Mini-financiers au miel

These morsel of honey-almond goodness are underwhelming at first glance. But anyone who's taken a bit out of the dense dough is unable to resist "MMMMing." That's because it's hard to believe these small beige bites could hold so much honeyed, almond flavour. I like to serve these financiers, made in a mini muffin pan if you're not lucky enough to get an authentic financier pan, with coffee and tea and fruit. This recipe comes from the mignardises chapter in the Chocolate & Zucchini book, from which I've made the chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles in the past.

Cleaning out the pantry

I knew the time had come to clean out my pantry when I stopped bothering to check what I already had in the house before writing my grocery list. My pantry was a mountain of boxes and bags I had long forgotten about.
So it was on a cold winter Sunday, when I was wandering aimlessly around the house, having fulfilled all my other housekeeping duties that I realized the time had come to face the music.
I slowly opened the doors and surveyed the damage.
Mismatched Tupperware lids, crumbs of cornmeal and pieces of broken spaghetti stared back at me, taunting me. So I took a deep breath and dove in.
I found: four half-opened bags of jasmine rice, 3 bags of egg noodles (both large and extra-large), 5 nearly-finished bags of coconut flakes, and three opened boxes of baking powder.
After cleaning out the pantry and arranging all the products by: pasta and grains, oil and vinegar, and baking products, I realized I had never tested the efficacy of my baking powder, baking soda, and yeast, and there was no time like the present.

These are a few easy tests you can that will take you mere minutes:
To test baking powder's effectiveness: mix 1 teaspoon baking powder with 1/2 cup hot water and the mixture should bubble immediately. Store in a cool dry place. It should be replaced every 6-12 months.

To test baking soda's effectiveness: mix 1/4 teaspoon baking soda with 2 teaspoons of vinegar and the mixture should bubble immediately.

To test whether the yeast is still active: Mix 1 tsp sugar into 1/2 cup of warm water (110° to 115° F), then mix in 2-1/4 tsp yeast. If the cream foam has risen to the top of the cup by the end of ten minutes, the yeast is active. If not, it needs to be replaced.

To my dismay, my yeast and all but two boxes of baking powder had effectively died. And if I'm not baking with the best products, what's the point? What better way to start your year than to start fresh.

As a parting note, check out Mark Bittman's tips in the New York Times on how to determine what to toss, and what to keep in your kitchen.

What about you? Are there any products lurking in your fridge or pantry that are long past their due date?

Emerging trends: Salted Caramel

When Starbucks is opening yet another coffee shop in a neighbourhood, realtors know it's a sign of development and rejuvenation and potentially - a housing boom. Similarly, when Starbucks begins to expand its product base and offer new products, foodies know those ingredients have hit the tipping point.

Foodies have long known about salted caramel. With Häagen-Dazs introducing a new reserve brand of salted caramel ice cream, Starbucks offering salted caramel hot chocolate, President's Choice selling sea salted caramel popcorn, it's obvious salted caramel has crossed over into the mainstream.

In an article in The New York Times, called "How Caramel Developed a Taste for Salt," Kara Nielsen, a trend analyst at the Center for Culinary Development in San Francisco says American food trends go through five stages, from "chef's indulgence to supermarket staple."

Salted caramel was a slow progression that started with top pastry chefs in New York City introducing the unexpected pairing on their menus and ended with Wal-Mart introducing the flavour in a box of truffles.

Even the man of the hour, President Barack Obama has developed a taste for Fran's salted caramels, propelling them to become the company's best-seller.

“Dulce de leche is what brought caramel back,” Nielsen told the Times. “Without it, you wouldn’t have salted caramel’s popularity right now.”

Salted caramel is not for everyone. It's a rich, savoury-sweet flavour that starts out strong and slowly mellows on the tip of your tongue. But it's more palatable, for taste buds like mine that want to taste every last ingredients rather than the overpowering taste of too much sugar.

French bistro cooking class

A friend of mine wanted to take a cooking class and I recommended Dish Cooking Studio to her, where I'd enjoyed taking two classes on previous occasions: "brunch entertaining", and "Simply French."

I've successfully adapted recipes, and skills, that I learned from these classes to my everyday life, and so it was with great anticipation that we signed up for the French bistro cooking class.

A little bit of history here: The term "bistro" comes from the Russian word "quick." According to an urban legend, during the Russian occupation of Paris in 1915, Russian soldiers who wanted quick service would demand "bistro."

The French bistro menu of the evening:

Mussels in tomato Pernod cream sauce

Sweet onion and Gruyere soup, a lighter adaption of the classic French onion soup

Beautifully marbled onglet steak from Cumbrae's, with Bearnaise sauce

Bistro frites

Dark chocolate and hazelnut mousse with berry coulis

Unlike the other two classes I took in previous years, however, this one was hands-on. The chef showed the class a short demonstration of the items we would prepare, before my friend and I were tasked with taking on the mussels, from cleaning the beards off the mussels to preparing the aromatic tomato-based Pernod sauce and plating it for our fellow students.

Within minutes, the kitchen was buzzing with the hisssssing searing of the steaks in cast-iron pans, the whirring of the blender as it ground the hazelnuts, and the chop, chop, chop as the Yukon potatoes made their transformation into double-fried pommes frites.

The recipe for the mussels will follow, along with some key tips I gleaned from our chef, Charmaine Baan.

Ingredients:

Serves four

1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup Pernod (or leave it out and include more wine)
1 cup diced tomatoes (fresh or tinned in the winter)
1/2 cup 35 per cent cream (don't substitute a lower fat content, so it won't curdle)
2-3 lb cleaned fresh mussels
1 large shallot - sliced
3 springs tarragon
5- springs chervil
salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Directions:

1. Wash mussels very well under cold running water to remove any sand and grit. If any are slightly open, tap them to see if they will close. If they do, keep them. If they remain open, or cracked, throw them out. Check them to make sure they feel slightly heavy for their size. Good mussels should smell like the sea, not fishy.

2. Wash the herbs and dry them well. Remove the leaves from the stems and chop them coarsely, set aside.

3. Place the wine and shallot in a large pot, making sure it's big enough for the mussels to expand in there. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and cream. Let simmer for a few minutes or until slightly reduced and thicker. Add Pernod and bring the mixture to a light boil.

4. Add the cleaned mussels to the pot and cover tightly. Don't let yourself peek before 3-5 minutes. If they are about 75 per cent of the way there, stir them once and cover the pot again. They should all be fully open. Remove with a slotted spoon, place in a dish.

5. Add half of the chopped herbs, season with salt and pepper, then top with the remaining herbs, pour over mussels and serve immediately.

Would I make this again?The process was indeed so simple, providing you remember to "goutez, goutez, goutez" all the way through that I can't way to impress some guests with this. The key is to have patience when you are cleaning the grit and beards off the mussels. This could take more time than you are used to.

Substitutions:While I hate the smell and taste of Pernod for the most part, it has a way of mellowing out and adding depth to the flavours of this sauce. If you're still not wowed by the smell, or don't have any on hand, feel free to increase the wine content. You can also substitute onions for the shallots, but the end result won't be quite as refined and subtle.

Grade:Five stars out of five. Ever since my parents treated me to a trip to Belgium, and the Netherlands, for my 16th birthday, moules et frites ranks among my favourite meals. But it has to be done right. And what better way to control the result than to make it yourself?

Overall, I enjoyed the class tremendously. However, I am a visual learner and perhaps the demo classes that I took before are more suited to someone like me. The chefs take more time to explain the recipes as they are making them, whereas in this case, we learned how to make one recipe well by doing it ourselves. Still, there are no real complaints from this amateur chef, especially after eating this gourmet meal with other happy-as-a-clam (mussel?) foodies who can appreciate the hard work that goes into a big batch of frites.

Bahama Mama Banana Rum Cake

Ever since my trip to Bahamas this fall, I have been resenting the fact that I had to rush out of the airport without buying a box of the famous Bahamian rum cake.
So I had my eye on this recipe in Jill O'Connor's "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey" for several weeks after buying the book.
Of course, I didn't realize the night I made this cake would forever be seared into my brain as the night of the "Carbon Monoxide Drama." I had just pulled it out of the oven, and settled in to watch a movie with my sister when the carbon monoxide detector went off, alerting me to call 911 immediately. Sure enough, dispatch put me through to the fire department immediately, and warned me to leave my house. Within minutes, a fire truck with flashing lights pulled up to my street, a dashing firefighter leaped over a snowbank and asked me how I felt. After carefully checking my house, and finding nothing but a faulty detector, the firefighters told me my freshly baked rum cake smelled great. I invited them in for a slice, but they had to get going they said. Their loss, this cake tasted great for several days and my father actually asked if I had any left over.

Acorn-shaped mini cornbread puddings

I've been aching to try out my new acorn cakelet pan ever since buying it at half price from Williams-Sonoma during boxing week.
In my first attempt, I made these mini cornbread puddings to accompany the curried zucchini soup I like to make when the mercury drops.
This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food.
They're called mini cornbread puddings because they are more moist than your typical cornbread.

Ingredients: (Makes 24)
Butter, room temperature, for pan
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn kernels, thawed and patted dry

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees, place rack in upper third. Butter mini muffin pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
Make a well in center of flour mixture. In well, whisk together egg, sour cream, and corn. Mix with flour mixture just until incorporated.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan (or acorn cakelet pan if you have one). Bake until tops have browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 10 to 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes in pan. Serve, or cool completely and store at room temperature in an airtight container, up to 2 days.

My substitutions:
I'll admit my sour cream ran out, I only used 1 cup rather than 1.5 cups. I also opted to leave out the corn kernels because I was going for a more traditional cornbread and you know what? They texture was just perfect.

Will I make this again?
Definitely. Often I am looking for a little something to serve alongside soup or when I have guests, and this is a pretty addition to your table. It also freezes and stores well.

Grade:
Five stars out of five. This whole process took me mere minutes.

Top five favourite cookbooks of 2008

If 2007 was all about fast, faster, fastest foods, then 2008 marked a return to the simple life, la dolce vita, getting back to basics. Some of my favourite cookbooks of the year reflected that shift, perhaps partly because more people were dining in than eating out.

Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites by Giada De Laurentiis
I'll begin with Giada. Not only is she lovely to look at, but you have to give her credit for her straightforward recipes. Not one of them have gone astray in my kitchen. From this cookbook, I have made asparagus lasagne, sweet and sticky chicken drumsticks, and plan to make the hazelnut mascarpone cake for my dad's birthday. I've also flagged the rigatoni with squash and prawns and the prosciutto mozzarella pinwheels. As with most of Giada's cookbooks, the glossy photos are plentiful, and she offers helpful tips about freezing and cooking ahead above each recipe.

Cooking for Friends: Food from My Table by Gordon Ramsay
I have to say I adore Gordon Ramsay, but I was disheartened after buying one of his "fast food" cookbooks. Not only were some of the ingredients ones you won't find as readily in North American groceries, but the recipes weren't as accessible for guests who may not be adventurous. This book, however, is perhaps even more simple and direct than its "fast food" peer. From this book, I made the broccoli, Stilton and pear soup, the farfalle with bacon, peas, and sage, roasted tomatoes with marjoram, and I've flagged the coffee and almond crunch cake. All of the recipes I made were elegant to serve to guests, but also delicious and uncomplicated.

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics by Ina Garten
Ina, Ina, Ina. The world would be a much sadder place without you. She writes the kinds of recipes that make people go mmmmm and renounce their diets. From this cookbook, I made the tomato and goat cheese tarts, and the French chocolate bark. I plan to make the affogato sundae and homemade granola bars, among other recipes. But what I like best about Ina Garten's cookbooks is that she often features helpful tips about entertaining, like the CDs she plays for her guests, or in this one, 10 things not to serve at a dinner party (like beets, offal, corn on the cob, or poppy seeds.) Some are common sense, others are simply savvy tips from the ultimate entertainer.

David Rocco's Dolce Vita
Perhaps I put my foot in my mouth when I dismissed Rocco as just a pretty boy who doesn't know how to cook. When I received his cookbook, my jaw fell open. Indeed, he is a pretty boy, in pretty photos of pictaresque Italy but he is also a storyteller and a passionate foodie who has introduced new places and people to armchair travellers around the world. His cookbook is no exception. While the recipes are simple, the cookbook brings the food to life with stunning photos. From this book, I made the hot pink beet risotto and butternut squash soup. While I am more apt to reach for my Jamie Oliver cookbooks or tattered Marcella Hazan and Giada De Laurentiis recipes when in the mood for pasta, this is the kind of book you can flip open at random as you would a travel book, as it takes you into the homes, gardens, and kitchens of Italian people. This is the kind of book you'd keep away from the kitchen counter to avoid oil splatters.

More Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin
While walking to the cafeteria at my workplace, I clutched at my coworker's elbow. Is that Jacques Pepin, I whispered? She didn't know who I was talking about, but insisted I introduce myself. I spluttered and kept walking, embarrassed and not knowing what to say. He was there to appear on our morning show, that day. I am still kicking myself. I left this book last because I haven't tried any of the recipes - yet. But, I plan to make several, including the cod in olive-tomato crust, sauteed stuffed figs with blueberries, apricot clafoutis, and roasted split chcken with mustard crust. True to his promise, this is a no fuss, no muss cookbook with short ingredient lists and a brief set of directions for people who are afraid to cook, pressed by time or limited by a poorly stocked supermarket.