Thank you, Martha (extra fattening)

I made mini-quiches recently, and they were incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I didn't even get after photos.  They were devoured almost immediately, and all I'm left with is this:



A photo of them in the oven is all I have to remember their deliciousness.

Now, these aren't exactly the easiest snack I've ever made, but they are incredible. The pastry was absolutely perfect: flaky, crunchy, buttery.  Martha's recipe was perfect, although I did make a small addition: instead of making the pate brise in the food processor I froze the butter and grated it (a la Joy the Baker), gently mixing it into the flour and salt, and then adding water until the dough formed.  It was divine.

I followed Martha on the custard base, and customized the fillings. I had scallions, broccoli, and cheese, in one batch and bacon and cheese in the other.  Cheese, it's essential; you must have it.  I don't know if you could alter the custard base to be a little less fatty (it is heavy on egg yolks and cream), because it had such a wonderful texture and flavour.  I will have to try it next time.

One change I did make is to make the mini quiches in muffin tins instead of mini-muffin tins. To do this I used the whole pate brisee recipe, Martha suggests only using half to make 24 mini-muffins, and had to just about double the filling recipe.  I rolled each of my cutouts a little more after cutting them, because I didn't have a cutout big enough for the muffin tins.  I don't remember how much I altered the baking time though, so go by your gut?

So go forth! Make mini quiches! And maybe just follow Martha's recipe and not mine.

Dark Days: Chicken and Dumplings

This year I'm participating in the Dark Days challenge, which, in short, challenges people to eat Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical (SOLE) food at least once a week throughout the Winter.  I'm participating in this challenge to help me evaluate how economical eating SOLE is as well as to raise my own awareness of the availability of SOLE food. As a graduate student I often consider myself too impoverished to actually eat ethically, but I've never actually evaluated this.  And I will admit, that living in California means that I really do have an easy time of eating SOLE.



My first meal was chicken and dumplings, which I shared with my roommates.  I was curious about how much sputtering the chicken thighs did when I was searing them, it burned me so!  In fact, this made me resent my chicken thighs a little, but in the end their deliciousness won me over.  I got local, organic leeks, celery, carrots, onions, and herbs from my local co-op. The chicken came from there also, and was definitely organic, but potentially just outside the local range.  I used stock I had previously made and canned, and my flour is local.  The milk was leftover from before I started the challenge so... I'm just going to say waste not on that one.



Not only is this meal delicious, but it's easy because you can use your crock pot.  The recipe I based it off of uses the oven, but I was going to be out all afternoon so threw all the ingredients in the crock pot on low.  I also took some liberties with the herbs, but that's what easy meals are for.



I can't actually think of an Australian analogue for chicken and dumplings. I guess chicken stew, which I would happily eat with bread or savory scones (biscuits), although biscuits aren't exactly popular in Australia. I would, of course, slather my bread with butter and use it to soak up the remaining juice at the bottom of my chicken stew.  Dumplings like this absorb the juices and leave you with both a thicker and slightly less juicy end product, which requires less sopping.



Of course, there was the creepy, circular floating fat on top of our bowls.  None of us was going to not eat the meal because of it, but after the leftovers were refrigerated I scraped the cooled fat off before reheating my next few meals.  In the future, I might take the skin off the chicken thighs before searing them.  Or afterwards (and upon second reading of the original recipe, this is what is suggested), since it is nice to have that reserved chicken fat to cook the vegetables in and add to the dumplings.  Either way, I'm going to go for a less fatty end product in the future.

Chicken and Dumplings, adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Stew
5 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken legs
1 tbs olive oil
2 leeks, white and light greens only, sliced into half-moons
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
6 tbs all purpose flour
1/4 cup dry sherry
3 cups chicken broth (or more to your desired consistency)
1/4 cup whole milk
1 tsp fresh thyme, minced
1 tbs fresh rosemary, minched
3-4 leaves sage (I left them whole and pulled them out at the end with the bay leaves)
2 bay leaves

Dumplings
2 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp table salt
1 cup whole milk
3 tbs reserved chicken fat (or butter, unsalted)

Heat a tablespoon or less of oil in a large dutch oven or skillet, and turn it to medium-high until the oil starts to smoke.  Throw in as many chicken legs as needed to cover the bottom of the dutch oven or skillet in a single layer and allow to sear and brown on each side, about 10 minutes total.  Do this in multiple batches if you have to (as I did).  Remove chicken and put it on a plate, and reserve the remaining chicken fat in the skillet/dutch oven (I poured mine into an old jar, the perfect receptacle for nuclear-hot fat).

Return your pot to the stove and lower the temperature to medium.  Add flour to make a roux, and allow to turn golden brown. Then add sherry to deglaze the pan, and let the mixture simmer and thicken (you may have to lower the stove temperature a bit).

While the roux/sherry is thickening, add your chopped vegetables and whole chicken thighs to the crock pot.  (I just threw them right in there without pulling off the skin, but I advise you to rip that skin right off.)  Add the chicken stock to your sherry mixture, and mix until it thickens a little.  Pour the juice over the chicken and vegetables in the crock pot.  Add your herbs of choice to the crock pot, put the lid on, and stick that baby on low for 4-6 hours.

30-ish minutes before you plan to eat, pull the chicken out of the crock pot and shred it. At this point you can either return it to the crock pot to keep warm, or reserve it to add back in after the dumplings are cooked.

At this time you should also make the dumplings. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt, and whisk. Add the milk and reserved chicken fat, and mix until a dough forms. Drop golf-ball sized (about a tablespoon) pats of dough into the crock pot liquid, make sure all are submerged, and turn the crock pot to high.  Put the lid on the crock pot and let the dumplings cook for at least 30 minutes. They should double in size and, if you want to check one, look cooked all the way through, without any raw dough left in the center.

Consume, enjoy.

(Upon second reading, this recipe seems surprisingly complex. It's not, really, but for some reason it just took a lot of words to convey it in all its delicious glory.)

Urban Foraging

I live in Davis, a town where a lot of urban foraging is available. There are fruit trees all over the place that yield wonderful results in the summer, community gardens that put out their excess grapes, squash, and herbs when they have then, and the barn where I ride is lined with walnut trees that I have yet to take advantage of, but trust me, I will. (Especially because moldy walnuts are a risk to dogs and horses, so we have to clear them out anyway.)

Since discovering the concept of urban foraging, which I had previously just thought of as quasi-pilfering, I've come to love the idea of it. Discovering Hunter Angler Gardener Cook has made me even more enamored of the idea. Free food that you make into even more delicious things?! The best.

Since reading Hank's post on olive curing, I've been smitten. Olives are incredibly plentiful in Davis, and with a friend I collected three half-gallon jars full of them. Some of them are the biggest olives I've ever seen in my life, and I was so amped to get started. Only the entire town of Davis seemed to be out of lye!

Down to plan B. I threw those olives into half-gallon jars and I've filled them with brine. The brine is approximately 1/4 cup salt and 1/2 cup vinegar per gallon of water.



I topped the jars off with a little bit of cheesecloth to keep all of my olives submerged, and left them in the laundry room to cure. I'm not completely sure what it means to brine olives, but when I've figured it out, I'll be sure to tell you.

Dulce de Leche!

Or, heaven on a spoon.

I've been seeing dulce de leche recipes all over the place, and while I was desperate to make some I was somewhat turned off by the fact that you have to boil the cans for three hours. Or bake the sweetened condensed milk in the over for three hours.  Really, anything that involved three hours I wasn't into.

But then, then, I found this gem of a recipe.  It involves a pressure cooker and mason jars, both of which I have because, well, I am an impulsive consumer. And I make jam.  But the point is that this is an excellent and quick way to make dulce de leche, and if you have access to a pressure cooker and want some dulce de leche, you need to make it.

The first thing to do is get your supplies together. Pressure cooker, rack, can lifters and lid tightener-gripper thing, magnetic lid picker-upper, hot mitts, jars, lids, and rings.




Oh, and your sweetened condensed milk. I think I had ten cans. Perhaps nine.  The next thing I did was fill my measuring cup with the sweetened condensed milk, as much of it as would fit. I wanted to use the measuring cup as an in-between because I didn't think I could successfully get all the sweet nectar out of those cans and into the jars with any accuracy. A spatula is a necessity here, it was very useful for getting every last drop of sweetened condensed milk out of those jars.

I watch hulu while I'm cooking. Don't judge me.

Start filling your jars to about 1/2" headspace.



It's hard to take photos that aren't blurry when you're pouring sweetened condensed milk into jars in poor lighting. It's unfortunate.

When you think you have about 10 minutes of jar-filling left, throw your rings and lids into a pot of boiling water for that time. This will activate the seal on the lids and allow you to actually seal your dulce de leche. This step is not necessary if you're planning on refrigerating your dulce de leche immediately, but I let mine sit on a shelf for a little while*.

When all your jars are filled, put on the lids and screw on the rings. And put them in your pressure cooker.



At this time you can go ahead and fill your pressure cooker with 3 quarts of room temperature water. Do not use hot water, because your jars are cool and your sweetened condensed milk is, at best, at room temperature, and if you fill your pressure cooker with boiling water (like you would when canning jam or jelly), you run the risk of breaking all your jars and making a hot mess of sweetened condensed milk all over the place.

Attach the lid of your pressure cooker and turn on the burner. Vent the pressure cooker for 10 minutes, and when that is done turn it to 10-11 lbs pressure. For my Presto pressure cooker that's the highest setting and it's fine.  Cook it for 20 minutes, maintaining that pressure, and then turn off the heat and allow your pressure canner to de-pressurize for at least 10 minutes. After that, you can help your pressure cooker along by opening the vent, and allowing the steam to leave the cooker. After the steam is all vented once again, you may open your pressure cooker, and you should be greeted by a most magnificent sight!



Seriously. Beautiful.

Now, your dulce de leche and jars and the whole setup there will be nuclear hot at this point. Observe:



One of these things is not like the others. And it's the bubble rising up through the focal can in the second picture. My dulce de leche was literally still boiling at this point, and you do not want to go touching those jars anytime soon.

At some point, you can take them out of the canner and allow them to cool in a draft-free area, but I would recommend waiting at least 30 minutes until you do this.  Try to wait for your dulce de leche to cool completely before opening the cans. I don't know what would happen if you tried to open the cans prematurely, but I can imagine all kinds of nasty hot caramel going everywhere in a worst case scenario.

* The USDA does not actually recommend canning milk products. But, as my source recipe points out, there are a few things about this recipe that make me think it's safe to can dulce de leche this way.
1. The sweetened condensed milk came out of a can in the first place, which is theoretically hermetically sealed, and if your jars are clean and you work quickly you will minimize bacterial exposure. Of course, quickly is all relative in bacterial terms, and the difference between one minute and five is probably negligible. What I mean here is don't let your sweetened condensed milk sit around all day at room temperature while the cat walks on the dining table.
2. There is so much sugar in this stuff that it's practically sterile on its own. Well, not necessarily sterile, but there's a hell of a lot of sugar in there.
3. You can can meat products in a pressure canner when taking the appropriate precautions.

So while I can't necessarily condone this, I can point out that I have, since making those six cans of dulce de leche, given away all of them and nobody has fallen ill. Make your own judgment on this one.

Want the recipe? Visit No Empty Chairs!

vodka infusions, and a new blog

I've toyed for a while with the idea of starting a food blog for myself. I like thinking about food, making food, eating food, and taking photos of food, so I figured it was time for all of that to come together.

We'll start with the vodka infusions I made last week. Of course, I have no idea whether or not they'll be delicious, but they're here, and waiting. Most sets of instructions I could find online said that within a week the infusion would be ready to drink, however other sources suggested that the longer you leave the flavouring in the vodka the more delicious it becomes.

My first problem was finding a container to put my new vodka infusions in. You can buy stoppered containers from Ikea for $3 each, but they're a little bigger than I wanted (at least for my first try), and that would necessitate a trip all the way to Ikea. I settled on these little numbers from Cost Plus, although mine are obviously in a rectangular shape. I liked the smaller size (570 mL each, so you end up with about 500 mL of your flavour of vodka), and that it had a nozzle for pouring the vodka off eventually also (I don't like things that glug too much, it makes it difficult to pour accurately!). I wasn't too worried about the bottles being airtight, since no particulate could get in anyway, and many of my stored bottles of alcohol are hardly airtight anyway.

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I made blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry last week. Today I made two more, one with vanilla and one with coffee, so we'll see how those go also. The blackberry, by far, had the prettiest colour at bottling, but now the blueberry bottle has become a beautiful purple -- the same colour that leaks into blueberry pancakes -- that is so pretty. My blackberries were on the border of overripe and freshly picked, so I didn't bother to add any sugar. However, the blueberries were store bought and the raspberries, though freshly picked were a little tart, so I added just about a teaspoon of sugar to each of those bottles before adding the vodka.

Eventually I'll drink these, although I don't know in what or with whom. Probably for my birthday next month, as they should be good and delicious by then. I'm also hoping to make a bottle with chillies (probably dried, because then I'll get some delicious smoky flavour in there too), and perhaps some other fruit. Oh, and chocolate! There's a great recipe for chocolate liqueur on Epicurious.

Infused Vodka "Recipe"

(This is more of a set of generalised instructions than a recipe, pieced together from various sources on the internet.)

Start with 750 mL of your choice of vodka. Some suggest using a premium grade vodka because it will be the smoothest in the end and have a better overall flavour. Others suggest that anything that is at least triple-distilled is adequate. (I settled for Kirkland vodka, because it is relatively inexpensive and comes in large bottles.) I would say use anything that you're happy to drink yourself.

Add to a seal-able glass bottle or jar 1 cup of your fruit or flavouring of choice. This amount is, of course, variable. If you're adding vanilla to your vodka, use a bean or two, and if using something strongly flavoured like coffee beans, add a little less than a cup. I choose to err on the side of more flavour, because you can always dilute your infusion with a little more vodka of your choice, but it's hard to concentrate a flavour more. For whole fruits, chop them up so plenty of surface area is present, as greater surface area will allow for great flavour infusion. (My current infusions are blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, vanilla, and coffee, but I hope also to make chocolate, lemon, orange, and chili at some point in the near future; other websites suggest making infusions with lemongrass or garlic for more fancy flavours).

Let your jar sit in a dark place for at least a week (for strong flavours, such as berries and vanilla), and up to a month or more (for milder flavours, like lemongrass or melon). You can check on it every once in a while and shake it up, or just set it and forget it and enjoy your end result when you remember again!