spuds & friends

One-Bowl Pound Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Tue, 22 May 2012 05:39:00 +0000

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably been keeping tabs on the Royal Family. You've probably heard about Prince Harry's Nazi Halloween costume and his redemption via his military career (because men in uniform are totally dreamy... unless it's a gestapo uniform). Or, more recently, Prince William's fairy tale wedding to mayhap the most gorgeous woman on earth, Kate Middleton. This year, the Royal Family has got more reasons to celebrate as 2012 is also Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee.

I was asked by Appliances Online to create a recipe I would serve to the queen. I wanted to do tea party fare, as I've always -- quite unimaginatively -- associated England with tea parties. Marie Antoinette with her infamous "let them eat cake" line (which she never actually said, by the way) is also something that pops into my mind when it comes to royalty. It's only logical that pound cake should follow since the pound is also England's currency! Or at least, logical to a person with a thought process as convoluted as mine.

Pound cake recipes are generally simple. The oldest recipes require a pound each of four ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs and butter. These days, bakers tailor proportions to personal taste.

Recipe after the jump!

One-Bowl Pound Cake

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
4 eggs
1 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon extract or 1 tsp grated lemon zest

Instructions

Preheat oven at 375F. grease and flour a bundt pan or a loaf pan; set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and extracts.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in with the butter mixture.
Pour into pan and bake for 30-35 mins or until done. The cake is done when you push in a skewer and it comes out clean.

A few reminders: pound cake is only deceptively simple. The thing with simpler recipes is it's obvious if you skimp on ingredients. While I hold that using a good quality baking margarine is usually acceptable, pound cake necessitates unsalted butter. Using anything else will make the cake 1) too salty, 2) have a greasy mouthfeel and aftertaste, and 3) smell weird! The sugar can be chalked up to personal preference, though. I used confectioner's sugar because I wanted a firmer cake to use for trifle layers. You can use granulated sugar if you want a moister cake and a more tender crumb.

You can serve the cake dusted with confectioner's sugar and topped with whipped cream and fruit preserves. You can also get creative with it and make a trifle. Cut out circles 1/4" thick, using a cocktail glass or a ramekin to measure the circumference. Reserve leftover cake; crumble and toast them for use as sweet croûtons. Layer the glass/ramekin with pound cake, ladyfinger cookies, fruit preserves and whipped cream. Top with fruit and pound cake croûtons, and serve to the queen in your life!

Excuses: If you're wondering why the pictures are less than stellar in this post, it's because my prehistoric camera conked out on me in the middle of the shoot. I had to borrow my mother's camera which is newer (and shinier) but less intuitive.

Hoisin Glazed Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:16:00 +0000

Excuse the messy plating, dirty utensils and the awkward fuzzy blanket. I am exactly the type of slob who eats in bed while watching cartoons.

This week, I'm road testing recipes for my boyfriend who's moving into a new dorm. He wants to cook his own meals but he's still deciding between getting an electric grill, a convection toaster oven or an electric stove. This meal was cooked in my family's prehistoric George Foreman grill. I won't lie; this isn't the best chicken I've ever made but I love how the meal came together in a snap. The whole thing took under 10 minutes to make! And did I mention that Foreman grills are idiot proof? Even a Neanderthal -- or a boy who's never cooked in his life, which is kind of the same thing -- can use one.

This is surprisingly flavorful for a 10 minute meal. Sure, the chicken isn't succulent (as almost anything cooked in a Foreman grill is wont to be) but what it lacks in texture, it makes up for in flavor. The meat is a little sweet and tangy from the hoisin sauce while the Worcestershire sauce lends a subtle smoky flavor that wouldn't be out of place in a charcoal grill. It only takes 7 mins tops to grill the whole thing, but can you see those lovely grill marks? Next time, I'm going to try brining the chicken before marinating it to help tenderize the meat.

Recipe after the jump!

Hoisin Glazed Chicken
Loosely adapted from the George Foreman Cookbook

Ingredients

1 chicken breast fillet
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp paprika
1 green onion, chopped

Instructions

In a glass pan, combine the hoisin sauce, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and green onion. Rub the mixture over the chicken breast. Cover and refrigerate for 1-12 hours.
Preheat the grill for 5 minutes. Grill the breast for 5-7 mins, or until done.

Serves one hungry dormer.

Baked potatoes: Shamelessly nuke a large baking potato for 5 mins. The potatoes are surprisingly fluffy and creamy if you put a dab of butter.
Bean sprouts and snap beans: Sauté in a little butter until just cooked. Season to taste.

In the end, I think a toaster oven is better, if only for the fact that you can bake cookies in it, but the George Foreman grill is a veritable contender. It takes up less space because you don't need to buy additional pans for it as opposed to a toaster oven or a stove, and we all know that space is a precious commodity in a cramped dorm. Which appliance would you pick?

Lechon Manok

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:03:00 +0000

Stop me if you've heard this one. A man, impressed by Neiman Marcus's chocolate chip cookies, buys the recipe from a waitress who tells him it costs "two fifty". He adds it to his tab and is shocked to be billed $250 instead of the $2.50 he thought it would cost. In anger, he forwards the recipe via e-mail to everyone he knows. Of course, that's an urban legend that has since been debunked (although the people who did try the recipe claimed it was pretty good).

This recipe for lechon manok has similar dubious online origins; the site I got it from got it from another site, which got it from another site. Still, I had the strongest craving for Andok's lechon manok (roast chicken) when I saw this recipe, so I had to try it. The chicken came out surprisingly tender, hitting slightly sweet, sour and savory flavor notes. Don't be alarmed by the short marinating time; the flavor really does seep into the meat and marinating it for more than a few hours will just make the flavor overpowering. Go ahead and pair it with Mang Tomas and catsup.

And my Andok's lechon craving? That's all behind me. I'm a big girl and I make my own lechon manok now. (But could you pass me some of their liempo?)

Recipe after the jump!

Because everything tastes better with more garlic.

Lechon Manok

Ingredients

1 whole chicken
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 cup soy sauce
1 head garlic, minced
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons of calamansi (Panama orange) juice or lemon juice
1/2 cup of Sprite, 7 Up or beer (I once substituted Mountain Dew and it turned out fine!)
2 cups of tanglad (lemongrass) for stuffing
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

Marinate the whole chicken in soy sauce, calamansi juice, minced garlic, chopped onions, soda or beer, sugar and pepper.
Let stand in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 hours.
Stuff the chicken cavity with tanglad.
Cook chicken on grill or in oven until golden brown.

(Note: I preheated my oven to 350 F and roasted it for 1 1/2hr. Baking time will vary depending on the make of your oven and the size of the chicken so be sure to check often.)

How to Make Octodogs

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:57:00 +0000

Dear readers (and by readers, I mean web crawlers and bots, and my dog),

I'm so sorry I neglected this site. Very sorry!

I was busy studying... scholarly things like how many stones the goddess Nuwa used to repair the Celestial Road in Dream of the Red Chamber (36, 500, but she had 36, 501) and how many times it's possible to die and get reincarnated in Native American literature (fairly often, apparently). Or even how the word nostalgia means "the ache of an old wound" and I guess that means how I wish I had done plenty of things differently over the last four years, and how sometimes the choices I didn't make come back and itch like phantom limbs. Huh. Now that I've graduated, I'm officially overeducated and unemployed so I have plenty of time to think about sillier things like how to turn hotdogs into octopodes. Yes, octopodes, not "octopi". Thank you, college, for teaching me that.

On to the how-to!

Watch out for a series of illustrated how-to's inspired by Robert Loeb's Wolf in Chef's Clothing!

Chocolate Kiss Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:10:00 +0000

In the span of four days, I baked six dozen of these babies and managed to ruin -- no, annihilate -- at least two people's diets. Presenting:

This recipe is based on Yummy magazine's Surprise Chocolate Kiss Cookies. The original was amazing. Think: the crumbly, nutty goodness of a tea cookie with a warm and gooey chocolate center that rolls and dances around your tongue and yes, tastes and feels just like a kiss. My heart swells and my teeth ache just thinking about it. I followed the original recipe (you can find it here) but, for my second try, I substituted cashew nuts for walnuts and baking margarine for butter. It tastes almost if not just as good and slashed about a hundred pesos off the production cost. The difference is in the texture; these cookies offer more of a bite compared to the almost airy texture of the original recipe. That, or maybe I didn't chop up the nuts as finely as I should have. :-S Although the cookies may be eaten as is, I recommend nuking them for a few seconds to melt the chocolate.

This is the first in my lineup of baked goods (French macarons! Rootbeer mini bundt cakes! Heart shaped scones!) to sell for a business I'm planning to start during the second quarter of 2012. Right now, I'm still working out the kinks like sourcing the packaging, doing test runs to ensure consistency and figuring out the boring nitty gritties of running a business. And of course, the hardest part: trying to muster the discipline not to gobble up everything I bake the minute it comes out of the oven!

Caramelized Chicken BBQ Wings

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:57:00 +0000

I have an unhealthy fixation with chicken wings. In spite of the mess (and maybe the savagery) associated with getting your hands dirty and tearing the wings apart to get all the meat, gnawing on the bone when you're too lazy to eat the wings properly (here's how) and how small it is compared to other cuts, there's something gratifying about biting into succulent, flavorful meat that underlies an often crispy exterior.

This recipe is from Appetite magazine's June '11 issue. I garnished it with sesame seeds (not roasted) and substituted banana catsup for tomato catsup so it was almost, almost cloyingly sweet. Was it still good? Let's put it this way: no matter what you do, it's hard to cook unpalatable wings unless you're a total dullard. Next time, though, I'm making it with tomato catsup, a little less sugar and chili flakes. To note, I also halved the recipe because you're really not going to use all the sauce up.

Recipe after the jump.

Ingredients

1 kilo chicken wings, clean and pat dry
2 cups tomato ketchup
2 cups packed brown sugar
4 tbsps vinegar
5 tbsps Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

In a medium bowl, whisk together ketchup, sugar, Worcestershire sauce and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.
Use 1 cup of the barbecue sauce to marinate the chicken wings inside the refrigerator. Marinate for at least 3 hours, or overnight when possible.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Transfer wings into a baking dish. Pour another cup of sauce on top. Bake chicken until cooked about 30 to 35 minutes. Toss wings half-way through to ensure even cooking.
Remaining sauce may be served on the side or can be reserved for another barbecued dish. This sauce would also go well with pork spare ribs.

Russian Tea Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 14:36:00 +0000

A few nights ago, I tried to make macarons without an electric mixer, like a fool. What should've taken me a few seconds with a mixer took half an hour by hand. I left it alone for a while (again, like a fool) and when I came back, humidity had done its job and the batter was soggy again.

Today, I made Russian tea cookies because that's one of the few things my woefully under-equipped kitchen can handle. When I started cooking and went to the department store to buy cooking and baking supplies, my mom shrieked when she saw my cart. She couldn't see why I would ever need rolling pins (I used bottles and cans to flatten food before) or understand the logic of buying a kitchen scale when we already had measuring cups. All efforts to convince her that volume =/= weight were futile. So until I save up for a mixer and a scale, I'm sticking to recipes that don't require newfangled appliances.

Russian tea cookies are perfect because they're so easy to make and require few ingredients. The hardest(?) part is creaming the butter; you don't even have to sift the flour. And somehow, even when you bastardize the recipe like I did, it still comes out great.

Aforementioned bastardization: I used buttermilk margarine instead of butter because it's cheaper and 1/2 cup ground almonds instead of a cup of chopped walnuts because I find walnuts prohibitively expensive (see the trend?). Apparently, you should use good quality butter, though. The cookies still came out great; I love how the first thing you taste is sweetness of the confectioner's sugar but the moment you bite into the cookie, the nutty flavor balances out the saccharine. You can find the original recipe here.

* Best eaten with tea, as the name implies (call me Captain Obvious).
** Also while watching Dr. Zhivago.
*** Fun fact! This is also known as a Mexican Wedding Cake! Because some Americans refused to mention Russia during the Cold War!

Pommes Duchesse

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 01:54:00 +0000

It sounds like something a French monarch would eat, but it's actually just humble mashed potatoes piped into pretty shapes and baked. I don't know the origin of its name but I'm guessing some snooty chef just wanted to impress people with his culinary mumbo jumbo (you know, like those people who say "potentiality" instead of "potential"?). My take on this is subversive because I cheat. A lot, as you will see.

This is so simple that I don't think a recipe is necessary. But here are really vague instructions anyway! Make mashed potatoes -- you can do this the hard way, or the Janelle way! Instead of boiling it in salted water for 30 mins, I pricked holes all over the spuds, placed them in a Micromax and nuked them for 5 mins. Mash them like crazy and add lots of butter (it will help give a smoother texture) and a pinch of salt. Add an egg per two potatoes. You should also puree the mashed potatoes to make sure there are no chunks, as they can get stuck inside the piping tip.

But if you're very, very hungry like I was, you can go ahead and skip that. Just shape the potatoes into large-ish balls and use a cake decorator to decorate the sides. Mine isn't particularly pretty, but at that point, I was just so hungry that I wanted to put it in the oven and get it over with. For the more patient, pipe the pureed potatoes into spiral mounds with a star piping tip.

Before chucking it in the oven, brush the whole thing with egg wash. You can do this either by mixing egg yolk with 2 tbsps water or with 2 tbsps milk per yolk. Using water will give you a golden finish while using milk will give you a darker, browner finish. Bake at 375 degrees F or until the crust browns; be careful not to overbake.

PS. The brown flecks scattered all over the baking tray? Yup, crumbled bacon. Because everything tastes better with bacon.

Cashew-Pesto Pasta

noreply@blogger.com (Janelle) — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:58:00 +0000

The obligatory introduction to whoever is bored enough to actually read this:

Hi, my name is Maja and I don't eat to live; I live to eat. I created this blog -- which was originally intended to be a webcomic about irradiated, sentient potatoes, but we all know that sweet corn is the superior vegetable -- because I have all these recipes percolating in my head with nowhere to go. And because I have nothing better to do with my free time. :( So until my cooking gives me food poisoning or until I get a life, this blog will be the outlet for my epicurean (mis)adventures and boredom. Oh, and prettyyy pictures! Let's not forget the pretty pictures.

Okay, on to the fun stuff.

CASHEW-PESTO PASTA

Pesto has always grossed me out. Ever since I was a kid, the idea of eating pesto has always been commesurate with the image of me bovine-ified, grazing on grass. Imagine the indignity! My ancestors didn't work their way up the food chain for me to eat leaves.

At least, that was before I read David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals. Now, I still eat meat, but it's an informed, if uneasy, choice. And, somehow, even the juiciest steak is just a bit too hard to swallow now.

Now I try to eat more vegetable-based dishes; I have never eaten tomatoes before this day, but when I saw Rachel Ray's Cashew-Pesto recipe, I couldn't resist. Pops of cherry red on a bed of white bows flecked with the green of spring? If only broccoli and spinach were this adorable!

You can find the recipe here. I modified it a bit by substituting Panama oranges (calamansi) for lemon. I also didn't have parmesan cheese at home (gasp, blasphemy) so I made do with cheap quickmelt cheese instead. But it's okay -- I made up for the poor quality by making it extra cute and cutting out heart-shaped chunks of cheese! A closer view:

The result was a medley of flavors from the subtle citrus kick, sweet roasted cashews, earthy parsley infused with fresh garlic and... okay, so I only ate one tomato.

You can't say I didn't try.