Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Chocolate soufflé



The dessert from my birthday dinner was a chocolate soufflé. And my birthday present was four soufflé ramekins! Yum. I promise not to try and eat the porcelain. I've never made a soufflé before, but Ed made it look easy. I should mention that all he let me do was watch him make me things and drink beer. I live a rough life.

Chocolate soufflé
1-3/4oz chocolate, melted
1.5tbs butter
add seeds from one vanilla bean
beat 1 egg yolk with 1tbs water and 1tbs sugar until strings form
fold egg yolk into chocolate mixture
ramekins coated with soft butter, then granulated sugar, then stuck in the freezer

Take ramekins out of freezer once egg yolks go into chocolate.

3 egg whites + 1/6C sugar + squeeze of lemon juice, beat to stiff peaks.

fold 1/3 of that into chocolate mixture, then fold in the rest, until relatively consistent.
Ladle into ramikins
400F
15-18min, once grown 1.5", golden brown and delicious.


I recommend sprinkling the sugar on top, it just makes it look prettier.

yummm. We had enough for three ramekins, you can probably guess who the glutton was who ate two...

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Birthday dinner!

We didn't quite get around to celebrating my birthday on my birthday, since, well, schedules and stuff. But the day after was good enough for me, and I got home from coaching to some pretty delicious smells. Ed had made me a three course meal, complete with a different type of beer for each course!

The appetizer was from the ocean - seared scallops, and broiled oysters. The scallops were perfect, and I had never known that I liked oysters until I tried these ones. They were cooked, and were quite delicious.


Ed gave me "recipes" for both. I'd recommend a slightly hotter pan for the scallops, but our stove can only put out so many watts. It's on its last legs.

Seared scallops:
Dry large sea scallops, 1-3/4 x 1-3/4" tall
Butter
Chopped green onions for garnish
Large-grain salt

Cut in half lengthwise, just to make them thinner, and leave out to dry out some more (they had been in a bag with liquid, and wet things don't sear well). Heat a pan with some butter, and put in the scallops. Don't crowd them. Leave them on one side until brown and seared, then flip. It's important to flip them and take them out before they have cooked to a hard texture rather than to wait for them to brown, hence the need for high heat. You don't want overcooked scallops. No siree.

Serve with pan juiced, sliced scallion, and sea salt

Oysters:
Ed shucked them well in advance, and cleaned well
Remove them from both sides of the shells and replace in shell, leave in fridge to produce enough liquid in shell
oven 400F
switch to broil, use tinfoil to keep them upright on baking sheet
broil 3min just to convert texture
back onto bed of ice to serve
lemon squeeze, scallion, salt (wellfleet oysters)

The next course was steak, Andrea Ogden's grass-fed steak, no less, with a sage butter. And champagne-braised carrots and onions and a purple cauliflower, probably because Ed knew I'd flip out if we didn't have some vegetables with the meal. Although on all days to only eat meat and chocolate, I feel like my birthday is a fine day to do just that.


Sage butter:
1/2 stick butter (already soft)
1/2 bunch of fresh sage

Put half the butter into pan with diced sage, and cook sage until slightly browned and crispy. Stir with softened other half, and then put in a bowl in freezer until solidified enough to work with it, but not hard (2 minutes, more or less). Then form a log on wax paper, and leave in freezer to make solid. When the steak is done, slice off a round, and let it melt onto the meat. Actually, you could do this while it's cooking, too.


I think the chocolate soufflé deserves its own post... keep your eyes peeled for that one!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Spicy cheese crackers



No ski trip is complete without cheez-its. Unfortunately, I didn't have any cheez-its, and I was going on a ski trip. Thankfully, I did have cheddar cheese, butter, and flour. Done deal. These crackers were DELICIOUS, and definitely passed the Ed-rating with flying colors. I will be making them again, they far surpassed the bright-orange cheez-its I'm used to.

Spicy cheese crackers
Didn't make nearly enough, double the recipe
1.5C grated cheddar cheese
4tbs butter
3/4C flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbs milk

Preheat oven to 350F.

Dump everything into a food processor and process until it makes a ball of dough. Roll this out with a floured rolling pin until it is ~1/8" thick. Cut into squares, or whatever shape you feel like, really. Dock the top with a fork, to keep them from getting puffy. Bake for 12-15 minutes, checking occasionally.

I recommend keeping smaller, single-person servings in different containers, because otherwise you'll eat the entire batch all at once, and then you won't have any more. That would be sad.