Footwork

Macaron au Chocolat

I was totally enticed into making these cute little sweets, blinded by their innocent looks. At the second failure, my hands were half way up. Who said ‘Every failure is a route to success’? Oh yeah? I always could take the high road to Pix where amazing macarons are waiting for me. I have more egg whites to spare however – if I suck at it thrice then, really, this is not the charm.

I hear people say the phrase like ‘some things are better left to professionals’ and this may be one of those. Like croissant, for example. To achieve the buttery, flakey crust that the bakery sells is not easily attainable thus $2.75 for a plain croissant (at some stores) is a reasonable price for not making yourself.  I would even shell out $3 for it. Besides, who’s going to clean up all the mess? Ah…honey? Come in for sec.

The recipe I used seemed simple with lots of color photos. I prepped the egg white for 2-3 days. And powdered sugar… wait.. it said here – Do not use powdered sugar has corn starch in it. I grab my car keys and headed to a near-by store to get pure powdered sugar, I need Sucre Glace! Ay ya,ya! They did not have it. Plan B – make your own powdered sugar, Holy Google said I can. I put regular sugar into my food processer and voila! Well, not quite, the simple recipe is not so simple anymore. Look at all the sugar dust making my counter white!..and my hair!

A successful macaron has nice pied (pi-e French for foot), all around the shiny ‘round’. In other words, macaron without foot is pas bon (not good)! Whew! At least mine had foots to walk on. I think I had enough of this learning curve without getting it straight but the reward of my effort came when my son liked them and ate all my mistakes too.

Ganache/ganache au lait

• Heavy cream 100CC. If you’re using milk chocolate 90CC
• Corn syrup 10g
• Dark chocolate or milk chocolate 90g. Use quality baking chocolate. I used Guittard dark chocolate tablets.

1. In a small sauce pan, boil cream and corn syrup on medium high heat. Turn off heat and set aside.
2. In a metal bowl, put chocolate (if you’re using sheet or block chocolate, chopped in small pieces).
3. Pour cream mixture over the chocolate.
4. Mix well with rubber spatula. Cool to room temperature then cover, keep refrigerated.
   

Macaron batter – supposedly make 30 rounds/15 pair.

Necessary equipment – food scale, food processer, hand held mixer, card dredge

• Almond – raw, skinless 65g
• Powdered sugar with no corn starch 100g
• Cocoa powder 8g
• Egg white 45g and 5g – Leave egg white covered with plastic wrap at room temperature for 2-3 days. Do not use cold eggs.
• Granulated sugar 15g
• Red food coloring 1 drop This is optional but richen the color of chocolate.

1. Put almonds in food processer and run for about 2 minutes to turn into powder.
2. Add powdered sugar and mix for 30 second.
3. Add cocoa powder and mix for 30 second. Put in a large bowl. Set it aside.
4. Put 45g of egg white in large bowl. Using hand held mixer beat egg white until cloudy. Add granulated sugar a little at a time and whip on high speed using a big circular motion until the white forms very stiff peaks and has sheen, about 5-7 minutes.
   
5. In the almond powder mixture bowl, pour 5g egg white and red food coloring and combine.
6. Add meringue at once into almond mixture bowl. Scoop up from bottom with rubber spatula fold in meringue. No need to combine perfectly. You may see some white.
   
7. With a pastry card dredge or sukeppa, scrape off batter and push against the side of bowl to burst meringue bubble – this is called makaronju (makaronaju). This is where I stumbled twice. Do not over do it. 3-4 times is enough I think. What you want see is when you gather the batter in the middle, it slowly spread out. Doing too much will result in runny batter, make it hard to pipe out and won’t rise.
   

Pipe out the batter and baking process

Necessary equipment – 16X11 inch insulated cookie sheet (if you don’t have it, use two cookie sheets, one top on the other), parchment paper, pastry bag with 1/2 inch round tip

1. Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper
2. Put batter in pastry bag with half inch round tip.
3. Pipe out 1-1/2 inch size round. You should have 2 inch space between.
4. Rest for 20-30 minutes until dry to the touch. 10 minutes in, preheat oven  to 300 F.
5. Put in oven and turn down oven to 270 F. Bake for 16  to 18 minutes. The macaron should rise, develop foot, sheen and has dry surface.
   
6. Take out from oven and cool in cooking sheet to room temperature.
7. After it has cooled then carefully remove macaron from paper. Finish cooling on a wire rack.

Finish line

Congratulations! Your goal is almost there! Take ganache out of the refrigerator to soften, about 30 minutes.Then stuff into pastry bag with 1/2 inch round tip.Be a Match Maker – match two same size macarons, pipe some ganache on one and put mate macaron on top.

 

Ice Apple

I was cooped up in the house for a couple weeks needed fresh air. My husband and I went to Al’s nursery in Sherwood for ice apples. Ice apples (actually, Fuji apple) are left on the tree and are harvested after the frost to intensify the sweetness. We had a first 1 pound free coupon. This place is HUGE!This caramel was from a company in Utah.

We tasted every available sample.

This was good but I am not sure I want this much.

There were both Ducks and Beavers there.

Wow! It is time to clean the lens on this camera.I’m always in mood for dance!

Hi, Hello deer (there).Put a shining star up on the highest bough. I can’t help but start singing!

I was not the only one who kept busy in the kitchen. My husband made this cheese cake for co-workers.

Chinese chicken noodle soup for a neighbor friend and left over for our evening meal. Hmmm warm your soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rightover

Turkey and Mushroom Risotto

With gratitude in our hearts, a wonderful Thanksgiving is over. I brined the turkey, prepared pie crusts and made rolls ahead of time, with two assistants ready for my command I didn’t have to rush so much - it’s going to be a great day! The scale I stepped on in the morning confirmed my prediction - I lost 2 pounds!
Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful day!
I got a wonderful feeling
Everything’s going my way!
That is all the lyrics I know of the song but I love Hammerstein!

One of my memorable Thanksgiving dinners was in Hawaii in 2006. My husband and I were traveling to Japan and we stopped at my daughter’s place for Thanksgiving. Over 20 people were there at my daughter’s friend’s house. My husband wore his formal - Hawaiian shirt AKA as his casual Friday suit. It was already dark when we sat down at a long table. People are friendly, it was a wonderful meal, my son was serving a mission in Japan and it was our granddaughter’s first Thanksgiving.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Isn’t Louis Armstrong great?
The color of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you                                                   

OK, that’s enough of singing, back to my post - What do you do with all the leftovers? I bought the smallest turkey in the store and halved the recipes yet what’d ya know? We ended up with relics of Thanksgiving. Although I desperately wanted to be away from the kitchen the day after the feast, I must re-purpose.

I’m really lucky to have a sous-chef husband. He stepped up and  made this risotto featured in November 2012 issue of ‘bon appetit’ magazine so that I can leisurely watch Kimutaku’s new drama on the computer, that’s ‘Priceless’ (title of his new drama).

First –Make stock

• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 turkey carcass, broken into pieces
• Water to cover (12 –14 cups)

Put everything in a large stockpot. Set over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 3-1/2 hours. Strain. Discard solids. Let cool,  then cover and chill. Makes about 9 cups. This stock will keep chilled for 3 days or frozen for 3 months.Strainer-love the gadget.

Turkey and mushroom risotto –modified a tiny bit

• 8 cups turkey stock
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 2 cups assorted fresh mushroom (photo shown chanterelles, trumpet king mushroom, shiitake). You may substitute with white button mushrooms.
• 2 cups Arborio or carnaroli rice
• 1 cup shredded leftover turkey meat (optional)
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 Tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. Bring stock to a simmer in a medium pot over medium heat. reduce heat to low. Cover and keep warm.
2. Melt 3 Tablespoons butter in a large pot over medium heat until it begins to foam.
3. Add onion. Sauté, stirring occasionally  until onion is soft and translucent.
4. Add mushroom. Cook stirring occasionally until soft, 4-6 minutes.
5. Add rice. Sauté for 3-4 minutes.
   
6. Add 1 cup warm stock. Stir constantly until liquid is absorbed.
7. Add 1 cup of stock at a time until rice is tender but still firm to the bite.
8. Add shredded turkey if you’re using. Stir to warm.
9. Add more stock or water if necessary to keep mixture creamy.
10. Stir parmesan and remaining 1 Tablespoon butter into risotto.
11. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Our Thanksgiving started with simple salad. Apple cider vinaigrette was good! Parker house rolls. The spendy sea salt flakes was worth it.Tangy and refreshing, cranberry-orange relish with mint
My son’s job this year was to make the green bean casserole – same as last year. Must have pies-Asian pear pie filling we canned and good ol’ pumpkin pie.

Grilled turkey sandwich was delightful too-cream cheese in place of mayo.

Forgotten on the corner of counter, the Chinese yam (長いも) sprouted. I’m lost on what to do with this now.

I’m sooo not going to step on the scale for a while.