Recipe: Sarah Willis Chocolate Cake

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Sarah Willis Chocolate Cake

The frosting is the recipe on the tin of Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa… REALLY good.

Sarah Willis is a Niman Ranch pig farmer in Thornton, IA. She contributed this recipe for a farmers’ cookbook we were working on that hopefully will be published one day soon. Her grandmother first got it from the radio and it has been passed down through the family. Several family members have slightly different versions but it is agreed her version is the best.

Ingredients:
2 c all purpose flour (Sarah specifies organic)
2 c sugar
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 t baking soda
Pinch Kosher salt

2 eggs (Sarah specifies free range and organic)
½ cup cooking oil (she likes to use Smart Balance)
½ c cold water
1 t vanilla
1 c hot fresh brewed coffee

Method: Combine first four (dry) ingredients in one bowl. Beat the eggs in a second bowl and combine with oil, cold water and vanilla; add the contents of the second bowl to the first bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour in the coffee and mix again. Grease and flour a 9″ round or square cake pan and pour in the batter. Bake 30-40 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven or until the cake passes the toothpick test (a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean because the wet ingredients have solidified). Turn out onto a serving plate; cool, then add frosting if desired. Sarah likes to serve this with a cream cheese frosting or, for a non-dairy alternative, she puts a pattern (doily) on top then sprinkles with powdered sugar. (For my prep, I used the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa tin.)

Chocolate Cake Cross Section

I cut the 9×9 cake in half then stacked the halves to make a really tall slice.

Tips for first time cake bakers (which would include me, since I forgot everything I used to know when I baked this today) on judging doneness: 1/do use a toothpick (or maybe a matchstick) for the test instead of a knife: when the toothpick test was clean my knife was still coming out covered with batter. 2/What you are doing is making sure the center is set (not jiggling like jell-o®) while the overall cake is still moist; you can also judge this by pressing the top of the cake to see if it springs back (if it does, it’s done). 3/Remember the cake will continue to set after you remove it from the oven. 4/Allow to cool thoroughly before removing from the pan; it will shrink and that makes removal easier.

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Recipe: Vincent’s Garlic Cole Slaw

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
VincentSwa

Vincent’s Cole Slaw

Vincent’s is a seafood place that was on Inwood in Dallas when I was growing up, around the corner from the Miracle Mile. I visited their new location in Plano, TX and confirmed Vincent’s cole slaw is as good as it used to be. Goes great with grilled or broiled seafood.

Ingredients:
1 medium head green cabbage, shredded*
1/4 c vegetable oil
1/4 c mayonnaise
1/4 c cider vinegar
3 T garlic**, very finely chopped and then smashed
1 1/2 t Kosher salt

Method: To smash garlic, chop it very fine on a cutting board then dump the salt on top. Use the flat side of a chef’s knife to rub the salt and garlic together so it becomes atomized. Transfer garlic and salt to a jar then add oil, mayo and vinegar; shake to mix. Pour over cabbage, stir to mix and allow to cure at least 2 hours. Mix again before serving.

Note: There are some truly strange recipes for Vincent’s slaw circulating on the internet, including one claiming to be “official” which would be inedible if you followed the measurements accurately. Most of them recommend soaking the cabbage in ice water overnight and this is not a bad thing to do; I tested with and without soaking and by the time the slaw is ready to serve, the difference in crispiness between soaked and non-soaked cabbage is negligible to nonexistent.

*I used to shred the cabbage  by hand but now use the coarse side of a box grater. I’ve seen a giant version of this grater in restaurant supply stores, making me thing that is likely what they used at Vincent’s.
**Yep, that’s a lot of garlic!
***UPDATE January 2022: at the suggestion of Michael Vincent, grandson of the original owner, we made this recipe substituting red wine vinegar for the cider vinegar and olive oil for neutral vegetable oil. It came out great! Soon after mixing it had a pleasing fruity note, but eventually it tasted very close to the original recipe. The salt and garlic overpower other flavors, in a good way.

NEW TO BURNT MY FINGERS? Check out Squash Casserole a la Highland Park Cafeteria!

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Recipe: Chopped Spinach Salad with Horseradish

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Chopped Spinach Salad with Horseradish

Chopped Spinach Salad with Horseradish

Another favorite from the Highland Park Cafeteria. This makes a nice composed salad for a ladies’ bridge club lunch, I suppose, but the horseradish packs a wallop that interests more manly types. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 lb spinach, very thoroughly washed and completely dry
2 T mayonnaise (approximately)
1 t lemon juice
4 T grated horseradish
2 hard boiled eggs
Lettuce leaves for serving

Method: Chop the spinach extremely fine. Add lemon juice then just enough mayonnaise to allow the spinach to be molded into a genteel mound for presentation (see picture); divide into 4 serving portions and place a spinach mound on top of a lettuce leaf, using a large spoon for shaping. Duplicate the shape of the spinach with a 1 T mound of horseradish on the side. Grate or finely chop hard boiled eggs and distribute evenly on top of the salads.

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Red Boat Fish Sauce… da shizz!

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Fish Sauce

Red Boat stands tall among fish sauces.

Aunt Pat likes to show up with tchotchkes and gourmet specialties sourced along Fillmore Street in San Francisco’s Pac Heights. So when arrived with a bottle of Red Boat Fish Sauce I probably busted out a smirk. Artisanal fish sauce, heh heh. Then a double take. Whoa… artisanal fish sauce! And I knew I had to get me some some.

Red Boat is made by a Vietnamese American, Cuong Pham, who journeyed back to the “crystal clear waters off the Phu Quoc Island archipelago” to find the best anchovies and the best salt and press them into the best nuoc man or Vietnamese fish sauce. Red Boat is the first pressing—“extra virgin”—and uses only fish, salt and water.

I did a blind taste of Red Boat against Tiparos, my standard sauce, and all three tasters preferred the Red Boat. Tiparos is saltier and has a feral quality that I like (it may also be intensified by evaporation; the Tiparos bottle I used is on its last legs after 2 years in my kitchen) but Red Boat was just more rounded and complex.

If you order from the Red Boat website, a 500 ml bottle is around $10 plus shipping (which becomes very modest when you buy extra bottles to give away) compared to around $5 for Tiparos… that’s a reasonable up charge for a product that will last a long time.

I also tried the 50N Red Boat vs the 40N, the numbers referring to the concentration of protein. 50N is unquestionably expensive at $10 for 80 ml. But I can’t keep my hands off it. It has the briny saltiness of the really good anchovies I like to slather on my pizza and in fact I’ve already discovered that a few dashes on a plate of pasta turns an ordinary dish into something special.

The 40N becomes part of my regular rotation and will replace the Tiparos when that bottle is empty; the 50N will be kept in a secret cabinet and brought out as needed. If you are lucky enough to score a bottle (or resourceful enough to go to the website where it’s sold by the pair—one for you, another to give away), here’s a deviled egg recipe that shows it off to kick-ass perfection.

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Gluten-free ale from Steadfast Beer Co

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Mike and Alison Hosier of Steadfast Beer

Jeremy and Alison Hosier of Steadfast Beer

Had a conversation at Saratoga Beer Week with Alison and Jeremy Hosier, brewers at Steadfast Beer Co. in Albany. They brew with sorghum in place of barley and wheat, and their new product, Sorghum Pale Ale, is just about to hit the stores. I liked it a lot. It is a medium-to-dark ale but without the breadiness usually found in such brews, and there were plenty of hops for my taste. There was an indefinable extra that Alison suggested as “sudsiness”; sounds like a dish soap but it’s actually positive, a liveliness in the mouth that counteracts the heavy notes. At 6.8 ABV, it’s not a session beer but one meant to be sipped and taken seriously. A really nice counterbalance to the IPAs I was tasting at the show. The brewers are starting small and the first distribution will be around the Capital District (including EBI here in Saratoga) with plans to grow.

The Steadfast website isn’t live yet, but their Facebook links to an interesting community page on gluten-free beers. I have no personal problem with gluten but did not realize I was getting it in my beer since I don’t like wheat beers; I found that barley has gluten too. And learned that while in Europe and the US, a beer can have trace amounts of gluten and be called gluten-free, in Australia absolutely no measurable gluten is permitted. No worries, celiacs! (I’m told that’s an Australian catchphrase…)

Giant Paella from Pies on Wheels

This giant paella from PiesOnWheels.com, a Saratoga caterer, helped condition our guts against the brews

This was the inaugural Saratoga Beer Week, and things seem to be going well. The organizers throw several regional beer festivals but they are all in the summer. They were nervous about an indoor, winter event but the weather cooperated nicely. I was happy to see brews beyond the usual Lake Placid, Olde Saratoga, Long Trail, Magic Hat etc… successful regional brands that try hard to look crafty but go for mass appeal in their flavor. Lagunitas, for example, was here with just two brews, one of them the definitely not-for-the-masses Little Sumpin’ Wild, thanks guys!

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Recipe: Squash Casserole a la Highland Park Cafeteria

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Squash Casserole

Squash Casserole as served on Choice Plate at the late and lamented Highland Park Cafeteria, with jalapeño muffin and fried chicken.

Real comfort food. Thanks to my daughter Jamaica for figuring out the squash casserole recipe at the Highland Park Cafeteria. Instead of using cracker crumbs, pick up a box of saltines and crumble them very coarsely so some chunks are still visible in the finished product. 8 servings.

Ingredients:

2 lbs yellow summer squash, coarsely chopped (about 6 c)
1/2 c onion, finely chopped
4 T melted butter
2 t sugar
1 t Kosher salt
1/2 t pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 c cracker crumbs, coarsely crumbled (made from saltines)

Method: Boil water sufficient to cover the squash in a large saucepan. Dump them in and cook till just tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and cool. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix beaten eggs, salt, sugar and onion and pour over squash; add melted butter and salt and pepper to taste, then 1 c cracker crumbs. Mix gently to combine, then turn into a lightly greased 3 qt casserole. Cover with additional 1/2 c cracker crumbs. Bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned on top.

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Recipe: Carrot Pickle for Dave Chang

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers

I found this carrot pickle recipe on chow.com originally, but it was way too sweet. After adjusting the ingredients I discovered it was the same pickling proportion used by David Chang in the Momofuku cookbook. If you want to mess with people, strain out and remove the seaweed and seeds before serving. They’ll go crazy wondering what the “secret ingredient” is.

Carrot Pickle

Carrot Pickle for Dave Chang

Ingredients:
1 pound of carrots, peeled and thin sliced with mandoline
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c rice vinegar
1 c water
2 T kosher salt
1 medium piece of kombu*
1 1/2 t caraway seeds

Method: Put everything except carrots into a saucepan, stir to dissolve sugar and heat to boil. Cool to room temperature (make sure seaweed is fully soaked and softened) then pour over carrots. Refrigerate at least 24 hours for serving. Keeps for up to a month.

*Kombo is the big flat kind of seaweed that is too tough and rubbery to munch on. You should be able to find it dried in any market that sells basic Asian ingredients. Just break off a good sized piece or two to use in the recipe; the piece you can see in this photo was about 1/2 my total.

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Recipe forensics… revisited

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers

A while back, we talked about recipe forensics …. the notion of figuring out the ingredients of a dish by getting inside the head of the person who makes it. Let’s say that person is an ethnic or home cook who has no professional training but just does what tastes right. What ingredients would they have available? What is likely to taste good to them? What methods might have been handed down from previous generations, or the guy who sold them the barbecue shack?

Recipe forensics can help you decode complex tastes, break them down into their individual parts, and start recreating them in your own kitchen. Recipe forensics can also serve as a bullshit alarm when an existing recipe has ingredients that may have been added with ulterior motives. For example, any time I see a recipe that calls for a specific brand of product I will look for cheaper generic options pretty much as a knee jerk contrarian reaction. (A few recipes get a free pass, like the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the Hershey’s package.)

But what really pisses me offgets my goat is recipes with ingredients that are put in there simply to impress or to appear “authentic”. The Saveur Korean fried chicken recipe I started with the other day in making my rendition is a perfect example, which is why recipe forensics is on my mind right now. First of all, it called for rice vinegar when white vinegar is a much better and cheaper alternative. Rice vinegar may be what they would use in Korea where it’s ubiquitous, but in the U.S. it is far more expensive and any flavor distinctions would be lost in this very robust, unsubtle dish. Second, it called for honey when all we need is sweetness… this is when we reach for the bag of Clear Value sugar from Wal-Mart.

I visualize the Korean ladies in the back of the First Korean Market on Geary Blvd, and I just can’t see them struggling with big jars of gloppy honey when they’re trying to get the daily trays out to their eager customers. Nor can I see them driving up their food cost with more expensive ingredients than they need. This one was an easy call, and the results were better (yes, I did try their original recipe, then modified it to my preference). Recipe forensics at work.

 

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House brand taste test… Ketchup!

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Ketchup Comparison Heinz vs PC

Which ketchup will reign supreme?

I have a soft spot for store or “house” brands. I’m convinced that they are not made in actual houses, but in the same factories used to produce the national brands*. The difference comes when it’s time to slap on the label and by choosing house labels I can save a buck or two and apply it to buying products whose brands do make a difference… Heinz Ketchup, for example.

Which brings me to today’s taste test. We were out of ketchup and I was sorely tempted by a sale at the local Price Chopper with their house brand at exactly half the price of Heinz. It even looked to be in the same upside-down bottle. Could it be the same stuff? Even if not, for half price how bad can it be?

As a marketer I knew I had to have a control, so I bought a bottle of Price Chopper and a bottle of Heinz and compared them side by side. The bottles on closer inspection aren’t identical after all… some slight differences in the waistline as you can see in the photo. But now for the taste. My 9 year old assistant (the true ketchup aficionado) and I went back and forth several times and it appeared to be a dead heat… the two brands identical in taste, color and texture.

But then when we resorted to a larger size taste, one brand clearly pulled ahead. It had a pleasant peppery note that the other lacked. The brown paper labels were peeled back to reveal the brands and it was…. Price Chopper, the winnah!

* Maybe it’s sometimes as simple as that, but usually not. The same assembly lines may be used, but with variances as specified by the customer. For house brands, one of the variations is typically quality control. I once toured a giant vitamin factory and learned that while house and national brands are made side by side, the brands insist on more frequent testing and fewer incidents of defects like broken pills.

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Recipe: Korean Fried Chicken

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Burnt My Fingers
Korean Fried Chicken

Korean Fried Chicken!

Sweet, sour, spicy, greasy: so good and so so good for you (not). This was my contribution to the neighborhood Super Bowl party. Makes 6-8 appetizer portions using one of the 2.5 pound Tyson bags I found at my supermarket; double the recipe if you expect hungry guests.

Ingredients:
2 ½ lbs chicken wings
7-8 cloves garlic, peeled (about ¼ c total)
¼ c fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
¼ c soy sauce (low-sodium if using brine, otherwise regular)
¼ c Gochujang (Korean chile paste)
¼ c white vinegar
3 T sugar
1 ½ T Asian sesame oil (NOT sesame oil from a health food store)
For batter:
1 ½ c flour
2 T cornstarch
1 ½ c water
Canola, peanut or vegetable oil for deep-frying.
Optional brine:
Water to cover chicken mixed with ½ c Kosher salt and 2 T sugar per gallon

Method: If brining chicken, dump the pieces from the package right into the brine and let them brine for 3 hours to overnight. Drain and pat dry. (I don’t see any reason not to brine chicken because it makes it more juicy and you’re going to wash it anyway, right?)

Heat oil in deep fat fryer to 350 degrees. Make a batter by whisking cornstarch with a little water till dissolved, then adding the rest of the water, then whisking in flour till all lumps are gone.

Dip a few chicken pieces at a time in batter to coat thoroughly, let the excess drip off, transfer them one at a time to the hot oil and make sure they are not sticking or touching each other. METHOD ONE: fry 7 minutes or until chicken pieces are just beginning to color; remove and drain. After all pieces have had their initial fry, return to the 350 degree oil and fry again 8 minutes until pieces are a deep golden brown, drain. METHOD TWO: deep fry chicken pieces

Twice Fried Chicken NYC style

Twice Fried Chicken NYC style (before adding the sauce)

one time only, for 10 minutes or until a deep golden brown, drain.

Meanwhile, pulverize the garlic and ginger in a mini-chop. Add other ingredients and blend thoroughly. Pour over cooked, thoroughly drained chicken and allow to soak in to your preference before serving, 10-30 minutes or longer.

NOTE: This is modified from a widely distributed recipe that appeared in Saveur magazine among other places and wasn’t sweet-and-sour enough for my taste. Method One will produce a very crispy chicken with the sauce as a coating, apparently as presented in a number of NYC chicken places. Method Two is what I am more familiar with from Korean school kids’ events in San Francisco where the chicken is served at room temperature and the sauce has been allowed to soak into the coating.

 

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