Mother of an experiment

A little while ago, I came across a book called “The Urban Homestead” by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.  It’s a hippie book about a hippie couple living in LA, who share all of their hippie gardening, cleaning, and energy tips.  It’s not the most entertaining read, but it’s informative and I got inspired by one tip in particular.  In the book, the hippies describe how you make a sourdough starter.  I’ve always thought it would be fun, so I gave it a go.  Here is the bulk of information to get started.

1. Get yourself a glass or ceramic container with a lid.  It should be able to hold at least 3 to 4 cups of liquid.  A quart sized mason jar works well.  Don’t use a metal container.  It’s ok to use metal utensils to stir your starter since they are only in contact with it for a few moments -not enough time to cause any damage.

2. Start with a white flour starter, however later you can convert it to whole wheat or rye.  The reason to begin with the white flour is that both whole wheat and rye flours have a tendency to rot before the culture has an opportunity to develop.

3. To begin your white flour starter, mix one cup of white flour with one cup of lukewarm water in your glass or ceramic container and stir until smooth.  Put in a warm place.I keep mine on the stove top to be warmed by the pilot light.  Optimal temperatures are in the 70-80 degree range.

4. Every day, pour off one cup of your starter and add half a cup of flour and a half cup of lukewarm water to feed what remains.  The most common mistake is neglecting to feed the starter every day.  You need to feed your sourdough “mother” every day.

5. Your starter should begin to get bubbly in a few days.  A layer of liquid, known a “hooch,” will form on top.  Don’t be concerned, this is natural and simply stir it in every morning when you add the additional flour and water.

6. After 2 weeks, you should have a active culture of wild yeasts that you can bake bread with.  You can now throw out all of those little packages of commercial yeast in your cupboard.  Their day is over.

7. After a week or so has passed, instead of throwing out that cup of starter in the morning, use it to make a loaf of bread,  The starter will get stronger as it gets older, but give it a try at about a week, certainly by two weeks.  You can also use it to make sourdough pancakes (yummy!).

8. If you aren’t going to bake for a few days put the starter in the fridge, and feed it once a week.  To revive it, take it out of the fridge and give it two or three days of feedings before you use it.

9. To create a whole wheat or rye starter first begin with a living white flour starter at least two weeks old.  Instead of feeding it a half-cup of white flour  and half-cup water, instead feed it a half cup of whole wheat or rye flour and a half cup of water.  In a few days you will have “converted” your white flour starter to a whole wheat or rye starter.  With both a whole wheat and rye starter it is especially important to feed the starter every day as these flours have a tendency to develop molds much more quickly than white flour starters.

Here is a pic of my supplies

This is after 1 week

It already smells quite  sour and looks like a science experiment on my stove.

Sourdough Myths (according to book)

1. You should add grapes/potatoes/rice to the flour and water mixture to hasten the development of wild yeasts.  Sorry folks, the wild yeasts are in the flour and you don’t need anything except flour and water to get your starter going.  The wild yeasts on the skin of grapes are a different beast and not the kind that make bread rise.

2. You should add some commercial yeast to get it going.  Wrong.  Commercial yeast is another type of beast entirely.  More, it does not survive the acidic bacterial stew that makes up a healthy starter culture.

3. You should mail order a sourdough starter to replicate a regional flavor.  In all likelihood the the wild yeasts in the flour you use will eventually dominate any mail order cultures you purchase.  Your starter will be local to wherever you live.

4. You have to use bottled water.  (the hippies) We’ve made starters with plain old chlorinated LA tap water with no problems.  If your water is heavily chlorinated and you’re having problems with your starter you can de-chlorinate your water by letting the water stand without a lid for 24 hours.

5. Wild yeasts are in the air and you need to “catch” them.  Yes, there are yeasts in the air, but there are millions more in flour which, in all likelihood, is the origin of the beasts that will make your starter bubble.

Hopefully these tips will give you the inspiration it gave me to give the “mother starter” a try and start your very own experiment on the stove top.  It’s fun, smelly, and kinda like being a kid.  Give it a try and let me know how it goes, and how yor bread turns out

Say Cheese!

I know it’s been some time since I posted, but many great things have been happening in my culinary world.  I moved back to Portland, OR, found a job at Ping, and am now enjoying working in a commercial kitchen for the first time.

I’m still cooking at home, and for Christmas Stevan gave me a wonderful Cheese Making Kit!  I always wanted to make my own cheese   I’ve done a little tutorial for you, so you won’t need a kit.  Just a few supplies before you begin (you can google where to get the supplies).  I started with Mozzarella, but I have the materials for Ricotta too.

MOZZARELLA

*Ingredients*

1 Gallon of milk (whole milk, and not Ultra Pasturized “UP”)

1/4 cup cool water

1 1/2 tsp citric acid

1/4 rennet tablet

3 tsp. cheese salt (and/or optional herbs)

*Supplies*

1 large pot (at least 6 qt.)

Large slotted spoon

Thermometer

Rubber gloves or large spoon

Yield -1 1/2 lbs. or two big cheese balls.

This is a picture of the cheese kit!

Ok, here are the easy steps involved.

Step 1 -Dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet into 1/4 cup of cool water.  Stir and set aside.  Wrap the remaining pieces of tablet and store in freezer.

Step 2 -Mix 1 1/2 teaspoons citric acid into 1 cup cool water until dissolved.

Step 3- Pour 1 gallon of milk into your pot.  Heat to 85 degrees F, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.  At 85 degrees stir vigorously while adding the citric acid solution.

Step 4 -Heat to 100 degrees F while stirring occasionally again (happens quickly).  At 100 degrees F slowly stir in the rennet solution with a gentle up and down motion for approx. 30 seconds.

Step 5 -Your curds should show clear signs of coagulation -looks like shiny yogurt.  You can see a separation from curds and whey and the curds pull from the sides of the pot.

Stir for another minute and turn off heat.

Step 6-Ladle your curds into a heat resistant bowl.  At this point you can cover and refrigerate the curds for stretching later or you can move on to the next step

There is a way to stretch your cheese using a microwave, but I haven’t had one in 10 years, so I’m doing the stove top method.

Step 7- Wash out your pot, and refill with a gallon of clean water.  Heat your water to 185 degrees F (no hotter or you’ll overcook the curds).

Step 8 – Stir in 3 tsp. of salt when your water bath hits 185 degrees F.

Step 9 -Take the pot off of the stove.  Place half of your curds into the water for 2-5 minutes or until your curds hit 135 degrees F.  The curds need to be 135 degrees F, or they will not stretch.

Step 10- Put on your rubber gloves, and stretch the curds.  Form them into a nice shiny ball.  If you don’t have rubber gloves you can put the curds into a clean bowl, and use two spoons to stretch and form.

Repeat on the second half of your curds.  You may need to reheat the water if you are too slow.

Here are my results!  They could be a little prettier, but hey -I had fun!  and for a first attempt, I thought it was pretty tasty

Overall it took me about a hour, and I had enough moz to last a week or so (pizza, salads, etc).  Store the cheese covered.  Do NOT store in water or whey.

White Bread

A little while ago Stevan and I made some wonderful blackberry jam from some found blackberries around Vancouver (free = yummy).  To celebrate our success I purchased some really nice Italian bread at the store.  When I looked at the ingredients I was really sad to see that corn syrup was listed…why!  why!

Making bread is really simple, and a bit theraputic sometimes.  It’s much better for you, and makes the house smell heavenly.  I’ll start with a white bread tutorial, but shortly I’ll move on to focaccia (vegan), and sourdough.

Recipe:

1 1/4 cups (297ml) warm milk

1/4 cup (60g) butter, softened butter

1 1/4 tsp (6.25g) salt

3 to 4 cups  (.42L to .56L) all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp (30ml) warm water

1 package active dry yeast

1 tsp (5g) sugar

1 squirt of honey from a little bear

In measuring cup, stir together the water yeast and sugar.  Let stand 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mixture is foamy.

In a pot warm up the milk, combined with butter, salt,  and a little honey until just warm enough to put your pinky in the milk “pinky temp”!).

In a bowl combine the flour and foamy yeast mixture, then pour in the warm milky mixture.  This is why you want it only pinky temp!

Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface.  Kneed and continue to add flour until the dough is soft but does not stick to your fingers.

Continue to kneed for 12 minutes.  Don’t cheat…12 minutes.

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until double in size.

Punch down dough and put into a well greased pan.  Let the dough rise a second time in the pan.   I have some fun little molds called canape molds that I use just for fun

Bake in a 400F degree oven for 10 minutes .  Reduce heat to 375 F and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Guest Blogger – Home Coffee Roasting by Stevan

Posted on  – http://chefkristin.wordpress.com

Hi Everyone,

Kristin is already starting to wrap up her culinary educational experience at PICA, and with her recent time focused on studying for finals and such, she asked if I’d be willing to do a guest blog entry about my recent coffee roasting experiences with a modified popcorn popper.  I can see the relation to culinary arts, and she describes it as ‘the best smelling hobby you’ve ever taken up’!

I’ve been spending some personal time lately on roasting coffee at home, largely out of necessity (we’re spoiled with an abundance of good coffee in Portland), but I’ve also developed a strong interest with the process.  It’s a very interesting mix of science and art, almost like alchemy if anything else.

There are a number of excellent coffee roasters in Portland, our favorites being Stumptown Coffee Roasters (who just opened a roaster and coffee shop in NYC) , and Ristretto Roasters.  Portland has a long history of both local artisan and major roasters, and Kristin and I have both progressively become more picky about our coffee tastes.  Since moving to Vancouver, we’ve been bringing coffee back from Portland for home brewing, but miss the local coffee houses serving up excellent locally roasted coffees.  In all fairness, I’ve found JJ Bean to be a decent roaster in Vancouver, as well as 49th Parallel, who roasts for a number of smaller coffee shops including the close to our house Elysian, and the local chain Cafe Artisiano; both brew some of best coffee we’ve found so far in Vancouver.

This write-up is intended to be an overview of the complete process of roasting and preparing coffee, from green bean to cup.  Many of these tricks and techniques I’ve learned from spending time in various coffee houses in Portland, excellent websites such as Sweet Maria’s, and specifically fellow Portlander coffee-geek David Turnbull.  It will provide a quick overview of the coffee roasting process with a modified popcorn popper, and then the method of how we prepare our coffee at home which we’ve found to provide the best tasting cup.

Supplies

Here are the basic supplies needed:

1. Modified popcorn popper
2. Supply of green coffee beans
3. A good burr coffee grinder (not a blade grinder, which just suck)
4. Chemex, french press, or your preferred method for coffee making
5. Measuring cups, bowls, and colander

Roasting Coffee At Home with an Modified Popcorn Popper

Popcorn poppers make great cheap coffee roasters, but they need to be slightly modified in order to let them get hot enough, and provide some control over the airflow which essentially allows you to develop a roast profile for the bean you are working with.   I’m not going to go into a lot of details about the modification process itself, as there are a number of excellent references already on the web which describe that; they can be found in the links at the bottom of the page.

As for acquiring a popper, 2nd hand stores such as The Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.. are great sources, as are eBay.  The main thing to look for in finding a suitable popper, is finding one with the proper metal air cylinder.  My mom donated her 15yr old ‘Toastess’ popper, which seems to be a popular brand in Canada and works well.  The basic modifications which need to be performed are:

1. Bypassing the thermostat so the popper can get hot enough (may also need to bypass the thermal fuse)
2. Getting some control over the fan, which controls airflow
3. Installing a thermometer so you can monitor the temperature during the roasting process

Once you have modified a popper which can be used for roasting coffee, you will need to acquire some unroasted green coffee beans.  Availability of green beans varies with your location, but here are some ideas:

• Some Whole Foods markets in the US carry grean beans, although not here in Canada.
• Online – specifically Sweet Maria’s has a well-priced and excellent selection, along with some great notes about the bean and ideal roasts.
• A local roaster will often sell you small quantities of green beans if you ask.  I found JJ Bean in Vancouver (only the main location on Powell) sold whatever they were roasting at the time, and my Mom in Lethbridge also found some at a local roaster.

Green beans typically weigh 1.25-1.5 times as much as when they are roasted, and on average cost 1/2 to 1/3 of the roasted prices.  There are so many variances in coffee beans including wet processed vs. dry processed, shade grown, organic, the region, etc.. that I’m not even going to bother getting into it, but that’s what makes this hobby to interesting.  Just keep experimenting with beans and roast profiles as you develop your tastes and preferences.

Here’s a picture of my setup, ready to go:

The control box to the popper turns the heating element on/off, and the dimmer controls the fan speed.  The glass bowl is there to collect the chaff, which is the inner-most skin of the bean that comes off during the magical roasting process.  You can also see my measured out green beans, which vary by popper but I find 1/3rd cup works best in my popper.  The best way to tell the correct amount is by putting in enough coffee with the fan on nearly full, and the green beans should just barely be moving.

Here are some additional images showing the coffee in the popper, and with the hood on which is used to hold the thermometer:

Once the correct amount of coffee is in the popper and the fan is moving, turn on the heater to start the roasting process; this is where the interesting part begins.

You will want to carefully monitor the duration of time and temperature of the roaster; I use the stopwatch feature in my iPhone.  You can do this without a thermometer, but carefully watch the time and color of the beans and keep a log.

The time/temperature ratio of each roast is essentially the ‘roast profile’, and will have a major impact on the final roasted product.  Ideally, the roast should be 6-12 minutes at least; anything shorter will just taste like burning.  The style of the roast is the interesting part of the hobby for me, as different coffee’s will exhibit different characteristics based on their origin, and how they are roasted.  In general, the air roasting method, like this one, tend to produce a high-toned flavor profile due to effectively blowing the smoke off the beans during the roasting process.

Again, this is the alchemy part of the hobby so the temperature, roast time, color, etc.. will be dependent on personal tastes.  Most people tend to prefer a darker roast, so for a first attempt, or if you don’t have a thermometer, a good rule of thumb is stop the roast as soon as you hear the second crack, which is usually a Full-City or Light French Espresso roast.  Here’s some basic temp/roast info from the ‘Home Coffee Roasting’ Book:

~400F – Light Brown – Cinnamon/Light Roast (First Crack)
~425F – Medium Brown – Medium Roast/American
~440F – Medium-Dark Brown – Full City/Light French Espresso (Second Crack)

My popper tends to first crack around 4-5min, and second crack around 9-10 min.

I usually keep a log of each roast, with the following information:

• Date
• Bean origin/information
• Time at ‘first crack’ (FC)
• Temperature at FC
• Time when roast is stopped
• Time/temperature at ‘second crack’ (if roasted that long)
• General color at end of roast

Once you’ve reached your desired roast, turn off the heater and crank the fan onto full.  You will be surprised at how quickly the fan cools off the beans due to the design of the popper.  Within a minute, the temperature should be under 200F and you can transfer the beans into a colander and shake them around for additional cooling.  Here’s a picture of a fresh medium-dark roast:

Once you’ve completed the roast and the beans have cooled down, you can transfer them into a jar or tupperware container.  You need to let some of the CO2 burn off the beans, so they need to sit for a minimum of 12hrs.  Once you open the container from a fresh roast, you will really understand what fresh roasted coffee is all about.

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT SAFETY!!

When roasting coffee, these poppers get HOT.  There is also a lot of smoke from the beans on darker roasts, which will set off smoke alarms if not properly ventilated. I’ve already ruined one popper when the smoke alarm and entire building fire alarm went off, in which i panicked and turned off the breaker, which essentially killed all airflow to the popper.  Airflow without heat is actually a very effective cooling mechanism; no airflow with a heater @ 450F is not.  Essentially the plastic fan melted into the heating element before I realized what was happening, in a near fission experiment.  If you get into a situation where there is a ton of smoke and potential fire hazard – KILL THE HEATER BUT LEAVE THE FAN ON!  Or, get a fire extinguisher and prepare for a mess.

Making Coffee

We’ve experimented with a number of methods, and found the old 60′s style Chemex coffee makers with the square filters to make the best cup of coffee.  It removes any bitterness out of the taste and is a quick, easy process.

Here’s a pic of our setup:

Basically, here are the steps:

1. Start boiling some water
2. Grind the fresh roasted coffee beans in a quality burr grinder.  Cheap grinders will not uniformly grind the coffee which results inconsistent taste.
3. For 2-3 cups of coffee, we use 3-4 heaping teaspoons of fresh coffee, dumped into the 4cup Pyrex measuring cup
4. When the water just starts to boil, pour in 3 cups of water into the Pyrex measuring cup, and cover (to retain heat)
5. We also pour some excess hot water into the cups we will be using, so that the cups are already warm and heat isn’t transfered away from the brewed coffee
6. After about 2-3 minutes of steeping, pour the coffee into the paper-lined funnel of the Chemex coffee maker to drip
7. Enjoy fresh, home roasted coffee!!

We are surprised at how conditioned people are to cheap, crappy coffee that has been freeze dried and sitting on a shelf for who knows how long.  Coffee is an incredible fruit, that has something like 2000+ identified substances contributing to 700+ different flavors.  Some are bold, some are subtle, and the roast profile and freshness of the coffee are such an important part of the end result.

Happy roasting!!

Regards,

- Stevan

–

Links:

Defacto Bible on Home Coffee Roasting – http://www.amazon.com/Home-Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated/dp/0312312199
Sweet Maria’s – http://www.sweetmarias.com/
Engadget Popcorn Popper Modification – http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/28/how-to-make-a-popcorn-popper-coffee-roaster/
Chemex Coffee Makers - http://www.chemexcoffeemaker.com/

Weekend Dinner #1

I’ve decided to start something new with the blog.  I will try to take photos and talk about at least one dish I make for dinner each weekend.  These photos won’t be the best, because I’m usually rushing to finish, but you’ll get the idea

I will warn you that not every dinner I make will work out…that is just part of cooking I’m afraid, but I will talk about what worked, and what I would like to try differently.

Dinner 7/18  -Sun Dried Ravoli stuffed with onion, chicken thigh, shitake, and boccachini cheese.

First step was to pour a bit of hot water in a bowl with the sun dried tomatoes to soften them up a bit.  Then drain, and add a bit of olive oil to the bowl.

Also, make sure to defrost your chicken thighs if necessary

Now, we need to get started on the tomato sauce.  You will need one large carrot, 2 celery sticks, 1/2 to 1/4 of white onion depending on size, 4 garlic cloves, one can of diced tomato, and one can of tomato paste.  You don’t need to be too precise on your cuts here since we are going to blend or put into a food processor.

With a bit of olive oil in a pot cook your onions until slightly clear, then add garlic, followed by carrots, and celery.  Cook until you can smell the carrots (they take the longest to cook and will add lots of flavor).

Then add your can of tomatoes, tomato paste, and 1 can of water (you can use your diced tomato can).  Add your bay leaf and seasoning.  Bring to a boil, and reduce to simmer.

While the sauce is simmering, we can get started making the pasta dough.  Directly in a food processor you can add 1 cup of flour (I use durum semolina flour), 4 egg yolks, 1 whole egg, 3 pinches of salt,  sun dried tomatoes, and 1 tbsp olive oil (I used the olive oil that the sun dried tomatoes were in).  Pulse the food processor a few times, then add 2 tablespoons of water.  Turn on the food processor and the dough should start to form a ball in the processor.  If not, try adding a bit more flour.  If it doesn’t form a ball, try a bit of water.

Kneed the dough until no longer sticky (add flour if too sticky), and wrap in plastic wrap to rest.

Meanwhile, let’s cook the filling.

For the filling I finely shopped white onion, chicken thigh, shitake, boccachini cheese and basil.  In a small fry pan with a bit of olive oil I started by pan frying the onion, then chicken, followed by shitake, and finally the basil.  When the mixture cooled completely I added the cheese.

Now I cleaned out my food processor and blended my tomato sauce (remove bay leaf first ).

I put the pasta sauce back in the pot, and return to low simmer.

Now I can take out my new favorite toy -Pasta machine!!! It was about $60 on Amazon, and so far it’s been worth every penny.  Stevan won’t go back to eating store-bought pasta.

I divide my dough into 4 parts to make it easier to roll, and in fact I will only use 2 out of 4 of the segments.  The remaining dough can be refrigerated or frozen for future use.

Lightly kneed one segment of the dough into a flat disk with your hands.  Flour the machine and set to the flowest setting (on my machine that’s #1), Roll the dough through, and fold over onto itself

The reason for the fold-over is to make the dough a bit wider.  When you put the fold-over dough back through the machine, put the folded end in first, so any air pockets have a chance to escape.  I usually do 1 or two fold-overs on step #1 on my machine, then move over to #2, then directly to #3, and finally #4.  Each setting makes the dough a bit longer, and thinner.  The final sheet is called a sfoglia, and it is what we will use to make our ravoli.

Make two sheets of sfoglia out of the two segments of dough.  Using a drinking glass cut out small circles.  Add a teaspoon worth of filling to one circle of dough, and add a little egg wash around the edges.

Put another circle on top pf your existing circle, and press into shape with any rounded shape (I used a round tablespoon as shown in the pic below).  You can use a bottle cap..whatever.  Be resourceful   Fork the edges so it looks like a little sun.

This is a pic of Stevan helping out…I think he was hungry.

I put the ravoli in a pot of rolling boiling water (salted), and meanwhile steamed up some veggies.  The last step in my dinner was to make a little basil coulis for the top of the pasta.  Using a blender I threw in a handful of basil, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Blend on high, as to not “burn” the basil and turn it a darker color.

Here is the finished dish!

Stevan and I both ranked it an 8 out of 10.  The pasta could have been cooked a bit longer, and tomato pasta on tomato sauce really did not stand out….maybe a different base sauce next time…hmmm…

food for thought.

Happy cooking!

Kristin

De-boning a chicken

There is no wrong way to de-bone a chicken.  Let me repeat, there is no wrong way to de-bone a chicken.  Simply removing the meat from the bone is all we are hoping to achieve.  You will not mess this up, but with practice you can become super fast, and efficient.

You may notice that whole chickens are about the same price as two boneless/skinless chicken breasts in the store (at least they are in Vancouver).  Well, it’s pretty darn economical to de-done your own chicken, and hopefully you can see the value after reading this blog a bit.

First thing is first.  We need to talk about Salmonella.  You can get Salmonella from chicken and eggs, so please wash your cutting board and knife with soap and hot water after cutting chicken on it, and if at all possible have a separate cutting board for meat.

*You will need a cutting board, knife, plastic wrap, and freezer bags ready.  Also, if you are going to keep the carcass for stock, have a container ready for that too!

Wash your chicken inside the cavity and outside, just to give a good rinse.

Have the chicken breast side up, and wings facing toward you (just like the photo above).  Lift the chicken up and look at the breasts inside the cavity.  Where the breasts come together, you will feel two diagonal bones in each breast with your fingers.  This is the wish bone.

Make two small slits with the tip of your knife, and pull out the wish bone.  This will help you a great deal later.

Don’t worry if you break the wishbone…it just means the chicken got it’s wish, and will be a tasty meal

Next, turn the chicken around so the legs are facing you.  In the next steps will will be removing the legs.

Pull the leg out a bit, and you will see a good amount of skin in between the bird and the leg.  If you are unsure you can pinch the area, to make sure it’s just skin.

Take your knife and make a small cut in the skin.  You will then be able to see the meat, and where the difference between the leg and bird is.

Now, before you go any further, turn the bird over, so we can see the back.  Make a small cut down the back of the bird running the whole length of the bird.  This is a guideline for removing the legs.  It just helps make sure you have a consistent amount of meat on each leg, and helps as a reminder to get as much meat from the back as you can.

Flipping the bird back over, now we can continue with the first leg.  Cut between the leg and the bird until you hit the hip joint.  Simply take the leg, and rotate away from the bird so you disjoint the leg.  It will make a pop, and you have one freely disjointed leg.

Continue to cut the meat until you have reached your guideline in the back, and down the guideline.

Repeat the leg process for the other side.

Now, feel the front of the chicken breasts, and find the bone that runs between the two breasts.  Take you knife and make a shallow cut down the right or left side of the breast bone.

Take your knife and follow down the side of the breast bone.  The breast should easily peel back from the bone since we removed the wish bone.

You now have one more joint to deal with -the wing.  Same principal applies, cut until you can see the joint, and pull back away from the bird to dislocate the joint.

When you are done you will be left with two drums with thigh attached, two breasts with wings attached, and a full carcass.  With the two breasts, you can now decide how you would like to prepare them.  Skin on/off or a fun way to serve a chicken breast is called “airline.”  It’s when you leave the first joint of the wing attached, clean it, and cook or roast the breast with the bone attached.

Now for the legs.  You will need to remove the thigh bone.  You can feel it with you fingers on the underside of the thigh.

Make two small cuts with your knife on either side of the bone.  Put your finger into the cuts, and make sure you can feel around the bone.  Remove your fingers, put your knife tip in the same hole, and cut away from the drum.  Now you have the thigh bone exposed.  Scrape down the bone with your knife until you reach the joint.  This joint is a bit tougher, but same principle…rotate away, and give it some muscle.  It will disjoint with a bit of effort.  Keep the bone for stock if you are making one.

Now turn the drum/thigh over, and give a pinch with your fingers between the drum and thigh.  This is where you will cut.  It makes a nautral little depression, so you can feel where you should cut the drum and thigh.

Normally you leave the bone in the drumstick.  You can take it out, but the meat has quite a few tendons, and it really looses it’s shape.  The wings are also usually left whole, however some people take about a half an inch off of the wing tip for aesthetics.

If you are like me and eat in a “western” style, then maybe you aren’t too sure what to do with the drum, thigh, wings, and bone of the chicken.  In future blog posts I’ll show you how to make stock, and fun things to do with the extra meat.    Think of it as a challenge to make new and fun recipes using all of the bird.  It’s better for you, the planet, and surely your wallet

Happy cooking!

Garden Update -French Breakfast Radishes

The garden is in full bloom with the English Peas flowering, beets growing, stevia growing too big for it’s britches, and lettuce finally getting a growth spurt.  The only thing we have had to eat so far are the radishes.  It seems the French really know a thing or two about radishes…

The radishes are suppose to be oval in shape with red at the top and white at the base.  This radish is a little wonky, but it sure tastes lovely.  The taste was very mild at first, but grew to be really spicy.  Nothing better than veg from the garden

Choux Pastry -Edited

Sorry for not posting in a while.  My school has been keeping me busy with test, after test…jeeze you’d think I was in school or something!  Feels like fun.

In class this week we are learning a small amount of pastry (not my strong suit).  One pastry item I thought I could use a bit of practice on, since it’s on the mid-term.

INGREDIENTS:

125 ml. water (1/2 cup)

40 g. butter (1/4 cup)

Pinch salt

Pinch sugar

60 g flour (1/2 cup)

2 Eggs (wisk in a bowl).

Other supplies: wooden spoon, small pot, baking tray lined with parchment paper (double thick works best.  If you have two trays you can stack them), and piping bag with large round tip.

First step is to combine flour, salt, sugar, water, and butter in your small pot.  Bring the pot to a boil.

Then take the pot off of the heat and dump in your flour.  Stir like crazy.  You can put the pot back on the heat for about 30 seconds, but I don’t believe it’s 100% necessary.  When your flour mixture is incorporated, dump your dough into a new clean pot or bowl.  Start incorporating your eggs one at a time (you can eyeball it since your eggs are whisked).

Keep adding your egg until you have just a bit left over.  You will need to reserve some egg for later in the recipe.

When cooled a bit you can put your dough in the piping bag.  Make sure your tip is inside the bag, and nice and tight fitting on the bottom.

Squirt rounds of dough on the baking tray lined with parchment.  The trick here is to hold the piping bag still, squirt, stop squirting and lift up.  I still haven’t really mastered this, and my little choux aren’t really uniform

I made rather small choux, because I wanted to share them with some friends this evening.  Normally you should get about 8 choux out of this recipe.

Take the remaining bit of egg you have, and with your fingers smooth down any “peaks” on top of the choux.

Put your pan (double thick) into a 400 degree F oven for 10 minutes without opening the oven door.  After 10 minutes you can look and see if your choux are starting to puff up, or if they spread (bad sign -it means too much egg).

Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F and cook until golden brown.

While the choux is cooking, you can make some filling if you wish.  You can put any kind of filling into the choux that you can think of.  I’m going to make a simple chantilly cream

INGREDIENTS

Whipping cream

Icing Sugar

Vanilla

There isn’t really a recipe here.  Just add whipping cream to the bowl, a dash of vanilla, and a dash of icing sugar.  Wisk, until the whipping cream starts to come together.  Add more icing sugar, if it’s taking too long to come together.

When the choux are done, and cool, slice open the top, add your fillling, and dust with icing sugar.

Lunch 05/04

I have a new Canadian cell phone, with a pretty decent camera, so I’m able to take photos of the lunch I make at school.  Here is today’s menu:

Potato-crusted black cod

Tomato Chutney

Shaved fennel with black truffles

Grilled asparagus

Scallion oil

*The garnish you see is a deep fried lotus root, and a little piece of fennel.

Garden Update

Here are some updated pictures of my aerogarden.  It’s truely amazing them amount of growth since my last post.

English Peas -I planted 4, and all of them are this big!

Heirloom ruffly tomatoes.  I have 4 of these, and they are the monsters of the aerogarden!

Galapagos tomatoes

Black Japanese Tomatoes

Stevia

Flashy trout back lettuce