which combines some of her all-time, favorite recipes with updates for what everyone likes to cook today. I shared some photos from the class on my Facebook page as well. Throughout the class, little, eye-opening details, the kinds of things that don’t always get mentioned, were pointed out and explained. She talked about how a home cook needs to decode a recipe. When a cookie recipe states to whip or cream something “just until,” it’s important to pay close attention and not overdo it. There are times when the butter and sugar should not be creamed to a point where it’s too light and fluffy as that can add too much air to the dough. She continued to talk as she worked, and turned a square baking pan upside down, cut a piece of foil, and wrapped it over the bottom of the pan. Then, she flipped the pan over and placed the foil inside it. I’d never thought of doing that to get the foil to the right size and shape to line the inside of a pan for brownies. Then, she spoke of flavors and adding different spices to brownies or chocolate cookies. Rather than mixing the spice into the batter or dough, it can be sprinkled on top after baking. That way, you have a different flavor experience. You smell the spice as soon as you lift the item toward your mouth, and it’s more pronounced. Also, then you can flavor one batch several different ways. So, the evening progressed with several different cookie recipes being prepped and then tasted. Every cookie we were served was fantastic, but the one I couldn’t stop thinking about over a month later was the peanut butter cloud.This is in Medrich’s new book, and it’s a simple meringue cookie with a swirl of peanut butter running through it. Ordinarily, a meringue serves as a vehicle for other flavors, but here, the added peanut butter was mixed into the sweet, crisp, light as air cookie and chopped salted peanuts were sprinkled on for added crunch. Egg whites were whisked in a mixer with cream of tartar and eventually, sugar was added. During the class, Medrich pointed out that if you add the sugar too early while whisking the egg whites, you’ll get a glossy but limp meringue. For firmer meringue, add the sugar, after the whites have become opaque, very slowly over a two minute period. Then, dot the top of the meringue with well-stirred, natural peanut butter, and just barely fold it into the egg whites. The peanut butter should be streaked throughout the meringue. I piped the meringue into small cookie-cloud shapes onto baking sheets and topped them with the chopped nuts. The cookies baked at 200 degrees F for one and a half hours, and then they remained in the oven after it was turned off until they were cool. 
The current issue of Saveur is #135, and this recipe is from issue #60, so it’s been filed away for a few years. I’m so glad I recently unearthed it though, because it’s from a great story about the food at the exclusive China Club in Beijing. I cut out a few of the recipes from that story, and I have the page with deep fried prawns with garlic chile sauce waiting to be tried next. This Sichuan classic shown here today is a quick stir fry of chicken, dried chiles, and peanuts or kung pao chicken as we usually see it listed here, and this is always my choice on a take-out menu. Slowly but surely, I’m overcoming my fear of the wok and more precisely of stir frying. I loved the simplicity of making this since the most complicated part of the process was opening all those bottles of soy sauces, oil, vinegar, and shaoxing. This really was faster than waiting for take-out.You start with boneless chicken breasts and cube the meat to be mixed with cornstarch and soy sauce. That was left to marinate while everything else was prepped. Meanwhile, I steamed some rice to serve on the side. A sauce was made by stirring together soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, chicken stock, Chinese black vinegar or the mix of brown rice vinegar and balsamic I used, sesame oil, and dark soy sauce. I didn’t make up the substitution of balsamic for Chinese black vinegar; that’s suggested in the recipe. Also, a garlic clove was peeled and sliced, scallions were sliced, and ginger was peeled and minced. Then, if you have your dried chiles stemmed and chopped in half crosswise, you’re ready to stir fry. Oil was heated to the smoke point in a wok, and the dried chiles were added. They were quickly followed by the chicken, garlic, scallions, and ginger. After a few minutes, the soy sauce mixture was added and allowed to thicken. The peanuts were added, and the dish was ready.
arrived in the mail. Steak! Naturally, my first thought was: what’s in the salad chapter? I received this review copy of Rick Tramonto’s newest book, and it’s devoted to home cooking for casual entertaining. It’s full of ideas for gathering friends around the grill and sharing fun, hearty meals, and it’s also about cooking the things that partner well with steak. So, in addition to steak recipes, you’ll find soups, salads, cedar-plank salmon with mustard and maple, rubs and sauces, grilled chicken with roasted squash salad, bread pudding with gruyere and shitake mushrooms, waffle-battered onion rings with maple-chili sauce, and even desserts. And, while this book is all about entertaining at home, it is clearly from a chef’s perspective with recipes like pan-seared foie gras with peaches and mint, hamachi sashimi with pineapple bubbles (foam), and filet oscar topped with an asparagus and crab salad layered with bread cut in rounds the size of the filet. I like that about this book. I appreciate learning chefs’ techniques as they’re adapted for home cooking. So, of course, Kurt was not deprived of a steak meal, but the first dish that caught my eye was the peanut noodle salad.I made the peanut salad dressing in advance. Peanuts were finely ground in a food processor, and then peanut oil was pulsed into the ground nuts to moisten them. Rice vinegar, soy sauce, chopped ginger, garlic, a chopped red chile, dried chile flakes, ground Szechuan pepper, a little sugar, and some salt were added, and the mixture was processed until smooth. The sauce was transferred to a bowl, and sesame oil and chili oil were added. Interestingly, before adding the dressing to the cooked noodles, it was thinned with hot, Chinese black tea. Thinning the dressing with tea was something I hadn’t seen in other peanut sauce recipes before, but I have to say I’m not sure I noticed the tea flavor among the other ingredients. Chinese egg noodles should have been used for the salad, but I was lazy about making a special trip to buy them and used spaghetti instead. After the cooked pasta was tossed with the dressing, it was topped with sliced cucumber, bell pepper, jalapeno, scallions, and peanuts, sesame seeds, and lime wedges.
As I was sorting last week’s CSA vegetables and making plans for them, I came upon a couple of eggplants that left me stumped. Although they were eggplants of the Mediterranean variety, I just wasn’t in the mood for ratatouille or eggplant parm. What I really wanted from those eggplants was a Thai kind of curry, and then I found this dish in The Vegetarian Table Thailand. When big chunks of eggplant get to simmer in a coconut milk-based sauce, they become tender and enriched with flavors from the spices and herbs. They become silky-textured, almost buttery chunks that absorb all the flavors around them, and this is possibly my favorite way to eat eggplant. The recipe has a very long ingredient list but it’s actually very simple to prepare.
First, the eggplants were chopped and salted and left in a colander for 10 minutes before being rinsed and dried in a towel. Then, coriander and cumin seeds were toasted and ground to a powder. Coconut milk was warmed with red curry paste and the ground spices. Meanwhile, tofu chunks were fried, and then the dried eggplant chunks were fried. Once the fried items were all draining on paper towels, some chopped shitake mushrooms were stir fried with peanuts, and then the tofu and eggplant were added to the pan. The coconut milk mixture was poured over the vegtablesa and tofu and that was all left to simmer for a few minutes. Thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves, basil, sliced chiles, and a little soy sauce were added while it simmered.
You really can’t go wrong with the combination of coconut milk, lime, and chiles. The tofu and eggplant acquired that mix of flavors and the mushrooms and peanuts added dimension. The curry just got better as the leftovers sat in the refrigerator overnight, and it was even more delicious for lunch the next day.
With the grilled fish and shrimp with coconut and lime sauce, I wanted to serve a light, crunchy salad on the side. I grabbed a book I hadn’t used for a long time and found just the thing. The Vegetarian Table Thailand was published back in 1997, and it’s full of light and lovely dishes that pack a lot of flavor. I’ve made the salad rolls with a spicy dipping sauce with hoisin and sambal ulek and the Chinese cabbage with peanut sauce. Now that I’ve looked at the book again, I’m reminded that I need to try the vegetarian jungle curry and the eggs in sweet and spicy sauce. From the salads chapter, I could have chosen green papaya salad or roasted eggplant salad, but I went with the cucumber salad with roasted peanut dressing. It was a colorful combination of red bell pepper, green beans, and of course cucumbers.
Cucumber and red bell pepper were cut into matchsticks. Then, green beans and bean sprouts were blanched and added to the raw vegetables along with cilantro leaves, shredded basil leaves, chopped green onions, and chopped roasted peanuts. A quick dressing was made from lime juice, brown sugar, minced garlic, finely chopped red chiles, and more chopped roasted peanuts. As I mixed the dressing, I wondered if there should have been a little light vegetable oil included. With just lime juice as a liquid, I thought it might be too tart. However, the chopped peanuts rounded out the flavor perfectly without any added oil, and the bit of brown sugar took the edge off the lime juice’s acidity.
I prepared the salad and let it sit in the refrigerator as the rest of the meal was put together, and it emerged cool and crisp with well-distributed flavor. I wished I had some Thai basil to use in this, but the genovese variety worked perfectly fine. The salad was delightfully crunchy with a good variety of tastes and textures. The spice level was mild, but the chile added another dimension. It was a nice surprise to find out how satisfying this salad was given its lightness. With bright, fresh flavors, good crunch, and the nuttiness, it didn’t require anything else to make it great.
When I started using my new ice cream maker, I pretty much wanted to make every frozen concoction I could imagine all at once. Plain ice cream was quickly followed by ice cream sandwiches with a chocolaty sundae coming right after that. As I read the Demolition Desserts' recipe for vanilla gelato which I used in those ice cream sandwiches, I saw the note at the side of the page: “make a tin roof sundae with dark chocolate sauce (page 207) and salted Spanish peanuts.” Thank you, yes, I believe I will was my response. Throughout this book, there are helpful tips, suggestions, and added information in the sidebars, and I appreciate that each topic is thoroughly covered. For instance, on page 207 with the dark chocolate sauce recipe, there are more notes about how this sauce could be used as a filling for cupcakes, or as a warm sauce served with homemade graham crackers and marshmallows, or as a drizzled sauce over cakes, ice cream sandwiches, or bare skin. I didn’t make that up; it’s part of the list. There’s also a note about making this as milk chocolate sauce rather than dark chocolate. Despite the book’s focus on somewhat complicated, plated desserts, there is a lot to gain from learning the techniques for each component of those desserts. And, rather than preparing the desserts exactly as presented, the components can be used in simpler ways just as this sauce is being used here for a sundae.
There are two types of chocolate flavor in this sauce. First, 70% cacao bittersweet chocolate was melted with a combination of heated cream and honey. Then, cocoa powder was heated with water and whisked until thick. The cocoa mixture was added to the chocolate-cream mixture and whisked to combine. Butter and salt were added to finish the sauce. The result was a thick, full-flavored chocolate sauce with a nice shine. It can be refrigerated for a week, but it does harden when chilled. There are instructions for re-heating by placing the bowl of sauce into a larger bowl of warm water, but I found that removing it from the refrigerator about 20 minutes before I plan to use it gave it enough time to soften to a spoonable state.
The luscious sauce poured over freshly made vanilla gelato and topped with salty peanuts was a very fine version of this classic sundae. All the contrasts, cold ice cream and warm sauce, oozy sauce and crunchy peanuts, sweet ice cream and salty nuts, make it what it is. One more classic ice cream treat has been re-created at home, and now there are only about a thousand others I’m looking forward to attempting next.
The thermometer on our back porch shows the current temperature is 107 F. It’s been like this at this time of afternoon for several days now, and because of that, I’ve been in the mood for salads. In fact, every dinner meal I have planned for this week involves a main course salad. The crazy thing, though, is that I’m not opposed to baking or roasting or long simmering in this weather. Once it’s this hot, the added heat from cooking is neither here nor there to me. I’ll happily bake cookies or roast chicken in the summer, but the issue is that what I want to eat in this weather is really just salads. And, ice cream, but more on that later. I issued a warning the other day about how much I’m enjoying Donna Hay’s Off the Shelf, and how I’ll be cooking from it a lot. That’s where I found this noodle salad. The ingredient list is rather short for a salad, but the key element is fried tofu.
I don’t love frying food, and it’s always at least a little messy, but frying tofu might be the messiest of all things to be fried. I started by pressing the block between plates lined with paper towels to remove moisture. Then, after cutting thin pieces, I placed them on paper towels and blotted with more paper towels to remove more moisture. Still, as soon as the tofu pieces hit the hot oil, splattering ensued. I did use a splatter guard, but just in getting the tofu into and out of the pan, there was opportunity for oil to jump its way onto every surface in my kitchen. Before sitting down to dinner, I quickly wiped down the stove and neighboring countertop because it’s so much easier to clean oil before it dries. I was proud of my fast-acting homekeeping action until after dinner when I noticed the floor. So, yes, this dish asks a little of the cook’s patience for frying and cleaning, but I have a solution. If you really don’t want to fry the tofu, you can broil it. I do this all the time to make tofu fries. Coat a baking sheet with spray oil, spread one layer of slivered tofu, then also spray the tops of the tofu with oil, and broil for about three minutes before turning. Continue broiling and turning until the tofu attains the crispness you desire.
The rest of the salad preparation was as simple as can be. Bean thread noodles were briefly cooked and then tossed with carrots, chopped peanuts, cilantro leaves, and a dressing of sesame oil, soy sauce, and lemon juice. That combination was layered onto sliced cucumber and topped with the tofu. I added some chopped hot chiles just because, and I forgot all about the frying ordeal when I tasted the salad. It’s a great mix of textures and the noodles nicely absorbed the flavor of the dressing. I really liked the delicateness of the bean thread noodles which contrasted with the crunchy vegetables and peanuts. For dinner, the salad was served at room temperature, but for lunch the next day, I found it delightful and possibly even better chilled from the refrigerator. Although, that could just be the heat wave talking.
