The Foodiva

I've been a baaad, baaad Daring Baker!!!

2008-09-08T19:47:00.004-05:00

Yes, yes! I'm guilty of being a horrid DBer for the past few months, skipping challenges left and right! As John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". Nevertheless, it's no excuse to let down my fellow DBers and skip challenges! So, this post will regale you the details of the August DB challenge: Pierre Herme's Chocolate Eclairs. Hey, it's better late than never, no? Also, I figure that I cannot skip a challenge that involves the DBers' sugah daddy, Pierre Herme. The recipe can be found in his book, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme.

The whole process was quite simple. The recipe comes in three parts for the three different components: dough, pastry cream and glaze. I thought the most difficult part was trying to pipe in the pastry cream without having to split the baked and cooled choux. By the way, did you know that the eclair is a sort of French donut according to Wikipedia???

I thought that the eclair is already a perfect enough classic treat without trying to alter the recipe much. I mean, seriously, how can beat a creamy, sweet custard filling in a baked crisp yet soft dough topped with chocolate sauce? Seriously! So, the only variation that I did was to drizzle some melted white chocolate on top. Pretty?

Suffice to say, the eclairs didn't last long when I brought them to lab, where they were all snapped up by starving scientists. Thank goodness I had the sense to save some dough and baked up more choux. However, this time, I make profiteroles with them. Ok, so I was wrong before, you can beat the perfect eclair by filling the choux with ice cream! :D

Also, apologies for the overly gigantic pictures (for now). Photobucket isn't exactly cooperating...

The family descends in town!!!

2008-08-15T06:56:00.000-05:00

Well, not the whole family, thank goodness. My sweet cousin and aunt visited me for a weekend recently. We had a ball just doing girly stuff around town and went to a few restaurants that I normally don't go to, whether it's due to price or distance/convenience issues.

We went to NoMi, a Japanese fusion-ish place at the Park Hyatt in the heart of Chicago's Magnificent Mile. I've been here a few times previously, always with visiting family. Not only is their food delicious, the view is simply to die for. We went during Saturday's lunch hour and got a seat by the window easily. The ambience of the dining room and bar was very sophisticated and clean. Service was impeccable and the wine list and cellar looked very impressive. They even had a few different kinds of salts and peppers to choose from, to season your own food! How pretty!

We started off with a very generous assortment of warm breads and butter. Even though the breads were warm, the butter was rock hard. I must say that warm bread always earns brownie points from me, but rock hard butter doesn't. I know that it'll violate some health code if restaurants were to keep butters warm, but it will definitely help if customers didn't have to struggle to spread it on their breads.

We proceeded to a very clean, delicious citrus beet salad that was topped with the most refreshing citrus vinaigrette. Isn't the plating simply elegant?

I was fascinated by the Saffron Bouillabaisse and opted for that despite a hot, summery day out. Not only was it absolutely scrumptious, the scallops and calamari were cooked to perfection: just enough for a bite and flavor. The plating was clean, yet warm. A half of the sourdough crouton was soft from the bouillabaisse, and the other half retains its crunch, which made for a fun mix of textures and flavors.

My aunt also chose something light: the Ikebana sushi platter consisting of a tuna roll, some fresh salmon sashimi and an assortment of cooked and raw sushi. The dish was very fresh, but I don't know if it was worth the hefty $25 price tag!

My cousin, ever the sweet tooth she is, ordered the French Raisin Toast with fresh cream and fig coulis. It was surprisingly light for a French toast: a tad dry and a bit too crunchy. I think French toasts should be rich, creamy and heavy. It might be due to the fact that NoMi kind of places itself as a "spa" restaurant, which is why their light dishes are way superior than their "enlightened" heavy dishes. I could be wrong, but that's my impression of it. The fig coulis, though, was pretty intensely fig-gy (if there's such a word). It would've been perfect with an assortment of cheeses.

The meal was satiating in terms of the range flavors we enjoyed, but the portions weren't uber generous. Fortunately, we had a complimentary dessert platter. The waitress came out with a silvery cylinder with 3 layers. After placing it on the table, she unfurled each layer to reveal the mini treats in them. The presentation was beautiful, very much like a surprise gift. As you can see, each layer has about 3 mini, bite-sized sweet treats. The most memorable items I tried were the fruit tart (I'm such a sucker for fruit tarts!) and a super intense chocolatey truffle.

Overall, it was a beautiful, light meal. I definitely won't recommend this place if you're famished, but it's perfect for a special occasion or if you want something light at a breathtaking locale.

Another place I wouldn't normally patronize is this Korean restaurant on Lawrence Avenue that I stumbled upon by accident when I was really looking for good ol' San Soo Gap San. The restaurant name is San Chae Dolsot. Everything (well, most of it) was written in Korean at the restaurant; I was half expecting them to not have English menus :)

Located in a mini strip mall along Chicago's Korean town on Lawrence Avenue, it looked like the kind of neighbourhood restaurant that Korean families come to for Sunday dinner. But anyway, my aunt, my cousin and I just stuck to good Korean classics such as kal bee, chap jae and a kim chee tofu soup. The traditional banchan (otherwise known as those delicious starters served on small mini plates) served was deliciously tongue-tingling as usual. We thought the kal bee was not that great, probably due to the quality of the meat. However, the marinade was yummy.

The kim chee tofu soup was simply to die for. I'm sure the chill of the evening helped make it taste even better, but the spice was just right and there's so much silky tofu in it! Just add some bean rice and you get a filling, warm stew.

We all really enjoyed their chap jae, which was cooked very nicely. The glass noddle still had a bite to it and the sweet and salty interplayed perfectly. I love that they added so much sesame seeds on top!

Overall, it was a pretty decent restaurant. All of the other patrons were Korean families. Of course, in true Indonesian form, my aunt didn't find the Korean food spicy enough. My family has this practice bringing around a special bottle of Indonesian chili sauce when we go out to eat. I know, I know, it's really weird. But I must say that it really does help bring out the flavor of most Asian foods. Now, my aunt has officially graduted to bringing around fresh chili in a Ziploc bag! And you can bet on her bringing it out for our Korean food adventure!

It was an awesome weekend, catching up with them and trying out some new restaurants. I can't wait to see them again soon!

NoMi
800 N. Michigan Ave., #7
(312)239-4030

San Chae Dolsot
3737 W. Lawrence Ave.
(773)588-5223

Staying cool...

2008-08-07T08:14:00.000-05:00

It has been a whirlwind summer thus far. Actually, make that a whirlwind year! I've been travelling like crazy (counting at least 20 different flights, 6 of them international) and trying to work like crazy so I can graduate soon. Sadly, even though I have so much to blog about, all this activity has left me little time to do so. Nevertheless, I try to cook whenever I can and in this searing summer heat, I like to make easy dishes that will minimize oven time. As they say, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And I'm one weird tropical girl who really detests heat!

Thanks to all the debauchery and busy schedule I had this year, I seriously need to go on a diet! With the heat and diet, salads have been my saving grace this summer. I know salads don't exactly conjure up the most fantastic, delicious images in most people's minds, but I think that with a little creativity and some sense of adventure, it could be scrumptious, healthy and oh so easy at the same time. My ultimate secret weapon for salads? Great dressing.

Specifically, I'm really into Japanese-style sesame dressing. It's commonly used not only as salad dressing, but also as a dipping sauce for grilled meats in Japanese restaurants. This dressing goes with almost every green and protein, but it is best with softer baby greens, such as spinach. I first got hooked by this dressing when I was eating at a bbq restaurant in Tokyo, where the thinly-sliced beef was served with a fragrant, nutty sesame dip.

There are many different brands of sesame dressing at the ethnic grocery store, which led me to experiment a little bit. I noticed that the consistency of the dressings vary widely. You can check them out by turning the bottles upside down and observing how quickly (or slowly) the dressing "moves". Thus far, the slower they are, the better. The "slow" sesame dressings tend to be more flavorful and nuttier. I also find that you can use way less of the "slow" dressings for the same degree of flavor. As you can see above, the color of the dressings are also different, I'm guessing due to the different degree of roasting that was done in the production process.

So, for dinner last night, I decided to make one of my favorite salads: a bed of soft baby spinach topped with lightly sauteed garlic shrimp. And of course, it will be served with a drizzling of the sesame dressing.

Recipe for Favorite Garlic Shrimp Spinach Salad

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp olive or canola or vegetable oil
Minced garlic
Salt
Pepper
Shrimp
Baby spinach (or any other greens of your choice)
Japanese-style sesame dressing

Heat oil on non-stick pan.

Add shrimp and garlic to hot pan.

Season the shrimp to taste with salt and pepper.

Once the shrimp has been cooking on one side for at most 3 minutes, flip them over one by one.

Cook another two minutes.

Remove from heat. Pile shrimp on top of the baby spinach. Drizzle with sesame dressing and enjoy!

A Sentimental Education

2008-07-22T08:32:00.001-05:00

I'm a sucker for classic romances. However, when I give a modern romance novel a chance, I get bored to tears within the first few chapters for one of a few reasons.

A typical modern romance usually features a neurotic, spoiled heroine with an incurable shoe addiction that is supposed to be endearing to readers but instead, annoys me to the core. Not all women are brainless creatures who suddenly become helpless at the sight of the latest shiny cut leather on high heels!!! Alternatively, there might be a Fabio-esque character who is raring and ready to sweep a fragile, helpless woman off her feet only to ride into the sunset on a white horse, no less.

I'd like to first state that I'm not a man-hating, bra-burning feminist. I enjoy a trashy novel once in a (great, great) while. I have to be in a very specific brainless mindset to actually be in the mood to enjoy one of these moderm romance novels. It isn't so much the misogynistic, patriarchal portrayal of women that disgusts me (although that doesn't really help their case). It is the assumption that female readers (who are these books' target market) are so mindless that they could enjoy such two-dimensional drivel on a regular basis, that appalls me!

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy romance stories as much as the girl next door, but just because a story features a romance doesn't excuse authors from good writing; y'know, stuff like character development, creation of suspense/action, eliciting an emotional response from the reader, an interesting yet realistic plot, etc, etc. So I often end up going to second-hand bookstores (of which, there are at least two in my neighbourhood) and picking up classic fiction. I recently finished Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece, A Sentimental Education.

Though not widely considered a "romance", everything about it is romantic. Centered in this book, is the main character's, Frederic Moreau's, growing affection for a friend's wife, Madame Marie Arnoux. The development of this romance uses the background of the 1848 French Revolution, where we also witness the political education of Frederic and his contemporaries. The constant tension between Frederic and Marie is mirrored in the upheaval of political events as a background. Flaubert not only took care to describe to us the intricate folds of Marie's chartreuse dress or her curled auburn locks, but also the smell of fire in the Parisian streets after a riot and the beauty of his countryside hometown of Nogent.

I think my favorite heroine (if you can call it that) in the book is the city of Paris. Despite the relative darkness with which Flaubert depicted the general mood and the city, there is a certain strength and beauty about it all. It is ironic that although the book's title means the education of feelings, in the end, Frederic achieves neither education nor feelings (or sentiments), leaving us regretful that he and his contemporaries did not achieve their full potential.

An imperfect character, Frederic leaves a lot to be desired, what with his womanizing ways and spoiled brat attitude of entitlement. However, I suppose I identify with him a little bit. Till the end, Frederic was always be a dreamer, full of longings and desires. There is something familiar about the way he and his pals would hang out over drinks and tidbits, talking about the people they knew and politics. It reminds me a bit like grad school and my friends, knocking back a few together at the end of another hard week. (Spoiler alert! If you're going to read this book, stop reading this blog entry!)

The book ends with Frederic and his oldest friend sitting around, reminiscing of days gone by, loves lost and promises unfulfilled. The ending is a bit on the negative side, with the main characters either dead or having accomplished little to nothing. Nevertheless, it serves as another reminder to me of life's fleeting quality, and that we all should seize the day and live it the fullest.

Treating myself...

2008-07-03T19:19:00.003-05:00

There was a little surprise in the mail about a few weeks ago. It was a white envelope addressed to me with no return address. If I was paranoid (like my boss), I would've put on some gloves before opening it. To my (pleasant) surprise, it was a $25 Amazon gift certificate from my friend (you know who you are *virtual hugz*). $25 is very generous, especially by Amazon standards. You can get sooo much on Amazon for $25, considering the prices are usually 30% or more lower than retail prices at bookstores.

It wasn't hard deciding what to get on Amazon because I do keep a few wish lists there myself. The first treat I got for myself was a Daft Punk CD. I've been in the mood for upbeat electronica music lately. I find that it's good music to listen to while doing experiments at work or running outside. I know it's rather Eurotrash of me, but I don't care! :D

The second treat I chose is the one I'm super super excited about. I bought Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets book. If you don't already know (which means you're either an abonimation of Nature or a "normal" non-baker), Dorie Greenspan is the goddess of baking. Seriously, her recipes are awesome and can't be beat! From what I hear, she's very very nice in person too :)

Every day I would peek in my mailbox and ask "Wherefore art thou, Amazon package?" I got the free Super Saver shipping, so I had to suffer for a week before getting my precious treats. The long-awaited package came in the mail today and I immediately tore into the box, extracting the cool CD and my book! My Dorie Greenspan book!

Let me tell you that I read that book from cover to cover within the first few hours of receiving it. I love how the book was organized with little tidbits of Dorie's experiences with the bakers of the best bakeries and patisseries of Paris. Interspersed with the charming stories were recipes that the various pastry artistes shared, ranging from the classic madeleine to the formidable gateau St. Honore. The illustrations of Paris and the pastries were sweet and were evocative of those found in the Roald Dahl books of my childhood. I like that Dorie takes care to give the ingredient measurements in both metric and volume amounts. The suggestions to personalize the creations were fun and it's very helpful to have a list of alternatives to quality French ingredients she found in Paris. If there's any disappointment, it's only the fact that there are no recipes for the French macaroon in the book. Oh well, I guess I'll have to treat myself with another Dorie book soon!

Anyway, I was so excited and I took some time to decide which recipe to try out first. Since there are no big occasions or party in my social landscape in the next week, I picked out a more portable pastry recipe to experiment with. I was immediately taken with the madeleine recipes in the book. Although I'm not French (by a long stretch!), I can identify with Marcel Proust's fond remembrance of these shell-shaped cakes.

Growing up in Singapore, there was a popular French bistro chain (almost equivalent to Au Bon Pain here in the States) called "Delifrance". They sell all sorts of yummy French fare ranging from croissants and quiches to madeleines. Their madeleines were available everywhere, even at a gas station two blocks away from my school. After a long day of classes and extracurricular activities, I would often stop by the gas station to get a box of Delifrance madeleines, savoring one in the bus on the way home. I would share the rest of the box (there were 6 cakes in a box) to my sister and cousins who were living with me at the time. It would often be the highlight of our young, (seemingly) boring, long schooldays.

So, I joyously undertook this challenge to recreate those simple yet sweet memories at home, and here are what I found to be the keys to the perfect madeleines.

Mixing the batter is pretty simple. As long as you follow the directions and don't overmix, it should be allright. Now, most of the useful tips are to be followed after the batter is mixed.

First, to achieve the signature hump of the madeleine, the batter has to be refrigerated for at least 2-3 hours, preferably overnight.

Second, the special shell-shaped madeleine pan has to be generously buttered and floured to ensure that these yummy cakes won't stick and ruin its shell shape.

Last but not least, madeleines are best enjoyed the day they are baked with a cup of coffee (I myself prefer tea). But if you have to save them for another day, store them in an airtight container after they are completely cooled.

Bon appetit!

A San Franciscan Weekend

2008-06-24T12:27:00.005-05:00

The San Francisco bay area is truly one of my favorite places ever. Maybe it's just the "granola" side of me talking but there's a free, green spirit about the area that I adore, what with the constant presence of activism in the street corner or the bi-weekly farmer's market in almost every county. I jumped with joy when I saw that there are recycling and composting bins to be found throughout the city. I also hear that retailers are mandated to use recycleable or compostable shopping bags by law! If San Francisco can do it, why can't the rest of the country?

Anyway, the main reason for my SF trip is to attend a scientific meeting that's held over the weekend. I had to present a poster there and got the chance to attend some interesting talks. Initially I wasn't looking forward to the poster session because I thought that my work is kind of lame. However, many people stopped by my poster and asked many questions. It has truly revived the scientist in me. Wow! Someone's actually interested in what I'm doing, haha! :)

I attended most of the lectures and professional events that I thought were directly related to my work and this still left me with plenty of time to sightsee and basically do whatever I wanted to. On my first night, I met up with two of my cousins who lives in San Jose. Actually, they met up with me. They were so sweet that they picked me up from the airport! Here they are, regaled in plastic bibs!

Actually, the reason they were wearing bibs (I had one on too!) was that we were about to enjoy a crab dinner and eating crabs with your bare hands sure can get messy. Hendra brought us to Thanh Long in San Francisco for its crazy good Vietnamese seafood fare. We went there on a Friday night and it was super packed. Once I smelled the strong, distinctive scent of garlic, I knew that we were at a good place. Fortunately, we were seated within 10 minutes and my cousin Hendra shortened our waiting time by immediately ordering the specialties without even opening the menu. We had a giant Dungeness crab each and tiger prawns served over a bed of garlic noodles. The roasted crab was deliciously moist and super meaty. The sauce (made with garlic and "secret" spices, whatever they may be) was perfect for dunking the chunks of soft crab meat into. The butterflied tiger prawns were also tasty, though a teeny tad overcooked. My favorite just had to be the garlic noodles: a bit on the soft side of al dente and 100% garlicky!

Believe it or not, after that meal fit for giants, we shared two desserts: the molten chocolate cake and fried banana, both a la mode.The chocolate cake was just allright to me but the fried banana brings back memories of my childhood for me. One of my father's favorite snacks is fried banana, a staple of Indonesian cuisine. Growing up, he used to bring me along to a fried banana stand in the heart of the Jakarta Chinatown when he sneaked out of the house for a snack :)

Besides enjoying the seafood in SF, I also headed towards a Californian institution: In'n'Out. I've heard many friends rave about this Cali joint and I've always wanted to try it. The previous times I was in California, I wasn't able to make my pilgrimage for one reason or another. This time, I was determined to not miss it! After I presented my poster at the meeting, I decided to go for a run around SF. Long story short, I ran from my hotel (near the Civic Center) to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then to Fisherman's Wharf, before heading back to the hotel. If it sounds like a long run to you, it's probably because it WAS a looong run. I had planned it out so that I would have my post-run meal at an In'n'Out at Fisherman's Wharf. After a blistering run throughout the 45-degree sloped of Sn Francisco, this was a sweet sight for sore eyes (and legs!).

When I went into the restaurant, there was already a long line ahead of me. This particular In-n-Out was packed with tourists due to the location, but there were a number of locals too. As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do; so I ordered a double double meal. I just can't get over how funny the name is! :) So, the double double meal consists of a double double burger (double the patty and cheeese), fries and medium drink. The unlimited drink part was pretty awesome because I was sooo dehydrated after my run and I must say that I had never tasted a more refreshing or delicious Diet Coke in my life!

Mr oder took a little less than 10 minutes to complete, which makes me believe that they actually cook the food only after they received the order. Although the fries were unimpressive and were on the soggy side (McD fries are better), the burger itself was yummy. I could actually taste the meat! Unlike other fast food joints that serve burgers that are unbelieveably tasteless, I like the beefiness (yes, the BEEFiness) of an In-n-Out burger. As if this is not Cali enough, they wrap their burgers in paper instead of plastic, hand-cut their fries and lettuce, and only use vegetable oil. Isn't it awesome?

The rest of the time in SF, I spent munching and snacking instead of having big sit-down meals. I just wanted a taste of as many things as possible! Of course a trip to SF is never complete without a visit to the largest Chinatown in the US. I searched high and low for this one bakery my cousin brought me to previously, where I enjoyed the most luscious egg tart ever. After an hour or so looking lost and having lost hope, I found it: the AA Bakery & Cafe!

As with most Chinatown bakeries and cafes, this one was filled with older Chinese folks, enjoying their morning egg tart or other yummy pastries over a piping hot cup of milk tea (or nai cha). As for me, I made a beeline to purchase my favorite Chinese pastries: egg tart, steamed "paper" cake and a custard bun topped with a thin almond cookie.

Unlike the Chicago C-town bakeries, in SF, the egg tart shell is made with puff pastry, giving it a rich flavor, flaky texture and a delicate crispness that is distinct from the graham cracker-style crust used in other cities' C-town bakeries. The actually egg custard part is also much milkier and softer, which makes SF egg tarts my favorite ever!

The custard-filled bun topped with almond cookie (I don't know its official name) was also a yummy treat. I've never seen them in the Chicago C-town and I first had this with my cousin in SF a few years back. This bun combines a soft bready texture with the cool creamy filling and a lightly crunchy cookie top. Man, Asian cuisine is chock full of foods and dishes that combine different textures and flavors; and this bun is (in my humble opinion), the most delicious example of that.

The steamed "paper" bun (my absolute favorite Chinese pastry ever!) was not as good as the ones in Chicago (Chi-town pride!). It had a layer of crust (not hard, not soft) on top that the cakes in Chicago don't have. However, the flavor was spot-on and was perfect with a cup of strong latte.

And guess what?!?!? I was in Cali during the cherry season! When I saw a fresh shipment of cherries in C-town, I couldn't resist! Don't worry, I didn't buy all these (though I wish I did)!

On the last day of my trip, I was lucky enough to catch a farmer's market outside the Ferry Terminal building. I mean, how much more Californian can it be than a farmer's market? There were plenty of fresh fruit (cherries, peaches and berries were in season) and to my delight, there was no shortage of samples!

I was particularly struck by the impressive size of some figs and decided to try one. The fig was so big it covered the palm of my hand! Not only was it gigantic, it was actually quite delicious. It wasn't as juicy as some figs I had, but it was very seedy and not too terribly sweet. I enjoyed the subtle flavors and devoured it, skin and all.

As if all this fresh fruits and veggies wasn't enough, there were more gourmet stores in the Ferry Terminal building itself. The one that caught my eye first was Acme Bread Company. I've heard of the legendary Berkeley-based bakery and lucky me! They had a branch in SF! I mean, seriously, this place is so good that there were a couple of folks who made their pilgrimage here either first thing from the airport, or on their way to the airport. What better endorsement is there?

Although I was tempted by the baguette, I decided to stick with a classic: the butter croissant, which went perfectly with a piping hot cup of latte. The croissant was as croissants should be: flaky layers of buttery richness. I enjoyed it immensely, but it would've been infinitely better had it been warm, if only slightly (I know, I know, I'm so demanding!).

There was another bakery (or as they advertise, patissier) in the Ferry Terminal Building named Miette. Their delicate decor and beautiful pastries drew me to this store. In particular, I was enchanted by their macaroon offering.

Suddenly hankering for them, I bought one of each flavor: pistachio, rose, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Tha packaging was totally adorable, with the little cookies swaddled in pretty pink tissue paper within a mini Chinese take-out box with a handle.

Although I enjoyed the flavors of the macaroons, I was a tad disappointed by the texture. Unlike the crisp yet chewy macaroons I had in Paris, these Miette macaroons were just soft. It might've had something to do with having them all stacked up in the large cookie jars, instead of having them lined up in a single layer to be kept as dry as possible. Still, I liked the flavors of the macs, particularly the rose macaroon.

I'm really very happy with the trip to SF. There are still some places I would love to visit or eat at in the Bay Area. Fortunately, I won't have to wait long for that chance because I'm returning there in July for a friend's last hurrah of sorts :) Ciao!

Thanh Long
4101 Judah Street
on the corner of 46th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94122
415.665.1146

In-n-Out Burger
333 Jefferson St
San Francisco, CA 94133

AA Bakery & Cafe
1068 Stockton St
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 981-0123

Acme Bread Company
One Ferry Building
Marketplace Shop #15
San Francisco, California 94111

Miette
One Ferry Building
Marketplace Shop #10
San Francisco, CA 94111

No muss, no fuss Classic Roast Chicken

2008-06-11T06:25:00.004-05:00

It is with much regret that I didn't have sufficient stomach space to try a roast chicken while I was in Paris. The aroma of whole chicken being roasted kept wafting to my nose, seducing me as I roam the markets of Paris. Armed with a determination to satiate my craving for this classic, I made my own poulet rosti at home.

I started looking online for recipes and observed that the highest-rated recipes are the very simplest; so simple that there are only 3 ingredients: chicken, salt and pepper. When I read up more about roasting poultry, there are a few tips to keep in mind which will result in a moist, juicy bird trapped by thin, perfectly crisped skin.

First, you should never EVER (and I mean, NEVER EVER) pierce the skin before cooking. This will create holes through which those precious chicken juices to evaporate in the high heat of the oven, resulting in a yucky dry bird.

Second, it's imperative to dry the uncooked bird as much as possible. This involves pouring out the thawed liquids out of its cavity and letting paper towels absorb the excess water on the chicken skin. This will let the skin crisp beautifully and prevent the bird from being steamed from the innard liquids.

Third, like roasting beef, you have to let the cooked bird sit for 10-15 minutes before you start digging in; not only so you won't burn your tongue, but also to let the juices re-distribute throughout the whole bird.

Fourth, if you want to check the status of your bird by opening the oven periodically, DON'T! This lets heat escape from the oven and prevents your bird from having an even roasting temperature. Unless you have one of those fancy schmancy clear-doored oven, just leave the bird alone during the duration of cooking time!

Who knew that taking these simple, no muss, no fuss steps would give you a perfectly-roasted chicken? :)

Recipe for Classic Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:
1 three- to four-pound chicken
Salt
Pepper

Pre-heat oven to 450 deg Fahrenheit.

Drain liquid from chicken cavity and pat the outside dry with paper towel.

Season the cavity and the outside of the chicken generously with salt and pepper.

Place seasoned chicken on roasting pan.

Roast at 450 deg Fahrenheit for 50-60 minutes.

Let chicken rest for at least 10 minutes before enjoying.

I think this recipe gives you a roasted chicken so delicious that it can be enjoyed naked, by itself. But, if you're going to serve it alongside something else, it's very good atop a bed of baby greens with a scant drizzle of vinaigrette, as meat for a sandwich or with a side of baked potato. But you know what? Why ruin perfection? The only accompaniments this roast chicken needs are a tall glass of iced beverage and plenty of napkins!

Ups and Downs

2008-05-23T09:37:00.003-05:00

It's been nothing short of hectic in recent times, with many ups and downs. The "Ups" include having my friends and my dear sister visit, a sojourn to America's best restaurant, Alinea, seeing my cousin graduate and catching up with her family in Boston, running along the magnificent Charles River and having my business plan enter the final round of competition at Northwestern University. Unfortunately, the "Downs" were plentiful also. My camera died when I was at Alinea, resulting in no pictures from a wonderful evening of Chef Achatz's degustation. My business plan didn't place at all in the competition. And I think I'm hit the hardest by the fact that a lab technique that I've been working on the last year or so is just not working. This means that I will probably have to use the service of a core facility to develop it for me. Now, why didn't we do that in the first place? That's another long story that boils down to economics.

I'm sorry for being such a downer. I think I feel so down just because I haven't been spending as much time in the kitchen as I would like to. Oftentime (maybe too often), I question my career decision again and again. Maybe I should've gone into something simpler or more structured, like medicine or business. I admire those who instead of fretting about the challenges of science, actually relish and enjoy it, saying that the things that are worth doing are the most difficult ones. It's just difficult for me to have that point of view when graduate school has just been beating me down for the past few years. Is it too much to ask for a little bit of success in my experiments? Is it?

Paris in Spring 4 - the (last) little bits

2008-05-01T08:44:00.000-05:00

I didn't want the luxurious culinary experience in Paris to end, so I bought a few tidbits that would allow me to prolong it (though not as well, obviously).

One of the little bit of Paris I don't regret getting is the Ispahan tea, from (where else, but) Pierre Herme. Heady with joy from being able to taste the Ispahan from his store, I was addicted. As some of you know, I love love love tea also. So combining one of the most exquisite flavors and tea makes me very happy!

The leaves are basically a combination of Darjeeling and Kemum, scented with rose, lychee and raspberries. The tea was totally different from the original Ispahan, but it was very nice and pleasant. I can definitely smell the rose but not so much the raspberries and lychee.

I also purchased a little box of Ispahan nougats from the same store. Studded with rose-pink flecks reflecting its flavor, the nougats are little individually-wrapped mouthfuls of joy. For Ispahan overdose, one can have this with the tea I just mentioned above. Ho ho!

I especially adored the bag of lavender that I bought in Montmartre. I haven't opened it yet but it gave my luggage such a wonderfully pleasant scent. I can't wait to browse for recipes to use these beauties. Got any ideas to share?

At the airport, I bought this pack of madeleines for the plane trip back to the US. I only had a pistachio madeleine and was hankering for a cakey yet bready treat. Even though it looks like some cheesy, inauthentic French pastry, it was surprisingly delicious. They were moist, very buttery and decadent. Maybe it was my relatively low expectation from buying it at a convenience store at an airport, no less.

Thanks to a fellow blogger at Chocolate and Zuchinni, whose posted on Pierre Herme's source for rose syrup, I hunted down a little Indian shop about a mile away from the hotel we stayed at for Natco rose syrup. Supposedly, the legendary PH uses this rose syrup for his Ispahan creations. I can't wait to use this! Some ideas I have include ice cream, possibly cupcakes and maybe (dare I say) macaroons?

Besides food items, I bought a beautiful pair of vibrant red ballet flats. It was a bit of a necessary impulse buy (if one can call it that). One fine day in Paris, I wore a pair of sexy boots that have heels that are just a tad too high for comfortable sightseeing. After close to an hour of torture, I chanced upon these at a United Colors of Benetton store and snapped up a pair of the right size. Ahhhhhhh, pure sole heaven :)

While in was there, trenches was the "in" thing with it being spring and all. At the same time, the color grey was also ubiquitous in clothing shops. I fell in love with this hip-length grey trench at a Naf Naf store in the St. Germain area and just had to have it! I know, I know, it's a pretty impractical buy for me because spring in Chicago lasts for like, 15 minutes! Well, at least I'll look comfortably stylish for 15 minutes *winks*

Overall, Paris was beautiful and I enjoyed myself throughly, though a bit on the pricey side (that damn euro!). It was a sweet just-us-sisters springtime in Paris. I can only hope that it won't be our last excursion together.

Anyway, if you notice a slight improvement with the pictures for this post, it is thanks to my new homemade toy. Voila! The magic of the homemade (read: ghetto!) light box. I've been hankering for one of these babies but a professional light box easily costs a few hundred bucks and the best ones out there are a few thou! I stumbled upon a really cost post about making your own lightbox for under $50 and it was the perfect weekend project. It would also be perfect for the photos for my upcoming business venture. Check it out!

It was waaay larger than I expected and it's now occupying the whole dining table, which is fine because I don't really dine on it. However, if I were to do it all over again, I would use smaller poster boards. Now, the only problem is, my white background is turning up light blue. It's not something that I can't fix with image editing software but I would really like it to be super white by itself. Any ideas?

My April DB challenge- Cheesecake Brulee Bites

2008-04-27T17:11:00.000-05:00

I love love love mini, bite-sized treats! Which is why I was so elated to find out this month's DB challenge are bite-sized cheesecake treats! There's just something about diminutive, individually-portioned bites that is appealing to me. I think part of the reason is portion control so I won't overeat, but I can promise you that's a hard feat because these cheesecake treats are so very yummy! And the challenge comes in good time too as I have been hankering for creamy, rich cheesecake lately.

The lovely Deborah and Elle were the kind hostesses this month and chose the recipe from a cookbook that simply the most scrumptious title ever: Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. Seriously, how can you not love it?

The recipe itself was very simple and straightforward. However, I had a slight problem with the cheesecake not setting beautifully. All I did to solve the issue was to freeze the cheesecake balls with the popsicle sticks for about half an hour. I just had a pretty decadent weekend and wanted something lighter. My daring adjustments include using Neufchatel cheese that supposedly has 1/3 less fat than normal cream cheese, and coating the cheese balls with sugar and bruleeing them instead of super rich chocolate.

The cheesecake balls didn't freeze completely but was solid enough to withstand a super hot torch. Unfortunately, they weren't as perfectly spherical as I wanted them to be and the not-so-perfect-ly-spherical shape was more detectable without a nice chocolate coat. Overall, the cheese pops were delish and just the right-sized "light" treat I wanted. Like the book its recipe came out of, these sure were sticky, chewy, messy and gooey, just the kind of dessert I like *winks*

If you want to salivate over more of these cheesecake balls, check out my friends' creations here and be prepared to be blown away!

Where on Earth is the Foodiva?

2008-04-22T06:56:00.002-05:00

It has been a crazy month or so to say the least. Let's recount what has been going on during the past month or so:

1) A hop across the Atlantic for a whirlwind weekend Parisian trip with my dearest sis. I don't think I ever regained my normal footing after that; it's been insane since then. And I still have one more post on this trip!

2) Two different sets of college friends visiting over two different weekends. This was a total treat for me and I tried my best to minimize my work time during the weekends they were here. But that left me quite guilt-ridden for not working enough!

3) A departmental retreat at Wisconsin; just another excuse for grad students to party/get drunk/bond on the university's wallet. Another fun, boisterous weekend with no work getting done.

4) The incorporation of my business idea. My partner was actually the one who did most of the paperwork for our business and I'm so so so excited about this!!! I will definitely show off the website to you guys once it's up and running. Also, on this thread, I'm finally certified by the federal government and the Illinois state to handle food for sale! Yippee! The food sanitation class basically took two whole Saturdays of my life and I'm just so thankful it's done!

5) Training for the Soldier Field 10-mile. As if there's not enough on my plate, I have to be crazy enough to sign up for a 10-mile race with my friend. Actually, I'm kind of glad I did because now I have to get my butt of the couch and exercise!

6) Regular work. There's nothing regular about what I fondly refer to as "work" because even though my official title of grad student sounds all distringuished and noble and intellectual, nothing could be further from the truth. We're really just lab slaves in disguise. Paying us a meagre stipend that we have to pay taxes on (!), we easily spend 60 hours per week in lab. And then, when we get home, we'll be all guilt-ridden if we didn't spend some more time actually reading up and keeping up on the current research.

It's been crazy busy, but you know what? It's been fun too :)

Paris in Spring 3 - restaurants

2008-04-03T20:11:00.005-05:00

While frolicking arouund the arrondisements of Paris, my sister and I rarely ever sat down for full meals. We probably only did that about 2-3 times; but we did splurge on chillaxing with cups of strong coffee and wonderful pastries. The few times we did go to restaurants, we had a pleasant time.

We had lunch at Le Castiglione while we were strolling around the chic shopping area. A friend of mine works in this district and recommended it for lunch. Their menu offering is mostly classic bistro fare. The dining room was a rich velvety red; the furniture is mostly wood and the lighting was "flattering". As with all restaurants in France, every meal starts with bread and pure butter, which was one of the indulgences I love about France.

Starting with a delicious glass of red wine (yes, I had wine with lunch! As they say, in Rome, do as the Romans do), I had their "special" of the day, which was a pot roast with mashed potatoes. The roast was cooked very nicely, i.e. medium rare (more rare than medium, the way I like it). The mushroom sauce was yummers too. Although I'm not a big fan of potatoes, the mash was quite tasty and very well-seasoned.

My sister had their salmon cooked (fried, really) on one side with a bed of baby greens and potatoes. The fish was on the salty side but the greens were super fresh! (BAD PHOTO ALERT!)

The other restaurant we went to was Thoumieux. I wanted to go here after reading about their cassoulet (which I had) on David Lebovitz's blog. A classic French restaurant, Thoumieux's menu is nothing but French. The dining room is quaint, with mirrors lining the walls and small tiles lining the floor. It reminds me very much of Balthazar. in New York. Actually, Balthazar probably tries their best to emulate this classically comfortable French restaurant decor. Besides a restaurant, Thoumieux also has a cafe and a hotel in the same building. With a jar of pungent mustard on every table, how much more French can you get? *winks*

We started our dinner with an appetizer of stinky and melty but so deliciously creamy chunks of cheese on toasted bread on a bed of greens. That's not its official name, but I can't remember what it is!

I had the cassoulet, which was basically a slow-cooked bean stew containing different kinds of meat. The one at Thoumieux a piece of fatty pork belly, a sausage and some chicken. Talk about meat overload! But anyway, is that a beautiful cassoulet or is that a beautiful cassoulet?

My sister had their fried fish, which was too oily and overly salted; but with the fresh greens, it wasn't too bad.

We ended with a profiterole drizzled with dark chocolate sauce. I was too excited by the prospect of French profiteroles to even take a picture. Silly me! But anyway, the ice cream and the chocolate were superb. This might sound mighty snooty of me to say but I've made better puffs at home. The puffs were a tad dry but were acceptable partners to the ice cream. The highlight of the evening was the sight that greeted us outside the restaurant. With the cool spring air bathing our faces the sight of this, how can you not be satisfied with life?

Le Castiglione
235, rue Saint-Honoré, 75001 Paris

Thoumieux
79, rue Saint Dominique 75007 Paris

Paris in Spring 2- "street" food

2008-04-02T08:54:00.001-05:00

My sister and I were pleasantly surprised by the nice-ness of the Parisians we encountered (with one exception, which I'll describe in a later post). I mean, we didn't think they would be nasty or anything, but we keep hearing about how the French despise the English, the Americans and English-speaking people. I found them quite friendly and accomodating, though not as warm as the neighboring Italians. My sis and I joked that maybe they're so nice to us because they keep mistaking us for being rich Japanese tourists, who visit France in droves.

My sister and I visited Paris at a good time; the city wasn't choc full of tourists unlike in summer and all the shops are open. So, in a way, we got to experience Paris fully. I think it helped that the small hotel we stayed at is located in a residential neighborhood (the 9th arrondisement). Paris is a truly beautiful city. Each day, my sister and I would marvel at the intricate, old apartments that line the streets of Paris. The older buildings are prettier. I have to say that French modern architecture that we saw in the outskirts of Paris were rather ghastly!

Paris is also a true blue food heaven. The streets are littered with patissiers, boulangers, boucheries, fromageries, fishmongers, cafes and restaurants. It seems that Parisians still shop for food every day to ensure freshness. Small mom-and-pop shops that specialize in different food items still flourish (thank goodness!), although we also saw many modern convenient supermarket chains around town.

My favorite food neighborhood in Paris is Montmartre. Known better as Amélie's neighborhood and a nightclub district in the 18th arrondisement, it is a quaint Parisian area rife with narrow streets that are littered with various specialty grocers in the daytime. We walked down Rue Abbesses, only to be welcomed with the sights, sounds and scents of fresh fruit stands, baked breads and pastries, wonderful cheeses, and cafes. It looks like a residential area except for the droves of tourists coming to see Amélie's neighborhood, the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur or the Moulin Rouge just a few steps away. It's one of those neighbourhoods where you'll see people walking around holding a partially-eaten baguette, wrapped with only a small square of baker's paper.

Besides the adorable little cafes lining Rue Abbesses, I loved the little shops selling various goodies. We saw a long line outside of a bakery and decided to get in it. The lines are a pretty good gauge of how good a place is, no? I mean, it's got to be pretty good if there are so many people clamoring for it! The bakery is Le Grenier à Pain and like many others, my sister and I were attracted by the heady scent of freshly-baked breads. We didn't get their baguette (silly us!); instead, I went for a delicious pistachio madeleine and my sis had some mini pigs-in-a-blanket (I'm sure there's a more elegant name for it in French though I don't know what it is) and a chocolate chip-studded mini bread that looks like a cheese stick. The breads were very yummy and the perfect snack for our stroll through Montmartre.

Walking down Rue Abbesses, we saw many people holding a pretty pink cake box tied up with a flourish of red ribbons. Our curiosity piqued, we tried sussing out the source of this mystery, only to find a quaint little tart shop, Les Petits Mitrons. Best known for their tarts (both sweet and savory), they also sell pizzas and little pastries and chocolates. After our little feast from Le Grenier à Pain, I can only thank God that Les Petits sells their tarts in slices too, so we can have a taste! My sis got a classic apple tart (that we consumed before we could snap a pic) and it was yummy. We found it a little too sweet and unlike tarts we've had in the US, Les Petits' doesn't have a layer of custard between the crust and the fruit. We particularly enjoyed the glaze on the fruit and can understand why so family French families in the neighborhood decided to make it a part of their Sunday ritual.

Another pretty friggin' awesome place we went to was this legendary ice cream place, Berthillon. After hearing that it's the best ice cream in Paris, how can I, an ice cream addict resist? The ice creamerie also has a cafe with an outdoor section for customers to people-watch (how French!).

They have a little freezer in front for orders to go and this was the offering of the day.

With the exception of cannelle and noix, we pretty much deduced what the ice cream flavors were. My sister got a scoop of caramel and I foolishly tried cannelle, only to realize after the first lick that it's cinnamon. I don't hate cinnamon or anything like that, just that it's not my favoritest spice ever. Still, the ice cream was pleasantly creamy, smoothly gliding over my tongue as it melts. It was also not excessively sweet, which was surprising because believe me, the French love love love sweet. Maybe it's because it was cinnamon flavor; my sister's caramel was decidedly more sugary.

Another famous French food is the crepe. I've made some at home before, but due to the limitation of my small non-stick pan, I was never convinced it was really French. My home-made crepes were also too thick, I thought; nothing like a paper-thin French crepe. So when we saw a line in front of this man's creperie-on-wheels in the St. Germain area, we just had to have one! I mean, check out his expertise! He has two crepe irons going at the same time to get in the groove!

Fortunately, we didn't get a crepe near Notre Dame, where the crepes were already pre-made and stacked for uber tourist-trap convenience. I mean, how good can it be if you didn't know when it was made. Maybe an hour ago? Or yesterday? So if you're in Paris and wants a crepe, stay away from the touristy areas. Crepe fillings include the savory four cheeses and mushrooms to sweet classics such as butter and sugar, Nutella and fruit jams. Nutella and jam seemed to be the most popular one, and who can resist Nutella anyway? I mean, check out this guy skilfully filling and folding the crepes!

As I expected, the crepe was much larger and thinner than my homemade ones (duh!). Filled with melty Nutella and soft bananas, it was a party in my mouth. I can only imagine going back to that crepe stand every day if I lived in the area.

Another "streety" food that we enjoyed immensely was the falafel. You wouldn't expect it but apparently, Paris has many fantastic Middle Eastern/North African cuisine offerings, thanks to immigrants from these countries. We tried the falafel that supposedly had Lenny Kravitz's stamp of approval, because of course, we trust Lenny Kravitz!

Besides that, my Parisian friend had recommended L'As du Falafel. I mean, if the New York Times had reviewed and recommended the place, how bad can it be, right? So my sis and I trekked to the beighborhood of Marais, got lost a couple of times, and finally found the holy grail leading to this falafelerie. It's rather funny that right across from L'As du Fafafel was anotther famous, fancier-looking falafelerie, Mi-Va-Mi. Could it be that they're owned by the same person? Who knows? Anyway, one big mistake we made is we didn't order the original falafel sammich, but instead decided to go for the meatier schwarma because we felt like meat, dammit! How can you not want meat once you see this huuuge chunk of meat displayed shamelessly, teasing your eyes and nose and taste buds?

And boy, was the schwarma good! Check out those chunks of chicken bursting from the pita! And the cabbage! And the sauce! This thing is so big that you need a fork to eat it, unless you don't mind (or want!) the sauce schmeared all over your face, that is, haha, which might not be so bad *winks* We were quite glad we only got one sammich after seeing just how humongous this thing is! At 7 euros a pop, it had better be humongous! It was very delicious; the chicken chunks were nice and juicy and tender, the veggies crisp and fresh, the sauce was tangy and slightly spicy at the same time. I would definitely go back to L'As du Falafel again but I wouldn't mind trying out their competitor either.

I thoroughly enjoyed Paris' street food scene more than its fine dining, at least, what we got to experience of the "fine" dining anyway (which wasn't that much). I love that there are so many delicious options for eating on-the-go, whether it's the classic Nutella crepe, a bite of falafel, or a perfect cup of cappucino.

Le Grenier à Pain
38, rue des Abesses, 75018 Paris

Les Petits Mitrons
26, Rue Lepic, 75018 Paris

Berthillon
29-31 rue saint Louis en l'ile, 75004 Paris

St. Germain Crepe stand
Near the St. Germain metro stop, right across from a Starbucks

L'As du Falafel
34, rue des Rosiers, 75004 Paris

Spring has sprung!

2008-03-30T11:02:00.000-05:00

Once upon a March, a teeny weeny bunny faced a Daring Bakers challenge. It was the daring Morven's turn to host and she wisely picked a sprightly recipe for us: the Perfect Party Cake by the one and only Dorie Greenspan. Having only salivated at Dorie's books, the bunny was uber excited about the cake, only to despair having no special occasion to bake for.

Though the bunny's birthday is in March, she was away in a foreign land with her beloved sister for the occasion. Fortunately, the Easter holiday came to the rescue! Even though the funny bunny didn't celebrate the holy day, she had plenty of friends who did. The bunny quite liked cake allright, but being pint-sized, the bunny liked all things small and cute. She then decided that instead of baking a large, beautiful cake, she will bake cupcakes because there's really nothing more adorably delicious than cuppy cakes.

But how should the bunny ensure that she follows the challenge rules, for one of the rules is that it has to be a layer cake! Think and think, the bunny did, before she thought, "Eureka! Layer cupcakes!" And layer cupcakes, the bunny made.

She started with the batter, which was easy breezy and a beautiful daffodil yellow, very apt for a springy occasion such as Easter.

To make layer cupcakes, the daring bunny baked the layers separately; she baked half of them in cupcake baking cups and the other half sans paper in the cupcake pan, with only a tablespoon of batter in each.

The mini cupcakes (as if cupcakes weren't mini enough!) rose slightly and were a pretty yellow.

To start the assembly process, the funny bunny laid out the cupcake in a baking cup, which will be the bottom layer.

She then spooned a teaspoonful of luscious strawberry jam and smoothed it over the top...

... before she plopped the paperless cupcake (the top layer) on the jam-frosted cupcake!

And as if this isn't sufficient fabulosity, the bunny decided to be funny and slathered the top with Dorie's decadent vanilla buttercream, only to top it off with a sprinkling of fluffy flaked coconut.

Nothing is more fun than decorating cupcakes, but the bunny couldn't wait to tuck into this darling lemony cake! She split it in half, only to show off that the cupcake crumb is delectable and its layers simply exquisite (if she must say to herself!).

In no time did the greedy bunny polished off the pretty cupcake, leaving only mysterious yellow crumbs and flakes and pink paper on the plate.

Fortunately, the funny bunny managed to hide a bunch more cuppy cakes away from her tummy, so that her friends who celebrate Easter actually had a chance to enjoy them too! Really, she's rather impressed she had this much self-control considering how yummy the cakes were!

Now check out more daring creations of other talented bunnies and chickies that are popping all over the internet here. Please be kind to your computer; prepare some napkins for your mouth in case my friends' pictures are excessively mouth-watering!

Paris in Spring 1- the Mac post

2008-03-25T16:17:00.003-05:00

As some of you may already know, I recently spent a long weekend in Paris with my dearest sister. It was a much-needed respite from the usual stresses of work and the daily grind. It was also a just-us-sisters QT getaway that we both wanted to have before real jobs and families get in the way. My sister had been to Paris once but I had never been to the city of lights, so I was uber excited about this spring getaway. And seriously, Paris in spring sounds just positively fabulous, doesn't it?

Overall, it was quite a decadent weekend, what with butter croissants, scrumptious desserts, wonderfully strong coffee and cheesy croques. Despite the calorie overload, I'm rather surprised that I didn't pack on the pounds. I suppose it can be attributed to our extensive walks around the city. Before the trip, I did some research on Robyn's and David's blogs for (what else, but) food recs around Paris. I totally recommend their sites for any Paris restaurants/eateries!

Armed with a list of some twenty restaurants, patissiers and boulangers, my sis and I explored not only Paris' stunning monuments and sights, but also its array of decadent eateries. Can I just add that we were totally gaga over maccarons? We have had maccarons in the US before. As a matter of fact, I tried to make them once but failed miserably. The maccarons in Paris were totally awesome and addictive! French maccarons are not to be mixed up with the American macaroon. American macaroons are basically super dense and super sweet cookies made with flaked coconuts, egg white and tons of sugar. I enjoy these on occasion, but I much prefer the delicate and elegant traditional French ones. French maccarons are basically sandwich cookies, where the cookies are made with ground almonds, egg whites and sugar.

Maccarons are sold everywhere in Paris; and I mean EVERYWHERE, whether it's just a chain bakery or artisan patissiers. The maccaron's status is almost like that of the baguette in France (though not quite, yet). We mostly made our maccaron pilgrimage to the legendary shops we've heard or read of online. The first maccaronerie we visited (or really, stumbled upon) was Ladurée on Rue Royale, the very first Ladurée shop. The bakery was founded by Louis-Ernest Ladurée in 1862 and this is the shop that invented the French maccaron. There was a 5-minute long line when we got there consisting mainly of women clamoring for their legendary baked goodies. Besides maccarons (they're on the top three racks in this picture), Ladurée also sells breads and cakes.

Trying to pace ourselves, we bought merely four mini macs (from leftmost, going clockwise): rose, cassis (blackcurrant), pistachio and caramel. Aren't they just pretty?

Unable to secure a table at Ladurée (they only allow lunch patrons at the time), my sis and I trekked to a nearby cafe and ordered some wonderfully strong French coffee as accompaniment for our macs. As a sidenote, although I don't normally drink coffee, when I do, I love super strong coffee. The French are pretty damn good at making strong cappucinos; its aromatic bitterness is the perfect contrast to the very sweet maccarons.

The Ladurée maccarons were yummy. My favorite was the nutty pistachio and I think I found out that I don't like blackcurrant. I find their cassis maccaron bitter and sweet, though not in a good way. Another maccaronerie we also stumbled upon is Toraya, a Japanese confectioner that has a Salon de Thé in the heart of Paris. Toraya specializes in the Japanese sweets, known as wagashi; but in their Paris branch, they also have maccarons. Unlike other maccaroneries, Toraya's macs have a Japanese twist. Toraya's maccaron offerings include distinctly Japanese flavors such as matcha (green tea), azuki (red bean), kinako (toasted soybean flour), shiro-goma (white sesame) and kuro-goma (black sesame). We tried all five and agreed that we liked all of them. The flavors were strong but not overpowering; the cookies were perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle; the cookie-to-filling ratio was just nice. Unfortunately, my hands were slower than my mouth because I didn't get to take a picture of these wonderful macs. But if you're in Paris, this is hands-down one of the maccarons to try!

Kitty corner from Toraya was another dessert bar/Salon de Thé, Jean-Paul Hevin that a friend recommended. The shop was inconspicuous and we almost missed it if we hadn't been looking so hard. There were so signs on the front door or window, just a little white piece of wood jutting out the wall of the shop. Upon entering the shop, I thought we got it wrong. It felt very much like an exclusive haute couture boutique or something like that! The counter was full of pretty dessert creations, lined up neatly like little soldiers. Shelves carried the signature truffles in beautiful blue tin cans and cookies in elegant boxes. Again, I tried out some maccaron; I think it was green apple and praline that I tried. Both were chocolatey and I couldn't taste the actual flavors they claimed to be. I guess it's to be expected as JP Hevin is really famous for his chocolate creations. My sister chose one of his meringue chocolate creations that was reminiscent of a giant, fluffy Ferrero Rocher. It was a chewy meringue surrounded with a crisp layer of cookie (I think), that's then chocolate-drizzled and sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts.

I must say that although the macs weren't my favorite, I regret not getting some of his legendary chocolates! Well, there's always next time...

Ok, now, for the maccaron highlight of my life (so far, I hope), I present to you Fetish! Please rid yourself of any naughty thoughts now, I'm not that kind of girl! If you're a French pastry enthusiast, you probably know what I'm talking about. It is a theme that was launched by the legendary pattisier, Pierre Herme in 2006, to celebrate his "favorite tastes, sensations and epicurean delights". Now doesn't that sound simply pleasurable? And lucky me happened to be in Paris for his first Fetish of the year, and the theme is "Ispahan" this time around.

Ispahan is PH's most famous creation thus far. I've heard about and seen pictures of it all over the blogosphere, only to despair at not being able to taste this mythic pastry ... until now, that is! Ispahan is actually a clear pink, half-open Damask rose originating in the Middle East. Its name is derived from Isfahan, a city in Iran. In the pastry world, Ispahan is basically a novel combination of the flavors of rose syrup, lychee and raspberry that was created by who else, but Pierre Herme himself. We almost didn't make it to his shop because we left it until the last day (I can't believe I actually did this! We should've gone there on our first day!), but fortunately, we had some spare time on our last day to make our pilgrimage to his shop in St. Germain.

Everything about the shop was beautiful. As I went in, I felt like I was entering a box of precious jewels. The walls were a dark, deep chocolate, providing contrast to the bright pastries on the counter and the boxes of cookies and chocolates on the shelves. The store had gone Ispahan-crazy and so did I. There were many Ispahan creations, including cakes, nougats and tea. The PH packaging was also very simple and clean. Guess what I have in my box?

Okay, if you're not jealous yet, check out the loot I had in it!

Now, what about this angle? *winks*

There are really no apt words to describe this genius creation. It was delicious and the flavor combination was definitely more than the sum of its parts. It just simply, magically works! Of course, it helps that the cookies were baked to perfection and it was just so darn pretty! I also like the symbolism of the Ispahan; it combines flavors and ideas across multiple cultures: the maccaron (French), rose (Middle-Eastern), lychee (Asian) and raspberry (Western). I haven't tasted a better pastry ... yet, I hope. If there is a perfect dessert taste-wise and ideologically, the Ispahan is IT! You may think I'm crazy for waxing poetic about a pastry like this, but the Ispahan has inspired me to re-try making macs at home again soon :)

Of course, one maccaron from PH isn't sufficient to judge his genius, right? Here's our other set of loot (from top to bottom, left to right): olive oil, apricot, 2 Ispahans, vanilla and jasmine. They were all very delicious and beautiful. The apricot and Ispahan macs had a shiny, silvery sheen on the cookies. The idea of the olive oil mac was a bit weird but the flavor was very nice. I could definitely taste the olive oil but it wasn't icky or savory at all. I love jasmine tea and I wasn't at all disappointed by the jasmine mac. Its aroma was pleasant and the jasmine flavor was delicate.

It's quite unfortunate that maccarons are so fragile and delicate. I suppose that's part of its appeal too. If they weren't so delicate, I would've bought boxes of them, enough to sustain me for a few months. After being so spoiled for choice for a few days in Paris, I was yearning for some mac action back here in Chicago. Upon my return, while I was grocery shopping, I remembered that a French-style bakery in the same shopping complex had maccarons. I had one of their pistachio creations and was rather disappointed. It was nicely chewy but it didn't have a nice crisp layer at all. The creamy filling wasn't flavorful enough and the whole mac was ever-so-slightly soggy. You probably think that I've probably snobbed up, having had the best macs in the world. Maybe so, maybe not. I suppose I'll always have Paris...

Ladurée Royale
16, rue Royale, 75008 Paris

Toraya
10, Rue Saint-Florentin, 75001 PARIS

Jean-Paul Hévin
231, rue Saint-Honoré, 75001 Paris

Pierre Hermé
72, rue Bonaparte Paris 75006

Yippee!

2008-03-21T17:12:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a whirlwind weekend trip with my sister and although I enjoyed it thoroughly, I am glad to be back. "What?!?" you say, "Another trip?"

Yes, I know, I know. I also just recently returned from a two-week-long homecoming to Asia for Chinese New Year and I shouldn't be taking time off again so soon! But anyway, my sister and I have planned it for some time and we get so little time to spend together, just the two of us, that we just did it! So, watch out for that post soon.

But anyway, my dear fellow Hyde Park blogger Coco, was so very sweet to give me this prize. I feel so undeserving but am so very honored *blush*

Like Coco, I'd like to pass on this prize to fellow food bloggers I admire and respect. It's a tough one because there are so many great food bloggers out there, but here goes...

First, I'd like to recognize Christina of She Runs, She Eats, a fellow Midwestern foodie and runner. It's quite fun to find foodie bloggers out there who are also training for races.

Then there's Sylvie, an absolutely adorable German lady living across the pond popularly known as the Atlantic Ocean, who makes a lot of awesome British-style food. Like her, I think there's nothing that a freshly-brewed pot of tea can't solve *winks*

Jess is a wonderful SAHM and fellow knitter who recently started her blog.

So, those are just a few of the deserving bloggers of this prize! Yippee!

Anyway, I recently encountered an absolutely rad music video during my travels. The music is super funky, by Martin Solveig, a French electronica musician. I found the dancers in this video quite "sick" (in a good way) and uber cool. It's also quite appropriate for Easter as it features a rather large egg prominently. Check it out and towards the end, an adorable little prize emerges out of the egg! Happy Easter to one and all!

Top chef madness

2008-03-13T10:14:00.005-05:00

March has come around and unlike many others who experience March basketball madness, my madness is over the new season of Top Chef. The inaugural 4th season episode premiered last night and it didn't disappoint. Contestants were thrown into the kitchen for a quick-fire challenge barely hours after they scoped out their rivals. And to honor the host city's food tradition, the first challenge involves making their own signature deep dish pizza, which they just enjoyed for lunch.

As usual, the show moved at breakneck speed and the chefs tried both true-and-tried classics (like sausage, onion and mushroom combo) and the seemingly absurd (think vegemite and peaches on a pizza?). This might seem out of the point, but I really like soundtrack of the show; a little bit electronica, kind of jazzy and very upbeat. Next time you're watching, listen in.

Anyway, Chicago chef Stephanie Izard won the first challenge (yay!), but for me, the highlight of last night's episode was the oh-so-dreamy guest judge, Rocco DiSpirito. I mean, really, he's so scrumptious!

Survey time :)

2008-03-07T18:15:00.002-06:00

Hi folks!

My friend and I have been super busy with and excited about our business idea lately. We are going to join a business competition with it and currently, besides working on starting it up, we would like to learn more about our market. The idea is food-based (of course!) and is basically about letting you customize nutrition bars according to you own taste and nutritional needs. We would love to listen to the customers' taste and needs, so this is where you come in! We would like you to fill a short online survey that can be found here.

Unfortunately, being struggling graduate students, we cannot pay you for your invalueable opinions, but we can offer you our eternal gratitude for your kindness. Please feel free to spread the survey around to friends and family who might be interested. Thank you again and have a wonderful weekend!

Devilled egg: simple party food with staple ingredients

2008-03-06T19:04:00.000-06:00

A friend graciously invited a bunch of us for the Project Runway finale viewing at her place. Our Molecular Nutrition graduate program is famous (or is it notorious?) for loving our food. I mean, seriously, Nutrition program equals food, right? :)

Well, anyway, it was a potluck and I decided to bring something salty instead of my usual forays into the land of desserts. This is not my first time making these devilled eggs. I first made these for another friend's wine party earlier this year. Devilled eggs are no-fuss to make and are so delicious and nutritious; they belong in every party tray. Here's how I made mine...

Start with some nice-looking eggs.

Place the eggs in a pot and cover with room temperature water.

Next, bring water to a roiling boil and let the eggs boil for 5 minutes. Then, put the pot lid on and leave for 10 minutes.

Pour hot water out of pan and to make it cool faster, add tap water into the pot and leave for 5 minutes.

Next, peel the eggs. This is probably the most time-consuming part of the recipe, but I figured out a simple way to do it. Tap the egg on a hard surface lightly until it is cracked all over (and I mean ALL OVER). Now, start peeling from a spot. I was able to peel the egg easily, by pulling out the membrane layer underneath the shell. For one egg, I peeled off the shell in one piece ;)

Cut each egg lengthwise.

Scoop out the yolk into a medium-sized bowl and place the "hollowed" egg white shell on a platter with "hollowed" face up.

Once you've cut and scooped out all the eggs, mash the yolks. Add salt, pepper, paprika and Dijon mustard to your taste. You can add some mayo if you'd like it to be smoother. If you're piping out the mashed yolk mixture, it's recommended that you add the mayo for easier piping.

Scoop about a teaspoon of mashed yolk mixture on the hollowed egg white. If you want to be fancy schmancy, you can pipe the yolk mixture on.

At the end, garnish with a dash of paprika, sprig of dill or a sliver of chive. For a more substantial bite, you can top each with a teeny weeny slice of smoked salmon.

Now, isn't that a fierce?

What a difference a day (or two) makes...

2008-03-04T09:08:00.002-06:00

It's Tuesday in Chicago and winter has returned. Not that it went away for that long. This past Sunday was gloriously beautiful! Think mid-50ish Fahrentheit weather, little wind, partly sunny (or partly cloudy, depending on how you look at it). Even though I had to trek in to work for a few hours, I made sure I came home early enough so there's a few hours of daylight left. I surprised myself by hauling my lazy butt out of the apartment for a 3+ mile run along the lake, something that I sorely needed. The fresh, brisk air felt so good on my face and I miss having a hard ground underneath me to run on.

But come Monday, old man winter's back. How cruel of him to tease us with a taste of spring, only to return howling down on us the next day! Well, at least it's sunny ... sort of.

French bread, oh, French bread. How do I serve thee? Let me count the ways...

2008-02-29T22:42:00.004-06:00

French bread is one of my favorite things ever. It is so simple yet complex; crusty yet chewy; and delicious both unadorned and ... well, adorned! So imagine the joy (and slight apprehension, which I will get to later) when the wonderful Daring Bakers announced that our mission for February is to make French bread with Julia Child's (deceptively) simple recipe. Upon first inspection of the recipe, I was simply floored by its length and contents. I mean, really, we're going to need canvas? And plywood? Sounds more like an art project, no? And can you blame my slight apprehension? I'm not going to wax poetic too much about it but when you come right down to it, baking is artistic!

Unlike my normal baking/cooking projects, I set out to be uber organized this time. I printed out the recipe (10 pages long, thank you very much!), laid out all the special equipment and ingredients ("mise en place") before I even started. Baking French bread took way longer than my usual baking recipes (think a whole Sunday!), but it was totally worth it because my French breads turned out beautiful! It was Sunday anyway, so during the multiple proofs (or incubation steps, as we call it in lab/geek talk), I just tinkered around the house, reading the paper, watching TV and doing little chores.

I made the mistake of digging into one before it was cooled completely. I mean, it took 2 whole hours to cool and let the crust set, but I was just sooo seduced by the aroma of fresh bread out of the oven. I couldn't resist! The bread tasted good but the crust wasn't as crusty as I was hoping. Fortunately, the second bread that I let cool for the whole 2 hours was much better: super crusty crust and chewy, bubbly middle. Although it isn't a French bakery-standard bread, it comes pretty darn close! And as usual, there are a few hundred DB posts up today. Kinda crazy but oh so worth it to check out! So take a look the creations of my talented friends here!

As the title of this post suggests, how did I serve this divine bread?

1. By itself: So simple and delicious! This may make me sound like a freak, but my favorite part of bread is actually the crust. Whenever I get a loaf of bread, I always attack the ends. Chewy middles are a distant second in my opinion. So the high crust-to-innard ratio of baguettes is a huge plus to me!

2. With butter: Still very simple and oh, so decadent. I think it might be especially yummy if you can get butter from dairy farmers who make small batches of unhomogenized and sometimes, unpasteurized butter as featured in the NYT.

3. With butter and jam: To further bring your taste buds nearer to nirvana, add jam to #2. Not jelly please no! But J-A-M. My current favorite is this awesomely flavorful blackberry jam from Trader Joe's. I just ran out but I'm hoping it's not just a seasonal item...

4. With butter and roasted garlic cloves shmeared on top. Now, THIS is sheer heaven!

5. As part of a bánh mì: If you haven't tried one of these yummy sammie, you have to try one right now. And I mean, go to a pho place right NOW! Banh mi is a Vietnamese-style sandwich made with baguettes. It is usually made with pork, chicken, pickled carrots, some veggies and cilantro.

6. With chocolate: As exemplified by fellow DBer Tartelette here.

7. With extra virgin olive oil as dip: Droooooolz!

8. With cheese of all kinds: goat, brie, blue, Cheddar. Oh, the possibilities are endless!

9. With Nutella: I suppose Nutella could be considered chocolate. But I think Nutella is just so good it deserves its own category. I really think the USDA should really reserve a place for this delicious hazelnutty chocolatey goodness in the food pyramid. Don't you?

10. As crostini: Sliced thinly, toasted and topped with various yummies like chopped tomato and basil, garlic hummus and pine nuts, roasted tomato puree and sliced mozzarella, etc.

11. For croutons: I've never been a fan of croutons and consider this one to be a bit of a waste of good bread. But hey, I'm sure there are folks out there who beg to differ and can't live without croutons...

That's only eleven of the ways I can think to serve French bread. Care to share any of your own ideas?

I'm baaack!

2008-02-23T07:40:00.001-06:00

Imagine the horror that washed over me as I stepped out of Chicago's O'Hare airport this past frigid Monday with no coat on me. Yes, you read that right. NO COAT IN THE HEART OF THE MIDWESTERN WINTER!

After all, I just returned from a luxuriously warm 2-week holiday visiting my family in Jakarta and Singapore for Chinese New Year. I didn't have space in my luggage for a damn winter coat! Not with all the goodies I was planning to bring back from home!

Ok, ok, so it is partially my fault for not thinking ahead, but what do you think? If you were in my position, would you prioritize a stupid coat or the wondrous Asian goodies? Now you tell me!

It's just not meant to be... Argh!

2008-01-28T12:24:00.001-06:00

Apologies for having to miss the new year's first DB challenge. I've been on overdrive at work because I'm going to be taking 2 weeks off to go home to Indonesia and Singapore for Chinese New Year. Needless to say, I've had no life whatsoever the past month because my lab's also trying to submit an abstract for a scientific meeting in June. And if this isn't enough, I'm thinking of joining a business plan competition centered around a food-related idea that will be web-based. Phew!

At the same time, I'm sad that I have to sit out on this DB challenge because I've never made lemon meringue pie before and I actually have some funky ideas on how to make the recipe mine, so to speak. I will definitely try this out in the near future, so keep a look out for it here. Meanwhile, please enjoy the other talented DBers' creations here!

Gawd, I'm so Asian!

2008-01-18T20:42:00.001-06:00

It's been a rough week. Not only has my experiments tanked (as usual), it is frigid here in Chicago. I walked home from the lab earlier this evening and by the time I got home, my cheeks and thighs were frozen solid! But there's nothing a bowl of homemade soup can't warm up immediately, so I made miso soup.

Miso soup equates comfort to me. I grew up eating Japanese food pretty regularly because my parents love Japanese food. So, what is miso anyway? Miso is basically fermented soy bean paste. There are a few types of miso; namely, white, red and black miso. Miso soup is a Japanese culinary staple but miso itself is increasingly used in many other contexts, such as glaze on fish and in sauces. A few factors that determine the flavor of miso include the length of fermentation and the other raw materials added to it. Other grains that have been used include barley, quinoa and adzuki. Unfortunately, the miso I happen to have in my possesion isn't that exciting. It's just plain reduced sodium misoshiru, but it'll have to do! Don't you just love that the Japanese always uses cute cartoon characters on everything? Even miso! :)

I started off by boiling a quart of water in a saucepan before putting a dashi bag in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Dashi is another uniquely Japanese ingredient that is analogous to bouillon but is flavored with kombu (edible kelp). The dashi bags I have happen to also have bonito flavor. The term "bonito" refers to a species of predatory fish that belongs in the mackerel family. Again, it gives dishes a distinctly Japanese flavor.

While boiling the dashi bag, I diced some tofu and some green onion. Miso is an incredibly versatile ingredient. Besides tofu and seaweed, which are the most popular "fillings" of miso soup, you can many other things such as shellfish, mushrooms and noodles. I love love love tofu so I added a whole block of tofu to my soup. I'm so Asian sometimes, haha!

After boiling the tofu for about another 5 minutes, I turned off the heat and removed the pan from the stove. After letting it cool for a few minutes, I stirred in two tablespoons of the delicious miso. It can take a few minutes for the miso to dissolve, especially if it is cold. It's crucial to never EVER boil miso and to add the miso paste only after you removed the soup from the heat. Boiling miso will create a bitter flavor and destroy the beneficial cultures.

I topped my miso soup with sliced green onions and I had to have two whole servings! Other toppings include fried scallions (which is such an Indonesian thing to do) and seaweed. Homemade miso soup is the perfect remedy to a frigid Chicago winter day.

Recipe for Miso Soup

Ingredients:
1 quart water
1 dashi stock bag
1/2 of a 16-oz block of your favorite tofu (you can use the whole block if you love tofu, like me), diced
2 Tbsp. miso paste
Sliced green onion

Bring the water to a roiling boil in a saucepan. Put the dashi bag in the boiling water and let it continue to boil for 5 minutes.

Take the dashi bag out and add the diced tofu. Boil another 5 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add dashi and stir until it dissolves.

Ladle into bowl, top with sliced green onions and itadakimasu!

Happy New Year to one and all!

2008-01-02T09:23:00.001-06:00

The holiday season is almost over and I must say that I'm actually relieved. As you may know already, I was stuck in Chicago for the holiday season and ended up going in to work every day the whole month (and counting). It is days like these that makes me rethink the wisdom of my career choice. But anyhoo, the holiday season has been rather toxic nutritionally for me, what with sugary, chocolatey goodness tempting me from every single corner. I must say that I wasn't so effective at combating these tasty temptations and I've decided that I need to detox for the New Year, which brings me to my New Year resolutions.

Of course, there's the requisite resolution of losing weight and leading a more healthy lifestyle, but the one resolution that I think will be more manageable and achievable is to try something new culinarily at least every other week. This includes eating or making a new food I've never eaten or made before. I must say that I've made pretty good progress on this one resolution because I have tried one thing that I've never had before today: caviar. I've heard many rave about this luxurious, exquisite food and I've always been curious about it.

Considered a luxurious food item, real caviar is the processed, salted roe of the sturgeon. The most expensive are from the Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga varieties. It is often used as garnish or served as an hors d'euvres with creme fraiche on a cracker or mini pancake. A friend of mine was nice enough to buy me a 2-ounce container of paddlefish caviar to further this project of mine. Sure, it may not be "real" caviar, but hey, grad students can't be choosers :)

I figured that since I was going to pursue such a luxury, I had to do it right. Upon more research, classically, caviar is served with a touch of creme fraiche on blini, which is a yeast-raised buckwheat pancake. I found this recipe on Epicurious and substituted some ingredients with whatever I had in my pantry. We started by mixing the yeast with warm water and sugar before letting it stand for 5 minutes until foamy, just to ensure that this dear eukaryotic microorganisms are still alive and well.

Then, the flours, salt, milk, eggs and butter were added to yield a thin batter that looks like this.

The batter was covered with plastic wrap and left to raise for about 2 hours, after which it looked a lot livelier and doughier, which was pretty darn cool! I've never made yeast-raised pancakes before and at this point, I wasn't really sure whether this was what it was supposed to look like, but I went ahead with it anyway.

For this purpose, I heated my nonstick skillet and sprayed it with some canola oil before spooning one tablespoon of the batter onto the skillet for each pancake or blin.

Like making normal pancakes, we wait until the bubbles have populated the surface before turning it and continue to cook until the blinis are browned on both sides. I found that about 1-2 minutes on each side sufficed.

The blinis turned out beautifully fluffy and light. The buckwheat flour, I think, adds a faint nutty flavor to it, which I liked. It was pretty darn good by itself, though a tad bland. It is so fluffy that I think I'm a buckwheat flour convert when it comes to pancakes. I might just start making yeast-raised pancakes too!

So, back to the highlight of this project, the caviar. Due to the unavailability of creme fraiche at my neighbourhood grocery store, I resorted to fat-free sour cream (my generous friend has a health condition that almost bans fat in his diet). Topped with a teaspoonful of sour cream, the blinis are ready for the star of the show. We then spooned a bit of the caviar onto each blini. Doesn't it look beautiful?

I must say that even though I've never had caviar before, the taste is very familiar. It's not terribly fishy, as I expected it to be, but it quite salty, which was definitely brought out by the (relative) blandness of sour cream and blinis. Many told me that superior caviars are in fact, not very salty. Good caviars contain less than 4% salt. It has a yummy crunchiness and I like that the flavor just invades the whole mouth once I bit into these dark, luxurious orbs.

At the end of the day, it was rather interesting. I wouldn't mind trying out the better sturgeon caviars that aren't as salty, but I'm not going to go out of my way to seek out the best caviar. After all, it isn't really within my humble budget. However, I loved loved loved the blinis. Those yeast-raised buckwheat pancakes were so good, even with my minot ingredient adjustments. I will definitely make the blinis again. The recipe's below and any ideas what would make a nice topping for this nutty, fluffy pancake?

Recipe for yeast-raised buckwheat pancakes (Blinis)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/4 teasp. instant yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup sifted AP flour
1/2 cup sifted buckwheat flour
1/4 teasp. salt
1 cup warm skim milk
3 Tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Stir together warm water and sugar with yeast. Let stand 5 minutes until foamy. If it doesn't foam, start with new yeast.

Add the flours, salt, milk, butter and eggs.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in a roasting pan filled with about an inch of warm water.

Let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the batter has expanded in volume and has bubbles on the surface.

Heat nonstick skillet and spray on it some canola oil (or you can use melted butter if you want). Spoon one tablespoon batter for each pancake. Depending on the size of the skillet, you can probably work in batches of 3 each time.

Turn pancakes once bubbles surface and let cook for another minute or two.

These are perfect with creme fraiche and caviar, or simply with some berry jam and cream. Enjoy!

Christmastime is here...

2007-12-22T01:01:00.000-06:00

As you may have known already, I approach Christmas with mixed feelings. I despise the over-the-top commercial feel that the season now has but I love that it is the time of the year that everyone (and I mean, everyone!) tries to be kind. Growing up in Indonesia, my family never celebrated Christmas. We usually had a Christmas tree in the house though. Kinda weird, isn't it? Raised in a Muslim country, with Chinese parents and educated in a Catholic convent, it's little wonder that I'm confused! :)

It's unfortunate that I'm stuck in Chicago for the holidays, with my family so far away. I'm quite jealous of my friends who are going home to be with their families. If only my family didn't live so far away... Also, I'm going in to the lab this weekend, on Christmas Eve and day. I know, I know, pathetic, I know.

Fortunately, I have this month's Daring Bakers' challenge to console me: the Yule log or the buche de Noel. As you may know already, it is a traditional Christmas dessert in France and Quebec. According to Wikipedia, Napoleon ordered Parisians to keep their chimneys closed during winter due to the belief that exposure to cold air causes health problems. This perevented Parisians from using the fireplace and engaging in traditions involving the hearth. Supposedly, French bakers invented this sweet log-shaped dessert as a symbolic replacement around which families can gather and continue their traditions.

I have actually made a chocolate buche de Noel for a friend's Christmas gathering a few years back. It was super rich, chocolatey and decadent. Anyway, I just remember really liking it! Ivonne and Lisa are kindly hosting this month's challenge and the besides the basic genoise, dark buttercream (one strict rule is that it has to be dark!) and mushroom decorations, we're free to go crazy! Yippee!

The sources of the recipe are from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert.

Unlike the previous 3 DB challenges I've made, I managed to fudge this one up real bad. And I mean, pretty badly. I had to make each component of the yule log twice! Yes, the genoise, buttercream and meringues. Twice! Fortunately, they improved the second time I made them otherwise, I would've totally given up! The genoise cake recipe seems simple enough with the usual ingredients such as eggs, sugar, flour and cornstarch. The first time around, I spread the batter too thinly and baked it for too long. As you can see below, the sides were browned.

As a matter of fact, the cake nearer to the sides was baked to a crisp. I only made 2/3 of the genoise recipe and I think I might've spread it too thinly on the jelly roll pan. Big mistake! The second time around, I made followed the recipe as is and baked it for only 10 minutes. I also let the batter expand even more in volume before adding the flour mixture. Even though it looked allright, the genoise was a tad dry for my taste. I added a splash of vanilla extract into the batter, which made it very fragrant, but other than that, it's rather bland.

I decided to try out a luscious-looking raspberry jam I bought from the local grocery store as the filling. I mean, check out the label! It says "More Fruit than Regular Preserves". Now, who doesn't want that? Talk about raspberry, I miss summer already not because of the heat (oh, I hate summer heat and humodity!) but because of berries, which are my absolute favorite things in the world! So anyway, after spreading the filling oh-so carefully on the genoise, it's time to roll!

Unlike the thin, elegant yule logs I made previously and that I've seen on TV and in magazines, I decided to do something different (and a little crazy. Well, maybe a lot crazy). I though it would be interesting to make a thick log. I guess looking at my creation now, it's more like a stump than a log. Haha! To do so, I cut the genoise into 4 strips length-wise.

Rolling the genoise was a tad tricky but I manages to not ruin it, fortunately. The first strip was rolled into a tight cylinder. The next strip of cake was then just rolled around the first cylinder of genoise and so on, until all the cake is used up. Check it out!

Next, comes the buttercream. The recipe supplied was for a coffee buttercream. I personally have an aversion to coffee. I also don't like coffee flavored stuff (with the exception of coffee ice cream), so I decided to go with a chocolate buttercream. My first attempt was pure nightmare, with the buttercream curdling and looking totally gross. After realizing that the meringue has to be totally cooled and that the butter has to be at room temperature, the second try went smoothly.

I had the most fun with the meringue mushrooms and other decorations. I simply adore meringue. They're light, fluffy and never fails to please the palate. I wanted to try out something that I saw on the Food Network show, Sugar Rush. In the special holiday episode, host Warren Brown visited the DC restaurant Citronelle, and learned from chef Michel Richard who to fashion snowmen out of fluffy meringue. In addition, he stuffed the snowmen with ice cream. How decadent is that? Unfortunately, I somehow burned my meringues the first time I made them and by the time I had to make the meringues a second time around, I was quite discouraged and decided to just make simple meringue shrooms :)

Even though I didn't have the gumption to make the ice cream-filled meringue today, it's something I will definitely try out in the future. As a matter of fact, I got ahead of myself today and purchased the ice cream I was planning on stuffing the meringue with. Check it out!

Creme brulee ice cream by Ben & Jerry! I've never really been a big fan on B&J mostly because I think their toppings can get too damn chunky! So chunky that I can't fully enjoy the actual ice cream. I suppose that might be the whole point of B&J ice cream but I actually like the frozen cream part better than the toppings. I'm a purist, I know. But this creme brulee ice cream isn't as chunky as the typical B&J creation. It has a nice amount of swirls of caramelized sugar and a super rich custardy ice cream.

So, this DB challenge didn't go as well as I expected. I probably wouldn't make a buche de Noel using this recipe again. But thanks to this challenge, I've uncovered a new addiction: meringue! I loved the meringues so much that I ate about half of them! Not good, I know. I'm kind of expecting a stomachache soon, but they are sooo good!!! I suppose it's not too bad of an addiction, considering I need to lose a few pounds. After all, meringues are low in fat and high in protein! Anyway, I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Please check out my uber talented fellow Daring Bakers' creations here!

Can you say "Chocolate"?

2007-12-18T09:20:00.001-06:00

It is the stuff made of legends, this thing they call "La Bete Noire". Its literal translation is "the black beast" and a black beast it is. In the English language, the phrase can also refer to something one dreads or hates. Not only has there been a movie of that name, there has also been a comic book of the same title.

But among us cooks, bakers and chocoholics, it is simply (or not so simply) the flourless chocolate cake, the ultimate dose of pure chocolate. La Bete Noire first captivated my imagination when it occupied the cover of the September 2006 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. I've heard planty of this mythical creation; so rich, velvety and yet so deadly. I've always wanted to try out the recipe, but there never seemed to be enough time or the appropriate occasion for such a monumental dose of chocolate.

Finally, a lab friend's birthday on Tuesday has offered the perfect excuse. La Bete Noire was simple enough to make. Although it only has merely 5 staple ingredients, I must warn you that this cake is not for the faint of heart (or gut!), for this creation has a little more than 1.5 pounds of chocolate, half a dozen of eggs and a stick of butter in it!

The cake was super dense and had a nice, thick, fudge-like texture that softens up if left at room temperature. I agree with some reviewers of the recipe of Bon Appetit's website, that serving it with whipped cream would "lighten" it somewhat, ironically. However, I served it with some luscious raspberries and it was pretty awesome.

Upon the first bite, you wouldn't know what hit you. Seriously, this super chocolatey cake would knock your socks off! It is the perfect dessert for a chocoholic and it would definitely blow your guests away at the holiday table. A slice of this black beast is enough to assuage my chocolate addiction for the week. Yes! Seriously, it's THAT chocolatey.

Would I make it again? Probably, some time in the future. This cake was a cinch to make and turned out delicious. I would totally recommend this for your holiday table, especially if you're a chocolate-lover!

Bah, humbug!

2007-12-14T17:33:00.000-06:00

I'm in a funky mood thesedays. Despite being barraged by a constant cacophony of Christmas-y messages, I don't feel particularly merry. I suspect it's the combination of experiments not working in the lab, being single and having my family sooo far away during this season that celebrates together-ness. To counteract this negative energy, I decided to try to get into the holiday mood by writing up Christmas cards and baking some homemade gifts.

I recently saw an entry on Jenjen's blog about Martha Stewart's double chocolate cookies and was salivating at the sight of those decadent goodies. And what better way to get into the holiday mood than baking some cookies for friends? Although it's a simple recipe, I managed to fudge it up a bit by not reading it completely before starting to whip the butter with the sugar. After whipping, I noticed that the consistency of the butter-sugar mixture didn't look right. Upon re-reading of the recipe, I realized that I had to melt the butter with the bittersweet chocolate before mixing in the sugar. Fortunately, I didn't have to start from scratch and the batter turned out ok even if I just added the melted bittersweet chocolate into the whipped butter-sugar mixture.

Lesson to be learned: Read the whole recipe from start to finish before starting! You'd think that I would know to do this after some years of baking. Tsk, tsk!

I love that Jenjen also added bittersweet chocolate in addition to the milk chocolate, thus yielding a richer, more chocolatey cookie that isn't as cloyingly sweet as it might've been. As usual, I underbaked the cookies slightly, giving it a chewy texture with an ever-so-slightly-crisp outside that I enjoy.

These cookies were so awesome that if I hadn't had the willpower to pack most of them in tins to be mailed to my friends, I would've consumed all of them within the next few days, which wouldn't have been good. The recipe is perfect as it is and doesn't need any adjustments, except maybe, changing the type of chocolate chips that you might enjoy more, eg. white chocolate chips or butterscotch, etc.

I must say that nothing gets you in a holiday season faster than cookies and milk!

I Love Mitsuwa!

2007-12-11T15:57:00.001-06:00

Mitsuwa is a Japanese grocery chain in the US that I've been patronizing over the last few years. Besides groceries, the Mitsuwa in the Chicago suburb, Arlington Heights, has a food court comprising of numerous Japanese, Chinese and Korean vendors selling cheap and fresh hot food. They have recently added a tea house-style vendor who also sells ice cream. My last excursion there was particualrly eventful because they had a tuna carving performance that afternoon, which I knew of in advance. Mitsuwa flew in a fresh, never-frozen, 500-lb tuna from the coast of Spain to be carved in front of their patrons. Being a sushi-phile, I planned for weeks in advance to journey 30 miles (and back) in order to procure fresh tuna. Specifically, I wanted o-toro, the desired super fatty stomach of the tuna!

Despite the promise of horrid weather, I was able to convince a dear friend to come along with me. And boy, was I glad that we went! The tuna was absolutely beautiful, with its dark-colored flesh and yummy-looking marbling. The fish may not look impressive in these pictures, but keep in mind that it was already gutted and beheaded. Remember that this is all pure meat!

Even though I already had lunch (unagi from the food court), the sight of fresh o-toro made me hungry all over again.

I was able to purchase about $15 worth of pure o-toro, which is considerably cheaper than what I would'be probably paid at a sushi restaurant. The "chef" was kind enough to slice them into sashimi for me and I had it with a sprinkling of soy sauce for dinenr at home. I was simply amazed at the richness and the purity of the flavor. I had never seen such extensive marbling of o-toro and this was definitely the richest o-toro I've had by far. At $15, this kind of deal is definitely not to be missed if it ever came to town again :)

My friend got a piece of the "chuck" tuna, which was also delicious. We coated it with roasted white sesame seeds and seared it on a pan. It was served with lettuce, tomato, some mayo on toasted shokupan. The sandwich was simply heaven on a plate!

As if all this fishy decandence wasn't enough, I also had dessert from the new stand in the Mitsuwa food court, Re Leaf. I had their special, which was the Matcha parfait, a layered concoction served in a clear, tall plastic cuo. It starts with matcha jelly at the bottom, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, red bean paste, some pie crust-like cookie chunks, mochi balls, more red bean, matcha soft-serve ice cream and a thin slice of buttery cookie.

The pastries that they added were total misses. The parfait would've been way better without the pie crust-like cookies and the slice of cookie that they topped it with. Other than that, I absolutely loved it! The presentation was very pretty and the combination of jelly, mochi, red bean and matcha soft serve made me think of similar dessert creations that I had while travelling in Japan. The flavors were very strong and authentic. In combination, they marry very well together. If you're in the Arlingto Heights area, don't miss Mitsuwa. That place is an absolute treat and I always leave happy!

Alice Waters' apple tart

2007-12-09T11:27:00.001-06:00

Despite not having had the privilege to dine at Alice Waters' ground-breaking restaurant in Berkeley, recipes for her famous apple tart has been circulating both on the internet and in numerous magazines for some time now. I was inspired by a post on Smitten Kitchen, and made the apple tart for Thanksgiving dessert.

The recipe is simple and very straightforward. I took the liberty to arrange the apple slices in concentric rings, to create a flower-like appearance. The crust turned out perfectly crisp, which made me imagine that I was eating apple pizza. Served with a scoop (or two) of light vanilla ice cream, it was the perfect ending to a decadent Thanksgiving meal.

Po-tay-toh, po-taaah-toh bread dough goodness!

2007-11-26T10:06:00.001-06:00

I enjoy baking with yeast and lament the fact that I don't get to do it enough. So I'm super duper happy that November's Daring Bakers challenge is the Potato Bread. Thanks to this month's host, Tanna, I got to play around with yeasty dough! Yippee!

Thus far in my 4-month-old membership to this wonderful group of bakers, I think the potato bread challenge is the one that allows our creative juices to flow the most. This is because not only can we make potato bread, we can use the dough for many other purposes, as long as it's savory. In other words, Tanna encouraged us to go crazy, which is awesome! Haha!

Adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's book, Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour & Tradition Around the World suggestions for the use of the potato dough are bread, rolls and foccacia. I decided to make foccacia and bread.

Due to the large variation of amount of potatoes and flour that could be used (with less potatoes being recommended for beginners), I used the the least recommended amount of potatoes and added approximately the lower range amount of flour. This resulted in an super sticky dough that was quite difficult to handle. Nevertheless, I managed to use a third of the dough for a foccacia, which I baked in a jelly roll pan that has been greased with olive oil. Now, I didn't go as crazy as I wanted to with the foccacia topping only because I was limited with ingredient availability and it was too damn cold to go out and get some. I ended up sprinkling my beautiful foccacia with rosemary, salt, caramelized onions and pine nuts. Here's what it looks like before I put it in the oven.

And this is what it looked like once baked.

The foccacia turned out to be soft and pillowy with a moist crust. It was a very delicious dough! The toppings were quite good too, although maybe I should've toasted the nuts and NOT caramelize the onions. Baking the caramelized onions made them a bit burned and I'm sure I overconsumed those yummy carcinogenic bits of onion. I enjoyed the foccacia with a teriyaki chicken breast salad. They made wonderful partners for dinner :)

The potato bread was a bit of a disaster for me. Once the dough rose, the top layer got stuck to the plastic wrap that I used to cover it while proofing. And then, I realized only after the bread was done, that I forgot to slash the top of the bread. So my bread turned out rather crappy. It didn't even rise beautifully in the oven. Boohoo!

Overall, I enjoyed baking with yeast, though I wish my potato bread didn't turn out to be such a bomb! In retrospect, I added way too little flour. I suppose getting a potato bread dough of good consistency will take some trial and error. But I was really happy with the way the foccacia turned out. It was an awesome challenge and now I challenge you to check out the other DBers' creations here! Let me just warn you that your stomach might start growling at the sight of their breads!

One special sistah!

2007-11-16T09:07:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, about 22 years ago on this day to be exact, a human being was born into this world. I met her for the first time on my parents' bed and I remember being amazed how anyone can exist in such a small body, peer through such teeny weeny eyes and grasp so tightly with such chubby, short fingers. She's my sister :)

I used the Indonesian slang word "gemas" to describe her. It doesn't have an exact English translation but it's along the line of "adorable", "huggable" and "scrumptious" at the same time. Don't worry, it didn't even cross my mind to eat her! Growing up, I remember her wanting to follow me and emulate me all the time. As any older sister can tell you, I found this immensely irritating in a cocky big sister way.

We spent a lot of our formative years apart. I started school in Singapore at the age of 7 while my parents and sister lived in Indonesia. She came to Singapore when she turned 11 and I left for college in Chicago a few years later. Despite the short time we had together, I had beautiful memories of growing up with my sister. We used to listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in our room while peering out the window, admiring the sunset. I also recall the fun we had organizing a surprise birthday party for our cousin.

It certainly helps to have a sibling who totally understands the unique, crazy family that surrounds us. A sibling is also useful sometimes to diffuse the nervous energy or attention that parents sometimes have for their children. I'm especially grateful that despite the physical distance between us most of the time, we have managed to grow up together. I'm also very happy that we've grown closer and closer over the years. I can't imagine having grown up without my sister and can only wonder how horrible life would be without her.

So when she said she wanted homemade oatmeal raisin cookies for her birthday, I immediately rolled up my sleeves and baked the best oatmeal raising cookies that I've ever baked. The secret ingredient? A little bit of honey and a whole lotta love! Haha! Corny, I know but true!

These cookies turned out to have crisp, thin outer layer while remaining chewy inside. They aren't excessively sweet and they're relatively good for you. Hey! Raisins contain a lot of antioxidants and oats are very fibrous! Try out the recipe below :)

So, I want to dedicate this post to the one I love: my dear little sister. I want to wish her a healthy, happy, wonderful year ahead. And I look forward to more years of growth (and gossip!) with her!

Recipe for the best Oatmeal Raisin Cookies ever!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teasp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. honey
1 1/2 cup AP flour (can substitute up to half with whole wheat)
1 teasp. baking soda
1 teasp. ground cinnamon
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.

Cream room temp. butter with brown sugar until smooth. Stir in eggs, vanilla extract and honey.

Sift flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients into creamed butter mixture 1/3 at a time. Stir in the oats and raisins until just incorporated.

Drop dough by the teaspoon onto cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of spoon if you like flatter, crisp yet chewy cookies. You can leave the dough rounded if you prefer fluffier, cakey cookies. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until cookies start to brown.

Cool on wire racks for 5 minutes before enjoying with a mug of piping hot tea or a tall glass of ice cold milk!

Nothing more beautiful than...

2007-11-14T18:06:00.000-06:00

... a crisp fall day.

Countdown to Thanksgiving!

2007-11-13T11:30:00.001-06:00

You know Thanksgiving is around the corner when red and green-colored ads are popping left and right. Yes, isn't that sad? Fall has barely finished unfurling her blasts of reds, oranges and yellows and retailers are already out in full Christmas force. Sigh~ Just what on Earth is happening to this world?

My cousins and I started a tradition of having a reunion on Thanksgiving about five years ago. Every year, we pick a different city to gather at, usually a city where one of us resides in. This year, they're going to be descending in good ol' Chicago for our reunion. It's going to be a ton of fun having my cousins around (one of them is going to bring his Nintendo Wii console. Wheee!). I'm going to be cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner ever, turkey and all! I'm more excited than nervous at this point in time. As a matter of fact, I've already had the menu planned out, the shopping list written out and some of the more durable ingredients in my fridge. Another reason it's good that my cousins are coming over is that it's a good catalyst to get me to clean my apartment!

Since I'm going to be the primary organizer and cook for Thanksgiving, I'm going to try to do as much as I can in advance, which brings me to the recipe for this entry: orange-infused cranberry sauce. I encountered this incredibly simple recipe on this beautiful blog. All you need are cranberries, sugar, orange zest and juice. And all you gotta do is combine them and roast for 45 minutes! How much simpler can it get? And hey, it doesn't hurt that it's wonderfully tasty and so pretty to look at ;)

A perfect Sunday morning breakfast is...

2007-11-04T11:39:00.000-06:00

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I find that it is the only weekend day when I can totally rest, wind down and really think of things that I don't have the time for during the work week. My favorite Sunday ritual?

Poring over the Sunday paper with a pair of scissors by my side over a mug of perfectly brewed green tea and a simple breakfast. "Why the scissors?", you ask. I'm actually a closet coupon-lover! I'm one of those geeks who loves the bulky coupon section of the Sunday paper, haha! Anyhoo, yesterday morning, I had the perfect Sunday morning breakfast of a mug of green tea (as usual) and a warm, flaky chocolate croissant fresh out of the oven.

I certainly do not have the skills to make croissants myself! I know it's an extremely labor-intensive process and from what I hear about the amount of butter that is used in making them, I would rather not visually witness the ton of butter that goes into my croissant. I actually bought a pack of frozen chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's, one of my favorite grocery stores ever. EVER!

Before I rave about this awesome product, let me just clarify that I do NOT work at TJ's or even own their stock (though I believe it's a privately-held company, but if they were to go public, I'd actually get some of their IPOs, that's how much I love TJ's!). For the benefit of those of you who do not live near a TJ's, it is an awesome grocery store that is most famous for the quality and range of products that they sell under their own name. They carry a lot of natural, organic stuff and are very very reasonably-priced. They're probably most widely-known for their two-buck-chucks (or three bucks in Chicagoland), their own brand of white and red wines that are pretty damn good for a few bucks. So anyway, I decided to try out their frozen chocolate croissants during my sojourn to TJ's this past Saturday.

In order to enjoy these croissants, you have to plan in advance (like, one day ahead) because you have to take them out of the freezer and leave it at room temperature overnight (approximately 9 hours) so that they can rise (or proof, in bake-talk). Check out how big mine grew!

After it proofs, all you gotta do is put it in a 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes and you can enjoy a warm, buttery, decadent chocolate croissant. My verdict? It is pretty darn good, actually! It's very buttery and rich, though not as flaky as some great croissants that I've tasted before. However, it's also definitely better than some croissants I've had from some bakeries too! I will totally buy this again because not only are they delicious, they are also so cheap and so easy to make! Seriously, $1 a piece for warm, fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate croissants? It doesn't get any better than that :)

Autumn is here...

2007-11-02T15:52:00.001-05:00

I adore cinnamon! There's just something about the way it can make almost anything from cookies to oatmeal taste, smell and look better. I also associate it with autumn, my ultimate favorite season. The earthiness of cinnamon simply embodies the cool, calm comfort of fall days and it inspired to bake the ultimate cinnamon cookie: the snickerdoodle! In retrospect, part of the reason I baked snickerdoodles was that "snickerdoodle" is such a fun word to say. Haha!

Anyhoo, the snickerdoodle is a simple sugar cookie that has been coated with cinnamon sugar. It normally has a crackly appearance and variations include the use of nutmeg, raisins, or nuts. The recipe for snickerdoodles is also rather unusual for cookies because it uses a leavening agent, usually cream of tartar, which is not used in the average cookie. Another reason I decided to make these is that I've never had a snickerdoodle before! I thought a batch of these cookies would be a great autumnal treat for another autumnal rite of passage: the Halloween party (which will be a different post altogether).

As with any cookie recipe, this starts with the creaming of the fat (shortening, in this case) with the sugar, before the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt) are stirred in until just mixed. One of the things one should never EVER do with cookie dough is to overmix it. This usually results in frustratingly tough cookies instead of the desired chewy yet slightly crisp texture that I personally love. The dough is the rolled into walnut-sized spheres before they're dipped into the sugar/cinnamon mixture before they're baked.

The cookies were delicious, crumbly and simply melted in my mouth when eaten fresh. I brought the rest of the cookies to a friend's Halloween party the next day. Although they weren't as good the next day, they were still delicious and the flavor wasn't lacking at all. So try out a snickerdoodle (if you haven't already) for the perfect fall treat with a tall glass of ice cold milk!

Recipe for Snickerdoodles

Ingredients:
1 cup trans fat-free shorteneing
1 1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 3/4 cups AP flour (can substitute some with whole-wheat)
1 teasp. baking soda
2 teasps. cream of tartar
1/2 teasp. salt
2 Tbsp. white sugar
2 teasps. ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 deg. F.

Cream the shortening with 1 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Stir in the eggs.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the creamed shortening/sugar mixture.

Stir together the 2 Tbsp. sugar and cinammon in small bowl.

Roll cookie dough into walnut-sized balls before rolling it in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place the sugared cookie dough on a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.

Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are browned. Do not overbake unless you like snappy cookies.

Enjoy!

end of month in sight...

2007-10-29T09:19:00.000-05:00

Usually, I'd be excitedly posting the monthly Daring Baker's challenge at this time of the month. Unfortunately, a recent existential/career crisis has catapulted my schedule into disarray, thus not allowing me to devote much time into my cooking/baking hobby (or really, anything else outside work). I'm kicking myself for missing this one out because it sounds like such a fun and delicious challenge, our Mary's Bostini Cream Pie! Sighs...

I guess all that I can do for now is to admire my fellow DBers' creations from afar and salivate over their pies. Check them out here!

(Slightly) Devilish Angel Food Cake

2007-10-17T19:07:00.000-05:00

A friend recently experienced a health episode that severely limits his fat intake. It doesn't sound that bad because most of us can and really should do that anyway, for health reasons. Being a bit of a chocaholic, it has been difficult for him to find a chocolate dessert that he can enjoy without giving him stomach pain. In order to help him out a bit and as a great excuse to bake, I made chocolate angel food cake!

I've made plain angel food cake before and it was perfect with a dollop of cream and fresh strawberries. However, I remember thinking that it was quite plain so adding some chocolate flavor to it will be quite awesome, no? Comprising of mostly egg whites, sugar and flour, angel food cake is a relatively healthy dessert. To make it, you start by beating 12 egg whites with sugar until it is stiff before folding in the other dry ingredients. It also takes quite a long time to bake: 60 whole minutes, but it is so worth it!

My chocolate angel food cake turned out beautifully moist and had this crackly, crisp crust on the top that was so addictive! I wonder if I can bake angel food cake in a sheet pan instead so that there would be more of the crackly crisp crust? Have any of you done that before?

Recipe for Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:
12 egg whites
1/4 teasp. salt
1 1/4 teasp. cream of tartar
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 confectioner's sugar
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teasp. vanilla extract

First, preheat your oven to 325 deg. F.

Mix the confectioner's sugar, cake flour and cocoa powder. Sift this dry mixture at least once.

In a large clean bowl, whip egg whites with salt and cream of tartar until slightly stiff. Continue to beat while adding granulated sugar 2 tablespoons at a time until egg whites are very stiff.

Fold in the flour/sugar/cocoa mixture until just incorporated.

Mix in the vanilla.

Bake for 60 minutes or until cake springs back when touched.

Bon appetit!

Brownie trio: PB, hazelnuts and plain Jane...

2007-10-15T10:32:00.000-05:00

A friend hosted a totally awesome party this past weekend, where she made scrumptious pork-filled Filipino spring rolls among other things. It was a fun-filled event with a lot of horsing around the karaoke Magic mike, the Nintendo Wii console and hangin' out. I decided that any great par-tay needs chocolate, so I contributed a trio of brownies. As usual, I got the basic recipe from Allrecipes. I've tried the brownie recipe once before and it was immensely popular among my friends, so I used the same recipe again with slight modifications.

To make the trio brownies, I followed the recipe for the brownie batter. The modifications I made were only to the topping/filling. One-third of the brownie got a drizzling of creamy peanut butter on top before baking; the second third had chopped hazelnuts in the bottom and top of the batter; and the last third is plain jane!

The brownies baked up beautifully and I left it in the oven for the lower range of baking time. I find that for cookies and brownies (especially brownies!), underbaking tends to yield better-textured goodies than overbaking. It gives the baked goods an ooeey-gooeeyer mouth feel that most people enjoy. Then again, there are some who prefer drier, snappier cookies but hey, to each his own, right?

For easy snacking during the party, I cut up the brownie trio to individual bite-size portions. Here's a shout out to Mark and Frances, the host and hostess with the mostest, for an uber-fun party, giving me an excuse to bake up this yummy brownie trio!

Tofu snack bites

2007-10-08T09:24:00.001-05:00

Living by myself is both enjoyable and somewhat precarious at the same time. I love that I answer to no one at all and that I can play any kind of music or watch any kind of TV program that I want without anyone piping in. Now, in theory, this also translates to my ability to cook/make/eat whatever I want. This is true, but it hasn't really happened to me. As a matter of fact, I used to cook/bake/eat a lot better when I had roommates! I feel that when I actually had other people to feed, I applied myself to actually planning a wholesome menu and making a nice meal. Now that I'm living solo, I feel like I don't have to make a special effort to make something nice to eat when it's just for me alone (especially after a hard day's work). The other contributing factor is the reality that food just doesn't taste or smell or look that good when it's enjoyed alone as opposed to when it's enjoyed with loved ones.

So anyway, a girl still has to eat, right? Thesedays, I've resorted to eating more conveniently. And no! I haven't been living off frozen TV dinners or disgusting canned veggies, thank the Lord! Instead, I have been eating convenient fresh things, like baby carrots and celery dipped in store-bought hummus (which seems to always be on sale when I'm shopping, yay!). Other indulgences include crunchy peanut butter and nutella, both of which I just eat by themselves, on a spoon. Indulgent, I know. Eating mostly veggies and chocolate spread is fine for the most part but my body needs more than that, especially since I started running on a regular basis.

I find meat to be a chore, what with living alone and stuff, so I've started eating a lot of tofu! Yep, yep, that good ol' delicious soybean curd. Prior to recent times, I haven't prepared tofu too much because it is rather unfamiliar grounds for me and I've never particularly found Asian-style tofu dishes too healthy. My recent trip to Japan changed that misperception. In Tokyo, there are many many types of tofu available, ranging from silky smooth to chunky and chewy. They also come in many flavors, my favorite being a sesame-infused chewy tofu served in a shallow pool of scrumptious soy sauce that we had at a shabu-shabu restaurant.

I also bought a little basket of fresh, plain, silky tofu from a merchant at Matsuzakaya in Ginza. Enjoyed only with soy sauce, it was a simple, clean and healthy treat. The packaging might have been a little elaborate, what with the leaf wrapping and basket nest, but the flavor is simple and unadorned, the way good tofu should be eaten.

The types of tofu one can get in the US is rather subpar compared to the delicacies in Japan (which is to be expected, as after all, Japan is like, the tofu capital of the world, in my opinion). I don't think the tofus found here can be enjoyed plain by itself. So anyway, I've been hunting for easy, delicious tofu recipes and to my surprise, even a generic recipe website such as Allrecipes has a few wonderful-looking options. So this past week, I tried the recipe for Baked Tofu Bites. I was immediately sold when I saw that one of the ingredients is sesame seeds *haha* Some components of the recipe sounds a bit weird, such as the addition of liquid smoke. Ew! In accordance with some of the other reviewers suggestions, I left that part out. I also did a lot of improvisation because I didn't have some of the main ingredients, such as ketchup, maple syrup and vinegar. Instead, I used the same amount of jarred pasta sauce, sugar and left out the tangy/sour component of the vinegar.

Despite the multiple, rather un-kosher substitutions, the tofu bites turned out great! I expected them to be a bit crunchy but that might be because I piled the tofu cubes onto the baking sheet instead of spreading them out in a single, neat layer. I will definitely try to do this next time. They were delicious and flavorful and great as leftovers! Some future changes I might make to this recipe include using black sesame seeds in addition (or maybe, instead of) the white ones, adding a dash of sesame oil. Yeah, yeah, I'm a total sesame nut! Anyhoo, if you're delving into the adventurous world of tofu, this recipe is a perfect start: simple and delicious!

These bunz will go right onto your bunz!!!

2007-09-30T17:44:00.001-05:00

It's true! They are oh-so good but oh-so bad at the same time. But really, who cares as long as they taste good, no? *winks* Anyway, it's that time of the month again: the DB challenge! And again my fellow baking soul mates have yet come up with another unbeatable crowd favorite: cinnamon buns and/or sticky buns. We have our Pip in the City, the lovely Marce to thank for this awesome selection. The recipe we used is the one from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Since I'm not a huuuge fan of sticky buns, I chose to make cinnabunz only.

I associate cinnabunz with warm childhood memories. I remember having my first cinnabun some time when I was in my teens, while vacationing in America with my aunt's wacky family. At the time, I was living in Singapore and found every facet of American culture (including food, of course) supremely fascinating. My first cinnabun seemed to me a warmly luxurious and luscious , even though it was just a snack we bought at the shopping mall we were in. I distinctly remember the cinnamon-y fragrance just wafting into my olfactory neurons and the pillowy concentric dough melting in my mouth, transporting me to the realms of cinnabun heaven, albeit for a few minutes only. So I was uber excited about this month's DB challenge!

This isn't my first time baking with yeast, so I wasn't too nervous. I have made some yeast-based goodies before here and here, but never cinnabunz. I thought making cinnabunz would be pretty complicated, what with the pretty swirly shape and getting the pillowy texture right. I ended up making it twice because the first time round, I overbaked my buns despite only baking them for minimal time. The second time, I decided to crowd the buns a little bit more before baking and the buns' mouth feel turned out to be closer to the desired cinnabunny, chewy and pillowy texture!

Contrary to my expectation of cinnabunz being hard to make, it was pretty simple (especially if you have a Kitchenaid mixer, which I must say is a dream machine for all bakers!). The only adjustment to the recipe that I made was instead of using only cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar, I used a teeny bit more pumpkin pie spice, which basically comprises of a combo of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice and nutmeg for extra spice! Besides spacing the buns correctly and slightly underbaking them for the right duration, the most challenging part of the recipe was the rolling of the dough! It was quite difficult to roll the dough tightly so that the concentric swirls aren't too far apart. Fortunately, despite the lack of talent in the dough rolling department, the bunz didn't turn out grotesque or anything!

Baking with yeast never fails to give me a sense of earthy satisfaction and accomplishment. I remember the first time I used yeast, I underestimated the temperature and ended up killing my poor Saccharomyces cerevisiae (geek talk for yeast). The maiden bread was a heavy, brick-like thing that was reminiscent of a brick. Since then, thankfully, I've become more adept at not killing the dynamic baking ingredient.

Points of improvement for the future includes possibly rolling the dough thinner so that the circular concentric layers aren't as thick and underbaking them even more. It's pretty cool to have made something that seems to difficult. My lab mates (who I share all my baked goodies with) are all amazed that someone (or really, anyone) makes cinnabuns from scratch at home. And as usual, it's a great joy to be able to share my passion (or at least, the results of it) with people around me! Do check out my fellow baking soul mates' efforts here. They're pretty darn awesome!

It's war!!!

2007-09-23T16:03:00.000-05:00

The war of the frozen treats has descended on New York City this summer. Not only has Pinkberry entered the premium frozen yogurt (or fro yo as they like to call it in good ol' California) market in the East Coast, the Italian gelateria, Grom, opened their inaugural American store smack dab in Manhattan. This is all pretty awesome because as some of you already know, I am simply addicted to frozen treats, be it ice cream, gelato, or even tofuti! Yes, I eat "tofu ice cream" and they're so good!

So I spent a weekend with the family about two weeks ago in NYC. My parents happened to be there because they were visiting my sis in NYC to help her settle down with her new school. Since my family's there, I might as well join the fun, no? But anyway, my pop and I managed to snag some US Open tickets too, on Ebay for this past weekend, so it was even more awesome!

OK, before I get into the US Open, let's re-prioritize and get back to frozen treats! I was lucky enough to have tried out most of the frozen treat shops (except for the much-touted Grom) but there's always next time. I've heard and read a lot about the California house of fro yo, Pinkberry. Not only has their treats been endorsed by multiple celebrity sightings in those mindless glossy magazines, I've read about them in many other foodie blogs too. They're also thinking of setting up shop right here in Chicago, which is so awesome because another frozen treat option never hurts anyone. So anyway, Pinkberry entered the NYC market pretty aggressively, opening 4 shops just this summer alone. They only offer two flavors: the original (which is a bit tangy) and green tea (which I've never tried). Their specialty is the wide range of their toppings, from the more "mundane" such as Oreo bits, slivered almonds to the more unusual such as mini mochi (rice flour balls) and fresh fruits. My mum, who's an ice cream addict like me, absolutely adores this frozen treat option because she's also a health nut. So Pinkberry lets her indulge her frozen treat craving without the guilt. I topped mine with slivered almonds, chopped strawberries and blackberries. I found that the Pinkberry topping to fro yo ratio was scant and wish that they would've given us more berries and nuts. My sister said that it pretty much depends on the crowd in the shop at the time. She finds that they tend to be more generous when it's less crowded. I guess we caught them in their grumpy time...

About a block away from Pinkberry's 32nd Street branch is another fro yo shop called Crazy Bananas. They're less publicized but I got wind of them, thanks to fellow food blogger Robyn. Besides a bunch phallic banana-ish decor items (which I was too embarassed to document with my camera because my folks were with me), their offering is very similar to Pinkberry's: fro yo with awesome toppings. Also, Crazy Bananas only offer the original yogurt flavor, no green tea. Other items on the menu include tea and smoothies. Due to less publicity, there were no lines at Crazy Bananas. As a matter of fact, we were the only customers in the shop when we made our pilgrimage there. I must say that I prefer Crazy Bananas to Pinkberry for a few reasons. First, it's waaay less crowded than Pinkberry. Not only were the lines super long at Pinkberry, it was virtually impossible to get seats there. And second, due to the lack of a crowd, the proprietor was extremely generous with the toppings. Just check out the mile-high pile of mochi balls and Oreos, slivered almonds, beautiful kiwi and luscious whole berries below!!! Also, it doesn't hurt that Crazy Bananas is slightly cheaper.

Another participant in this frozen treats war is the legendary Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in (where else but) NYC's humongous Chinatown. They're famous for creating ice cream flavors with an Asian twist. Besides the obligatory vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, their regular flavors include lychee, green tea, pandan, black sesame and PB&J (yes, you read that right. PB&J!). The shop's mascot is this Godzilla-like green dinosaur with red flames eating ice cream; kinda weird, but oh-so Asian. Craving for a South-East Asian flavor, I opted for a scoop of the pandan ice cream. Pandan is a leaf that is used in South-East Asian cuisine as an aromatic addition mostly in curries and rice dishes, sort of like lemongrass. One of my favorite pandan-flavored food is the ever-popular pandan chiffon cake (which I hope to make soon!), so I was intrigued at the prospect of pandan ice cream. Well, I'm always thrilled at the prospect of any ice cream, really... but anyway, the ice cream has a very light but distinctive pandan flavor. It was pretty subtle and I personally would've liked a stronger flavor. The ice cream also has a rather chewy and less-creamy-than-normal texture, which I really like. I will definitely return to try out their other weird flavors! *evil laugh*

The last frozen treat joint we sussed out was Il Laboratorio del Gelato in Manhattan's lower East side. It was a little bit difficult to locate because the shop is very teeny but the ever-present line that extends outside the shop made it easier to spot. The patriarch got a very blah vanilla cone and the sister got a Oreo scoop. I opted for a scoop each of hazelnut (what can be more Italian than hazelnut, right?) and the more unusual maple. Both flavors were a bit too similar to exist in the same cup, I think. The hazelnut flavor was stronger, while I could barely taste the maple. The texture of the gelato was very creamy and smooth, although it melts a bit too quickly for my taste.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to try out the hottest new gelateria in NYC, Grom. But hey, there's always next time and after all, my sis lives there, which is a great excuse to visit! As I mentioned above, besides the orgy of frozen treats, I also did other stuff around the city, like go to the awesome US Open! We managed to score two tickets to the women's final match on Ebay. Only my father and I went to the game because the matriarch and the sister don't share our enthusiasm for racket sports, which was cool as my father and I don't really get to spend time alone, just the of us. Although the seats were "nosebleed" seats, we still had a great view of the court.

Before the game started, we got a pretty cool bonus of having Carole King sing for us along with a local high school choir. The lone figure in black on the red carpet is Miz King rockin' the house at the Arthur Ashe stadium! Woohoo!

After that, a group of US Marines marched onto the court for a flag unveiling ceremony with the national anthem as a soundtrack. The ceremony finished with a fluorish of fireworks. Seriously, it would be sooo un-American to not end it with fireworks, no? *winks*

As you all know now, the US Open finals were dominated totally by Europeans. I was a tad disappointed because I was hoping the Venus Williams was in the final match. The women's final match was a tad predictable but was nevertheless punctutated with great plays. Unlike the men's final match (with Federer vs. Djokovic), the women's final was very one-sided and the finalists both lacked personality on court. However, it was still pretty cool to watch such a great sporting event live even though in the beginning I remarked to my father that I needed some getting used to not hearing commentary after every play, haha!

Still, it was pretty cool to be doing something enjoyable together just with my father for once. He liked it so much that after the game, we checked out the other (read: better) seats so that we know which section to get the tickets for next year. Yay!

Ten things...

2007-09-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

Seems like random lists of all kinds are popping up left and right thesedays. There's the perennial Dave Letterman's Top Ten List on his Late Show. Men's magazines never fail to have a top 100 or so hottest/sexiest women every year. NBC's Today show just finished showing their top ten list of America's most beautiful places today. There are also bestselling books listing the things to do and places to go before you die (how morbid!!!). I suppose it's the obsessive-compulsive side of us that keeps us coming back for more lists. As sloppy as I can be, even I write up to-do lists on occasion. Imagine that!

With my graduation looming around the corner (I hope), I've been evaluating (and re-evaluating) what I want to do or achieve in life. Unlike my more efficient friends, I don't have a five-year plan, let alone a 1.5-year one! But I do have an idea of some things I'd like to attempt before the turn of my third decade in this world. Of course, achieving them is another argument altogether, but anyways, here they are!

Ten things I'd like to (attempt to) do before I'm three decades young:

10. Play 18 holes
9. Set up business plan for a biotech (to take over the world!!!)
8. Have kids
7. Backpack in France (or Spain, or Russia, or Brazil, or Vietnam ... you get the idea)
6. Host a real dinner party
5. Complete a half-marathon
4. Bake a wedding cake
3. Re-read "Crime and Punishment"
2. Drive (or a get a ride in) a Lamborghini/Ferrari/Porsche (manual transmission please)
1. Taste fugu

The Tokyo Disney Sea experience

2007-09-10T12:21:00.000-05:00

During our week-long sojourn in Tokyo, we made our way to Tokyo Disney Sea (TDS) at Maihama for one afternoon. My family and I have been to Tokyo Disneyland before in the past, when my sis and I were still mere impressionable kids. We had wonderful memories of Disneyland as this joyful, wintry place (we went over Christmas break) that not only had fun rides and entertainment but also great food (such as the delicious Jap curry rice, scrumptious Mexican churros and ginormous roasted turkey legs). So I was really looking forward to this new Disney-themed park with the heady anticipation of a ten-year-old.

First off, let me just say that TDS is NOT a water park (thank God for that). I thought it would be some water park that requires patrons to wear swimsuits and all. But as my sister reasoned, which vain, neatly-dressed Japanese would want to get that wet, right? So, in that respect, TDS was already different from what I expected. Also, besides adopting a "sea" theme for the most part, TDS is also an Epcot-wannabe in that the park is divided into different countries, such as America, Morroco and Mexico.

Upon arriving at the Maihama JR station, we still had to take a special Disney monorail to TDS. The monorail not only had Mickey-shaped windows, the handles for standing customers also had a Mickey design as well. Kawaii!

We started off by exploring the exotic Middle East area of the park because we were raring for lunch after our train ride. The main eatery in this section of the park is the Casbah Food Court (cheesy name, I know) which specialize in curries and roasted chicken dishes. The food court was very clean and I thought it exuded a Morrocan feel, with a seemingly open ceiling loosely-lined with wood and draped with pretty carpets. And check out the details of the intricate exterior of the Mid-Eastern theatre!

My mum, the health nut that she is, decided to forgo the curry and opted for the chicken duet with "nasi goreng". What they call "nasi goreng" (or Indonesian-style fried rice) was not nasi goreng at all! It was pretty bland and its texture shares more similarity to baby food than rice! However, I have to give them credit for roasting the chicken very nicely. One of them is a teriyaki style chicken topped with sesame seeds and the second type is more a jerk style. Both were tender and was literally falling off the bones (in a good way).

My father, sister and I picked the beef and chicken curries that came with naan and rice. Unfortunately, the portion of meat was very meagre (4 friggin' cubes of beef?!?) but the soft pilowy naan and delicious rice more than made up for it. The naan was perfect for dipping into the rich curry and the rice formed a nice little nest for a slathering of curry. Oishii! Unfortunately, the coconut pudding with caramel sauce wasn't as tasty as it looks. Although the texture of the pudding was very luscious (quite like a good flan), it lacked flavor.

We next explored the Little Mermaid's lore, where we watched a music show centered around the mermaid and encountered a store that's shaped like a whale! Isn't it adorable?

We then took a walk to "America", where the Tower of Terror is located. The ToT is basically a ride that places you in an elevator that takes you to the top floor of the tower before letting gravity do its thing. Hahaha! Scary, I know, which is why I didn't ride it. Actually, we didn't really go on scary, twisty rides but I blame it all on my scaredy-cat family! If one of them would've accompanied me, I would've gone on some *winks*

The scariest ride that I went on was the Indiana Jones adventure. My parents, especially my mum, scare pretty easily and thus skipped it. In the ride, we were Indiana's fellow adventurers who try to help him out by rising in a truck. It was pretty scary, what with skulls and Another show/ride we went to was something called "Stormrider" where we supposedly were part of a mission to stop a hurricane by riding a special plane called the stormrider into the eye of the storm. Weird, ya? Only the Japs can come up with this. That was pretty fun, albeit bumpy and slightly wet! We also watched a Jazz Age-themed dancing show with Disney characters frolicking around on stage and tap-dancing (or at least, they tried to).

After the legendary long lines of Disney and overly-amplified sound system, it was time for dinner! We weren't too impressed with the offering of the Japanese restaurant and decided on the Italian place in "Venice" instead and am I glad we did! The price was higher than the others in the park, but the food was definitely worth it. We started with a very fresh baby green salad topped with peppers, yellow cherry tomatoes and sliced almonds. The dressing was very delicate and the added crunch from the almonds made it really nice.

My sis and I shared the thin crust sausage pizza that also had onions, peppers and basil leaves. The crust was a teeny tad thin for my taste but I still liked it immensely. It was very light but not at all "crackery" like some uber thin crust pizzas. To my surprise, the crust was charred beautifully too, which makes me wonder if they had used a real brick oven...

My father, the carnivore that he is, had the lamb chops and lamented at the pathetic 2-chop portion. Despite the supposed meagre serving, the chops were cooked beautifully: succulent and tender with a hint of rosemary.

My mother had the sirloin and ordered it to be well done. Despite it being well done, the steak was very tender and juicy! The roasted vegetables that accompanied the meat were also divinely yummy!

Being blessed (or cursed, I don't know) with a relatively fast metabolism and big stomach, my father wasn't satisfied with the chops and just had to have the American hot dog that we saw earlier. Chomp!

After a full day of TDS, we just had to get some of the famed Disney snacks in their pretty tins and adorable little knick-knacks. Overall, TDS was a lot of fun to visit. I'm not sure that it's the kind of place that warrants a return trip. Being a bit of a purist myself, I still prefer Disneyland to TDS, just because it's more ... what's the word, dreamy? And "fantastical"? Maybe that's just the Pisces in me talking. Okie dokes, till my next Jap-centric post, enjoy the pics!

Inaugural Daring Bakers Challenge: Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart!!!

2007-08-27T12:13:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes! I now officially belong to the The Daring Bakers community, the coolest online baking community/sorority ever! EVER! I feel like I'm one of the cool girls now! I'm so thrilled to be part of the Daring Bakers group and I was just so excited to bake my first DB creation: the Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart (and yes, the name deserves to be capitalized). When I was informed of this month's challenge, I was floored by the delicious simplicity of it and could hardly wait make it! I mean, seriously, who can resist a layered caramel and milk chocolate tart with a delicious hazelnut crust? The recipe comes from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts.

The tart-making process, as usual, starts with making and blind-baking of the crust. I feel that the crust is enough to make or break a tart, whether it's topped of with fruit, custard or chocolate. So it was with some excited trepidation that I started on the crust dough. It is actually a very simple shortbread crust with some extras such as ground hazelnuts and a pinch of ground cinnamon. The crust turned out nicely but it was rather difficult to handle and roll because it was so sticky (even after a rather generous sprinkling of flour).

Next, came the ooey gooey caramel layer. I was even more nervous about this part because ... I've never made caramel sauce before! I know, I know, a baker who hasn't made caramel before? Who ever heard of that? So anyway, my virgin caramel-making experience was fraught with a few minor mishaps but it turned out ok too. Yay! Instead of using the dry method (the more difficult one), I cheated and used the beginner/wet method by caramelizing the sugar in some water and corn syrup. So, the first two times I tried, I made the fluke of turning off the fire once the solution came to a boil (which I was NOT supposed to do) and let it rest. Thanks to the miracles of Google, I finally figured out that I was supposed to let it come to a boil and then let it continue boiling (without stirring) until it turns a golden caramel color! It helps to test the caramel color by dripping some on a white napkin or paper plate. Isn't it a beaut?

After baking the caramel layer and letting it cool, we come to the decadent milk chocolate mousse layer. This part was pretty simple but I still managed to fudge it up, bleah! The chocolate mousse part only needs whipped cream and melted chocolate. I had a difficult time getting my cream to stiffen, only to realize that I probably shouldn't have left it at room temperature before beating it. Fortunately, this kind of mistake isn't irreparable; I just had to chill it and the bowl I beat it in before whipping it again. And voila! Whipped cream! Next, I just had to fold in the melted milk chocolate into the whipped cream to create the mousse layer before spreading it the cooled caramel tart.

I think the milk chocolate mousse part looks a little bit grainy, probably because I let the melted chocolate cool for too long before folding it in the whipped cream. However, the grainy appearance didn't seem to take anything away from the taste; it was very rich and very chocolatey. I sliced a sliver of the tart for myself after minimal cooling time (hey! I was getting hungry!). The tart layers had different "fork feels" in that the mousse layer is soft and cloudy, whilst the caramel layer is ever so slightly less soft than the mousse, chewier and stickier. And carpeted beneath it all, is a layer of crisp, nutty crust. The different textures of the layers also lend some complexity to a tart that would otherwise be just pure sugar (not that pure sugar is THAT horrible).

But anyway, this tart is pure sin, I tell you! As usual, I brought most of it to lab, where the always ravenous fellow grad students wolfed it down. Not only did I have a ton of fun making this tart, I had an almost "Zen" experience while doing so. Well, I always feel at peace with the world when I bake anything no matter whatever else was going on in my universe, but I felt especially fulfilled making this tart. Part of the reason is just the pure enjoyment of creating something so seemingly complex from simple everyday ingredients. The usual baked goods I make tend to be individual serving things such as cookies and cupcakes, so actually making and assembling something relatively big is a rare thing for me. So anyway, the appearance of the tart leaves a lot to be desired, what with the rather uneven layers and grainy-looking mousse, which I will definitely try to improve in the next DB challenge. Fortunately, the flavor, texture and taste of the tart is just nice. I love that the first DB challenge has already exposed me to new baking frontiers such as the art of making caramel and mousse. I'm just itching for our next project!

"Two for the rat movie please ..."

2007-08-22T15:49:00.001-05:00

... said the middle-aged guy to the teenager behind the ticket counter at the quaint (read: old, dilapidated) movie theater in Logan Square. Yep, I finally saw the rat movie! Shame on me for waiting so long to see this animated Pixar masterpiece! Seriously, you can't officially call yourself a foodie until you've seen "Ratatouile"!

I must admit that I wasn't too enthusiastic at the premise of a rat (a disease/plague carrier) hanging out in a restaurant kitchen, let alone cooking in it! But Pixar managed to do so with flair, humor and heart (as usual). For the benefit of those who've been residing in a cave for the last few months, "Ratatouille" is an animated film about Remy, a rat who loves to cook , create and enjoy delicious food. The movie is about Remy's culinary adventures in the Parisian kitchen of a former 5-star restaurant, Gusteau. He was fatefully led there by the ghost of the deceased Gusteau to help restore the restaurant to its former glory.

Besides facing the challenge of pursuing his passion for cooking despite being a rat, Remy also encounters the dilemmas that the average rat faces such as the long-standing battle of human vs. rat, the quandary of pursuing a seemingly selfish passion vs. conforming to community wishes, etc. In addition to a charmingly-illustrated cast, a wonderful story and the unbeatable background of Paris, there's the beautiful food that I've heard so much about.

Pixar animators definitely did French cuisine justice by lovingly creating CGI dishes that look good enough to salivate over. I simply adore the way the various cheeses look so luscious and creamy; I love the vibrancy of the green asparagus and flaming tomatoes; and most of all, I was just floored by the beauty and simplicity of the movie's namesake dish, ratatouille. This movie is a definite must-watch in my book. As a matter of fact, you can count on me being in line to get the DVD of this cute film when it's released! But before then, I just might watch it one more time so I can concentrate on the food this time!

"Good" jet lag

2007-08-19T23:59:00.001-05:00

It's incredible what "good" jet lag does to you! I tried staying up till 10 last night but I passed out at 8 p.m. So I ended up waking up at 3:30 a.m. this morning and couldn't get back to sleep! Due to this extra time in the morning, I managed to catch up with some work e-mails, chat with Singapore friends (with a 12-hour time difference between us) and go to work way earlier than normal. Unfortunately, I just know that this extra time in the morning won't remain for much longer because my body will return to its normal clock again soon.

But anyway, as alluded in the previous post, this homecoming was somehow very different from the others in the past. There were major changes (in my philosophy and external appearance) and for the most part, I had a lot of fun. My parents were less nag-gy, I got to see many family and friends (both old and new), and my loot from Asia is considerable! Not only did I bring back a lot of snacks/food items, I also acquired some new clothes which I love love love!

I did most of my clothes shopping in the eclectically fashionable Tokyo. Despite the fact that the Japanese absolutely worship Western brand names, there are still plenty of creative Japanese designers. Unlike the women in some other places I've been to, I find that all Japanese women exude a certain unique style and that they put considerable thought into their outfit every day. Most of them adopt a simple, elegant working-woman flair, but there are the occasional stand-outs who tend to be younger and more adventurous. I saw a few girls dressed in Little Bo Peep-style costumes and plenty of Goth and punky youngsters in the uber trendy areas of Harajuku, Roppongi and Shibuya. I also noticed that there's a sharp decline in the number of Japanese with super blonde hair. I guess either they've adopted a more sedate or "natural" hair color or they have finally realized that Asian bleach blondes' hair gets extremely dry and damaged. So anyway, with plenty of innovative Japanese designs to choose from, I pretty much got everything on my fashion with list (except for a cute cropped leather jacket). Check them out:

1. An adorable pair of leopard print peep toe stilettos

2. A figure-flattering "bubble" dress + cami

3. An awesome pair of running shoes

4. A beautiful yukata (obi, geta slippers and fan of course!)

5. A few cute black tops (from Zara and Esprit)

The Japanese-made shoes, dress and yukata were surprisingly affordable. I was ruminating over the many leopard print shoes that we saw in Japan. Most were either uncomfortably high-heeled or comfortable and exorbitant! The most comfortable ones I tried were made by the prolific Italians, Dolce & Gabbana, but I almost choked when I saw the price. Thankfully, I held off on the D&G's because I just couldn't justify spending what's approximately my monthly rent on a mere pair of shoes. Then I fell in love with the sexy, red-lined, cushioned (can you believe they are cushioned?!? I can literally live in these!) leopard print peep toes in a basement boutique in Shinjuku (that cost only 1/8 of the D&G's!) and the rest, as they say, is history.

Besides awesome clothes, Tokyo has a frenetic and marvelous culinary scene. Like many other Asian countries, the streets of Japan is literally littered with places that sell or serve food. The more amazing thing is that during my week in Tokyo, I only ate at one mediocre eatery, the food at the other places were all delectable. Taking into account that it's almost impossible to get a bad meal in Tokyo, the food prices were surprisingly reasonable. Even the airport food was delicious! Most media outlets agree that Singapore's Changi airport is the best in the world but I beg to differ. Personally, Tokyo's Narita is pretty frickin' awesome! It may have a less luxurious and sophisticated ambience than many other airports, but, not only is Narita's food selection crazy good, they have some pretty damn good shopping mall. I guess the only drawback I can think of is that most of the "good stuff" are located outside the boarding area, so travelers who just have a brief layover can't enjoy the amazing mall.

Most of the airport food offering at Narita's Terminal 1 South Hall is Japanese, but I remember seeing a Starbucks, a bagel shop, a Western-style soup restaurant, an obligatory Mickey D's and a French-style boulangerie. Being Japanese food enthusiasts, my family and I concentrated on the more traditional Japanese selection at the airport. We arrived in Tokyo at about 6 in the morning and had a few hours to kill before we had to board a shuttle for our hotel. Not all the eateries were open at that time, so we settled on a decent-looking udon house with a standard noods selection.

Upon inspection of the restaurant area, it's hard to forget you're in Japan. After all, nothing says "Welcome to Japan" like the barrage of looks-good-enough-to-eat plastic food!

We weren't expecting much because of our generally mediocre experience with airport food. My parents had grilled salmon teriyaki set meals that consisted of the grilled salmon, plain fresh tofu, rice, miso soup and some Japanese pickled vegetables. The tofu was surprisingly exquisite; the salmon was perfectly grilled and seasoned; and the rice (gohan), boy, you can never seem to go wrong with Japanese gohan.

My sister and I had the kitsune udon, which is basically hot udon topped with sweet sliced tofu skin. It is a very simple dish that speaks volumes about the quality of the udon eatery. Our kitsune tofu was chewy and delicate at the same time, and the udon was very tasty and perfect for polite slurping!

We also ate another time at Narita Airport before our departure. This time, we discovered the second-level mall that was also full of restaurants and little shops selling souvenirs and Japanese snacks. Again, we chose a noodle house that serves both hot and cold udon. My sis chose the Katsudon set, not knowing that it also comes with udon. The katsu was moist and had a wonderfully crunchy skin; the gohan, as usual, was just delicious and the homemade udon couldn't be beat!

My parents had similar versions of tempura udon. My dad had plain udon with a jumbo shrimp tempura on the side while my mum had a tempura+kitsune+fishcake+mushrooms udon. Both were delicious and my father's jumbo shrimp tempura was succulent and had a bite to it.

I opted for the simple kitsune udon without knowing that it's served cold. Nevertheless, simple kitsune udon in cold soy broth was deeply satisfying and yummy!

We then shared a Japanese-style summer dessert consisting of azuki (red beans), mochi balls and green tea soft-serve ice cream. The azuki+mochi combo is a pretty common one but adding green tea ice cream to that seemed a bit odd to me at first. However, upon tasting, it works out very well! The sweetness of azuki, the slight bitterness of green tea and the chewiness of the mochi was very oishii!

After a little walk around the mall for last-minute gifts shopping, we chanced upon a snack stand selling gelato and Hokkaido soft serve. Yes, yes, we did indeed just have lunch a mere hour ago, but we decided to get some frozen treats anyway. The four of us shared a green tea gelato, a kurogoma (black sesame) gelato and a vanilla/chocolate swirl soft-serve ice cream. As usual, we weren't disappointed at all: the gelatos had such a rich texture and the soft serve was also very decadent in its own way. The Hokkaido soft serve was like no other that I've tasted and I'm sure it's made from full cream milk!

I'm homesick already...

2007-08-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

Hi all!

I just returned to Chicago a few days ago and I'm homesick already! Unlike past trips back to Indonesia, this time, I found myself not really looking forward to coming back to Chicago. I mean, I still like this place I've lived in for the last 8 years, but somehow, I don't feel as satisfied with being here the way I used to. My cousin said that I've been away from home for too long and that he felt the same way after having been in the States for close to a decade, which is the stage I'm at right now.

I also notice that I've been enjoying my homecomings more and more in recent years. Maybe it's the shedding of youth angst with age; or maybe it's the realization that I actually really like my family (despite them driving me crazy half the time); or maybe it's the recent surge in biotech opportunities in Asia, I don't know; but it has gradually dawned on me that my future is in Asia, near my family and friends, madness and all.

Talk about Asia, I spent an awesome week in Tokyo, Japan, with my parents and sis. I was super excited about it because I hadn't been there in about at least 10 years! My sister was just there earlier this summer and I thought it would be really cool to experience Japan as an adult. I'll get back to you about the many awesome places in Tokyo we went to and the food (of course!) that we enjoyed. For now, enjoy this little preview of the Land of the Rising Sun!

A time course of supposedly the most crowded crossing in Shibuya, Japan, at a not-so-crowded time. Blink at you might just get trampled!

Japan's obsession with cutesy stuff is apparent even on signs that warn people of getting their hands jammed in the subway doors!

With the statue of Hachiko, Japan's most loyal dog, outside Shibuya station.

Don't worry, I didn't drink all this!

Daydreams of Tokyo...

Tokyo Station madness!

Blending of new and old Japan.

The stardard fixture in every Tokyo street corner.

Only in good ole Japan, my friends! A square watermelon and a musical bidet!

A whole new blog for a whole new me...

2007-07-31T00:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the professional Lab Rat's new foodcentric blog! I recently had a revelation of sorts, if you will, after my homecoming this year. Not only did I have a long overdue makeover (contact lenses and makeup at the ripe, old age of 25), I had a change of attitude towards not only food, but also towards life in general. Don't get me wrong, I still love food and I'm still willing to wait an hour in line for a scrumptious bite (or two). The only difference is that I realized that the full enjoyment of food involves all five senses and great dining companions. I think I have always known it but have just been too busy to really consider it. Along with a makeover of my external appearance, I've decided to touch up my philosophy on food and thus, this blog is born.

Thanks for stopping by for the inaugural post of a whole new blog by a whole new me. I hope you return for my adventures in food, love and life. Ciao!