Holiday Treats for 2010

In the last few nights I slaved away at the oven...well at least bake until I used up most of the 10 pounds of flours, couple dozen of eggs, and Costco size big package of butter (you know how much that is if you shop at Costco) and a lot of sugar.

I made:

brownie
peanut butter cookies
peanut butter with fudge cookie
lemon crumb bar
carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
cinnamon hazelnut biscotti

I think this batch was better than last year. For next year I will make the Lemon Crumb Bar and Hazelnut Biscotti (I found the recipe online at allrecipe.com) again.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup hazelnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt; mix into the egg mixture. Stir in the hazelnuts. Shape dough into two equal logs approximately 12 inches long. Place logs on baking sheet, and flatten out to about 1/2 inch thickness.
3. Bake for about 30 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges are golden and the center is firm. Remove from oven to cool on the pans. When loaves are cool enough to handle, use a serrated knife to slice the loaves diagonally into 1/2 inch thick slices. Return the slices to the baking sheet.
4. Bake for an additional 10 minutes, turning over once. Cool completely, and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Hint: The skin of the hazelnut is quite bitter. To remove it easily, in a large saucepan, bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Add 4 tablespoons of baking soda and 1 cup of hazelnuts and boil nuts for about 3 minutes. Test a nut under cool running water. If the skin doesn't slip off easily, boil nuts another minute or two. After peeling, nuts should be crisped and lightly browned in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Fourth of July BBQ

My family came up and visit me and we had a little BBQ for fourth of July. Instead of the usual hamburger and hot dog we had Korean BBQ with rice and salad. I made the marinade from scratch. I had a Korean friend that told me she uses soda pop in her marinade but she doesn't have a recipe. I was curious so I looked online for a recipe for Kalbi using soda pop. There were numerous versions and I picked a few of them to get an idea and kind of created my own marinade version.

For roughly 4 lbs thinly sliced beef short ribs I used:
1-2 onion
2 tablespoon garlic
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup rice wine
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup 7-up
4 tablespoon lemon juice

It turned out pretty good. The meat was able to absorb some flavor in couple hours. It would have been better if I had the time to marinade overnight and the meat would have time to soften.

For dessert it was pretty much all American, perfect for Fourth of July - Blueberry Pie and that was a hit. I used the recipe from the Joy of Cooking cookbook for Pies and Tarts. It was my first attempt at making a lattice cover for the crust. It was harder than I thought. I broke a few strands. Thankful it tasted delicious and I think the pie was a bigger hit than Korean BBQ! :p

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

Still some buttermilk left.....
Then I saw a recipe on the back of the Western Family's All Purpose Bleached Flour package for "Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins." There's nothing better than a plateful of warm fresh baked muffins. Yum!

Ingredients:
2 cups (all purpose flour)
1/2 Tbsp (baking powder)
1/2 tsp (salt)
1/2 tsp (cinnamon)
1/4 tsp (nutmeg)
2 large eggs
1 cup (buttermilk)
3/4 cup (granulated sugar)
1/2 cup (vegetable oil)
1 1/2 tsp (vanilla)
1 3/4 cup (frozen blueberries)

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 400 degree F. /Baked for 15-20 minutes.
2. ) Grease a standard 12 cup muffin tin or line with paper cup.
3.) In large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In small bowl mix eggs, buttermilk, sugar, oil and vanilla. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and mix until moistened. Do not over mix. Fold in the blueberries. Divide batter between the muffin cups. Sprinkle liberally with granulated sugar.

Irish Soda Bread

I had some buttermilk and sour cream left from something else and I don't want to throw it away because I can't find use for them. So what do I do? I looked online for a recipe that uses those ingredients and a tiny modification to the recipe (to what I had on hand). I'm happy to say that it was easy to make and it's delicious!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup craisins
  
• 2 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Beat eggs with buttermilk. Add the eggs and buttermilk into the flour mixture; stir in raisins.
3. Pour dough onto lightly floured board. Shape into a round loaf, adding flour if necessary. Place in a lightly greased springform pan. Sprinkle top with caraway seeds if desired.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Candied Ginger

I recently saw "Ginger: Rise of the Rhizome" on the Food Network's "Good Eats." I was particularly intrigued by Alton Brown's recipe for candied ginger and its by-product--ginger sugar. After making the Pe(c)king Duck, I had several metric tonnes of unused ginger (why can't they sell it by the slice?) that was only going to go bad. So....inspiration kicked in the door, wrestled me to the stove, and forced me to cook.

I must say that I have less than no experience with candy making. The closest I get to making the stuff is when I leave a chocolate bar on my car's dashboard on a hot summer day and have to re-solidify it. Needless to say, I tread fearfully into this previously undiscovered country. And was rewarded handsomely with some pretty "good eats." (Thank you, Alton Brown.)

The recipe is pretty straight forward and can be found on the Food Network's website. I will paraphrase it here to avoid Itchy and Twitchy (Mr. Brown's crack legal team) from hunting me down.

Basically, you peel and slice your wayward rhizoid into 1/8 inch slices. Mr. Brown suggests using a mandoline, but since I avoid using any kitchen instruments named after the musical ones, I used a knife. Several nasty cuts later, the ginger was cooked for 35 minutes over medium-high heat in water, Mr. Brown suggests 5 cups per pound of ginger, but since I had less, I used 2 cups for 1/4 pound. After 35 minutes, the ginger was tender and slightly darker in color.

The ginger was drained and the resultant liquor reserved. Mr. Brown calls for using 1/4 cup of ginger liquor for the next step, but since most of the water had evaporated from my witches' brew, I used all of it (about 1/8 cup). The ginger was weighed and an equal weight of sugar was added to the ginger and ginger liquor mix. The whole mess was then heated over medium-high heat until it boiled, with regular, if not continuous, stirring. After the liquid boiled, the heat was reduced to medium and continuous stirring commenced. (This is important. Mr. Brown calls for "regular stirring", but many of my culinary fellow-travelers reported burned caramel and glass-like ginger. I only can surmise that this was due to ineffectual (too slow) and inconsistent stirring.) As the water evaporated from the mixture the boiling became more vigorous, which I matched with the vigor of my stirring. (This was not "A Night Before Christmas", and believe me when I say that this mouse was definitely stirring.)

And then...a miracle occurred. Well, actually, the sugar began to recrystallize on the ginger. This process was FAST. Basically, the mixture went from slightly damp, viscous near-caramel to dry ginger covered in crystalline sugar. There was also a lot of extra sugar in the pan. At this point, I quickly removed the pan from the heat and transferred the ginger and sugar to a cooling rack, making sure that none of the ginger pieces touched.

After the ginger cooled, I put the pieces in an airtight container. Per Mr. Brown's suggestion, I also recovered the sugar into its own airtight container. Both are stored at room temperature. By the way, the recovered sugar is as potent as the candied ginger. Use it sparingly, otherwise you will be tasting of ginger for the next month. By the way, if you are not absolutely addicted to ginger (or her bungalow-mate, Mary-Anne), then walk away from this recipe and do not look back lest you be turned into a pillar of Mr. Brown's beloved Kosher salt.

Pecking Duck or Peking Duck

Can you believe a Peking Duck took more time to make than a Thanksgiving turkey? We started at 9am and we didn't get to eat until 11pm. After my last experience with the Thanksgiving turkey that took forever to roast, we've decided to buy a oven thermometer to see if the oven was off. The oven was off by 35 degrees! After we figure that out, the roasting went a lot more smoothly this time.

The process of making the duck was very time consuming. We have to dry the duck for at least 4 hours. Then caramelize it and let it dry for at least another 4 hours. The baking time took only 2 hours but you have to turn it twice during the process.

We also made everything from scratch including the mandarin pancake, the scallion brush garnish, and the Peking duck sauce. It was a lot of work but worth the effort. It was so delicious.

Pic: I find it rather amusing to see a hanging duck in my kitchen.

Cupcakes for Dad

My father's birthday is tomorrow and he doesn't like sweets that much. I thought instead of making him a big birthday cake, a little cupcake would be more appropriate. I made a little sign to go with the cupcake. I have to admit it's a little bit too feminine for my father, but it's the thought that counts, right? :p

The cupcake recipe I used was from a new book I got titled "Rose's Heavenly Cakes". I order it online from Amazon after reading all the great reviews. I notice the author, Rose Levy Beranbaum, also participated on the comment/reviews on Amazon. She clearly is very passionate about her work and really understands the chemistry of baking. I probably don't need to get any other cake books after getting this big book.

The first recipes I tried from the book was "White Velvet Butter Cupcakes" and the "Golden Neoclassic Buttercream". I'm not sure if I like that combo...maybe I'll try a different combo next time. The texture isn't like a typical cupcake I'm use to. It's a lot more dense, but the flavor is really good. The buttercream taste like sweeten butter, but lighter. I wish I know if that's how it's suppose to taste or if I had made a mistake. It feels like I'm just spreading a stick of butter on top of the cupcake. Maybe it might have helped if I followed the directions exactly. The book have a very detail instruction.