New Year, New Blog!

In conjunction with the 100th post I've just posted, and fittingly the first in the new year, I am upgrading this website.

Please visit me in the new incarnation of Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst, which I am now running with WordPress. The website URL will remain almost the same, so please be careful and update any links and bookmarks to:

http://burgersandbratwurst.wordpress.com

I will no longer be updating my Blogspot blog, though you will be able to find all of my past posts in the archives of the new WordPress blog. So, essentially, for you everything will remain the same except the URL, except that it will be better.

Please follow me over to my new home and look forward to fun new features, such as a customized banner, easier tag and archive navigations, and a new weekly series of posts.

Graham Crackers, an American Classic

When I began studying at Smith my friends and I discovered an excellent breakfast place called Sylvester’s. We learned from their menu that the restaurant is named after Sylvester Graham, Presbyterian minister and inventor of the Graham cracker. Aside from encouraging people to sleep with the windows open, take cold showers, and control their lust, he influenced the food world in a major way. Graham promoted whole wheat flours in his diets, as well as vegetarianism and temperance.

Graham believed that bran was a cure-all solution to illnesses. Bran is one of three parts of the wheat berry, along with the endosperm (which is what white flour is made of) and the germ (high in complex carbohydrates and protein). To make graham flour, the components of the berry are milled separately, then mixed back together. The endosperm is finely ground whereas the bran and germ is ground coarsely.

In 1822 Sylvester created the graham cracker, using his graham flour and whole wheat flour. The abolitionist James Caleb Jackson, who sought medical cures for his illnesses throughout his life, created “granula” after learning about Graham’s philosophies. This would then be adopted by John Harvey Kellogg (of the Kellogg’s company) and turned into the “granola” cereal we know today. In the 1960’s the name was adopted for the snack bar, which apparently has little connection with the cereal or cracker.

It’s ironic that today Sylvester Graham would probably throw a fit if he saw what Nabisco, with its Honey Maid brand, has done to his cracker. Technically, for a cracker to be called a “graham cracker” there must be graham flour. While the Nabisco crackers do have graham flour in them, they contain more sugar (something Graham would have frowned upon). He would also oppose the use of white flour in the cracker. Thus we can conclude that Graham’s healthy diet food has turned into an unhealthy snack, which since it includes high fructose corn syrup is probably aiding the obesity epidemic in our society.

So what to do you ask? Ah, there is a simple answer: make your own. While the recipe I have, which I got from my pastry instructor Janine Sciarappa, includes all-purpose white flour, I’m sure you could experiment using whole wheat for an even healthier cracker. These crackers come out better than the Nabisco brand’s, and although they only hold about a week at room temperature in a sealed container, you can easily make extra dough and freeze it to bake up when you want. You can top them with cinnamon sugar, or add a bit of cocoa to the dough as variations.

Graham Crackers
adapted from Janine Sciarappa

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups graham flour (available from King Arthur Flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tasp fine sea salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
2 Tbsp honey

Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix together the flours, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl beat the butter, brown sugar, and honey on medium speed with an electric mixer until it becomes fluffy (2-3 minutes). On low speed add the flour mixture just until combined (don’t overmix or the crackers will be too hard).

On the counter cut the dough in four equal pieces. Roll each out between two sheets of parchment paper creating rectangles (about 9”x6” and 1/8” thick). If you want to make it fancy, use a fluted pastry wheel to trim the edges, otherwise just use a chef knife. Then make three 6”x3” rectangles. Pressing lightly (so you don’t cut all the way through) score each rectangle into four equal rectangles (think of how the crackers look from the Nabisco box, with the sections you can break off). Repeat this with the other three pieces of dough. Chill the crackers on their parchment in the freezer until they become firm, about 20min. [Note: at this point you can choose to keep them in the freezer until you are ready to bake them. Place them directly on the cookie sheet from the freezer and extend the baking time as needed.]

Remove the dough from the freezer and, with a fork, create an attractive design on the crackers. Transfer the crackers on their parchment onto a cookie sheet and bake, rotating halfway through for even baking, until they are a beautiful golden brown. This should take about 15-18min. Let the crackers cool completely before breaking them along the perforations.

Yields 12 6”x3” graham crackers.

For more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_crackers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Graham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granula http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_flour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Caleb_Jackson

Truffles for the Holidays

When I was little, I didn’t like chocolate. The dark was too bitter, the milk tasted soapy. The only chocolate I could stand was white chocolate, or a thin layer of milk chocolate filled with sweetened yogurt (so all things Kinder were mine). After a while I got sick of white and yogurt chocolate and started eyeing the “real” stuff. Today I can’t get enough of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate. I’m not a fanatic about spending a lot for high-percentage chocolate (why not just eat cocoa or baking chocolate?), but I won’t touch yogurt chocolate anymore. I love the complex slightly bitter, slightly sweet, tongue-coating "real" chocolate melting in my mouth.

Everything about truffles falls into this last category: they are soft, usually bittersweet, and definitely melt-in-your-mouth good. The little gems are prized in our society as a chocolate lover’s euphoria, and are often priced accordingly. What we don’t realize is how easy, and relatively inexpensive, it is to make them ourselves. Even Mark Bittman has jumped on the boat and devoted his latest column to these gourmet chocolate balls (and let me say, I have been planning this post for a while, so I have mixed feelings towards his video this week).

Truffles are basically a form of ganache. This is melted chocolate with cream and can vary in consistency according to what you are using it for. If you are using it as a chocolate coating for petit-fours it will be thinner, but for truffles you want a nice thick cookie-dough ganache. The ganache is rolled into semi-round shapes (the great thing about truffles is that they’re named after the mushroom because they look similar to the irregularly shaped fungi of northwest Italy, so you actually don’t want a perfectly round sphere). Lastly they are traditionally coated with cocoa powder, but you can also use chopped nuts, sweetened coconut shavings, or anything else you can get your hands on.

When making truffles, you can go wild with flavoring experimentation. One ganache recipe can be separated into different bowls, to which you can add different flavors. If you want to get fancy you can fill them with a nut or cream. You can also keep it simple and just flavor the ganache. I’ve made mint and raspberry truffles with extract and I’ve added ground black pepper to give the dessert a familiar savory sensation. You can also add a quarter cup of brandy, Grand Marnier, or Bailey's to the following recipe. In school some students decided to put powdered chipotle pepper in the ganache, giving the truffle an initial chocolate flavor and at the last second a wonderful punch of smoky spiciness.

At this time of year, people are scrambling to get things for loved ones that will knock their socks off. It’s amazing though how much people will be impressed with you if in addtition to (or instead of) a store-bought gift they might return, you give them homemade truffles. People don’t often make things at home anymore but I promise you, you won’t regret making these - and no one will return them.

Chocolate Truffles
adapted from Cindy Salvato, executive pastry chef and instructor at BU Culinary Arts

1 cup cream (heavy/whipping)
1 pound chocolate (use your favorite kind, if using milk or white chocolate up this to 1.5
pounds; use chunks of chocolate available at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or any other good
grocery store, don’t use chocolate chips because the chocolate quality usually isn’t as good)

In a pan scald the cream (bringing it almost up to a boil and then taking it off the heat – careful, once it is very hot this can go quickly and the cream can boil and overflow!) While the cream is heating, chop the chocolate into small chocolate-chip-sized pieces. With the pan off the heat, add the chocolate and let it sit without stirring for one to two minutes. Then give it a quick stir and the chocolate should come together. If you want to add any flavors, do so now.

Pour the ganache into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap (place the wrap right on the chocolate) and refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight. The ganache will be a little soupy at this stage but will harden as it cools down in the fridge.

To make the truffles, take a teaspoon and scoop some of the now hardened ganache into your hands (you want the size of a small marble, maybe a bit bigger; we’re talking bite-size, bigger is not better here). Working very quickly, because the chocolate melts, roll it in your hands* then drop it into a bowl or small tray of cocoa powder. Cover the truffle with cocoa, then remove and place in a single layer on a plate or in a container**. If you have flavored them, or have truffles with different flavors and want to give them to others, find a way to mark each one to symbolize what’s in them. You can do this by placing a nut on a truffle with nuts in it, or rolling them in something other than cocoa powder. Use your creativity!

Store the truffles in your refrigerator until you’re ready to eat them or give them as presents. They should hold up to three weeks.

*At school we used rubber gloves for this so our hands wouldn’t get all gunky, but at home I like to lick my hands when they become too chocolatey, then wash them and continue rolling.

** If you have to pile them, place some parchment paper between each layer, but note that truffles are delicate and can be easily squashed!

Menu for Hope 4

It’s that time of year again: the holidays are upon us and we are all hustling and bustling for presents for loved ones. While you’re out shopping, or better yet while you’re procrastinating that shopping, hop online and join the food blogging community in its biggest fundraising event.

Menu for Hope was started by the wonderful Pim of Chez Pim after the tsunami affected millions in southeast Asia four years ago. It started as a humble effort to raise money and has turned into a major online charity event, last year raising over $60,000 for the UN World Food Program.

This year bloggers have come together again to donate cooking supplies, gourmet gift baskets, one-of-a-kind tours, meals, and interviews, cookbooks, and more. Take a look at Pim’s website to learn more about the gifts you can buy raffle tickets for.

How it works:

You look at the list of offered prizes and choose which ones you would like to buy tickets for. Each ticket costs $10. Then you go to the FirstGiving site and make your donation. Make sure to write your gift’s code in the comments line, or you don’t get your ticket (though you’ve made a donation and your money still goes to a good cause). You can buy raffle tickets from December 10^th through December 21^st. Winners will be announced January 9^th.

Long story short: please help us help others. It’s an important event. You can give as much as you can. You may even be a lucky winner of a prize!

For more information and detailed rules please visit the Menu for Hope site at Chez Pim.

The Busy Life of a Culinary School Student

I really should be working on catching up in my reflective journal for school, but I feel more of a pull to my blog at the moment. If any of the BU gastronomy professors are reading this sentence, please don’t read that last sentence. I know I haven’t been the most prolific writer this fall, and for that I apologize to you my readers. While I am worried that people will forget about my blog, you dedicated readers are the ones who suffer. You know who you are: the ones who check every couple of days to answer the eternal question: “Has she updated yet?” The more I worry about losing readers, the more I hear “Why haven’t you updated?” “When’s your next post?” and even “Is there someplace on the internet we can report a missing blogger?” Thank you so much for your questions, your nagging, and overall your support. I cannot make excuses about why I’m not posting as much, other than to say that I miss the days of being paid full-time for a job I only worked at for about ten or fifteen hours a week.

This semester looks very different from the last year I spent luxuriously studying up on and writing about gastronomic issues. Whereas I used to sit down every morning with a pot of Teekampagne tea (now also available in the US!) and read and write about food, today is the first time since I’ve moved to Boston that I’ve had the time to finish a pot of tea in one sitting. Of course, perhaps that’s partially due to the fact that I just got my teapot last weekend.

My daily routine starts out luxuriously late compared to most people. As I’ve mentioned, class usually starts at 10:30am. I don’t understand why a good third of my class still comes late – it’s ten thirty! The few days I worked last year I often had to be at school by seven thirty in the morning. Now, even with an hour-long commute, I can get up at eight with plenty of time to spare.

Classes have evolved since I first posted on it. They still involve a morning lecture or demonstration, but now they are by an invited chef, who explains to us his or her philosophy, ingredients, and dishes. These are very interesting, and it’s fun to sit and watch as delicious food unfolds before our eyes. However, the afternoon demonstrations offer the most practical learning for me. This is where we apply the things we’ve learned; it’s when chefs come in and teach us their set of recipes. All come in with an agenda (whether it be to teach us about their cuisine, to get through the day’s recipes, or even to find employees) and some execute their plan with more precision and organization than others. Many ask us what our plans are for the future, and it’s been fun to hear the subtle changes in everyone’s description of themselves. Depending on the day, and the chef, I will change my description to emphasize writing, learning, or cooking.

We often don’t get out until five or six in the evening after finishing the dishes (it’s amazing how many dishes twelve culinary students can make!). There’s often some errand to do after school, and lately I’ve been lucky if I’m home before eight in the evening. I have just enough time to eat a very small dinner (we usually eat what we’ve cooked around four-thirty), catch up with David, check my email, and then it’s time to think about going to sleep to start over again the next day. Weekends aren’t less busy. The only difference is I often get up much earlier for work.

Thanksgiving was a very welcome change. David and I luckily got a ride down to Philadelphia with some friends of his, and we spent three wonderful days with my sister and her husband. The first day, Thanksgiving itself, we made the menu I posted about. Everything was delicious*. Specifically the custard, the stuffing (if you use this recipe, make sure though to chop the mushrooms small and add a bit of extra bread), the endives, and the sweet potatoes. I must say, I have never really liked sweet potatoes. I’ve been able to tolerate them with lots of sugar or maple syrup, but never plain. This year, though, Sarah made them from the Julia Child recipe, and added a bit of grated ginger and butter. It was amazing. None of us could believe how something so simple was so delicious.

If anything this fall, I’ve learned to value that simplicity even more than I have in the past. The time I get to spend with David, the moments in class when I make a dish I’m really proud of, and even the time I spend at work, fixing the cookies in the display or making sandwiches on the line and joking with my coworkers. I’ve told many people that this semester I haven’t dreaded going to school once. Although some days I come home happier than others, I’ve always learned something and look forward to doing it again the next day. In the meantime, I need to take advantage of this moment, and get caught up on that journal…

*With the exception of the turkey, which was a bit of a flop due to the fact that I misread my thermometer. It was good for leftovers though!

Julia Child’s Sweet Potato Purée
adapted from “The Way to Cook”

4 large sweet potatoes
1 medium Yukon gold potato
4-6 Tbsp butter
½ tsp ginger (or just to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Peel and boil all the potatoes until tender. If you have time and space in your oven, you may bake them as well (this will take at least an hour, and doesn’t require peeling beforehand). Over low heat beat in the butter, ginger, and seasoning, mashing the potatoes with a masher or mixer. You can make this ahead of time, but make sure you don’t cool off the potatoes. Put only half the butter in and keep warm in a water bath on the stove. When you are ready to serve them, beat in the rest of the butter and season. They must be served hot!

How I Wrote a Thanksgiving Menu

This Wednesday David and I will be traveling down the Eastern seaboard with the Greyhound to Pennsylvania to visit my sister and her husband. Bus travel is by no means as first-class as planes, as classic as cars, or as classy as private car service; nevertheless I hope it will get us there for the best holiday of the year anyway.

In the last couple of weeks David, Sarah, Nathan, and I have been brainstorming about what we want to eat this Thursday. It's not easy putting together a menu, and I've found it really interesting and helpful to listen to everybody's ideas. In class on the day we talked about writing menus I felt mine was the least inspired, most traditional menu of the group. This disappointed me until David pointed out that my passion lies precisely in traditional foods, not foams and chemicals*. So, a Thanksgiving dinner shouldn't be too difficult for me, right? Here are some of my suggestions:

My first thought was to take the squash from the middle of the dinner and bring it to the forefront in an appetizer. I've always wanted to have appetizers at Thanksgiving, I think it makes it fancier. Next is the turkey, what to stuff it with, and how to prepare it. Roasted, brined, basted, injected with sauce under the skin, in the oven, on the grill, on a spit? The options are endless, but eventually the line must be drawn. I like in the oven, stuffed, and basted every thirty minutes to one hour: this gives me plenty of time to handle all the other details that need to be dealt with.

Sides with the turkey are often more important than the turkey itself: traditional bean casseroles, corn casseroles, mashed potatoes, extra stuffing (careful not to dry it out!), and plenty of fresh vegetables (even salad if you like). Some suggestions are creamed corn (or leeks), braised endives, peas with pearl onions - again, many options. It's important to have a balance: too many starches, or even too many vegetables, can make the meal lean too heavily on one side. Not only do you want a balance in types of vegetables, but you also want a balance in flavor - if you have cream in one dish already, try having another dish flavored with onions or peppers. Choose dishes with ingredients that compliment each other - not only within the dish but across the dishes as well (yes, that's hard, and I will always be learning what goes well together).

Dessert has always been one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. Focus on what you like, and don't get too carried away with making too many pies (especially if you feel more obligated than excited about them). This year I've omitted a crust entirely, and I'm only having a custard. Of course I know it's hard to give up the classics, and Thanksgiving is by no means a time to hold back. If you like key lime pie, make it and love it. Try it with some coconut shavings, or in bar form layered with your own graham cracker crust.

Making twists on old themes can be fun and produce excellent results. Keep an eye out for what other people are talking about for their dinners, and don't be afraid to ask for recipe recommendations. You never know what kind of ideas you can get in the wildest of places!

Pictured above are the cookbooks I'll be sourcing this year for Thanksgiving. In addition my sister and I have tapped Yahoo and Epicurious for recipes, and I’ve thrown in a soup and a dessert I’ve learned at school. Together, they will hopefully prove to be a delicious meal.

Soup
Vegetarian Butternut Squash

~

Dinner
Roast Turkey
Hazelnut, Sage, and Mushroom Stuffing
Cranberry Preserves
Green Beans with Crimini Mushroom Sauce
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Purée
Endive and Walnut Salad with Gorgonzola Cheese

~

Dessert
Pumpkin Custard with Pecan Praline
Vanilla Ice Cream

I haven’t made most of these dishes before – I’ll be tweaking my traditional Julia Child garlic mashed potatoes to make a low-fat version (thanks to Moosewood), and the green beans Sarah found here at Yahoo. The stuffing we got off Epicurious, which also has some interesting menu ideas of their own. The Endive and Walnut Salad comes from the Joy of Cooking, and the sweet potatoes are Julia’s (in "The Way to Cook"). As I said, the soup I got from instructor John Vyhnanek and the dessert is a take on Cindy Salvato’s pumpkin pie, which we’ll be making in ramekins.

If you’re still finalizing your menu and are looking for a soup, the butternut squash is incredible. Vegetarians will love you for it, but if you don’t have to contend with any then you can add chicken stock to create a soup that is even richer. It was one of the first things we made in class this fall, and it was surprisingly simple for the flavor that we got out of it. Try serving it with some toasted or candied pumpkin seeds, homemade croutons, or just a sprinkling of chives.

*Having played around with molecular gastronomy recipes today, I can honestly say I will stick to my mangoes in their natural state or in puree form, but not in a spherical orb suspended with alginate and calcium chloride to make it look like an egg yolk.

Vegetarian Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Chef John Vyhnanek

2 Tbsp white wine
1 tsp garlic, finely minced
½ cup celery, finely diced
½ cup onion, finely diced
½ cup leeks, finely diced (use mostly the white part but add some of the lighter green parts too)
2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into ½” cubes
4 cups water
½ stick cinnamon (or 1 tsp cinnamon powder)
2 oz maple syrup (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Sweat the garlic and wine with some canola or vegetable oil over low heat until they are clear. Add the celery, onions, and leeks and cook slowly until they are clear. Put the squash, cinnamon, and water into the pot and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat and let simmer about 30 minutes, or until tender.

Remove the cinnamon stick, if using. Purée the soup with an immersion blender (or let cool and use a regular blender or food processor). If you want a really smooth soup, strain through a cheese cloth-lined strainer or a chinoise. Add the nutmeg, maple syrup, and seasoning and bring the soup back to a low boil. Serve warm garnished with whipped cream, pumpkin seeds, chives, and/or croutons.

Note: To make your own croutons, cut the crust off soft bread using a round fluted cookie cutter to make half-moon shapes, or cut triangles with a knife (you can get as creative as you like!). Sauté on medium heat in a pan with butter until crispy and lightly browned. For added flavor, you can put garlic and/or herbs in the butter, but be careful not to burn them.