Candy!

Not much cooking for the month of March, I guess 'cause I've been traveling and eating out a lot. Right before my last trip to Toronto though, I decided to make some candy to bring to my coworkers over there. After all, I bring stuff to my Sunnyvale coworkers all the time, so it's nice to be able to share some with the faraway guys.

I have brought some peanut brittle before, but this time, I decided to make bacon brittle! I have made this before and it turned out alright, but this was probably the best batch I've made so far. The last time I made it, I just used one of the bacon brittle recipes I found online. This time though, I used this recipe for peanut brittle from Epicurious. This recipe has always yielded really great peanut brittle for me in the past so I figured it would be a better base than the other recipes. To make it "bacon-pecan brittle, I substituted 1 pound of bacon (which I then cut up and cooked separately) and 2 cups of toasted pecans for the 4 cups of peanuts. I also added a bit more salt since the pecans are unsalted. This made the "brittle" part a bit saltier and more savory. Then instead of heating it up to 295F as in the recipe I let it go over 300F for quite a bit, reaching even up to 310. This made it extremely brittle and not as sticky. I think I've definitely found my go-to recipe for bacon brittle!

For the fudge, I used this old standby recipe, also from Epicurious. It's not quite authentic and doesn't involve the endless stirring, but it's easy enough and I really love the deep chocolate flavor (the extra boost comes from the espresso powder)! I made 2 versions, one version with nuts and one without nuts, but I think the one with nuts is much better, since the salty walnuts help cut through the sweetness of the chocolate.

My suitcase looked pretty funny, with the big zip-loc containers of fudge and brittle on it, but it was worth it, as they were very well-received. I do enjoy cooking for other people and making them happy, so it's quite a rewarding pastime despite the work that goes into it.

Bœuf Bourguignon for two

After trying Julia Child's coq au vin recipe, I was looking forward to trying her Bœuf Bourguignon. We've made "Beef Burgundy" a couple times before, using the recipe from America's Test Kitchen's "The Best Recipe" book. We've had that cookbook for years, and has never failed to give us the best recipes for all sorts of dishes from Thanksgiving turkey to chocolate chip cookies. However, for French cooking, Julia Child is still the queen! Both her Coq au Vin and Bœuf Bourguignon are a bit more complicated than the America's Test Kitchen version, but the flavors are so much better and more complex. Maybe it's all the extra butter. =)

When we made the previous version, we made it for large parties, so we used a whole brisket roast. This time, we used lean stewing meat which was recommended by the recipe, and it was much cheaper and had less fat. I guess it didn't matter that it was cheapo stewing meat since it got tender anyway after cooking for over two hours. Since it was just me and Uly eating, we cut the recipe in half and there was more than enough to even have a third portion for Uly to eat the next day. It was a good time for us to finally try the Le Creuset 2-quart dutch oven that we got on sale months ago but was backordered at the store. It's the perfect size for two!



For sides, we kept them pretty simple, since we had such a flavorful sauce. Like our coq au vin, we stuck to the boiled potatoes, which soaked up the sauce really well. We also had some baguette on the side to have with some butter and also to sop up the remaining sauce. I've had baguette from Safeway, TJ's, Acme, and I still think that Lee's (of the Vietnamese sandwiches) has the best baguette!



Our usual standby wine for braising is the Réserve Perrin Côtes du Rhône ($6.99 at Trader Joe's), which is actually drinkable and has produced some great sauces for us. However, this time we wanted to use a real Burgundy, so we got a similarly priced real French Burgundy from Trader Joe's. When I tried out a sip of it, it was pretty horrible, and I was worried that it would produce a weak sauce, but it actually wound up working pretty well. Unlike the Côtes du Rhône however, we just couldn't bring ourselves to drink the leftovers, so I just froze the rest in an ice-cube tray to make pan sauces and such.

For our drinking wine, we didn't have any French Burgundy in our cellar, but we had quite a bunch of California Pinot Noirs. When we visited Merry Edwards in Sonoma last December, I remember their wines being extremely full-bodied for a Pinot, and since our bottle was pretty young too, I figured they could stand up to the beef. We had a couple of single-vineyard bottles from them, and wound up opening the Merry Edwards "Meredith Estate" Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2007. As we expected, it was full-bodied enough to stand up to the beef and sauce, and went perfectly with our meal.

Since my diet started, I haven't really been able to indulge in one of my favorite foods, cheese! I've convinced myself to not buy any until my first shipment from the cheese club that Uly got me for Christmas. However, my shipment kept getting delayed and I actually have hardly had any cheese in 2010. When I saw the notification from Milk Pail that they had French soft cheeses on sale, I couldn't resist picking up the one cheese I haven't tried before, Fougerus. It was nice and ripe, more similar to Pont-l'Évêque than Brillat Savarin in texture, so it's not as creamy but it has a nice flavor. The parts near the rind have a nice musky aroma to them (or as Uly would say..."feet smell", but I actually quite like stinky cheeses so I enjoyed this one a lot. At least I don't feel so bad since I only had one cheese. Hopefully I can have more again once the diet is over!

Valentine's Day Feast

Since we had a blast cooking our V-day dinner last year, we thought we would do it again this year. Not only do we get to spend time together, but it's a really great excuse to get some high-ticket items for dinner. Last year, we got some fresh truffle for Osso Buco, this year it's Kobe beef!

We've ordered from 1-800-kobebeef.com before (seriously, that's the name of the site), and were very happy with their A5 Japanese Kobe beef. Previously we've cooked it sous-vide to make sure it's perfectly rare. This time however, since the steak we got this time was a bit thinner, we were worried we might overcook it with the final searing if it started off already a bit cooked. Also, since we got the steak a few days early, we decided to "dry-age" it a bit more, to give it a better crust. Kobe beef needs no embellishment at all, so Uly just threw it on the grill for about a minute on each side. When you've got beef this good, no sense covering it up in sauce, or even salt and pepper for that matter. The end result was a nice crust on the outside and nice juicy fattiness on the inside. I do think sous-vide would be a better choice for a thicker steak, since it cooks more evenly, but this piece of beef still puts other steaks to shame.



For our sides, we needed something worthy of the steak. I decided to reprise my truffle mac & cheese since it was so tasty the last time I made it. Having both the truffle oil and the jarred black truffles really made a difference in the flavor, fresh truffle would have been wasted since the dish was going into the oven anyway. For our vegetable, we sauteed some swiss chard, loosely based on this recipe from Epicurious, but using shallots instead of the onions.




We had a special steak, so it definitely needed as special wine to go with it. We had gone to Ridge for a Monte Bello tasting the day before, and were very tempted to open the half-bottle of 1987 vintage Monte Bello for dinner. However, we decided a half-bottle wasn't enough, and we wanted something younger to go with the meat. We then opened a 1999 Monte Bello that Uly bought a while back. At a little over 10 years, it had enough complexity to suit our sophisticated meal, but still had enough tannins and bite to stand up to all the rich food. I think we'll probably just drink the '87 with some cheese.

Since the Kobe was so rich, and we didn't want to be spoiled by eating something beforehand, we decided to skip the appetizers altogether. For dessert, we still had some leftover Kara's cupcakes from the package I sent him last Friday, so we just decided to have those instead. Saved me the trouble at least of having to run into the kitchen after dinner and so we just got to sit and enjoy our wine for a while. Once we were done, we just had a nice sherry to go with our cupcakes. We may have had some big-ticket ingredients, but at least the effort was not...it actually only took us a little over an hour to prepare everything.

Counting both the food and the wine, we actually spent more on this dinner than we did at Commis the night before, but it was well worth it. What better way to spend Valentine's day than to cook and eat great food, and drink great wine with the one you love.


Thanks babe for the flowers...they were gorgeous! :)

Coq Au Vin

I've made coq au vin a couple times before. The first time I used the recipe from America's Test Kitchen's "The Best Recipe" cookbook, and I was very pleased with it. I also tried to make "coq au riesling" using riesling instead of red wine, and I thought that was very good as well. But I realized that I have not made a "true" coq au vin until I tried Julia Child's recipe just yesterday.

Having watched "Julie and Julia" recently, I decided to purchase Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My cousin Sara had tried the coq au vin from this book and swears by it, so I figured it was a good recipe to try on a cold winter weekend. Of course, given that I'm still on a diet, I figured that a this dish would be a bit better (just a tad) than others I could try. I'm sure the copious amounts of butter helped negate most of that, but at least I'm braising chicken instead of beef or lamb.

I have to admit, Julia's recipe is a lot more involved than the other recipes I've tried. It required braising the onions and sautéing the mushrooms separately. But I also get to do fun stuff like flambé some cognac on top of the chicken. It was a lot of work, but I firmly believe that it was all worth it, and this was the best coq au vin that I've ever made. I'm glad that I tried the first two recipes, since it gave me more skills and experience to attempt this more complicated recipes. It also led me to more deeply appreciate the perfection of this one.

Since the coq au vin itself already had a lot of calories, I figure I'd save myself a bit of points and trouble by having a simple side of boiled potatoes. We just peeled and boiled some small golden potatoes and served them alongside the coq au vin. I found that I actually prefer this side than the buttered egg noodles that I used to have. The soft potatoes readily absorbed the gravy-like sauce, and since the sauce was already so rich, it did not need the additional butter or cream that is usually added to mashed potatoes. It did its job, which was to let the main dish shine, and give me some carbs that I was bound to crave. We also had some fresh French bread to help sop up the sauce, and some French butter that I bought from Milk Pail a while back.

For wines, I stuck to the Rhône region both for my cooking wine and the bottle we drank with it. For the sauce, I used my good old standby for braises, a $6.99 Perrin Côtes du Rhône from Trader Joe's. This wine is the perfect wine for cooking...it's cheap, so I don't feel like I'm "wasting" a good bottle, but drinkable (unlike 2-buck Chuck). It's not terribly refined or complex when drinking, but the blend of grapes adds complexity to the sauce. Of course it also helps that almost all Rhône wines I've drunk have been incredibly food-friendly, and go excellently with poultry.

For our drinking wine, we stayed in the same region, and drank a Clos de L'Oratoire Des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2006. Since it was from the same wine region and used the same grape varietals, it went perfectly with the wine sauce of the coq au vin. Of course, as a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, this has distinctly higher quality than our cooking wine. It was a bargain from Costco (sadly never to be seen again), and it was the perfect match to this meal.

This dish is definitely more "rustic" in appearance and presentation than some other French dishes that I've made, but it is definitely not lacking in flavor. I'm very much looking forward to trying Julia's other recipes!


Getting ready to flambé the cognac


The finished product


Clos de L'Oratoire Des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2006


Table presentation