Authentic Cooking Experiments: Donuts, Churros & Zeppoles

The other day while at the gym on the elliptical I watched a whole show devoted to the art of making donuts.  As the clip of warm donuts at Krispy Kreme went through the sugar glaze fountain I suddenly had a craving for these airy delights.  So instead of taking the easy route and heading to the neared store, I decided to take a go at making it at home.  To further complicate this task, I decided since most ingredients overlapped, why not do churros and zeppoles along with it. Big mistake, but more on that later. As with most food, a quick search on goggle produced an overwhelming number of results.  However on something like this, I  decided to stick to the ones by chefs which I have come to trust.  For the donuts I went with Alton Brown's Yeast donut recipe, the churros were from Rick Bayless and the Zeppoles from Batali. All three recipes are listed below for your convenience. The zeppoles required the most work ahead of time as the dough needed to be refridgated for at least 8 hours, so this was definitely not a recipes to make spur of the moment.  However once the dough is cooled, the actual cutting and frying process is a breeze. On the other hand the churro recipe took all of 5 minutes hands on time with another 10-15mins required for the cooling of the dough.  When ready to cook, I stuffed it into a cookie press and squeezed it directly into the hot oil.The most time consuming of the three was hands down the donuts.  I now understand why the old dunkin donut slogan showed a man up at 4am saying "It's time to make the donuts".  Not only does the dough needed to rest twice, but once cut it was extremely soft and delicate to work with. The actual cooking process was rather easy as I headed my deep fryer to 375 and slowly dropped them in. After about 2-3 minutes on each side the resulting donut poofed up and turned a beautiful golden color, much resembling those of Dunkin and Krispy Kreme. After they were dipped in the glazed frosting it was finally time to sample these treats.

 

The verdict?  The glazed donuts were pretty good and tasted as they looked, light and fluffy.  The churro was my second favorite as they were slightly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.  It was finished off with a sugar cinnamon rub before being served with hot chocolate dipping sauce.  My least favorite was the zeppoles which due to the instant polenta gave it a griddy texture. Though not extremely horrible I found it unpleasant in a dessert dish.  However the texture can be mitigated slightly when served with a butterscotch sauce and hints of cranberry jam. 

All in all another interesting and great learning experiment, however to tackle all three in one shot was definitely more than a little aggressive and took way longer than expected! In the end we ended up with enough fried dough desserts to last a while. 

 

Churros: http://www.oprah.com/food/Churros

Zeppoles: http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Mario-Batali-Fried-Zeppoles

Donuts: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/yeast-doughnuts-recipe/index.html

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Authentic Cooking Experiment: Unusual Ice Creams Flavors - Part I

Ice cream is one of my favorite desserts, whether served on it's own or as an compliment its rich and creamy nature provides the perfect finish to most meals. However I have been extremely disappointed with the quality found even in the most premium brands which in my opinion still contains too much overrun. Now to be fair the air is needed to produce its fluffy texture, however too much results in a scoop that melts quicker than you can enjoy it. Another issue with the store brought stuff is it's failure to truly branch out of the box with flavors, at least that is the case in the Philly market. Most are just a play on the typical chocolate and vanilla by adding nuts, and various assortments of candy. Put those up against the unique flavors found in ice cream parlors around the world and they just fail in comparison. Hence this experiment looks to replicate some of the more interesting ice creams flavors by putting four up to the taste test... 1.) Balsamic Strawberry, 2.) Black Sesame, 3.) Coconut Jasmine & 4.) Dark Caramel

Luckily the technique for all ice cream are similar, requiring the same basic ingredients: milk, egg yoke, heavy cream & sugar. The egg yokes are first mixed together with the sugar until pale yellow. The liquid proportion of each can be varied based on texture, taste preference and whether the desired final result is more ice cream or gelato like. It is then simmer until 170 degrees before slowly incorporating into the yoke mixture, so it doesn't curdle. This entire custard mixture is then simmer again to achieve a consistency thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. The final step is simply the incorporation of the flavor.

In the case of the Balsamic Strawberry, the strawberries were washed, hulled and covered in sugar and balsamic vinegar before roasting in the oven for 30 minutes at 350. This produced a soft jelly like texture that was then blended into a semi liquid consistency before blended with the custard.

The coconut jasmine was made in a similar fashion with the exception of adding coconut milk to the above liquid mixture at the beginning of the process. In order to achieve the aroma of the jasmine, jasmine tea was then seeped into the hot mixture for 20mins before straining and mixing into the custard.


The dark caramel first required a boiling of sugar and water to produce the flavorful caramel essential to the ice cream. Once the caramel has obtained a dark, almost burn color it is poured into the milk/cream mixture to simmer and dissolve before added to the egg.

The black sesame, otherwise known as Goma in Japan was perhaps the easiest of the four to assemble. The sesame paste was simply blended with sugar before incorporated into the liquid mixture.

Once the custard finished mixing in the ice cream maker, the result produced a creamy consistency resembling that of soft serve, as can be seen from the photos.  I then placed them in bowls topped with cling wrap and freeze for a minimum of 3 hours. The result is a smooth, creamy ice cream loaded with flavors.  As far as favorites well everyone in my household seems to have their own, but personally I liked the coconut jasmine the best!

FINAL TIPS:
- Strain the cooked custard through a fine strainer before chilling to eliminate any cooked eggs that might be present.  This will further ensure a smooth consistency.
- Milk and Cream can be substituted one for one depending on if you are looking to make ice cream or gelato.
- Always chill the custard for at least 6 hours before pouring into the ice cream maker to reduce the churning time.

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Authentic Cooking Experiment: Smoked Pork

After reading Alton Brown's episode in season 7 where he built a smoker from two terra cotta pots I was inspired and curious to try it out. It seemed not only the coolest thing but also a very useful culinary appliance to have around the kitchen. So despite the fact that it's January and the dead middle of winter I decided to commit my weekend for this project. Luckily my husband was extremely supportive and on board with my crazy idea. Finding the parts was actually relatively easy:

- 2 terra cotta pots (one 14" deep, one shallow and round)
- one hot plate
- one pie pan
- wood chips
- grill grate (make sure it fits snuggly in the pot)
- 3 bricks
- stem style thermometer

The pots, brick and wood chip I found at home depot. As for the other parts they are easily found in your local hardware or kitchen appliance stores. The only tricky part of the assembly was the hot plate which wasn't clearly addressed in the book. Due to the safety mechanism of the hot plate it will shut off automatically when over heated. Thus it is impossible to simply place the whole to plate in the pot, not to mention the temperature knob would be unreachable. Hence the hot plate must be unassembled first so that the top and bottom covers are removed. Then simply place the plate inside the pot sticking the cords through the hole on the bottom.


Next place the wood chips in the pie pan on top of the plate, and top off with the grill grate. Finally place the whole pot on three bricks formed into a triangle so the air can flow through from the bottom.


To test this smoker we decided to make pull pork, which was first brined for 12 hrs in a molasses, salt mixture. Next a spice rub is placed on the meat before placing it into the smoker for 3 hrs at a temperature of 210 degrees.


This is not meant to fully cook the meat but just provide enough of a smoky flavor that is authentic to real BBQ. To finish off the pork, it is placed in a 300 degrees oven for 2 hrs or until tender with an internal temp of 180. The finished dish was moist and tender and broke apart easily when pulled. We topped it with some homemade BBQ sauce and it was definitely good eating!


Ok now for the critical part, which as far as I'm concern is present in all dishes... For this dish the minor flaw laid in the smoker, which was a little hard to keep at the consistent temperature of 210. In the future I think the issue could be fixed with a PID controller, but that is another blog all together as this weekend of culinary adventures comes to a conclusion.

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Authentic Cooking Experiment: Pho

One of mine favorite dish of all time is Vietnamese beef noodle soup, otherwise known as Pho. Even though there are a number of good restaurants in Philly to get a nice steamy bowl anytime you want, there's nothing more satisfying than to be able to make it yourself. The ingredients are pretty simple and straight forward, however I was surprised to see that there really wasn't many consistent recipes on the web. I think the main reason being most places are smaller mom and pop restaurants that have their own proprietary version. Hence after browsing through a few online recipes I decided to combine 3 that sounded the most promising.

Ingredients:
3lbs knuckle bones
3lbs marrow bones
3 lbs brisket
2 small onion charred
1 piece of 4" ginger charred
1 bulb of garlic charred
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 oz rock sugar (yellow)
- Spice pouch
- 1/2 tbs cumin
- 1/2 tbs coriander
- 1/2 tbs fennel
- 1 tbs black peppercorn
- 2 stick Carissa
- 8 cloves
- 5 star anise

First things first, the 6lbs of bones needs to be parboiled vigorously for 10mins so the scums can rise to the top. Next dump the dirty water, scrub the bones and pot before putting it back into with a new pot of water to boil. As stated in the previous blog, this process will provided a clear broth at the end. When the water is again boiling, put in the brisket to simmer in the broth for an hour before removing. In the mean time, char the onion, ginger and garlic on the stove for about 10mins or until the outer skin is blackened. This will make them more fragrant and sweeter in the soup. Then remove the skin and chop into coarse pieces.


As for the spice, they also need to be heated in a pan over light heat until fragrant and then grind up and put into a spice pouch. By grinding up your own spice when you need it, the aroma is stronger and more flavorful for the dish. Place both the spice pouch and the charred vegetables in the broth once it is boiling along with the fish sauce.


Turn the heat down to a bare simmer and let the soup cook for at least 4 hours or until it has reduced by almost half. At this point the soup is covered by a layer of fat floating on top. The easiest way of removing this is to actually place the whole pot in the fridge, let it freeze and use the broth the next day. Otherwise you can just skim off the top, which can be a pretty tedious task.


The assembly of the soup is by far the simplest part. Just ladle some broth into a pot and bring it to a boiling. In the mean time, boil some water to cook the clear noodles, which really just required a quick dip in the boiling water. Place the noodles in a bowl and ladle the hot soup on top. Top off with thin slices of the brisket that was cooked and chilled from the broth. Dress the bowl with scallion, cilantro, hot pepper and salt to taste. The result is a nice hot bowl of pho that was pretty darn close to restaurant quality. However as with all recipes tested for the first time, a few tweets was needed for perfection. First I found the spices to be a little overwhelming and would cut it in half. Next, both the flavors of the fish sauce and sugar could be a little more pronounce and should be increased by 50%. Despite these two minor issues, the noodle was still good and definitely worth the time and effort!

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