culinaryme: a cookbook

It's been three months of hard work - writing down recipes, grouping recipes by shared ingredients, grocery shopping, measuring, cooking, plating, photographing, editing, with repeated steps sometimes.

And finally, after a text formatting nightmare with the ebook, I have finally completed my cookbook. It is available in hardcover, softcover and in ebook format. I have copies of each, so I can honestly say that everything turned out well. The photos are pretty, the text is clear, and a friend paid me a great compliment by saying simply that she could see herself making a lot of the recipes in the book.

The sections are named after the different sections/classes I took at school - Cafeteria, PCR, Latin Quarter (which I renamed Asian Quarter to feature some of the things I ate growing up), Advanced Baking & Pastry, and Garde Manger. Some of the recipes have already been posted on the blog, but they were selected for being the best of what I've made.

This link has a preview of the book, so you can see what some of the pages look like.

I know that for a cookbook, it's a little bit pricey, but that's because the books you order are printed individually and not as part of a bulk order. If I ordered a thousand copies and sold them, it'd be cheaper and I could probably stand to profit, but then I'd have a physical inventory to contend with. So I choosing not to profit and just to offer them at Blurb prices.

To cushion the blow, I'm offering anyone who buys a book the option of getting the ebook for free! Just let me know that you've purchased one by dropping me a comment.

Thank you for having followed me in my culinary school journey, the book is really dedicated to you all.

As for next steps... I am moving (back) to New York for a full-time job. It's not cooking related, but hunger related, so you know I will still be involved in food. If I cook anything of note, I will still include it here. But for now, good bye and good luck!

boba cake

My sister Jenny came up from Southern California for spring break. It was a drop-in visit, so I scrambled to make a cake since I wouldn't be seeing her for her birthday.

Since she loves pearl milk tea (known as boba in SoCal), I decided to make her a cake that looked like the drink.

First I started with Betty Crocker boxed yellow cake mix. Yes, it was given to me, and no, don't judge.

So despite it being boxed cake mix, I applied learned techniques to make it. First, have the eggs at room temperature and whip them in the kitchenaid mixer. Eggs will beat fluffier if at room temperature (you can cheat by microwaving them for about ten seconds). While it's mixing I sift the dry mixture so it is airy and lump-free. Then I alternate pouring the dry mix and the wet mix (water and oil) into the mixer until everything is just incorporated. Then it goes into lightly-oiled round pans and straight into the oven.

Once the cake rounds were baked I allowed the pan to cool, then took the rounds out by running a knife around the edge. Since I don't have a cooling rack, I just inverted the rounds onto an upside-down muffin tin.



When the cake rounds cooled to room temperature, I leveled them and punched different sizes rounds out of them using metal cutters.



These were stacked one on top of the other, from smallest to largest. The bottom round was anchored to the plate with the help of some melted chocolate (chocolate chips in the microwave in 15 second intervals, stirred in between). Then the other rounds were anchored with the help of a boba straw.



Two 8" cake rounds were enough to make two boba cake "towers". I frosted them with apricot whipped cream. Usually I put fruit between cake layers, but it would have compromised stability in this case, so I put it in the whipped cream instead (basically canned apricot pureed and mixed into whipped cream). The only unfortunate part was that it made the whipped cream less smooth and spreadable.



The last-minute addition was of boba pearls. You can cook your own, which I tried, but it took more time than I had so the pearls were too hard. So I ended up using pearls plucked out of a boba drink. Unfortunately they were really slippery and wouldn't stay "glued" to the towers. If I had more time, I would have cut the pearls in half - think that would have made them stick a lot better.

The good thing is, we were able to surprise Jenny with the cake, so that allowed the cake's flaws to be overlooked a bit. When in doubt about your creation, surprise the recipient with it! I'm only half-kidding. She liked it a lot though.

spiced potato wedges

These are kind of similar to the semi-homemade garlic parmesan parsley fries from awhile back, except these are entirely homemade and cheaper.

First, start with 2 or 3 potatoes. Scrub them well and cut them in half lengthwise, then into wedges.

Then, toss them with oil and spices - I used my standard italian herbs, garlic powder, cayenne, salt & pepper. In terms of quantity, it's just enough so that every wedge gets some on both sides. You can put all the ingredients into a bowl and just toss.

Then I laid them on a oiled sheet tray and into the 350F oven for maybe 10 minutes on each side.



After they're nicely golden and almost brown, I slide them onto a plate and sprinkle parmesan cheese, then put the plate back into the turned-off-but-still-warm oven for a minute so the cheese melts.

On top I sprinkled scallions, which is what I had at the time, but you can use any herb garnish. And then for dipping I had my favorite ranch and sriracha-spiked ketchup. Addicting.

rice soggies krispies

So in the month that I didn't blog, I mentioned trying things out and not having them work out. Rice krispies was one of those things.

Even though I'd never made them before I assumed I could, like other things, just make them. Well I was wrong. Apparently mastering the finer points of pastry does not exempt one from krispie fail.

In rice krispie attempt #1, I browned butter and added nutella to the mix and then topped it all with smoked almonds and chocolate syrup. I wanted the syrup to harden so I put the pan in the fridge, which I thought must have been a mistake, because the rice krispies became rice soggies (or just softies).

So then in rice krispie attempt #2 I made sure to keep the pan far away from the fridge. The kripies were crispy for like 10 triumphant seconds (okay maybe minutes) but eventually became soggy. Another fail.

I was beginning to feel like I couldn't make anything when I decided to forgo the whole making-my-own-homemade-marshamallow part and just succumbing to KRAFT jet-puffed marshmallows.



So I browned 2 tablespoons of butter and melted 26 marshmallows into it. Stirred with a silicone spatula until the marshmallows were fully melted.



Then I poured the mixture into 4 cups of rice krispie cereal (with some dried cranberries and almonds thrown in for kicks).



And lo and behold, something about the manufactured corn syrup-ness of it all meant that the marshmallow mixture didn't seep into the cereal but simply adhered to the cereal like spider silk. Crazy. Took an hour or so to set and stop being like pulling taffy.

And a day later, it still tastes great. Makes you wonder...

loaded baked potato

Oftentimes I get hungry right before bed, which is always a dilemma because they say you shouldn't eat before you go to sleep and yet an empty stomach keeps me up.

So to preempt the problem I had a late night (but not too late night) snack of a baked potato. It was wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in the oven while I baked other things, for about an hour.

The texture was very smooth, almost like it was boiled. I guess since it was wrapped in foil it was actually steamed.

I topped it with creme fraiche, parsley, salt and pepper, cayenne, and some gherkins/cornichons on the side. Could always do cheese or bacon bits! With toppings it's like the more the merrier :)

farro salad soup

Today I came home from class craving soup.

No soup in the fridge. No soup in the freezer. No soup in cans. No cup of noodles even, it was at work.

What to do??? In situations like these I tend to pace about from pantry to fridge, fridge to pantry, in hope for some vain substitute. It rarely ever works.

Cris had brought over some farro salad he made earlier today. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten farro (it's like twins with barley, and I guess I've eaten that). Anyway. It was sitting in my fridge. I stared at it, willing it to be soup.

Then I thought - why not turn it into soup???

I couldn't even wait to thaw out some turkey stock from the fridge. I took some water, spooned some chicken base into it, dumped the farro salad in (farro, lamb, olives, carrots, cucumber, apple), then brought the mixture to a boil. While it simmered, I drizzled a little cornstarch slurry to thicken. A few minutes later I poured it into a bowl, dropped in some parsley leaves, and I had soup.

There's nothing like satisfying a craving.

turkey patties

Since I mentioned turkey burgers in my previous Cooking Matters post, I had to make them for y'all.



Started with 1.25 lb of ground turkey, 1 egg white, 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup of chopped parsley, 1/4 cup of finely diced onion, a couple cloves of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.



Mixed everything by hand and formed little palm-sized patties.



In a hot pan with oil, I laid the patties down. Flipped them over once they browned. Then covered the pan with a lid so the insides would cook. A few minutes later they were done! (The egg whites help in this case because you'll see the little cooked bits starting to seep out.)



And behold, one of the best food photos I've taken as of late.



I ate the patties atop some quinoa pilaf (dried cranberries, feta cheese, crushed almonds, minced parsley and orange zest). The patties are just the right amount of meaty. I think ground turkey might just become my protein of choice!

garlic parmesan parsley fries

One day after work I was craving fries, so I stopped by the local grease burger drive-up joint and ordered a bag of fries. They came piping hot, like presents I all too eagerly unwrapped into a soon-to-be scalding mouth.

Rather than go through the entire bag like that, I decided to jazz up the fries by sauteeing some minced garlic and parsley together with the fries, then sprinkling some pre-packaged parmesan cheese on top.

For dipping, I had the joint-requested ranch along with some sriracha ketchup I whipped up. Deeelicious. Nothing like satisfying a craving.

cooking matters

For the past six weeks I've been volunteering with an organization called Three Squares - so named for their belief that everyone should have three square meals a day.

A cornerstone of the work they do is teaching Cooking Matters classes in community centers all over the Bay Area. They have classes for children, teens, adults, and some are even in Spanish!



I volunteered to be the Chef Instructor for one of their teen classes. The goal was to teach healthy cooking and eating. And I have to admit, I learned quite a few things myself, including some healthy delicious recipes that are now part of my repertoire. They include the baked flaked chicken pictured above (paired with baked kale) as well as turkey burgers (like these) and pita pizzas (like these).

It was challenging teaching to teens with busy schedules - a lot of the students didn't attend regularly or had to leave early. Many of them had trouble sitting still and letting others talk without interruption. But when it came to cooking they generally became very focused. Hands-on learning was a big hit, and luckily for me that was the portion I taught.



In one of the classes I taught the teens how to make brown rice & veggie sushi. Two of the students had never even tasted sushi before. They each made their own roll and ate it with dipping sauce (soy sauce + vinegar), and all seemed to like it. It was very gratifying for me to have introduced them to something new.

Of course, I would encourage you to volunteer!

buttermilk mac & cheese

This recipe started out with a surplus of buttermilk. I'd originally purchased some to use for cornbread (something that didn't make it onto this blog because I've yet to find a recipe for my ideal cornbread, which is cake-like yet robust and just slightly sweet) but there was a lot leftover.

So when I was hankering for some mac & cheese it occurred to me that I needn't resign myself to Organic Annie's box but that I could Google buttermilk mac and cheese for ideas. This came up and looked delicious.

Started with a roux of 2 Tb butter and 2 Tb flour. I let the butter go a little too long, so it got browned (but all the better for flavor it turns out). To the browned butter dark roux I added 1 1/2 cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese and 1 cup buttermilk.

Then, in went the cooked Annie's macaroni shells (6 oz), 1 cup ground turkey sauteed with garlic, 1/2 cup diced tomato, a sprinkle of sliced scallion, and salt and pepper to taste.



I poured the cooked mixture into one of those giant ramekin-like souffle dishes. On top I sprinkled another 1/2 cup of cheddar, 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs and some herbs and cayenne. This was covered with aluminum foil and baked in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes. For the last couple of minutes I actually took the foil off so the crust could brown some and get more crust-like.



It turned out even better than I had hoped. Cheesy crust, gooey savory oh-so-comforting inside - with some sauteed mushrooms and green beans to go alongside. I'm going to be making this one again and it might even make it into the cookbook!

vegetable quiche

Since graduating culinary school I have been cooking at home. Some of it's stuff I photographed and meant to put up, except the recipe didn't turn out right or I didn't like how the results tasted, so nothing's come up here yet.

Never fear, however. I will continue blogging sporadically while I attempt to write my very own culinaryme cookbook.

This vegetable quiche will be one of the included recipes - the first time I made this marked my discovery of fontina cheese as the perfect quiche cheese. The vegetables were just what I had on time at the time, but it turned out great so I decided to make it again. You can surely add meat but you won't miss it if you don't.

First, the crust. I looked around at quiche crust recipes but defaulted to a French classic, pâte brisée, or shortcrust pastry.



That's 1 and 3/4 cup all purpose flour (APF), 1 stick unsalted butter, 1 egg, 1 tsp crème fraîche (to make it more French) and 1/2 tsp salt.

The flour is sifted with the salt and the butter is cold/hard and grated with a cheese grater to render the butter into bits. (If you have a food processor there's that option too.)



Beat the egg and pour it into a well in the flour. Incorporate the egg into the flour, then add the crème fraîche and knead. Refrigerate for an hour or so before you roll it out.



Here is the crust rolled out and into a 8" cake pan. I poked holes with a fork so the crust wouldn't inflate from butter steam. This went into a 325F oven for about 5 minutes, until it got golden.



For the filling, I had thyme, 1 shallot (minced), 1 zucchini (diced), 1 box mushrooms (sliced) and half a bag of spinach. These were sauteed with a little oil - shallot first, then mushroom and thyme, then zucchini, and spinach last.



Besides the vegetables the filling consisted of 1 cup heavy cream, 4 eggs, 8 oz fontina cheese, 2 oz jalapeno havarti (or some other spicy white cheese), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and 1/2 tsp nutmeg.



Everything was mixed and poured into the quiche crust, which was returned to the oven and baked for another ~45 minutes.



I took it out when it got golden brown on top but was still a little gooey inside. If you prefer it firmer, you can cover it with aluminum foil and bake it a bit longer. Satisfying either way!

macarons finally

I've made macarons before, both at school and at internship. But making it at home was a whole other deal. Thanks to recipes and detailed explanations from this blog, I was finally able to make them successfully at home.



Here are the key ingredients: almost-stiff peak meringue (mine was a little too stiff) and sifted almond meal + powdered sugar.

The meringue was made with the swiss meringue technique: cooked over a double boiler. 105g of egg whites (roughly 3 eggs worth) and 110g of sugar heated to 110F, then whisked with the kitchenaid.

The sifted dry mixture was 140g of almond meal (Trader Joe's!) 90g of powdered sugar.



The dry mix was carefully folded into the meringue with a couple drops of red food coloring. The resulting dough is supposed to be a little more liquid than this, since my meringue was a little too stiff. But it's better to err on the side of too stiff than too soft with this.



Piped the macarons with a pastry bag fitted with a round tip. Then left them on the counter for half an hour to develop a "skin" (basically when you touch the rounds and nothing sticks to your finger).



While the piped macarons were sitting, I made the ganache filling. Melted 4oz dark chocolate, 1/4 cup of nutella (can be omitted) and 2 Tb of butter in a double boiler.



Then whisked 1/2 cup of heated cream into the chocolate mixture. The ganache mixture was left to cool and solidify a bit. I popped it in the fridge to speed up the process.



Once the macarons were ready, I baked them in a 275F oven for 15-20 minutes. They're ready when they are hard, almost-golden and come off the parchment nicely.



I paired the macarons based on matching size, then piped the chocolate ganache onto half of the pairs.



Now that I've successfully made macarons, it's time to experiments with colors and flavors!

holiday cookies

One of the last things I did at my internship was decorate holiday cookies. It got me in the mood to make some of my own, and I did it just like they did at internship, using a sweet dough recipe normally used for tarts. I never thought you could have a multipurpose dough - for tarts and for cookies. It's very similar to shortbread, although more flavorful, with just enough crumble and snap.

The recipe (makes about 50 cookies):

soft butter 250g
sugar 175g
almond powder 40g
yolk 1
eggs 1
flour 400g
baking powder 3g
orange zest 2-3
cold water 12g

1) Cream butter and sugar for a few minutes using the paddle attachment. 2) Mix in the other ingredients in one by one in the order listed (although yolks and eggs can be mixed together first, as with the flour and baking powder). As soon as the cold water is mixed in and the dough comes together, stop mixing. 3) Take the dough out and spread it flat in a casserole dish or other pan. It should be thicker than you want your cookies to be. Refrigerate the dough for a few hours, or overnight. 4) Roll out the dough to the desired thickness. Cut and bake for 15 minutes or until golden and firm-looking. Then cool and decorate!

Here are some of my decorations:

Classic-looking



Playful



Untraditional (since I didn't buy any holiday-specific cutters)



And I also made gingerbread cookies using this recipe. Substituted maple syrup for molasses. It turned out well, just softer than the cookies I prefer. The fun cutters were ninja gingerbread men, on loan from my friend Kim.



Happy holidays everyone!

graduation

I can't believe the past two years have gone by so quickly. The culinary department graduation ceremony took place last weekend and I had been chosen by my peers as a speaker. I wanted to share my speech, so here is the full text.

Good morning friends, family, teachers, classmates, chefs, administrators. It is an honor to speak before you today.

So the only reason I was able to finish this speech was because I was starving. I’ve known for a good two months that I needed to write this, but it wasn’t until a couple of days ago, where I made myself sit at my desk and literally did not allow myself to eat until this speech was finished that it actually got written.

Starving reminds me of the past two years here – especially in the beginning, when I had just moved here from New York. I had almost run out of savings, was taking class in eight-hour blocks. It wasn’t uncommon for me to skip meals. And it was always ironic to me, going to culinary school – cooking food for goodness sake, and starving at the same time.

But I didn’t mind – that much. Before I came here I was starving in a different sort of way. I was mentally, creatively starved. Working in a square box of a room, staring at a computer screen and filling out forms all day. I’m sure many of you career-changers came here to leave that kind of life, and I’m sure most of you are here because you want to avoid that kind of life.

But beyond that, I wanted to work with my hands. Actually make things that another human being could touch and be fed by. And here, I got to do that. Every day we would make food, that was sold in the cafeteria or the Latin Quarter (now Café Med) or the Pierre Coste (PCR) Dining Room and people ate it (for whatever reason, probably because they too were starving).

Anyway, in those past two years I have learned so much. Not just about how to make food, or how to work with people, but about how to work hard. For me it meant working, usually two part-time jobs, so I could actually feed myself while going to school. I’ve watched so many of my peers work full-time jobs, only to squeeze in a couple of hours of shut-eye before waking up at the crack of dawn and tackling a full day of school just to go to work and do it all over again.

And it wasn’t just the schedule that was hard but the work itself. When they say blood sweat and tears, let me tell you, I didn’t know I could sweat so much. I had to learn to be okay with it. Some days, it seemed like all we did was sweat. Flipping omelettes with the broiler, frying mounds of potatoes on the flat-top, baking loaves upon loaves of bread in the rack oven, stirring soup with a paddle the size of an oar in the steam kettle, packing the convection oven with ten pound roasts, trying to keep track of all the tickets in PCR, taking down the endless cafeteria lines that were always a blur of people, faces, steam, food on plate after plate after plate.

Besides sweating, culinary school was also a place where I got to work out some of the regrets I had in life. Like with scholarships for example. When I went to college before for my bachelors, it was straight out of high school and I didn’t apply to any scholarships because I was afraid I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t possibly be chosen so why bother trying. But when I came here and was starving and working two jobs and barely making ends meet and on top of it all, sweating every day, my “fear” didn’t really matter any more. I had nothing to lose, and I applied to every single scholarship I could get my hands on, and I ended up being accepted to a few. Enough to allow me to attend Chef Mark’s summer in Oaxaca program, which was amazing. But the most gratifying thing was being able to cross that regret off my list.

Another thing I got over? My inability to start a blog. When I used to work for the Red Cross, I would often think to myself: “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if I wrote about my disaster relief experience? I’m sure people would be curious to know how the operations actually work and where the money actually gets spent.” But for the life of me, I could never start. There was never enough time, or I was always too tired, or the things that I wanted to say were said already. But when I came to culinary school, I knew it was another one of those intensive life-altering things that I wasn’t going to do again, and I didn’t want it to go by undocumented. So I did it, I started a blog and kept it up through these two years. Maybe when regrets pile high enough they avalanche and... I started a blog, Ms. Reinhertz starts a blog, everybody starts a blog! Just kidding. Point is, when regret piles up and avalanches, something happens.

So when people tell you to live life without regrets, maybe they’re being idealistic, overly simplistic. Because I’ve found that regret is a powerful motivator. And when people tell you not to sweat the small stuff, or “don’t sweat it”, whatever “it” is, maybe that’s not so right either. Because sweating is literally your effort visualized. And when you’re motivated, and putting in all the effort, that’s when things change. Life changes. You change.

So to you I say: sweat it, and yes, sometimes, regret it. Starve, for this thing, and the next. Go out there and make this world yours – I've worked with you guys, I believe it.

Congratulations to all of you. It’s been a honor.

kombucha

Awhile ago, my Food & Fitness instructor brought her kombucha culture to class. It was massive. She divided the scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria & yeast) into pieces so anyone who wanted to make their own kombucha could have a piece.



I took a scoby piece home for kicks. The scoby needed something to feed on, so I brewed black tea (roughly 8 cups water, 4-5 tea bags) and sweetened it with sugar (3/4 cup).



After brewing, I waited till the tea cooled down to room temperature, then poured it into a clean jar (formerly of pickles) with the scoby and about a cup of its original liquid.

The jar was covered with a clean towel and left to undergo the aerobic (oxygen included) first fermentation. During that time the scoby grows thicker, the tea turns slightly sour and the whole thing starts to smell like apple cider vinegar.



10 days later I pour most of the liquid into a second jar, this time with a tight-fitting lid for the anaerobic (no oxygen) second fermentation. You can flavor your kombucha at this point - so far I have tried a capful of elderberry syrup (floral/fragrant and very pleasant), agave nectar (slightly spicy/smoky sweet) and honey lemon (still fermenting). You can use a variety of fruit purees or nectars to flavor.

Meanwhile I brew a new batch of tea to accompany the leftover scoby/liquid for another first fermentation.



5 days later I move the second fermentation to the refrigerator, to slow it down so it doesn't get too sour and fizzy on me. The fermentation lengths are something you can play with, both for the first and second fermentation. It's recommended to taste the liquid every day so you can see how you like it - the longer it goes the less sweet and more sour it gets.

If you're here in San Francisco, I'd be happy to give you a piece of my scoby. If you're not though, here's a good article to get you started with your own. Happy fermenting!

crème caramel

My co-worker Virgie had birthday this week and I couldn't make her a cake because I ran out of flour (Thanksgiving cleaned me out). So I had to brainstorm options. The flan/pudding I recently ate from Irving Cafe reminded me that I had yet to make a proper flan. So I looked at dozens of recipes, most of which called for whole milk and/or heavy cream, neither of which I had. I was about to settle for one of the recipes utilizing low-fat milk and/or sweetened condensed milk when I decided to search creme caramel, or French flan.

And that brought me to Julia Child's recipe. I had never made any Julia Child anything, so it was time.

First, caramelizing sugar: 2/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water heated until the mixture *just* starts to brown (the color will deepen after you turn off the heat). Pour the caramelized sugar to coat the bottom of the desired ramekins (I used two medium sized ones). Don't worry if you didn't pour the sugar evenly - it'll even out during baking.



Next, bring 2 1/2 cups of milk (yes, I used low-fat) to a simmer. While that is going, whisk 3 eggs, 3 egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar together.



Once the milk is simmering, slowly pour it into the whisking egg/sugar mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.



Then strain the mixture into the waiting ramekin(s).



Bake at 325F for 40 minutes, or until the creme caramel looks firm but is still wobbly and almost liquidy in the center. Pull it out to cool.



I recommend serving it warm. You can run a knife around the edge and unmold it after it spends 10 minutes sitting in cold water. (Otherwise you can always cool it in the fridge overnight and serve cold the next day.)



The creme caramel was exactly what I wanted flan to be: light and silky smooth. A little bit too sweet for my taste - next time I'll be sure to cut down on the amount of sugar.



But really, now I am a believer in Julia Childs. Wonder which recipe of hers I'll take on next!