Sweet & Savory

Squishy Japanese Balls

My company sent me to Tsuruoka, Japan for a business trip. The long work hours (at least 12 hours daily) and the language barrier intensified the stress brought on by the tight schedule. But no matter how bad the situation was and how late we had to work, I could always look forward to the food.

A particularly exciting food find was this package of sesame mochi! I brought back a box for A. We enjoyed it so much that we finished more than half of the mochi before we got around to taking their picture! These beautifully packaged snow white mochi balls are placed in a mixture of ground up black sesame seeds, sugar, and what we suspect to be sea salt. A little wooden pick is provided to roll the mochi around, so as to fully coat them with the sesame mixture, and to convey the delicious treat to your mouth.

As you can see, there were only three or four mochi left when we took the picture. And not long after the picture was taken, these survivor mochi joined their fellow mochi in our stomachs. It is a good thing A and I are going to Japan next week as there are so many different types of mochi in Japan we have yet to try. Before I left Japan, I recall seeing some edamame mochi that I am quite anxious to have the pleasure of making their acquaintence.

Welcome Home Surprise

Sunday went something like this:

12:30 am - J lets A know she's flying home the next day. She was feeling worn out from her business trip, and demanded a surprise to cheer her up.

12:34 am - A scratches his head and wonders what would instill an sufficient amount of warmth and fuzziness, in the form of a dessert (which if you haven't noticed, is about all he makes).

1:07 am - Still brainstorming, A opens the fridge to the sight of six zucchini sitting on a shelf (there had been a big sale at the market this week, and A loves to stock up, almost more than he loves dessert).

1:11 am - A's lightbulb goes off, and he looks no further than Clotilde's pairing of chocolate with his secret ingredient of choice.

1:16 am - A sleeps (he does sleep).

11:00 am - A wakes (it would have been earlier, but he likes sleep too.. so, it goes dessert, then stocking up, then sleep).

12:00 pm - Voila!

A in the Kitchen!

With J on a business trip in Japan, I had the kitchen all to myself! This is not to say that J doesn't usually share, but more that it seemed to be fitting to make something special. I decided to make a variety of snacks for my sweet-toothed coworkers. On the menu were (left to right, top to bottom) russian tea cakes, chocolate covered brown butter blondies, chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese and chocolate filling, and mendiants.

Russian Tea Cakes, aka Mexican Wedding Cookies, aka Snowballs, aka ..., were a common request amongst my coworkers. I made a batch for them about a year or so ago, and they have been asking for another batch ever since. So, I finally decided to oblige them. There are as many recipes for these little treats as there are aliases, but I used the one from Williams-Sonoma's Essentials of Baking.

Next up were the chocolate-covered brown butter blondies, which I adapted from a recipe I picked up while visiting the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory last April (adapted recipe included below). Not being a great fan of milk chocolate, I did not have the six ounces that the recipe asked for. Instead, I improvised by mixing some bittersweet Michel Cluizel with some Toblerone milk chocolate candy. This substitution complemented both texture and taste, as the bits of almond nougat in the Toblerone were chewy and agreed well with the buttery caramel flavors in the blondie layer.

Next, I made a recipe that I had previously found on someone's blog when I was searching for a cupcake idea for Nancy's birthday last Februray. The blog owner Chris proclaimed it to be the "World's Best Cupcakes". I wanted to see if the cupcakes could live up to their name. I made the cake and filling batters by hand, since I was cautious of overworking them. The assembled cupcakes went into the oven, where the cream cheese and chocolate chip filling melted and melded into the ooey gooey centers of the final product.

The cupcakes were definitely different from others I've had so far, mainly in the fact that it has a filled center instead of a homogeneous batter, both with and without chunky ingredients mixed in. I haven't gotten any word back on my coworkers' tastings, so the verdict is still out on whether these are really the world's best cupcakes. In any case, I've linked the recipe above, so you can try them out for yourselves. And if you know of a recipe for tastier cupcakes, please do share it with me!

Finally, mendiants! Mendiants are essentially tempered chocolate disks embedded with various nuts and dried fruits. For the chocolate, I once again used bittersweet Michel Cluizel. For the nuts, I toasted hazelnuts, slivered almonds, pecan halves, and pine nuts, to really bring out the nutty aromas. For the dried fruits, I used apricots, black cherries, figs, and cranberries. Arranged together, the ingredients made quite an impressive array!

Chocolate-Covered Brown Butter Blondies
adapted from a recipe by Scharffen Berger

• 1 stick unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• pinch salt
• 1 large egg
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 3.5 oz bar Toblerone milk chocolate candy, broken into chunks
• 25 pecan halves, toasted

Preheat the oven to 350°F and position a rack in the center. Butter a 9" x 9" baking pan and set aside. Place the brown sugar in a large heat-proof bowl and set aside.

In a small pot over low heat, melt the butter. Tilt the pan every now and then and watch the butter carefully — it will first sizzle, then the solids will separate from the fat, before finally turning a light nutty brown color while developing a nutty, toasty aroma. Right when the browning begins (after about five minutes), remove the pan from heat and pour the butter over the brown sugar. Add the salt and stir (the mixture may appear greasy, but this is normal).

Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour and gently mix until just combined.

Turn the batter and spread it (it will be sticky) into the prepared pan. Bake until the top is shiny and a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean, about ten to twelve minutes.

Immediately distribute the chocolate pieces on top of the warm blondie layer. Return the pan to the oven for one to two minutes, just enough time to allow the chocolate to soften. With a small offset spatula, spread the melted chocolate in an even layer. Arrange the pecan halves in five rows of five. Let cool completely.

Cut into 25 pieces, one pecan half per piece. Store in a tightly covered container for up to one week.

SHF 17 - Caramel Chocolate Balls

Creamy chocolate ganache infused with the comforting flavor of caramel — exactly what we had in mind when we found out about this month's dairy-themed SHF hosted by Spittoon Extra. I know they may seem like nothing special, but as much as we work with chocolate in other creations, this is the first time we've actually attempted truffles. Happy to say they were delicious and the addition of a scant pinch of sea salt definitely helped to intensify the caramel flavor.

Restaurant Lulu

This post is very late in its appearance, for in our busy lives, we have been neglecting our blog. We originally dined at Restaurant LuLu at the end of last July, and here are our tasting notes.

After our "snack" at Boulette's Larder, we had a 12 o'clock reservation at Restaurant LuLu for lunch. The outside of Restaurant LuLu is minimalistic with only splashes of color on the windows, but the inside was festive, airy, and imparted the sense of spaciousness with the open kitchen area and the high ceiling.

The blue-tiled indoor courtyard, arrayed with heavy wooden tables and woven chairs, invited us to enjoy a leisure meal. The large windows, while partially blocking the August heat, allowed all the light to come through, completing the feel of an outdoor cafe. The place settings added to the overall French provencal feel of the restaurant with its handpainted style and warm colors.

The bar area showcased the large quantity of alcohol for your imbibing pleasure. We solemnly debated the possibility of ordering some alcohol but decided it was perhaps a wee bit early in the day to start partying.

To start, we ordered a cheese and fruit to share. It arrived with three different types of cheese, a couple slices of walnut bread, some fig jam, and a cluster of champagne grapes. By overwhelming consensus (3 out of 3), the Brillat-Savarin, an extra rich and creamy cow's milk cheese, was a hit. None of us were previously fans of blue cheese but the Windsor Blue from New Zealand, a very mild pasteurized cow's milk blue cheese, was surprisingly tasty. It paired very well with fig jam, neither the pungunt blue nor the sweet jam overwhelmed the other. Lastly, we had the Humbolt Fog, made by Cypress Grove Chevre located in nearby Humbolt County. How cool is that?!

I also ordered the fennel sausage and fig pizza with tapenade and sage. The combination of sausage and tapenade made it a little too salty, and the presence of figs was necessary to counter this. Most people I've met seem to have strong feelings about figs — either they love the sweet, soft texture with the fun crunchy seeds or they hate it and think it taste like mush. I am of the I-love-figs camp so the pieces of fig on each slice of pizza were greatly appreciated. But admittedly, I did wish the fig pieces were bigger.

A really hit the jackpot when he ordered the roasted leg of lamb with red onion marmalade, arugula and tapenade on sun-dried tomato levain bread. The lamb was done perfectly, full of flavor and fairly moist. I'd never had red onion marmalade before and was actually a little intrepid at first, expecting to taste a nasty combination of cloying sweetness and acrid onion flavor but was pleasantly surprised.

My brother had the grilled salmon with chopped egg, capers and watercress on ciabatta with a side of potatoes. The picture doesn't do the sandwich justice as 90% of the sandwich is blocked by a massive mound of potato salad! The idea of chopped eggs with the salmon was new to all of us, but both my brother and A professed to be big fans the moment they tasted it. The eggs added a creaminess to the still warm salmon, making this sandwich a kind of healthy gourmet salmon melt.

We polished off our delicious entrees, forgetting to save room for dessert (actually, in a way we'd already had dessert earlier that morning with Boulette's beignets). We so enjoyed our experience at LuLu that we ventured to try their sister restaurant Zibibbo the following month. And in writing up this post, I've decided a return visit to LuLu is overdue!