le sauce

a real pickle: preserved lemons

I "learned" to bake last year, by which I mean I no longer fly past any recipe that calls for flour. Now, while my eyes still grow wide and I stop breathing as I read through a recipe containing flour, I read through the recipe. Then I actually make the thing with flour. And my blood pressure still rises and I swear and things go wrong, but all of that to a lesser degree. Most importantly, I sort of understand baking now, why things are rising, falling, spreading, puffing up, become dense, shattering and collapsing at just the right moment, and that was where I wanted to get to with my baking experimentations. I'll continue to bake, perhaps more than ever before, but this year I choose to demystify...

fermentation.

You either got really excited just now or removed this site from your RSS feed. If you're still hovering over the delete button in consideration of the latter, wait for a minute! Sure, you're sort of right to wonder why people want to eat something politely named stinky tofu, and fine, you haven't tried natto but even the sound foreshadows the "no thanks" with which you might refuse it, but you love Morrocan tagine, right? And realize the quoi in its je ne sais quoi is the preserved lemon, right? You order extra pickles on your burger sometimes, and like pickled radishes with your falafel or lime pickle with your curry, yes? And even if none of these apply to you, look up "fermented salsa" in your browser, like right now. Seriously. People are losing their minds over the stuff. You want to get in on that, at least, I know it!

And for those of you who have been meaning to make everything from kimchee to kombucha for ages, we're going to do this right. As with the le sauce baking academy, I promise to research the hell out of the method and the recipes out there so we understand fermentation, but mostly so that we'll end up with the most ridiculously delicious, complex, in-your-face brined delicacies ever.

first taste: hot cocoa in the murry kitchen

Childhood picture books, stories and TV shows that depicted food and dining made a real impression on me. Illustrations of steaming bowls of pasta or a piece of toast smothered in purple jam gave me my first taste of foods I'd yet to try, and are sometimes still the archetypes I hold food up to today. Instead of simply reminisce, I'm going to bring those dishes to life the way I imagined they'd be.

On a dark, stormy night, on her journey to the kitchen from her cold attic room, Meg had time to get down on herself about everything from her mousy appearance, to her IQ level to her recent scrap with bullies at school. This girl needed a drink! She knew it, and decided on hot cocoa. That this was a romantic choice, for a young girl, chilled, a little scared and a lot bummed out, was only part of the appeal to me as I read those opening pages in A Wrinkle in Time. There was also the accepted adult-ness of the whole situation, because who should be heating up milk in anticipation of both Meg and her mother showing up in the kitchen in need of some, but the "baby brother" of the family, Charles Wallace, wise and weirdly intuitive beyond any human's years. He goes on to offer to make Mrs. Murray a liverwurst and cream cheese sandwich and Meg a tomato sandwich but they had me at hot cocoa. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved every page of the popular sci-fi novel and I still do. (I just downloaded the audio book read by the author, Madeline L'Engle herself. There were parts that still scared me when I listened before bed. "There is such a thing as a Tesseract!") But it was the first "scene" hooked me, no question. The idea that you could wake up in the night and have a luxurious snack--that you could dirty a pan at that hour to boil milk for cocoa (how much?? who had cocoa powder at the ready? I'd have to work for months to first explain to my parents that it was the opposite of Nestlé Quick, that no, microwaved chocolate milk would not cut it and then try to source it because there was no way their half-hearted wild goose chase would be successful. And God help me if it was expensive...), and that your family would join you instead of chasing you back to bed yelling about the hour and rising early for school/jobs in the morning--that was fantasy I ate up as much as any other part of the book.

I don't blame my parents for not knowing what hot cocoa really was, how to make it, or how it differed from hot chocolate which was a little more widely known (read: marketed). I had a chalky mug or two of cocoa that I tried to enjoy (read: use to transport me to the Murry's kitchen and their entire messed up, brilliant, multi-time+space-dimensioned adventures). But we can do better today. 

First, on hot cocoa, CHOW notes the same, that while "...hot cocoa is sublime. At its worst, it’s chalky, watery, and too sweet. This version, provided by François Payard, of François Payard Bakery in New York, is definitely in the former category: so creamy, rich, and chocolaty that it’s a suitable stand-in for dessert.

2 tablespoons cocoa powder (such as Weiss)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
Granulated sugar, to taste

Bring chocolate powder, fresh cream, and milk to a boil; stir; and pour in a cup. Add sugar if desired.

Note: For a lighter version, use 1/3 cup fresh cream and 2/3 cup skim milk."

And An Enlightened Palate adds: "Hot cocoa lacks the creaminess and luscious mouthfeel of  a cup of hot chocolate, but it is more concentrated and has a more chocolaty taste...there is less vegetable fat (natural cocoa butter) in the cocoa than there is in shaved chocolate...fat coats the palate and minimizes flavor."

And offers a different method (note the technique):

2 teaspoons dutched cocoa powder ( we prefer dutched process cocoa because we feel that these cocoa powders have a deeper flavor, darker color and a smoother texture that blends flawlessly in hot beverages.)
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons cream, not heated
6 ounces boiling water

Optional: whipped cream or mini marshmallows for garnish

Place the cocoa powder and sugar into a mug and mix well. Add the cream and stir into a smooth paste. Add the boiling water and stir until the mixture is smooth and well blended. Ladle the hot cocoa into a mug and garnish if desired.

And, though this wasn't a contest, there is a winning technique in my mind. An Enlightened Pallette's method resulted in the best cup of cocoa I've ever had--the blend and pour method made for a deliciously creamy cocoa and it came together in seconds with water from a kettle and no pot to stand over. It was perfection with just one tweak that I would add to either recipe...

...a tiny sprinkle of salt.

Charles Wallace probably saw that coming.

...

I thought of Katherine, whose illustrations you've seen here in the past, as soon as I wrote this post. I hoped she would agree to bring Meg and the Murry kitchen to life and I hope you love her illustrations in this piece as much as I do. For more of her delicious illustrations, check out Drawn and Devoured.

...

weekend class: rice paper dumplings with mung bean filling

weekend class = learning a thing or two about cooking and dining well. techniques, ingredients, recipes projects that definitely need to be tackled on the weekend. the result? weekend-class fare, of course.

Well, I should have know when my dough came together with no effort, when the specified mere 1 minute of kneading resulted in the texture I was after, when the rest time was just a quick 5 minutes, that the hard part was to come. Dough-making is never without its anxiety as far as I'm concerned (I may have taught myself the basics of baking last year but it's still doesn't come easily to me). It was the moment I stopped to take a picture of my ready-to-use dough that things went wrong. The dough was ready to use the moment I let air touch it, and a couple of minutes later it was dangerously, if not visibly, a touch too dry. Wetting my hands slightly helped bring it back from the point of no return, but I did let a small piece pass that point. I added more water to it or rather, too much and didn't feel confident about how much flour and starch to add to balance out my mistake, so that piece was a loss. The batch I made by weight was much more successful than when I measured the flours, so, as usual when it comes to flour, weigh if you can. But that's the only warning/advice I have for you. The good news is...

...it's generally really easy to make your own rice flour dough! That idea is ridiculously exciting to me because, first, look how beautiful your homemade dumplings can be, all plump and shiny, slightly translucent and exactly the texture of the best of its kind at dim sum. And then, think of the possibilities. I didn't know where I was headed at first with a slightly denser batch I'd made, but I steamed some unfilled rounds of it anyway and ended up with rice cakes, of course! I froze those for a future soup. I'm going to be brave enough next time to steam a sheet of the dough, making it just a touch wetter so it spreads without rolling, to cut into fresh rice noodles. Can you imagine? My accidents led me to the confidence to try that--it's quite amazing how a little too much air and a little extra water will change the elasticity of this super-glutenous dough drastically.

LS baking academy: the classic cake (génoise)

Here's the thing. The le sauce baking academy started because I can't bake, am/was not a baker, and I wanted to learn. Non-bakers do not own big, powerful stand mixers. They work hard, hand whisking and beating where possible, and borrow electric hand mixers from their aunt when attempting to make a cake. But cake recipes basically warn you that using hand mixers takes, oh, 20x as long as using a stand mixer, so I'll warn you of that as I was warned. I moved a new, strong electric hand mixer diligently across my batter for over 20 minutes and my egg whites still didn't get as stiff as they should have before I gave up, so my cake didn't rise as high as it should have. But it was still light, delicious and the quintessential cake.

A chef friend of mine suggested that I start with génoise when I said I wanted to begin my foray into cakes with the classic version. Provided you have a stand mixer, this recipe couldn't be any easier. Four simple ingredients, the eggs being the only leavener, it could come together in a few, non-exhausting moments. It is still possible to use an electric hand mixer or just your own two arms since cakes were made for a million years before Kitchenaid was born. Just don't give up as easily as I did, and even if you do, you won't be disappointed. In the end, there will still be cake!

If you have more cake experience than me (and that would be all of you), do share your wisdom and tips in the comments, and links to your best recipes on your own blogs. The le sauce baking academy is where we learn to do this together, remember. I'd love to see your best cakes and tips before September 6, when I'll be back with more results from my cake trials and a new and very different cake recipe. If you try this génoise recipe, please let me know how you liked it or better yet, blog about it and leave us the link in the comments so we can see for ourselves.

how (not) to throw a dinner party

 

You read lovely tips all the time on how to throw a better dinner party, advice like having a house cocktail and sending an actual paper invitation. I don't disagree, but before we get to those nice suggestions, there are a lot of other things you need to get right first.

I throw a lot of dinner parties, mostly because I actually want to be at more dinner parties, and along the way, I've had (still have)...hiccups. You might be able to spare yourself some expense by learning from my examples, so I'm sharing them with you--tips on how to throw a dinner party, and also, how not to.

1. Start earlier. Way earlier. I don't know why but on the day of a dinner party, even my tried and true recipes seem to take longer. Maybe I'm paying more attention to how I cut things or trying not to make a mess? I have, honestly, served guests at 10 when I intended to serve them at 8. Actually, I regularly did that in the beginning. So when you're thinking about a workback, give yourself lots of wiggle room.

1-a. A tip connected to the first, do your makeup 1 hour before. No really. Just stop what you're doing and get party-ready. And interpret the rule as necessary. If you don't have makeup to put on, brush your teeth, iron your shirt, spritz your cologne--it's now or never. Someone will arrive early and you will have to grin and answer the door in your pajamas that you never bothered to change out of when you woke up at noon on Saturday and started cleaning and prepping for the party. Maybe. That could happen...to someone.

2. Know your audience. There are friends who don't mind staying until the wee hours of the night, in which case what time you serve dinner is irrelevant. There are others who have a babysitter to relieve at exactly 11pm. Once I hadn't even preheated the oven when a couple told me they had to leave in an hour. Perhaps we could share a little guilt on that one but still, my bad for assuming we could stretch things out. Better to leave the really long lingering until after dinner. Also, it's your lifelong friends that will think it unnecessary to remind you of their peanut allergy or gag-reflex to mushrooms. Think hard when you're menu-planning, especially when "oh, it's just so-and-so coming over...".

3. Don't get drunk until after you serve dinner. I know, duh, but sometimes your liveliest friends start pouring the drinks, including yours, and while you absolutely should have a tipple with them, remember you still have things to do and they don't. It's not a good idea to keep pace with them until your work is pretty much done. I'll tweet you pictures of burns 4, 5 and 7 on my hands and arms if you're still not convinced.

4. Don't forget the other details, and I do all the time. The table looks nice, sure, and this time there's enough ice and a playlist has been set. But an empty vase to receive flowers is a good idea, or you may set them aside until you can deal with them, only to remember them when your generous guest and you spot them wilted and forgotten by the door as they leave at midnight. And your wine glasses are clean and sitting, ready, on your shelf, but did you check them for huge while watermarks? They're there.

5. This last one, thankfully, I feel I deliver on. Spoil your guests. Don't spend beyond your means, but splurge where you can in a way that your guest will be grateful for. If you know your girlfriends really love awesome blue cheese then that's where to be a little generous. I am not dessert-minded so that is often the one thing that I buy instead of made from scratch, since everyone but me has an enormous sweet tooth and will loose their minds when they see treats from Sweet Escapes (though that gets even me excited too).

Got all that? Good. I'll be wait for my invitation, which I assume you'll mail. 

great gadgets: non-gadgets! my go-to kitchen pieces

I wanted to bring you a list of my favourite kitchen tools of late, the gadgets I would actually recommend you buy to make cooking easier and more enjoyable every day. And then I realized that the things I'm reaching for right now are not gadgets at all, but the simplest, most ordinary things. These unsung work horses are so useful that they've all crept forward to the "easy-to-reach/grab" forefront of my kitchen and pantry. Here's why...

Extra-large black*, lightweight cutting board: Having had a small condo kitchen, I was loathe to buy anything big--anything at all--that I didn't really need. But the very large, though sleek and light, cutting board was a smart buy. Even if you don't have a large prep area, I highly suggest covering it all with a cutting surface when you're working. Going from slicing an unwieldily bunch of kale in batches to grating Parmesan that's next to a watery, chopped tomato is made so much easier when your large cutting board gives you room to separate and work with all three at once. There's room to keep your stand-by ingredients ready to be tossed into a pan, and you can even shove some garbage scraps off to a corner. However...

Lightweight (inexpensive!), shallow, non-reactive glass bowls: I do like the idea of having a little bowl beside you to toss your egg shells, onion skins and herb stems into. It's surprising how cutting out four, albeit tiny, trips to the garbage can save time and make your cooking process flow better. These clear bowls from Ikea came with James when we merged households but I use them so much more than he does. They are the perfect depth and width for making a breading station of flour, egg and breadcrumbs, and because they're both surprisingly durable and yet dispensable (let's face it, I'm not worried about breaking one though I never have!), they're great to have stove-side to catch food I need to get out of the fire quickly and they get stacked and shoved aside to be cleaned later when I'm frantically stir-frying. Because they're not metal, they can hold anything acidic for a long time too. I never eat out of them--they're so often used for cooking that I need them at the ready for real work. I'll drink soup out of my lazy, never-worked-a-day-in-their-life, prettier bowls instead.

My microplane grater: You do have one right? I think I remember the day I bought mine. It was life-changing. The best thing to come of it for me will always be the pillowy clouds of parmesan it produces. The kind you pile high on a kale salad like baby clown hair (...what?) or watch sink into a bowl of hot soup. It's not the texture or bite you want for everything but cheese tastes different grated this way and it has it's purpose in our house. Many, actually. And then there's the whole zesting thing. I wouldn't add lemon, lime or orange rind to as many dishes if I had to peel and mince zest, and that would be sad. You want a fine zester and this is the one. It grates garlic, frozen ginger and lemongrass from your freezer, nutmeg and any tough object without a care. Talk about your multi-purpose tool. Keep it clean and dry and it will never rust or become dull. And the long, all-metal kind in the picture is the best. You can rest it carefully over a pot and grate right into your food if you'd like since it's long enough and can handle the heat.

Metal sheet baking trays: You don't bake? I barely did either. But you know what makes a nice serving tray? These things. Sure it's a "look" and it might not fit into every table setting but it's a cute, reliable way to cart out drinks to the backyard or place in the centre of a very casual, family-style meal, ready to receive hot serving platters or pots should you want to serve straight from them. Once lined with parchment (which I prefer for every use, even over Silpats or foil for baking), they are perfect for baking, roasting non-watery vegetables, pizza-making, and even cooling down food too, like that sushi rice that you want to spread out, or the nuts you just roasted. Just don't cut on them. Knife nicks add character but compromise the trays too and you can eventually cut right through them if you try.

Metal dough scraper: Speaking of things you might want in your kitchen even if you don't bake, you will be surprised how attached you get to this. Yes, it's great for scraping dough off your board, but I use it daily to get mountains of food from one place to another in fewer trips and with far fewer spills and splashes. That big cutting board is great but balancing it over a hot stove and trying to get just the kale stems into the pan and not the leaves, sucks. You're also going to drop everything else on the board attempting that trick. This thing is like an extra hand but better since it doesn't have fingers for that minced garlic to slip through. It helps you portion and separate chopped food with precision too, and you can stick it into a wide pan to hold back your food while you drain off liquid. There are probably a bunch of other uses--I find more all the time as we get to know each other. It's always trying to impress me.

LS baking academy: choux pastry (pâte à choux)

Well, we're back to the pastry recipes, here at the le sauce baking academy (my kitchen), so naturally, I started to sweat again. I chose pâte à choux, the puff pastry that is used to make cheese and cream puffs, like profiteroles and éclairs. The ingredient list looks standard: eggs, butter, flour and water. But, being a French pastry recipe, it wasn't without its tortures. I mean techniques.

Ok, it wasn't that bad, but there's this part where you have to add "all the flour at once", which every recipe for choux specifies clearly. Having watched pastry chefs do this, what the recipe should really say is "turn your bowl of flour immediately upside down over your bowl of boiling water and butter, so it gets added all at once, and expect the potential for mess that may come with that especially if you hesitate or your aim sucks". Not to mention the mess that comes when you try to whisk the hell out of a glue-like dough and the wet eggs you're adding to it. It's another one of those French recipes that come complete with a upper arm workout and a test of your self-esteem.

Working with a piping bag for the first time was humbling and stressful. You can see from my less-than-perfect puffs in the first picture that I could use some practice in this area. Yet I bet if I do a YouTube search there will be a video of a 7-year-old Parisian and her petit chat piping les choux perfect apres l'ecole! Well, some of us just started, Marguarite!

But enough about the stumbles! Finalement, there were perfect, light little puffs! Success, albeit it in varying shapes and sizes! And here's the science behind choux: the pastry calls for significantly more water than puff pastry recipes do. The water within steams in the oven, causing the pastry to rise, leaving a little hollow centre ready to accept the filling of your choice.

Once the little puffs come out of the oven, it's a good idea to pierce them so that the steam escapes and doesn't make things soggy and heavy. Make your cuts at the bottom if you are piping filling into the puffs. I poked them on the sides since I was going to be slicing mine to spread a vanilla, pistachio cream into them.

I looked at many a recipe, but before we get to my favourite, a reminder that this is the third installment of the le sauce baking academy! The deal is, I bring a tried and tested recipe and whatever learning I can so that we can bake a particular treat together. But you need to chime in too. If you have tips to share, please do so in the comments here and please link to recipes or trials on your own blog too so we can all check them out. On the first Tuesday of next month (August 2), I will be back with any new choux tests based on your feedback and also, with a savoury choux recipe. I hope to hear from you before then. Thanks!

re-baking: pizza dough (overnight fermentation and whole grain crust)

Hi bakers. Can you believe it's been a month since we tackled pizza dough? Thank you for all of your comments on that post. I was surprised and happy with how easy it was, but I didn't stop with that initial success. I did some more reading and as with bread dough, it's widely believed that the secret to better pizza dough is a long (24+ hour rise). The New York Times writes about it, and if the Gray Lady believes, I had reason to believe.

The result? Not as impressive as I'd expected. Perhaps my 24-hour dough was a little easier to work with, and maybe a little more impressive in terms of a golden crust that shatters at the edges. But in terms of flavour, I can't say I noticed a significant difference. Maybe I need to do a side-by-side test to be sure. But I would say that the dough in my last post is just as delicious after 2 hours as it is after a day.

Then it was on to whole grain crusts, and I was going to attempt a half-and-half whole wheat to white flour ratio, or maybe get crazy and make a spelt crust. And then I found a wonderful recipe on Heidi Swanson's site, 101cookbooks.com. Who knew white whole wheat--a white, whole grain wheat--existed? Heidi, of course. I became obsessed with making this whole grain pizza. I went to many stores to source this very special flour. And failed. Yes, therefore I have no whole grain crust to report on. But I will not give up. I will find this flour and when I do, you will hear about it. Until then, feel free to leave me your favourite whole grain recipe links or suggestions on the original post. If you have a tried-and-true crust you love, I need to try it. Thanks!

summer potluck strategy

Aren't picnics and barbecues awesome? If you live in the north-east like me, you probably cherish the few weekends a year when it's warm enough to plan to eat copious amounts of food outside with everyone you know. And the fact that most of these gatherings are potlucks, with everyone signing up to bring something snackish, sweet, savoury or boozy, makes it even easier to extend the guest list. But it's all of these unique circumstances that make the summer potluck different than, say, bringing a pie to Thanksgiving or some cheese and crackers to a wintery holiday fête. Food that needs to stay outside for hours, feed friends of friends you've never met who may have dietary restrictions, and be made in triple the quantity than you're used to making for your family parties takes some thought. Even...

strategy!

Maybe you already have yours down, but in case it helps, I thought I'd share my summer potluck strategy and suggestions.

1. Simple. You want simple. While you might be trying out a fun new recipe, this probably isn't the time to try the one that calls for 20 ingredients, unless you happen to have all 20 in your house. Opt for things that will cook quickly too, since you may have to prep and cook ingredients in batches and you don't necessarily have time to triple your cooking time just because you're tripling the recipe. 
2. While you're still narrowing your choices, consider all of the special circumstances and any restrictions. How are you going to transport those from-scratch ice cream sandwiches (you are SO going to be the hero of the picnic)? Can what your making stand the hot sun all day, safely, or is there a way to keep it on ice? Is everything you need in season right now? And something I keep learning the hard way: more people than you think might not be able to eat nuts, not just those with nut allergies but nursing women and very young kids might be staying away too. Lastly, don't forget the context. If the affair is super casual, save your delicious but slightly fussy-to-eat specialties for another time.
3. Plan it out which starts with reading and scaling the recipe fully so that it meets your needs. This is a situation where many of us seek out a new recipe and already we're messing with it--tripling it, maybe making substitutions and hoping for success our first time. Read it so there are no surprises and so you can think through what you might not need to double or triple. You might want to increase the salt gradually and taste as you go instead of multiplying what's called for. You might need a lot more oil, and time, to fry double the amount of eggplant, etc.
4. Buy, wash and prepare as much as you can the day before, to give yourself as little to do on the day of as possible. Some exceptions: you don't want to wash berries any earlier than you have to, nor toss a delicate salad in dressing, and raw garlic that sits in a marinade overnight, unless it's supposed to, may overpower everything else by the time you are ready to use it. But you can certainly cook most sauces the night before and you can get all of your containers and serving pieces washed and ready to go. It never hurts to write a list* of everything you need to bring too, like any additional condiments or garnishes for your dish. (*I know. Nerd alert.)
5. Bring it all together. It's game day, you're done cooking early, everything is packed and you? You look great. How did you have time to do your hair like that? You should congratulate yourself, pour a drink and sit, smugly, while your partner runs around looking for a pair of shorts to wear that he doesn't have to iron. Or...

...your reality will look like mine always does and you will be very, very late to this summer blow-out, despite all of these noble efforts. You'll arrived looking rushed, mascara on only one eye since you stopped mid-task when you realized you'd forgotten to put your contact lenses in first. You'll try ignoring that new oven burn on your left elbow and wonder why you thought it would be a good idea to bring cream puffs to a barbeque when you hate to bake--yet you'll yell at James for asking out loud what you were just thinking.

Still, you know that the reason your parents and aunties are so good at pulling this off is that they have a lot more practice at it than you. The strategy is still a good one and you'll get better at executing it each summer.

happy canada day and happy 4th of july, everyone! have a fun, delicious long weekend. 

asparagus mimosa

You know why else French people don't get fat? Because they invent recipes wherein you fight with eggs. They look small but they're tough and it's always a toss up who'll win. I've whisked egg whites into peaks that make it through soufflé-ing, and for this dish I just pushed two hard-boiled eggs through a fine mesh strainer. Which, although not complicated, is a not bad workout for the bicep of your dominent arm.

I'm not complaining about the effort it takes to make "couscous-like" eggs, as James put it, for asparagus mimosa. These eggs are light as air after being sieved and I love the French for simultaneously elevating two ingredients in one simple, classic dish.

You just boil some asparagus for about 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to an ice bath. Then add two room-temperature eggs to the boiling water for 10 minutes, and meanwhile, drain and pat the asparagus stalks dry. You'll also have time to mince half a shallot, add it, salt, pepper and a dollop of dijon mustard to a healthy glug of white wine vinegar (a tarragon vinegar is traditional in this case, but you could also muddle some fresh tarragon into your dressing) and then stream in a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil while you whisk. Taste and adjust your French vinaigrette and drizzle half of it evenly over the stalks. Dunk your eggs in the ice water when they're done, peel and pass through a sieve (focus on how pretty they look when you start to curse, about 30 seconds into this process.) Then season them, sprinkle them across the asparagus and pour the remaining dressing on top.

This kind of thing is the very definition of lunch, don't you think? I pondered that as I enjoyed this lovely meal, as well as how to work only my left bicep after attempting these French recipes. I've decided to learn to open wine bottles with my weaker arm. That'll balance things out in no time.