Catholic Kitchen

Short Ribs Braised in Red Wine and Port

September 12, 2011

There’s nothing more Catholic than sitting down together with friends and family and lingering over a well prepared meal. Yes, here is yet another post from my now defunct food blog, which I am slowly transferring over here. It’s basically short ribs bourguignon. If you brown the ribs under the broiler, then add some stock, wine and port to braise for a few hours, this is what you’ll end up with.

These are awesome.

I was worried at first, but… Oh …

Uh…oh….

Oh my.

I’m merely conveying that I was blown away.

I had never cooked short ribs, and I was not a believer.

I lived in ignorance, and I’m not going back.

Behold the base of the braising liquid.

It starts so innocently.

I get this block of frozen veal glace at Whole Foods. It’s very good stuff and saves you from making your own.

I’ve made my own a few times, and buying a frozen block for $15 is actually cheaper where I live. It helps sauces taste worlds better. And if your living large with nine pounds of short ribs, then you may as well live large with some good stock in your braising liquid.

Red wine and port, this is looking good.

Still I was leary.

Short ribs always looked too fatty. And they cost as much as a tenderloin roast. So, I always went with the tenderloin. 20 ~ 30 minutes to sheer ecstatic eating pleasure? Hello?

Flush with skepticism I forged ahead, got the liquid going, submerged the freshly browned short ribs and eventually braised away for hours and hours.

I did get a lot of work done in the meantime.

This didn’t help the situation.

I was skeptical, fatigued, jaded. It looks so miserable.

It all cooled down and got refrigerated. It waited two whole days while all of life went on around us. It became a time capsule in my refrigerator, waiting until I was ready for it. The world slept.

And I almost completely forgot about it.

Then I saw this.

Still, it was defatted, placed in a shallow baking dish and surrounded with the magnificent braising liquid which, at the time was still all gellied up.

Underneath, it was a glace almost, an aspic even, a gelee. And it was so good.

And as it all warmed in the oven, and the aromas filled the air, my heart underwent a makeover which was so humbling. I realized this was just a new part of life that I had never had the pleasure of experiencing before. How could I have been so closed to the fullness life.

My gaurdedness was accompanied with my usual strange thing for wilted baby spinach, here in cream, etc. It’s a side trail through the woods, but a nice one.

With some basmati rice, these amazing short ribs with the delicious beef falling off the bone, the spinach thing.

It’s so simple.

I want it again.

And again and again.

And after all of the photos I tried to get, I eventually no longer cared when I went back for seconds. Just pile that beef and unctuous sauce right on.

I hope you are able to make this yourself some day if you haven’t already. I’ll be off growing in humility.

Many thanks to Dorie Greenspan of French Friday’s with Dorie for her cookbook and for everyone in that group which promotes these attempts. I’m grateful.

Update: These are actually meant to be served with a gremolata of orange zest, parsley, er, and a few other things. I’ll be forced to make them again and give that a try.! I’d hate to miss out on all the deliciousness to be had.

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Coconut Rolls 101: Trials and Errors

August 22, 2011

Okay, so here’s the lowdown on my latest excursion into Coconut Rolls.

First, I tried making a brioche and substituting virgin coconut oil for butter. As an idea, it has it’s bright moments but it’s overkill.

It would probably make a great crust, to wrap something up in. Like, a pork braised in coconut milk/lemon grass thing, wrapped in brioche made from virgin coconut oil.

Maybe not. If I ever do that, I’ll be sure to let you know.
After that adventure, the obvious occurred to me – to just use a cinnamon roll recipe, and use coconut mixed with coconut milk instead of the cinnamon filling.

That didn’t quite work out because I didn’t use enough coconut, or coconut milk. But if you just looked at them as dinner rolls with a slight hint of coconut in them, they were actually very good. Unsuspecting passersby loved them as such.
Third, I decided just to try the recipe over at African Recipe Secrets. It’s pretty amazing, to say the least, if you’re a coconut lover.

However, it wasn’t the light and simple rolls I had over at Dong Phuong, which I love to eat down at Bayou Gulch.

It was back to the drawing board. Some other day, some other time the secrets would be revealed…
Yesterday I decided to try the recipe for Rarotongan Coconut Rolls over at Pease Pudding (it comes up in a google search for Coconut Rolls; it also listed over at Tropical Traditions, but for the life of me I cannot find the recipe there at the moment.)

I had to modify the recipe a bit, but the results were closer than I’ve ever been before. So, we’re getting there! I’m actually wondering if I just ask the bakers over at Dong Phuong, they would tell me how to go about it.

Anyway. Shall we get on with this? This is taking forever.

I used a stand mixer because it makes my life easier and I don’t mind the one minute it takes to clean the thing afterwards.

You mix unbleached all-purpose flour, (bleached flour is horrible for us,) with margarine in the recipe, but I used coconut oil instead since margarine is so un-natural, and coconut oil can be very good for us. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m a coconut oil fan.

So you mix the flour and the coconut oil. And the coconut.

The recipe called for 1/4 cup of water, in which the yeast was mixed, and that was about it. I added about a cup of coconut milk to get a proper consistency. And a proper consistency only consisted of having a dough that did not consist of dry flour particles, and having a dough that moved around in the mixer.

It stayed on the stand mixer about 10 minutes with the dough hook, on low, with the bowl scraped down a few times. The mixer wants to dance off the counter at times, but not very much. For this mixer, you just set it on “2″, according to the manual for bread doughs.

After that process, you roll the dough out into a log, and cut it into twelve pieces (one for each Apostle of Christ.) First cut the log into halves, then halve the halves into quarters…

…and then cut each quarter into thirds. Given such precision methods, mine are still completely uneven. But you know what? It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that my rolling board is being pushed off the countertop by the accumulated snacks behind it. Sigh.

At this point, cinnamon roll recipes would have rolled the dough flat and spread it with a mixture of cinnamon, sugar, butter, cayenne pepper, hazelnuts, turmeric… Hmmm.

Speaking of which, I was making something the other day and sprinkled some paprika into the dish and, unfortunately, the paprika had become infested with a huge, enormous and completely gross colony of mealy bugs. What is it with exotic spices and mealy bugs? Or anything and mealy bugs. I bought some walnuts once at a middle eastern store and they turned out to be infested with mealy moths which took forever to get out of the pantry. They’re probably still there. The dish was a wreck.

So. Now, where were we again?

Instead of rolling the dough flat, spreading a filling over it and then rolling it up, you simply roll these pieces into little logs and then roll them up individually.

It was not as tedious as it sounds. But it was still a bit tedious. I’d rather come up with some type of filling and then roll it up and cut it. Anything to make my life a bit easier I tell you. If you don’t simplify the process somewhere, next thing you know you’ll be raising your own coconuts.

One they’re in the pans you let the rise until doubled in size, which took about 1.5 – 2 hours. Or so. My pans don’t match because I’m a man, and men don’t worry about those kinds of things. The pans are coated with coconut oil and flour.

While those rise you make the glaze. Mix the sugar and cornstarch… The recipe called for corn flour which I don’t have.

Mix in some coconut milk to make a smooth paste…

Add the rest of the coconut milk and the coconut, then cook over low to medium low to high heat until the sauce thickens.

Can you see the glass topped electric stove we have here? It’s not always easy to gauge temperatures on it, and it’s very easy to burn or scorch things if you don’t take care. If I were in college and/or only boiling up hot dogs I’d probably love it. As it is, I dream of one day using gas again. Or at least a better electric stove.

The dough rises. I didn’t think it had risen enough, and was concerned that maybe I should have used an 8″ pan. But I had used a bit of baking powder also….

Cover the rolls completely with this thick, luscious, creamy glaze…

And bake until done. Despite thinking they hadn’t risen enough, they rose beautifully.

My oven was set at 375; I think 350 might be better. But 400 might work best.

Immediately after taking them out, I poured some more of the glaze over them, as you see pictured here.

Had I not done so, or had I poured on less of the glaze after they came out of the oven, I think they might have been almost exactly like the wondrous rolls over at Dong Phuong (If I link there enough, maybe they’ll notice me and take pity on me, and tell me how to make their delicious coconut rolls.)

Except that I think Dong Phuong puts a small coconut glaze filling inside and then rolls them up like cinnamon rolls. Which is what I am going to do next time.

All of that being said, these are wonderful. Try them as soon as you can! If you like coconut that is. If you don’t like coconut, then please forgive this entire, lengthy, coco-nutty post. And, I hate to say this, almost, but they’re really almost as good as Dong Phuong‘s.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

The Rolls
4 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1 cup of sweetened, bagged coconut from your local bakery section
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 packet instant yeast
1/4 cup of H2O
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt

The Creamy Coconut Glaze

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups coconut milk
1/2 cup coconut (see above) tightly packed
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp. pure vanilla

The Beta

Mix the yeast and sugar with 1/4 cup warm water. Let the yeast action begin for a few minutes. If nothing’s happening your water is probably not warm enough, or the container cooled it down. 30 seconds in the microwave works for me in such instances.

Put the flour, coconut oil and coconut into the mixing bowl and combine with the paddle attachment. Add in the baking powder at any point in this process.

Add the yeast, sugar and water to the flour and combine. Then work in the cup (about a cup; I used two cans total in the entire recipe between this and the 2 cups in the glaze) of coconut milk and knead for 8 minutes.

If the mix is too sticky add some more flour. It’s a bread dough.

Shape the dough into a log, and divide the log into 12 pieces. Then, roll each piece into a small log about 1/2 inch or so thick, and coil each one into a roll shape and place onto a 9″ round cake pan prepared with coconut oil and flour. Put six (6) to a pan.

Cover with a cloth and let rest in a warm place till doubled in size.

Meanwhile make the coconut glaze.

Put the sugar and cornstarch in a small skillet and whisk together.

Whisk in the dry coconut. Dry coconut does not whisk well, but surely you’re already aware of this.

Add in the two cups of coconut milk.

Place pan over a medium low heat and cook for a few minutes until the liquid thickens.

Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and reserve.

Later, once the rolls have doubled in size, pour over half the coconut glaze and place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove the rolls from the oven when done, pour the rest of the glaze over the rolls, and serve warm.

If you’re a coconut lover, you’ll absolutely think you’ve died and gone to heaven. Or at least wish that these will be around in heaven. Or at least want to take this recipe and make it to your own tastes.

Have a good one, S’amusez-vous!

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Breakfast at Bayou Gulch

August 7, 2011

I mentioned before, that there’s a Priest in the diocese who says all I think about is food. I don’t know why that gets under my skin, but I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve had all of two brief conversations with him in the last ten years.

So that would mean, obviously, that’s one of the things the presbyterate talk about when they think of me.

Oh well. God bless them.

I tend towards the simple for 99% of my meals, and think a lot more often about the people who are going hungry in the world; and those who struggle with grocery bills. In fact, I often live on toast and jam.

Lately I’ve been baking lots of whole grain, vegetable pizzas since they’re fairly quick, high in fiber and nutrients, and low in saturated animal fats. They’re also inexpensive.

But I confess, when I find something I love, I can be passionate about it.

Take these coconut rolls. But don’t take mine! I love them, and I don’t care who knows it! If anyone should ever want to pick some up for me, please feel free.

Look at the innocent looking, cinammon-roll type, er… roll. You can see hints of coconut where the cinnamon usually is.

You can find them over at Dong Phuong Bakery

It’s in the New Orleans East neighborhood out towards the Rigolets.

They have lots of great stuff, and claim to have the best french bread in New Orleans. Which brings up a good point: The Vietnamese were colonized by France and picked up some awesome pastry skills. And one certainly has to admire their industry.

I’ve taken to going out of my way every now and again to drop by. A woman in front of me was buying up almost everything in sight, and I almost fainted until I saw more coconut rolls nearby.

Here they are innocently packaged in their home, filled with delectableness and coconut milk.

I tried recreating them once, but am still researching the process. It’s definitely a cinnamon roll dough. But it’s not a thick coconut mixture inside (although that was delicious). I think it’s just a simple mixture of coconut and coconut milk, and then a slightly sweetened coconut milk glaze.

It’s a lot easier just to drop by the bakery.

As if all I think about is food… It’s just that these are so… so… wonderful. It’s all I can do not to think about them.

Kinda sorta.

They certainly made the morning perfect and bright, right after a beautiful Mass.

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Warm Weather Pot au Feu

August 2, 2011

Editor’s Note: This is yet another post in an ongoing series of posts from a food blog I had started earlier in the year. My idea was to eventually work up a Catholic Kitchen site.

There’s a Priest in the diocese who complains that all I think about is food. Can you even imagine? Does he even realize how much time it takes to learn Photoshop? Yet, it is an interest and as we’re called to ‘use the internet for good’, sometimes all one can do is share the journey of life…

If Catholic food blogs aren’t your thing, have no fear. I’m almost out of posts from that blog. But this warm weather soup is truly amazing; not hot, very light, filled with nourishment, and utterly delicious.

Er… it’s slightly edited from it’s original form.

I was pleasantly surprised with this.

Here it is in all its glory, topped with a poached egg.

With the temperatures breaking heat records down this way and no sign of rain in sight, I was a little leary about making something associated with warming up from the chill and cold. ~~So I turned the A/C down to 65 and took a long nap beforehand.~~

It cooled down nicely and was nourishing and satisfying while still being a light meal.

And it makes great leftovers.

My white vinegar stash had disappeared, and so I used some red balsamic vinegar in the poaching liquid for the egg. Wonderful flavor, and it almost looks like an oyster in its shell. (Not that an oyster in its shell would be the least bit appetizing in this dish, but… you know.)

I considered this a viable option since I’ve been wanting to make eggs meurette, where you poach eggs in red wine. But that would have been a bit much for this.

It’s so simple. Some aromatics…

A medley of vegetables… simmered in the broth, topped with spinach leaves which are not shown here…

And I even made the basil coulis to top it all off. One of my friends came over later and asked if I had cooked bar-b-qued chicken. My face was a puzzlement.

Later I realized the basil crushed in the pestle had given off a wonderfully aromatic aroma (an aromatic aroma… I’ll have to remember that one. Not!) It gave off… it filled the house with a fresh and invigorating scent. Which was mistaken by some for bar-b-qued chicken. (Must have been the chicken broth?)

The basil coulis turned the broth green, and when the yolk broke open it was a very pretty yellow against the fresh herbal notes in the broth.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m completely going to make this again and again, and again and again. It’s that good.

Bon apetit!

P.S. – This post was written as a French Friday’s with Dorie post. Be sure to check out that site sometime, it’s wonderful.

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Vanilla Eclairs

July 26, 2011

Editor’s Note: This is yet another post from a food blog I had started, and which went by the wayside when I started my new assignment. It’s about some vanilla eclairs I had made, using Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table”. They are awesome, and everyone should make them at least once in their life, if not many, many, many times more. S’amusez-vous!

Delicious Eclairs

My food blog has turned into a “French Fridays with Dorie” blog, which is hardly a bad thing. Some priorities changed, some new projects arose, and I’ve been preoccupied with some other websites and various issues…

And that distraction is very evident in my eclairs here. The taste is light as air, subtle and fresh as could be, and I love the lemon in the glaze.

But the glazing work is a bit random and je ne sais quois. They are looking , well, not as wonderful as they might.

Pate a choux is an interesting dough. I’ve worked with it several times before so I could learn about it, and even made a Gateau St. Honore which came out amazingly wonderful and beautiful. So how were eclairs to propose a problem for me in all my splendid magnificence?

I was definitely non confident in piping out these eclairs.

Gaah!

The first batch took a disastrous turn for the worse by cooking too early on the outside and being raw on the inside. I’m still secretly struggling with it.

On the bright side, the ducks at the park loved them.

A flock of seagulls terrorized me trying to get in on the flattened eclair scene. Their aggression is completely amazing. I guess they don’t get pate a choux everyday.

Poor things. Someone should start a conservancy for them.

Be that as it may, I’m tempted to take a bag of bread along with my camera just to watch their in flight feeding antics. (Never flick a piece of flattened eclair inadvertently straight up over your head when a flock of seagulls is hovering about squawking madly. It isn’t pretty.)

Back to the drawing board.

These came out better. Still… I could use some practice with this dough. (And, I could stand to unpack all of my belongings and find my other cooling rack.)

I’ll have to make them a few more times and get the technique down. I read through La Bonne Cuisine de Madame Ste. Ange after my deflated eclair catastrophe, and used a bit of her advice as well. I ended up baking them at a steady 375, for a longer period of time (until they were done).

These are really very lovely desserts, despite my incredible and inexplicable lack of focus in glazing them. That eclair on the bottom right is ~~almost~~ glazed on its side.

But they are hardly complex to put together. I’m looking forward to making a few more batches after Easter and getting the hang of things.

Also I no longer have a southern and western light in the kitchen, but a much softer, and bluer, northern light.

That’s taking a bit of getting used to.

Cheers, all.

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An Orange and Almond Tart

July 7, 2011

Editors note: Earlier this year I had started an experimental food blog, before being transferred to my new assignment. I loved it and had a blast. At any rate, here is a post from my old, now defunct (or at least severely languishing,) food blog site. As the title implies, it’s an orange and almond tart. Bon apetit!

This is great. And as usual working through the French Friday’s with Dorie project, I learned a few new things.

The filling is an easy and delicious almond cream. I want to put it in everything.

Wine?! Augh! It’s true that first I made the wrong recipe this week. Here we’re preparing the braising liquid ready for the shortribs project for next week. (There is nothing wrong with having these around the house a week early!)

Blood! Thankfully I had some delicious blood oranges around the house. You section these and let them dry out on paper towels. I love the name ‘blood orange’. It could almost be the name of a novel. It’s probably already the name of a color. I’m going to have to start using it.

Dryness. The tart dough was like a puffy, sandy bag of … flour and butter. The egg yolk was instantaneously absorbed into the extremely dry flour, which just screamed for more, more! More!

I threw it into the refrigerator. Later I added some dribbles of cold water to help bring it together into a semblance of an actual dough, and tasted it thankfully, because it needed some salt. It’s a pretty standard sweet tart shell.

I had zero patience putting this dough into the tart pan. Failure was not an option! And neither was taking too much time! The dough got the picture, behaved very well, blind baked beautifully, and I was thankful the directions called for baking it the amount of time which it genuinely needed to bake. I almost always leave mine in longer, but here I didn’t have to.

Good to go! And so suddenly.

Voila!

Voici?

Mine looks absolutely nothing like the model tart provided by Dorie Greenspan, but thankfully it is incredibly delicious. And the top of mine has a nice sort of, blood orange hue to it.

I dusted it with powdered sugar, then ran it under the broiler to glaze the sugar, then decided not to do that and dusted it again. The by product of rushing a new tart. But the taste… is outta this world! It’s going to be great after those short ribs a little later.

Bon apetit!

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Un Gâteau de Crêpes

July 5, 2011

A few months ago I made a crêpes cake.

Basically you make crêpes. Then layer them with whatever you want. Here we have pastry creme and a butter rum sauce, topped with a chocolate ganache and toasted almonds. And of course, more pastry creme.

It was awesome.

And it’s not expensive in the least. Although to be fair, it is supposed to be at least twice as high. It’s just that I had used up half of the crepe batter the night before at a dinner gathering.

That was back when I was photo-journaling about food, and thinking about starting a website about Catholic kitchens.

But then life changed, I got a new assignment with new responsibilities et voila, here I am.

I’m still thinking about that website. More on that later, of course… work beckons.

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Shrimp Creole

February 1, 2011

Sometimes it’s all about the tomatoes.

Tomatoes and onions… And of course you have to peel a devein a few pounds of shrimp.

I really question this whole process of blanching, seeding and dicing tomatoes sometimes, and really want to use a can of Cento or something. Nonetheless! Blanch the tomotoes…

The skins peel right off…

Then dice them. After peeling the shrimp and peeling seeding and dicing the tomatoes, the hard work here is done.

Into a large dutch oven it all goes…

A few more ingredients at the standby: a bay leaf, some paprika, cayenne, a bit of tomato paste will do the trick. A pinch of sugar never hurts when it’s not the height of tomato season.

See, this all cooks down, the tomatoes dissolve and some carmelization starts to happen. (Did someone say Carmel?)

After it cooks down, which does not take an eternity, the tomato paste goes in with the peppers. The pepper and the paprika that is. Isn’t paprika a pepper?

Then some shrimp stock, here we’re using three cups.

After that cooks down, not quite a half hour, the shrimp go in. They release enough liquid that it’s quite alright to let the mixture get toward the thick side before adding them in.