CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Posted in Cookies, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

Talk about an American classic… I’ve seen so many recipes for chocolate chip cookies, and one of the major issues is… do you like nuts in your cookies? Purists want the flavor of chocolate, and little else. Others enjoy the scrumptious crunchiness of walnuts or pecans, and without them, something is missing. My beloved falls in the second category, and he’s set in his preference. I don’t care that much, as long as the cookies are chewy. Please, no dunking in milk, as my stepson loves to do, it grosses me out, and he dunks them right in front of me! 🙂 In fact, the first thing he said after my naturalization was: “now that you’re an American, you’ve got to start dunking some cookies in a tall glass of milk“….

Whether you are a purist or not, or a “dunker” or not, I’ll bet you’ll enjoy these cookies. I’ve made them several times since I first saw the recipe at Smitten Kitchen. In this batch my only adjustment was to chop some of the nut pieces slightly larger. These cookies will still please the purists, though…

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
(as posted in Smitten Kitchen, original recipe from The Great Book of Chocolate)

(receita em portugues na segunda pagina)

100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
120g (1/2 cup) dark brown sugar
8 Tbs unsalted butter (1 stick), cold, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
175 g (1 + 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
200 g (1 + 1/2 cup) good quality semisweet chocolate chips
130 g (1 cup) walnuts toasted and chopped

Heat the oven to 300F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or use a Silpat lining.

Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop the cookie dough into 2T balls and place them on a baking sheet separated by 3 inches. Bake for 18 minutes, until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Makes 24 cookies.

to print the recipe, click here.

Comments: You’ll notice that these cookies bake at a lower temperature than most recipes call for. If you are like me, and enjoy chewy cookies, this is the best way to bake them. I like to make the dough and rest it in the fridge for a couple of hours. By doing so, the dough spreads less during baking, which also favors a chewy texture.

Toasting the nuts is an important preliminary step, but watch them carefully, because the difference between toasted and burned is just a few seconds!

Match made in heaven: a chocolate chip cookie with a mini-capuccino, served in a cup from one of our favorite cafes in Paris!

para receita em portugues, clique aqui

7Oct2009

A SPECIAL DINNER FOR TWO…

Posted in Lamb, Side dishes, Weekend Dinners by sallybr

Sometimes (more often than I care to admit…) I buy things on impulse, without knowing exactly what to do with them. Last week I saw a New Zealand rack of lamb, and couldn’t resist it. I hid the package in the fridge, hoping to surprise my beloved with a special meal. I think his top three favorite dishes are Beef Wellington, rack of lamb, and grilled salmon….sushi and oysters on the halfshell are also strong contenders… At any rate, I knew the lamb would be well received!

Normally I’d simplify the preparation of a rack of lamb: salt and pepper, and nothing else. The meat is so flavorful, it shines on its own. However, a recipe in Ming Tsai’s book (Ming’s Master Recipes) changed my mind, as it had “Autumn” and “Romance” written all over it… 😉

CRANBERRY-TERIYAKI LAMB RACK with COUSCOUS SALAD
(adapted from Ming Tsai’s Master Recipes)

2 lamb racks
1 cup cranberry-teriyaki glaze (recipe below)
1 cup couscous, cooked
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 cup olive oil
3 scallions stalks, sliced (reserve green part for garnishing)
1/4 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Marinate the racks of lamb in the glaze for a couple of hours or overnight. Prepare a hot grill, remove lamb from the marinade and grill it to medium-rare. For our small racks of lamb, I grilled for 12 minutes, turning them halfway through. Allow the meat to rest for 5 minutes before slicing it between the bones.

Prepare the couscous salad…
Cook the couscous as instructed in the package, and reserve. In a large bowl, whisk together lemon juice, zest, and mustard. Slowly add the oil, still whisking, to form an emulsion, and season it with salt and pepper. Add the white part of the scallions, the cranberries and the cooked couscous, tossing well to combine.

To serve, place the couscous on a plate, top it with the lamb chops, garnish with scallion greens, and spoon some extra cranberry glaze on top of the lamb.

CRANBERRY-TERIYAKI GLAZE
1/8 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 shallot, sliced thin
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 cup cranberry juice
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
zest and juice of 1 orange
salt to taste

In a large saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil, add the dried cranberries, shallot slices and ginger and cook over high heat, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the cranberry juice, soy sauce, sugar, orange zest and juice and simmer over low heat until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Let it cool slightly and then transfer it to a blender.

Blend the sauce, adding the remaining olive oil with the machine running. Do not blend it until it is completely smooth, the sauce is supposed to contain little bits of cranberries. Taste and adjust seasoning; it keeps for 1 week refrigerated.

Couscous salad, a perfect match for the lamb…

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here.

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6Oct2009

From our backyard…

Posted in General by sallybr

Maybe not the most beautiful, definitely not the largest figs around… but they came from our own tree, and that makes them the sweetest figs we’ve ever had!

4Oct2009

BBA#20: MULTIGRAIN BREAD EXTRAORDINAIRE

Posted in BBA Challenge, Breads by sallybr

Hard to believe it’s number 20 already!

This bread is made with commercial yeast and a mixture of water-soaked grains. Two things to remember: soak the grains, and cook some brown rice the day before. Or, as Carolyn (on Two Skinny Jenkins) and I did, find yourself in full panic mode when it’s time to make the dough, realizing too late that brown rice takes AGES to cook! However, she pulled it off nicely by cooking the rice in the microwave. My own saga didn’t have such a happy ending. Let’s just say that I had some issues yet again. But, first, here’s the final product, the loaf of multigrain bread extraordinaire….

As usual, we can’t post the recipes for breads made in the “challenge“, but here are some photos of the process.

Soak a mixture of grains (cornmeal, rolled oats, and wheat bran) overnight in water, and then added them to bread flour with the other ingredients (yeast, salt, honey, brown sugar, and water).

My mixture lacked…. cooked brown rice… my apologies once more to Peter Reinhart, but after my initial panic I attempted to use the microwave, got “slightly distracted” and by the time I felt a strange smell coming from the kitchen, this was the state of my brown rice.

Needless to say, I skipped the rice. Instead of kneading in the KA, I folded the dough three times at 20, 40, and 60 minutes, formed into a loaf, sprinkled poppy seeds all over, allowed it to rise one more time, and sent it into the oven ….

The bread is just a little too sweet for my taste, so next time I would reduce the amount of honey, or maybe skip it altogether. For a multigrain bread I prefer a sourdough base. Still, my husband liked this bread quite a bit: “great flavor and succulent crumb” were his comments. I probably shouldn’t have slashed it, but I’ve been practicing this skill at every opportunity.

I wonder what the brown rice would bring to it in terms of taste or texture – I guess the only way to find is to make it again… 😉

You can take a look at the bakers ahead of me in the challenge, some used loaf pans, Txfarmer made gorgeous little cloverleaf buns.

Deborah, from Italian Food Forever

Oggi, from I Can Do That

Txfarmer from sina.com

Mags, from The Other Side of Fifty

2Oct2009

SIMPLY ELEGANT: SALMON CURRY

Posted in Celebrate Wednesday, Seafood by sallybr

Here’s a very popular dish from the restaurant “Terra” in Napa Valley, another recipe from the “Secrets of Success” by Michael Bauer.

If you are looking for a dish to impress your friends, your in-laws, or that special someone having dinner at your place for the first time… this is it! The kind of food that gives a pause of satisfaction after the first bite, a meal that you’d expect from a first-rate restaurant, but instead… you made it yourself! … And it wasn’t even hard! An impressive concoction that you can definitely bring to the table on a weeknight after a hard day at work… A “Celebrate Wednesday” kind of deal. 😉

Everything in this dish is balanced, a contrast of flavors and textures: the subtle heat of the curry, the freshness of the salad, the silkiness of the sauce on the crunchiness of the cabbage and peanuts, and luscious salmon as the centerpiece! It’s a symphony for your tastebuds. Try it, and I’m sure you’ll make it again.

SALMON WITH THAI RED CURRY SAUCE and CABBAGE SALAD
(from Terra restaurant, recipe published in M. Bauer’s Secrets of Success)

(receita em portugues na segunda pagina)

for the curry sauce:
2 tsp peanut oil
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger, minced
1 tsp coriander seeds, cracked
1 1/2 tsp curry powder (I used mild curry, from Penzey’s spices)
1 1/2 tsp Thai red curry paste
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/4 cups unsweetened coconut milk
3 Tbs tomato puree
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1.5 Tbs firmly packed brown sugar

for the cabbage salad:
2 cups very thinly sliced cabbage (red or green)
1/3 cup julienned cucumber
2 T fresh cilantro
2 T fresh mint
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar

4 pieces of Atlantic king salmon filet (6 oz each)
1 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper

roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

cooked white rice

Make the sauce… (you can make it the day before if you prefer)
Heat the oil and saute the garlic and ginger until it is just beginning to get golden. Remove the pan from the heat and add the coriander seeds, curry paste and powder, paprika, and ground cumin. On low heat, saute for a couple of minutes. Stir in the coconut milk, tomato puree, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Increase the heat and bring it almost to boiling, and then remove it from the heat. Keep warm or gently reheat if it was refrigerated. Sauces containing coconut milk should not be boiled, as they tend to separate.

Make the salad…
Mix the cabbage with all other ingredients in a large bowl. Add the soy sauce and vinegar, toss well. Reserve until serving. (I like to do it 30 minutes in advance, if possible).

Cook the salmon…
Brush the salmon fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill to your liking, but salmon is best cooked medium, for a thick filet about 4-5 minutes per side on a hot grill. You can also cook it on the stove, making sure it is still translucent in the center.

Assemble the dish….
Place rice in the center of the plate. Ladle 1/2 cup of sauce around it, place the salmon on top or next to it. Top each fillet with a tall mound of the cabbage. Sprinkle the sauce with roasted peanuts.

Enjoy the compliments!

(to print the recipe, click here.)

Comments: Please don’t be put off by the number of ingredients. This is a very simple dish to prepare, and if you want to make it even easier, get the sauce ready the day before. It’s a good idea to make more than called for, because it is wonderful. Try it on seared sea scallops, on grilled shrimp, or even pork tenderloin, they all go quite well with it.

I have made this dish with red, green, and also with napa cabbage. In general, I am very fond of napa cabbage, but this dish calls for a little more crunch, and Napa doesn’t deliver the same snap. Try them all yourself, and pick your own favorite.

If I ever make it to Terra, I’m definitely ordering this dish!

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