Sweet & Savory

Sablés Florentins

While in New York City for J's and my anniversary trip, I picked up a copy of one of Pierre Hermé's early (read: pre- Dorie Greenspan) works, Secrets Gourmands. During the two hours that we spent inside Kitchen Arts & Letters, I used my fading knowledge of the French language, unused since my high school foreign language classes, to browse this fully-French cookbook, from cover to cover. What snippets I could translate greatly inspired me. I bought the cookbook and resolved to start learning French again.

Since that trip, I have bought a decent French-English dictionary and set to translating which ever recipe interested me at bedtime (yes, at bedtime, I read nearly exclusively cookbooks). It was a slow process for a month or two, but I think I've finally built up an adequate French vocabulary as applied to baking.

One night last week, I sat in bed and admired the Sablés Florentins pictured on page 175. In one session, I translated the whole recipe.

I made the pâte sucrée the same night J and I made our tart for SHF 9. The next day, I rolled and baked the pâte and covered it with a layer of almond brittle, which was actually more like taffy than brittle. After the whole sheet cooled, I cut it up into 90 squares of about 2.5 to 3 cm on each side, and then dipped each of them in tempered dark chocolate.

It was all I could do to allow them to cool, before eating the finished sablés. They were absolutely divine! The crust was crumbly, a perfect companion to the chewy almond and caramel. The slightly bitter dark chocolate helped to cut the sweetness of the caramel.

I think J and I ate about 30 pieces in the end, before deciding to share with our friends and family. My coworkers got to share 20 pieces, and J's coworkers got the same. My parents got about 10. And the remaining 10 pieces, I'll chalk up to "quality assurance". *wink*

Arikato Sushi

Wednesday night, I felt really drained by work. I was looking for something to perk me up.. something refreshing.. something delicious. J suggested sushi, which sounded like it fit the bill perfectly. We decided to try some place new instead of Kamakura, our usual favorite. Arikato was nearby and we had wanted to try it over the weekend, but it was closed for some reason, even though it was well within their advertised operating hours. (Update: They changed their hours — now open for lunch on weekdays only, but dinner every day.) Lucky for us and our growing appetites, it was open this time and we got a table without much of a wait.

I have to apologize in advance for not having any pictures to show. Since this was a spontaneous trip, we didn't have our camera with us. But, for the meantime, I'll try to describe everything with words as best I can.

The sushi bar was situated in the middle of the restaurant and occupied the majority of the space. Between the sushi chef's workspace and the counter where diners could sit, was a track for sushi boats. This track actually looked like it also ran into the kitchen, which we could see behind a wall that separated it from the dining area. This probably allowed behind-the-scenes kitchen staff to add sushi selection to the boats as well.

The ceiling was painted a dark blue or black with sparkles added to mimic a night sky. Modern lamps of all different colors hung around the sushi bar area. Ten or so square tables encircled the sushi bar, lining the perimeter of the room.

Arikato had coloful menus with plenty of photos, so that we could tell what we were going to get. Each roll had its own picture and the captions were very detailed. There was also a section for your usual Japanese appetizers and entrees, though there were fewer pictures for this part.

It took us a while to figure out exactly what we wanted to try, since there was so much selection. But when we were ready to order, we realized that there was a shortage of waitstaff — one sushi chef behind the bar and only one waitress. J thought she saw the waitress doing the cooking in the back as well. Service was slow enough that this certainly could have been possible. Fortunately, we both had a lot to talk about and she did take our order once we signaled to the attentive sushi chef that we were ready to order.

We ended up getting two special sushi rolls — a Besss roll (shrimp tempura, white tuna, and crabmeat) and an IBM roll (unagi, tuna, and avocado). We also got a Futo Maki, California Roll, and three orders of Nigiri — Sake (salmon), Maguro (tuna), and Tamago (egg).

By the time we finished it all, we were stuffed and very satisfied. The raw fish tasted very fresh, and the proportion of rice in the rolls was just about right, unlike many other sushi roll places that use too much rice. The best part was that all this food only cost about $40 including tip. This surprised us, since typically a meal of high quality sushi such as this would cost at least one and a half times as much.

The prices were reasonable, the food was fresh and the portions satisfying. Overall, we give Arikato two thumbs up. It might even take the place of our current favorite sushi joint. We'll have to go back to try out the entrees as well as to nab some pictures! Or we might try the sushi bar next time, especially if we intend to eat mainly sushi again.

SHF 9 - Peach and Almond Tart

We saw the the notice for SHF 9 posted on Life in Flow about 2 weeks ago. With the theme being tarts, I remembered Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte contained a recipe for peach and almond tart that I wanted to try. Peach season is starting to peak in California. It was perfect timing.

I am really really sad as A and I missed the deadline for SHF 9. The tart dough and the frangipane were made on Wednesday night with a plan to blind bake the tart dough and stew the peaches on Thursday and to assemble and have the final baking on Friday, just in time for the deadline. Well, everything went downhill after Wednesday. I ended up staying at work until 4 am on Thursday only to get up and make it to work by 10 am Friday. Got home after work around 7 pm on Friday and promptly slept until 10:45 pm. No amount of poking or prodding by A could arouse me from my sleep. Poor A was left to manage our SHF endeavor by himself. When I finally woke up, A had already finished poaching the peaches and had started to the blind baking of the tart dough. (What a delightful man!) Our SHF project was not finished until 2:30 am. Though tired and dealing with pounding headaches, we were happy with our finished tarts.

A and I, in the past, have posted the recipes we used to make our creations, whether they are our own inventions or lifted from some cookbook. Lately, I've gotten a little paranoid about copyright laws so no more posting recipes from cookbooks. (Can you imagine if I posted something from the French Laundry Cookbook and Mr. Keller got so mad he banned me from EVER eating at French Laundry again?! *shudder*). If you would like to make this tart, the recipe can be found starting on page 310. The tart consists essentially of three components: the crust, the poached peaches, and the almond frangipane. Trust me when I say the tart dough and the frangipane were unbelievably easy to make. At least 50 times easier than the puff pastries we made for Clement's SHF 5. Poaching and preparing the peaches was not difficult either but more time consuming. The peaches were poached in a mixture of rosé wine, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, salt, sugar, lemon and vanilla. We liked the remaining poaching liquid so much that we saved it and made it into a sorbet.

When all three components are prepped, they are assembled together to be baked until the crust is golden brown and the almond frangipane is puffed and browned. The entire house was awash in the delicious scent of a home-baked tart. Here is our peach and almond tart with a scoop of peach and rosé wine sorbet.

Bountiful Harvest Continues

The bountiful harvest of summer is so exciting! First we played with 7+ pounds of strawberries and now we have moved onto CHERRIES! The multitude of vendors selling sweet Bing and Rainier cherries convinced us without a doubt that the cherry season has arrived.

The lesson learned from the abundance of strawberries we bought earlier was that as much as you LOVE a fruit, you CANNOT finish several pounds of it before it goes bad. We practiced a bit of restraint this time by only buying 1.5 pounds of cherries, which ended up being just about the right amount. After we had satiated our cherry craving, we still had a bit leftover.

Our friends had invited us to a BBQ at their house, and it's impolite to show up empty-handed so we modified the fig and concord grape clafouti from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course (an absolutely FABULOUS book) to a cherry clafouti.

I'm afraid the picture is not as pretty as I would like. The cherry-dotted golden puffy clafouti had already sunken slightly by the time I got the camera ready. In spite of its mishapen appearance, the clafouti was delicious. The egginess and the texture reminded me of the dutch apple pancake I like to order at Original Pancake House. The halved cherries gave some sweetness and tartness to this "pancake". Though next time, I think I will serve it for breakfast instead of as a dessert at a BBQ. :P

SF Town Hall

A and I went to the Town Hall for our 1st year anniversary. Inside the red brick restaurant on Howard and Fremont, the closely packed dark wooden tables made examining your neighbors dishes prior to making your own selections so much easier. :) The industrial-looking chandelier made for an interesting conversation piece. I liked the feel of the place. The controled hubbub of random conversations, the dark warm interior, and candles on the windowsills all contributed to the genral coziness of the place.

We started off our meal with the roasted veal meatballs with potato purée and green peppercorn sauce. Three round meatballs sitting on a bed of buttery puréed potato doused in gravy arrived at our table with a little bit of chopped cilantro sprinkled on top. They looked very inviting. We had read about these veal meatballs from various reviews and wanted to try it first-handed for ourselves. Cutting into the meatballs revealed its slight pink inside, attesting to juicy-ness. The meatballs were also distinctively flavored with some type of cheese, which was interesting.

Our side order of jalapeno cornbread was served hot to our table still in their cast iron mold. The outside had a little crunch with a fluffy soft inside. The jalapeno flavor was subtle. These were delicious jalapenos cornbreads!

My main entree was the peanut and tasso crusted Niman Ranch pork chop with smashed potatoes, spring corn, English peas in garlic parsley butter. The pork chop was tender and juicy but a little salty-spicy. The mix of peanut and tasso on top created a nice textured topping. The corn and pea mixture was so overwhelmingly peppered that I couldn't discern any corn or pea flavor. :( The meal had started off so well that I was really disappointed by how the entree turned out.

A's entre, the Sonoma lamb T-bone with Nicoise olive gnocchi, herb smashed English peas and fava beans, gave similar results. The lamb T-bone was delicious but the sides were lacking. The emphasis at Town Hall seems to be on strong overpowering flavors rather than subtleties.

We were both pretty stuffed after the main entress but after scanning the dessert menu, we couldn't resist ordering dessert. Besides, it's better to end on a good note! There was no consensus so we each ordered one with the promise to share our pick.

I ordered the coconut panna cotta, strawberry, gelée, with ginger bubble tea, which turned out unimpressive. Both A and I wondered if they forgot to add the coconut and the ginger flavor?!

This was Town Hall's signature dessert, the butterscotch and chocolate pot de crème with butter toffee chips. The dessert was creamy and tasty but a little sweet for my taste. Even A, the one with the sweet tooth, ultimately surrendered to the overwhelming sweetness.

In all, A and I were a little disappointed in Town Hall. The appetizer and the side dish was great but never one of us liked our main entree. There was one hit and one miss for the desserts. I don't think we will be going back anytime soon.

Slurpy noodle soup

A friend invited A and I over to his house for lunch a year ago. His mother made a big stock of unbelievably clear chicken stock lightly flavored with ginger. He used the stock and tossed in vegetables, seafoods, and wide rice noodles and boiled for a minute or two. The flavor was adjusted by adding a sauce composed of fish sauce + sugar + sliced thai bird chili. I recall amusing myself by setting my mouth on fire.

Last night, after a bout of tennis, i found myself craving this delicious noodle soup dish. I cheated by using canned chicken stock instead of making my own. I tossed in chopped napa cabbage and green onions, enoki mushrooms, fish balls, thinly sliced pork, bean sprouts, and cilantro. The sauce was made up of some unknown ratio of fish sauce + sugar + serrano chili as I didn't measure anything. In 15 minutes dinner was served. We enjoyed our version of the Burmese rice noodle soup with spicy sauce. :)

Strawberry waffles galore!

A and I went off to Watsonville with some friends to pick strawberries. We arrived around 11am, a litte anxious about the amount of strawberry left at such a late hour. Fortunately, we were able to reap a bountiful harvest not only in our basket but in our tummy as well. At the end of it all, we were left with 7 pounds of freshly picked strawberries. Seven pounds of strawberries is really TOO much for two people to eat in one or two days so we made LOTS and LOTS of buttermilk waffles topped with macerated strawberries and creme fraiche + heavy whipping cream. How's that for a fabulous Sunday morning breakfast?