Bacon Jam

I first heard about bacon jam from my brother who saw it at a pop up bake shop. However, it was closed by the time he noticed it. Upon hearing this I decided that I should try making it myself...being that it had bacon it seemed right up my alley. Essentially, bacon jam is more of a bacon spread and consists of reduced onions, bacon, and some type of sugar (I used maple syrup). It goes something like this: cook bacon and remove, cook onions until nicely browned, add back bacon and flavorings along with the maple syrup, reduce, and process. I though it turned out pretty well, but next time would probably add something along the lines of bourbon to get more depth of flavor. It seems like it would work well on a breakfast sandwich, burger, or simply on some crostini! 

Guacamole

One of the things that my parents taught me, and I'm extremely grateful for, is an appreciation for guacamole. And I don't mean that cumin/paprika/whatever scented, cayenne pepper spiced stuff nor that ready made guacamole mix that may or may not come in a bag. I mean the pure stuff. Avocados, onion, chile (serrano or jalapeno), cilantro, and salt. Maybe some garlic or a tiny bit of tomato as well. That's it. Nothing more. At least that's what my parents taught me and it has stuck. If I took one thing away from my child hood it would be this mixture of ingredients with no exact measurements and I am eternally grateful for it (oh, and so my parents aren't horrified that the only thing I learned from them is how to make guacamole I did gain a appreciation for thoughtful gift giving!).

Guacamole is very easy to make and quick (unless you're my dad who spends 40 minutes chopping, which may or may not be due to the TV in kitchen). But, somehow it gets butchered often with the addition of odd ingredients and the lack of proper salt/acid seasoning. I say let the avocados speak for themselves with some enhancement from salt and acid and a little background heat. Ironically, I loved our families guacamole, but refused to eat a slice of avocado on its own. Oh well. Things change.

It's great because guacamole has a variety of uses such as a side dish with some chips or a condiment for tacos, burritos, quesadillas, sandwiches, and so on. Either way I say keep it pure and delicious! I'm using mine for some pulled pork...we'll see how well they marry.

One of the things I love about making
 guacamole: How great the ingredients look!

On the quest for hard cider...

I ran across a few postings and videos about making hard cider at home. It ranged anywhere from letting your apple juice ferment on its own to full on homebrewing. Although I do enjoy homebrewing beer I wasn't too keen on launching a full scale operation for hard cider. To be honest, I don't think I've even tried REAL hard cider from a brewery. So naturally the easiest recipes were appealing to me. These simply involved taking some sort of apple juice (with no preservatives), adding yeast, and letting it ferment for a week or two depending on the desired alcohol content. A week of fermentation will probably net ~3% alcohol. This is very similar to my ginger beer and fermented pomegranate juice I posted on, but with a longer fermentation time to add alcohol.

Now that I decided upon this simple plan I had to procure the ingredients. The Pasadena farmer's market has a vendor that sells non-pasteurized juices, which includes apple juice. The real fresh stuff. Yummy, and I don't even like apple juice all that much! Now that I had found my juice I needed to get my yeast. I had a couple of options. Like my ginger beer I probably could have used store bought active dry yeast, but I wanted to use something a little more high class. My next option was to make an apple bug by adding an organic apple peal to apple juice and a little sugar then letting the natural yeast on the peel multiply. I'd have let the yeast to take over until it got to the point that I could see bubbles rising and I really didn't feel like waiting. Finally, I could use brewers yeast that is specially made for cider. Me being me this of course sounded like the best bet and I could find it at the local brew shop.

The recipe I found called for using the apple bug so I had to figure out how much of my brewers yeast to add since it's much more concentrated. Ironically, this is almost EXACTLY what I have to do in lab often except I don't have an sophisticated tools to help me out so I had to guesstimate how much to add. I somehow came up with a tablespoon. Looking back on it this was probably a huge mistake. And by probably I mean definitely. Microorganism cultures get denser the more organism you have in it. This is often how we calculate growth phases and how much of a culture to add to something else via optical density readings. The brewers yeast was so dense that you can't see threw it at all. That's A LOT of yeast. But, I was afraid I wouldn't get any fermentation if I didn't add enough, which is silly because even if I added the tiniest amount I'd get fermentation it would just take forever. So I ended up adding ~1.5 tablespoons total to the 1 gallon of apple juice.

50 billion yeast cells should have been a hint...

While at the brew shop I also picked up a neat 1 gallon glass jug and an airlock to fit them so I could have something to ferment my cider in. I left it out to ferment for a week and then bottled it in some 8 oz. plastic water bottles. These were left out until I could not longer push the bottle in (i.e. "charged" with gas) and subsequently went into the fridge for 24 hours. The point of charging the bottles is so that you have a more carbonated drink. The whole week it's been fermenting the airlock has let gas escape so it doesn't build up and inhibit fermentation/blow up your fermentor.

I was really excited to taste this. I really didn't know what I expected since I had never had hard cider before, but, like a lot of things, I think I liked the idea of it. Immediately after opening it I could tell something was off. What did it taste like? Well, probably the best description I could give is bad, yeasty apple flavored champagne. It over fermented. That 1.5 tablespoons of yeast I added was too much.

After this botched hard cider experiment I realized what I actually wanted was fizzy apple juice so I set out to try and attempt that before I tackled hard cider again. The difference here is that I'd ferment in plastic bottles just enough to charge them and then stick them in the fridge instead of leaving it out for a week. This is what I did with my ginger beer and that worked out great. It yields a fizzy product from the short 1-3 day fermentation time with a negligible amount of alcohol. I also decided to try the apple bug route since it seemed harder to mess up and more natural. I bought apple juice from the store (didn't want to experiment on the good stuff) and added 1/2 teaspoon of my apple bug to the 1/2 gallon of apple juice and let it ferment until the bottle was charged, which took ~3 days. It turned out great! Very fizzy. It didn't taste amazing but that's because the quality of the juice wasn't great to begin with so I'll have to try it again with the fresh stuff.

Apple Bug Makings

Now that I have an apple bug and know how much to add maybe another shot at hard cider is in the near future.

Brined Olives

Ever since last year when I learned that curing your own olives is very easy I've wanted to get my hands on some fresh ones. Unfortunately, the olive season is mid-October and can last anywhere from one week to three months depending on the weather so I couldn't get any online in time. However, I was on the look out for them this year at the Farmers Market or, if I couldn't find them there, online. Luckily I found some small-medium green olives (no idea what kind) in Pasadena and bought ~2 pounds. One other good thing about olives are they are cheap! Only $1.50 a pound at the marker or I think 10 pounds online is around $15.

Why cure the olives and not just eat them fresh? Have you ever tried a fresh olive? I certainly haven't (though I was almost tempted when making these...)! I've been warned that they are quite bitter and disgusting thanks to some phenols (an acid) and a carbohydrate called oleuropein. Although there are different methods of curing they share the common goal of removing this molecule from the olive to make it palatable. There are a few ways of curing including a progressive water soak where the olives are opened up somehow either by smashing or a small knife slit. This length of curing only takes about a month, which is fast for olive curing. Or, you could try chemically removing the bitterness with food grade lye. This method only takes a week.

Oh, ok. Cool! Wait...there must be a downside to this method if its so short and not used often at home. Not really...lye is just SODIUM HYDROXIDE, a highly corrosive substance capable of causing chemical burns and corroding GLASS! I don't care if it's food grade, used in small enough concentration, and is USDA safe. I'm not messing around with it.

Now, the third way is to brine the olives in a water, salt, and vinegar solution allowing them to ferment. This method is beyond easy. You simply take the olives, wash, pick out ones with obvious blemishes, add brine, and let sit. It simply involves checking on them once in awhile to make sure the brine isn't gross or murky and, if so, just replace it. Again, if it's so easy what's the downside?

It takes anywhere from 4-8 months.

Hmmm.

Well, I don't want to break my olives open...so water curing is out. I don't necessarily want a chemical burn in my esophagus...so lye curing it out. And brining is by far the easiest. Well, brining it is! I followed a recipe from the "Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook" blog that involves brining the olives in a solution of 1/4 kosher salt to 4 cups water, plus 1/2 vinegar (I used white wine vinegar). Around the new year I can begin adding spices like chiles, garlic, bay lay, ect. If you add the spices too early in the process they become over powering.

Hopefully, come June, they will be cured and not bitter. If so, 10 lbs of olives curing in a giant vat next year here I come! If not, well, at least it was really easy and cheap. 

Napa Cabbage Kimchi

I found out while looking for kimchi recipes that everyone has their own variation. Some have sugar. Others call adding sugar a sin. Some ferment for a few days outside the fridge, others buried in the ground for months, others begin in the fridge. Soon I was overwhelmed by the variations in recipes I had been finding and decided to settle with the Momofuku cookbook's version since it was one of the most simple and I've actually tried the end result.

Kimchi is a fermented pickle so the flavor of the end product will vary on how long it is left to ferment. Some recipes call for leaving it at room temperature for 3-7 days then sticking it in the fridge. I even found a refrigerator specifically for making kimchi! Momofuku's recipe calls for starting the fermentation in the fridge, which seemed a bit odd to me since it seems to cold inside to really get a good ferment going, but whatever. I'll take their word for it.

The basic ingredients are cabbage, carrots, green onion, sugar, garlic, ginger, kochukaru (Korean chile powder), fish sauce, and soy sauce. Everything besides the cabbage, carrot, and green onions is pureed and then added to the vegetables and put in the fridge. The book says it's best after 2 weeks of fermentation so that is when I tried it. Two things. First, there was WAY to much brine...I could probably half or fourth the recipe next time. Second, I didn't think the kimchi actually tasted all that great. It was OK, but didn't taste ferment-ey enough for me (and I like fresher rather than funkier kimchi)!

But, both of these problems turned out to be good. I used the kimchi for a kimchi fried rice so the extra brine turned out to be great flavoring and the kimchi worked really well. I think I'd opt for a new recipe next time I do this, but it wasn't terrible for a first try. Or, I'd try leaving it out on the counter for 2-3 days before sticking it in the fridge to find out if the flavor is enhanced at all.

Demi-glace

If the longer something takes to make the better it is then demi-glace is possibly one of the best gastronomic delights. It is a rich, concentrated sauce made from a basic veal stock, which is simmered at the rate of a few bubbles per second for 12-48 hours. This reduced stock is then simmered down even further to about two cups of liquid. I reduced it to one cup since, apparently, I need practice at eyeballing measurements. Oops.

Most people are afraid at the time that this takes to make, but in reality it's really easy and involved minimal effort  such as skimming every so often. I think the worst part was that it filled my entire apartment with veal stock aroma for two days, which if I had a house would be fantastic, but if you're trying to sleep it starts permeating into your dreams. Seriously.

It starts with 10 lbs. of veal bones, carrot, onions, leeks, and a bouquet garni. The bones are roasted until lightly browned at which point the vegetables are then added until the bones are a deep brown. The bouquet garni is made out of parsley stems, fresh thyme, and dried bay leaf all wrapped in the green parts of the leeks (a trick taught at La Ferrandi in Paris). Once the bones and vegetables are ready, and the roasted pan deglazed with water, everything is added to a giant pot and covered with ~8 quarts of water, boiled, and barely simmered for the 12-48 hours. I poured the finished, reduced product into ice cube trays, froze them down, and then individually wrapped them so I could easily through toss them into a pan sauce or soup.












The handy part of making the demi glace is that the bones, along with new vegetables and bouquet garni, can be used for remouillage (meaning re-wetting in French). Essentially, you make a new stock from the used bones yielding a lighter stock than you would if you were using fresh bones. So, out of 10 lbs. of veal bones I got one cup (12 ice cubes) of veal demi-glace and five quarts of light veal stock. Not bad for $30 worth of ingredients. All of this should last 6 months in the freezer, which when you think about it, is not bad for two to three days worth of minimal work!

(This was what my kitchen looked like all night!)

Culture Club 101 Class: Part II

My last post on the Culture Club 101 class was me rambling and trying to lay these various processes out to better understand them. With that in mind I'll focus this one more on the class itself, what we learned, and why you would do it!

Culture Club 101 is a local Pasadena business that has a co-op and a stall at the Farmer's Market. I often pick up my vegetables for this blog at the farmers market they attend and have past by their booth each time usually muttering under my breath something about stupid hippies and their cultured sodas and kombuchas. It wasn't until Jessica visited me recently that I actual stopped at their stall to try and sample some of their products. Jessica, like my brother, is becoming more and more into kombucha while she leaves me behind arguing that it tastes like vinegar. So, being that Culture Club offers kombucha she wanted to stop and try it. We got to try their kombucha and their only cultured soda left, which happened to be apple cider.

Oh man, good kombucha is actually very good.

Slightly vinegary, but not overpowering. However, it has nothing on cultured sodas, which uses a similar process (fermentation), but are just not left as long. The sodas are insanely refreshing, fizzy, and have no sugar since the fruit juice has plenty in it to feed the microogranisms and still taste good! After tasting these I noticed that they offered classes in culturing fruits, sauerkraut, buttermilk, creme fraiche, sourdough, kombucha, and many more that were all focused around fermented goods.

The point of all this fermentation is to a) make the product naturally, b) preserve it, c) add a unique taste, and d) add healthy vitamins/probiotics. I basically think it's a cool process (nerdy) and has a delicious unique taste that I haven't found elsewhere so I decided to take their class on fermented fruits and fruit juices.

We got to make three things including cultured raspberries, spicy preserved mango salsa, and cultured fruit juice sodas.

Cultured raspberries? Uh, what? Sounds weird, but you have to trust me that they are delicious and the same goes for mangoes. It ends up being a bit tangy with a slight effervescence that you can increase or decrease depending on how long you let the fruit ferment for. It's simply 4 cups raspberries, 1/4 cup sugar (for the bacteria and yeast along with flavor), 1/4 cup milk whey (starter culture). This is all mashed together and then put in jars and sprinkled with some lemon juice. As I mentioned in my last post it's important to use organic raspberries since pesticides could inhibit the growth. This is left to sit out for 1-2 days until it's done, which is easy to tell if you use a pop-top lid because you won't be able to depress the lid anymore due to all the carbon dioxide released during the fermentation process. These raspberries and mangoes are fantastic over creme fraiche!















Same process basically goes for the spicy mango salsa except that you don't need any sugar since sugary salsa is, well, gross. There is enough in the fruit to keep everyone happy during fermentation. I haven't tried this one yet so we will see how it goes.


Now, the REAL reason I took the class. The culture fruit sodas. Mmm, so refreshing and fresh fruit juice is always a good thing. These were super simple it turns out and are just a gallon of organic fruit juice with two cups of culture starter whether it be milk whey, a bug, or kombucha. These are also left out to ferment for 1-2 days. Certain fruits will work better than others and just takes some experimentation. We made a pomegranate juice with the milk whey as the starter culture.

All of these sound kinda weird at first (like I said I scoffed at their booth many time), but you really just have to try it to be convinced.

Plus these all have potential benefits! I have to be a bit nerdy, but I'm not going to go in depth here. Both the fruit and the fermentation of the fruit have health benefits. Many fruits have natural antioxidants that protect against oxidative damage, which may occur naturally during aging or is induced by an unhealthy life style (ex. alcoholism). Oxidative damage can lead to protein and DNA damage along with lipid oxidation all of which have harmful effects on cells. Fermentation produces byproducts, such as certain vitamins, which are beneficial to us. The actual bacteria may be beneficial as well in terms of influencing our natural gut flora (i.e. fighting off bad bacteria, ect.).

(This is a picture of your gut epithelial; http://greaterimmunity.com/Files/probiotics.html)

I thought this image summed up nicely and simply why probiotic bacteria may be beneficial. 

Side note: my picture of all the goods we made is hardly fantastic in terms of composition or lighting, but I did need some external lighting as my kitchen bulbs are this weird, dim yellow that you can partially see in the final photo. I do try somewhat to compose and light my pictures (I got lazy like here) and I thought my lighting "set up" was particular funny for this particular photo.

Culture Club 101 Class: Part I

I decided to take this class because I think the hardest thing for me about baking and the realms of fermentation, pickling, and canning is that it's very difficult to come up with my own recipe (canning excluded for safety reasons) and, frankly, their natural sodas are amazing. I feel like I'm reasonably good at creating recipes for savory cooking since, for one, it's much less precise, and two, I've been cooking for longer than I've been trying home ferments. But with the previously mentioned processes it either needs to be precise or there is some background knowledge needed. My trouble with fermented goods that use yeast or bacteria is where do I get those mircoogranisms? How much do I add of the seed culture? How long do I leave it out? None of these questions have clear answers I've learned, but I'm going to attempt to address these questions with what I've learned so far from research and from what I learned in my Culture Club 101 class on fermented fruit and fruit juices.

Natural microogranisms or brewers yeast?

Well, that depends on what you want your finished product to taste like and texture to be. For beer, you're going to be using brewers yeast from well established strains that produce the specific type of style of beer you're shooting for. But, when you deviate from beer and start moving toward cultured sodas, hard ciders, cultured fruits, and other things like this that don't have well established recipes it's to be more of a guessing game and less precise.

You can actually use brewers yeast if you so choose, but natural bacteria are famed for their healthy products of fermentation while the natural yeast will give you carbonation. The bacteria present on the fruit or seeded  from a culture (more on this later) will have probiotics and plenty of healthy vitamins that were not present before since these are products of bacterial fermentation while the yeast are contributing mostly carbon dioxide and a little ethanol. By using brewers yeast you're overwhelming any bacteria that were present and therefore you won't get the healthy byproducts that bacterial fermentation provides.

What does all of this mean? If you want a probiotic/healthy/vitamin rich product the natural microogranism root is the way to go. You'll get a product that is slightly fizzy (the yeast), but also rich in nutrients (the bacteria). If you want a more fizzy beverage with the possibility of heavy alcohol  (or don't want to culture natural microogranisms) you can use brewers yeast. If you let either culture go long enough you'll get something alcoholic, but with brewers yeast the product will be alcoholic enough to get a nice buzz off of it!

Where do I get natural microogranisms from?


First, you could make a "bug". The process basically involves taking fruit or vegetable and chopping it up then covering it with either its own juice or water with sugar added. An example is a ginger bug, which is chopped ginger, water, and sugar left to ferment for a week to culture the natural yeast and bacteria present on the ginger root. The added sugar is simply food for them. Another example is an apple bug, which could be used for a cultured apple cider soda or hard apple cider. An apple bug is simply apple peel covered in apple juice and left to ferment for a week. The natural yeast and bacteria on the apple peel will feed off the sugars in the apple juice. Once these are sufficiently fermented you can add some of the bug to juice you wish to ferment and let them ferment away! One important note is that the ginger or apple must be organic since pesticides will inhibit microbial growth and the juice must have no added chemicals as it will also inhibit growth.

Second, you could use milk whey. This can be obtained from filtering kefir, yogurt, or letting raw milk sit out for a few days until it separates and then straining the liquid out. The liquid (whey) has plenty of friendly bacteria and some yeast, which is sufficient for using as a seed.

Third, kumbucha could be used. Kumbucha is a fermented drink and thus has a ton of microorganisms ready to ferment whatever you add it to. However, kumbucha often has a more sour or vinegary taste from the lactic acid bacteria so this will affect the flavor of whatever you are fermenting.

How much of the seed (natural or brewers yeast) do I add?


I've found this to be a hard question to answer. It basically takes experimentation and some common sense. I wouldn't pitch an entire packet of brewers yeast into a gallon of apple juice since the package says it contains 50 billion cells...that's a bit much. Adding too much seed will basically result in rapid fermentation and exploded bottles and lids if you don't watch it carefully. You also risk your product tasting too much like the seed (either too yeasty or kumbucha-ey, ect.). Adding too little isn't bad since the bacteria and yeast will still replicated, but it will take long to get a fermented product. This part takes a bit of practice.

How long do I leave it out/let it ferment?


Well, this depends on the end product you want. Let's take apple juice for example. If we seed it with one of the above cultures and leave it out for 24-48 hours it will be nicely carbonated and have virtually alcohol. But, what if we were to leave it for a week? It'd get nicely alcoholic...probably ~2% depending on how much yeast is present. Two weeks? You're approaching hard cider territory. Three weeks? You'll end up with a hard cider that is 7-8% ABV.

All of what I've learned from reading and this class is that fermenting is a lot of experimentation and finding out what you want in your final product to taste like (i.e. heavy or light carbonation, alcohol or no alcohol, flavored partially by the seed or not).

Since I've now begun to grasp the theory behind all of this I think it's time for some experimentation. I'm going to use apple cider as my base and try various seeds such as an apple bug, milk whey, and brewers yeast. I'm also then going to leave each out for either 24-48 hours. I'm also going to leave a separate one out for three weeks to make hard cider, but I'm only going to do this with brewers yeast because it'll be more efficient and I don't care about the health benefits of the bacteria from milk whey and the apple bug because the alcohol basically cancels that out.

Part II coming soon...it'll be about the class and have recipes.

Ancho Chile Blackberry Syrup

If you know me you'll know my affinity for Mexican food.

Er, OK, more like obsession.

Being in LA I consider myself blessed  with the multitude of taco trucks to choose from and, usually, a salsa bar to indulge upon. I think my love for this street food partially stems from these variety of salsas and condiments. I love salsas partially because of the heat that they can pack. For as long as I can remember my dad has called me "asbestos mouth" (as well as numerous other, um, charming names), which had to do with  dumping cayenne powder all over my pasta. I really don't know where this was going except for the fact that it leads me to the fact that I like spicy food. And what this means, getting back to my first point, is that I love the unending number of chiles that Mexican food has to offer not only because of their heat, but also because of their flavor.

Initially, this recipe was published in Gourmet and called for dried pasillas as the chile of choice. The rest of the recipe is pretty simple: lemon juice, dark brown sugar (I used light), cane sugar, water, and blackberries. Being that I didn't see feel like braving the LA traffic (and because I'm lazy) I decided not to go to Grand Central Market for their wonderful chile selection, but instead I picked up some dried ancho chiles from Whole Foods. Upon opening the bag I realized I forgot how raisin like these chiles got when dried. Woops. Oh well, it's all I had so I moved forward. Basically, you make a syrup by boiling the lemon juice, water, and sugars together and infuse it with the chiles (aka throw them in...seeds and all) then stir in a blackberry puree when the syrup has cooled. As you can see from the picture three measly chiles yielded A LOT of seeds (insert flash backs to deseeding chiles at Thanksgiving for a mole). From my earlier rambling you'll remember that I love spicy food so needless to say I was excited at this site...the possibility of a spicy yet sweet syrup!

After the syrup had cooled and I added the blackberry puree it was time to try it. Hmm. Apparently the anchos were more raisin-ey than I expected because it was all I could taste. AND NO HEAT. So much for appreciating the variety of flavors that chiles have to offer. There was a little blackberry taste there, but not much.

Great...I essentially made raisin syrup and could have left out two decently expensive ingredients.

Since I now had about a cup and a half of the stuff I thought I might as well use it. I though that some drinks were a good application and a made a ancho chile blackberry rye cocktail with a little muddled mint. Hm...not bad actually. Although it still tasted raisin-ey (ugh) the heat was beginning to linger on my tongue halfway through. Interesting. I also made a ancho chile blackberry soda with just the syrup and some club soda, which actually tastes pretty good if you ignore what I was actually trying to achieve.

I suppose next time I'll try using guajillo or the called for pasilla to get rid of the raisin flavor. If those fail to achieve a good heat level I might just throw in a habenero for good measure. Also, I think the flavor of blueberries might not be overpowered as easily as the blackberry was. But before all of that I need to get rid of a bunch of ancho chile blackberry syrup. Maybe a good sauce or rub for venison? Throw some grilled strawberries on the plate as well....hmmm.

"Quick" Crema

This weekend I got the opportunity to brush up on my Mexican cooking since Jessica made a surprise visit! I've been hankering to make some chile rellenos from a cookbook by Diane Kennedy. I thought I'd fill one with potatoes and roasted corn and another with a mild cheddar then pair them with a salsa ranchera that is typically used with huevos rancheros. Crema is a sort of Mexican sour cream, however it is much lighter in flavor and a bit creamier making it a good yet unobtrusive condiment to dishes like fish tacos and chile rellenos. I wanted to make homemade crema, but upon discovering that you basically have to let a starter culture from yogurt ferment some heavy cream for a few days I decided to make a quick crema by mixing 1:1 sour cream to heavy cream and adding a tiny bit of yogurt. This was then placed in a warm place for ~5 hours. I thought it turned out well, was just barely sour yet had a really nice texture, and didn't take multiple days (we can save that for another project)! Crema can be fancied up a bit with either some lime zest or a chipotle in adobo blended in.

Side note...I now have new respect for the batter on chile rellenos. This is clearly something I still need to perfect.

Hollandaise Sauce

Classic French cooking, specifically basic sauces, is one of the skills that I wish I could master or at least begin to understand since I feel that the base recipes can be launched into a variety of dishes. Hollandaise and mayonnaise are really the only two classic French sauces that I've begun to become sufficient at making. Homemade mayonnaise really trumps and ruins anything store bought and will easily elevate any aoili that you traditionally use store bought mayonnaise for. Hollandaise is, well, just amazing if made correctly. I've enjoyed it over Jessica's homemade brioche and poached egg with a slice of serrano ham giving some elegance to the classic eggs benedict.

I think that I'm relatively good at making these sauces since they a science experiment at heart given that they are both emulsions with mayonnaise being a oil-egg yolk emulsion while hollandaise is a butter-egg yolk emulsion with both containing water. Essentially, an emulsion is two liquids that don't normally mix (fat and water) are mixed with an emulsifier and become evenly dispersed. One of the best emulsifiers are egg yolks since they contain so many proteins. These proteins when beaten and heated will denature (fall apart) and expose their hydrophobic (water hating) areas and hydrophilic (water loving areas) areas to the oil and water. The hydrophobic parts of the proteins will associate with the fats since these are, too, hydrophobic while the hydrophilic parts will interact with the water. Basically, this functions to reduce the tension between the water and oil interface to form the emulsion and stabilizes the emulsion by preventing the oil from interacting with the water and separating out into two layers. Simply put: the egg yolk allows for a homogeneous mixture of oil and water to be formed.

Emulsions are a bit difficult to form and keep together, but I attribute my ability to do so to my science background and knowing how interactions like this "feel" and look. I used my hollandaise to dip my artichoke in, which is new to me since I grew up eating them with melted butter with lemon juice. I followed Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1, which calls for butter, egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and salt. Being Julia Child, this recipe turned out a lot more buttery than I'm used to, but this was fine for my artichoke application!

Jalapeño Jelly

When I first visited Jessica in her new apartment on Manhattan she had stocked her pantry with delicious provisions including a haberno jelly that went great with goat cheese. Seeking to replicate this I tried to find a similar recipe, but the closest one I found was jalapeños, which was close enough for my first try. I thought I could tweak later once I got the basics down.

Pectin is an important factor for any jelly since it is the agent that causes the gel to form. You can usually purchase extracted pectin (often from apples or citrus) or you can use a natural source by including a fruit high in pectin. This recipe uses apples as a natural source of pectin. Pectin is a polysaccharide (basically a special type of sugar) meaning that it forms chains and has molecules sticking off itself. When heat, sugar, and fruit is added to pectin the acid in the fruit will changed the charge on the pectin's branches causing it to change shape and trap water. The sugar and heat help decrease the amount of water in the solution thus decreasing the solubility of pectin allowing it to trap water more easily and thus a gel forms. Getting a gel to form is a common place for things to go wrong in jams or jellies, but luckily I got it to work the first time.

The main ingredients were apples (for pectin), some jalapeños, and cranberries (mostly for color). Using the apples as a natural source of pectin was nice, however I think it imparted too much apple flavor that overpowered the jalapeño, which was to subtle for me. I'm partial to in your face heat. I consulted Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home, since I knew it had some jellies in it, and I think I'll try using commercial pectin next time to eliminate the need for the apples and switch to habernos for more heat. Also, I think this jelly would be good with bits of haberno in it instead of completely clear so I think I'll add some cooked chopped bits to the jars after I boil the sugar, vinegar, pectin, and whole habernos and pour it. Stay tuned!

Multi-Purpose Tomatoes

Please welcome Jessica as a guest contributer!
-Alex
















Today I was tempted to get take-out for dinner, but instead I figured I ought to use what little was left in my pantry (canned tomatoes, corn, ricotta, whole wheat pasta and hot sauce). I picked up some cherry tomatoes from the farmers market, along with an onion and garlic. First, I made a pasta sauce from red pepper flakes, garlic, and crushed tomatoes. I had a fair amount of left over sauce, so I pureed it and added it to some of the corn I roasted with hot sauce-to become a sort of gazpacho (pictured below).

With the rest of the corn, I mixed red onion and the tomatoes I bought, tossed in balsamic and ricotta. Overall, this made enough for three meals worth of left-overs and only cost an additional $4 (aside from what was in the kitchen)-not bad! Not to mention, all tastes pretty great! I sometimes forget how much I love to cook. Since starting pastry school I've actually become more fond of it. For me, cooking is a break from baking and while I absolutely love baking, after 6 hours of it a day, cooking is quite cathartic. A goal of mine is to cook as gourmet of meals as I can while keeping a budget-a hard feat to achieve in New York! But, clearly, it can be done!

Quick pickled red onions and homemade tortillas (sorta)

I haven't had pork in awhile, which is why this dish was appealing to me. OK, that was a lie. I've probably consumed an entire pig in the last two weeks thanks to visiting Jess in NYC and Momofuku's Bo Saam meal. However, a carnitas style of pork sounded good to me and the pork butt was too cheap to pass up. I simmered in water with paprika, cumin, chile powder, and a cinnamon stick after being quickly seared. I've been serving the pork on some bhutamese rice, but I thought it'd be nice to mix up dinner a bit and go to Whole Foods to pick up some mini tortillas I spotted earlier this week to make tacos. While I was there I spotted a red onion and decided that a quick pickled onion would be a nice addition to the sweet tasting pork. Then I remembered seeing Maseca (instant tortilla mix) and thought that if I was already pickling something for the tacos I might as well make the tortillas, too (my train of thought doesn't always make sense). THEN, I saw the Hatch chiles were in season. I've never seen these in a store and they are apparently, according the native New Mexicans, amazing when roasted. So, of course, I had to buy some. Went to WF for tortillas and left with an onion, Maseca, and Hatch chiles (oh, and some kale)...I never seem to remember that WF is dangerous.



I usually use the quick pickled red onions for fish tacos, but them seem to work on most tacos with a sweet or fried component. They also work well on burgers. The recipe is simple enough and they can be pickled for as little as 5 minutes before serving.

1 onion - halved and sliced thinly
White vinegar (enough to cover onion container of choosing)
Sugar (optional)

I know this is vague, but how sweet these turn out is really up to you. I like them slightly sweet so I usually use about a tablespoon of sugar for one small onion. Just heat the vinegar and sugar (if using) to a boil, remove from heat, and pour over the onion. This can sit from 5 minutes to 6 hours to even overnight before serving.



Homemade tortillas are fantastic. But, fresh masa and lard is not always easy to come by. Maseca, an instant tortilla flour, is a great alternative and actually turns out very well. All it takes is the flour, water, and a little bit of salt. Oh, and a tortilla press of some sort. Given my love for all things tacos I do in fact have a tortilla press, but you could just as easily use the under side of a frying pan. These are very easy, take less than 10 minutes, and are fresh so I urge you to try it. Of course you could always mill your own corn to make masa from scratch (ha).

Kyoho Grapes

I went to the farmers market today to pick up some fresh herbs for a lamb skewer recipe I found on Tasting Table. While I was there, I decided to peruse the fruit stalls. I stumbled upon some Kyoho grapes, which I've never heard of before. So, I decided to taste some (the best part of a farmers market!). They basically taste like Concord grapes, but are bigger and fleshier. Sweet, yet tart at the same time. Sold me!

Now, I can not think of what to do with them besides eat them alone (no problem) or with some Humbolt Fog cheese I still have. Any ideas on a sauce or condiment...anything!?

Fresh Sweet Sriracha (Rooster sauce)

Typically sriracha (or as I called it rooster sauce) is a fermented sauce. But, you can still take the basic recipe and serve it fresh. It won't have the same taste as the fermented version, however it is still very good and can be enjoyed immediately!I made mine pretty sweet, which I think made it better as a sauce than a dip.

I got the base for this recipe from Viet World Kitchen blog.Think I might her fermented version soon.

3/4 lb fresno peppers split lengthwise and chopped (trim the top of the stem off)
4 cloves of garlic
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2.5 ounces brown sugar or Vietnamese palm sugar (less if you don't want it sweet)
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup water

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Cool down and blend. Push mixture through a strainer and store in the refrigerator.

Homemade Yogurt

Once you really think about it yogurt is kind of disgusting. Especially after working in a lab. Essentially you take bacteria from an already started yogurt culture (either store bought or from a previous homemade batch) and give it some food (milk) and let them go crazy, feed, and multiple. The result is delicious yogurt! But all I can think about is how I basically just made a homemade culture of bacteria is a makeshift incubator. Mmm.

To achieve the texture and taste of yogurt bacteria have to ferment lactose (a sugar found in milk) in the milk into a byproduct called lactic acid in order to produce energy for themselves. This byproduct of their metabolism in turn can interact with other milk proteins and actually curdle them (being that lactic acid is, well, an acid) giving yogurt it's delicious texture and taste.

Making homemade yogurt is easy and once you have a batch going you can continually renew it each week.

32 oz. fresh milk (not non-fat - I used 2%)
1/4-1/2 (one small container) of store bought or homemade yogurt
*Note: make sure if you're using store bought that it says "contains live cultures"

Heat the milk to 170 F (to kill anything nasty in it). Make sure it does not pass this point so use a thermometer and monitor it carefully. Once it reaches this temperature remove it from heat and cool it down to ~105-115 F. Mix in your yogurt starter. You must be sure to let the milk cool to this point otherwise you'll kill the bacteria you're carefully adding in. From here you can do a couple of things. One, you could fill a small ice chest with water no hotter than 115 F and place the yogurt in a separate container within the ice chest. Secondly, you could try the oven method of heating it to 175 F, turning it off, and placing the yogurt in a container inside the over. Either way, you want to let the yogurt sit for 4-8 hours depending on the consistency and sourness you like your yogurt at. The long you let it sit the more lactic acid will build up and the sourer your yogurt will be.

This is plain yogurt so you could mix in fresh fruit, sugar, agave nectar, honey, or my favorite: rhubarb strawberry compote.

Rhubarb strawberry compote

Tart and sweet this compote won't last long in your fridge. It can basically be put on anything from a scone to ice cream to just plain out of the jar! It's especially good with homemade yogurt.

5 stalks or 1 pound of rhubarb cute into 1/2" thick pieces
10-15 strawberries cored and roughly chopped
1/4-1/2 cup of sugar (depending on how tart/sweet you like it)
Optional: splash of apple juice, orange juice, and orange zest

Combine all ingredients into a sauce pan over medium heat. Once at a boil lower heat and let simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the rhubarb is soft and beginning to break down. Store in the fridge. I wouldn't keep this over a week unlike jam since it has a relatively low sugar content, but it won't matter because it is too delicious to resist!

Ginger Ale

I recently talked about making ginger beer at home, which led to some confusion. A beer (including ginger beer) is going to be made using yeast to ferment the sugars you give it to produce alcohol (very little) and carbonation. The ginger beer is flavored by minced or juiced ginger that is mixed in at the beginning of the fermentation process. A ginger ale on the other hand is not going to use fermentation to create the carbonation (thus is completely non-alcoholic), but is carbonated by adding soda water or injecting CO2 into the liquid. The ale is typically flavored with a ginger simple syrup, which is mixed with the carbonated water (however you choose to carbonate it).

For this recipe I decided to mix my ginger simply syrup with soda water since I don't have a nifty carbonator. You can vary the amount of ginger depending on your tastes and how sweet you want your ginger ale to be (i.e. if you want a spicy end product and you use a relatively little amount of ginger in the simple syrup your drink will be quite sweet).

1 3-8" stalk of fresh ginger cut into 1/4" thick rounds (more = spicier and more ginger flavor)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Soda water

Combine ginger, sugar, and water in a small sauce pan and heat over medium heat stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Let the simple syrup simmer for 5-10 minutes. You can then combine the ginger simply syrup with the soda water to taste.

Feel free to experiment with flavors and add in other herbs to your ginger simple syrup. Lavender? Rosemary?

Challenge: Reusing fresh herbs

I can't count how many times I've bought a fresh bunch of parsley or cilantro, used a tablespoon, and had to throw out the rest because I couldn't find another use for it. Over the July 4th weekend we had an excess of mint leaves sitting around in a cup of water after using them for a dinner earlier that week. Having 8 culinary minded people at the house allowed for the mint to be quickly used up in a new dishes and cocktails that it was never intended for. Now, I may only cook for myself, but I'd like to think I can use up a bunch of mint in a week for something that it wasn't intended for. Tonight I bought fresh basil and Italian parsley for my dinner and used ~2 tablespoons each leaving me basically what I had started with. That is why I am issuing this challenge to myself: use up at least one of the bunches before it goes bad (and not just for sprinkling on the dinner it was intended for!).

I feel like I waste so much good eats with every dinner that has fresh herbs that I throw out. Hopefully this will teach me some inventiveness (and save some money!).

Ginger Beer

I don't think you can find a more refreshing and soothing drink than ginger beer. Ginger beer is, in fact, different from ginger ale. The beer has alcohol (thus the name...obviously) from yeast fermentation while ginger ale is non-alcoholic. The ale is typically made with a ginger simple syrup that is mixed with soda water, which creates a similar effect and is much quicker. The beer on the other hand relies on yeast to ferment the sugars to create the carbonation while spitting out a wee bit of alcohol (seriously...it's only ~0.5% alcohol by volume). I think ginger beer is often tastier and more ginger-ey, which is why I decided to make it over the ale.

Jessica actually sent me this recipe.

2-4 ounces ginger juice (depends on how spicy you want it).
Alternatively you could use a ~3-4 inch piece of ginger and finely mince it if you don't have access to a juicer
4 ounces fresh lemon juice
6 ounces granulated sugar
.8g or 1/4 teaspoon of baker's yeast (I used active dry)

Makes 2 liters

It is very important that you use plastic and not glass. The yeast are fermenting the sugars and therefore putting of carbon dioxide gas and ethanol...this has the possibility of creating a very unpleasant glass bomb. The plastic can still break (less likely), but it will be a much easier and safer clean up.

Combine all ingredients into either a 2L plastic bottle or two 1L plastic bottles. Fill the bottles the rest of the way up with water leaving ~1" headroom. Cap and shake to combine everything. Stash the bottle(s) in a warm spot that is ~70F for 24-48 hours. You'll know the beer is ready when you push on the plastic and it does not give anymore (another reason to use plastic bottles!). Place the bottles in the fridge for at least 4 hours before opening allowing for the fermentation to be retarded and the carbon dioxide to dissolve into the water. When you uncap the bottle be careful...it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes to unscrew it without the beer exploding everywhere.

Enjoy either plain over ice or with a good bourbon/rye (I used Rye 1)!

You could also add in other flavors/herbs to the beer when you mix the ingredients together to make a herb scented ginger beer. Or, maybe, one could try using honey...hmmm.

Sweet Dill Quick Pickles

Here is the recipe for the pickles that Jessica posted.

4 cups thinly sliced unpeeled cucumbers
2 cups sugar
1 medium onion, thinly sliced into rings
1½ cups white vinegar
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp mustard seed
Sprig or two of washed dill (chopped or left whole)

Combine sugar, vinegar, salt, and mustard seed in a non-reactive pot and bring to a boil to combine. Let the brine cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile pack cucumbers, onions, and dill into a clean jar. Pour brine into the packed jar, cap, and refrigerate. The pickles may be eaten within an hour, but are best left for a day in the fridge. They won't last a week because you'll eat them too fast.

You may also add things like red pepper flakes and whole peppers or tone down the sugar if you'd like it less sweet.

Learning from the best

Please welcome Jessica as a guest contributer!
-Alex


Living in Los Angeles I was exceptionally spoiled to have Alex around. The fridge was constantly stocked with canned goods, including my favorite pickles to date! Since moving to New York, I've had to fend for myself in that category. This weekend I made my first attempt at quick pickles. I wasn't so much worried they wouldn't turn out, rather I hoped that they would be up to standards I had been used to! I used the standard recipe, adding dill at the end with the cucumbers. They are delicious! While I very much doubt I'll venture into canning anytime soon, I would like to attempt some more recipes, like beets!




I also made a blueberry compote. Normally, I would jam, but a compote boasts the advantage of significantly less sugar! Still, quite a bit of sugar, just not the absurd amount present in jams. It's super easy. Take a pint of blueberries, and divide in half. One half in a heat-proof bowl, the other in a saucepan with about a third cup of sugar and the juice of a lemon, bring to a simmer and allow all juice to release (about 8-10 min), then bring to a boil and reduce. Then pour over the other blueberries and fold in! Thats it! The sweet compote with the whole uncooked-blueberries is a great contrast, with a sweetness that isn't as intensely dessert like, and slightly tart. I think I prefer this to jams, though I have to admit jamming has its benefits, and lends itself better to pastry applications, when placed simply on bread I think the compote wins out!