Eating through the Big Apple: Day 3

So technically, I've long forgotten how many days it took me to eat however many animals as I was gallivanting through NYC. I do recall one day walking through Brooklyn and thinking, "Wow! There are actually seasons here!" We are quite spoiled with our weather here in California, but sometimes I think it would be nice to actually see the leaves change.

Though I've been to NYC a few times now, I still haven't visited in the winter. November was still chilly enough to want to rush inside a nice restaurant to enjoy brunch with friends. I don't remember the name of the cafe, but they had pretty cool light fixtures.

Oh, and the eggs benedict wasn't bad either. I think I prefer them served with fries instead of hash browns. Being the gastro-genius that I am, I used the fries to poke at the egg and sop up any ooey gooey yolk and hollandaise sauce!

That evening, we decided to check out a very popular high-brow-ish pizzeria called Motorino. It's more upscale than your normal pizzeria and there was a line out the door for this tiny East Village joint. The wait was about 45 minutes, so we decided to pop into the gastropub next door for a drink.

A look at their menu, the personal pizzas are about $15+, which in my opinion is a bit pricey for a pie, but alas, its New York. I opted for the crimini mushroom and sausage pizza. 

We also ordered what seriously is the perfect pizza wine. In fact, they even label it as such on the menu! Thank goodness for my high mega-pixel camera or else I would have never remembered the name: Gragnano, Cantine Federiciane, from Naples, Italy. It was slightly sweet and semi-sparkling. Yum!

My crimini mushroom and sausage pizza was tasty. Usually I'm not a fan of pizza crust, but take one look at their homemade crust and its perfectly crispy. I just wished there was some sauce to dip it in. As you can see, it was a tight squeeze at our tiny table (with my pizza hanging off the edge), but definitely worth the wait.

Motorino

349 East 12th Street
New York, NY 10003

Tel: 212 777 2644

Eating through the Big Apple: Day 2

I do realize it has been almost a month since my last post. Trust me, I think about this every day. Okay maybe every other day, or at the least a couple times a week. I'd like to think its because I'm still digesting from my week of gluttony overload in NYC. I have recovered though. My second day in the Big Apple, my lovely friend and I dined at Public, a Michelin one star restaurant

Public is located in NoLita, and for those of you not too familiar with NYC, that's somewhere between NYU and Katz's Deli. I really enjoyed their menu and decor; what restaurant has a library card catalog in the foyer?

They served three breads, a sourdough, a foccacia with capers or olives,  and well the third, I didn't ask for. Look at the big gas bubble in that sourdough. Yeasty!

For a starter, I chose the grilled kangaroo on coriander falafel with a lemon tahini sauce and green pepper relish. Yep, that's right... kangaroo! Another animal to add to my list of devoured delicacies. The kangaroo was a bit rare, and as most of you know my motto is 'the redder the better'. I would say it tasted like a cross between venison and rabbit.

For my main course, I had the snail and oxtail ravioli with pickled shiitake mushrooms, oven dried tomatoes, pea shoots, and smoked paprika oil. I like snails and I like oxtail, so I figured the combination would probably be tasty. I didn't taste too much of the shiitake mushrooms, and felt that the dish could have been salted more. The pea shoots were nicely blanched and still had a bit of crunch.

My friend decided to opt out of a heavy meal and ordered crispy Brussels sprouts with lemon miso sauce and Aleppo pepper and the sticky toffee pudding with Armagnac ice cream and hot caramel sauce. Don't argue with a woman if all she wants is a side and dessert.  I didn't try the pudding, it looked a little too ooey and gooey floating in a pool of sauce.

Instead, my dessert calories were allocated to a fig bellini. A little bubbly makes any meal better (and a walk to the subway more fun)!

PUBLIC

210 Elizabeth Street
New York, NY 10012

Tel: 212 343 7011

Eating through the Big Apple: Day 1

In desperate need of a break from the Bay, I thought it would be a good idea to pay a visit to one of my friends from pastry school. Another friend had asked me what I planned to do while in NYC, if there were any particular sights I wanted to take in or shows I wanted to see. My response? I go to NYC to eat. And eat I did!

On my first evening, we noshed at The Spotted Pig, a one Michelin star gastropub in the West Village. Apparently a hub for celebrities (though I didn't see any on the night I went), this place was bustling with people and the wait was upwards of an hour for two people. The executive chef, April Bloomfield is of English origin and worked at Berkeley's Chez Panisse.

Though a lot of people were ordering burgers, I decided to keep it light with oysters, chicken liver toasts, and shared an overflowing plate of shoestring fries with my friend.

My friend, a vegetarian, ordered their roasted vegetable platter. She seemed quite pleased with the perfectly roasted brussels sprouts, but we both were a bit smitten with the fries. Wouldn't you be too? Not to worry though, being in Manhattan, we were able to walk off a lot of those fries on our way back to the subway.

The Spotted Pig
314 West 11th Street
New York, NY 10014-2369
Tel: 212 620 0393

Creepy cupcakes

Okay, I admit. They're not creepy. In fact they're quite cute. Cute cupcakes doesn't really sound like a fitting blog post for Halloween cupcakes though. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year.

Who doesn't like Halloween? Being able to dress up and stuff yourself silly with candy and not get any lip from anyone? Plus I love seeing little kids dressed up and even super creative adult costumes. Although I still think I'm in a baking funk, I couldn't resist baking off.. oh.. a few dozen cupcakes. Okay.. fine, a little over six dozen isn't quite a few and I was up until 2AM whipping up butter cream frosting. C'mon peoples, there are 24 usable hours in a day!

The cupcake recipe is Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Cupcake. To be honest, I didn't care much for it; it was a bit dense. Maybe there was a little too much flour because I'm used to weighing everything and not using cups and teaspoons. If there's a petition to have Americans start using the metric system for baking... sign me up! Other than the density issue, the cupcake was moist and had good flavor. For the frosting, I used French butter cream and also an Italian meringue butter cream (for the ghosts), which is just my Italian meringue recipe with almost equal amounts of butter added. I ended up using two to three pounds of butter for my 6 dozen cupcakes. I think next up on the list, I'll make some low-fat, oatmeal, artery cleansing date bars, and prevent my unsuspecting victims taste testers from going into cardiac arrest.

French butter cream:


Egg yolks 120g
Eggs 140g
Granulated sugar 500g
Water 125g
Butter 800g
Vanilla bean 1/2 (or two teaspoons of vanilla extract)


Cook the sugar with water to 121°C. Beat the eggs and yolks lightly, add the contents of the scraped vanilla bean (or vanilla extract). While beating, add the cooked sugar to this mixture once it is light and fluffy. Beat until the mixture is cool. Incorporate the softened butter. Continue beating the butter cream to increase volume. If storing the butter cream in the fridge, do not beat to increase volume, but re-whip prior to use. You may need to soften the butter cream in a bain-marie/water bath.

Strawberry pastry cream tarts

I usually don't dedicate my posts to anyone. Okay, in fact I've never dedicated a post at all. However, this one time, this teeny exception I'm going to dedicate this one to my ever-relentless-hounding friend who is probably my only reader and biggest critic. Cinnamon, this one is for you.

As all aspiring home bakers know, making puff pastry from scratch is no small feat. It requires having your dough and butter at the right temperature/consistency and endless rolling, folding, and more rolling. If you have a pastry sheeter, it's not so bad. Last I checked, most people don't have a $5,000 piece of baking equipment in their home. And if you do? Well, I want to be your friend.

And for this reason, I don't have any qualms about using that store-bought frozen stuff. It's not that bad actually.  A lot of professional bakeries will make their puff pastry ahead of time and thaw when needed.

Both Pepperidge Farm and Trader Joe's brand puff pastry dough sheets come individually wrapped, and two to a box. They're quite handy to have in the freezer to throw together a last minute dessert. Per box instructions, you need to let the dough thaw a little before handling.

For my strawberry tarts, I cut one of the pastry dough sheets into quarters and scored them along the edges. I then folded the edges over to make a 'frame' of dough. By doing so, I essentially doubled up the dough. When the dough rises and cooks, it will make a boat to nest the filling and fruit. I came across this method when making some blueberry boats for my brother.

Another important note is to make sure to generously dock the center of the pastry. Docking, which is a fancy shmancy name for poking holes, ensures that the pastry in the middle will not rise as much as the edges. I then brushed the edges with a light egg wash and baked according to manufacturers instructions.

See, they're kind of like little boats. Or maybe bowls. At this point you could probably fill them with anything, even a savory chicken pot pie filling. Yum.... pie. My filling of choice was pastry cream and strawberries. Pastry cream, or crème pâtissière, is the French take on custard and is a key ingredient in a lot of French pastries.

After the pastry cream was thoroughly chilled, I filled each of the pastries about halfway, leaving ample space for the fruit filling.

Next up, strawberries. The strawberries were definitely not as easy as the blueberries to maneuver into the small pastry space. If working with strawberries, I would suggest picking the smaller fruits, or slicing them for a better fit.

As a finishing touch to the tarts, I melt a quarter cup of apricot jam diluted with a couple tablespoons of water. The apricot jam has a neutral flavor and works nicely as a glaze, By glazing the berries, they'll retain an appetizing shine and won't get that 'old dried out' look once they've been sitting in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Pastry Cream:


Milk 500g
Eggs 50g
Egg yolks 30g
Sugar 125g
Flour 25g
Custard powder 25g (can substitute cornstarch)
Vanilla extract


In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil and add the vanilla extract. In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, yolks, sugar, flour and custard powder. Once the milk comes to a boil, pour approximately a quarter of a mixture into the egg mixture to temper. Return the egg mixture back to the saucepan and continuously mix as the pastry cream comes to a boil. Allow the mixture to boil for three minutes. Transfer the pastry cream to a mixing bowl, cover with plastic film, and store in the refrigerator until thoroughly chilled.

Processing pictures of pastries

I'm sure at least a few of you have been wondering what I've been up to. Your daring displaced person, valiant vagabond, or even tenacious transient has not been quite the busy baker as of late. With a new little person (not mine) in my life, a new camera, and looming deadlines at work, I've been a bit preoccupied. I didn't realize what I had gotten myself into when I ordered Plate to Pixel, nor when I bought my new camera. It wasn't until I installed Photoshop Lightroom did I think, "whoa this is going to be a lot of work!" Taking pictures is easy. Taking well thought out, balanced and appetizing pictures of food is tough. Really tough. In her book, Helene Dujardin stresses that the more effort you take into taking good pictures, the less post processing you'll have to do. Since I don't understand most of Lightroom at the moment, I'll stick to what I've gleaned from the book. Let me know what you think? Here is a relatively decent pictures I took of profiteroles.

It's advised that you start out by taking pictures of fruits or vegetables, things that are relatively static and aren't runny and melting. Of course I'm not one to take the easy route, right? Runny? Melty? Perfect! These profiteroles were made using my pate-a-choux recipe. I filled them with scoops of vanilla ice cream and topped them with chocolate sauce. Unfortunately I can't tell you what goes in the chocolate sauce other than chocolate, golden syrup, and maybe water? That's what happens when you let people into the kitchen.

I also made some Lemon Ricotta Cookies that one of my best friends is very fond of and turned me onto. I like how soft the cookies look.They have an almost airy look to them, which means they're low-cal right? Course. I've realized that I don't like taking aerial pictures of food as many food photographers do. I guess I figure that you really don't look at food like that when you're about to eat it. I guess a good rule of thumb is to think... would I want to eat that?

A lot of good food photography is achieved by using the aperture priority on the camera to manipulate the depth of field. Increasing the lens aperture diameter (decreasing the f-stop value), decreases the depth of field. In layman's terms, that means that the thing in front is focused, and stuff in the back (or sometimes front!) is fuzzy. Looks nice though right? I hope so. I've a bit more image post-processing to do, but I'll have a full post with recipe up soon!

Holy Guacamole!

I often forget how lucky I am to live in California. When I lived in Paris and came across people in the workplace, they'd always say how it was their dream to visit California. I always wonder what the stereotype of a typical Californian was; bleach blond surfer a la Baywatch? People do love the Hasselhoff. It isn't always an ethereal land of sunshine, though I can't complain too much about the weather.

What else is California known for? Apple, Google, and Facebook? Yes, as a state, we do boast the 8th largest economy in the world. Gold rush, Hollywood, and national parks? Sure I guess. When I think of California I think about us being on the forefront of the sustainable food movement. In fact, Alice Water's Chez Panisse in Berekely just celebrated their 40th anniversary. It does benefit to be in an area where you can get seasonal fresh produce.

One of my favorite items I can always find at the farmers market or grocery store are Hass avocados. These large avocados are of Californian origin, and were grafted and patented in the 1930's by an avid horticulturist by the name of Rudolph Hass. Yes peoples, this is the first time that a patent was ever given for a tree. A TREE! Okay, maybe I'm the only one who finds that interesting. In any case, this variety of avocado is the most important commercial avocado worldwide and accounts for 95% of the the Californian avocado crop.

The avocados are large with a lot of flesh, and oftentimes I'm able to find perfectly ripened ones that aren't very bruised. I grew up eating avocados, but not so much with Mexican food. In Vietnamese cuisine, you'll find avocado smoothies, or sometimes an avocado served up with a spoonful of condensed milk. Nowadays, I can't handle them in such decadence; I usually make guacamole.

My guacamole recipe, isn't really a recipe. I use fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, lemon juice, cilantro, pepper, salt, and of course avocados. I couldn't tell you the exact amounts, but approximately half of the mixture is avocado, a quarter is tomato, and a quarter is well, everything else. Just add enough lemon juice and spices until it tastes right. It's not really rocket science.

I usually score the avocados while they're still in their skin so that I don't have to do much chopping. It also saves me a slimy mess on the cutting board. Once scored, the flesh can be scooped out with a large spoon. Mash it up a bit, and voila, guacamole! I like mine a bit chunky, though I've known people to process theirs to the point where it looks like that stuff you can make from a mix. Eww.

With some tortilla chips, all that's missing is a margarita!

Churros

Every time I eat a churro, I'm transported back to when I was a kid at an amusement park convincing my parents to buy me a churro from the guy with the rolling cart. There was something so appealing about the long pastry batons, crispy with their cinnamon-sugar coating and yet they always seemed too big for my pint-sized self. Alas, I could always count on my brother to polish any remainders off.

Perhaps it's because they seemed so manufactured and perfectly straight, that I never really put any thought into actually making them. As I've mentioned before, I have a strong aversion to frying anything, so that's another reason I've always put off making them. But they really are quite simple. And no, I don't say that about everything I make.

Churros are essentially the Spanish take on a donut. However, Wikipedia offers a very interesting take on the origins of this tasty treat. Apparently the Portuguese came back from Asia (of course everything is stolen from the Asians, right?), and they modified a recipe for Chinese fried donuts, You Tiao or Youzagwei in Southern China. Of course the technique was lost in translation, and since the Portuguese didn't learn the art of pulling the dough, they ended up extruding it through a star tip. Sounds a bit far-fetched to me, considering the consistency of both doughs aren't quite the same. Chinese donuts are a lot more airy and probably require some sort of leavening agent, whereas churros are fried pate a choux. In any case, the Chinese didn't figure out how tasty these things are with a mug of hot chocolate.

The recipe I used was from Allrecipes.com. There are a couple good recipes on the site, but I prefer the ones with egg in them. After mixing up the dough, I filled a pastry bag with a large star tip and shallow fried 4 inch pieces of dough at time. The trick is to have a scissor handy so you can cut the length of dough once piped out of the bag, directly into the oil. Once the churros are golden brown, quickly remove them and roll them in cinnamon sugar. The cinnamon sugar won't adhere as easily once the churros have cooled.

You can serve them with chocolate sauce, hot chocolate, or in my case, a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Banana chocolate chip cookies?

Yes. This is how scatterbrained I've been lately, that I can't even remember what I baked. I'm surprised I even know what day it is, to be honest. Surviving a birthday that ended in a 0, in the midst maybe buying a house, moving, family woes, and pending family additions... well folks it's as if I've bitten off more than I can chew! Well, if you think about it.. not really bit off.. but there's a lot being shoved down my throat at the moment in any case! I've eased off on the baking a lot lately too...

I think these cookies had bananas in them. Actually I'm about 95% sure they did, and that's a high confidence level if you ask me. I think I got the recipe off www.allrecipes.com too, though I can't manage to find the recipe right now. Go figure. Well okay, they definitely had chocolate chips in them. Lots of them.

It's quite interesting playing detective to your own baking. Judging by the consistency of the dough in the next picture, I think I'll have to boost my confidence level up to 97%. That's 97% positive there's bananas in there somewhere.

It's a bit runny and mushy, almost the consistency of banana bread, no? Oh wait! I realized in the picture with the chocolate, the recipe is in the background. And my culinary nerdiness and sleuthing tells me that looks like a Martha Stewart logo. Turns out they're Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies! Hurrah! Okay bear with me peoples. I promise the next post won't be as craptastic. Promise!