Brian had found this so-called tapioca heaven long before I visited during my birthday trip. First day in San Francisco, he took me up to the Richmond area to experience this long awaited bubble journey.
Inspired by a sale at Target on organic heavy whipping cream, I decided to make some cream puffs this weekend. Um, yes, it was totally successful unlike my last cream puff blog.
Yum, yum, yum. Touch of Frangelico. The rest? Oky doke. Here’s a quick rundown of how the recipe went…
Flour, butter, water, sugar, salt, eggs - choux pastry.
Sift the flour (about 1 cup), sugar (about a teaspoon?), salt (just a pinch) into a mixing bowl. Heat the stick of butter with about a cup of water in a heavy saucepan until it boils. Remove from heat, add the dry ingredients and mix. Put it back onto the heat and mix until it started forming a ball. At this stage, remove from heat and place into a big mixing bowl (or your Kitchenaid mixer bowl). Beat it up to release the steam then add four eggs one at a time as you whip it into a thick pancake-like mixture. Spoonfuls into the oven at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes then lower to 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes depending on how soft you like them. Brush on an eggwash before the oven for that shiny glossy look.
Heaving whipping cream, sugar, vanilla - whipped cream.
Whip it all together until soft peaks. I like more than just a little vanilla and not as much sugar in this. Put in fridge until ready.
Eggs, sugar, Frangelico, milk, flour and/or cornstarch - custard.
Egg and one egg yolk mixed into the sugar. Heat the milk with a touch of flour (and/or cornstarch) until it’s warmed over - feel free to add other flavors (cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, etc.) that work in here. When the milk is just nearing that boil, grab your whisk and slowly pour it into the egg mixture while you whisk a fine frenzy. This is so it doesn’t turn into scrambled eggs. Put it back into the heavy saucepan onto the heat and mad whisk until you can’t taste a starchy texture anymore. Add the Frangelico towards the end - whisk a bit more. Put it in the fridge until it’s cool.
When you’re ready, add the custard into the whipped cream. Whisk it until it blends together as one. Mix to taste. Cut the cream puff in half when it’s cooled and lather it up with the mixture. Or be fancy and pipe it in. Be even more fancy and dust with powdered sugar. There you go!
Before I left for my San Francisco trip over Memorial Day weekend, Trish mentioned the Buena Vista Cafe - best Irish coffees, hands down. She even mentioned a story about her trip to the Jameson distillery (in Ireland!) and how the bartender there asked her to compare a true Irish-served Irish coffee with that of Buena Vista’s. Trish said Buena Vista was better. So, I dragged Theresa with me onto the F train. We walked up to the cafe after a leisurely stroll through Fisherman’s Wharf for clam chowder (of course).
The verdict? It was good, but I don’t have much to compare from past experiences. At $9 a cup with all that hype, I would have been extremely disappointed if it wasn’t at least good though.
However, I think a trip to Jameson’s is needed. Theresa - let’s go!
San Francisco / Mission District - Chad Robertson was recently featured in Bon Appetit magazine. I think the quick profile on him makes me love him going to Tartine even more. I also love the photo by Martin Schoeller. The bread pudding - just one reason to love him his baked goods. Uh, Tartine’s baked goods.
A couple of weeks ago, I traded Matt food for knowledge. After a cram session at Salt Lake Roasting Company, we walked over to Everest Tibetan Restaurant for a late dinner. It was good. Don’t get me wrong. But the cheap frugal person that I am, I balked at the $10.99 price for seven pan-fried momos. Momos = just like Chinese bao or a variation of the Japanese nikuman.
And plus, c’mon! Chinese food should not be that expensive (and hey, you can get delicious nikuman at a Japanese 7-Eleven for ~100 yen).
So, just the tiniest bit enraged (and very, very full from the still delicious dinner), I decided to make my own bao-tzi/bao-zi over the weekend.
This year, for Christmas, I had this crazy notion in October (yep, definitely October as I sat on the van floor while we drove South drinking tea in the middle of the night looking for a spot to camp - Dirty Devil adventure) to create special blends of tea for office giving and then some others. But as my mind likes to do, my thoughts rambled on… What if they don’t take caffeine? What if they only like herbal? What if they don’t drink tea at all?
HOT CHOCOLATE! Why not do a custom blended tea in addition to hot chocolate? Well, boy did I ever think I was a creative genius when I thought of hot chocolate on a stick… but no. I googled it and found many, many sites on the topic. Apparently, Oprah named it as one of her favorite things! *If anyone can discover something ingenious, it’s Oprah.
What better way than to celebrate a giant Thanksgiving meal than another incredibly delicious meal at Forage? Our menu for the night…
Okay, try as I might to come up with a clever title for this blog… I just couldn’t think of anything witty enough. At least… nothing to do Forage any justice with the ample amount of respect attached.
Chefs Viet Pham and Bowman Brown have recently been acclaimed one of Food and Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs 2011. It’s rare we ever see this sort of national praise from a Utah establishment. So, well… we had to try.
Cinco de Mayo - Booze and chips and desserts. That’s how I like to celebrate. Okay, okay… maybe something more sustainable as well - tacos, taquitos, nachos, anything along that deliciousness. But dessert, that is the most precious…
So, flan and tres leches! Thanks to David Lebovitz, there were recipes in his book, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, for both desserts that I could utilize.
*Butterscotch Flan (or in the closest online variation I found: Chocolate-Dulce de Leche Flan)
*Victorian Sponge Cake (which I could transform into tres leches)
Copper Onion - Dinner at 8.15pm (the earliest reservation we could get on a busy Thursday night) for Midori’s birthday. Fruit tart from Gourmandise penned with birthday wishes brought in early for a birthday surprise.
Super yum. A bit pricey, but that just follows the trend of localvore cuisine and quality ingredients…
Clear Springs Trout Fillet with fennel salad, mini beats and Marcona almonds.
Oh, it also came with a grilled lemon slice.
Good food. And can’t complain about the service… Yuko asked for a spoon, and received three from various restaurant staff within a few minutes.
However, boo on the lack of communication. Had we known they were going to charge $2/person to cut up our cake and serve it… we would’ve saved that $14 and spent it on a bottle of wine. Then, cut up the caked ourselves at home and had it with the wine! Why didn’t anyone parley this information to us?
