Staying cool...

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!

Christmastime is here...

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!

I Love Mitsuwa!

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!

A perfect Sunday morning breakfast is...

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 :)