Sauce Magazine contest entry

You can go to the contest here. They asked their readers to tell them about a time where they mastered a difficult baking challenge that they never thought they could. I rarely run into things that I think I can't master without proper time and resources, so my subject's a little lame. However, I think it's the best written entry:

The first few times I attempted to make meringues they tasted ok but I despaired of ever making them beautiful. The ones I had created were lopsided, inconsistent in size and despite the best of efforts and the lowest of temperatures still managed to brown in the oven. I stuck with them, however; whenever I had some extra egg whites would whip up a batch and practice my piping skills. Now the ones I make can be much prettier—although my favorite thing to do now is to deliberately misshape and stick candy eyes in them for Halloween monster meringues.

What the heck is...

...tapioca?

I had never really thought about it before but I ran into a recipe for this...

...the other day, and it looks amazing. Not at all what I had imagined tapioca looked like. For some reason, the color gray comes to mind.

Anyway, so what is tapioca? Well, it's a kind of starch derived from the cassava plant. Cassava is originally native to the Americas, although now it is grown widely in Asia and Africa, and its name derived from the Tupi-Guarani (native people to South America, also originated the word Jaguar, which is cool) word tipioca. To get it you take the roots, which look kind of like potatoes, and grind them up. The water is drained from the pulp, carrying along starch and presumably other small particles of stuff, and that residue is dried up to produce tapioca, which can be in the form of flakes, seeds, or pearls.

Other uses for tapioca besides pudding? Apparently it's popular in Brazil to make tapioca pancakes, "buttered and rolled". I have an idea of what to do with the any leftovers I might have...

Also, there exists what sounds suspiciously like a tapioca cartel.

Green thumb

I have one. Check it out.

When these little guys get bigger, I'm going to hack off their limbs and eat them!

The devil came up to Chicago...

…by way of Georgia. He was looking for a soul to steal but got all nostalgic and decided to look for some down-home southern food instead (not Paula Deen’s Kitchen). His first stop was at the Roost southern food truck downtown because, unlike our aldermen, He Who Avoids the Light understands the socioeconomic value of free enterprise and unfettered innovation. There he ordered some Brunswick stew, which he was delighted to find came with a delicious, salty, and tender biscuit. The stew itself was also good—it mixed chicken and pork, corn, onions, and other tasty bites for a slightly spicy and warming meal. Unfortunately, as Satan was eating he bit down on a small piece of chicken bone, followed by a couple of bits of cartilage. You might think that the devil would be into that kind of thing, but it actually made the meal a little less appealing.

His desire for southern cooking thus left unsatisfied, Satan then made reservations at Big Jones up in Andersonville. There he ordered a Faulkner, a whiskey and egg-white cocktail reminiscent of Big Star’s drink menu.

There was more whiskey. I can't remember which kind.

To accompany it he had the shrimp and grits, a wonderful concoction of well-cooked shrimp, scallions, mushroom and tasso gravy, and buttery grits.

Satan also had a couple of bites of the dry-rubbed ribs special, which was tasty but unevenly spiced. Still, the shrimp and grits were such a wonderful representation of a classic southern dish that the Devil was able to return to his normal duties, unburdened by a longing for the past.

Before I forget, there were also more biscuits, this time with honey butter.

Dinner last night

Since Matt did the dishes, my evening was freed up to post about what I made last night. Thanks, Matt!

Up until yesterday, I hadn't really done any cooking in a week (between work and general laziness, there wasn't any food to cook), so I thought I would go all out and make some technique-heavy dishes.

First up (well, it wasn't really first, but I made it first because it had to chill) was some pâte de fruit, or French fruit jelly candy. Pistacia Vera back home in Columbus makes great pâte de fruit--it was the first place I tried it, and actually one of the few places I've ever encountered it (never having actually been to France). Pâte de fruit isn't like your typically gummy bear--the fruit almost barely holds together, creating a wonderful smooth and luscious texture. The fruit flavor is heavily concentrated, too, which makes even a tiny piece go a long way.

To make it, you cook pureed fruit with sugar. The pectin, a polysaccharide that occurs within plant walls, acts as a gelling agent and causes the puree to, well, gel. Pectin levels in plants vary depending on the type of plant in question, the stage in its growth cycle, and the part of the plant, so depending on what you're using to make pâte de fruit, you may need to add either powdered or liquid pectin, or different ratios of fruits naturally high in pectin in order to achieve a satisfactory result. After the puree/sugar mixture is set, you can cut it into pieces and roll it in sugar.

Yesterday, I made some strawberry pâte de fruit. I wasn't able to find a recipe, so I ended up sort of winging it. I used two pounds of strawberries, hulled, pureed, and strained for seeds, mixed in a little less than two tablespoons powdered pectin (strawberries have very low levels of pectin), and half a cup of sugar. I then cooked them together for a little bit, then added 1.5 more cups of sugar a let boil for a while until it thickened. You're supposed to use a candy thermometer and be really precise, but I don't have either a candy thermometer or a lot of patience with this kind of thing. These recipes aren't exactly new, and presumably people in the time before the candy thermometer were able to make jellies sans catastrophe. Anyway, as the mixture is boiling you can see it getting thicker, and after what I deemed was the appropriate amount of time, I pulled it off of the stove and filled a small cake pan, then stuck it in the fridge for a couple hours.

Cutting and sugaring the candies is probably the most fun part. They always turn out so beautiful!

As for the winged recipe, it actually turned out really well. The pâte de fruit was maybe a touch too loose, it could have used a little more pectin, and about a half cup less sugar (maybe more--it was pretty sugary). I might have to try two different batches and see how each change would affect the final product, or three different including the possibility of incorporating the two changes at once (which would then account for any interaction the sugar and pectin might have).

I didn't eat candy for dinner, although I wouldn't have minded doing so. Instead I made sweet potato gnocchi, with lemon sage brown butter and parmesan cheese.

Nutty donuts, part deux

Found myself wandering over to the do-rite donuts again this week, this time to try their pistachio donut, which I had my eye on the first time I went in. Here it is, in all its glory.

It was a cake donut, a type of donut that I feel should officially be banned from the breakfast register. Cake is not good deep-fried. It's not bad, in the way that any thing deep-friend never really tastes that bad, but it's dense and a little hard, even when done particularly well (which this one was). Donuts should be light and airy. The pistacios were delicious though, so one thumb up and one thumb down. We'll call it a tie.

Score-to-date: 1,0,1.

St. Patti's Day and Magnolia Bakery

Being not Irish at all and having only a vague idea what St. Patrick's Day is intended to celebrate (much like many other Americans), I didn't have a lot of plans for this holiday. However, I do love themed things, so a St. Patrick's Day cupcake, from Magnolia Bakery, was right up my alley.

This was my...fourth time eating at Magnolia Bakery? I don't know why I keep going, other than that it is one of the few places downtown I know to get a (adorable) cupcake (outside a Starbucks). The cakes are delicious but the frosting doesn't have enough flavor and the options available in Chicago are pretty limited (they have a lot more old-timey American type flavors on their website, but I never seem to see them). In this age of bacon donuts and miso-butterscotch milkshakes, a vanilla cupcake seems deadly dull. Which wouldn't be such a big deal except that you're paying $3.00/3.50 for a freaking cupcake and are simultaneously inundated with Magnolia merchandise (you've got to make me want the thirty dollar apron...)

Final verdict: not worth it, but not sure where else to go in the loop. A Google search reveals plenty of other options--I'll let you know how those pan out.