Happy Chopper Day!

It’s not his birthday. Our anniversary isn’t for another two months, so there’s really nothing special about this occasion at all, though it is Sugar High Friday and Chopper’s got a new rum poached dessert on the menu at his place of work.

Oh, and this week marks a year since Chopper’s official graduation from culinary school.

And that, in itself is extra special.

(more…)

Submitted for your approval: The tale of a chef and his doppelganger, separated by a continent, each devoted to his own unique culinary path, yet driven together, inexplicably, time and again, by a mysterious force. Some might call it fate, some might dismiss it as the natural result of expert training and the synchronicities of our modern age. In a moment, witness the true compulsion that drives these two men to labor from the same page in that great cookbook we call life. Recognize it for what it is.
For it is a recipe whose ingredients can only be found… in the Twilight Zone.

Can I just say that we adore Stephen of Stephen Cooks. His recipes always look positively scrumptious and it’s clear that he enjoys mucking about in the kitchen as much as Chopper does (though I’d hazard a guess his kitchen is a lot cleaner). Over the past few months we’ve gotten a kick out of the fact that, on more than one occasion, Stephen and Chopper have been on the same wavelength. It’s as if they’re channeling each other; as if this curious culinary conduit stretches all the way from Maine to the Northern tip of Washington and then, from the aether — or perhaps from Saint Lawrence, the patron saint of chefs — they receive their instructions. Tonight, it will be bread pudding. Next week, a soup… Then, in October…

The IMBB/SHF combo chocolate soufflé!

Chocolate Orange Frozen Souffle

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: But this is Monday. Why are you posting this on Monday?

Well, it’s like this:

Me: Hey! Let’s make the chocolate soufflé on Friday!
Chopper’s Boss: Can you come in early on Friday to bake bread?
Me: Okay, how about Saturday? After the rummage sale?
Chopper: If there’s time. Oh wait, time for work!
Me: Hey, it’s Sunday, shouldn’t we be making that soufflé?
Chopper: Um, what time was that White Sox game again?

So, Chopper did eventually finish the soufflé, and the White Sox won, making it an even better evening, but by the time we had the puppy plated and had photos taken, we were just too dead dog tired to post.

Okay, I lied. I was too lazy. Chopper was tired. He did all the baking.

Which brings me to the next part of this post. Or rather, an apology. No recipe this time. I can tell you that Chopper took the Cointreau Iced Soufflé recipe on page 515 of Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen (fourth edition) and adapted that. (How much adaptation, I really can’t tell you. You’ll have to pester him.) The sauce is from pulped orange, the topping is candied orange zest and dark chocolate shavings, and the base under the frozen soufflé is a squashed macaroon.

We gave the plated version to Mom who gobbled it up with gusto. Me, I just had a small tasty bite (to save my lactically incompetent stomach), and nibbled on the leftover candied orange zest.

Meanwhile, we will gaze in awe at Stephen’s half of the IMBB/SHF brainwave. Where Chopper’s is ice, his is fire. To be exact, a dark and fiery chocolate soufflé with espresso, brandy, and cayenne pepper. I think I just died and went to heaven.

I swear, one of these days we’re taking that cross country road trip and putting these two in the same kitchen. The results might just be astounding. Or, it could end up like that old Trek episode where if the guy from the matter universe meets his twin from the anti-matter universe, life as we know it will cease to exist. But hey, that would be pretty astounding too.

IMBB # 20 + Souffle

I have custard issues. It’s not that I dislike it horribly (though it can, on occasion develop a bit of a skin that screams I am bad! I defy you to eat me and not get a tummy ache!), it’s that it brings back memories. Memories of my own personal actor’s nightmare.

See, I was doing this production of The Actor’s Nightmare, go figure, when custard reared its ugly head. Let me explain: For those who don’t know the Christopher Durang play, it’s like this. A man with the unlikely name of George Spelvin is thrust on stage, sans script, sans costume, sans any notion whatsoever of where he is and is told he’s “going on” in a short number of minutes. Going on to what, George wonders, and soon finds out that he’s Hamlet and it’s opening night. Or maybe it’s Noel Coward’s Private Lives and he’s Elyot, or it’s Beckett’s Endgame, and he has to act while sitting in a garbage can. No matter, because soon enough it’s on to the execution scene in A Man For All Seasons, and George (as Sir Thomas More) has his head on the chopping block.

Now in the script, George’s fellow actors have gathered around him, all save for Dame Ellen Terry, who is still in Endgame mode, eyes out front, up to her neck in a garbage can. The actress now playing Thomas’ mother enters, carrying a custard, uttering the line “I’ve brought you a custard, Thomas.” Thomas thanks his mother (or some such) and she stands there, holding custard and spoon, until the moment the executioner swings his axe and the lights go out.

In my own personal actor’s nightmare, it goes more like this:

Thomas’ mother enters: “I’ve brought you a custard,” she says and stumbles slightly causing the custard to fly up into the air and land, face down on the stage in front of the gathered cast. She gasps, then giggles. Fellow cast members attempt to say their lines, then giggle. Then laugh. Then, along with the audience, guffaw most horribly.

All except me. Why? No sense of humor? Nah. It’s because I’m Ellen freaking Terry, stuck in the garbage can out front and I don’t see a damned thing.

So here I am – attempting to be the best straight man the Theater of the Absurd has to offer – in character even, eyes out front, never a glance behind to see what the hell is going on, uttering my lines with the straightest face I can muster, and in a garbage can no less – and just upstage of me we’ve got the entire Roman Legion from the Bigus Dickus scene in Life of Brian, all because of a CUSTARD.

Is it any wonder I am scarred for life?

Now, Chopper assures me that my playing the straight man probably generated even more laughter from the audience. Not that this is any consolation. In fact, it could provoke me to shun custard all the more. But, because this is Sugar High Friday, and the theme is indeed custard, I will allow him to play. Provided he does it away from home.

Fortunately, on that score, we’re in luck. Chopper’s been patisserie guy at the restaurant for a while now, and today is the perfect day for him to make another rendition of his successful dessert special, Bread and Butter Pudding. And this isn’t just any bread and butter pudding. It’s a brandy-soaked concoction with home (or rather restaurant) made brioche. The recipes for pudding and brioche are Chopper’s adaptations from recipes in Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen (4th edition). And because this is for a restaurant, it’s a big recipe. We’re talking 18 by 34 by 4 inch hotel pan here, and enough tasty goodness for eighteen rather sizable portions.

For many more custards, check out the Sugar High Friday Round-up!

Blame it on the softball stage.

No, not the one that has to do with sugar, but the one that involves guys taking days off of work to whack at balls and slide at bags in the dirt. That softball stage.

Not that I have a problem with softball, generally speaking, it’s just that when Chopper and I plan our day off to include dueling Sugar High Friday projects (Me: truffles. Him: Irish coffee Pot de crème), we don’t particularly like it when that plan is ruined because a co-worker has managed to get every ligament in his ankle torn to shreds playing softball. Is it too evil of me to mention our co-worker’s team lost? I didn’t think so.

So, here I am, flying solo. Granted, Chopper came home for a brief respite between lunch and dinner shifts and spun me some sugar, but the rest of it is mine, all mine, baby.

And, as usual, I got a little carried away.

In honor of tonight’s Perseid Meteor Shower and the comet at its source, Mrs D presents:

The Swift-Tuttle Dark Chocolate Espresso Berry Comet Truffle

The gist of it:

One 3 1/2 ounce dark chocolate bar. It is crucial that this not just be any dark chocolate bar, but one that is made up only of cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and if absolutely necessary a bit of soy lecithin and vanilla extract. It should be at least 70% cocoa if not higher. That namby pamby Hershey’s crap just will not do. Fortunately for me, I’m a dark chocolate fiend and I’d already scoped out my scrumptious Eat Local alternative: Terra Nostra’s Organic 73% Intense Dark Chocolate Bar, made just a short jaunt to the Northeast in beautiful Vancouver BC.

Can I just say, at the risk of getting all gloopy and lovesick, that this chocolate bar rocks my world. If I was only allowed one thing to carry forward from the Eat Local Challenge if would be this chocolate bar.

One quarter cup heavy cream. Ideally, this cream should be fresh, local, and organic. Ideally. Sometimes though, the only cream remotely organic isn’t remotely local, and isn’t remotely affordable. Oh well.

A smidgen of unsalted butter. Don’t ask me how much a smidgen is. I think I tossed in about a teaspoon. I think it was because I panicked while lost in the middle of recipe invention and had images of unmoldable chocolate globules. Or something.

Toss these things into a double-boiler. Break the chocolate bar into chunks first. Try very hard not to eat any. When it’s all melty, add:

Two teaspoons of Lopez Island Farm Marionberry Syrup. I am so making waffles so I can use the rest of this stuff. Then I’m hopping the ferry and raiding the farm for more.

One tablespoon of finely ground fresh roasted espresso beans from the San Juan Coffee Roasting Company. How freshly roasted? How about within hours of my purchase. Oh, and the company’s store down on Cannery Landing has some lovely chocolates of their own as well. I was sorely tempted.

One teaspoon of San Juan Cellars Late Harvest Riesling. I know, I know, what’s the point of wine in a truffle? It’s not like anyone can taste it. Well, it’s like this: I came out of the Roasting Company and it was ferry loading time. Translation: No chance in hell of crossing the street for at least ten minutes. So, it was either wait outside or wander into the San Juan Cellars retail store and have a 10 a.m. wine tasting. Like I’m going to pass that up. I left with a bottle of the Late Harvest Riesling and the plan to add a spoonful of it to my truffle recipe just so I could mention the fact that in Friday Harbor one can get a 10 a.m. wine tasting ten feet from the ferry dock.

Mix everything together and try not to panic about whether it’ll harden well enough (or too well). Put a lid on it and pop it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight if you prefer.

When the mixture has sufficiently hardened, it’s time to get messy. Very messy. I’m all about making truffles the old-fashioned messy way. Or maybe it’s that no one’s ever taught me how to properly make truffles. Either way, I set up next to the sink because I know I’m going to have to wash my hands at least twice for every single truffle I make.

First I set out my supplies.

The pan of chocolate.

A Turkish coffee cup from the same set we kidnapped for our eggy IMBB #16

A jar of Dutch unsweetened chocolate powder that’s been in my pantry for ages so I’ve no idea where it’s from. Pour about a teaspoon full of it into the Turkish coffee cup.

A bowl of freshly picked blackberries. The original plan was to drive to a farm this morning and buy Marionberries to go with the syrup, but then softball happened. So instead, I took Platelicker for a walk and picked blackberries along the way. Himalayan Blackberries are ubiquitous and quite tasty this time of year, but oh those vines are invasive pests! If we could just discipline them to behave themselves around the locals we’d plant blackberries in our own yard instead of rip them out each spring.

A plate to set truffles on.

Now, the messy part. Pull out a dose of chocolate, about the size of an aggie shooter and work it into the shape of a bowl. Right away it’s going to start getting horribly sticky and you’re going to want lick your fingers, but hold off just for a moment. Ignore the fact that some of the buttery stuff has separated and made light flecks in the mixture. It’ll still taste good.

Take a blackberry and place it into your chocolate bowl, then take more chocolate and work it around the top to form the lid, enclosing the berry and forming a sphere.

Drop the sticky ball into the Turkish coffee cup. Wash your hands. Or lick your fingers. Your choice.

Pour another half-teaspoon of Dutch chocolate over the sticky ball, then lift up the cup and swirl it, like you’re swirling cream into your coffee. (But don’t ever put cream in Turkish coffee because that would be wrong.) The chocolate powder will cover the truffle in a nice even coat and then all you need do is lift the puppy out and set it on a plate. You may not even need to wash your hands a second time.

Repeat this till you’re out of chocolate. With this recipe I made three truffles with berries and six without.

Next, prepare the comet’s fiery tail. (Or rather, make sugar decorations for your truffle so it’ll be all pretty for the camera.) Find the smallest ladle in the house and coat the outside of it with vegetable oil. Heat sugar and water over the stove till it reaches caramel stage. Grab a spoon and quickly spin the sugar over the ladle so it creates a lovely, golden, Jackson Pollack mess. Wait till the sugar cools, then carefully remove it from the ladle.

Set the sugar bowl on a plate, place the truffle inside and decorate. I saved a blackberry for a topper, some broken sugar bowl for outer décor, and more of the fabulous marionberry syrup for drizzle.

So, there it is, the Swift-Tuttle Dark Chocolate Espresso Berry Comet Truffle. All chocolaty, all yummy, and all mine. Chopper’s not even home from work yet, and come to think of it, he doesn’t even like coffee all that much and this comet’s got one hell of an espresso kick to it. Yes, it’s all mine.

Hmmm. Maybe softball’s not so bad after all.

Blueberry Sky Tart

We don’t mean to, but we seem to be bouncing from event to event these days with barely time to think of just plain ol’ regular posts here on Belly-Timber. This horrendously busy week is no exception. I’ve got a few starts kicking around here somewhere, but the only thing we’ve time to finish is our entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday.

I’m a bit clueless when it comes to tarts. Mention tarts, and I immediately think of something rectangular you pop into the toaster, or of something with high heels, sequins, and a half-guzzled bottle of Boones Farm Strawberry Hill. Maybe it’s my lack of tart pan in the kitchen, but then again, it could be the beeline I make for chocolate any time I’m near a dessert tray. Either way, tarts just aren’t on my usual culinary radar.

So, I left the initial tart brainstorming entirely up to Chopper Dave and pondered mundane things, like would the local gourmet store have tart pans that don’t cost a bundle, and would this dessert be pretty, dammit?

Turns out we didn’t need a tart pan. Chopper Dave’s been on this meringue kick, and it’s yet to end. This incarnation: Meringue tart crust.

Our choice for fruit: blueberries. I had this brilliantly silly notion that we’d make the whole thing blue. Blue-tinted meringue, blueberries… (Okay, they’re purple, but hey, work with me here.) The idea: A cloud of blue meringue, and on top of the berries, another cloud, this one silver and puffy and all of spun sugar. On our trip to the grocery store, after I relented and agreed to expand the color palate, we found the final element for our firmament: Star fruit. The blueberry sky tart was ready for construction.

Of course first we had to endure a few near disasters. Meringue, we learned the hard way, does not do well inside tart pans (yes, the local gourmet store had ‘em). Chopper’s second attempt worked much better: He baked a tart-sized meringue cookie, then just collapsed the middle to make a bowl for the fruit.

Near disaster number two wasn’t so bad or so disastrous, but it did involve the discovery that one should be prepared for flying hot things when one is attempting to photograph spinning sugar. Also, one should keep the dog away.

Two final key points of instruction:

When placing spun sugar on top of blueberry filling, do wait till the filling has cooled or the spun sugar will be pretty for all of about three minutes.

Also, it helps if you’ve charged your camera’s batteries in recent history.

(Quick panic, then, spun sugar yanked off of hot berry filling, tart tossed in fridge, batteries thrown in charger, second cloud of spun sugar made and set aside. Wait, wait, wait, hope the day’s light doesn’t fade because photographing desserts at night sucks rocks, and one hour later…)

“You can eat this one,” Chopper Dave says, setting down a fork. “No dairy.”

I check the playback feature on my camera, decide I’ve got some decent shots, then indulge myself in a bite of blueberry sky tart.

One bite, and holy crap, they don’t call it Sugar High Friday for nothing. And here I thought last month’s Sweet Fleet was over the top. This one’s stratospheric. Chopper Dave puts it on a dessert menu? Dentists will picket.

But hey, it’s pretty, and I’m all about pretty when it comes to desserts.

Excuse me. I’m going to go brush my teeth now.

Let’s get this out of the way first: We’re weird.

Not only are we weird, but we are leaving for the weekend bright and early Friday morning. Now, one would think this departure would mean that we’d given up any hope of participating in either Sugar High Friday or Is My Blog Burning. Or, that at the most we’d pick one of these two events and leave it at that. But since we are, as we said, weird, we believe that instead of ignoring food blogging events when we’re pressed for time, we should embrace them. Both at once. With zeal.

And with (yes, you’ve guessed it by now) weirdness.

And so, with a cupful of grapefruit juice and a sea of aspic (ocean blue, of course), we christen the Sweet Fleet:

Puff pastry barquettes filled with grapefruit pastry cream, topped with white chocolate sails, on a sea of blue-tinted aspic with foamy wakes of egg white and a savory tropical island made of almond meal, oregano underbrush, and a palm of carrot trunk, green bell pepper fronds, and marzipan cocoanuts.

(phew!)

Note for the more adventurous: We didn’t actually eat much of this. Which isn’t to say the barquettes weren’t good, they were just…well, a bit over-the-top.

Other important safety tips (aka Chopper remembers why he hates marzipan…again.):

1. Toothpicks and marzipan can only hold together a palm tree made of sliced vegetables for so long.

(No, it didn’t fall over)

2. When photographing a regatta of white chocolate sails under hot sunlight, move quickly.

And lastly,
3. Making pastry cream on an electric range sucks ass.

For our next trick: A remake of Duran Duran’s Rio video with finger puppets!

Monday update: The round-ups have been posted. To check out everyone’s great entries for Sugar High Friday, go here, and for Is My Blog Burning, go here.

Molasses & White Wine Zabaglione
(with molasses brittle)

(a recipe with detours)

Molasses. Color me strange, but I really like the stuff. Maybe it’s those fond memories of home baked gingerbread cookies at Christmas time and me sneaking a spoonful straight from the bottle, or maybe it’s just the label with that grand old rabbit — that same rabbit, selling molasses for decades and way cooler than the Trix bunny.

So here we are, our first Sugar High Friday, and it’s gooey-sticky molasses time. Thing is, it’s also damn hot for this time of year, so if we want a dessert, we don’t want something gooey-sticky, we want something refreshing. Something simple and elegant, but (here’s the catch), with the rabbit.

And so was born Chopper Dave’s latest creation: Molasses and White Wine Zabaglione.

To clarify, this isn’t your Italian grandmother’s zabaglione. This is a modified zabaglione. The classic version includes just three ingredients — egg yolks, sugar, and marsala wine — but we’ve added heavy cream and crème fraîche for two reasons: One, it reduces the labor and time involved so that the whole process takes no more than about 20 minutes. And two, it enhances the flavor and mouthfeel of the dessert.

That is, Chopper Dave says it enhances the flavor and mouthfeel of the dessert. Me, I just rack up reason number three: It contains dairy products, meaning Mrs. D. can’t eat any, meaning more tasty goodness for the chef!