Brandy (Rum?) Cream

I made this persimmon pudding and accompanying brandy cream earlier. Persimmon pudding is one of those elusive things I had and loved as a kid, but I don’t remember much about the version from my childhood. This recipe was okay, but the persimmon flavor wasn’t very strong. Next time I’ll try another version, or perhaps, instead of rasins, chopped bits of dried persimmon?

The accompanying brandy cream, however, was great. Except I used rum, due to a lack of brandy. I could see this on any strongly spiced cake or pie.

Rum Cream Sauce: 
(adapted from here)

1 egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
pinch of salt
2 tsp rum
1 tsp vanilla *do another tsp of rum for stronger rum flavor
1 1/2 cup whipping cream

1. Beat the egg until fluffy, then beat in butter, sugar, salt, rum and vanilla.
2. Whip the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.
3. Fold the egg & butter mixture into the whipping cream.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Waffles

One of my favorite tricks for gluten free waffle making is substituting the flour for a mix of glutinous rice flour and cornstarch. You end up with a waffle that is still chewy, though a little softer and lacking that rich wheat smell I associate with… uh, things made of wheat.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Waffles:
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Pumpkin Waffles)

1 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour
1 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves

4 large eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup canned pumpkin
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Mix together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices. Whisk eggs in with buttermilk, pumpkin, and butter until smooth. Combine with dry ingredients. The Smitten Kitchen version has you beat the egg whites to soft peaks separately, but I’m lazier and I’ve been happy with my mix-whole-eggs results.

At this point, make them however you make waffles. I tend to find that this batter needs more time than the gluten-including original. On my waffle maker, this batter takes a few minutes at heat setting “3” — I put the batter in, wait for the green light to come back on, then wait another two minutes. Whereas the gluten-including version, I do at heat setting 4, taking them out when the green light comes on.

Eleven Madison Park

Eleven Madison Park!

Due to some last minute miscommunications about going to the Madison Park Shake Shack, Shamiq and I got a last minute table at Eleven Madison Park this last Tuesday. And this is what we ate —

Black Truffle And Parmesan: Savory Black and White Cookie

After the cookie, we got a 4 by 4 grid of ingredients to choose from. I chose foie gras, lobster, mushroom and plum. Shamiq chose langoustine, parsnip, squab and fig.

Sea Urchin: Custard with Baby Squid, Manila Clam and Apple

Cranberry: Gelee with Smoked Curds and Agretti

Cucumber: Snow with Lapsang Souchong and Grape

Eel: Roasted with Foie Gras and Swiss Chard

Sturgeon: Sabayon with Chives

They brought this bell jar of smoke out to our table and told us we couldn’t touch it. A few minutes later, they bought out more pieces for this dish —

Sturgeon: Smoked with Everything Bagel Crumble, Pickles and Caviar

The pickles — onion, egg, iceberg & some sort of crumb that was a bit too salty for my tastes.

Foie Gras: Torchon with Maple, Walnuts, and Cremini Mushrooms

Cutting it open revealed…

a pocket of maple syrup! It was so rich I could hardly finish my half.

Langoustine: With Fennel, Sour Cherries, and Clam

Carrot: Tartare with Rye Bread and Condiments

Preparing the carrot at table side.

This was my carrot tartare once I’d added in the fixings. Some of the options were pea puree, sunflower seeds, ginger, cheese, chives, and sea salt. I don’t remember them all.

Lobster: Poached with Escarole and Almond

Parsnip: Roasted with Sesame, Parsley and Dijon

Mushroom: Sauteed with Pine Nut, Quail Egg, and Bulgar Wheat

Squab: Roasted, with Plum, Kale, and Bone Marrow

We got a picnic basket!

Greensward: Pretzel, Mustard and Beer

The contents of our picnic basket — beer, mustard, pretzel stick, Concorde grapes, cheese. Delicious.

Malt: Egg Cream with Vanilla and Seltzer

Plum: Marinated with Jasmine and Cashew

Fig: Glazed with Orange, Sage and Tapioca

Huckleberry: Goat Cheese Cheesecake and Lime

And there was a surprise under my plate!

Pretzel: Chocolate covered with Sea Salt

The meal was book-ended by another black and white cookie, but we took those home to go. They were delicious the next day, but I’ve got no pictures. Oops.

To me, Eleven Madison Park beats out Alinea in terms of the food. It’s not quite as novel, but everything was very solid and many of the flavor combinations were amazing and unexpected (lobster and almond?). Shamiq disagrees, but to each their own!

Total Bill: Menu ($390) + Cocktails (2 x$8) + Beverage (Bottled water, $16) + Tax ($37.45) = $459.45 for two

Stars, Joshua Tree

A wide angle shot of the same Joshua Tree as below. Funky colors in the sky courtesy of Lightroom.

Same Joshua Tree, but with a bit of zoom instead. And different sky colors

Less funky colors and gradiations here since it’s a different part of the horizon and away from city lights.

The same set of rocks, but this time I tried to include a bit of the Milky Way. It’s not quite as vivid as it was at the Big Island, but still quite obvious. (Or I’m really confused)

And lastly, here’s a crop where you can see that the stars are streaking, most of these photos are just too resized to be obvious. Almost all of these are approximately 90 second exposures.

Blueberry Mochi Waffles

My new waffle recipe (in addition to the normal waffles I make… Which I’ll post sometime) is blueberry mochi waffles.

I follow the recipe here for mochi cake, except I put it in a waffle maker instead of an oven. With my waffle maker, I do it on heat setting 3 or 4 (depending on whether or not you want them dryer and crunchier or softer and moister) until the waffle maker comes back up to temperature.

Mochi Cake Batter
1 pound mochiko (1 box)
1 cup butter (2 sticks), melted
2 cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz can)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
12 oz frozen blueberries (or 1 can blueberry pie filling)

In a large bowl, combine (by hand) the sugar and melted butter. Add evaporated milk and mix well. Add eggs and mix. Finally, stir in baking powder, mochiko and vanilla.

The blog entry I referenced suggests layering in the blueberries to avoid getting streaky purple batter… For waffles I think it’s a lost cause and end up with beautiful dark golden brown waffles, despite the streaky purpley batter. Also, they’re soft when they first come out of the waffle maker but harden in the next minute or so. Personally, I prefer them softer.

Oops.

True to form, I’ve stopped updating.

In the last few weeks I’ve gone through:

6lbs of mushrooms courtesy of my brother. They were made into mushroom consomme, mushroom risotto and multiple batches of scrambled eggs.

20lbs of loquats courtesy of some farm up in Brentwood. 20lbs of loquats for $40?! I’m sold. I made jam out of them, but haven’t eaten it. Mostly I’ve just been eating them.

30lbs of cherries, from the farm across the street from the loquat one. I made cherry chocolate biscuits (Boulevard cookbook, delicious.), cherry ice cream (minus the chocolate), cherry brownies (tastes weird) and things like cherry compote. No pies or jams though.

Also delicious, though not in great quantities, were blueberry mochi waffles. Take this batter and put it in a waffle maker. I used heat setting 3 for 4 minutes.

Next up tonight are Oreo-reeces and salted caramel brownies.

I’ll post pictures sometime. Maybe.

Eclairs & Bacon Scones

I don’t have pictures since I lent my camera to a friend of a friend in need of video-recording capabilities…

But last night I made bacon and ham scones (both with swiss cheese) and eclairs. And damn they were delicious. Every single lump of fat and carbs.

For the scones, I followed the Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scone recipe from the book Savory Baking. I had to use a little more milk since swiss cheese is less spreadable than goat cheese, but it worked out well. Flakey and full of piggy goodness.

For the eclairs, I followed this recipe for the dough and this one for the pudding and the chocolate. But, a couple notes (mostly to myself, like most of this blog) —
1. Small eclairs are easier to make crispy, but use a proper pastry bag for piping.
2. That pudding recipe results in pudding that still tastes a bit like corn starch, find a new one
3. Straight pudding is too heavy, a mix of half half whipped cream and pudding is delicious
4. The chocolate glaze on that is very chocolatey, maybe a little too dark. Try adding some milk chocolate instead of all semi-sweet.

Clearly, it’s time for eclair science. Hopefully with pictures.

Also, the original recipe for the Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scones is pretty good. I mean, it’s so good I made scones twice in two days. And I usually hate scones.

Zergling!

Zergling progress...

USPS tracking says that the zergling arrived earlier this morning. I haven’t heard from Husky yet… but hopefully he’ll rescue Mr. Zergling soon. I’ve got a couple more pictures to post of Mr. Zergling hanging out with Mr. Overlord, but they’re on my Olympus and RAWs (and I’m lazy).