Cream Puffs

Cream puffs, eclairs, even funnel cakes, are all made from a pastry dough called "Pate a Choux". It's a French phrase that means "paste of cabbages", or cabbage paste. It is so named as the little cooked pieces of pastry are said to resemble little cabbages. You might also hear it called simply "choux paste" (pronounced like "shoe").

Pate a choux gets it's rising entirely from the evaporation of water - there is no leavening. The ingredient list is remarkably short - water, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and eggs. The process is rather different than probably any other pastry you've ever made. Pate a choux can be made for either sweet or savory fillings - that is the purpose of these little gems, they are simply a shell for some really tasty inside bits.

For eclairs or cream puffs, you'll fill your choux paste with a pastry cream. Savory puffs are often filled with herbed cream cheese or blue cheese mixture. Or even meats.

Pate a Choux for Sweet Filling
yield - 4 dozen bite-sized cream puffs

1 cup water
3/4 stick butter (6 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cup flour
1 cup eggs, about 4 large eggs and 2 whites

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Boil water, butter, sugar, and salt. Add flour and remove from heat. Work mixture together and return to heat. Continue working the mixture until all flour is incorporated and dough forms a ball. Transfer mixture into bowl of a standing mixer and let cool for 3 or 4 minutes. If you add your eggs to too hot mixture, you'll get scrambled eggs, so be sure it's cooled. With mixture on stir or lowest speed, add eggs, 1 at a time, making sure the first egg is completley incorporated before continuing.

Once all eggs have been added and the mixture is smooth, put dough into piping bag fitted with a rather large round tip. Pipe immediatley into golfball-sized shapes, 2 inches apart onto parchment paper or Silpat lined sheet pans.

Cook for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Once they are removed from the oven pierce the bottoms with a paring knife immediately to release steam. Let cool completely before filling.

Pastry Cream Filling
batch size - 10 ounces

3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine milk with approximately half the sugar. Heat, stirring frequently until boiling.

Blend together the remaining sugar and constarch before adding the egg. Use a wire whip to beat smooth.

While stirring the egg and starch mixture, slowly add about 1/4 of the hot milk mixture. Return the warmed egg and starch mixture back into the boiling milk. Stir constantly until it thickens.

Place in a suitable container and cover the surface of the pastry cream with plastic wrap. Press the plastic wrap tightly onto the surface of the cooked pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming.

When cold, remove wrap, add vanilla, and beat until very smooth and creamy. Fill a piping bag fitted with a smallish round tip, and poke the tip into the bottom of the cooled cream puffs. Fill until the puff feels heavy. You can also use a ziptop bag fitted with a tip instead of a piping bag.

Basil Pesto

Basil pesto is one of those things that I look forward to all year, and start salivating about as soon as I have my basil in the ground. Last year the basil went crazy, but I didn't freeze any of my pesto, which was a big shame. This year I intend to rectify the sad situation.

My basil reached significant enough growth that I could cut quite a bit. Granted, it looks like a skeleton now, but it will bounce back I'm sure. Pesto is simply a combination of herbs, olive oil, seasonings, usually some nuts. Parsley, mint, cilantro - all make nice pestos.

Basil Pesto

1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
2 garlic cloves
5 cups loose-packed basil leaves
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
olive oil
salt and pepper

Toast your nuts in the oven at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes or until lightly brown. Stir halfway through cooking.

In a food processor that is running, add the garlic through the chute. This ensures the garlic will get chopped fine enough. Add the pine nuts, basil, and cheese. Pulse a little bit. You'll notice you need some liquid to get it going. Add olive oil and/or water in a small, steady stream to the running food processor. I don't like to use all olive oil as it becomes to oily for my taste. You can use water or broth even. Add liquid until it reaches desired consistency. Taste before adding salt as the cheese can be quite salty. Add pepper and any other seasonings you desire.

I like this on pasta of course - on crostini - crackers - and even fresh vegetables. Often I will make a batch of pesto, use most of it, then turn the leftovers into alternately dip, then salad dressing, getting thinner and thinner as I use more and more.

Saucy!

Much as I wanted to just come home and have a bowl of cereal for dinner tonight, I forced myself to cook the boneless, skinless chicken breasts defrosting in the refrigerator. What easier way than a simple saute, with a sauce made in the same pan.

The technique for making a simple pan sauce is easy - saute a savory ingredient or herb in the pan drippings (or fond, as it is often called), add a savory liquid, let it thicken, then add a finish, if so desired. You start by sauteing your chicken on high heat in olive oil, vegetable oil, or a butter and oil combo. You can even do this in stages, as I did, as I had 4 rather large breasts, and only 2 fit in the pan. Get a really good sear on the chicken on both sides, and you'll notice that some brown bits form in the pan. This is the fond, and the basis of a really good sauce.

Once done with the chicken, you'll want to add some savories - finely choppen onion, shallot, green onions, or garlic. Sage is also good to add now - it may crackle in the pan as it "fries". I had sauteed some minced garlic in my olive oil just prior to adding the chicken. Be careful about garlic, I only let mine saute for about 30 seconds, as it can get brown fast and brown = bitter. I minced a shallot, and added it to the pan, where the reamaining oil softened the shallot. You only want to cook your savories until just soft.

Next you add your savory liquid - chicken broth, vegetable broth, white wine, red wine, lemon juice are the usual players. Today I added a half a can of low sodium chicken broth and the juice of a lemon. I think the broth comes to about a half cup. Measurements really are not important. Then you let that boil away, scraping up the brown bits until it gets thickened and you have a syrupy but pourable sauce. Then quickly finish the sauce, if desired. Butter and cream are standard. I added 2 teaspoons of butter and it thickened the sauce slightly and gave it a nice creamy finish. I also added a scant teaspoon of cream. Now is the time to finish with fresh herbs as well, as you they will lose the note of freshness if they cook too long. Capers are popular to add to a lemon sauce as well, though I would skip the cream.

I poured the sauce over my chicken and garnished with some chopped green onion tops. Parsley would also be great.

I added some saffron rice with chopped green onion whites and a simple salad and dinner was done. (and would feed me for the next 2 nights as well)

Chugga Chugga Couscous

When faced with the need to provide a dish for a work potluck, I always think SWEET first. Not sure why. Am I a baker before a cook? I certainly cook more than I bake, but maybe it is the baking process that really gets my creative juices going.

Regardless, I had a really hard time thinking of a dish for hubby to take for lunch until I remembered the boxes of couscous I bought recently. Most people think couscous is a grain, like rice, but in fact it is a pasta. It cooks up really fast because they are tiny pieces of pasta, and also they are steamed, then dried, before you use it so it's almost like reconstituting it. Couscous is of North African origin and can stand up to really strong flavors. It is a great vehicle for any kind of vegetable.

Today I decided to make it with zucchini and the incredibly sweet grape tomatoes we buy every week. Green onions, spice, toasted pine nuts, and hot boiling water and we are there!

Vegetable Couscous Salad

1/2 cup pine nuts
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups couscous
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 small zucchini, split lengthwise and sliced thinly
4 or 5 green onions, diced
2 handfuls grape tomatoes, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place pine nuts in a round or square baking pan and heat at 350 degrees for about 2 1/2 minutes. Shake pan. Heat for about 2 1/2 more minutes. Watch them carefully because they can go from toasted to burned in no time. Remove from oven and pour into a bowl to cool.

Bring water to boil over medium-high heat. Add couscous, cinnamon, turmeric, and cumin. Tightly cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Add zucchini, onion, tomato, and pine nuts. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate before serving.

Spice Rub

There is a spice rub that I got from Michael Chiarello that uses a spice I didn't know much about - fennel. Fennel stalk is an unusal vegetable having a licorice, or anise flavor. The fennel seed is a little different, and unlike anything else I can describe. Lately I've been taking pieces of meats and just coating them in different spice mixtures and then grilling or roasting. It makes it very easy.

This particular rub goes really well with pork. The first time I used it I bought a large pork shoulder roast and cooked it low and slow. It turned into a wondefully tender, pull apart, piece of pork with this wonderful rub. It also does well with chicken. I would be hesitant to use it on shrimp, but it might be good on beef too. For beef I often believe less is more in the flavor department, often opting for a simple salt and pepper or au poivre coating.

Garam masala is another great spice mixture that I love to use to coat pork tenderloin. It's slightly sweet and spicy. You can search for recipes on the Web to make your own with combinations you like, but I find it easily available in the spice section of my supermarket. I usually use the McCormick blend.

I made a large quantity of this and keep it in the fridge in a recycled glass olive jar.

Fennel Spice Rub
Makes about 1 1/4 cups

1 cup fennel seeds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons white peppercorns
3 tablespoons kosher salt

Put the fennel seeds, coriander, and peppercorns in a heavy pan over medium heat. Watch carefully, tossing frequently so the seeds toast evenly. When light brown and fragrant, pour the seeds onto a plate to cool. They must be cool before grinding or they will gum up the blades.

Pour the seedds into a blender and add the salt. Blend to a fine powder, shaking the blender occasionally to redistribute the seeds. Store in a tightly sealed glass jar in a cool, dry place, or freeze.

When using the rub it is best to coat it very thickly on the meat, covering all areas and lightly patting the rub into the meat. Remember, not all of the spice will make it onto the meat at the end, a lot will fall off in cooking and preparing.

Before I knew if I would like this mixture, I went to Central Market and purchased just the amount of spices I needed from the bulk spice section. They have everything you could imagine there in bulk. I was able to just get the few tablespoons of each spice in a little baggie. I think I spent less than $3 on the whole thing. And it has lasted me a loooong time.

Chef Boyardee Ain't Got Nothin' on Me

Fresh pasta is perhaps one of the finest things life has to offer. It is also a rather laborious process. If you have never made fresh pasta however, I urge you to, as it is so divine. I warn you - after having your own fresh pasta you will scoff - yes SCOFF! - at anything less. And you will never pay $3.50 for a half pound again (try PENNIES).

But not every night can be a fresh pasta night. Sometimes you want the taste of a fresh pasta with a filling you make with herbs from your garden. Maybe you get home late, maybe you have homework or a soccer game. Enter my secret weapon - wonton wraps.

Yes, wonton wraps. And they are most likely in YOUR grocery store, hiding out near the organic produce like ours. I do NOT have a fancy grocery store and even ours carries not one but two types of wrappers. Square or round, both/either will work. You'll need a sheet pan with sides, a bowl or cup of water, and your preferred sauce. Oh, and get your stockpot of salted water ready for cooking.

First, you need a filling. My most favorite is a chicken and herb filling, but it has a lot of steps and most nights I don't have the energy. So I usually pick some sort of cheese-based filling. Ricotta is what I usually use, flavored with either parmesan, mozzarella, or both. An 8 ounce container of ricotta works well with 1 egg as binder. Add herbs, salt and pepper, other cheeses, and voila. Oh, I should mention that ricotta is really wet, so you'll need to strain or squeeze the excess out of your ricotta. Just put it in a strainer suspended over a container and leave it overnight in the fridge. Or put it in some cheesecloth and squeeze out the water. Excess water will make your filling runny and won't make it easy to seal your ravioli.

Lay out your wonton wraps on your jelly roll pan. Put about a tablespoon - maybe more, maybe less, experiment with what you can put in your wrap - in the middle of the wrap, wet your index finger with the water, and lightly wet the outside edges of the wonton wrap. Then put another wrap on top before the water can dry. Seal around the filling from the inside out, getting all the air out of the ravioli. Air will make your raviolo float during cooking and make it want to burst, letting all your yummy filling out. You'll become a ravioli making machine churning these out in stages and cooking in the boiling water. They take only a minute or so to cook, floating to the top when they are done. If you are not eating right away, place on another jelly roll pan and coat lightly with olive oil to keep from sticking. Add sauce and more cheese and YUM!



Stuffed ravioli waiting to be boiled and consumed by my hungry husband

Simple Ravioli Filling

8 oz (or one small) container ricotta
1 egg
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons fresh chopped basil
salt and pepper

Drain or squeeze excess water out of ricotta. Combine with the egg, Parmesan, oregano, basil, and salt and pepper to taste.

I wanted to make a pesto for the ravioli but I ran out of time, plus the basil in my garden isn't quite mature enough yet. So I used my old standby, tomato. My secret weapon is LIQUOR! It brings out the sweetness of the tomato and leaves you with a little hint of something. The cream mellows it out and gives it a great richness.

Simple Tomato Sauce

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons fresh chopped basil
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon brandy, whisky, or bourbon
1 tablespoon heavy cream

Add the olive oil to the pan and heat until hot. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add the garlic and saute 1 minute more. Add the oregano and basil and saute for half a minute more. Add the diced tomatoes. Saute on medium-high for about 5 minutes. Add the liquor. Continue to cook until mixture thickens and most of the liquid is gone. Just before serving add in the cream.

Friday Night Panko Fest

Panko...Japanese bread crumbs. They are light and fluffy and kind of make a tapping sound against each other. I finally bought some at the store last week so when I was faced with an evening stretch alone at home and time to make a bigger dinner, I decided to experiment.

A quick googling on the 'Net yielded chicken and onions. Onion rings! I looove onion rings, but I hate the grease that goes along with them, especially on my current low-fat health diet. Correction, I love onion rings when they are done well, not when the coating doesn't stick to the onion and falls off in globs. So I grabbed some chicken breasts at the store and went home excited to getting to the experimentin'.

The technique that I used to bread the chicken and onion could be used with really any surface you want to have a crispy, light, coating. You need to dry the food with a little flour, then dunk in something sticky so that the crumbs will stick, then dunk in the crumbs. What I found is that if you are dunking in the crumbs, the crumbs will inevitably get wet with the sticky solution and won't be usable. So alternate in small batches, don't just dump out all your crumbs you'll need at once. The other alternative which worked well, was to do the flouring and crumb-ing in a paper bag, shaking the food. This coated everything really well and the sticky stuff didn't leach all over everything.

Baked Onion Rings

2 egg whites
all purpose flour for coating
salt and pepper
2 small or 1 large onion, cut into rings
Japanese Panko bread crumbs, about 1 cup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Lightly beat the egg whites in a pie plate or other flat, wide dish. In another bowl, add the flour. Add salt and pepper to the flour to your liking, or some seasoned salt, herbs, etc. In another flat, wide dish add the crumbs. Alternatively, use 2 small plain brown paper bags and add the flour to one and the crumbs to the other. Flour the onion rings, then dunk in the egg whites, letting the excess drip off. Coat in bread crumbs and lay on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for around 10-15 minutes, turn over, and bake again until they are to desired brown color.

Panko-Crusted Dijon Chicken

4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 egg yolks (or 2 eggs - I had yolks from the above whites)
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
all-purpose flour for dusting
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
Japanese Panko bread crumbs, about 2 cups

Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl and add the Dijon mustard. Mix well. Add the flour to a wide, shallow dish and add the Parmesan cheese. Add any other seasonings and salt and pepper as desired. Add Panko crumbs to another shallow dish. Alternate coating the chicken breasts with flour, then the egg mixture, then the crumbs, pressing the crumbs into the chicken. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for 20-30 minutes or until the juices run clear and internal temperature reads 160 degrees F. Add a shaving of Parmesan on top, if desired.