Lemon Curd + Black Pepper Roast Chicken (TTH)

Believe it or not, this my first ever experience roasting a chicken.  I know, weird, right?  But that kind of summarizes my whole kitchen story.

FOR THE BRINE

• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 2 teaspoons Szechuan peppercorns (optional)
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds [I would argue that coriander seeds and Szechuan peppercorns are similarly difficult to get.  Neither are all that obscure though you'll have to hit up both an Asian and Indian market unless of course it makes sense to hit up Christina's Spices and Specialty Foods.]
• 8 cups water
• Scant 1 cup Kosher salt
• 1 fresh red Thai chile, slice, or 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes [former]
• One 4- to 5-pound free-range chicken

Toast spice except for chiles.  Except, you know, I didn't notice.

Add 2 cups of water and salt.  Stir until salt is completely dissolved.

Remove from heat.  Add 6 cups of water and chile.  Let cool to room temperature.

Blais thinks you have to rinse the chicken for some reason, but ATK (which I usually hold as gospel) says this is unnecessary.  I swish some water around in the cavity and rinse that part.

Technically, you're supposed to brine the bird in a tall, narrow plastic container just big enough to fit the bird.  It was hard for me to settle on something without buying something new so I went with my enameled cast-iron dutch oven.  It's been showing battle scars lately, but I'm sure it's still very non-reactive.

Brine for at least 2 or 3 hours or preferably overnight.

FOR THE LEMON CURD

• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• Grated zest and juice of 2 leomns
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried [fresh]
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage or 1/2 teaspoon dried [Now if there was a dried herb that really did look like pot, it's gotta be this one]
• 1 tablespoon water

Or, hey, you could just be lame and use 1/2 cup store-bought lemon curd  mixed with two tablespoons of water, but don't expect me to respect you at the end of the day on this one.
Every time I make lemon curd, it tastes like a revelation.   I think I've had store-bought stuff before and it was not the same thing.

Lemon curd mise.

In a medium saucepan, whisk everything except the butter to combine.  Stir over low heat constantly until mixture is very thick and hot.  I stopped when it started looking like lemon curd since I've made lemon curd a few time over for MMB's Arnold Palmer Cake.

Remove from heat and whisk the butter in a little at a time until smooth.  Press mixture through fine-mesh strainer to remove the zest and inevitable lemon seeds.

Coarsely crush peppercorns and coriander seeds with a mortar and pestle or on a cutting board with the bottom a small pan.  Though good luck with that second option.

Not that I once didn't have proper equipment before and still do not in all cases.

Mix this all up with the rosemary and sage.

Add 3/4's of the mixture to the lemon curd, along with the water, and stir to combine.

The perhaps weirdest thing about roasting a chicken for the first time is the whole loosening its skin so just can jab stuff under it, like a compound butter, herb paste, or in this case lemon curd.  It's hard not to think, "Well wouldn't it be weird if someone was doing this to me?"  Or am I psycho for thinking stuff like that?
Anyway, 1/2 the curd goes under there and then you paint the rest of the thing with lemon curd and sprinkle it with the remaining spice/herb mixture.

Pour 1 cup of water into baking pan with rack and chicken set on it.  Tie the chicken's legs together, and I guess you were suppose to tuck the wings in under the bird (Blais leaves out the darndest details about how to cook something).  Roast at 450 for 30 minutes.  Then reduce heat to 325 and continue roasting until the chicken is golden brown and juices run clear when thigh is pierced, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours.

I couldn't stop myself from picking at this.  I almost want to have one of these in my fridge constantly even though that'd probably be a bit dangerous.  Maybe this should be a biweekly thing.
Happy I didn't fuck up my first roast chicken.  Far from it.

Apple Cake (MMB)

Similarly to the MMB cookies, Christina Tosi's cakes follow a basic formula and I'm stealing from the Milk Bar Project on this one: "are all about texture contrasts. Moist cakes, something gooey, and the dry crunch of the crumb - topped off with an indulgent frosting that adds a final layer of surprise."
There'll be no blog entry about my sister's cake since she's asking me to make my third Arnold Palmer Cake to serve at her bridal shower, but Joe A. presented me with making either the Chocolate Malt Layer Cake or the Apple Cake. Yes, I've been drooling about the former ever since I saw in Bon Appetit magazine months before the cookbook came out (the original East Village location was 3 blocks from where I worked as well).
However I've been spending a bit too much money trying to adequately equip myself for restaurant work (knife guards and decent paring knives though nothing awesome looking like the things L'Espalier line cooks carry around) so I didn't think I show blow some money on a blow torch. They aren't that expensive, but I'm actually broke now. Soon, soon...
So here goes for the Apple Cake:

Liquid Cheesecake
I've always been curious about the Liquid Cheesecake since reading through the MMB cookbook last fall. Is it really liquid? I asked myself even though if my memory of the book was close enough I would have known that it was an under-baked cheesecake that was just more spreadable that a normal cheesecake.

• 225 g cream cheese (8 ounces)
• 150 g sugar (3/4 cup)
• 6 g cornstarch (1 tablespoon)
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 25 g milk (2 tablespoons)
• 1 egg

Mise en place


A slurry of cornstarch, salt, and egg.


Sugar paddled into the cream cheese.


The slurry is paddled in and spread into a small baking pan lined with saran wrap.


Baked for 15 minutes at 300 degrees F.

Pie Crumb

• 240 g flour (1 1/2 cups)
• 18 g sugar (2 tablespoons)
• 3 g kosher salt (3/4 teaspoon)
• 115 g butter, melted (8 tablespoons [1 stick])
• 20 g water (1 1/2 tablespoons)

Mise en place.


Combine dry ingredients and wet in a stand mixer until they form clusters. Spread clusters out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat, a silicone baking pad.
I have one by Norpro and not an actual Silpat. Since it doesn't overfills even a normal baking sheet I don't use it often.


Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Apple Pie Filling

• 1 lemon
• 3oo g Granny Smith apples (2 medium)
• 14 g butter (1 tablespoon)
• 150 g light brown sugar (1/4 cup tightly packed)
• 1 g ground cinnamon (1/2 teaspoon)
• 1 g kosher salt (1/4 teaspoon)

Apples cut according to Tosi's directions. I threw them in a medium bowl filled halfway with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.


All the ingredients dumped in a pan.


Simmered until tender. Tosi says to "Be careful not to cook the apples so much that they turn into applsauce." Only a person who has no business cooking such ambitious things and walk away for so long would do such a thing. It's all so easy peasy.

Pie Crumb Frosting

• 1/2 recipe Pie Crumb
• 110 g milk (1/2 cup)
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 40 g butter, at room temperature (3 tablespoons)
  
• 40 g confectioners' sugar (1/4 cup)

Pie crumb and milk.


Blended.


Sugar and butter. Such small amounts of both (I guess this is my first buttercream frosting!) in comparison to say baking cookies. Well, the frosting's only for the top of the cake.


Creamed together on medium high for 2 to 3 minutes, until fluffy and pale yellow.


Pie crumb mixture dumped in.


Finished Pie Crumb Frosting.

Barely Brown Butter Cake

• 55 g butter (4 tablespoons [1/2 stick])
• 40 g brown butter (2 tablespoons)
• 250 g granulated sugar (1 1/4 cups)
• 60 g light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 110g buttermilk (1/2 cup)
• 65 g grapeseed oil (1/3 cup)
• 2 g vanilla extract
• 185 g cake flour (1 1/2 cups)
• 4 g baking powder (1 teaspoon)
• 4 g kosher salt (1 teaspoon)
• Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)

Butters and sugars.


Paddled together over medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes.


Add the egg and repeat.


Mise en place for the rest of the recipe.


"Stream the buttermilk, oil, and vanilla while the paddle swirls on low speed. Increase the speed to medium high and paddle for 5 to 6 minutes, until the mixture is practically white, twice the size of your original fluffy butter-and-sugar mixture and completely homogenous. You're basically forcing too much liquid into an already fatty mixture that doesn't want to make room for it, so if it doesn't look right after 6 minutes, keep mixing."

I threw in the towel after 12 and messing up my whole workspace, stand mixer, and Kindle. I realize now that my usual approach to buttermilk (dry buttermilk) might have broken my attempt since I was just trying to combine water into the mix rather than milk since the milk powder was in the dry ingredients. Maybe I should just start using clabbered buttermilk.


Fingers crossed.


Baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.
It might've been way moister and brown buttery if I hadn't screwed up but at least I had something that was definitely serviceable as a cake.

Apple Cider Soak

• 55 g apple cider (1/4 cup)
• 5 g light brown sugar (1 teaspoon tightly packed)
• 0.25 g ground cinnamon (pinch)

I'm just whisking all these ingredients together. This didn't appear to justify a photo.

Apple Cake

• 1 recipe Barely Brown Butter Cake
• 1 recipe Apple Cider Soak
• 1 recipe Liquid Cheesecake
• 1/2 recipe Pie Crumb
• 1 recipe Apple Pie Filling
• 1/2 recipe Pie Crumb Frosting

Punching out the 3 layers with my 6-inch cake ring. I just recently bought a second one.


Bottom layer is composed of scraps pressed in. No one will ever know, but they will know if you've broken all the layers of the cake and the damn thing collapses in my first attempt at Tosi's cakes.


The layer is brushed with the apple cider cake and then 1/2 the Liquid Cheesecake is smoothed in.


Followed by a third of the Pie Crumb.


Apple Pie Filling.


Repeat once more and then top with the unbroken round of cake and the Pie Crumb Frosting.


Top with the remaining Pie Crumb. Wrap top in Saran Wrap and throw the whole thing in the freezer for at least 12 hours or 2 weeks.
Will report back with a picture and feedback in the latter amount of time.

Blueberry & Cream Cookies (MMB)

Blueberry & Cream cookies are far and away my favorite cookies among all the cookies I've ever had in my life. These were actually the first Momofuku Milk Bar items I made, back before I bought a digital camera and started this blog.
There are comparatively few pictures of me actually making cookie dough because honestly you can see the same process in my entries for Compost Cookies and Cornflake-Marshmallow-Chocolate Chip Cookies. We'll start with the component in the ingredient list for the cookies: the unbelievable...

Milk Crumb (MMB)

• 40 g milk powder (1/2 cup)
• 40 g flour (1/4 cup)
• 12 g cornstarch (2 tablespoons)
• 25 g sugar (2 tablespoons)
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 55 g butter, melted (4 tablespoons [1/2 stick])
• 20 g milk powder (1/4 cup)
• 90 g white chocolate, melted (3 ounces)
  

Mise en place.


Didn't burn the hell out of my white chocolate while melting it down in the microwave. Unlike the first time.


Twenty minutes at 250 degrees F.


Broken into cluster no bigger than 1/2 inch and tossed with more milk powder (A common ingredient in baking recipes in general). I went through a few pairs of latex gloves tossing the result with white chocolate every 5 minutes until it was no longer sticky.
It was probably still a bit sticky by the time I finished tossing.


It doesn't look like a I pulled out WAY too soon even though I had to bang it with a rolling pin a bit before baking these:

Blueberry & Cream Cookies (MMB)

• 225 g butter, at room temperature (16 tablespoons [2 sticks])
• 150 g granulated sugar (3/4 cup)
• 150 g light brown sugar (1/4 cup tightly packed)
• 100 g glucose (1/4 cup [I use 35 g or 2 tablespoons of corn syrup])
• 2 eggs
• 320 g flour (2 cups)
• 2 g baking powder (1/2 teaspoon)
• 1.5 g baking soda (1/4 teaspoon)
• 6 g kosher salt (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 recipe Milk Crumb
• 130 g dried blueberries (3/4 cup)

Mise en place.


Unbaked.


Baked to perfection. Planning on doing it all again in the next few days.

Grasshopper Pie (MMB)

Well, I'll get to the ingredients list for Grasshopper later in this entry, but its first ingredient is a Brownie Pie (also MMB) made through step 8. Upon looking it up I realize I totally messed up on my own in pouring the brownie batter before the Mint Cheesecake (MMB as well. Yes, these are all individual components of a Grasshopper Pie; somehow I realized that didn't necessarily make it challenging).
As I was saying, the first ingredient in Grasshopper Pie is a...

Brownie Pie (MMB)

• 3/4 recipe Graham Crust [See my entry on Compost Cookies. Phenomenal stuff but I wouldn't sit around and snack on it by itself.] (255 g [1 1/2 cups])
• 125 g 72% chocolate (4 1/2 ounces) [I made a strong effort to stick close to that percentage. I used some Valrhona (the world's best) Trader Joe's has begun to carry and some leftover Ghiradelli from again failing to execute a flourless chocolate cake from a Top Chef Cookbook. Oh the days before I owned a stand mixer.]
• 85 g butter (6 tablespoons)
• 2 eggs
• 150 g sugar (3/4 cup)
• 40 g flour (1/4 cup)
• 25 g cocoa powder, preferably Valrhona (3 tablespoons) [I used Ghiradelli.]
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 110 g heavy cream (1/2 cup)

Mise en place.


A lot of chocolate and butter to microwave until melted. Screw the double-boiler, Christina Tosi says, and just nuke the stuff. Set it for increments of 15-30 seconds and stir each time. I remember the first time I tried this I was melting white chocolate for just a minute and it burned. Still used it.


The melted chocolate and butter. And the eggs and sugar whisked until fluffy and pale yellow to the ribbon state.


Paddled together until homogenous.


Followed by the dry ingredients. Oh how beautiful and dark you are.


Mmm, additional Graham Crust.


Oops, I guess I shouldn't have scraped the batter in first. Oh well.

Mint Cheesecake (MMB)

• 60 g white chocolate (2 ounces)
• 20 g grapeseed oil (2 tablespoons)
• 75 g cream cheese
• 20 g confectioner's sugar (2 tablespoons)
• 2 g peppermint extract (1/2 teaspoon)
• 1 g kosher salt (1/4 teaspoon)
• 2 drops green food coloring

Mise en place.

Mint Glaze (MMB)

• 30 g white chocolate (1 ounce)
• 6 g grapeseed oil (2 teaspoons)
• 0.5 g peppermint extract (scant 1/8 teaspoon) [I think I was a lot closer to 1/4 teaspoon.]
• 1 drop food coloring

My camera clearly didn't like to photograph green very well. I don't think the list of the ingredients for this component was compelling enough to garner a picture.
And finally:

Grasshopper Pie (MMB)

• 1 recipe Brownie Pie, prepared through step 8
• 1 recipe Mint Cheesecake Filling
• 20 g mini chocolate chips (2 tablespoons)
• 25 g mini marshmallows (1/2 cup)
• 1 recipe Mint Glaze

Prepped to bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes.


Baked and allowed to cool at room temperature. Or until it was late enough that I had to wrap it up and throw it in the fridge instead.


"Now the pie needs to be Jackson-Pollocked with mint glaze."


Who would bake a Brownie Pie when they could have this? Cake would have been marbled from top to bottom if I had poured the right things in the right order. Still awesome and less of a shock to the system than Crack Pie.
I guess the green color is more vivid because I turned on macro on my camera?