Dilled Potatoes… and sauce

I bought a bunch of fresh dill for a recipe.  A BUNCH.  My grocery store didn't have small bunches.  So I was stuck trying to come up with a way to use it, because the only thing worse than the smell of dill permeating my fridge would be the smell of rotting dill permeating my fridge.  (I have a love/hate relationship with dill; I love it when it's cooked or blended or somehow adding its flavor to other foods. I hate the smell of it in my fridge.)  

Dilled Potatoes (For 2)

5 small potatoes, skin-on, washed well

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Preheat your broiler.  Chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces, and place them in a bowl.  Drizzle the oil over, then add the dill, salt, and pepper.  Mix everything together, evenly coating the potato pieces with seasonings.  Dump onto a baking sheet and spread the potatoes out into a single layer.  Make sure there is plenty of oil; you don't want the potatoes to stick to the the sheet.  Pop the baking sheet under the broiler (you can put it pretty close).  I think it took about 20 minutes for me (I must've used the low setting on the broiler), checking it partway through.  I would start with 10 minutes, because I have burnt potatoes this way, and it was very sad.  You want them to stay in there until they are slightly crisped and browned.

Serve, topped if desired, with sour cream dill sauce (below).

Before I get to the dill sauce, I just want to highlight the importance of washing potatoes.  They can have all kinds of nasties living on their skin, but as long you wash them, it's fine.  Be sure to use warm water and scrub them all over.

Dill Sauce

2/3 C sour cream 
1 Tbsp milk

2-3 Tbsp fresh chopped dill

1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

1 tsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a smallish bowl, whisk them together, cover it, and pop it in the fridge.  Let it sit there for an hour or so.  This lets the flavors get to know each other.  Give it a good stir before you serve it up.

This came from an '80s cookbook, and was intended for salmon.  Just salt and pepper the fish, pan-fry it, and serve it with sauce on top.  It's also great with steak, on the potatoes, and probably even on a flatbread.  I used it as a veggie dip, too.  

Chocolates part 2: Pistachio-Raspberry Truffles (with an emphasis on temper)

In my previous blog, I talked about making sesame truffles, focusing particularly on the emulsion aspect, the ganache centers.  This time I'll go into more detail about the tempering process.

Who knew that chocolate was so complicated?  Simply the process of making it edible is a trick: you need to ferment the beans, blend, crack, roast, press, grind…  I started reading about it, just generally, and quickly gave up any ideas I had possibly entertained about growing and processing my own.  But the trickiness doesn't end there.  See, chocolate is, as Jeff Potter does an excellent job explaining in his book Cooking For Geeks, a more or less crystalline solid.  It's not really pretty, regular crystals like sea salt or sugar (if we want to keep it in the food realm).  But it becomes important, because there are 2 types of crystals that chocolate likes to form.  One looks prettier.  The other forms quicker and at lower temperatures.  Have you ever had the experience where chocolate semi-melts, then you pop it in the fridge or something and then it "blooms" (turns whitish)?  That's the wrong form of crystal setting up.  It doesn't taste awfully different (if you can get rid of the sight component, which does influence our perceptions of taste), but may have some textural differences.  When you're working with chocolate, you go out of your way to make sure that these crystals don't form.  Properly crystallized chocolate will set quickly, look pretty, and have a smooth mouthfeel.

Why temper matters: this is improperly tempered.  

How does one make sure the right crystals form?  Begin by chopping up your chocolate into little tiny bits.  Use a sharp knife, and sort of shave it; it's easier with large blocks, but those are usually not what I use in my home kitchen (I don't need that much chocolate!).  Once you've got your chocolate finely chopped, melt about 3/4 of what you think you'll need.  You're going to cool it for about 10 minutes (less in a 50˚F kitchen), and then add the remaining chocolate a handful at a time, stirring thoroughly after each addition to ensure complete melting.  You may not need all of it.  But keep checking the temperature, because when it gets down to 86˚F (or 81˚F if you're working with milk or white chocolate), you need to heat it up again.  For dark chocolate, you heat it back to 89˚F; milk or white, 86˚F.  Basically, what you've done is melt all crystals away, add some crystalized chocolate so that there's something for new crystals to form on top of as you lower the temperature to where crystals will quickly form, and raised the temperature to where only the desirable crystals will form. You maintain this temperature as best you can while working.  It will set quickly, so the edge of you bowl will have chocolate hardening on it.  Keep a hair-dryer handy to heat the bowl if everything starts to set.

The following recipe was adapted from a recipe for Pistachio-Kirsch truffles.  I looked all over town and could not, for the life of me, find Kirsch.  Cherry-flavored vodka, yes, even Cherry wine.  But no Kirsch.  So I bought some raspberry liqueur, crossed my fingers, and hoped for delicious.



Pistachio- Raspberry Truffles, adapted from Making Artisan Chocolates 
56g 64% bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips)
84g 55% semisweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet baking bar)
91g heavy cream
7g light corn syrup
14g salted butter, cubed and softened
14g raspberry liqueur
chopped, toasted pistachios
64% bittersweet chocolate

To make the ganache, chop up the chocolate (56g and 84g) and set it in a bowl.  In a small saucepan, combine the cream and corn syrup.  Stirring over medium-high heat, bring it to a boil.  Pour the cream mixture over the chocolate and let it sit for 2 minutes.  Then slowly stir the chocolate until completely melted.  Once it has reached 95˚F, add the butter and liqueur, and stir until incorporated.  Don't over-stir!

Let the ganache set, then scoop it out into little truffle centers and let them sit overnight on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Once the truffle centers have set, place the chopped pistachios in a shallow dish.  Temper your chocolate, then work quickly to dip the truffle centers into the chocolate and roll them in the pistachios. Set them on a parchment-paper-lined tray until set.  If your chocolate is properly tempered, it shouldn't take long at all!

They turned out quite nicely.  The Ghiradelli chocolate melts so beautifully!  And I was able to temper it properly; in my cold kitchen it took about 15 seconds to set, and was smooth and glossy.  They were beautifully crisp to bit into, and delicious.  I would have liked a little bit more raspberry flavor, and perhaps a little less pistachio; next time I might just give the truffles a pistachio base, or sprinkle them on top.  And although ganache is not the focus of this blog, the ganache for these truffles was delightfully creamy and smooth.  I think the corn syrup makes ganaches easier.

A foray into chocolate (Sesame truffles)

About a year ago, I had the great idea to do truffles for this blog.  It didn't happen.  I'm not really sure what went wrong, but one of the factors that was problematic was the climate.  It's hot and humid in the tropics.  Now that I am in a Northern clime, it is neither of those things.  In fact, it is quite cold, and don't get me started on how dry the air is!  I figured it was time to try again.  I used Valentine's Day as my excuse. (Yes, that was about a month ago.  Problem?)  I actually made two different truffles, but for simplicity's sake, I'm breaking them up into two blogs, focusing on different techniques in each.

Truffles are really popular, but they're not always truly truffles.  A truffle is made from the inside out, and so the center, while soft, is firm enough to hold its shape.  This center is called ganache.  Ganache is basically a chocolate emulsion.  It can be thick, like in truffles, or creamy, like a cake frosting, or thinner, like the frosting on a donut.  Cool, but maybe you're not really sure what an emulsion is.  An emulsion is a mixture of liquids that don't usually mix.  Think of salad dressings.  You know how some separate into 2 layers, but some don't?  Well, that's related to emulsions.  When you shake up the separated one, you create a temporary emulsion.  The non-separated version (assuming it's a vinaigrette) is a stable emulsion, usually obtained by the addition of an emulsifier (a chemical that stabilizes the mixture) or sometimes by processing.  Ever notice the word "homogenized" on your milk?  Go check.  It's probably there (maybe not on skim…).  Milk is an emulsion stabilized by pushing it through a small (like, microscope small) space, breaking up the fat globules that are what milk is, making them smaller so that they can stay trapped in the watery part of milk.  That's why people talk about cream rising-- it's the fatty part of non-homogenized milk floating out of the emulsion.

But back to chocolate…  You create the ganache emulsion by adding hot liquids to your chocolate.  You DON'T melt the chocolate.  By using the heat of the liquid to melt it, you're ensuring that everything is homogeneously mixed and a stable mixture is formed.  You're suspending the chocolate solids into a delightful, creamy mass, keeping it from setting hard.

I found my truffle recipes in Making Artisan Chocolates, by Andrew Garrison Shotts (ISBN: 9781592533107).  I highly recommend it if you are interested.  He does a great job explaining every part of the process, has a ton of excellent recipes, and does his best to leave you with the tools to expand on your own.  I'll tell you how I made it, but I really, REALLY think it is worth buying the book, because his expertise is far beyond anything I could offer, including invaluable tips.


Before you get started, get a thermometer that is reliable between 85 and 120 degrees; I recommend digital.  You'll probably want a scale, too; I used nothing but metric weights to make my truffles.  The book does provide imperial measurements, but often those are in weight as well.  And you need time.  My goodness!  These things are time-consuming!







Sesame Truffles (from Making Artisan Chocolates)
168g 38%milk chocolate, chopped (I used Green & Black's Organic Milk Chocolate [34%Cacao], which, by the way, is delicious!)
77g heavy cream
7g sesame oil
28g salted butter, cubed and soft, but not melted!
453g 29% white chocolate (I used Ghiradelli white chocolate chips)
190g sesame seeds

Set the chopped-up chocolate in a bowl with room to stir it around.  Heat the cream and oil together in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly.  Once it comes to a rolling boil, pour it over the chocolate and let it sit for two minutes (a bit less if your kitchen is frigid).  Gently stir everything together so the chocolate melts.  Check the temperature, and when it gets down to 95˚F (in my kitchen, this was almost instant), add the butter.  Stir well, but not too much.  If you start seeing things separating, your ganache is "breaking".  Stop stirring.  That will make it worse.  Let the ganache sit for a couple hours until it is firm enough to mold (think play-doh consistency).  Scoop out a piece of ganache and roll it into a sphere.  Repeat until all the ganache is used up.  These aren't supposed to be big truffles-- Andrew Garrison Shotts figures about 30, and you've got maybe 2 cups of ganache, if that gives you a reference.  You can make them bigger, I'm sure.  Place your truffle centers on a baking sheet lined with parchment- or waxed-paper, and set them someplace out of the way where they can sit overnight and dry out a little.

When you're ready to finish the truffles, you'll need some melted white chocolate.  The proper way to do this is super-complicated, a process called "tempering", which will be described in depth in my other blog.  I started doing it this way, but got frustrated (you could almost say I lost my temper--haha!).  I decided it didn't matter so much with white chocolate, and I would rather be able to work with it easily and it not look so pretty.  My kitchen was so darn cold I didn't need to worry about the chocolate setting.  So I wound up just [re-]melting the white chocolate.

Dip the truffle centers in the white chocolate, roll them in the sesame seeds, and set them on a baking sheet lined with parchment- or waxed-paper to set.  You can get dipping forks, which have 2 thin tines on which the truffles can rest, or you can be creative with other utensils.  My mom always dipped things in chocolate with chopsticks, so that's what I use to dip my truffles.  The point is that you want as minimal a contact surface as possible.  Dip the chocolates, then roll them in the sesame seeds and place them on a parchment-paper-lined tray to set completely.

Some thoughts:  I think my kitchen was too cold (it temped at ~50˚F), which may have led to a lot of problems.  My ganache did start to break.  Shotts includes in his book a tip for fixing this, but it involves adding [more] corn syrup.  Notice there is no corn syrup in the ganache.  I just stopped stirring.  The ganache set enough that I could work with it, but it lacked the smooth creaminess that my other ganache had.  None of my tasters felt that the texture was off, though.  Or at least they said it wasn't an issue when I asked.  
I did notice that the white chocolate did not set as quickly after I gave up on the temper, so it does make a difference, but it didn't detract from their long-term stability.  It just made them look less polished. 

Dipped Broccoli Casserole

It is my belief that broccoli is the king of the dipping vegetables.  All those florets function as a sponge, so in addition to that healthy does of fiber and micronutrients provided by the broccoli, you get all the wonderful flavor and indulgence of your dip of choice.  One day, I happened to be chopping my way through a few heads of broccoli, and I got to thinking about that, then found myself asking, "but how can I make it something more?"  This is what happens when you watch Food Network too often.  You become dissatisfied with just broccoli and dip, because you aren't actually doing anything with the broccoli.  And so I came up with a dip-flavored casserole (or hot dish, I guess, if you're in the north Midwest).  It's still a bit of a work in progress,  but I'll go ahead and share my first attempt.

Before I get to the recipe, though, I'm gonna take a moment to get nerdy. Broccoli, as countless mothers have told their children, is a very healthy vegetable.  It's loaded with vitamins and antioxidants, and studies suggest it can lower cholesterol.  One of the more interesting components of broccoli, though, is a compound called sulphoraphane, which was discussed a fair amount in a class I took.  (Hence this tidbit.)  Although sulphoraphane is found in other veggies as well, broccoli is just LOADED with it.  Or rather, broccoli is loaded with a precursor.  See, sulphoraphane doesn't normally exist in the plant.  It's only when you damage the cells, by crushing or tearing (like when you chew), that it is produced.  Basically, broccoli is the antioxidant equivalent of a glow stick. Crack those cells open, and a reaction takes place that allows the formation of a powerful compound that is even being used in clinical trials as a cancer therapy.  While it doesn't light up, it's still pretty cool.

And if you'll bear with me a moment longer, I'd like to talk a little about how antioxidants work.  There's some controversy in the scientific community about their effectiveness or what they even are.  I won't go into all that, because it is largely over my head.  But sulphoraphane is what some call an "indirect" antioxidant.  Which means, on a chemistry level, that it is, in fact, NOT an ANTIoxidant at all.  Your cells don't want to be oxidized.  It can kill them.  It causes aging.  It's just not a good thing for them.  But because we breathe oxygen and our energy processes need to oxidize things, oxidation happens.  (note the similarity between those words?)  But our cells are full of components that prevent crazy amounts of oxidation from occurring, these are antioxidants.  Sulphoraphane works by temporarily increasing the amount of oxidation, making the cell go nuts undoing oxidation.  I finally came up with a decent metaphor.  It's like when I (and most students) have deadlines.  We see them coming up.  We know things will be crazy and hectic and frustrating.  But we're a teensy bit lazy, or have more interesting things to do, or… well, things don't get done until, "OH MY GOSH!!!  I should have done this ages ago!!!  There just isn't enough time!"  And we go nuts, and eventually somehow manage to scrape together the paper or whatever it was.  In the cell, sulphoraphane is the beginning of the crazy rush; that last assignment or looming due date. It causes the cell to stop saying, "eh, I'll deal with the oxidation sooner or later" and start actually doing it.

Dipped Broccoli Casserole
Potatoes
1 Head of broccoli
2 Chicken breasts
1 Packet vegetable soup mix
Sour cream
Cream cheese
Milk

     Preheat your oven to 400˚F.
     Wash and chop the potatoes, and put them in a pan with a little bit of the cooking oil of your choice (I used bacon fat-- broccoli's supposed to help lower cholesterol, right?) over medium-high heat.  Add a little salt and pepper, because potatoes are always happier with those, and about 1 Tbsp of the veggie soup mix.  Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and add it to the pan as well.  Cook everything until the chicken is slightly browned on the outside.
      Add about 1/4 C sour cream and ~2 oz cream cheese (about 1/4 of a block) to the pan, along with another tablespoon of veggie soup mix.  Stir around so everything melts.  If it seems runny, add more cream cheese.  It's more likely it will seem thick or not enough, so add more sour cream as you need to to fix those problems.  If it needs more flavor, add more veggie soup mix, as well as some pepper. (You shouldn't need salt; the soup mix has a bunch).  You'll actually want some extra sauce.
      I combined the broccoli and everything else in the casserole at this point, but I found it a bit undercooked.  So, I will recommend to you that you add the broccoli to the pan at this point.  Stir it around, and cover the pan to let the broccoli cook for a couple minutes.  If you can keep an eye on it, look for it to be bright green or to wilt (whichever comes first).  When it reaches that point, transfer everything to a casserole dish.  Top with dollops of sour cream and cream cheese.  I'm also going to suggest not baking it uncovered as I did, but covering it and baking about 10 minutes, then uncovering it and baking it 5-10 minutes longer, or until lightly browned in places.

Stew from Kebabs

Bear with me here, I'm slogging through a bunch of recipes I meant to post AGES ago.  

Back in November (ages), I made Kebabs for a tailgate.  A lot of kebabs.  They were delicious.  But after about a week, we still had leftover kebabs in our fridge.  My general rule of thumb is that after a week, it's best to throw things out.  Even without this rule, after the first few days, those kebabs started looking a little desiccated.  So as the 1-week mark came up, I was frantic to come up with some way to make them yummy again; I hate throwing out food, especially meat.  Staring at a stick of grilled beef, tomatoes and a potato, I realized that I've seen those ingredients together before: stew!

Before I get to the stew, though, a quick run-down on how the kebabs were made:  

I marinated the meat overnight in a red wine-based marinade: red wine, oil, lots of garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning.  Nope, I didn't measure anything.  In the morning, I boiled some small potatoes, skin-on, until they were just tender enough to be easily skewered.  I skewered the meat, potatoes, some onion and bell pepper pieces, and cherry tomatoes.  A friend of ours was grill-master, and he cooked them to a lovely, even, medium-well done.  They were so good on game day.  But the doneness meant that they were difficult to warm up without drying them out; another reason I went for stew.

Leftover Kebab Stew (Individual Serving)

2-ish kebabs, including beef, onion, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

Skimpy 1/4 C red wine 

1/4 C beef broth

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp corn starch

Salt and pepper

Chop the kebab components into smaller bite-sized (with a fork at dinner bite-size, not finger/tailgate size) pieces.  Keep them separate, because they won't all tolerate the same amount of cooking.  In a pan over medium-high heat, combine the meat, Italian seasoning, and liquids.  Simmer and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add the onion and pepper pieces.  In a small dish, combine the corn starch with just enough water to dissolve it.  (The water will be cloudy, so it's not necessarily a true "dissolve".)  Add it immediately to the stew and stir to distribute.  This is your thickening agent.  Allow it to simmer and thicken.  Finally, add the tomatoes and potatoes.  Let it simmer a minute more so they can pick up some flavor.  Or, do what I did, and dump it in a container to be reheated the next day for lunch-- this allows even more flavor blending.  

This was an interesting flavor, actually.  I think it still needs some tweaking, but it was good.  I liked having the grilled, smokey flavor infused in my stew, and the wine and vinegar gave it a nice acidity.  It was not a typical stew by any means, but it wasn't bad.