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

Tilapia with Orange-Parsley salsa

Given that I'm on a diet right now (damn you holiday eating), I guess there will be a lot of postings about fish. We've been looking through our Cooking Light magazines and trying out some of the dishes...many of these "light" recipes are actually pretty tasty.

Last week, we made tilapia with orange salsa. It's pretty simple, just a quick sear on the tilapia, and top it with chopped oranges mixed with parsley and olive oil. Our steamed jasmine rice is also flavored with a bit of the juice from the orange and more parsley. As an additional side, we stir-fried some baby bok choy, which wound up going really well with the tilapia.

Hopefully, some of the other Cooking Light recipes turn out just as well.


Stir-fried bok choy with garlic and scallions


Plate with tilapia, rice, and bok choy

French seafood dinner - 1/9/10

Since I had a wonderful dish of steamed mussels at the Fig Cafe late December, I couldn't get it out of my head and I've been wanting to replicate it since. Uly and I decided to go to Marina Food, our local Asian supermarket but unfortunately, they were all out of mussels. Good thing we decided to check out 99 Ranch, which was a slightly farther drive, but they happened to have some black mussels in stock!

Uly didn't really want to have just the mussels for dinner, so we also decided to also get some fish at the market. Having just watched Julie and Julia the day before, I was inspired to make some Sole Meunière, the dish that started Julia Child's love of French Food. Having looked at several recipes online, the technique seems pretty similar among all of them: dredge the fish in flour, cook them in butter, then after the fish is done, add more butter and brown it in the pan, finishing with some lemon juice. Pour the sauce over the fillets and garnish with chopped parsley and lemon slices, and voila, Sole Meunière! It was super good, maybe 'cause it tastes like buttah... :)

Continuing on the Julia Child theme, I decided to make a lighter version of Moules Marinière, based on her recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, all I did was remove the butter (Ah, the sacrilege! Julia probably rolled over in her grave) However, since I'm on a diet and the butter wasn't central to this dish as it was on the Sole Meunière, I figured we could go without it this time. After all, some of the other internet recipes I saw don't have it, and I don't think the Fig Cafe had it for their dish and that was still good. Anyway, it was the wine that was the main flavor component of this dish. This dish still wound up really tasty, and I did not miss the butter at all. Good thing we bought a whole bunch of mussels...I wound up eating a sh*tload of them (so much for diet), but at least I finally satisfied my craving!

For our sides, we had some steamed jasmine rice with scallions, and some sauteed Brussels sprouts. The Brussels sprouts were also inspired by our meal in Sonoma, and I have to say it's turning out to be one of my favorite vegetables. I just like the slight bitterness that it has, and it's a very hearty and filling vegetable.

For the wine, we figure keep going with the French theme and opened a bottle of La doucette Pouilly-Fumé 2005 that Uly got from work (Thank you Keith Richards for your always excellent taste in French wines!) This wine is from the Loire region of France, just across the river from Sancerre. The grape used is Sauvignon Blanc, so it is a great match for fish and shellfish.



Here are some more pictures from our seafood dinner:


Moules Marinière


Sole Meunière


Brussels sprouts

Happy New Year!

Well, this is my first post of the new year, and of course, it's gotta be about my New Year's Eve party! This was probably my first big "fancy" party since my 30th birthday, and I'm glad it was a success.

Since this was a cocktail rather than a dinner party, we just had a bunch of finger food that would go with champagne. We had several different appetizers:



Smoked salmon wraps - These were great "make-ahead" appetizers that were super-easy to make! Uly's mom showed us how to make turkey wraps before, and these were just a variation of that, using smoked salmon as the main protein and putting herbs with the cream cheese. It went perfectly with the bubbly!



Mini-quiches - I cheated a bit on these since these were actually store-bought from Costco. I just wanted to have another appetizer that didn't require too much work on my part, plus it provided a vegetarian option. The meat ones had bacon and cheese, while the veggie ones had spinach and cheese.


Left: spinach/cheese quiches, right: bacon/cheese quiches

Gougeres - I made these once using a recipe from America's Test Kitchen, but they wound up hard and looking like little turds. This time, I used Alain Ducasse's recipe, which turned out great! I was even able to make them ahead and freeze them (made them a week before the party). All I had to do for the party was heat it up for 5 minutes and they were done! I wound up making a few batches to make sure people can enjoy them while hot, which is when they taste the best.


Dates stuffed with blue cheese - This was another old party standby. I first learned to make this at one of Nick and Jinglan's parties, and Jinglan showed me where to find the recipe on Epicurious. I've made it with Parmesan before, but found out that I prefer it with blue cheese, as I've had it at Bar Tartine. For the vegetarians, I left it plain, but the meat-eaters get to eat it the way it's meant to be eaten...wrapped in bacon (everything is better with bacon)! I've used the thick-cut bacon before but it took too long to cook, I used the thin-cut bacon this time and it works much better.


Left: dates stuffed with Point Reyes blue cheese, right: wrapped in bacon

Crab puffs - This was actually Uly's invention. He took our regular crab cake recipe from our America's Test Kitchen cookbook and made them bite-sized. He made them into little balls, and instead of regular breadcrumbs he used panko to give them some added crunch and volume. He made these the day before, and we just fried batches throughout the night.

Lumpia - My mom made this and she's definitely perfected her recipe. She uses ground pork with some water chestnuts, carrots, and seasoning, and wraps them in spring roll wrapper. These are extremely labor-intensive, but they taste sooo good that they're really worth it. She made these in advance too so all we had to do was deep-fry them. They were so good the vegetarians actually ate (and liked) them!

Foreground: crab puffs, background: lumpia

Foie gras terrine - I usually prefer seared foie gras, but that's just too complicated to prepare for a large party, given that you have to sear each serving one at a time. Because this was a larger party, I did a terrine, using the recipe from my foie gras source in Sonoma. The terrine can freeze for months, I actually made this a few weeks earlier when I bought the foie, and just defrosted it for the party. While we were in Sonoma, we picked up some fig spread, which actually went really well with the foie.



Caviar torte - This is another recipe I "stole" from someone else's party. Brian and Rita made this great torte at their champagne party, and I just had to have it again since it goes so well with champagne. We just used the "cheapo" lumpfish caviar from Ikea for this one, saving the good stuff just to eat by itself. I think the stronger, more salty flavor of the lumpfish can stand up to the rest of the torte, Osetra would just be too subtle for this dish.


Cheese platter - but of course, what's an Arlene party without some queso! We had five different cheeses that had very different characters, but all paired well with champagne. For soft cheeses, we had Brillat-Savarin with cranberries (perfect for the holiday), La Corte (similar to La Tur, this is an Italian soft cheese made with cow/sheep/goat's milk), fresh Chèvre (goat cheese), some English Cheddar, and Aged Gouda. To go with the cheese, we had some marcona almonds, honey, baguette, and cranberry-walnut bread.



We had a few different desserts to satisfy the sweet tooth (this way we can keep going back and forth between sweet and savory dishes)!


Bacon brittle - I tried a couple different recipes, the first one was too sticky though, so I wound up going back to my regular peanut brittle recipe and using bacon and pecans instead. I was worried it would be gross, but it wound up great! I guess everything is definitely better with bacon!

White chocolate bark - I made these for Uly since he doesn't like either chocolate or brittle. These are really great for the holidays since they're so festive and colorful. I used El Ray bulk white chocolate this time which turned out great!

And of course, the piece de resistance...a chocolate fountain! I've always wanted one of these, and New Year's Eve seemed like a great excuse to get one. I pretty much went store-bought for most of the dippers since I already had so many other dishes to make, but they turned out great. We had marshmallows, strawberries, pound cake (Sara Lee), cream puffs (from Costco), shortbread cookies (Leah made these), and pretzels. I only wish I set it up earlier so we had more time to enjoy the chocolatey goodness!

We wound up having 18 bottles of champagne/sparkling wine! It was a good thing we had a bunch of bubbly in stock, and a lot of people brought some more. We also had an assortment of nonalcoholic bubbly for the non-drinkers and designated drivers.

Left: Champagne/sparkling wine, right: nonalcoholic bubbly

From our cellar:
- Delamotte Brut NV (Champagne, France)
- Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin Brut NV (Champagne, France)
- Westport Rivers Westport Brut 2003 (sparkling wine, New England)
- Iron Horse Classic Vintage Brut 2004 (sparkling wine, California)
- Peller Estates Ice Cuvee NV (dosed with ice wine, Canada)
- Bugey-Cerdon (sparkling rosé wine, France)
- Roederer Estate Brut NV (sparkling wine, California)
- Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut (sparkling wine, California)
- Segura Viudas Brut Reserva NV (magnum, Cava, Spain)
- Lorina Sparkling Pink Lemonade (nonalcoholic sparkling soda, France)
- Sonoma Sparklers Raspberry (nonalcoholic sparkling soda, California)
- Sun Tropics Sparkling Calamansi (nonalcoholic sparkling soda, California)

From our guests:
- Veuve Cliquot Brut x 2 (Champagne, France)
- Moet et Chandon Imperial x 2 (Champagne, France)
- Robert Hunter Brut De Noirs 2000 (sparkling wine, California)
- Mumm Napa Brut Prestige NV (sparkling wine, California)
- Nicholas Feuillatte NV (Champagne, France)
- Schramsberg Blancs de blancs 2006 (sparkling wine, California)
- Korbel Brut Rosé Nonvintage (sparkling rosé wine, California)
- Martini & Rossi Asti Spumanti NV (sparkling wine, Italy)
- Martinelli Sparkling Cider (nonalcoholic cider, California)

We were cooking for about a day and a half (plus a lot of stuff I made way before), but we had a great time and it seemed like our guests did as well. Happy New Year everyone!