Last weekend we had a dinner party at Laundromat put together by their house-guest Tami, a spunky photographer from Japan my mother’s age. She’s so adorable in large funky glasses with a red frame and her signature leggings. She put together a feast with chirashi sushi (sushi rice with various toppings), sashimi, [...]]]>

Last weekend we had a dinner party at Laundromat put together by their house-guest Tami, a spunky photographer from Japan my mother’s age. She’s so adorable in large funky glasses with a red frame and her signature leggings. She put together a feast with chirashi sushi (sushi rice with various toppings), sashimi, yakisoba (by Kevin), onion and carrot tempura (by Rob), ground seasoned meat for wrapping in lettuce, and various cooked vegetables. The day before there was a gallery showing of Takayuki’s (second photo to the right) works. He was in the States for a few more days and this dinner was in his honor.

They asked me to bring a dish, so I baked some rosemary, thyme, and garlic bread (with a sprinkling of whole wheat), creamed butter and roasted garlic for a spread, and made sun-dried tomato tapenade with shallots, garlic (see a pattern), and chevre. The spreads were both very easy. For the garlic butter, just cream some butter, roast garlic for an hour, and mash them together. The garlic will be soft and should come together with the butter easily. If you can’t refrigerate this immediately, squeeze some lemon juice to keep the garlic. Otherwise, gather the mixture into plastic wrap and freeze for an hour. For the tapenade, I just threw some sun-dried tomatoes, chopped shallots, and 2-3 cloves of garlic into the food processor. I mixed in some chopped black olives, lime juice, a teaspoon of honey, and crumbled some goat cheese to taste. Mix thoroughly and serve.

The bread was kneaded in the bread maker the night before (easy easy) and left to rise overnight in the fridge. I punched it down in the morning/noon, shaped it, and left it out to rise again. (it was cold in the apartment) I left it for couple of hours where it rose again to twice it’s size. I just popped it in the oven around 4pm-5pm, 450 degrees for 10 minutes and 350 degrees until it looked done, about 30-40 minutes.

What took some time was the brownies. Now, I haven’t made brownies in a while. There was a great recipe that I found in some cookbook in Undergrad. I think it was in the Cake Bible. I tried to google it online and found Lisa Yockelson’s recipe. It sounded good! I made some substitutions, but it came out GREAT. It took a while to cook to the consistency I wanted. I think I left it in for an additional 10 minutes. If you like they gooier, than I would take them out at the time she specified. I like my brownies to be a consistency that’s fluffy and in one piece. These babies were received REALLY well. I am a little bad at following recipe’s exactly, so I will detail what I did, however, you probably can’t go wrong following her recipe to a T.

*I didn’t know what to do with a bar of Chili Lindt chocolate I received, but it was great in this treat. It was really subtle and added some depth to the chocolate. Bourbon might have improved things. (Instead of espresso) It was an adult treat.*

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/3 cup cake flour
• 1/4 + a little more of Hersey’s cocoa powder (the only thing I could find in the apt – there was nothing in Associated)
• Eyeballed 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder, although I suspect it was a pinch or so more
• 1/3 bag of bittersweet baker’s chocolate chunks
• 1/2 bar of Lindt Chili Pepper Chocolate (broken up)*
• 2 bars 70% cocoa Lindt Chocolate (broken up)
• 2 sticks of butter left out to soften
• 2 cups of fine sugar (I had fine brown sugar I tried to use, but it was hard and hard to work with. I abandoned that project and used white sugar instead.
• 5 large eggs (wowza, right?)
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• A splash of espresso / heavy coffee

One thing about me is that I am neurotic about certain baking tenets I picked up. Like, I always cream the butter and mix with sugar together until everything is white. I try to keep everything room temperature so that the butter doesn’t seperate. I don’t like to microwave butter, since it won’t get fluffy and it might make the eggs separate. I sift things like 10 times. I always beat egg whites separately until foamy and hard to use them as a leavener. I do all these things even if the recipe doesn’t call for it… For fun I will try to include all my oddities in the directions. (Cause… this is baking with Umi!)

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Sift all the dry ingredients (except for sugar) initially, whisk lightly to mix ingredients and sift 2-3 times again. (Or like 10 times)
3. Mix a tablespoon of this powder into the bittersweet chocolate chunks
4. Cream 2 sticks of butter and slowly 2 cups of sugar, creaming both until the mixture is white and fluffy
5. Microwave bar chocolate (not the chunks meant to go in the batter) with a splash of espresso, mix.
6. Seperate the 5 eggs, beat whites until foamy and peaks stand (2-3 minutes), whisk in yolk, whisk in vanilla extract, and whisk in the butter/chocolate mixture.
7. Sift dry ingredients in the wet mixture, slowly, mixing sparingly, but until everything is blended.
8. Stir in chocolate chunks and fill baking pan, smoothing out the top.
9. Cook until it’s the desired consistency. I kept it in there until 40-45 minutes. Take out and let cook on a rack.

I had a mild flu or a bad sinus cold, because yesterday I was forced to work from home. Unfortunately, Thursdays are crazy for me in the office, so I didn’t get a chance to upload anything from Wednesday night. I literally worked straight from 8am to 4pm, [...]]]> Read Part 1 Here

I had a mild flu or a bad sinus cold, because yesterday I was forced to work from home. Unfortunately, Thursdays are crazy for me in the office, so I didn’t get a chance to upload anything from Wednesday night. I literally worked straight from 8am to 4pm, when I finished email campaign deployments and fell into bed until Ryan came home. We had delicious Mexican from our favorite bodega.

On Wednesday night, we boiled the pasta I made the night before (and froze) and boiled it frozen in the pot, using chopsticks to gently loosen the noodles. The noodles made the water in the pot turn a cloudy white, probably from the generous amounts of flour. I was afraid that we would too easily overcook fresh pasta noodles. However, maybe because it was frozen, but it took a while to soften them. In fact, in the end, we cooked them for good couple of minutes over what we would cook dry pasta. The pasta was still aldente.

On the side, Ryan sauteed olive oil, garlic, and tapenade into a simple sauce, which he covered the cooked noodles with. Ryan mixed soft garlic and pepper goat cheese we had, which added a nice subtle creaminess and depth of flavor. (We didn’t have any hard cheeses that night to grate over it)

The noodles I cut were around 7 millimeters by 2-5 milimeters, since I cut the noodles by hand. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have a rolling pin and I used a long large salt bottle. I got the whole dough as thin as 5-7 millimeters (thicker in the middle) and cut as thing as I could, around 2-3 millimeters each. The pasta ended up expanding quite a bit, as you can see in that picture. The texture was still chewy and springy. The noodles became the size of udon noodles, actually. If at all possible, I would cut them even smaller. (or roll them thinner)

Since the pasta itself had a lot of character, using some garlic, tapenade, and cheese was the perfect solution. I wouldn’t make any caviar (tarako) pasta with these noodles. For that sauce, I would make pasta with extra yolks, so the whole thing is creamy and delicious.

Umi: It has Rosemary, minced garlic, and thyme.
Ryan: Look at you and your fancy shmancy pasta!
Umi: That’s how I roll!

I’ve been reading Ratio these days, which was originally a birthday gift Ryan received from his mother. Reading this book makes you want to just break out the mixer, flour, and eggs. Seriously. He makes it seem so easy. If my oven was working, bread would have [...]]]> Read Part 2 Here

I’ve been reading Ratio these days, which was originally a birthday gift Ryan received from his mother. Reading this book makes you want to just break out the mixer, flour, and eggs. Seriously. He makes it seem so easy. If my oven was working, bread would have been my first stop. However, I decided to make some pasta. This type of cooking works for me, because I always like to walk to unbeaten path. I always wander away from the recipe, like with that Potato and Artichoke Ragout.

• 1.5 cups of all purpose flour
• 3 medium eggs + an additional yolk (My Guesstimate for the egg ratio – plus, a yolk will result in a creamier pasta), the book recommends 3 large eggs for 1.5 cups of flour
• A sprig of rosemary
• 2-3 sprigs of thyme
• 2 cloves of finely mined garlic

Mix the flour, garlic, and herbs in. As the author recommends, open a crater in the middle of the flour mixture. Break the eggs into the crater and mixture the eggs with your fingers. Slowly incorporate the surrounding flour as you stir with your fingers. It will stick, but continue to incorporate the rest of the flour. (I had to fold it into the mixture towards the end so it had all the flour) I floured the surface of a wooden cutting board and kneaded the dough on that. Push the dough with the heel of your palm or knuckles and fold. Fold and knead. Fold and knead. The mixture will be a little tough, but the color will change and everything will come together in a beautiful golden color (beause of the yolk). I did this for close to 10 minutes.

I refridgerated the dough in plastic wrap for a couple of hours. Later that night, I cut the dough into 4 pieces and rolled out and cut the segments seperately. I rolled out the dough as thin as possible. It was pretty tough. Then I cut thin fettucine-like slices. (the picture below on the cutting board makes it look like french fries, haha) My mother had a pasta roller, but she didn’t know where it went. Hrm. I froze the four segments in two seperate baggies for tonight.