Restaurant Widow

Pistacia Vera Post #2::Some Things are Better Left to the Experts

Although I did learn numerous useful tips and tricks during my day at Pistacia Vera, I also discovered that there are some things I will probably never attempt at home.  One of these is Husband's favorite, the humble yet complicated canelé.  

A canelé, very simply, is a little cake made with a very thin batter.  It is almost a soufflé - the batter is poured into very expensive brass molds which have been brushed with a mixture of beeswax and butter.  The molds are put into a hot convection oven, where they quickly puff up and begin sizzling around the edges.  The outsides of the cake get very, very brown - almost burned, and the cake inside is soft, full of pockets, and is reminiscent of a custard. Or a custard-soaked cake. It's kind of hard to explain, so maybe this picture will do it a little bit of justice:


  The process of canelé-making takes days; the canelé molds are waxed and left to chill overnight; milk is boiled and then steeped with vanilla and blade mace (blade mace is the outer hull of the nutmeg nut; it has a rich and earthy aroma).  The milk steeps for a day and is then drained. Rum and eggs are added, along with flour, and then this mixture is chilled overnight. The canelé are baked as described above, and then are unmolded immediately.  It was clear that Spencer had unmolded a few of these before.  He had a rhythm of plucking the canelé molds from their baking sheet with tongs, turning it upside down to turn the cake out onto a drying rack:


  Spencer tosses me a piping hot canelé, fresh from the oven, and says "here, eat this with your coffee." for a few minutes I am in heaven eating; the cake is browned and crisp and caramelized on the outside; the inside is soft and moist, aromatic with soft earthy spices and comforting.   

But the time to enjoy the sweet is short-lived, because it's time to make nougat.  

I have to admit, I say to chef Robin, that I really have no idea on earth how nougat is made.  I'm pretty sure she told me how easy it was.  As it turns out, nougat is one of those things which, very much like the macarons, begins with a meringue.  Egg whites are whipped and sugar is boiled -

I have to interject here for something here.  With any profession which requires precise timing and temperatures, it is amazing to see how the professional has created their own system of timing.  When I was a baker, I would start chocolate melting and hazelnuts roasting and butter softening the second I walked in the door.  That way, they would all be ready to go when I began mixing batters.  At Pistacia Vera, both Spencer and Robin had methods of setting their sugar on the stove to boil, and then starting their eggs whites whipping.  By the time the sugar had reached the desired temperature, the eggs where usually ready to have the boiling hot sugar syrup added.  I love this sort of body memory we all get when we perform the same tasks over and over.  We train ourselves to time things mentally. We learn exactly how many tasks and which ones we can complete while something else is working.

When I was 19, I was a barista in a coffee shop with a manual extraction lever (something you rarely see anymore; they are almost all automated these days).  The perfect shot of espresso took 18 seconds to pull, so I learned exactly what I could accomplish in 18 seconds - cut a bagel and throw it in the toaster, put flavored syrup in the cup, finish steaming the milk, et voila! time to assemble the coffee drink!

Where were we . . . of course! nougat!!  The nougat begins with lots of egg whites. Boiling honey is added, and then boiling sugar.  Everything is whipped, and whipped and whipped.  "8 minutes, precisely" instructs Robin (okay, I took some creative license there, but she certainly gives off the air of someone who knows the precise number of seconds it takes for sugar to reach 147 degrees celsius, or how many minutes it takes the nougat to reduce from boiling to 42 degrees.  At any rate, nougat making involves a lot of egg white whipping, and then a lot of boiling boiling sugar products into the egg whites while they are whipping (this happens twice!) and then the mixture whips and whips and whips, and then is whipped while the mixing bowl is being torched with a blow torch (this part is timed); more whipping. Then pistachios are added.

The whole nougat mixture is poured onto a board and rolled out (this seems particularly sticky).  The nougat hangs out for awhile, drying and ripening, and then is cut (or rather sawed) with a serrated knife.  Only then can you enjoy it.  Well actually I got to enjoy a warm bite and it was amazingly delicious.  But probably something I will never attempt myself.

Next up, we're going to make chocolate cherry financiers, then toffee, and yes, macarons.

No Knead Bread Update

Well, I have made 2 more loaves of no-knead bread with continued success (Husband started calling me Panera).  The second loaf (pictured above) was made with 1/3 of the flour replaced with whole wheat white flour (which I bought this past summer from Quiver Full farms at the North Market), and it made a very nice wheat bread, which typically suffers from a charmless crust and a slightly bitter flavor.  I added about an ounce of barley malt syrup to increase the sweetness (melted into some hot water, then tepid water added before adding it to the flour).  Husband and I both liked this better than the first loaf, and we loved the first loaf - it was completely consumed within 10 hours of baking. 

But, the third loaf was by far the best.  I ran out of bread flour, and used one cup AP flour, which seemed fine.  This time, because I wanted the bread to come out in time for lunch, I allowed it to rise 12 hours yesterday, then rested it and gave it the second rise overnight.  This morning I formed into a ball, rested about 30 minutes, and then plopped in the oven.  I also upped the salt to about a tablespoon; I would still like it to be saltier, but Husband liked it just as it was, so you can salt it however you wish.  This loaf had a crust so crackly it was as if it had been fried!  It also made a very pleasing crackle sound as it was cooling, which lasted about half an hour.  Okay, I will now stop with the bread posts, unless the hard rolls I make today turn out spectacularly.  Come on, it's January, I'm lucky to be motivated to write at all!

Third loaf:

Thanksgiving Recipes I've Known & Loved

Well, it's about that time of year again.  I realize I posted this same think last year, but, as Thanksgiving comes every year, it's that time again.  Here are a few of my tried and true recipes (they are not, of course, all original to me, I just mean I've made them all a hundred times and they never fail me):

Party Potatoes
Sweet Potato Casserole (don't let the term casserole scare you - I promise, even lifelong sweet potatoe haters will love this)
Lisa's Perfect Sprouts
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Bon Appetit's Creamed Corn Gratin
Alton Brown's Turkey
Alton Brown's Cranberry Sauce
Lisa's Green Beans with Bacon

Happy Eating!

Sunflower Cake Update

Well, the sunflower cake did turn out to be a little dense, rather like a light pound cake.  The crumb was so perfect, though - tiny, smooth, and completely even.  And, of course, the beauty of the cake shape itself.  You know those days when your confidence is waning a bit?  I highly recommend spending $30 to buy one of these fancy bundt cake pans.  Nothing improves your spirits like impressing your friends.  One note, however, if you are going to glaze the cake, as I did, bring the cake out whole first so that everyone can revel in its beauty, and then glaze the individual servings.  You can see how the glaze obscures the flower.  A little dusting of confectioner's sugar would enhance the pattern nicely. 

Although my recipe came from the Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking, I found a very similar recipe online.  I made my glaze with 2 cups confectioner's sugar, mixed into a paste with 2 tbsp lemon juice and 1 tbsp cream, thinned with more juice as needed for a nice consistency.

A little slice of this cake goes a long way, and would be perfect with a cup of tea.

Sunflower Cake

Look at this picture; surely, I have achieved domestic goddess status.  Thanks entirely to Nordic Ware, manufacturers of the Bundt cake pan.  Who would even care how this cake might taste?  It is so beautiful that I sat next to it in the kitchen as it was cooling, drinking my coffee and reading Garlic and Sapphires (which is really great, by the way).  Alas, I now must make my way to work.  Stay tuned to see how the cake was judged by coworkers (I have a feeling, having nibbled a little from what stuck to the cooling rack, that it is going to be rather dense, flying in the face of the fact that it is a lemon ciffon cake . . . but again, look at how pretty!)

What the -- Melting Heart, Melting Hopes

Mistakes keep us humble, don't they?  Without mistakes, we might all go through life learning nothing and thinking that we are absolute geniuses.  I know people like this, and they irritate me.  And so, in this sad tale of melting heart chocolate cakes, or lack thereof, I am prepared to take a little blame.  Just look at the sad little cake . . .

I know they've become commonplace and tired, but I still love melting center chocolate cakes.  They are so delicious - combining so many wonderful things.  And I have tried, rather unsuccessfully, to make a few in my day.  One recipe, which came from Williams Sonoma, involved inserting a homemade ganache truffle into the center of a dense and rather bitter chocolate cake; they insisted I should use 71% cocoa, but no sugar was added to the truffle mixture, and the whole thing was just wrong.

So today I decided to use Alton Brown's Chocolate Lava Muffins.  Yikes.  First of all, the muffins do not resemble cake in any way during the baking process, making one think they aren't baking and forcing one to leave them in for an extra 2 minutes.  They rose rounded, puffy, and pale in the oven and then deflated to nothingness as soon as they came out.  They were not flowing in the center, owing to overbaking, but they were cooked pretty evenly all the way through, leaving me to wonder how they would hold together if the centers had been oozing.  I remember watching this episode a few years ago on Good Eats and the muffin he ate looked absolutely nothing like the one that came from my oven.

Getting a bad recipe from a trusted source is really disappointing.  It's like a good friend standing you up, leaving you sitting alone at a bar.  Maybe, okay, maybe it's me, as I have just looked up the user reviews on foodnetwork.com and there are loads of reviews, almost all 5 stars.  Can we possibly be talking about the same cake?  Who are the people writing these reviews?  I couldn't believe some people said that their batter only made 6 muffins - mine made 12 huge ones - and/or that the muffins didn't rise - mine all rose and met each other on top of the pan. The flavor of the cake (and this is a fault of the recipe) rather than being intensely chocolaty, had a cooked-egg, almost meat-like flavor.  Er - not what I think of when I think of Chocolate Lava Muffins.

I had visions of oozing, gooey chocolate centers, of amazement and wonder from friends and Husband, who bought some of Jeni's Paupa New Guinea coffee ice cream today, with which I thought these cakes would be wonderful.  Alas, all hopes were dashed.  I have decided to try one more time, maybe sometime next week, just making regular chocolate cake batter and putting some chocolate bits in the centers, to see how that works.  You can be sure I will keep you posted.

Things to do with Rugelach Dough When You're Lazy

Tuesday I decided to make rugelach.  The last time I made them and took them in to work, everyone loved them, so this time I decided to make a double batch.  And then, as I was separating the dough, I remembered what a pain - er, labor of love - rugelach is.  There's the mixing, the patting into a ball, the chilling, then there's rolling out, filling up, cutting into wedges, rolling, and chilling AGAIN.  All before baking.  Of course, baking is alchemy or other arcane science, and the rugelach knew I was in a hurry and therefore was not as delicious as it was the last time, when I made it with hope and love in my heart.  All this to say that I only used half of the dough.  And so yesterday I was staring into the fridge, waiting for lunch to appear, and I rather sheepishly eyed the remaining balls of rugelach dough.  I should really use those, I thought.  Oh but the rolling and the cutting and the - Wait!  I know!  I'll make pasties!  (Pastry pasties, not other)  That way I would only have to roll once.  Surely, I am a culinary genius.  I think I even liked these a bit better because there was no burned, oozing jam.  Husband ate one and said "no offense hon, but these taste just as good as the rolled-out ones."  And I said "good!  I told you they were the lazy version!"  To which he replied "Can you please stop taking pictures of my carryout pizza from the Rossi so I can eat it?  please?"  (more on that later)

At any rate, I used the recipe from Ina Garten's Parties book, and since I think you should have it, I am not going to included the recipe; I was going to include the link to the recipe on Food Network, but it doesn't appear to be there.  I did change her recipe slightly; instead of using apricot jam, walnuts and raisins, I used sour cherry jam, pecans, and dried tart cherries, chopped a little with a mezzaluna

And here's why it's worth it to buy her books:  all of her recipes have been in use for years, and they all work.  She thinks and instructs like a caterer and offers very practical advise. 

Brownie Update

UPDATE (after work)::These were really good.  Everyone thought so.  This might, in fact, have been the best brownie I have ever eaten.  Therefore, I wholeheartedly recommend it.  Just thought I should let you know.

Trans Fats

Because I am about to post a cookie recipe involving shortening, here's a note about evil trans-fats: Trans fatty acids are produced when normally liquid oils are heated and treated with hydrogen, causing the chemical structure to change in a way that the oils solidify. The basic problem with trans fatty acids is that they increase LDL bad cholesterol, while decreasing HDL good cholesterol. Trans fats also seem to shockingly increase one's chances of having coronary disease; one 1994 study published in the American Journal of Public Health suggested that 30,000 premature deaths EVERY year from coronary disease can be attributed to the consumption of trans fats. Yikes.

Here's a really good report from the Harvard School of Public Health which details the need to include trans fats on nutrition labels in the US.

Because I feel a little stab of guilt every time I reach for the Crisco, I picked up Earth Balance Natural Shortening in the "organic" section of the grocery the other day. This politically correct product - no genetically modified ingredients, no trans fats, no gluten, dairy, or eggs, certified organic and kosher to boot - contains expeller-pressed (manually pressed, rather than chemically extracted) oils (palm, soybean, canola and olive) and claims to "bake and fry perfectly and deliciously without the bad stuff." I feel that I should mention that 1 TBSP contains 25% of one's daily saturated fat (butter has 36%). I was a bit skeptical about this product. Nothing is ever as good as the original. Sure, Olestra may enable you to eat chips with abandon, but it could be just as honestly marketed as a laxative, margarine is a sin against nature and an insult to cows, carob - well, I get the shivers just THINKING about carob (I was allergic to chocolate as a child. Need I say more?)

When I started creaming the sugar with it, I did have a moment of "SEE!!! This will never work!" I have to admit, though, that the Earth Balance Natural Shortening really did live up to its claims. It did cream with the sugar, it did produce a cookie superior to the butter cookie (in this one instance), and I feel that I can recommend it in good conscience. It is significantly more expensive than regular shortening; I can't remember exactly, but I feel like the 1 pound package was $3.80 or something. Also, it has to be refrigerated and therefore must be softened at room temperature just like butter.