Mushroom Sherry Chicken (BRW)

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, cut into serving pieces, or 2 1/2 to 3 pounds chicken parts, trimmed of excess fat
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
• 1 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

Mise en place.  I did much of it while browning the chicken.  Note some browned chicken.

Here's a picture.

Cook vegetables until softened and lightly browned.

Add sherry and chicken back in and simmer until chicken is tender.  Unfortunately before I could had to pack up and head over to Brighton where Eric S lives and carry on over there.

I probably would've been able to finish the dish if I hadn't forgotten to buy mushrooms at Whole Foods and then spend a hour looking for the new Harvest Co-Op in the neighborhood when it could hardly be any closer to me than it is.

The chicken accompanied by a bit of mini baguette (also from Whole Foods) and perhaps the first appearance on my blog of food made by someone who doesn't cook professionally in Chicago.  Gotta love the Israeli salad.  Also the chicken, cumin, lima bean, and rice dish I recently shared on Facebook.

So Eric loved the dish (And who wouldn't love it if I invaded their kitchens and cooked them dinner?), but I, as always, thought it was just okay.  I felt the pressure to finish the dish since it took me until rather late to show up with an unfinished dish.  The thighs could've been more tender, but I dunno if that would've wowed me.

Pub-Style Shepherd's Pie (Cooks Illustrated)

Fall Entertaining 2010

Filling

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large onion, chopped fine
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped fine
• 2 pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 5 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 3/4 cut low-sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 cup beeer
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
• 1 cup frozen peas

Topping

• 2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
• Table salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup heavy cream, warmed
• Ground black pepper
• 1 large egg, beated

Mise en place.

The recipe called for a mild malty beer.  ATK prefers O'Doul's nonalcoholic amber ale, but I tried to find my best bet in a large bottle at JP's Harvest.

Cook onions and carrots until soft.

Add beef, salt and pepper and cook until browned.  Add tomato paste and flour and cook until darkened.  Add cream and cook until it splatters.  Add broth, beer, soy sauce, and thyme and cook until mixture is thickened but still saucy.

Stir in peas.

Oops, I guess I neglected to remember to melt the butter and warm the cream.

Shepherd's pie covered in mashed potatoes.  I ran a fork over the top and dragged it over the surface to create ridges and painted it over with beaten egg.

Bake until the filling is bubbling and then run it under the broiled to get everything golden brown.

I thought it was a suitable enough shepherd's pie, but I would've loved a thicker, richer sauce.  Maybe I'll attempt a more traditional version next time?

Sweet Potato Enchiladas with Red Mole (HCEV)

• 12 to 15 mild to medium dried chiles, like New Mexico, mulatto, pasilla, guajillo, or ancho (or a combination), toasted, soaked, and cleaned [Pretty sure I picked up some damn expensive New Mexican's at Whole Foods. Now that I've discovered this wonderful bodega in East Boston, I'm never spending that much on dried chiles again.]
• 2 cups assorted nuts, like peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnut, pine nuts, and hazelnuts [Used the remainder of the unshelled peanuts I used for Peanut Soup, Senegalese Style. Plus I topped it off with a cup of sunflower seeds.]
• 1/4 cup tahini or sesame seeds [Used sesame seeds I had on hand rather than buying tahini]
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder or chopped unsweetened chocolate [I used cocoa powder here. I thought it odd that Bittman didn't suggest buying Mexican chocolate. Trying to make it easy for the plebs?]
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 1 head garlic, peeled
• 4 plum tomatoes, cored (canned are fine)
• 2 thick slices white bread (stale is fine)
• 1 quarter vegetable stock or water, plus more as needed [Hmm, again I de-vegetarianised the dish with boxed chicken stock.]
• 1/4 cup neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, plus more for frying
• 3 or 4 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon ground allspice
• 2 teaspoons anise seeds [I swear that I have a distinct memory of buying this at Harvest in Central Square, but it certainly wasn't on my overstocked spice shelf or logged in the list I keep in my planner.]
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Brown sugar as needed (optional)
• 24 small corn tortillas, plus more if any break
• 4 cups sweet potatoes, cooked, mashed, and seasoned
• 1/2 cup crumbed queso fresco for garnish
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion or scallion for garnish [I used radishes instead since they are my favorite with Mexican food and already had some on hand.]
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro for garnish
• Lime wedges for garnish [Didn't use the last two ingredients.]

Toasting the dried peppers.


A couple of them blew up like a balloon.


Covered the peppers with hot water. I put a plate on top to keep them submerged and let them soften until I was ready to deal with them.


I would've have saved me some prep I realize if I had used shelled nuts, but these were around.


First batch in the blender: nuts, onion, garlic, and bread.


The debris after peeling a whole head of garlic.


First batch blended.


Peppers, tomatoes, and cocoa powder. Why bother washing out the blender container when it's all going in the same place?


Second batch blended.


Cook over largely low heat for 20 minutes until deeply browned and softened.


Add the broth. I probably should've kept the pepper soaking liquid and used that.


An hour of simmering.


Boil sweet potatoes until tender.


Mashed with my brand new potato masher (No food mill yet).


Frying the tortillas in oil until softened and pliable.


On a pile of paper towels. Maybe I should've layered them a bit more, but I patted the tortillas dry as I worked.


Filling the enchiladas with 2 tablespoons of the sweet potatoes.


Ran out of sweet potatoes and used straight up scrambled eggs after. Bittman includes eggs as a variation but only as an addition to the cheese.
Unsurprisingly I was happier with the sweet potato enchiladas than the egg ones.


Covering the bottom with a thin layer of mole.


Enchiladas filled and rolled with half the casserole covered with sauce.


The remaining sauce. After nearly finishing the enchiladas by the time I write this entry, I'm contemplating thinning the sauce out a bit and braising chicken tenders in it.


Already sprinkled some of the queso fresco on before I remembered to take a photo.


Queso fresco and radishes.


Smothered in some of the extra mole.
I thought the mole was really bitching until I gradually worked my was through the leftovers. Nearly worth the enormous amount of prep that went into it.

Crack Pie (MMB)

Now if Momofuku in general is famous for its pork buns, Momofuku Milk Bar is perhaps even more famous for its Crack Pie merely because it's been lauded by celebrities as ubiquitous as Oprah Winfrey.
Somehow thus far I've never had any of MMB's pies before (cookies, cake truffles, soft-serve, flavored butter, savory breads, I've had all of these). After eating a slice of it this early afternoon and looking forward to eating it as dessert after my initial stab at fresh pasta, I'm not sure I'll be able to restrain myself from eating a slice in between.
I can honestly say that I've never smoked crack cocaine, but eating this pie is far more addictive than I ever allowed myself to believe it would be.

First we start with the components: Oat Cookie and Crack Pie Filling. I apologize if I neglected to take as many pictures this time.

The recipe from the actual MMB cookbook is far more finicky than the ones I viewed found from Bon Appetit or the LA Times. Hey, I understand if you don't want to spend money on the cookbook (Though if you've enjoyed all my entry about cookies and cakes, you really should.) or don't want to have to try to buy corn powder (I assumed that the Bob's Red Mills Corn Flour Harvest in JP was probably more or less the right thing). That and you don't want to bother the trademark step where you freeze the pie for 3 hours and defrost? What's so wrong with leaving that in the recipe you Media People?
Of course I'm using the list of ingredients from the official recipe.

Oat Cookie

• 115 g butter, at room temperature (8 tablespoons [1 stick])
• 75 g light brown sugar (1/3 cup tightly packed)
• 40 g granulated sugar (3 tablespoons)
• 1 egg yolk
• 80 g flour
• 120 g old-fashioned rolled oats (1 1/2 cup)
• 0.5 g baking powder (1/8 tablespoon)
• 0.25 g baking soda (pinch)
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)

Mise en place.
Using an awful lot less of everything than is called for in "traditional" Christina Tosi cookie recipes.


A good 80% of the cookie dough wound up collecting on my stand mixer paddle. Oat-Cookie goodness soon too be something measurably more devious.

Pam-ing up my quarter-sheet cake pan. First time baking with it since failing to get it spotlessly cleaning after roasting pork belly and shoulder in it for 8 hours total for ramen.
Failed to take a photo of the finished Oat Cookie though perhaps none of the pictures just satisfied me. There were several occasions later in this entry where I clearly knew I had simply forgot to document something. Or nearly failed to.

And now for the part where your jaw starts to hurt. "I can actually feel my teeth decaying," says Eric S. about my Crack Pie.

Crack Pie Filling

• 300 g granulated sugar (1 1/2 cups)
• 180 g light brown sugar (3/4 cup tightly packed)
• 20 g milk powder (1/4 cup)
• 24 g corn powder (1/4 cup)
• 6 g kosher salt (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 225 g butter, melted (16 tablespoons [2 sticks])
• 160 g heavy cream (3/4 cup)
• 2 g vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon)
• 8 egg yolks

Separating out the yolks from the whites. Hey, it's okay that I effed up the white side since that isn't going into the menu, but try as I might you can see that there's still totally some white in the yolks dish even though Mama Tosi (I've never cooked this much repeatedly from an executive chef before) says: "It will be the death of your wildly dense pie if there is any bit of egg white in the mixture."
I separated them with my hands and all too! PLUS, my pie didn't fail.


Mise en place.


The finished component. Eventually I scoop some up with my fingertip and test it out; already I realize I'm in trouble.

Crack Pie
Blargh at the moment I feel as if Crack Pie won't just suddenly turn me diabetic over the course of the next few days, but the first slice I had was incredible. This major irresistible sugar rush.
Now I realize that I can stop eating it, but if I don't it'll go bad and then I'll have wasted Crack Pie!!!

• 1 recipe Oat Cookie
• 15 g light brown sugar (I tablespoon tightly packed)
• 1 g salt (1/4 teaspoon)
• 55 g butter, melted, or as needed (4 tablespoons [1/2 stick)
• 1 recipe Crack Pie Filling
• confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Oat Cookie as actual cookie but not for very long.


Whizzed up in the food processor. First time I've broken it out since moving to Forest Hills. First time I'm using the stand mixer since the start of my vacation and also the first time I've had to wash and dry it out completely and using it a multiple time in a recipe.


Combining enough melted butter to get the cookie to potentially form a crust.


Later I would wonder if I should've broken out the scale while splitting the two mixtures between 2 pie plates. Maybe I should have Pam-ed the pie plates as well.
Anyway, here I've finally managed to do a half decent job of pressing the crust into the plates.


Oh no, I had already had them popped in for a minute before I realized that I had failed to document their unbaked stage.


Ooh, baked stage. Now at least 3 hours and up to a month in the freezer to get the signature MMB texture (somehow this step missing from both Bon Appetit and the LA Times).



I've said enough about this already.