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!

dashi & miso

A couple of months ago I came across this recipe for dashi, or the mother broth of all Japanese cooking. I had a package of bonito flakes sitting in my pantry (an impulse buy from Daiso, the Japanese 99 cent store) but it wasn't until recently that I got my act together and bought some kombu (seaweed).

And so finally I had the two ingredients necessary for making dashi.



Okay, so the seaweed wasn't actually Japanese, it was Chinese. But it was all that was available at my favorite ethnic grocery store. So anyway, I took a 6 quart part, ripped up enough seaweed to cover the bottom, and added 9 cups of water (enough to submerge the seaweed) and allowed the seaweed to soak for 20 minutes.



After that I turned on the heat and brought the water to a simmer (watch for the small bubbles on the side!). Once that happened I turned the heat off and added the bonito flakes (2-3 cups worth).



I allowed the mixture to sit for 10 minutes, then poured it through a strainer. The strained broth has a nice clear golden color.



Side note: I tried to make a second round of broth just by adding water and re-simmering, but the taste was very faint. I'm sure you could find a use for the second broth though - I mixed it with some of the first broth to make miso soup.

So to turn dashi into miso soup, you'll need miso paste and good quality soy sauce. And other ingredients depending on your taste - I had tofu and scallions but you could easily use bits of seaweed, mushrooms, etc.



I made 4 servings of soup (~6 cups) using roughly 2 tablespoons each of miso paste and soy sauce. Soup was delicious.



Cris made sushi from scratch to accompany the soup.



Good news is I still have leftover dashi - will probably use it to make ramen, but you never know...

poached pear deluxe

For my birthday in September, my friend Daniel gifted me a bottle of dessert wine. I hoped to make a dessert with it (or to go with it), and since Daniel's birthday was this month I decided to use his gift to me and make a gift for him.

Being that I've been so busy/overwhelmed lately, I decided to keep things simple and do wine-poached pears. I've poached pears before, and I've poached mushrooms in white wine before, but this was the first time with pears and red wine. Had to dilute the wine with a bit of water so I'd have enough liquid to cover the pears. Also added a cinnamon stick and bay leaf for flavor. Brought the mixture to a boil and let it simmer for a little bit over an hour, until knife tender.



Decided the keep the whole pear intact because I thought it would be more dramatic. For toppings, I had caramel sauce and sweetened creme fraiche (tied in little ziplock baggies as makeshift mini piping bags), powdered sugar, and poaching liquid reduced and sweetened with agave syrup.



Spooned the reduced poaching liquid on first, then creme fraiche, caramel sauce, and the dusting of powdered sugar (through the mesh colandar) last. It looks pretty dramatic if I do say so myself.



And it wasn't too sweet, because I didn't poach it with sugar. And Daniel liked it too. A warm and satisfying treat.

five+ spice turkey

Last year was the first year my family had a big turkey for Thanksgiving. My mom was the one who cooked it, and she was so worried it wouldn't turn out well. Except it exceeded all of our expectations. Besides being moist and flavorful, she also made a unique sticky rice & shiitake mushroom stuffing.

This year I wanted to tackle the turkey-making. As it was my first time, I was pretty worried too. I wanted to keep the sticky rice stuffing tradition going, so I thought the turkey should be flavored with Chinese five spice to be complementary. Cris found me this five-spice turkey recipe, which lays things out from start to finish. True to "me" form, I made some modifications to the recipe.

Started out with a 15-pound Butterball turkey. Took the neck out to make stock with later. Checked all of the cavities (or so I thought), but it wasn't till after the turkey was roasted and carved did the plastic sack of giblets turn out. So don't let that happen to you!



Anyway, cooked the brine with 5+ spices. Roughly 2.5 gallons of water (two of these pots), 1.5 cups of salt, handful of each of the following: cinnamon stick, clove, star anise, fennel seed, lemongrass, black peppercorn. Brought the mixture to a boil and let it cool (with some ice cubes to speed the process up).



Once the mixture cooled to about room temperature, it was poured over the turkey in double oven bags. The last minute addition of orange zest made it all the more fragrant. Tied the bags and put it inside an extra trash bag just in case. Then the whole thing went into the fridge.



The turkey sat in brine for a good 24 hours, after which I dumped the brine, rinsed the turkey, and patted the turkey dry. Saved the spices though, and shoved them under the turkey skin wherever I could.

After overnight stay in the fridge to further dry out (to facilitate the skin being crispy when roasted), it was time to roast. First set the oven at 400F and roasted the breast side up for 45 min so the skin would brown. Then lowered the temperature to 350F and rotated the turkey every 30 min so it would cook evenly.

The soaked and stir-fried sticky rice was stuffed into the turkey at some point. Except it doesn't really cook in the cavity so I had to scoop it out and cook it in the rice cooker.

The turkey was pulled when the internal temperature was 155F. It came out glorious - skin crispy, super fragrant. And once carved, it was the moistest turkey I've ever had.



Megan said the spices reminded her of the Chinese duck she likes to get. Very flavorful.

The only downside was that the bottom of the turkey was a little underdone. I think it's because I didn't roast the turkey breast side down, for fear the crispy skin would get soaked. Or maybe I should have let it roast for longer and pulled it out after the internal temperature reached 160F.

Not a loss though, because I used the bones and all the underdone parts to make turkey porridge, not unlike the chicken porridge I've made before. And that was delicious too.