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I was told a while ago: ‘Every dish tells a story.‘  At the same time, food is meant to be savored with every bite. Since leaving the FoodBuzz event last week, I have had more desire to achieve more than I had since starting this blog.  Joy’s been an incredible inspiration for my cooking and I hope that this is a trend that continues.

Upon my return to the office, there was a flier posted next to the time clock, “Holiday Potluck!’ So I figure, Cool! I’ll make something simple, easy, and enjoyable. My first thought was a simple garlic mashed potato dish. A few days after that posting, the HR manager asked me what I was making for the potluck because she knew about our little journal from previous discussions.

“I’m going to keep it simple, garlic mashed, I think.”

“What? Don’t be boring! I’ve seen the stuff you guys make! Give us something more gourmet!”

A challenge, huh? I was game. So a few more nights passed, then it hit me. Of all the things of a Thanksgiving meal, there is not much that is not considered ‘comfort food’. Then I started thinking about the various comfort foods of a meal that could not only serve 30 people, but have the flavor and memories that follow with each taste.

I would stick with the potato idea. I browsed various sites for perfect dishes but nothing was out of the ordinary.  Then it hit me. Crème fraîche Loaded Whipped Mashed Potatoes! Yeah, try saying that to your guests at your next dinner party when you make this dish.

So, I decided I would not have a toungue twister and simplify it to “Gourmet Loaded Potatoes“. It is a relatively simple dish, but its attention is needed. If you stick with it, you’ll have an incredibly tasty, rich, and flavorful new spin on the potato.

I took this challenge head-on and I am proud of the results. I got rave reviews at the pot luck and I look forward to serving this dish again soon.

-Daniel

Gourmet Loaded Potatoes

Ingredients [Serves about 30, as a side dish]

• 10 lbs of Russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1/2 lb of thinly sliced pancetta
• 1 ½ cup of heavy cream, with extra just in case
• 1 7.5 oz package of crème fraîche
• 1 3-ounce package of cream cheese
• 6 tablespoons of butter (1 1/2 sticks)
• 1 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup diced fresh chives
• 1 tablespoon ground white pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon salt (seasoned salt preferred)

Equipment

• Large bowl or strainer for holding the cooked potatoes
• Electric mixer

Preparation

1. Prepare the potatoes by submerging them in cold water in a large pot on medium-high heat. Add salt to the water and bring the pot to a boil uncovered. When you get to a rolling boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 10 minutes, covered. At the end of the 10 minutes, try piercing a potato with a fork. If it goes straight through, it’s done. If not, cook another 4-5 minutes and check again.

2. While the potatoes are cooking, heat oil in a pan in medium heat and cook the pancetta. You’re looking for a total crisp, nothing undercooked or limp. This cooking time will change depending on your pan, heat, and if you used any oil to help cook. Remove from the heat and pat dry any excess oil or grease with a paper towel.

3. Drain the potatoes from the pot completely and set them aside. Put the pot back onto the stove.

4. Add ingredients into the pot in this order: butter, crème fraîche, cream cheese, heavy cream. Grab the cooked pancetta and crumble it as much as possible. Then add the potatoes back into the pot. By the time the potatoes get into the pot, the butter should be completely melted and the cream cheese should as well.

5. Add the pepper, chives, cheddar, and the remaining salt.

6. Blend all ingredients together with a hand mixer starting with the lowest speed and progressively working to medium, about 5 minutes. When everything is well mixed, check the consistency. If it’s not whipped and/or enough, add 1/3 cup of heavy cream and continue mixing for another minute. Serve warm and enjoy!

I dropped off the universe, didn’t I? And left you hanging about my Dobos Torte. It wasn’t intentional. I had just been busy with work, entertaining house guests, taxes (lovely), health issues, and catching up with friends. Sorry lovelies!

So finally, here’s a slice of the Dobos Torte shot to show off its fabulous layers. This gives me flashbacks (I almost said backflash…hmm) of the dreadful sinking feeling when I discovered that each layer will be baked individually. And in the process, perfect the technique to: quickly change the cookie sheets, run the hot one with cool water, wipe it dry, put new paper with the circular pattern to follow, and spread another layer of batter thinly…precisely. After baking the second layer in the oven, it began to feel like an assembly line and I was working in the kitchen from one counter to another in orchestrated moves. I really did not want it to end. But as with any Daring Bakers challenge, just when you start enjoying it, you move to the next one! Hey, I’m not complaining. I’m always relieved after I finish each challenge.

The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel, although you may find variations with 6 to 12 layers. József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, invented it in 1885 and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners’ and Gingerbread Makers’ Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

The Dobos Torte or Torta entails baking the sponge sheets, making the caramel wedges, preparing the buttercream, and assembling the cake. As per the recipe and notes of our hosts, Lorraine and Angela, I heeded their advice to cool the layers in the fridge first, separated by parchment paper and well-wrapped. I made the buttercream while the layers were cooling, at three in the morning. That’s how I roll when I couldn’t sleep. Let’s make buttercream while the rest of the world is in deep sleep! As I said in my previous post, it was heavenly and I was pointing my toes as I walked in delight. I had to restrain myself from eating the bowl of buttercream. I wrapped the bowl and put it in the fridge before I could commit that sin.

The next evening, I took out the best sponge layer to create the caramel wedges. This part is tricky and requires that your mind isn’t sleeping: you pour caramel made of sugar and water, with lemon juice, over on sponge layer, let it cool for a bit, slice, and fully cool. I cut the sponge layer into 12 slices first before pouring the caramel. I think that saved me half a woe of cutting. After the caramel solidifies enough to be cut, you use a heated and well-oiled knife to cut through the caramel. I didn’t heat the knife because I couldn’t think of how to do so, but I oiled it before making my first attempt at cutting. After a few light strokes, it had become evident to me that it would not work out because not only was the caramel sticking, it was breaking and the sponge cake was tearing apart. Look at the center of my caramel layer on the right (iPhone shot!) and you will see the slight tear in the middle right there.

The knife just won’t cut it, no pun intended. I had to think of another way to cut it without breaking it. My next brilliant idea: use a pizza cutter. Oiled.

And it worked! The oiled pizza cutter made cutting these wedges a breeze, if I dare say so! I wiped it regularly with a paper towel that’s been well-dampened with oil and it was like magic. So there…that was my A-HA! moment with the caramel wedges.

Once the wedges were cut, I placed 12 toasted and peeled hazelnuts/filberts on the top of the cake for the wedges to lean on. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t perfect. I had to move them around several times.

Now onto the finished product.

You’ll notice from the first photo above that the butter cream looks shiny and gooey. I tried eating it cold (check out the cold cake with dull-looking buttercream) and at room temperature, and I’m all for the latter. It looks, tastes, and feels better in the mouth. The sponge layers are soft-er, and the flavor of the chocolate buttercream tastes like Christmas morning in your mouth: it will make you smile because it’s so smooth and rich. The chocolate layered with sponge cake creates a good balance of textures. The lemon-y caramel wedges were (I think) meant to counteract the sweet cake.

I have to say that the sponge layers were a bit dry. It could be my baking, the cooling, or something, but it lacked the softness and moisture that I wish was there. Even with the buttercream, it was lacking in overall cake moisture. The caramel wedges were a bit too tangy for me, but our house guests LOVED them. It was too strong of a contrast for me. Perhaps next time I make this (if I will), I will decrease the lemon juice, and add a dollop of crème fraîche when served. It’s already making me drool.

Somebody asked me how food on this site seem to look perfect, and if they are really perfect. The answer? They’re certainly not. The topmost picture? I didn’t even notice the dark spot behind the caramel wedge until I was resizing it. I did try to take a photo of the slice at another angle, but that didn’t turn out well because of the chocolate right here. Oops. But I’m showing it here to show you just one of the many food styling gaffs I make. When the chocolate softened, the wedge slipped and I had reposition it again and I didn’t even check the back. Hehe. I think I’ll have to check my camera in case I accidentally wiped chocolate on it!

Just like the headshots you see in magazines, these food photos are not as perfect in real life. I just try to emphasize the good features. :-)

Ok, I’d like to see a show of hands:

How many of you have procrastinated on something this week? Spill! :)

If you can only see me now, my hands and arms couldn’t be any higher! In August, my brain slows down, my discipline goes on vacation and I am stuck with a mid-summer love affair with someone called Procrastination or Cunctation. I call him CunkyPunky. (See? This is beginning to sound more fun than it really is.) I just have to accept that August is CunkyPunky time and I should just breathe and relax. Aside from procrastinating with CP, I’m also trying to balance bank accounts and to keep sane in the midst of paying even more taxes. I don’t even want to think about it, because aside from my already-planned trip to Blogher Food, there’s another event that I would love to attend: Foodbuzz in November. (I call it an injustice that they are both held in San Francisco! Woe is me, who lives across the north border.) Just when I need to “kick ass” in the making-money department, all CP wants to do is drag me to graze in the grass like spoiled cows living in a luscious Hawaiian ranch–that kind of downtime. I have to remind him that traveling involves money, which involves doing something.

Ayayay.

This super simple breakfast post was supposed to be up last week, but CP and I had a week-long rendezvous. I’m sorry. But I hope you’ll forgive me. It is very easy to do anyway:

Just cook berries in simple syrup of 1 sugar :1 water proportion, wait for it to thicken, then set it aside to cool down. Serve generously on top of your favorite yogurt.

In my case, it’s the Fage 2% greek yogurt. That’s it. No theatrics, just plain and simple food. I eat this for breakfast, as a dessert or as a snack. It’s a great way to save berries that might otherwise go bad this summer, especially if you happen to haul big boxes of them from the farmer’s market.

I’m still rallying to have Fage here in Vancouver. I have never seen it here. Hello– Fage?!?!?!

In case you were wondering– No, Fage isn’t a sponsor of this blog. I just happen to love it so much that I milk my parents, who cross the border several times a month, to bring me Fage. It’s that good.

It took me a week to fully recover from my home-cooked birthday party and the blogathon, but it was well worth it. A huge thanks for my family and friends who came to celebrate with my mom and I for our July birthdays, and for those who sponsored me for Blogathon 2009 for the benefit of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. The party actually looked like a Facebook meetup, really, with my different groups of friends finally meeting each other after sort-of knowing each other on my Facebook wall and photos. Funny how this social networking goes. We had a fun party and I’m so glad that everybody was enjoying themselves and the food. That’s all that matters to me.

This Verrry Raspberry Frozen Yogurt was one of the desserts I made and served at the party. It’s so absolutely refreshing! Try it with (sweet) fresh blueberries…Oh my! Cold heaven in a mouthful. If you like a little bit of tartness with fruit, here’s your wish! It’s just a tad tart because of the yogurt complementing the yogurt’s tartness. A lot of our guest liked this over the sweeter and creamier flavor I made.

And I know why: This is the Perfect “cure” for the heat wave!

If you’re in the Pacific Northwest like I am, you know how excruciatingly hot and painful to bear this week has been, especially if you don’t have A/C. So come on take out your ice cream maker if you haven’t already, and make this! Put yourself out of misery now.

This is easy to prepare for your ice cream/frozen yogurt maker:

Verrry Raspberry Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3//4 cup water
• 350 grams fresh raspberries
• 500 grams 2% Fage Greek yogurt
• 1 cup cold milk

Preparation

1. Make a simple syrup by boiling water and sugar in a medium sized saucepan until all the sugar crystals are dissolved; no need to stir.

2. Add the raspberries and cook in medium heat until it starts to boil, then decrease to low-med heat. Stir with a heat resistant spatula, and occasionally pressing the berries against the bottom of the saucepan. You can mash it as fine or as chunky as you like. Cook until the mixture becomes thick, but not as thick as jam. Set aside to cool on a trivet first, then in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

3. In a medium sized bowl, pour all the (cold) ingredients and mix with a spatula first to avoid splattering, then with a hand mixer until well blended. You can add more fresh raspberries at this point if you like. Pour into prepared ice cream maker and mix until thick, about 30-35 minutes. You will notice that this does not thicken as fast as your usual creamy ice cream or frozen yogurt, but don’t worry.

Best if frozen at least 48 hours before consuming, but I won’t tell if you eat it right away!

I have had several requests from friends to make cream puffs but kept putting it off (for almost a year!). I procrastinated until I found one more reason to: being featured on the Julie & Julia movie website, quite a compliment to foodies like us. I thought that made perfect sense. Waiting is a good thing, I tell myself…

It physically hurt me to take photos and wait patiently before devouring these.

…until I realized that I have been without cream puffs in my life for such a long time, and it all went downhill from there. Sensible eating begone as I questioned why I kept popping one puff after another into my mouth, and at the same time not really thinking about it. Don’t you have those moments? I can’t even tell you how many I’ve eaten, because I don’t know. A few friends were lucky enough to sample these, and God bless them for saving me from making a complete a Puff-woMan of myself (get it, Pac-Man?).

The cream filling I made is almost like Bavarian Cream. I can make an excuse that this is "healthier" than deep-fried donuts. A tiny bit? Right?

My history with cream puffs go all the way to when I was a very young child of six or seven. My mother (’Mama’), once an avid baker, had three specialties: brownies with sticky and nutty tops, fruit tarts and cream puffs. [For all these, she used recipes by Nora Daza, quite possibly the Julia Child of the Philippines.] My mom even got orders for her baked goodies at school. I have vivid memories of our dining room looking like an assembly line of baked goods. Like pets waiting for their treats, us siblings hounded the table for the bowl and spatula leftovers of brownie batter, custard for the tart and the cream for the puffs. I was Mama’s Little Helper: from pressing the tart dough onto the metal molds to evenly placing the fruit pieces on the tarts’ custard, but when it comes to the cream puffs it’s an All-Mom Turf. Nobody messes with my mom’s cream puffs. On weeknights when she baked them for the school, I would finish off my homework early so I watch her as she carefully shaped each little mound of paste with her orange mechanical pastry bag (like this one). The craft fascinated me. The next morning she would be dressed up for work early and already filling the baked puffs (that’s already been glazed with caramel) with cream by the time we woke up to shower and get into our uniforms. Then she would drive us to school and I would be at the backseat with the big responsibility of keeping the army of brownies, tarts, or puffs nested in paper cups on pans from sliding off during the drive. Sometimes I would be allowed to eat one. I can still remember everything like it was yesterday. Come to think of it, a lot of my childhood memories include food.

You’d think that I had been baking since I was young all the way to Gourmeted.com. I didn’t. I’m a late-blooming cook/baker, like Julia, and had no interest whatsoever in anything that has do with the kitchen until my late twenties (I’m turning 31 next week). I have always enjoyed eating, though. :-)

As an homage to my two worlds of the East and West, I made cream puffs ala Julia & Nora. Also, as an homage to my mother, Mother of Cream Puffs (hehe) – it’s my mom’s birthday today!

Happy birthday Mama!

Now onto the recipes…

Julia, in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, described choux pastry/paste or pâte à choux [pronounced paht ah SHOO, literally translates to "cabbage paste" as when made to the original method it resembles the vegetable] as a very, very thick white sauce into which eggs are beaten, which make the paste swell when cooked. It can be used for hors d’oeuvres when mixed with cheese, or for desserts as cream puffs when sweetened with sugar.

L-R: Cream Puff, Cream Puff with Blueberries (aka Blueberry Monster), Chocolate Dipped Cream Puff

Julia Child’s Pâte à Choux
Adapted from the book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol 1 by Julia Child, Louisette Berthole, and Simone Beck

Ingredients (makes 36-40 small puffs)

• 100 grams unbleached all purpose flour, sifted
• 1 cup water
• 5 large eggs, divided (1 beaten in a small bowl, for egg wash)
• 3  oz or 6 tbsps butter, cut into pieces; plus extra for greasing the baking sheets
• 1 tsp salt
• pinch of nutmeg
• Extra butter to grease the baking sheets and 1 egg, beaten,

[Note: Julia suggested adding 1 tsp of sugar and reducing the salt to a pinch for dessert puffs. I opted to use salt as above to contrast with the sweetness of the cream filling.]

Preparation:

1. Boil water, butter and seasonings in a 1.5-quart heavy bottomed saucepan.

2. Remove from the heat and quickly mix the flour in one go. Stir vigorously and blend thoroughly. Continue to stir over med-high heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until the mixture separates from the sides of the pan forming one mass, and it begins to film the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat.

3. Create a well in the middle of the paste and break an egg into it. Stir for a few seconds until the egg is incorporated and continue to add the rest of the eggs in the same manner. The third and fourth eggs will be absorbed more slowly. Mix until smooth.

4. Preheat oven to 425°F with one rack placed on the upper third of the oven and another in the lower third. Prepare two baking sheets by rubbing butter on the baking surface.

5. To create small puffs: You can drop the paste on the baking sheet with a spoon or pipe with pastry bag (with 1/2-inch round tube opening) into mound about an inch in diameter and half an inch high, 2 inches apart. Dip a pastry brush into the egg wash and lightly tap each mound with the side of the brush. Avoid dripping down the puff and the sheet, because that prevents the puff from rising.

6. Place the sheets in the preheated oven, one on each rack, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until they puffs have doubled in size, become gold brown, and are firm and crusty to the touch. Take them out of the oven. Using a sharp knife, pierce the side of each puff to prevent the crusty outside from getting soggy. Return the baking sheets to the now turned off oven, with the door ajar, and leave for 10 minutes. Continue to cool the puffs on a cooling rack.

Freezing unfilled puffs: Wait for the puffs to completely cool before freezing. Just place in ziploc bags. Warm it up in a 425°F oven for 3 to 4 minutes to thaw and crisp before serving. When using a toaster oven for a few pieces, 400°F for a minute or two does the job as well.

Cream Filling
Adapted from Let’s Cook with Nora by Nora Daza

• 1/3 cup sugar (you can increase to 1/2 cup if you like it really sweet)
• 1/3 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs yolks from large eggs, placed in a bowl
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Combine flour, salt and sugar in a sauce pan. Blend in milk and stir until most of the lumps have dissolved. Using a whisk helps.

2. Cook in medium heat, stirring until it boils. Boil for 10 minutes then remove from heat.

3. In a separate bowl, stir half the heated mixture into the egg yolks. Mix well before adding back to the saucepan. Stir until well blended.

4. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes or until the mixture coats teh back of a spoon.

5. Cook the mixture and add vanilla.

To fill the puff shells: You can slice the puffs horizontally in half and spoon the cream into each, or you can use a pastry bag to puncture and fill each shell.

Dust with confectioner’s sugar, dip in chocolate, add fruits if you like. It’s all up to you!

For those of you who have been put off by the thought of making cream puffs because they are hard to make, don’t be! They’re not. They’re very easy to make, just take it one instruction at a time. Hands-on time for the puffs was probably 15 minutes or 20 minutes tops. You’ll be a pro in no time. :) Enjoy the recipes. Please let me know if you try them.

I forgot about this recipe that should have been posted over a month ago. Today’s a lazy Sunday for me and what better way to commemorate such a fabulous day, I’m going to post a really easy recipe with a really short intro. Hope you’re enjoying your Sunday!

Baked Butter Chicken Fillets

Ingredients

• .85 lb (about .4 kg) of chicken fillet (chicken tenders sliced crosswise in half for thinner meat)
• 1/4 tsp salt, plus additional salt for sprinkling
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
• juice of a quarter of a lime
• 3 tbsps unsalted butter, softened enough to spread with a brush or spoon over meat
• 1 sprig of rosemary, remove the leaves and chop

Preparation

1.  Mix 1/4 tsp salt, pepper and lime in a medium bowl. Mix chicken in the mixture, cover with plastic wrap and marinate for half an hour in the fridge.

2. Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Take out chicken from your marinade and lay the pieces flat (smooth/pretty side up) on an oven-safe glass dish. From about a foot above the dish, lightly sprinkle the fillets with salt. Turn over, and sprinkle again.

3. Brush the top of each chicken fillet with softened butter.

4. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and take out the baking dish. Sprinkle the chicken with rosemary and cover with aluminum foil. Place it back in the oven (still turned off) for 10 minutes. Serve with vegetables and/or rice. The chicken is tasty enough to be eaten without the need for gravy.

First things first:

We’re going to BlogHer Food in SF this September! It will be the first blogging event we’ll go to, so we’re very excited. See you there? :)

Last weekend, the sun shone and it was beginning to get too hot for comfort in the house that there’s really no other thing I’d rather make with Fage yogurt** than strawberry fro-yo. I may be the most boring and redundant frozen yogurt maker, because I’ve posted about the same (yawn) flavor twice last year and coincidentally, around the same time, too! Can you blame me? I really truly believe that with a 2-cup tub of Fage, strawberries, some sort of sweetener and an ice cream maker, it’s HARD to get it wrong.

After I made this, just to spite me, you know what the weather gods gave us? Gray skies, rain (downpour!), aaand sunshine with hail. Snow would have completed the whole package, but that’s enough, thanks. I know you–yes, you Weather Guy up there!–made your point that Vancouverites can’t rejoice over good weather that much, but we still love it!

For the ‘recipe’, I just relied on my own ratio of:

one container of Fage : (maximum of) one Fage container of other liquids

[Speaking of ratios, I'll be talking about Michael Ruhlman's book called Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking this weekend. In a gist: I highly recommend it so go grab a copy!]

First, I made a simple syrup by heating 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water, then added about 1 1/3 cup of strawberry puree***, 2 tablespoons honey, and a teaspoon of lemon juice and cooked it until it looked like this:

I cooled it in the fridge for 30 minutes before blending all the cold ingredients with a hand mixer in a big bowl:  yogurt, sweetened strawberry puree, and 2 tablespoons of half and half light cream. Put it in your ice cream maker and churn it for 30-35 minutes, or until thick enough. Pour in a freezer-safe container.

One advantage of having a mother who shops for all sorts of things are finds like the thick metal fresh ice cream container that is so darn cute.

Freezing and letting the frozen yogurt ‘rest’ overnight is best for flavor and texture.

I couldn’t wait to eat it the next day. No suave scooping here; it was more like painful excavation of hard rock because I didn’t thaw it enough. I just took a few shots and devoured my sweet reward, despite of the soup it turned into.

Not a problem, I love ice cream soup!

- – - – - – - – -

** After having used the different fat percentages of Fage, the 2% is still the best for fro-yo, in my opinion.

*** I didn’t strain the seeds out this time. I like the ‘character’ it adds to the ice cream. I don’t mind the seeds at all, but you can remove it if you like.