Strawberry Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

I had previously used mostly recipes from the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream recipe book but they always seemed to turn out too icy after the first day.  This time, I turned to my trusty list of bloggers, and came across this strawberry and vanilla bean ice cream recipe from Tartelette.  Needless to say, I was sold. While I was at it, I decided to continue with my kasutera experimentation as an accompaniment to the ice cream  – this time making a marbled matcha version from Anncoo’s blog.  The middle caved in unfortunately since I was in a rush, but it still tasted good. ^_^

Marbled Matcha Kasutera with Strawberry Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Tartlette’s Aran Goyoaga’s recipe was just about perfect!  Perfectly creamy and without a hint of iciness in either the ice cream base or the strawberry chunks.  Next time, I might cut back a tad on the sugar but other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.  Now, if you are like me and have issues paying attention to the pot in front of you sometimes, you may run into the problem of overheating the custard after the egg yolks have been tempered in….and….you end up with a lumpy looking mess.  But never fear! Just use a blender (I used an immersion blender) and it should smooth the custard back out in no time and you can go ahead and chill it and freeze it according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

To counter all the eggs that I was using for both the kasutera and ice cream (and all the yummy meat from multiple BBQs this weekend!) I also made some plain tart frozen yogurt Pinkberry-style and topped it off with some fresh berries. So simple,  refreshing, and creamy, yet (relatively) healthy! I did cut back on the sugar a bit and only used a half teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Pinkberry-ish Tart Frozen Yogurt

This whole week has been all about kasutera making – on my third go, I decided to make a matcha kasutera (green tea honey sponge cake) by using the same recipe as before, but adding 2 TB of matcha powder.  It’s important to mix the matcha with the flour ahead of time and sift it twice to make sure the green tea is evenly mixed with the bread flour.

My loaf pan wasn’t clean this time around so I decided to use a square pan that was about 8 1/2 to 9″ across – which meant I had less batter than normal so the cake came out shorter and only needed about 35-40 minutes in the oven.  I also made more of an effort to smooth out the air bubbles in the top before baking so the top came out much more even this time.  It only became a bit wrinkly because I put a honey glaze on top and then parchment paper over before covering in plastic wrap and cooling in the fridge.

I haven’t just been making cake all week though!  A friend recommended a Japanese manga called “Hatsukoi Lunch Box”, which means “first love lunch box.”  Each chapter revolves around the two main characters helping friends with their love problems by making bentous (弁当, Japanese lunch boxes) that convey their feelings to their crushes.  At the end of each chapter, were recipes for all the food mentioned in the chapter.  Since the manga is geared towards elementary and middle-schoolers, they were all simple and relatively quick recipes that are great for packing into lunch boxes.  They also make for nice and fast but healthy meals at home when you don’t want to spend all day cooking.

Below, I used two of the recipes from the manga – soboro don (そぼろ丼, minched chicken and egg over rice), and a tuna potato salad which I modified by adding peas and carrots as well to get more veggies in.  The same chapter that had the tuna potato salad also featured an omurice recipe (オムライス, omelette wrapped around ketchup fried rice) as well, which I made for dinner the previous night.  The manga was pretty cute even if the stories were rather repetitive and simple – but it’s the recipes that really make it fun and I look forward to making more of the foods from this manga!

Successful on second try!

Kasutera cake (カステラ, Japanese honey-sponge cake) is one of my favorite cakes ever – filled with many fond memories of weekends spent at my grandmother’s house where she would always have some on hand for us kids.  I’ve never been a huge fan of American-style cakes, which I typically find too heavy and sweet.  Growing up, it was always the lightly sweetened and airy Asian-style sponge cakes that I craved.  It wasn’t until a friend mentioned that it was one of the hardest cakes to make though, that I thought of trying to make it myself at home.  I’m generally very hit or miss when it comes to baking attempts – but hey, there’s no yeast involved and very few ingredients, so I figured I had a chance!  

Needless to say, the first attempt was a complete failure (though it smelled absolutely delicious and LOOKED perfect when I initially took it out of the oven).  The inside of the cake came out heavy, fudgey, and just…totally wrong as you can see from the pic below.  It seems like from all the recipes/blog posts I read online that it was practically required you fail at least on your first attempt.

First failed attempt

There seems to be two general methods of making kasutera – one involving beating the entire egg together over a hot water bath for a really long time, and the other is to separate the eggs and beating the whites into a meringue before adding the egg yolks a little at a time.  The first time I used the recipe from Just Hungry which followed the first method of using the hot water bath and had pretty clear instructions.  This seems to me the more difficult method – but most of the recipes I came across did use this way of making it so I would still like to try my hand at it again someday.

For the second attempt I used the meringue method following the steps and video linked in Yummy Workshop’s post.  I did the last few steps after the meringue part like the video and combined things by hand rather than doing it all in the mixer but I’m sure either is fine.  I do highly recommend watching the Youtube video just so that you can get a good sense of all the steps and consistency of the batter (it’s in Japanese but still helpful even if you don’t know the language).  This method is MUCH faster than the hot water bath, and I think more fool-proof.  Definitely recommend using bread flour rather than all-purpose.

A few adjustments:

- Using the amount of ingredients mentioned on Yummy Workshop’s post (which is half of the amount in the video I think), I got exactly enough batter for one 9″ loaf pan, lined with parchment paper, and shortened the baking time to just 50 minutes for my oven.

- After taking it out of the oven, I brushed the top of the cake with a tablespoon of honey mixed with a tablespoon or so of hot water and then turned it out of the pan onto parchment paper (leaving the parchment paper it was baked in on as well), and wrapped the whole thing while hot in saran wrap, and then sealed it into a big plastic baggie and stuck it in the fridge overnight.  It’s super important do this before the cake cools down in order for it to retain its moist sponginess.  I brought the cake to work and sliced it up to be enjoyed while viewing the miniature Japanese zen rock gardens created by the students in a class our department offered – it was quite the scene with one of the professors making matcha while the other played a Japanese flute.

I LOVE EGGS.  There’s so many things you can do with them and they go with just about everything.  One of my favorite egg dishes though is Japanese steamed egg custard, or chawan mushi (茶碗蒸し), which literally means steamed tea cup.  You can put a variety of fixings into the steamed egg custard but typical things to include are chicken, shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, and kamaboko (fish cakes).  In this version, my friends and I used duck eggs instead of chicken eggs, and lobster, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and some meyer lemon peel, and garnished with some chop green scallions at the end. It was AMAZING.  Just saying. Recipe after the jump!

Ingredients (makes 4-6 servings depending on the size of your cup):

• 2 raw lobster tails (about 4-5 oz each), removed from their shells and chopped into small bite-sized chunks
• 2 TB sake
• 4 TB water
• 2 pinches of salt
• 1-2 inch in length section of carrot, that is at least 1 inch in diameter, peeled
• 4 duck eggs
• 2-1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tsp dashi powder dissolved in 1 TB of water
• 1/2 tsp mirin (sweet cooking sake)
• 1 fresh shiitake mushroom with stem removed, thinly sliced (about 1/8″)
• 1/2 tsp grated Meyer lemon peel
• 1 tsp finely chopped green scallions for garnish

Required equipment:

• 4 to 6 tea cups/mugs/ramekins/bowls (about 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 inches tall is ideal, and about 2-1/2 inches in diameter)
• steamer that can fit the height of the vessels you are using
• strainer

In a small pot, combine the chopped raw lobster tails with the sake, water, and 2 pinches of salt.  Simmer while stirring until all the liquid is gone and set aside.

To make the carrot flowers, cut out 5 notches lengthwise around the circumference of the carrot, spaced roughly equidistant apart, and then slice them into 1/16″ inch pieces crosswise.  Voila! You have now made fancy flower pieces out of your carrot!  If you have a decorative food cutter/stamp, you could just directly slice the carrot crosswise and then stamp out the shape.  Or you can just slice them and have plain old carrot discs. Briefly blanch the carrots in salted water, drain, and set aside.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with a fork (don’t froth!).  Add the chicken stock, dashi powder dissolved in water, and mirin to the eggs and mix well.  You can add an additional pinch of salt if you like things saltier.  Strain the egg stock mixture so that all you are left with is a smooth liquid with no air bubbles or sliminess.

Divide about 2/3 of the lobster among your serving cups and carefully pour in the egg stock mixture until it is about 60-70% full.  Transfer the cups to a pre-heated steamer and steam over high heat for about 1 min with the lid ajar.  After a minute, steam over low heat for an additional 6 to 7 minutes with the steamer completely covered until the surface of the custard is set.

When the custard is set, carefully remove the lid and place the shiitake mushrooms and remaining lobster on top of it, and pour in the remaining egg stock mixture until the cups are about 80-90% full.  Top with 1 to 2 carrot slices and the Meyer lemon peel and cover.  Steam over a high heat for about a minute with the lid ajar again, and then on low heat for 6-7 minutes with the lid completely covered.

Remove the cups from the steamer and garnish with the finely chopped green scallions and serve immediately.

This is basically a salad with whatever you want in it (the okonomi in okonomiyaki – a Japanese “pizza” or “pancake” means whatever you want or as you like it).  A salad with whatever chopped veggies and goodies you’d like to have in it, tossed with a yummy, fragrantly, garlicky dressing that is.

The dressing recipe is from David Lebovitz – (http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/07/chopped-vegetable-salad-with-lemon-garlic-dressing/) and I pretty much followed it to the letter – except I added one extra clove of garlic and used this wonderful black truffle olive oil I got at the Borough Market in London during my honeymoon. (^_^)v  It’s essential to use a good quality oil that you like!

For my salad, I put in the following:

• 1 heirloom tomato, chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped
• 1 ear of white corn, cooked for a few minutes in lightly salted water and then shaved kernels off
• fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 2 pieces of bacon pan-fried (or microwaved), drained, and chopped
• 1/2 half a head of iceberg lettuce, chopped
• 2 soft-boiled eggs, chopped

It’s all optional though, so make it with what you like or whatever is in the fridge!

Yelp had a $40 for $80 worth of seafood from New England Lobster so my friends and I bought two gift certificates and had a seafood night.  Cooking for a large party on a weeknight (13 people!) took awhile but when we finally sat down to eat, it was quite delish and worth the wait.

With many helping hands, we made lobster rolls, asari no sakamushi (clams steamed in sake), steak, corn on the cob, and finished off the meal with almond hazelnut truffles and kheer from Tab’s mom (we had some of the aloo gobi she made with the meal too – both uber yummy!).  I’ll be posting steak and truffle recipes later.

For the lobster rolls, I used Adam Roberts from Amateur Gourmet’s recipe for lobster rolls, but we followed the directions that came with the lobsters for the boiling time instead, skipped the ice bath part, and used my favorite thick toast from Paris Baguette as the bread instead of using hot dog buns.

To make the clams, I followed this recipe from Chef Nobua Fukada, and just doubled it.  I used Littleneck clams, which worked out great.  As you are preparing the clams in the first step – soaking them in cold salt water, the live clams should close up – any clams that remain open or have damaged shells, toss them before cooking.  One other change I made to the recipe was to use some of the water from boiling the lobsters instead of regular water and since I couldn’t find cooking sake at the market I went to, I used a bottle of regular “nice” sake.  After you have finished steaming the clams, if there are any that stayed closed, throw those out before serving.

Quick post before I go to bed – pureed soups have always seemed “fancy” to me – they were restaurant soups that looked nice in white bowls and are a bit of a pain to make at home because of the pureeing part, what with having to pour a hot soup into a blender and all.  That is, until my good friend Erica over at Apricosa, gave me the wonderful gift of an immersion blender for Christmas! When I saw the post from Jennifer Yu on her blog Use Real Butter for potato leek soup recently, I knew it was the perfect time to put my new gadget to work – especially since I’ve been sick the past week or so with a cold that just won’t go away.

Since it was late at night and I was still not feeling well, I didn’t try to do any modifications and just followed the recipe exactly as she had it, which was perfect and simple.  Except for two things – I used cilantro instead of parsley to garnish because I don’t really like parsley, and I had some leftover chopped mushrooms that I sauteed and plopped into the soup upon serving.  Still yummy and wonderfully soothing for a cold winter’s night!

The sandwiches were just my usual – I used bread (thick, whole grain, and totally soft and fluffy) from one of my favorite Asian bakeries, Paris Baguette, a little mayo, sharp cheddar cheese, two slices of ham, and avocado.  Would have added clover sprouts but I forgot to buy them the last time I went to the market.  This is one of my favorite ways to make a sandwich (I have a few wackier versions that I’ll share some other time, but this is the basic ^_^).  Part of the key for me is the thick square Asian toast (Paris Baguette’s whole grain version is a bit taller with a rounded top though), which many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese bakeries sell, baked fresh daily.

I’ve been meaning to try making truffles for the longest time – and decided to try it over winter break.  They came out okay, but the balls I rolled were way too big as I should have had enough chocolate to make about 24 truffles but ended up with only 15. f(^_^;)  I read different recipes from Alton Brown, Use Real Butter, Smitten Kitchen, Not Without Salt, and Kathleen’s Confections to get an idea of how to make the base ganache.

From there, I decided to use my own flavorings – I decided to go with a spicy chocolate so I tried infusing the heavy cream with dried red chili peppers, but I couldn’t really taste anything from it – so in the end I straight up added some red pepper flakes into the ganache… which worked but was a bit tooo spicy if you happen to bite into a truffle that had a lot of it. ^_^;  After rolling the ganache into balls, I dipped them into melted milk chocolate and covered them in either cinnamon sugar, cocoa powder, or crushed peppermint candy.  Given the spicy ganache, the cinnamon sugar was the best pairing (was originally planning to make a plain ganache and a peppermint ganache but got tired and decided for the first go to just make one type of ganache).  Next time, will experiment with green tea, peppermint, and hazlenut or almonds I think.  Overall, turned out fairly well for a first go I think, just need to make them smaller.

Ingredients (makes about 24 truffles):

• 10 oz bittersweet dark chocolate (60 to 70% cacoa), chopped
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 TB unsalted butter
• pinch of salt
• toppings you would like to roll truffles in
• 8 oz chocolate for coating truffles, chopped (I used semi-sweet milk chocolate chips, but you can use dark chocolate, or whatever type you like)
• optional: 1/2 TB red pepper flakes, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp Grand Marnier (add the liqueur to hot cream and chocolate mixture if using)

Place the bittersweet dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl.  In a small pot, combine the heavy cream and any of the optional flavorings.  Bring the cream to boil over medium heat, strain, and then pour it over the bittersweet dark chocolate.  Let sit for a minute before using a small spatula to stir the chocolate until it begins to melt.  Add the butter, pinch of salt, and liqueur if you are using it and continue stirring until chocolate is completely melted and smooth.  Let ganache cool and harden enough to scoop and roll into balls (can be speeded up by putting it in the fridge or freezer).

Once the ganache is cooled and hard enough to roll, prepare some wax paper or parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Scoop the ganache and use your hands to roll it into small balls and place onto the cookie sheet.  Place ganache balls into the refrigerator for about 10 minutes to harden up further.  An optional strategy is to put the ganache into a pastry bag and pipe it onto the wax paper before it has cooled, refrigerate it to a harder consistency and then roll it into rounder balls – maybe less messy this way but I haven’t tried it.

As the ganache firms up, prepare a work station for dipping and rolling the chocolates (powdered sugar, cocoa powder, chopped nuts, cinnamon sugar, crushed peppermint candy, whatever you like).  After the ganache balls are completely cooled and have firmed up in the refrigerator, melt the remaining 8 oz of chocolate either in a bowl over a pot of  boiling water or 15 seconds at a time in the microwave.  Dip the ganache balls into the melted chocolate and carefully drop them into whatever topping you like. Carefully shake the topping container so that the truffle rolls around and becomes completely coated in the topping.  Let it sit and harden a bit before trying to move it from the container with the toppings to the parchment paper for final firming up.  If you are using multiple types of toppings, you can make the next truffle with a different topping while the first one is waiting to harden.  Continue with the remaining truffles.  Once done, you can put them in the fridge for about 5-10 minutes to firm up before packing it up.

This recipe is mostly based off Kevin’s recipe from Closet Cooking, though my good friend Erica over at Apricosa also has a much heartier version that I plan to try sometime, and Gabi over at BrokeAss Gourmet seems to have a lighter version.  Kevin’s is a bit in the middle – seems heartier than Gabi’s but light enough to be an appetizer or the main for a light lunch depending on how stuffed you want to be.  Personally, I love Erica’s name for the dish the best – Uova al Purgatorio – seriously, how can you beat a title like Eggs in Purgatory??  Whichever recipe you choose to use, it’s sure to turn out yummy and fancy looking despite the simplicity of the dish.  One thing that was different for me in using Kevin’s recipe is that my eggs took a lot longer to cook.  The first time I made it, it just wouldn’t set in the 8-14 minute range for me.  Might have been the size of ramekins…but I ended up taking a good 20+minutes.  Just depends on your oven so make sure to check it periodically as you want the yolk to be runny but the egg white to be fairly set.  You can actually prep the tomato feta mixture ahead of time, into ramekins and just make a well and add the egg the next day when you’re ready to bake.  I’ve actually taken this to work, and just cracked an egg in during lunch time and microwaved it – still comes out beautifully – just make sure to do it in 30 second increments and checking to make sure that 1) the egg doesn’t overcook, and 2) the egg doesn’t explode.

These are great for a quick meal and are perfect for the cold weather – and it’s vegetarian to boot!  Even though I’m a meat-lover who normally NEEDS to have some sort of meat or fish in my meal to be considered satisfied, I seriously did not miss it in this case at all. ^_^  That being said…if you wanted to throw some chopped bacon or pancetta into the mixture…that might not be a bad idea.

First impression was that this recipe was quite complicated for me. I generally am not a great baker, but the recipe and pictures looked so good I felt like I ought to give it a try.  And sadly, after all the time it took me to gather the ingredients and tools…I was frankly disappointed in the my result the first night.  The flavors didn’t quite come together, the texture wasn’t what I expected and I was pretty bummed.  HOWEVER!  Because it took so long to make, we didn’t actually eat the tarts the first night, except for the first one I tried the day of to taste test.  After leaving the tarts overnight however (not yet assembled), everything seemed to come together for me, and I actually liked it – something about eating it cold, and maybe some of the moisture from the fridge did something to the tarts – most likely I just didn’t bake it correctly in the first place, but putting it in the fridge overnight somehow saved these tarts for me and I ended up quite enjoying them – mine turned out dense the next day with a texture that really lets your teeth sink into each moist bite.  So if it doesn’t seem quite right the first time, let it chill in the fridge and try it again the second night.