs, how big your ramekins are, etc. It's done when the edges are set but the middle is jiggly like Jell-O. Any longer and you'll end up with scrambled eggs. I've never seen finished creme brulee without sugar on it, so someone please tell me if they look right. They're not perfectly smooth on top the way Chinese egg custard tarts are, so I'm not sure if I did something wrong.

When the custard is done, cover well in plastic and chill in the fridge for up to a day. When ready to eat, preheat the broiler (or get out your torch). Cover the top of the custard with a thin layer of granulated suger. I used about a teaspoon for my two inch ramekin. You should have a nice white layer without visible yellow custard peeking through. Otherwise you'll end up with a thin uneven sugar layer. Also, don't use beet sugar! I've heard brown sugar and powdered sugar work as well, but haven't tried. Hold a few inches from the flame to melt and crust the sugar. Remove from the heat when the sugar is golden brown; it will continue cooking slightly so don't let it turn dark brown before you remove it from the heat. Let the sugar cool five to ten minutes before you serve it. It needs a little time to set up and cool. Don't let it sit any more than an hour, or the sugar will start absorbing the custard and get soggy.

I ate a tuna salad sandwich and some sliced mango while I waited for the custard to bake. The bread and custard are somewhat related, in that the recipe for bread calls for two egg whites and the custard calls for two egg yolks. Cooking with separate eggs doesn't always work out so well. Being me, I took a bite of mango with my tuna. What was weird about it was how the two flavors did nothing for each other. I thought it would either be immediately disgusting or surprisingly good. It was neither. It was just two separate flavors in my mouth that did absolutely nothing for each other, good or bad. It was a very strange sensation.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy + Watermelon Smoothie

There's no Sunday brunch like biscuits and gravy:

Buttermilk biscuits from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (this carnivore's favorite cookbook), and improvised lazy man's sausage gravy. For three big servings or four sides:

• one tablespoon butter
• four breakfast sausage links (enough to equal half a cup ground meat)
• two tablespoons all-purpose flour
• one cup of milk, plus a little more just in case.

Melt the butter over medium high heat, and throw in the sausages. Mash them into small pieces and make sure they brown a little all over. When you're happy with how brown they are, add the flour and stir it into the oil. Cook over medium or medium low heat until the flour is brown and giving off a light nutty flavor. If you're not sure what smell to look for, just make sure you cook the flour for at least two minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste. Whisk in a cup of milk slowly, and add more if you want a thinner gravy. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

Serve the biscuits in a pool of gravy, and top with some snipped chives and cracked pepper. Oh, and a glass of fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice with a touch of clover honey really helps to cut the grease!

Our weekend afternoons almost always include a watermelon smoothie break now that it's hot. I'm convinced that the sugar in watermelon helps keep you hydrated longer than plain water, since you sweat out more than just water. Plus, the vitamins in watermelon are good for you. Besides, why does anyone need convincing to eat watermelon?

For fast smoothies any time you please, all you need to do is cut an entire watermelon into cubes. Keep half of the cubes in the fridge and the other half in the freezer. When you're in the mood for a smoothie, combine equal parts frozen and unfrozen watermelon in a blender, making sure the unfrozen pieces are at the bottom. If you have a weak blender, you might want to mash the unfroxen pieces with a fork so that there's more liquid in the bottom of the blender. I also pour in whatever liquid's at the bottom of the container. Add a tablespoon of simple syrup or sugar if you don't think the watermelon is very sweet. Add a shot of rum if it's happy hour. Blend until smooth. A squeeze of lemon is a nice addition, and I've heard that vanilla really complements watermelon but have yet to try that flavor combination.

Why the Heck Not, it's Saturday

It's hot as hell, and it's Saturday night. Bellinis for everyone!

• one bottle very cheap, very dry bubbly. Traditionally one would use an inexpensive prosecco, but my favorite is Cristalino, which is a cava (Spanish sparkling wine). Relatively full-bodied, with an unattractively bitter edge that actually pairs perfectly with ripe fruit. But I would never drink it by itself
• puree of a few white peaches, skinned and pitted, with a little sugar added if necessary

Put three of four tablespoons of the puree in a champagne flute, and top off with bubbly.

Alternatively, use the juice of half an orange. Or good orange juice. But please, use expensive orange juice. A mimosa is not a mimosa with cheap orange juice!

"Rough" Pastry

Okay, here's Zuni Cafe's "rough" pastry recipe. It's a great home substitute for puff pastry, and seems less time consuming than a real puff pastry recipe. The recipe is ridiculously easy to remember, and the technique is not too hard. I'll try to remember photos next time, but the first time around I just wanted to get it right.

• One stick butter
• One cup all-purpose flour
• 6 Tablespoons iced water

For the purposes of a pie crust, salted butter is actually better. For me, a slightly salted crust is preferable to an unsalted one even for a fruit pie. If you can get your hands on it, Plugra or other European butter will have lower water content, which will make the dough flakier. In California, Trader Joe’s has the cheapest Plugra. I didn't have salted butter, so I just added a few pinches of salt to the flour.

The butter should be cold, but not hard. The consistency of clay is a good texture to aim for; pliable, but cold and definitely not weepy from heat. Cut the butter into quarter inch thick squares. Also, all your tools should be chilled in the freezer before you begin.

On a clean dry surface, put your flour on in a little mound. Spread the butter squares over the flour, and then begin pressing each piece of butter flat with your fingers. If you have warm hands, it helps to run them under cold water or rinse them in a bowl of iced water. Just make sure you dry them off before you start. Use the flour to dust each piece as you go. You’ll end up with some big flat pieces of butter, some that look like corn flakes, and some tiny pieces of floured butter. Don’t stress this part, just flatten the butter into potato chip shaped pieces and dust them with flour. You won’t really soak up much of the flour in this step.

Sprinkle the iced water onto the flour, mixing lightly if the water starts to run away from you. Using a pastry scraper or wide knife, scoop everything into a mound. It will look really ugly and unpromising. Press the mound down a little, flattening it until you can fold it over on itself. Press down again and fold over in the other direction. Press and fold a total of three times, but do so just to incorporate all the flour and butter. Don’t try to make it a homogenous mass, and don’t overwork it. When your mass is stuck together, you should still see visible chunks of flour and butter, but they should all stick together. The dough will also be very soft. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour to let the gluten relax.

Set aside two tablespoons of flour and try not to use more than that for the rest of the recipe. You'll need a little for dusting your surface, dough, and rolling pin, but keep it to a minimum bu constantly moving the dough. You never want to roll the pin over the dough more than two times before you lift and flip the dough. I usually sprinkle some flour on the counter and then wipe most of it off. Roll the mass into a rectangle and fold the rectangle into thirds. Turn, roll out again, and fold into thirds again. Do this one last time, then check the dough. You might be able to see tiny streaks of butter, but all the big chunks should have melded into the flour. If you still have large pieces of visible butter (bigger than a pea), roll and fold into thirds again. When done, wrap the rolled mass in the plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour. Then roll out and use on your pie. If you have time or if it’s warm out, chill the entire pie for another twenty minutes before putting it in the oven. Puff pastry has to be cold when it hits the oven so that the butter won’t melt and start dripping before the flour bakes and gives the butter something to soak into.

If you make the dough the night before (or leave it in the fridge longer than any of the specified times), just let it sit on the counter so it comes up to a workable temperature. You want the dough to be as firm as it can be without the edges cracking when you roll it out. If you start rolling and notice the edges cracking, let it sit for a few minutes before you work it again.

Chicken Pot Pie

I love when leftovers become something new, so yesterday's roast chicken became today's chicken pot pie. The bones, of course, were rinsed off and used to make stock.

Pot pie is time consuming but worth it once in awhile. Plus, today I learned how to make a flakey crust, so no more storebought frozen puff pastry! I used The Zuni Cafe Cookbook recipe for "rough" pastry, which turned out lighty, fluffy, and crispy.

For the filling, sautee half a cup each of diced onions, carrots, and celery in olive oil until soft. Add half a cup of green peas and cook until warm. Sprinkle the mix with a heaping tablespoon of all-purpose flour and stir well. Cook over medium low heat for three minutes or more to get rid of the raw flour taste. Add a cup of milk, cream, or half and half, and simmer until thickened. I also added a few spoonfuls of chicken stock and chicken fat, but only because I was simmering stock at the same time and had it handy. Stir in two cups of cooked cubed chicken. If your filling looks too thin, just keep cooking. If it's too thick, add a little more dairy or water. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg (or mace), and chopped or dried parsley to taste. The mix should be cooled before baking, so stick it in the fridge while you make your crust. You can also assemble both the crust and mix a day ahead, and just put the crust on right before you want to bake the pot pie.

The crust recipe can be found in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but if anyone's desparate for it I'll post it here later. It requires only a stick of salted butter, a cup of all-purpose flour, and 6 tablespoons of iced water.

Lemon Chicken and Couscous

I finally tried Marcella Hazan's Lemon Roast Chicken recipe tonight. Click here for the recipe. It was delicious. I don't know if it was the lemons or my extra care not to overcook, but the chicken was incredibly tender all over. The one downside to this recipe is that the outside skin doesn't crisp up as much as I'd like. I think I can compensate for it by turning the oven way up for just the last couple of minutes without affecting the internal texture. We'll see.

Vegetable couscous is easy. Brown some onions in olive oil, toss in any other diced vegetables you have lying around and sautee until half cooked. For four services I used about three cups of vegetables. Add a cup of couscous and two cups of water (or follow the instructions on the box), bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer until couscous is cooked through. Stir every few minutes to ensure even cooking. Depending on what kind of couscous you buy, this can take between five and fifteen minutes, so read the box. I add whatever spices strike my fancy. Last night it was salt, pepper, paprika, shallot salt, fresh lemon thyme, and fresh sage. Towards the end I also stirred in a generous amount of pan drippings from the chicken and a squeeze of one of the lemons after I took it out of the chicken.

The most fun part of this recipe is trying to get two large lemons into one small chicken. I suggest one small lemon for the part of the cavity closer to the neck, and a bigger lemon for the large part of the cavity. Don't forget to skewer your chicken closed. I knew the butt would let off a lot of fat, so I stuck it in a position to baste the inside as well as outside of the chicken.

Guests who stayed late at last week's dinner will remember strawberry sorbet. Tonight, it became a strawberry daiquri. Tomorrow, the last of it will become a strawberry lemon smoothie. I will be very sad when strawberry season draws to a close.

Grand Marnier, Home Style

I sure as heck hope this turns out okay.

Homemade Grand Marnier, according to the pros, is made with:

• 1 liter eu de vie, or vodka
• one orange
• 44 coffee beans
• 44 cubes of sugar (or 0.45 cups, though some say to cut that amount in half)

The coffee beans are inserted into slits in the orange, and then everything is combined in a clean glass jar and allowed to sit in a dark place for 44 days. Appropriately, the resulting infusion is sometimes simply called 44.

The jar is shaken daily to ensure that the sugar melts. My biggest concern is that the orange will begin rotting because some of it is exposed to air. Maybe it will sink after it becomes vodka-logged? I hope so. Maybe I need to come up with a way to submerge it. A few long kebab sticks should do the trick.

Oh, right, like so. Damnit, I'm so smart. Check in 44 days from now (July 21) and see how it turns out. I figure it'll be darned good for baking, at least. The aroma of orange and coffee was surprisingly nice during the making of this infusion.

Two Easy Meals

I thought the last few nights' dinners would be fun to juxtapose because they're so different from each other but are both easy hearty meals that keep well in the fridge.

Spaghetti and meatballs. Sauce includes onions, finely diced zuchinni for added vitamins, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, salt, pepper, a few cloves of garlic, and a little oregano. Simmer until everything's cooked together, and throw in some meatballs. I make double the amount of meatballs I need whenever I make them, so I had a lot in the freezer left from Swedish meatballs.

Curry. Just follow the instructions on the back of a box of Golden Curry, but increase the simmer time. I don't think their stated five minutes is enough for anything to cook properly. I used London broil and I simmered the meat, celery, carrots, and onions for two hours before adding potatoes for another half hour (leave the vegetables out if you like them firm, and add them in the last half hour). Remember to add the curry cubes only when everything is tender, because after you thicken the curry nothing's going to cook much more.

Egg White Dinner Rolls

You know I love bread:

I never expected bread without egg yolks in it to come out spongey and rich, but this was pretty good. The dough rose very high, which is a big bonus for a novice bread maker like myself. Getting dough to rise properly is a tricky tricky task.

The recipe is simple and straightforward:

Proof two tablespoons of yeast in a quarter cup of warm water for 10 minutes.

Whisk together one tablespoon of olive oil, 1 1/2 cups warm water, a teaspoon of salt, two egg whites, and the proofed yeast.

Add flour until the dough just pulls away from the side of the bowl (using paddle attachment on a stand mixer or a wooden spoon). You'll use about 5 cups of bread flour.

Knead for several minutes until springy and elastic. The dough should bounce back when poked.

Put in a lightly greased bowl, turn over once to coat, and cover loosely. Let rise for an hour. Meanwhile, line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Deflate the dough gently. When they say "punch" your bread down, it's just an expression! Actually punching it will make your dough dough. Gently divide your dough into twelve pieces. Using what I call the "tighten and tuck under" method, form each piece of dough into a tight ball. Basically, you tuck the outer edges of the dough underneath as you smooth the top surface, repeating until you have a perfectly smooth dough on top. You don't want cracks on top because as the dough rises the dough will be most likely to crack along the already weakened part of the dough. When the top looks smooth to you, pinch the bottom of the dough closed and place the formed ball on the covered baking sheet. Form six balls for each baking sheet, at least two inches apart. Press them down a little if you're making rolls for sandwiches, and leave them spherical if you want dinner rolls. Dust with flour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 25 minutes.

In the last five minutes of the rise, begin preheating your oven to 400 degrees. when the 25 minutes are up, slash the rolls in a cross (as I've done) here, or in a spoke pattern. Or make two parallel slashes. The slashes just give the dough a set place to rise. Cover loosely and let rise for just 15 minutes. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until golden. These are best fresh out of the oven with some Plugra butter and preserves, but a bag of them has also gone into my freezer as emergency bread.

Kitchen Treats!

Thank you, everyone! Fun presents floated my way recently, and my favorites were of course kitchen related.

The purchaser of the Riedels obviously outdid himself. They are gorgeous. I would say they're the most gorgeous thing in my kitchen, but let's not be silly. That distinction belongs to the stand mixer. Still, the Riedels offer our kitchen a touch of class disporportionate to any of our other meager belongings.

Wine tags! If the Riedels are classic highbrow, the wine tags are rollicking good lowbrow fun. Each of the tags has a description that can be used for wine or for a person. For example "mellow but not bland," or "fruity and packs a punch." Guests, of course, are tasked with finding tags that describe them best. We used them at the party on Friday and everyone was very amused.

The dual garlic press/slicer and all-in-one measuring spoon are amazing. I love kitchen tools that serve more than one purpose! The garlic press, especially, is an incredible feat of engineering. It's one of the few tools that really does shorten the amount of time it takes to perform a task (chopping garlic finely), even taking in the added time of cleaning the press. My garlic consumption has already practically doubled. because it's just so easy to add another clove or two.

Anyhow, thanks to everyone for thoughtful and practical presents (and for realizing that anyone can basically walk into a kitchen supply store, close his eyes, spin around, and buy the first thing he sees without too much fear that I won't want it). I plan to get plenty of use out of everything; just wait and see!

Ocean Avenue Seafood

Hood Canal Oysters are my friend:

Hood Canal oysters are incredibly creamy, minerally without tasting metallic, pleasantly salty, and big enough to be a tastey mouthful each. J said they're the closest to New Orleans oysters (aka. Gulf oysters) he's had on the West Coast, which is a good thing in our opinion. Two dozen of these babies, half a dozen assorted sampler oysters, a Heineken on tap, and three tastes of white wine=the cost of three cocktails at The Four Seasons. Me likey.

Party at Pei's

Hungry? We were! Look at this gorgeous plate of food:

A hoard of hungry friends descended upon our humble abode, and were greeted by the sight of the following:

Brie and smoked gouda with toast points made by olive oiling and baking sliced homemade baguettes.

Feta cheese and herb spread; salmon terrine. The terrine was something new for me and turned out well for not very much effort. It's equal parts chopped cooked and smoked salmon, I used about half a pound each; a tablespoon or two of chopped dill depending how much you like dill; half a stick of softened butter, or enough to bind everything together; pepper to taste. Mix well and put into a plastic wrap or parchment paper lined container overnight. When ready to serve, dip the container in hot water for a few seconds to loosen the butter, and invert onto a serving plate. My presentation could use a little work, but I couldn't find an appropriately shaped container.

Roasted vegetables, mini chicken pieces, and Italian sausage. All the meat was marinated for two days in lemon juice, rosemary, onion, salt, and pepper. Assorted baby squash, baby carrots, onions, and potatoes were tossed in oil, salt, and pepper and then roasted over high heat. The meat was then roasted over high heat as well and poured onto the plate of vegetables. I love the taste of rosemary-infused chicken, and the flavor was really able to penetrate the small chicken pieces.

Roast top sirloin. As usual, a blurry photo. I coated this roast in salt and pepper for a day (should have done two), let it sit out for a few hours to warm up, dried it really well, and let it roast at between 150 and 200 degrees for four hours. Deeeeeeelicious, and a crowd favorite with some Vietnamese chimichurri (chopped cilantro, mint, hot pepper, fish sauce, and sugar).

Balsamic vinegar strawberries. I think sliced strawberries swimming in their own juices are so much tastier than whole berries. A dash of balsamic vinegar makes strawberries even better. I decorated this bowl of tasty berries with some fresh lavendar from my garden.

True to form, I forgot to take a picture of a plate of smoked salmon and a bowl of bruschetta.

But I didn't forget our desserts: cream puffs and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

The End

Fish Croquettes

If this isn't contemporary Asian, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately for me, the fish croquettes from a seafood cookbook I borrowed were cosmetically perfect but internally flawed. Heck, the one thing about them that was perfect was the one thing I changed (panko instead of Italian bread crumbs). The book is one of those excuses for glossy photos with great ideas but poor instructions and flawed proportions. Even more unfortunately, I actually followed the recipe.

So here, in theory, is what I would do in the future. Remember, this is not a tried and true recipe, just how I thought the recipe should have been written.

• 1 1/2-2 pounds flakey white fish (2 filets).
• 1 1/2 cups milk.
• 1 pound dry flakey potato (two moderately sized Russets, for example), baked or steamed
• your choice of herbs to go with your fish: thyme, parsley, spring onion, yellow onion, mustard, etc. Two tablespoons total, all chopped.
• 1 lemon
• butter, a few tablespoons
• flour for dusting
• one egg
• panko bread crumbs

Simmer the fish filets for 3-4 minutes, or until they flake easily. Flake the fish well, and set the fish aside.

Mash the potatoes while they're warm, and encorporate the herbs you're using. The heat from the potatoes will cook the herbs. If you're using yellow onions, sautee them first until they're brown around the edges.

Add a teaspoon of lemon zest and half a teaspoon (or more) of lemon juice to the potatoes. Fold in fish. Put mixture in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. Be sure to press some plastic wrap directly on it so a hard skin doesn't form.

After the mixture is chilled, form it into patties or logs (as pictured). Dust with flour and return to the fridge to chill until firm (30 minutes). You can also leave these in the fridge overnight or freeze for a few months.

When you're ready to fry, heat an inch of oil to 360 degrees. Have a plate of each ready: flour, a beaten egg, and panko crumbs. Roll each log in flour, then egg, then panko, and place gently in the oil. Adjust the temperature of the stove often so the temperature of the oil stays between 350-375 degrees. I try not to go much over 360 degrees. Turn the logs over only when the bottom is as golden brown as pictured. It should fry for about three minutes on each side, but it will depend how big your logs are and how cold they've gotten in the fridge.

When done, remove to a plate lined with paper towels. It's best to serve these hot, of course, but if you've fried too quickly and need to keep them warm before dinner, place them in a warm oven for ten minutes.