A cooking school after my own heart

Today a friend of mine called to tell me about a place called Culture Kitchen. It’s a cooking school in San Francisco where people go to learn not only the meal but the culture behind a dish, all taught by people who originally come from that place of the world. They are not professionals, it’s not fancy. It’s a place to share food, culture and foster relationships.

Read the NPR article about it. Go to their site.

Beef in Thai Green Curry

Yesterday I found in Whole Foods that the red and green curry pastes were on sale and I also got some dry lemongrass. So today, continuing with my project of making new Thai dishes, a beef one. I modified this from a recipe that calls for chicken.

BEEF IN THAI GREEN CURRY

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 white onion, chopped (one whole one if it’s small)
• 3 heaping teaspoons green curry paste
• 1 can coconut milk
• 3/4 c water
• 1 lb beef (I used steak so it would be soft), cut up in pieces of about one inch by 1/2 inch
• 6 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 tablespoon nam-pla (fish sauce)
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 teaspoon lime zest, finely shredded
• 1 level tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Prep:

• Heat the oil  in a wok or large pan. Add the onions and green curry paste and cook for about a minute
• Add the water and coconut milk and bring to a boil.
• Add the beef and the kaffir lime leaves. Mix and lower the temperature to low. Cook, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes, or until the meat is tender.
• Turn off.
• Add the nam-pla, the lime juice, sugar and shredded lime zest. Mix well. Sprinkle with the cilantro leaves and serve over steamed rice.

Notes:

I didn’t have kaffir lime leaves, so I added a little more of the shredded lime zest. It did the trick. The original recipe says to also add 1/2 c green beans. I didn’t have any, so I didn’t add them, but you could.

Flan

This is the first dessert I ever made. It was ages ago, while I was in high school. My maternal grandma had a huge double boiler/steamer pot that I learned to do it in and I fell in love with how simple, yet versatile the recipe is. You can put fruit in it, and the version with shredded coconut was a favorite of my grandpa (on my mother’s side). Today’s version doesn’t have coconut, since I didn’t have any freshly shredded one, but you can always add it.

FLAN

Ingredients:

• One can condensed milk
• One can evaporated milk
• 3 eggs
• drop of vanilla (optional)
• 2 tbsp sugar (for caramel)
• One peeled and sliced apple, peach or pear, or 2/3 c shredded coconut (optional)

Prep:

• In a bowl, mix both milks, eggs and vanilla, if using.
• If using a metal mold, melt the sugar over low heat until it caramelizes. Remove from heat before it’s completely deep in amber color (remember the sugar will keep on caramelizing, so if you wait too much, you’ll burn the caramel) and move the mold so the sugar coats it as it cools.
• (If using a pyrex, melt the sugar in a heavy pot and transfer quickly to avoid the caramel cooling and sticking to the pot).
• If using a steaming pot on a stove: Place the pyrex or metal mold with the caramel sugar in the shallow side of the pot. Add the custard mixture. Pour lukewarm water into the pot (careful to not spill water into the custard mixture). Bring to a slow rolling boil, reduce the flame to medium-low and cover with the deep part of the steaming pot. Cook for about 45 minutes to an hour or until a knife inserted into the flan comes out clean. Careful when opening the pot, as the steam may burn you. Also, check that the water doesn’t run out, or your flan will burn. If water is running low (check about half way through the cooking process), add some more lukewarm water to the pot.

• If cooking in the oven: Heat oven to 350F. Place the mold with the caramel in a bigger pyrex/metal container. Add the custard mix to the mold and the lukewarm water to the bigger pyrex. Cover lightly with foil and bake in the middle rack until the custard sets (same test with the knife). 45-50 minutes. As with the steamer, check that the water doesn’t dry out.
• Once the custard sets, remove it from the oven/stove and let it cool completely. Run a knife over the edges to release it, shake it lightly to make sure it’s free, invert a plate over the mold and carefully but quickly flip the mold onto the plate. If you have caramel stuck to the mold, add a little water and heat it lightly until it comes off and you can pour it on the flan.

Chill and enjoy.

Full disclosure: I don’t like the oven method. I haven’t done flan in years because of it. Since I now have received a steamer pot gift from grandma, I am back in the flan business. This means, then, you may have to tinker with the times and temperature of the oven cooking option. I have seen this method on cookbooks, but like I said, I did not like the results (it came out too hard, I like my flans fluffy).

Today I tried to make this lower on sugar by using less on the caramelizing part. Next up I will try to make it even lighter by using light milk mixtures.

Cheese-making kit giveaway by Savory Simple

One of the delicious cooking blogs I follow has a monthly food giveaway. This month is a cheese-making kit. And while I know that inviting you to enter lowers my odds, I think it’s a great giveaway and a great blog, so go, go, go!

The search for the perfect Pad Thai Recipe

My mom once remarked that she must have been Thai in another life because she loves their food and culture so much. If that was the case, I certainly was her daughter back then too, as Thai food is high up in my ranking, probably right after Mexican and Peruvian. This being the case, I have been in search of the perfect Pad Thai recipe, one that would give me the closest at-home-results to the stuff you get at your favorite Thai place (in my case it’s Bangkok Cuisine in Austin, TX).

So, I searched and searched and nothing. Then came the January Issue of Bon Appetit** and in it a special for Thai food, including Pad Thai. I couldn’t get my hands on tamarind paste the first time I tried the recipe and substituting it proved fatal. It is key to the final flavor of the dish. Last night I went for round two, since I now had the tamarind paste. With my own little tweaks (double the sauce, one extra egg, no radish, cilantro)…it was perfection, and I knew I had found my recipe.

PERFECT PAD THAI

Yield: 3-4 servings

Ingredients

• 8 ounces pad thai rice noodles
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 6 medium shrimp, peeled, deveined (double on shrimp if you are not using tofu)
• 2 tablespoons 1×1/2×1/8″ slices pressed tofu
• 1.5 cups bean sprouts
• 2 teaspoons tamarind paste mixed with 5 tablespoons water
• 3 tablespoons  Thai fish sauce (the Thai version is called nam pla)
• 3 tablespoons simple syrup
• 8 chives, cut into 1/2″ pieces
• 1/2 teaspoons ground dried Thai chiles (substitute with Mexican dry chiles de árbol if you don’t have Thai ones)
• 2 tablespoons crushed roasted, unsalted peanuts
• 2 lime wedges
• chopped cilantro leaves, to taste

Prep:

• In a small bowl, mix the tamarind paste, simple syrup and fish sauce
• Heat water in a large pot and when warm, turn off heat and add noodles, making sure they are submerged. Let them soak until soft but not mushy, about 10 mins. Strain and set aside.
• Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a wok or large pan over medium-high heat. Add eggs and cook for about 30 seconds. Add shrimp and cook, stirring, until shrimp and egg are almost cooked through, 2–3 minutes. Remember that over-cooked shrimp are rubbery, so don’t overdo it.
• Add the tofu if you are using it. Cook for 30 seconds.
• Add the noodles and cook for one minute and then add the tamarind paste mix. Mix and stir-fry until the noodles are well-coated and have absorbed the sauce, about one minute.
• Add the chives, chiles and 1/2 of the peanuts, mix well and serve.
• Sprinkle with the rest of the peanuts and the cilantro leaves. Sprinkle with lime before eating.

‘xcuse the photo quality. I got wrapped-up in the cooking I didn’t take any “steps” photos, and then I was so hungry I almost forgot to take the picture of the final result, so this is an iPhone one.

NOTES

When I don’t have Thai chiles, I use Mexican dried chiles de árbol, which is what I did last night, about 1 and 1 and 1/2, with most seeds discarded.

I am a big fan of doing mise-en-place, getting all the stuff ready and chopped beforehand. In Thai food, this is key, as once you start cooking, things move fast. Hence my thing of mixing all the sauce ingredients ahead of time.

The magazine recipe called for sweet radish but I didn’t find any, so I skipped it. Loved the recipe as is, but of course will put it in if I ever find it to see what the changes are.

**You may have noticed, many of my posts are about stuff I cook from BA, most of the time with modifications. I try to cook at least one thing per month from the magazine.

Simple Syrup

My next entry calls for simple syrup, also called sugar syrup, and in case you don’t know how to make it, here it is. As you can see here in the epicurious dictionary, there are three types: thin, medium, and heavy, all depending on how thick and sugary you want it. For the Pad Thai recipe, I used the “heavy” version: Equal parts sugar and water.

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water

Prep:

• Heat water in a one-quart pan. Add the sugar and dissolve. Bring to a boil, stirring every once in a while.
• Once it’s boiled, remove from heat and let cool. Transfer to jar or tupperware and cover. It can be stored in the fridge for up to 6 months.

Blueberry upside-down cake

Back in August I wrote about a cake that came out just like the picture in the magazine (at least in the dough part), but I didn’t have a way to upload the images. I finally found them, so here’s the report. The original recipe is a Blackberry Buttermilk Cake from Bon Appetit. I followed it almost to a T, with the exception of the berries and the sugar quantities for the topping of the berries. I found that 1/4 cup was too much sugar, so I just eyeballed it, using less than 1/4, but certainly more than 1/8.

BLUEBERRY UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan and parchment
• 2 1/3 cups cake flour (sifted, then measured) plus more for pan
• 2 cups fresh blueberries
• about 1/4 cup sugar for coating the berries in the pan, PLUS
• 1 1/3 cups sugar for the batter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest
• 1 cup buttermilk*
• Powdered sugar (for dusting the finished cake)

You will need a 9 or 10 inch springform pan for this recipe

Prep:

• Preheat oven to 350°. Butter pan; line bottom with a round of parchment paper*. Butter parchment. Dust with flour; tap out excess.

• Arrange berries in a single layer in bottom of pan; sprinkle evenly with a little less than 1/4 cup sugar.

• Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a medium bowl; using a sifter. Set aside.
• With an electric mixer, beat 3/4 cup butter and 1 1/3 cups sugar in a large bowl at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and zest. Reduce speed to low and add the flour slowly, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating just until blended. The batter will be thick. Pour batter over berries in pan; smooth top.

• Bake until cake is golden brown and/or a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour 25 minutes for a 9″ pan and about 1 hour for a 10″ pan.

• Let cool in pan for about 15 minutes, then run a thin, sharp knife around the edge of the pan to loosen. Remove pan sides. Invert cake onto rack and remove pan bottom; peel off parchment.

• Let it cool completely and then dust the top with powdered sugar. I find that dusting after complete cooling allows for the sugar to stand out. If you dust too soon, the powder sugar will melt and there won’t be any white effect on top of the berries.

NOTES:

If you don’t have buttermilk, use regular milk and add, per each cup of milk, one spoonful of vinegar and stir. You will get buttermilk.

As evidenced by my substitution, I’m pretty sure this recipe works well with pretty much any berry. Substitute away!

To get the parchment lining to fit the pan, cut a square of parchment , the size of the pan and fold in four. Take the bottom of the springform pan and place the folded parchment, with the folded corner in the center of the circle. This will leave you with part of the parchment flowing over bottom. Using a pen or pencil mark that edge, then cut it off with scissors.  WHen you open the square, you will have a circle that perfectly fits the pan.