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).