Crepes au chocolat

One of the things that always impresses me most about France is the crepe stands.

Wandering the streets? Doing some sight seeing? Hungry? It doesn't seem to matter where you are, there is someone close by selling crepes out of a traveling food cart or little hole-in-the-wall cafe. You can get them filled with anything you want. Formage? Oeufs? Nutella? Chocolat? You name it, they have it; and,while savory crepes are a nice treat, my favorite has always been crepes au chocolat.

The reason I always found the crepe stands so impressive is that it seems like such a mysterious process to make a crepe. From an American perspective they are a foreign dish, and not just foreign but French. Thus must be very difficult to cook. And something so clearly complex is not what you would expect to be vended out of a street cart. The secret is that most classic french dishes are painfully easy to make, and crepes au chocolate are only a few minutes and a hot pan away.

From: The 1000 Best Recipes (a cook book Dennis bought before I knew him and still comes in quite handy)

For the sauce:

1/4 cup butter
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup brown sugar

Put in pan on medium heat and mix until butter is melted and ingredients are combined. Add slowly-

1 1/4 cup whipping cream (you could use milk, but if you do add some plain or vanilla yogurt for thickness)

Stir the mixture until it comes to a boil. You now have a delicious sauce that is great on crepes or ice cream, or anything else you might need a homemade chocolate sauce for. Keep the sauce warm while you make the crepes.

For the crepes:

This crepe recipe can be made and served with anything, if your doing desert crepes (like this recipe) you can add a teaspoon of sugar--though it's not called for in the recipe. You can fill them with jam (we had the leftovers with jam for breakfast) or sprinkle them with sugar. Or if you want savory crepes you can add a bit of salt, and some chopped herbs to the batter and serve the crepes with cheese, roasted veggie, chicken, or mushroom filling. The possibilities for crepes are endless. I read somewhere recently that almost every culture has a pancake (meaning a flat bread cooked on a stove or open fire that you put toppings on or in). The Mexican version is tortilla, and like tortilla, crepes can be filled with just about anything.

Combine:
3 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup water

Once this is relatively well mixed (it does not have to be uniform, its alright if there are still some eggy bits) then put 2 cups of flour in a separate bowl and hollow out a hole or well in the middle. Pour your egg mixture into the well and then gradually stir with a spoon or whisk. This is the trickiest part of crepes, you want to get the ingredients combined without beating too much as beating develops the gluten in the flour. This is good for bread, but bad for crepes. Your crepes will still taste good if this happens, they will just be chewier.

Once your batter is smooth carefully stir in 1/4 cup of melted butter.

Heat up an 8 inch non stick skillet or crepe pan and grease it lightly with butter. When the pan is hot (to check flick a drop of water on the pan, if it sizzles, its hot) pour 1/4 cup of crepe batter into the pan. Pick the pan up and swirl the mixture around to coat the surface evenly like you would an omelet. You should be cooking the crepes on medium low to medium heat, depending on your stove. When the edges of the crepes start to curl up and the surface no longer looks wet then take a large spatula and carefully work it under to flip the crepe. They are very thin so it is necessary to be gentle with them. Cook the crepe on the other side just briefly (usually about 45 seconds) until browned. When done place it on a plate, you can stack the crepes up as you cook, but place a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap between them to keep them from sticking to each other.

When done take a crepe, spread some chocolate sauce on it, fold the crepe it into quarters, and pour, per the recipe, 'a generous amount' of chocolate sauce on top. You can sprinkle with powdered sugar, add whipped cream, or a scoop of ice cream to the top. Eat. Enjoy.

In case your still skeptical and think that crepes are difficult I'll have you know that this last time, when these pictures were taken I did not actually make the crepes au chocolat. Dennis did. And its not that he is incompetent in the kitchen--far from it. But he is slightly traumatized by anything that looks like a pancake (he had too eat too many of them as a kid) and much more comfortable grilling or cooking in the manly realms of meat. Now, he had just watched Alton Brown's Good Eats episode 'Crepe Expectations', but one night when I asked him to make desert, he pulled out one of his old cookbooks, found this recipe, and made delicious crepes au chocolate.

Sourdough French Bread

I made my first loaf of bread when I was a freshman in high school for a project on Taoism, somehow I connected the whole process of bread making to Taoist philosophy (don't ask me how, I really don't remember). And then the class got to eat my assignment. I think I got an A.

Making bread is something that many people no longer think about as it is so easy to purchase. But the standard loaf of sandwich bread barely qualifies as bread (see the continuous bread making tract on this Encyclopedia Britannica article). The process of fermentation that in traditional bread can take a couple hours is sped up to as little as 30 seconds with machinery and chemical additives. The soft spongy bread that you get from the local super market has none of the texture or flavor developed over millennia of bread baking experiments. However, that taste you get from a classic bakery loaf can be reproduced in the kitchen, though getting the right crunchiness on the crust can be difficult because it is difficult to reproduce the conditions of the a good bakeries moisture controlled oven.

My family has a tradition of making bread. My Grandfather loved to make bread, including sourdough bread, and it seemed there would always be some fresh on hand when we visited. My mother made a lot of bread until she had three kids, by the time I was growing up homemade bread was an occasional treat. My father apparently used to make bread. Though I have never tasted it I have heard famed stories of the beer bread he made in college. So bread making may be something that I am just predisposed to by nature, and nurture. It is absolutely something I love to do.

I almost never buy bread. I do have a loaf of sandwich bread in my freezer downstairs right now that I had a 'free' coupon for. It is nice occasionally to have a loaf of pre-sliced, toaster sized, slices. Normally, the only time I buy bread is if I am making sandwiches for a day of hiking. Its not that homemade bread doesn't make good sandwiches--it does, and I often make sandwiches with it at home-- but that as I do not have a slicer or a great bread knife my slices of homemade bread end often end up a bit lopsided and shed crumbs (though unsliced homemade bread seems to keep better, I have never had a moldy loaf). In certain circumstances, there are advantages to spongy, soft, mass produced bread. However, for all other occasions I prefer to make my own -- and I do not have a bread maker.

This may be more practical for me because we do not actually eat much bread. When I have a baking day (sometimes I make up to four kinds of bread in a day-- which could be 12 loaves), I wrap all but one loaf up in freezer paper, and do not bake again for months. The majority of what I make gets taken to get-togethers where my fresh baked (just out of the freezer) bread is always a hit. But it is always wonderful to have a chunk of flavorful crusty bread with a fresh made soup or stew, and because of my bread making habit (...addiction?) I almost always have a loaf or two on hand.

To me bread has always been a mystery. Like beer and wine it is a process of fermentation. While I understand the science behind how the process works, I wonder at what magic people thought had occurred when they observed their first leavened dough and tasted the results. The bread of the ancients was a result of time (and good bread still is). At some point someone left a dough ball out too long and natural yeast collected in the dough, consuming the sugars from the wheat and any sugar additives and producing CO2. During the kneading or making of the dough the gluten proteins in the wheat become 'developed' (or aligned), giving the bread dough its elasticity, and this in effect trapped the CO2 air bubbles in the gluten structure causing the bread to rise. Bread can still be made this way (in fact I have some four/water mixture (sponge) sitting out collecting natural yeasts right now) but it is most common now to use commercially available yeast, or a sourdough starter.

Of the breads I make this Sourdough French Bread is one of my most frequent repeats and like many of my favorite bread recipes (or recipes in general) come from the Fiddlehead Cookbook. This cookbook is available for limited page views on Googlebooks and it seems you never know what pages you will be able to access and which you will not. It can also of course be purchased online or ordered from your local bookstore. This cookbook is an amazing collection of recipes from what once was the best restaurant in Juneau, Alaska. The restaurant is no more, but the cookbook lives on and contains everything from comfort foods to chocolate mousse and is new agey, down-to-earth, and gourmet all at the same time. If Googlebooks will open it for you the recipe for sourdough french bread starts on page 150.

There are two ways to make this recipe, you can use a little extra yeast and mix up a bread sponge(flour, and water to give your yeast a head start) the night before, or, you can just rely on your sourdough starter. Usually I forgo the sponge step, though it does make a good bread. It seems that the longer your yeast is allowed to ferment the tastier your bread is. If you want to do the sponge method then get out your sourdough starter the night before baking day. Take out 1/4 cup starter and place in a good sized mixing bowl. Add 1 cup unbleached flour and 1 cup warm water (not hot, hot water will kill yeast) and let sit overnight. Feed your starter pot and put it back in the fridge. The next day your sponge should be bubbly and about twice the size it was the night before.

If you want to skip making the sponge just take your sourdough starter out of the fridge, give it a stir, and let sit over night (or if your making bread in the afternoon take it out in the morning and let it sit through the day). You can stir in a little (1/4 cup) flour to the starter to help wake up the yeast. If you forget to take it out to warm up beforehand, no worries, it will just take your bread a little longer to rise.

When ready to start bread making take 1 3/4 cups of starter out of your starter pot and place in a bowl (feed pot and put away) or use your pre-made bread sponge.

If you would like to add extra commercial yeast (you do not have to do this but can rely on the sourdough starter alone, however, the yeast will help insure you have a successful loaf of bread) mix 1 teaspoon dry yeast with 1/4 cup warm water and 1 teaspoon honey (or other sugar). Let this sit for 5 minutes, it should be bubbly and smell 'yeasty'.

To the yeast and water mixture, add:
your bread starter (either from the sponge, or from 1 3/4 cups of straight sourdough starter)
1 teaspoon salt (for flavor but salt also makes the gluten in the bread stronger)
2 cups white flour (if you want to be healthy use whole wheat white-which is finely ground wholewheat flour made from albino wheat grains)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Stir all of these ingredients together, they should come together to form a ball of dough. If the dough is still too sticky, knead in more flour. Once you have a nice ball of dough that has enough flour in in that you can handle it without your hand sinking into the mess then sprinkle flour on a spot on a clean counter, take the dough out, and knead the dough for 10 minutes.

To knead press the dough flat with the palm of your hands, fold it over on itself, and repeat--changing the direction you fold it every so often. 10 minutes will feel like a long time... usually my triceps are sore and I feel like I've gotten quite the work out, especially when its a baking day and I am making three or four different kinds of bread. I tell myself that all of the work that goes into kneading the bread means that I can eat more of it without feeling guilty.

(There are no-knead recipes out there, which come out delicious, and I have experimented but so far I haven't quite gotten it to work yet with this recipe.)

If you happen to have a large Kitchen Aid or other large mixer this process will speed up (note a small hand mixer will not work for bread making), put the dough hook on and mix all the ingredients (on low). While mixing add flour, small amounts at a time until the dough sticks to the dough hook and pulls away from the sides, keep mixing (on low to med low) for another 5 minutes.

Once the bread is kneaded into a nice firm dough ball, and the dough springs back lightly when touched then set it in a well oiled bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let sit to rise. A warm draft free place is best-- when I was a kid we used to go set the bread in the furnace room-- in my kitchen the bowl usually stays on top of the oven. You let the bread rise until it is double in bulk, depending on what method you used this can take varying amount of times. If you used a sponge and added extra yeast it will take about an hour (unless your house is really cold) if you used your starter only it will take about 2 hours. Once it is double in bulk, punch it down. You can let it rise again if you like. This will improve the texture and flavor of your bread and will take half the time as the first rise. If you are making a straight sourdough bread without extra yeast I would recommend just using a longer first rise and skipping the second rise. When I do a double rise without extra yeast sometimes I end up with a flat loaf.

Once your bread has risen once (or twice) to double its size and been punched down break it into loafs. The recipe above says it makes one loaf, but it is a big loaf. Usually I divide it in half and shape it by hand in to whatever I desire. You can roll the dough out with a rolling pin into a rectangle (or pat it out) and then make a tight dough roll to get a more uniform loaf. Set your loaf (or loaves) onto cookie sheet or baking stone that is sprinkled with cornmeal, cover, and let rise again until doubled. This will take about 30 minutes this time, sometimes longer if are using all sourdough. When doubled whisk together 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water, cut diagonal hashes in the top of the loaves of bread to allow to rise more in the oven, and then brush the egg wash over the top of the bread (skip this if cooking vegan and just brush with some oil). This will help to brown the loaves and make them shiny, if you would like, sprinkle the loaves with poppy seeds or sesame seeds after the egg wash.

Your oven should be at 400 degrees, add a dish with some water in it to the oven to increase the moisture content of the air (while this is not as effective as the steam in a real bakery oven it will help). If you would like, spritz loaves with some white vinegar using a spray bottle, I have not done this before (though I plan to try) but I have heard it helps with the crust. Place the tray with the loaves on a rack in the middle of the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes. Your loaf is done when it is browned on top and sounds hollow when tapped. Take out and let cool. Eat. Enjoy.

On a side note, this bread makes fantastic French Bread (Eggy Bread) for breakfast.

Bread making may seem awfully complicated, but there is actually very little active time involved in the process. It is usually something I do when I know I am going to be around the house for a day. Other than the kneading all that is required is to set a timer to remind myself to go check on various rising stages, or to get it out of the oven. I find the process soothing, and I find kneading bread a great way to deal with stress.

Pad (Pud) Thai

I can still remember the first time I had Pad Thai. I was at Chan's Thai Kitchen in Juneau, Alaska. Chan's is a funny little hole in the wall restaurant which if judged by the decor you do not expect much. However, the smells in the place are divine and the line out the door is a clue to what awaits inside. That first time I was in high school and, while already an adventurous eater, I had never been to a Thai restaurant. I somehow ordered Pad Thai, having no idea what it was, and I was rather suspicious about the heaping pile of orang-ish noodles topped with bean sprouts and peanuts that was placed in front of me. However, my suspicion quickly turned to absolute wonder. The combination of all of the flavors in Pad Thai is what makes this dish so amazing, its something when you look at the recipe you think first "I don't know what all this stuff is" and second "that can't possibly be good together". But it is. It is amazingly delicious, and some days I crave it. My favorite Pad Thai comes from Chan's though there is a place in Reading, England that does it pretty well too. I'm sure its a closely guarded secret, but I would love the Pad Thai recipe from Chan's Thai Kitchen.

Pad Thai is national dish in Thailand. My sister spent a couple of weeks tromping around Thailand last spring, and when she came back I asked her what her favorite dish was while she was traveling. "Pad Thai" she said, though she conceded that banana flower salad is tasty as well. This rice noodle dish is sold in street carts and made by Thai housewives. Pad Thai is something that everyone seems to have their own recipe for and any Thai restaurant you go into will have it, its like fried rice in a Chinese restaurant. It is always the first thing I order when I try a new Thai restaurant, if its not good I won't go back. It is also my most frequent order at Thai restaurants. Not because other Thai dishes are not delicious, but because, as you'll see below, authentic Pad Thai takes a lot more work than a green curry. There are ways to make it easier that what I've written below, but you lose out on taste, and for me the trade off it is not worth it. If you have everything on hand its merely a matter of frying everything up. If you don't the prep is quite the process.

Now the last time I made Pad Thai I felt a little bit like the Little Red Hen. It was a Saturday which meant I was cooking solo as Dennis was at work (this dish is best if you have help), and I spent a couple of hours running around between stores rounding up the ingredients and then a couple of more hours prepping, cooking, and assembling. I did not really eat all through the day as I was so focused on my final product. I would not recommend this! Do your shopping ahead of time as you will need to go to an Asian food store to get the ingredients to make this dish. And if you don't have a sous-chef you may want to do the prep the day before as well.

The recipe I use for Pad Thai is from Epicurious.com and can be found here. I use almost all recipes as guidelines, so I modify this to suit my tastes.

Step 1: Assemble the ingredients

12 ounces dried flat rice noodles (1/4 inch wide; sometimes called pad Thai or banh pho)

Make sure you get rice noodles. Italian style pasta noodles will not work. The rice noodles are not actually cooked, just soaked in water, drained, and then they soak up all of the sauce for the Pad Thai. The rice noodle should look about as wide as a Fettuccine noodle. You may be able to find these at your local grocery store in the international food section, or you may have to go to an Asian market. Get whatever package is closest to 12 oz. I think I had 14 oz. last time, I used all of it and it worked fine.

3 tablespoons tamarind (from a pliable block)

Never cooked with tamarind? Don't know what tamarind is? Neither did I until I started looking into how to make Pad Thai. Tamarind comes from the fruit or pods of the tamarind tree and is widely used in many cuisines (I put it in Lamb Vindaloo last week). It is also called the Indian date, and there is a special type they grow in Thailand and eat raw as a fruit and dip it in chili sauce. I have bought it both in a paste form and in a pliable block form as suggested above. I prefer the block as I believe the flavor is more intense (try to get one with the seeds already taken out as this will save you a step). Tamarind has a strong sweet/sour flavor and is what gives Pad Thai its Pad Thai taste. Without Tamarind there is no Pad Thai. If you find this at your local grocery I will be quite impressed. The only places I have ever gotten it are at Asian or Indian food stores, and even then you might have to ask to be able to find it. Its usually with the pre-made sauces it seems.

4 large shallots

Yes shallots, not onions. I've never tried this with onions and I don't plan to. Shallots have a flavor that is both stronger and more subtle. If your not used to working with shallots beware, chopping them is worse than onions. Shallots at conventional stores can be elusive and pricey, try a farmers market, or pick them up on your trip to the Asian market, as they always seem to have them and the price is more reasonable.

2 tablespoons Sriracha (Southeast Asian chili sauce)

This is delicious Thai style chili sauce, and if you don't have it you should. Even if you don't want to make Pad Thai. You can put it on anything you want to give a kick to. Any grocery with a decent international food section should have it (or just put it on the list for the Asian market.)

1/2 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 bunch scallions (green onions)
1 (14- to 16-ounce) package firm tofu

Even if your planning on adding meat to your Pad Thai I recommend keeping the tofu in the recipe, the fried tofu cubes are delicious.

1 1/2 cups peanut or vegetable oil

I prefer peanut oil because of its higher smoke point and flavor. It can be difficult to find at some groceries, again, the an oriental market is your friend.

6 large eggs

Leave the eggs out or substitute with silky tofu if cooking Vegan.

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 cups bean sprouts (1/4 pound)

I love bean sprouts, so I often double this. Another thing you can find at an Asian market if all else fails

1/2 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

2 limes
Chopped cilantro to garnish

If you do not want to make this vegetarian friendly, add

Fish Sauce (Buy at the Asian market of course)
1/2 to 1 lb Shrimp, Pork chopped in small (1/2 pieces), or Chicken (chopped the same way)

If you have not figured out by now, I like my Asia Mart. Find a good oriental grocery and make friends, it makes Pad Thai (an many other dishes) much easier. I'm in mine at least once a month.


Once all of the ingredients are collected then its time to start preping. Get out your all of your prep bowls, and some of your soup bowls.

1. Put your rice noodles in a large bowl and cover well with water. Set a timer for 25 to 30 mins. And then drain and wrap noodles in damp paper towels.

While noodles are soaking:

2. Make Sauce. In a bowl mix: 1 cup boiling water and 3 tablespoons seedless tamarind pulp (if you do not have seedless pulp soak pulp in water until soft and press through a sieve to remove seeds and fibers), the water will soften up and dissolve the pulp. Add 1/2 cup soy sauce and/or fish sauce --if using fish sauce you can replace the soy entirely, or use 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/4 cup fish sauce-- fish sauce is more authentic, but not vegetarian friendly. Add 1/4 cup brown sugar (I'd think coconut palm sugar would be more authentic and healthier, use this if you have it) and 2 tablespoons (or more, I like my Pad Thai spicy) sriracha. I also often add finely minced dried red peppers from my parents garden, or red pepper flakes to the sauce. Spicy is the name of the game. Stir ingredients until sugar dissolves and set aside. This is your Pad Thai sauce, you could make this up ahead of time and store in the fridge.

3. Prep, this step will make cooking much easier as you will be able to focus on cooking and not still trying to chop scallions and beat eggs.

a. Thinly slice (don't mince) 4 shallots, divide in half and place in two separate empty bowls.
b. Mince or press 4 (or more, I always add extra) garlic cloves and add to one of the shallot bowls.
c. Slice the bunch of scallions (green onions) into 2 inch pieces, for the thicker pieces at the bottom of the green onion (the white and light green pieces) cut them in half length wise. Use the whole green onion, including the green tops. For some reason some people throw these out, and they are the best part of the scallion. Put the scallions in the bowl with the shallots and the garlic.
d. Crack 6 eggs into a separate bowl, add 1/4 teaspoon salt, and lightly beat.
e. Drain the 14-16 oz pack of tofu and rinse it under cold water, cut into 1/2 inch cubes and pat very dry. Usually I place the tofu cubes on a big plate covered in paper towels and then pat them dry with more paper towels. When they are done drying leave them on the plate with the paper towel.
f. Make sure bean sprouts are on hand. Rinse with water and place in a bowl.
g. If adding pork or chicken, slice into small 1/2 inch pieces and place in a bowl, or placed peeled shrimp in a bowl.
h. Chopped cilantro, and peanuts to garnish. Mince 1/2 bunch of cilantro and place in bowl for the table, chop 1/2 cup peanuts and place on the table.

The chopping is now done! (Whew) There should be 4 or 5 prep bowls, a plate of tofu, and 2 garnishes for the table. The soak on the rice noodles should be about done now, drain them, wrap in damp paper towels, and place back in the bowl.

Take a deep breath, get out a Wok or Wok-like frying pan. If you do not have a Wok use a large stock pot. The Wok-like frying pan I use to make this is 5 quarts, and I need every bit of that room to assemble the Pad Thai. Rice noodles take up a lot of space.

Add 1 1/2 cups peanut oil to Wok and heat. When hot (test with water or a small slice of shallot) add the shallots that are in the separate bowl by themselves and fry until golden brown (8-12 mins). When they are brown, take off the heat and scoop shallots out with a slotted spoon. Spread fried shallots thinly on paper towels (I place mine on another plate) and let dry. They will get very crispy. The purpose of this step is two fold, one your making delicious shallot flavored oil, two, your making a crispy shallot topping for the Pad Thai. I could do without the topping, but I think the shallot oil is an important flavor step. However, if your in a hurry, skip this step and just add the rest of the shallots to the shallot/garlic/green onion bowl. If you decide to do this know that you will not use the whole 1 1/2 cup of oil in cooking, so you will have some left over shallot infused for other projects. The shallot frying could also be done a day or so ahead.

After scoping out the shallots, place the Wok with the oil in it back on burner and reheat. When hot-test with a drop of water, if the oil crackles and spits its ready-- add tofu cubes (take the old paper towel off the tofu plate and place a dry one back on it, the tofu will go back on the plate when your done). Fry the tofu over medium heat until the cubes are brown. Patience as this takes time. You might want to get a drink. Tofu properly fried (especially in shallot oil) is delicious, however, it will take about 10 minutes for the cubes to brown. Turn them gently (tofu can be fragile) as they cook to try to get all sides toasty. When they are brown, take the Wok off the heat, use the slotted spoon, scoop the cubes out, and place them on the plate with the dry paper towels.

Pour the frying oil from the Wok into a heat proof dish.

Put Wok back on heat an add 2 Tablespoons of the hot reserved oil. When hot add beaten eggs, swirl to coat the sides of the Wok and then as they start to cook break up into small pieces. They should look a little bit like dried bits of scrambled egg. When done place the Eggs in a clean dish. If using silken tofu instead of egg, scramble tofu in shallot oil and place in clean dish.

If you are adding meat or raw shrimp put 1 or 2 Tablespoons of shallot oil in the wok and fry the chopped meat until done. This should take 2 to 3 minutes for shrimp (depending on the size of the shrimp) and about 5 minutes for small slices/cubes of pork or chicken. When done reserve and place in a clean bowl.

Ok, almost there, about ready to put it all together.

Place Wok back on heat until very hot (water should evaporate if a drop is flicked into the pan). Add 6 Tablespoons shallot oil and swirl to coat the sides of the Wok. Add the ingredients in the shallot/garlic/onion bowl and stir-fry until shallots start to soften, about 1 minute.

When Shallots are soft add soaked rice noodles and stir-fry over medium heat for 3 minutes. You may need two spatulas to move the rice noodles around. Add tofu, bean sprouts, any meat product, and Pad Thai sauce and simmer while turning noodles. The noodles will absorb the sauce. This will take about 2 minutes.

Toss in egg peices or scrambled tofu until well mixed. Take off heat.

Done.

Put a generous serving of Pad Thai on a plate. Cut a lime into wedges and place 2 wedges on plate. Top with chopped cilantro, peanuts, crisped shallots, and sriracha. Squeeze lime over noodles. Eat.

The kitchen will be a mess, you will have used up every prep bowl you have and more paper towels that you thought possible. Keep any shallot oil you have left, put it in a jar or bottle and store it. You can use this to add flavor to any dish you fry or saute, or save it for the next time you make Pad Thai. There will probably be left over Pad Thai, I usually just add all the garnishes to it, toss and store in the fridge.

The Pad Thai will be delicious, I promise. If you have the ingredients on hand and do not have to make a special shopping trip its not as much work. And I've never done it, but skipping the shallot oil step would make it easier as well. However, I quite like this version, and I've been playing the tamarind/fish sauce ratio trying to replicate my favorite Pad Thai. (Call me Chan's Thai Kitchen)

But yes, hopefully, that explains how, at the end of my day making Pad Thai, I felt like the Little Red Hen. And then I ate ate it and it was amazing. It always is.

Writing this makes me crave Pad Thai, maybe I'll cook it again tonight. Hmm... I think I have everything but shallots, and I have shallot oil from last time... Tasty, tasty. Or maybe I'll just go out and get Pad Thai at a restaurant. This is a dish where paying to have someone else make it for you sometimes is totally worth it. Though it is really hard to find a restaurant with a Pad Thai this good. Hmmm....

Refried beans

I am a sucker for deals. And in shopping it seems I often pick up big bags of dried beans as they are always a good deal. However, the question sometimes becomes, what do you then do with all those beans? Usually I end up making a soup, a chili, or a lot of bean dip, but this time I wanted to do refried beans, as we were having Carnitas.

However, I had never done refried beans before and for some reason had the perception that they were difficult. I think this goes back to when I was a little kid and my older sister was going through a cooking Mexican food stage and made them from scratch. Refried beans from scratch wasn't even something my mom did and it seemed like quite the impressive feat. Especially after she followed up homemade refried beans with homemade sopaipilla. It was all very mysterious and delicious, and clearly must be difficult or else more people would do it.

The internet revealed that 'refried' is a mistranslation and 'refritos' actually means well fried. This fact relieved some new recipe anxiety as from the title one might assume you have to fry the beans and then fry them again. And that sounds like a pain.

To make refried beans, start with dried beans (or if you prefer, grab a can of beans a skip down a few steps). I usually use the whole bag, what ever size it is. This time I think I had 2lbs of beans. What you don't use to make refried beans you can bag up and freeze, and then you don't have to go through the soaking and cooking process next time you want beans.

Beans need to be soaked for at least 6 hours, and I prefer to do a cold water soak. To speed up the process you can boil your beans in some water, then turn it off and let them sit for 1 to 2 hours. Drain them, add more water and cook. However, your still waiting 1 to 2 hours for the beans to be done. To me it makes the most sense to either start soaking the night before if your planning on boiling them the next day, or if your planning on cooking them at night, start the soak in the morning. For the refried beans I used pinto beans which is what you get at a Mexican restaurant, though you could use any type of bean you like.

First, rinse you beans, look for any pebbles or dirt, or things that are not supposed to be in there and take them, and any beans that are shriveled up, out.

Put your rinsed beans in a bowl or pot and cover with water several inches over the beans. The beans will expand as they soak. Apparently the fresher your beans are the less time they will need to soak, but the age of the bean is not easy to tell from a bag of dried beans.

Leave your beans to soak for 6 or more hours (if you have less time to soak you will just have to boil longer). Do not soak for too long as apparently the beans can ferment, though I have never had this happen.

Drain the soaking water off of the beans and put the beans in a big pot, cover well with water--at least 3 times as much water as beans and you cannot have too much water. Bring the pot of water to a boil to cook beans. Cover and keep the pot at a low boil for an hour. Depending on the type and age of the beans it could take more time. After an hour, sample a bean, if it is still too firm boil longer and sample again. When the beans are cooked to your satisfaction, drain them. This process can be sped up to mere minutes if you have a pressure cooker.

For the refried beans:

Get a skillet out, add 1 T fat (oil or bacon grease-- we used bacon grease and it was delicious) and heat the skillet up. Add 1/4 cup minced onion if you like, I skipped this and 2 cups cooked beans (or if you bought a can of beans, drain and rinse them and throw them in the skillet). Get a potato masher, fork or spook out, and mash the beans as they fry in the skillet, when they are well mashed add water or broth (about 1/4 cup) and keep mashing until they are hot and the right consistency. Add salt to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon in my case). And there you have refried beans. If you have the cooked beans on hand this takes about 5 minutes.


Put any extra beans in freezer bags or storage containers and freeze. I just used the extras from when I did refried beans to make a tasty soup and it was nice not to have to soak the beans to make it. I do think beans taste better when you start with dried.

The recipe I modified for this can be found here. I quite enjoyed the refried beans and will absolutely do them again. They were much better than the ones out of the can. Though, that might have been the bacon grease.

Carnitas

So, I had never had Carnitas. If you had given me the word and asked me what it was I would have come up with 'bits of meat' because of the 'carne' root. Traditionally it is little bits of meat, of pork specifically, cooked for hours in huge iron pot. I wondered upon reading about it, the origins of this cooking method. Carnitas could be made with any kid of meat, but is best suited to fatty meats (like certain cuts of pork). However, North America did not have any native swine, they were brought with the conquistadors, and the closest native porcine relative is the quite cute Peccary. Cooking any kind of meat for hours in a large pot is going to make it quite tender, but the delicious (fatty) richness of pork gives it something special. While 500 years is plenty to develop a pork based cuisine, I will naively hypothesize that the cooking methodology for Carnitas is far older than pork, and pork is merely the current preferred meat source. I could see trying the recipe with other kinds of meat, though I don't know of a vegetable that would work. For a vegetarian version, the best choice would probably be thinly sliced seitan, appropriately spiced.

We came upon the recipe in a cook book that Dennis had purchased called The Complete Meat Cookbook. I gave him a hard time when he bought it, thinking, 'do we really need any more cookbooks'? But he had a gift card, and ignored my picking, and I have been most grateful he did. We have enjoyed many lovely meals out of this cookbook, though we have learned that it over estimates portion sizes by quite a lot. For example, the Afganhi Lamb Pasta we made to serve six was delicious but also good for at least 12 meals... This cookbook has been a great addition to our collection, and the Carnitas, like every other recipe we have tried from it, turned out superb.

We had thawed out a pork roast (boston butt roast) for Friday night, and were not in the mood for our traditional BBQ pork in the crock pot, which is our usual use of this cut of meat. We scrounged around looking for recipes on what to do with our roast until finally narrowing it down to two. A marinade for pork that is supposed to make it taste like wild boar (yum!) or Carnitas. Now the marinade took at least 24 hours, and we did not have all the ingredients, so we decided that Carnitas were the way to go.

I have no Mexican or latin heritage and, while I love Mexican food, Carnitas is not something I had come across. Our cookbook told us that is was traditionally pork, cooked for a really long time in lard, and then heaped on corn tortilla with salsa and hot sauce. With the lard, its not the healthiest meal you can imagine; not to mention, lard is not something I generally keep in my kitchen. Luckily, our recipe substituted water and milk for lard and used a long braising process to develop the flavors and tenderize the meat.

Recipe:

1 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
1 t dried oregano or 2 t fresh chopped
1t salt
1 t fresh ground black pepper

Mix above ingredients and rub onto
1 4 to 6 pound pork shoulder or Boston Butt roast, cut into 3 inch chunks (do not trim too much fat off, you will drain later)

Heat 1 T oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven over high heat and brown the meat for 7 to 10 mins.

Add, 2 cups chopped onions
6 whole garlic cloves

Cook for 5 minutes more until the onions begin to soften

Add 2 cups of water and 2 bay leaves, cover, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Note do not start cooking this when you are too hungry! We were starving, and after the 1 1/2 hour simmer, we were only halfway there...

Pour off broth and reserve. The recipe mentions that this reserved broth would make a great soup base, and I have mine saved in my freezer for just such an occasion.

After pouring off the broth add 1 quart (4 cups) of milk. The recipie says to 'simmer until the milk has curdled and caramelized and all the liquid has evaporated'. The milk is supposed to leave a golden brown coating on the pork. This step will take 1 to 11/2 hours. Now, when doing this I did not notice my milk curdling ( I was using 1 %) or a major color change in the pork. However, when all the liquid had evaporated, what was left was delicious. Once all of the liquid has evaporated your port will look like pulled port, if it doesn't just stir a few times and all of your pork chunks will fall apart.

Carnitas should be served on corn tortilla that are heated up for a few seconds in a pan or in a microwave. We had ours with some freshly made pico de gallo (chop tomatoes, onions and/or green onions, and cilantro -- add lime or lemon juice and hot peppers if you like-- and mix), some left over avocado mayonnaise and homemade re-fried beans (easy! and post coming soon) along with a selection of hot sauces.

This recipe takes quite a long time to cook and is not the best choice for a night you are in a hurry. However, it is not effort intensive, and you do not have to watch it for the full 3 hours of cooking time. It just needs to be left to simmer away on the stove, with an occasional stir, and it will turn out delicious.

A Tale of Two Sourdoughs

My mother tells a story about how before I was born her and my Grandpa Russ had a sourdough pancake competition. The feed was for a family of visiting friends from Norway, one Derit Sdensen, her husband Johan, and seven children. Mom thought she had the competition nailed down; she taught cooking classes, had gone to school to learn technique, and had a recipe for sourdough pancakes from a real sourdough. Her friend from Alaska, Helen Laurent, had a sourdough starter that had traveled over the Chilkoot Pass in '98 (1898) and had been kept going ever since. Helen was renowned in Juneau for her generosity with her sourdough pancake recipe, and her sourdough starter. She gave samples of the historical Alaskan starter she had acquired to anyone who expressed interest and kept her starter going through half a century. Clearly her pancake recipe would trump anything my grandfather would come up with.

I learned this evening when asking my mom about this sourdough standoff, that my grandparents had taken a sourdough class. My mother has their text/cook book from this class and I am very eager to get my hands on it. However, had Mom known this at the time of the pancake challenge, I would hope she would have been a little more wary. You see, my Grandpa Russ spared neither time, nor sleep, for quality. On the morning of the sourdough pancake challenge he woke up 3 hours before cooking time to get his batter bubbling away. He harnessed the yeast's natural production of CO2 to add lift and fluffiness to his pancakes. My mother woke up at cooking time and added baking soda (a base), to sourdough (acidic) and attained pancake fluffiness through a version of the classic baking soda/vinegar volcano that every kid sees in grade school. The real difference here is that adding baking soda to sourdough reduces the sourness as the acid in the dough is what gives it that distinctive sourdough flavor. In an unsurprising turn of events, my grandpa, with his 3 hour head start, unanimously won the sourdough compitition judged by the family of Derit Sdensen.

So goes one of the sourdough folktales of my family. Today, I most frequently make Helen Laurent's sourdough pancake recipe--modified by Mom to use less of all things bad for you-but still delicious. I have made my grandpa's recipe, but getting up that far before hand for pancakes really is a pain. Usually pancakes are a weekend thing, and three extra hours of sleep on the weekend is much appreciated. Also, I am not sure I like my pancakes quite that sour. I am going to give his recipe a try again this weekend, but my previous experience has been that to enjoy them, you need to really love sourdough and be willing to sacrifice some sleep for some really tasty pancakes.

When I make pancakes, I make Helen Laurent's recipe. I learned recently that Helen Laurent has recently passed away, and Sept. 10th 2010 they are holding a celebration of her life in Juneau/Douglas, Alaska. I can't think of a better celebration of her life than to make the pancakes she so generously fed people, or to disseminate the knowledge about sourdough that she so graciously maintained. My dad says that to truly make Helen Laurent pancakes you have to have some of her historical sourdough starter. As she gave it to so many people he is pretty sure he can get me a sample, so maybe someday soon I will be able to make these sourdough pancakes using a starter with over a century of history. However, right now, I'll settle for my own measly 2 year old starter, which regardless of its youth produces tastiness.

My boyfriend, who doesn't like pancakes, loves these sourdoughs. He likes his pancakes more crepe like. Sourdough pancakes are less fluffy, and less chewy than a traditional pancake. And, they also leave you feeling much more satisfied.


For Helen Lauren Sourdough Pancakes

1. If you know you want pancakes the night before, take the starter out of your fridge and check to make certain you have enough* (defined below, this depends on how many people you are feeding) in the pot to make pancakes, if you need more add equal parts water and flour and a small (1 tsp to 1 Tbsp) of sugar product and let sit over night. Even if you do not need more starter to make the pancakes, letting your yeast warm up to room temperature, reactivate, and start fermenting again. This will improve the taste of your pancakes in the morning. Place the starter on the counter for the night.

2. If you suddenly decide in the morning that you want pancakes don't worry. Tasty sourdough pancakes are still just a few moments away. Take the stater out of the fridge and check to see if you have enough*, if you do not have enough add 1 part flour and 1 part water until you do have enough and wait an hour (to help this process you could also put your sourdough in a warm place). If your always feeding a crowd just make a habit of keeping a larger quantity of starter on hand.

*Enough sourdough starter depends entirely on how many people you are feeding and how hungry those people are. Usually for myself and my boyfriend if I make a standard recipe that calls for 1 cup of sourdough starter, and we have enough leftovers to feed ourselves breakfast at least once again, However, if I am feeding myself and my sister there will be no left overs, and if it is my brother I will make two cups just to make sure. People who do not have sourdough pancakes frequently, or have never had them before, may eat A LOT of them. When I haven't made them for a while I do the same thing. There is something about them that just tastes so good, and you want to eat far more than you actually need. I always try to keep at least 2 1/2 cups of starter in the fridge for these occurrences, and if I know I am going to be feeding a crowd I get it out, add some flour and water, and let it start doing its thing the night before.

The Basic Recipe (other than the sourdough I eyeball most of these)

1 cup sourdough starter

add

1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Oil (any type works I've used olive, sunflower, safflower, vegetable, melted butter...) add more oil if you want richer pancakes, I believe Helen's original recipe called for at least 2 Tbsp. You can cut it back to reduce fat or increase it as you like. The oil does not really effect flavor all that much, the key to sourdough flavor is the starter.

After you've decided how much oil and salt you're adding... Add

1 egg and mix until combined

(Optional: to increase fluffiness, separate the egg, add the yolk to the batter and mix, and whip the egg white to peaks and reserve)

When ready to cook, add

1/2 to 1 1/2 tsp baking soda (do not add immediately, mix your baking soda with a bit (2 Tbsp) water and set aside until ready to cook your pancakes). When your griddle is hot, stir your soda water mixture and add to pancake batter. Stir. If you separated your egg whites and whipped, add them in at this time by folding into the pancake batter. Adding the baking soda/ water mix will start the pancake batter CO2 reaction as the acid in the sourdough reacts with the base in the soda, this is what is happening any time you add baking soda or powder to a recipe. Once you have added the soda start cooking immediately. The more soda you add the fluffier your pancakes will be. The less soda you add the more sour they will be. You have to find the optimal fluffy/sour equilibrium for yourself. Everyone has different tastes and preferences.

For cooking the pancakes add 1/3 a cup to a hot skillet, turn the temp to medium low, wait unti bubbles are forming in the middle of the pancake, flip, and let it cook for 1 min on the other side.
At this point for me, I know this recipe by heart, and eyeball the ingredients. You have fewer dishes to do if you don't measure everything! The most important part is to make sure you mix the baking soda with a bit of water, and wait to add it in until just before you start cooking. All of your pancakes will be delicious, but you will notice that the ones cooked just a couple minutes after you added the soda have the best flavor and the lightest texture. Every pancake you cook from this recipe will be better than Bisquick, both in terms of nutrition and in terms of taste. If your not a sourdough convert, give me a call, and if your in town, I'll make you breakfast ;)


Now, if you really like the sour of sourdough, you should consider making my Grandpa's pancakes. In these, you do not use the baking soda reaction to help give your pancake lift and reduce the sour flavor. For fluffiness you rely solely on egg whites and the natural fermentation reaction.

Step one. Start the night before, or get up at least 3 hours before you plan on cooking the pancakes.

Step 2. Mix

1 cup starter
1 Tbsp oil
1 tsp sugar
1 T wheat germ or bran or both (optional, my grandpa Russ loved adding these to all of his pancakes and it is quite tasty, but if you do not have them on hand do not worry)

Step 3. Let this sit for at least 3 hours

Step 4. separate 1 egg

Step 5. Mix with batter

1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk

Step 6. Whip egg white to stiff peak

Step 7. Make sure griddle is hot, fold egg white into batter and cook pancakes.


Usually when I am cooking for a crowd I mix up a lot of sourdough mix at once, however, if cooking by the baking soda method it is probably best to mix it up 1 cup at a time, cook, and then repeat. At this point I know the Helen Laurent sourdough pancake recipe by heart and to me it is absolutely easier than Bisquick. It does take getting used to the fact that you need to mix the baking soda in water and then cook immediately, but for the effort, the result is well worth it. These pancakes take well to additions, my family likes blueberries added during cooking. Personally, I am a fan of chocolate chips. There is nothing better than a chocolate chip sourdough pancake on a Sunday morning. For either Blueberries or Chocolate Chips, just add them sprinkled over the top of the pancake right after you have put it on the griddle or in the frying pan.

I sincerely hope that everyone who reads this has a chance to try sourdough pancakes, if you live in the area or happen to be visiting Indianapolis, let me know, I am always on the look for new sourdough converts.