Happy Birthday Meg!

Welcome to Meg's virtual cake! Kenya is well beyond the shipping range for perishable goods, so this will have to suffice. Cakes are apparently not my thing, as I can tell from more data points than just this one. Bagels and bread seem more familiar territory, none of these weird ingredients like sugar and fat. Nonetheless I stuck a candle in what amounts to a coffee-cake and declared my attempt celebratory but lacking in finesse. It's better than sticking a candle in a bagel.

So here is to a quarter century, celebrated wandering around rural Kenya (sounds fun to me!).

Another momentous occasion here is that I don't think I've ever actually purchased hard alcohol, no kidding! For some reason it felt like I should be required to produce some identification beyond a drivers license — the equivalent of a commercial license or something. Alas, it was anticlimactic to say the least. I'll have to figure out something to do with this rum — I'm thinking back to Anna's adventurous Bananas Foster Cocktail and wondering whether I could really have more than one of those despite their allure.

The inspiration here is, of course, the bellowing cake-monger at the farmers market. He espouses his butter-rum cake as a cure-all, bound to increase your energy level as well as your GPA. My cake will raise my carbon consumption a hair, but I don't foresee any secondary benefits. The recipe is an amalgam of a few random samples distributed across the internet — buttermilk and baking soda won out as the leaveners.

Butter-Rum Cake

The Cake

• 3 Cups Flour
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1 Cup Butter
• 1 Cup Buttermilk
• 4 Large Eggs
• 1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp. Baking Powder (not really necessary)
• 1 Tsp. Salt
• 2 Tsp. Vanilla

The "Sauce"

• 1/4 Cup Soft Butter
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Turbinado Sugar
• 4 Tbs. Rum

Fabrication

1. Preheat to 325F.
2. Bring the butter and eggs up to room temperature. Cream the butter and sugar together, preferably with some sort of mixer. Add the eggs (on slow speed at first lest they fly out of the bowl) one at a time. Combine wet and dry ingredients separately and add, alternating between the two until everything is incorporated.
3. Butter a pan, hopefully a bundt pan, and lightly dust with flour as shown in the picture above. Whack the pan a few times to make sure there is an even coating and dump out any loose flour.
4. Bake for about an hour in a large pan or about 25 minutes for several smaller cakes.
5. Bring to a boil all the sauce ingredients aside from the rum and then remove from heat. Now stir in the rum.
6. Poke an absurd number of holes in the top and dump the sauce on slowly so it saturates the cake.
7. Coax out of the pan and enjoy. Perhaps sing happy birthday.

NB: Happy birthday Megan!

Some Representative Crepes

My parents have a crepe pan somewhere, of which I'm quite envious. Even though it looks to have been used as a buckler at some point in history, the thing produced perfect crepes. I've now, with this comparatively fancy non-stick pan, produced more than a few specimens resembling cardboard more than any sort of a pancake. What could be the problem? Apparently butter is as crucial a factor for the texture and appearance as it is for the taste. Don't skimp on the butter in the non-stick, coat liberally.

We never seemed to have this problem in the purple house in undergrad, but in that house we also went through 12 sticks of butter at thanksgiving, case closed. I remember the construction of a crepe cake there — based purely on a passing mention gleaned from some show on the food network. Something like 30 crepes with a pastry cream slathered on top of each. Eating this thing was a chore, and construction was a substantial part of the evening. Crepes have become a less frequent endeavor since.

These latest ones tasted best the first time I made them, after which I failed to write anything down. I think I've worked approximately back to that level now. The crepes will be excellent as long as the batter is thin and there is enough batter in the pan. The filling can be composed of anything one cares to prepare, and here I've opted for some mushrooms, caramelized onions, and spinach. The crepes take by far longer than any other element of the meal unless you have a second pan running. This really isn't an option with the amount of stove real estate I have to work with, so really you may as well just get all the crepes done ahead of time so you don't get distracted by other tasks while churning them out.

Mushroom and Spinach Crepes

For perhaps 20 crepes

The Crepe Batter

• 2 Eggs
• 3/4 Cup Milk
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Flour
• 3 Tbs. Melted Butter with reserves
• 1/2 Tsp Salt

The Filling

• 1 Lb. or more Mushrooms
• A few handfuls of "adult" spinach
• 2 Large onions, sliced thin
• Sour Cream
• Thyme or other spices
• Maybe wine for deglazing
• Perhaps some parmesan for the filling as well

The Crepes

1. Blend the ingredients in a blender or in a bowl with an immersion blender until smooth. Refrigerate for a few hours if possible. The texture should be kind of like that of heavy cream, but a bit more on the thin side.
2. Heat a non-stick pan (or otherwise) until water skips around the surface daintily.
3. Butter the pan so the entire bottom has a nice sheen. Remove from the heat and ladle in some of the batter — quickly gyrate the pan around until all of the batter has set and is relatively even across the bottom. The general method can be seen here
4. Cook until the bottom is starting to get nicely browned, then flip with your fingers or a spatula. Continue cooking until the bottom is slightly brown (it will be more spotty than anything.)
5. Adjust the amount of batter to suit your pan size, and repeat!

The Rest

1. With a liberal amount of butter, saute the mushrooms making sure not to overfill the pan. When done cook the onions slowly until caramelized to some degree (25 minutes maybe.) This would be the opportune time to rinse the spinach, though instead of drying it off just throw it into the pan wet with maybe a dash or two of wine to scrape some bits of the bottom of the pan. Clap on a lid and let the spinach wilt.
2. Add any spices if desired, and return the mushrooms to the pan until they are heated through. Adjust salt and pepper levels.
3. Slap a heaping spoonful or two of the mixture in the center of a crepe and add a dollop of cream to smooth things out — the ratio in the picture above is probably a bit excessive on the part of the cream. Add some grated parmesan and roll up the crepes for completion.

NB: I had to use baby spinach here for lack of another choice, but really it doesn't hold a candle to the taste one gets from the mature stuff. The first crepe always fails, so you may as well just eat it as soon as it reaches tolerable temperatures.

Smoky Strawberries

What to do with so many strawberries? At first they were eaten as is, though more recently they've been robbed of their solid nature by perhaps the loudest kitchen appliance ever created. Some sort of dessert was needed this week, and TJs furnished me with an 18 ounce slab of dark chocolate to this end. I've been slightly obsessed with chili-spiced chocolate ever since having some gnarly concoction in Santa Fe over thanksgiving. I normally find chocolate-covered strawberries somewhat boring, so the anchos are meant to make everything a bit more interesting.

As with most experiments, I decided some cumin would even things out a bit. This apparently satisfied some people and turned others off — not everyone seems to have the same cumin tolerance I've developed. I used to have some ancho powder sitting around, but it got used up long ago. Making chili powder is luckily a pretty easy affair as long as one has an extra coffee grinder sitting around (or doesn't mind a little kick in the morning coffee). I would recommend adjusting the amount of chili powder purely by taste, as my measurements were highly imprecise.

As I said before one can omit the cumin, though I'd be curious to go all the away and shoot for mole-covered berries. That would be interesting!

Strawberries Covered in Ancho Chili Chocolate

For around two dozen large strawberries

The Chili Powder

• Two ancho chilies, stemmed and seeded, torn into smaller pieces
• One, two, or maybe no tbsp. cumin seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp Oil

The Rest

• 2 Tbsp. Butter
• 8 Oz. Dark Chocolate
• Around 4 loose Tbsp. Chili Power, above
• 2 Dozen or more strawberries, washed and dried
• Wax paper

The Chili Powder

1. Heat a skillet to medium heat and add oil
2. Add chilis, torn into smaller pieces, and coat with oil. Allow to toast until very fragrant.
3. Add cumin and toast until its smell can be discerned
4. Remove from heat and let cool before grinding up in coffee or spice grinder

The Rest

1. Put wax paper on a sheet pan and let it chill in the freezer while melting chocolate
2. Set a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to approximate a double boiler.
3. Add the butter, let it melt before adding the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted — the length of this process will depend largely on the size of the chocolate pieces.
4. Add chili powder until the desired flavor is arrived at. I think I ended up using a full 4 loosely packed tablespoons or so. A dash of salt may also be desired.
5. Lower heat to almost nothing, dip strawberries so they get a reasonably thick coasting, then place on the wax paper to cool. Place the sheet pan back in the fridge until everything has solidified and cooled back down.

NB: It will be really hard to make this too spicy given the nature of ancho chili, the adventurous soul may try adding some cayenne for a real kick.

Fish in a Bag

The threat of summer has been looming here for some time. One would think that we wouldn't suffer from such a drawn out spring here in Sunny Southern California, but this has been the case. This weekend seemed the starting point of warmer weather, though, with the added benefit of inciting grilling sessions. This particular entree is something I've never cooked outside of an oven, but decided to throw on a grill earlier as an experiment.

A heart-shaped piece of parchment is transformed into a steaming vessel — the moisture in the vegetables isn't necessarily enough to steam everything so I typically throw in some lemon juice and wine. As with most of my recipes, it consists largely of those items that were on hand (fish excluded of course). I opted for shallots and asparagus, but squash would probably be a better summer choice. The couscous is highly optional, but rounds things off in a way. I dripped a few tablespoons of water directly onto the couscous to make sure it didn't dry out during cooking. This seemed to work pretty well though the heat from the grill seemed to give it a bit of crunch in some places. Normally I cook these sorts of packages in the oven at, say, 425F. Today I had next to no idea what clip the grill was going at, and the best indicator of doneness was actually the temperature of the fish as felt directly through the parchment.

Folding the parchment up can be a little tricky, so I urge one to take part in the following visual aid. The most important part of the procedure is keeping the bag relatively steam-tight, so care should certainly be taken when the bag is being closed. Most helpful to one's success is the avoidance of an over-stuffed package.

Pictures of the final product are lacking not for want of aesthetics, but instead because I felt somewhat awkward snapping pictures of my food in the particular circumstances. All I had with me was my phone though, and those pictures would not have benefited from the faux-professionality of extreme depth-of-field.

On to the fish, which is usually referred to as being cooked "en papillote." I will spare you from such pretensions. Simply multiply the recipe by the number of people you want to feed.

Salmon in Parchment

For One Serving

The Crust

• Parchment paper
• 1 Salmon (or other fish) fillet
• 1 Shallot, minced
• Few stalks asparagus
• Few tablespoons couscous, with enough water to hydrate
• Few small bits of butter
• Few tablespoons white wine
• Few slices lemon
• Seasoning

Everything Together

1. Preheat oven to 425F or start the grill and hope for success.
2. Tear a piece of parchment larger than you think is necessary to fold up your ingredients. Fold it in half to easily cut out a heart shape.
3. Start by placing the vegetables: cut fairly small to allow for easy steaming, position on one half of the parchment near the heart's cleft. The point of the heart is soon consumed by folds, so leave this area untouched unless you want to attempt folding asparagus.
4. Add the couscous and enough water to hydrate (just a few tablespoons), then a tablespoon or two of wine. Season lightly and add a pat or two of butter.
5. Stack the fish on top, season, and then add the lemon wedges. Add some more butter or olive oil if you prefer.
6. Roll up in the manner shown here, making sure to keep everything pretty tight.
7. Cook for 12 minutes in the oven, or check frequently around that time on the grill. In either case the fish should be, well, fish temperature to the touch while the parchment becomes somewhat browned.

NB: The visual aid, referenced above, reveals that this can be prepared even more easily by microwaving for 5 minutes on high.