Brioche...The Go-to French Breakfast item

I caught one of Jacques Pepin's TV shows on Create, where he was making different French breads, including baguettte and Brioche. Who knew that the recipe he presented for Brioche was so simple. So, I attempted to make it this weekend with much success. Try it for yourself.

Brioche
Makes Twelve 6-inch Brioches

Ingredients
2.5 tsp rapid dry yeast
3 Tbsp water
1 Tsp sugar
3 eggs
2 sticks sweet butter, softened, plus extra to butter brioche tins
2 cups flour
1 Tsp salt
Egg wash

Method
1) In a food processor, add water, sugar, and yeast. Let stand 10-15 minutes until frothy. Add eggs and butter. Process for 10-15 seconds until well mixed. Make sure that there are no butter lumps.

2) Add flour and salt. Process again until batter is mixed and sticky. The batter should look elastic.

3) Place batter in a large glass bowl covered with plastic wrap. At this point, you can either proof it for 3-4 hours, or leave it in the frige overnight.

4) Grab the batter from the edges of the bowl and bring to the center as you're punching down the batter. Remove the batter from the bowl and put in on a floured surface. Divide the dough into 12 balls. Roll them in a little flour. Pinch 1/3 of the ball to create the "head". Place them into the buttered tins and brush with the egg wash.

5) Preheat oven 400F. Let the dough rise in the tins for 30-40 mins. Bake 30 min or until golden brown on the outside. The brioche should come out of the tins easily and when thumped, it should have a hollow sound.

Enjoy with your favorite jams.

TH

Vietnamese Tamale

Last week, our Foodies United club celebrated Vietnamese cuisine. About 35 of us brought together a variety of dishes that I would call a good sampling of the typical dishes often found at Vietnamese restaurants. Other than bringing what people are accustomed to, I thought I reach into my roots and bring something more homy.

I brought the Vietnamese tamale, otherwise known as Banh Nam. I always had this when I was a child, especially on special occasions, whenever my distant relatives came to visit. My mom made these, and I will share with you the recipe.

Banh nam is like a tamale made with a semi-cooked rice flour, topped with pork, and steamed in banana leaves.

Ingredients:

Rice flour paste
2 cups rice flour (not glutinous rice flour)
4 cups water
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 Tbsp oil

Meat topping
4-5 Black wood ear or cloud ear, soaked, cleaned, finely chopped
1/4 to 1/2 lb ground pork
1 scallion, finely chopped
2 small shallots, chopped
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1-2 tsp Sugar
1 tbsp Fish sauce

Banana leaves

Method:
To make the rice flour paste:
- Put the rice flour in a medium sauce pan and add water gradually to avoid lumps, stir till well mixed and smooth. Add salt and oil and stir to combine.

- Cook rice flour batter over low to medium heat, stir with a wooden spoon from time to time to avoid lumps. Cook until the batter starts to thicken into a smooth, white, opaque paste, 10 minutes.

If the paste becomes translucent, you've gone to far, and you need to restart. - Remove from heat, and set aside to cool.

To make the topping:
- Stir fry the shallot and scallions in a little oil, avoiding not to burn the shallots, over medium-high heat. Add wood ears and ground pork. Add salt, sugar, and fish sauce to taste. When fragrant, remove from heat and set aside.

Prep the banana leaves:
- Banana leaves can be purchased at your local Asian food market. They're usually in the freezer section. Before use, make sure you defrost it the night before. Be gentle with them as they are fragile if handled to roughly.

- Cut the banana leaves crosswise at a width of 5-6 inches. Cut leaves to acquire 35-40 rectangles. Rinse gently under cold running water while wiping the leaves with a damp paper towel. Stack onto a plate.

Putting it all together:
- With the banana leaf laid out before you with the long side facing you, wipe dry with a paper towel. Put a tablespoon of rice flour paste in the center and flatten it a bit.
- Put 1-2 tsp of the topping on top of the rice flour paste.

- Fold the long sides of the banana leaf over the paste into thirds, like folding a letter. Gently squeeze the paste with your fingers towards the ends such that the paste becomes 4-5 inches long, but still leaving about 1-2 inches of ends. Fold the ends under the pouch.
- Repeat with the remainder leaves.


At this point, you can either freeze them to cook some other time or you can steam them right away.

Steaming:
Lay the tamales in your steamer up to 3 layers at a time. Steam for 15 minutes. To check, take one out and look inside. If the tamale is not pasty and is firm, then they are ready to eat.

If you froze them, steam for 20-25 minutes.

Eat with fish sauce:
3-4 Tbsp fish sauce (I prefer the 3 crab brand)
Juice of 1/4 lime
1-2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
water

Mix the first 5 ingredients. Add enough water such that the sauce is just a slight less salty. If you prefer a little saltiness, add more salt.

Enjoy!!

Making Chinese Dumplings

This is a homemade demo of my mother-in-law and wife making dough for Chinese dumplings. You can make any kind of stuffing you want for the dumplings. In this video, the stuffing consists of ground pork, chives, 5 spice powder, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a special ingredient - water that has been steeped with Sichuan peppercorns.

Arancine - Rice balls

I couldn't believe how easy this was to make. Actually, I was reading an article in Saveur magazine on Sicilian foods, and Arancine was a popular appetizer. Arancine is a deep fried rice ball stuffed with meat. In their recipe, the stuffing was a hearty beef stew with carrots and onions. The rice was made with saffron. The key to this, I think, was the batter.

I wanted to make something special last Friday, and I knew I had some leftover rice and leftover stir fry, so I decided on this. The rice I had was regular white rice. The stuffing was actually a stir fry with bell peppers, eggs, and SPAM. You can use whatever stuffing that pleases you. I recommend that the rice you choose should be steamed or boiled rice; don't use fried rice.

Ingredients

Fresh or leftover rice (if fresh, let cool to handle)
Stuffing
1 egg
1/4 cup
water
1 tbsp flour
bread crumbs
oil

Method

1. Whisk egg, flour and water in a small bowl. Put bread crumbs into another bowl and set aside.

2. Wet hands before working with rice. Take a scoop of rice into your palm and work it into a disk, about 3 inches in diameter. Take a small spoonful of stuffing and place it in the center of the disk. Bring the sides of the rice disk to the top and form it into a ball by cupping your hands. Work on it until the ball is firm.

3. Coat the rice ball with the batter, and roll the ball in the bread crumbs. Place on a plate, and repeat with the rest of the rice and stuffing. Put the plate of rice balls in the frige to let it firm up before frying, about 20 min.

4. Heat a sauce pan with oil, about 2 inches deep, to 350F. Working in batches, fry the balls until the surface is golden brown. Drain and serve hot.

Enjoy

Power of 2

I found this really easy no egg cookie recipe. Originally, it was for lemon cookies, but I substituted with limes, which turned out really good. It only uses 5 ingredients, which makes it really easy to remember. Sort of like my vanilla ice cream base. Anyway, here it is,

Lime (or Lemon) Cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks butter

2 cups powder sugar

Juice of 2 limes or lemons

Zest of 1 lime or lemon

2 cups flour

Method

Preheat oven at 350F.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter and powder sugar on low setting. Add juice and zest. Add flour 1 cup at a time. Mix until dough comes together. Turn out onto a square of plastic wrap and form into a log. Wrap and place in refrigerator for an hour to cool.

Slice thin cookies about 1/4 inch thick and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Leave 1/2 inch space between cookies. Bake 8 min. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Blue Scones

Here's an easy recipe that'll take you 25 minutes!

Blueberry Scones

Ingredients

2 cups flour
3 Tbsp sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top (optional: use raw/turbinado sugar instead for sprinkling)
3/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
6 Tbsp cold butter, cubed
1 tsp lemon zest
1 pint fresh blueberries
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 eggs

Method

Preheat oven to 400F. Sift together first four ingredients in a large bowl. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a fork such that the butter are pea sized. Stir in blueberries and zest.

Lightly whisk cream and eggs in a measuring cup. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add cream and egg mixture. Using a fork, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the dough comes together. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly (not crushing berries) a few times to mix well.

Pat dough into a 6 inch square that is 1 1/4 inch thick. Cut the square into 4 3-inch squares. Cut each square diagonally to yield 8 triangles. Transfer triangles to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20-22 minutes until tops are golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

As Seen On TV...or as tasted

A couple of days ago, I was watching "America's Worst Cooks" on the Food Channel, and Anne Burrell's team was making her version of Chicken Cacciatore with squash. Just thinking about it made me want to make it for dinner. Plus, we were expecting close to 8" of snow Tuesday night, so it would be a great dinner to have for the cold weather.

This is a recipe from Saveur Magazine. It's called a Hunter's dish, because this dish was often made before a big hunt so that the hunter would be full of energy. The hunter's wife always made this dish, and so is named after her.

Pollo alla Cacciatora.
Serves 4

Ingredients

8 pieces of chicken (thighs and drums)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 28-oz can of peeled, whole tomatoes, chopped and juice reserved

1.5 cup white whine

1 tsp Italian dry herbs

1 bay leaf

1 cup Italian parsely, finely chopped, 1 tbsp reserved for garnish

0.5-1 cup chicken stock

Olive oil

Salt/Pepper to taste

Method

In a deep pan on medium high heat, saute onions until golden (~5-8 minutes). Add garlic and saute (3-4 minutes). Push the onions to one side and add the chicken and brown (4 min each side). Add wine and cook until liquid is gone (8-10 min).

Add tomatoes and juice, dried herbs, parsely, bay leaf and season to taste. As the tomato liquid reduces, add chicken stock to keep the pan moist. Simmer for 45 min uncovered.

Garnish with parsley. Serve with white rice or steamed potatoes.