Chez Pim

Thyme Flower Ice Cream - glace aux fleurs de thym

2009-07-13T11:42:46-07:00

There is something magical about herb flowers. Don't you agree? They are like a softer, more feminine, and altogether prettier version of the herbs themselves. It's a pity they are not used more often in the kitchen. That might perhaps be because they are not easy to come by, if you buy herbs at the store you probably wouldn't see the flowers. Most commercial growers - or even the more diligent of home gardeners - snip them right off as soon as they appear, to prevent the herbs going to seeds and die. But if you're one of the lucky ones with an herb pot or two growing by the window, or better yet a patch of herbs in your garden, try letting a few go to flower, you'll love the results. Rosemary flowers are great sprinkled over meat dishes, especially the ones cooked with the herb already. I love using cilantro flowers in salads, they work wherever I'd use regular cilantro leafs. And my current favorite, thyme flowers.

Most people think of thyme as a rather strong herb, suitable for something equally strong, like lamb chops. I beg to differ, use judiciously, thyme can be subtle and don't overpower more delicate dishes like fish or even -wait for it- ice cream. Yes, ice cream.

I'd take credit for coming up with this brilliant idea but, as Goethe purportedly said, there's nothing new under the sun. I remember having an ice cream made with thyme flowers in France years ago. I also remember tremendously enjoying the deliciously creamy, old-fashioned custard-based ice cream and being delighted by the unexpected and savory flavor of thyme in it.

So, when my thyme bloomed this year, I set out to replicate that ice cream.

I use a recipe for ice cream base that I adapted from one in David's tattered old notebook. I'm not sure even he knows where it came from anymore. It calls for cooking only half the amount cream, adding fresh cream at the very end just before churning. This is great if you could find superb quality cream, as it retains the fresh flavor of uncooked dairy. I especially love it when I have spare raw cream from making butter to use in the recipe. If you could find a source for raw cream, definitely use it.

Thyme flower ice cream - glace aux fleurs de thym

Part 1

8oz whole milk

8oz cream

10 yolks (yes, ten, I don't eat ice cream on a diet)

160g sugar

about 10 sprigs of thyme flowers, rinsed and dried thoroughly

salt to taste

In a medium pot over low heat, bring the milk, cream, and half the amount of sugar to a simmer. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the rest of the sugar and the yolks until well blended. When the milk/cream/sugar mixture comes to a simmer, pour about half a cup's worth into the sugar/yolk, whisk again to incorporate, then pour the mixture from the bowl into the pot. Stir to blend and bring the mixture back to a simmer, stirring continuously. This last bit shouldn't take more than a minute. Remove the pot from the heat immediately. Add the thyme flowers into a clean, large bowl and pour the hot ice cream base over it. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt (more or less as you like it). Cover and let stand until completely cooled.

Part 2

16oz cream (superb quality raw cream if you could find it)

When the custard base is ready, pour the second amount of cream (16oz, cold and direct from the fridge) over it, stir to mix. Cover and let rest in the fridge until it's cold before churning.

Strain the ice cream base into the bowl of your ice cream maker. Churn according to the manufacturer's directions. This recipe makes just over 1qt of ice cream.

P.S. Just before the ice cream finishes churning, I like to add a big pinch of fleur de sel, I like the crunch and the burst of flavor when you bite into a flake, and I love salt. This is, however, entirely optional.

Pad Krapow Moo - spicy stir-fried pork with Thai holy basil

2009-06-23T00:10:52-07:00

I have Bai Krapow growing in my garden. They are called Holy Basil around these parts. I put two itty-bitty starts in the ground four weeks ago, and they now look so happy and thriving I've decided it's time to harvest some. So last night I did. I made a favorite fast Thai dish, Pad Krapow, which is basically a spicy stir-fry with the holy basil as the star flavor of the show.

Pad Krapow is a ubiquitous fast food dish in Thailand. You can walk into just about any food shack on any street corner and ask for Pad Krapow, they'll make one for you. You can also have it with just about any protein you want, pork (minced or cut into bite size chunks), chicken (ditto), beef (yup, ditto too), or even tofu. Some people like to add cut up onions or sweet bell peppers to add a little more interest to the dish. But the best thing about it, besides being really delicious, is that it's so simple to make you hardly need a recipe. So I'm not going to give you one. Instead I'll tell you how you can easily make it at home. If you can't find Bai Krapow or Holy Basil, you can even use the regular Thai basil you can find at any Asian markets near you. In which case you'll technically be making Pad Horapa (Stir-fry with Thai Basil) instead of Pad Krapow (Stir-fry with Holy Basil), but it'll be good just the same.

The Krapow plants I put in the ground look slightly different than Krapow plants I've seen in Thailand. The ones in Thailand have longer, narrower leafs, and are a slightly paler shade of grayish green. The ones growing in my garden now have fatter leafs, with an interesting purple shading on some of the leafs. They actually look more like Thai Basil, but when you pick one up and crush it between your fingers, the scent is undeniably Krapow. Thai Basil is more licorice-y. This Krapow, on the other hand, is spicier with a hint of citrus and mint. It's hard to explain in words really. You just have to find them and smell them side by side. Or you don't have to. Buy whichever you can find at the stores near you, they both make pretty tasty stir-fries.

You'll need a few cloves of garlic. You'll want to be generous with the garlic here, don't skimp. You'll be ok, just don't plan a big date after eating this dish. Or make sure you date share has eaten it too, so you both are even. Or evenly stinky, I should say. But I digress, now where was I, garlic, yes. I chop the garlic up with a few Thai bird-eye chill too. I generally use about a little less than half the amount of chopped chilli to chopped garlic, but it all depends on the spiciness of your chilli. I say here you err on the side of too few chilli. You can always add them later. If you put too much in the beginning then you'd have to resort to using sugar to reduce the spiciness. And that wouldn't be so cool. Here I used about 6 garlic cloves and 3 hot bird-eye chilli. Chop them all up together. I also used a handful of bell pepper cut into strips, they made the dish prettier at the end.

I used about a pound (500g) or ground pork. The nice man behind the counter at my Whole Foods ground a big hunk of pork butt for me. I think it's much fresher this way, not to mention nice and fatty. I don't get the point of lean ground pork. Fat is where the flavor is, people. But, as I said, you can use just about any protein you want. So, pick whatever that'll make you happy. I'm totally ok with that.

So you get your well-seasoned wok nice and hot, add just a tiny bit of oil. You won't need much now, the ground pork will release yummy fat as it cooks. If you're using not-so-fatty protein you'll need just a tad more oil here to keep everything properly lubricated. (Did I really just say that out loud?)

Ok, in goes the chopped up garlic and chilli first. Yes, they go first. Won't they get all burnt, you asked? Yes, they might, so be quick. Give it a couple stirs, just to get it nice and fragrant. Oh, don't stick your face right into it to check if it's fragrant yet, by the way. You just add hot chilli into a hot pan. You see where I'm going with this, right?

Now you throw in the ground pork. Give it a couple toss. A few splashes of fish sauce. Yes, fish sauce. This is Thai food we're cooking. Right? What, you don't have fish sauce? Well, fine, soy sauce will do in a pinch. But I'm stretching it here, I hope you know. Wait, actually, a splash or two of thick soy sauce won't hurt it a bit. That's what they use everywhere in Thailand, just to give this stir-fry a bit of color. You can buy it right here (no affiliation, btw.) While you're at it buy a bottle of fish sauce too.

If you're adding onion or bell pepper or whatnot, you can do it now. Give it a few more stir, taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. If it's not spicy enough, take a few chilli, smash then with the blade of a knife until they're all squished with seeds spilling out. Toss them into the pan, they'll add a nice bite of spiciness to the dish, plus I like the flavor of fresh, uncooked chilli in the finished dish too so I always add one or two in mine.

When everything is done and cooked, turn off the heat and add a big handful of Bai Krapow or Holy Basil. Toss, then serve immediately on top of steamed rice.

If you want to be really authentic, fry up an egg, over easy, but do it in a pan with a lot of hot oil, so the edges get brown and crisp while the yolk is still bright orange and liquid. Put that baby right on top of the rice and the Pad Krapow, a squeeze of lime (or lemon would do in a pinch) over everything and there you have it, Pad Krapow Moo over jasmine rice. Easy, fresh, and quick. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Lard, your fat of choice?

2009-06-15T12:06:56-07:00

Going through the pictures I took in New Orleans, I stumbled upon this cute sign inside the fantastic Kitchen Witch bookstore in the French Quarter. It got me thinking about lard. Even with renaissance of our love affair with pork, I don't hear much about lard as the fat of choice in our cooking. I myself love lard. When I was growing up in Thailand, there was always a crock of home-rendered lard right above the gas stove, from which our cook would scoop up the semi-congealed fat by the ladle every time she stir-fried or deep-fried something. If I had a choice, my last meal would be crisp Thai-style omelette fried in lard, on top of fragrant steamed Jasmine rice with lots of Sriracha (see-ra-sha) sauce. It had to be lard, of course, because other fat would not fry the eggs as fluffy and as crisp.

What about you? Are you, too, happy because you eat lard? Or are you afraid of it? What's your fat of choice in your cooking, and why?

New Orleans Pralines

2009-06-01T10:05:54-07:00

You didn’t think I forgot I had a blog, did you? Well, I almost did. With all the trips and the non-piggie Flu I picked up along the way, I’ve been neglecting the space here for quite a while. (If you’re following me on Twitter you’ve heard it all before.) Sorry. But I’m back, and I brought you a pretty cool souvenir from the road, an amazing (and amazingly easy) recipe for true New Orleans pralines. For me, one of the best things about traveling is learning how to cook local specialties so that I can bring that taste home with me and recreate it when I want to. So imagine my delight when Ms.Linda and her husband Peter (my friend Josh's dad) invited me over to their place to make pralines with them.

First, we must get something straight. I don’t care where you are in -or even out- of the country, you’ll need to learn how to pronounce the word right - and by ‘right’ I meant the way they do in New Orleans. Repeat after me. PRAA-leans. Not praa-LEANS, or PRAY-leens. And definitely not PRAA-lynes. Got that?

Ok, now that we know how to pronounce it properly, it’s time I confess something. This recipe makes textbook-perfect New Orleans pralines, yes, but it’s actually not from New Orleans! Ms.Linda -she’s a proper Southern Lady so it’s Ms.Linda to you and me- said she got the recipe from “a Greyhound Man in Mississippi”. I was hoping that she would say she got it from a man she met on a grayhound bus in Mississipi, wouldn't it be such a fun story? Alas, no, she just got it from a man who worked there.

Still, the recipe makes pretty perfect New Orleans pralines, and I learned it when I was New Orleans, so it’s New Orleans Pralines to me. (Oh, and, yes, if you bought any marmalade from my last batch on Etsy, you got some of these tucked into the box.)

The recipe is so easy you won't believe me until you try it yourself.

1 12fl.oz. can of evaporated milk (1.5cups or 350ml)

7 Tablespoon (100 gr.) butter

300 gr. brown sugar (1.5 cup)

300 gr. sugar (1.5 cup)

1 generous tablespoon of Corn syrup

350gr broken pecans (3.5 cups)

1 t. vanilla extract

(Before you start, set up an area in your kitchen where you can set the pralines as soon as the mixture is done. If your countertop is heat resistant, you can just set down 3-4 large sheets of parchment paper. If not, line three baking sheets with parchment paper and place them over trivets to protect your countertop. Ms.Linda advices rubbing butter all over the parchment to prevent sticking, I don't do it when I made my last two batches and my pralines didn't stick, so, if I were you I wouldn't bother)

Place a large, heavy bottom pot over moderate heat, add butter to melt. Add evaporated milk, brown sugar, white sugar, and corn syrup, turn the heat up and bring to a hard boil.

Then, lower the heat and simmer for approx. 5 minutes or until a candy thermometer reaches 110C.

Add pecans and vanilla extract and beat with a spatula about 3 more minutes until the pecans take on a light brown color.

Keep stirring, it's very important to stir vigorously to incorporate air into the pralines at this stage. You can see the pralines turning opaque as you stir. I like to sprinkle a generous pinch of corse salt into the pralines at this stage - it's my own spin on this, but I like my desserts with a bit of salt. You certainly don't need to.

When the praline mixture is ready, move the pot over to the prepared area. Scoop out one tablespoon of praline at a time and place each on top of the parchment lined countertop or cookie sheet. Using two tablespoons here will help, scoop with one, and use the other to help push the thick praline mixture out onto the parchment. Ms.Linda and her husband Peter have got this down to a science, she stirs, he pours, she scoops, he keeps the pot tilted to make it easier for her to reach the pralines. It's quite useful to have an extra pair of hand in this operation, so, get your significant other off the couch! They can lick the spoon afterwards. ;-)

Leave the finished pralines out on the parchment to cool down completely and set. This might take anywhere from an hour to a few hours, depending on the humidity where you are. When they are set, turning completely pale and opaque, use a small spatula to scoop each one up from the paper into an airtight container.

Here's Peter performing a crucial task of counting the final results. This batch makes just over 40 pralines. They keep well in an airtight container for a couple weeks. Or so I was told. I wouldn't know. My pralines are always gone long before.

Jazz Fest Love

2009-04-26T09:24:08-07:00