My Summer Break

I made tuiles for my last post...this week, I've used them to make cute dessert cups for family friends whom we invited over for dinner.

Filled with chocolate mousse, garnished with chopped nuts, strawberry and kiwi slices.

Unfortunately, the mousse didn't turn out too well...it got a little grainy. But it tasted delicious... I have a long way to go with this mousse thing... Mousse and I seem to have a love& hate relationship. I love it, but I can (almost) never get it right!

And then, with the rose syrup I made, I made some rose jelly, garnished with lychees. The flavor combo was good, except that the lychee flavor was a bit overpowering.

With the leftover lychees....

Lychee jelly--with red grape-stuffed lychees. They look like eyeballs... These were really good, the soft lychee went well with the crunchy texture of the grapes.

And yet another Culinary Experiment...Stevia Banana Bread!

I replaced the 1/2 cup of melted butter with applesauce, the 1 cup of sugar with 1 Tbsp of chopped stevia leaves. The result was a moist, not very sweet, more like banana-wheat muffin, super-healthy banana bread. The substitutions alone cut a whopping 1470 calories off the recipe! Made a healthy, tasty breakfast treat with low-fat honey-almond cream cheese.

American Regional Cuisine--the last two weeks (continued from previous post)!!

American Regional Cuisine Final!!: Hawaiian Cuisine

Can't believe it's been a week already!
Our final was on Monday, the 14th. So this is how it worked...

• Five people were selected, each of them drawing names out of hats to determine their team member, to make five groups of three.
• Each group was required to make three dishes--an appetizer or soup, an entree (which includes a main/protein, a vegetable, and a starch), and a dessert--with the given Mystery Protein and the Mystery Ingredient (each group got different ingredients). The dishes must be Hawaiian-themed.
• The Mystery Protein must be in 2 of the dishes, and the Mystery Ingredient must in every dish.

My group got to our table and lifted the cover off the Mystery Ingredients.

A HUGE mound of good quality shrimp and one who-knows-when-it-was-purchased can of julienned bamboo shoots.

Oh boy. We were stoked about the shrimp, but bamboo shoots that needs to be in every dish.... including dessert???

The guy who drew our names (I'll call him "Mr. C")decided to put ME in charge. His reasoning being, "...because you're Asian and know more about Hawaii than I do."

My instant thought; So... you're saying that I, a Japanese native/immigrant, know more about Hawaii, an American Territory (last time I checked), than you, born and raised in America??

Alas, I said nothing, just gave him a quizzical look and took out a pen and paper to set our menu.

The shrimp needed to be in two of our dishes. Since dessert is NOT an option for this particular ingredient, it had to be in our soup and entree. Fortunately, we had some dashi-stock on hand, so I decided on a clear broth soup with shrimp. Easy enough. For the main in our entree, I thought about the Loco Moco, a Hawaiian dish which I came across during my online culinary research. This dish consists of a mound of rice, with a hamburger patty topped with a sunny-side up. The entire thing is then drenched in brown gravy. Instead of the hamburger patty, we can use the shrimp to make a shrimp patty, then drench it in teriyaki sauce. The bamboo shoots can be part of the vegetable side.

Here's our menu--

Soup: Shrimp, Tofu, and Bamboo Shoots in Dashi-Soup

Entree: Loco Moco & Stir-Fried Vegetables

Dessert: Coconut Cream Tart with Passionfruit Sauce...and Candied Bamboo Shoots (....*sigh*)

This is where I learned that the people I work with definitely affects the outcome. Mr. C forgot to take the shell off one of the shrimp. He managed to overcook them too, after countless times I told him not to. Otherwise, our soup turned out very tasty. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it...

Then our entree...our Shrimp Loco Moco needed rice, shrimp patties, and a sunny-side up.

The other person in my group was this quiet guy. He did a great job making and frying up the patties, which turned out crispy on the outside, succulent on the inside and tasty.

Mr. C claims he doesn't know how to cook rice. He made the stir-fries which turned out good. He then said that we shouldn't put too much gravy on it, because in the past, he lost points for putting too much on. So I relented, thinking that this dish is technically a deviation of the traditional Hawaiian dish, so using less gravy would be OK.

I really shouldn't have listened to him.

The executive chef from Hawaii judged our plates, and he said that there's "not enough gravy" on it, that Loco Moco needs to be "drenched" in it...

Bottom: Loco Moco recreated at home

Then the dessert--our dessert did very well, I must say. I made the tart crust with macadamia nuts, and froze it before baking. I used half coconut milk and half heavy cream for the coconut cream, and made passionfruit sauce using the passionfruit concentrate. I had the quiet guy candy the bamboo shoots.

The chef loved the flavor, but said that the tart needs to be anchored to the plate (this can be done with a sauce), otherwise, it can fly off.

Coconut Cream Tart with Passionfruit Sauce & Whipped Cream (minus the Candied Bamboo Shoots) recreated at home.

Despite a few mishaps (and the fact that we just winged the whole thing), we did very well and got a high score. That was crazy and mind-frazzling, but it was so much fun!!

So that was our final. Tuesday, we just cleaned up the kitchen and took a group photo.

That night, I used the leftover coconut cream and the tuile cups I made earlier and made this.

With a month-long vacation before the next quarter, I turned my attention to the beautiful roses blooming in my mom's garden. The pink and the red varieties are the most fragrant, with a sweet, fruity note. And there are a lot of them.

I decided to start off my break by recreating the Rose Syrup I encountered at the NICCO Convention.

After picking the roses in the morning (when they are the most fragrant), the petals were washed, torn into pieces, and placed in a large mason jar. I made a simple syrup with 2 cups of water and a cup of sugar. While it was still hot, I poured it into the jar with the petals, and sealed the lid quickly.

A few days later, I opened the lid. Lovely fragrance of rose drifted out...

But now what to do with it? Make dessert, of course!

Wanting a dessert that will allow the rose scent to really show, I decided on a simple jello dessert...

Strawberry & Rose Jello Anmitsu. The jello turned out good... but it's really hard to describe the flavor/scent--very flowery and sweet, but hard to identify as a rose; its existence almost like a fairy, it's there, but you don't know what it is. One lady I served it to said that it tasted "nostalgic", and reminded her of the flower nectar she had when she was a child. Her husband said that it's delicious, but the scent/flavor is so delicate, it's not for the average "Americans" (from his experience as an Executive Chef at a Japanese restaurant, the "Americans" tend to drench their dishes in whatever sauce they can get their hands on).

But I think this dessert has some potential...

Then lastly... I still had the leftover egg whites from the cream I made last week, so I again, made tuiles. This time, I added sesame oil to half the batter and the rose syrup to the other half. The sesame turned out delicious, with a nutty fragrance, but the rose turned the batter green. Very strange. The scent was gone, too. I think I'll stick with the sesame...

I also played around to see what shapes I can mold the baked tuiles into. Lo and behold...

Origami tuiles! This needs to be done very, very quickly and with a pair of gloves. I'll definitely see what other stuff I can fold with tuiles...

American Regional Cuisine--the last two weeks!!

NICCO Convention!!

Last week on Tuesday, our class went to the annual NICCO Convention...it was a HUGE two-day event. They started off with the Ultimate Chef's Competition, where three chefs competed against each other using a 'Mystery Ingredient'. I didn't stay long enough to watch the entire thing since the judging took place at the end of the day.

There were a LOT of booths, from fresh produce to deli meats, pre-cut vegetables to gourmet desserts....

Chocolate Mousse and chocolate cheesecake.

Wine Ice Cream! I tried the Chocolate Cabernet...it was delicious! But with an alcohol content of 5%, I don't think I can eat a whole serving of this.
Flavored syrups for coffee and beverages. I was skeptical of the rose syrup at first, half-expecting it to have that gross "I-feel-like-I-just-drank-some-perfume" taste...but it was exquisite! The fragrance was not overpowering, just enough to get a lovely whiff.

I got away with some freebies: A tiny bottle of Tabasco; Caramel, Vanilla, and Hazelnut flavor syrup packets; a bunch of brochures; and a cute tote bag with NICCO logo.

So that was Tuesday. We made California Regional dishes on Monday.

Appetizer: Warm Scallop Salad w/Tomatoes, Lime, & Mint

Entree: Sauteed Duck Breast w/Raspberry, Strawberry & Port Wine Reduction; Creamed Spinach; Monterey Jack & Green Chile Polenta

Dessert: Kiwi & Grape Rice Pudding w/Orange-Port Wine Sauce in a tuile cup

Everything turned out great except for the polenta and the tuile cup. The polenta didn't have enough liquid and got too stiff and grainy (a problem easily fixed).

I've never made tuile cups before, but I decided to give it a try. Looking at the recipe, it seemed easy enough to pull off, and it was off the Baking Textbook for the school. So I made the batter using the leftover egg whites (the yolk I incorporated into the rice pudding). The tuile cup turned out too soft. The recipe said that it can be formed while still hot; it will set into a firm, crisp cup in minutes. Well, mine never set--as a matter of fact, a few minutes after I spooned the pudding into it, it slooooooooowly started to fall open. I managed to save it by putting it back into the ramekin used to form the cup. Chef asked if I have taken the Intro to Baking class yet; told him I'll be taking that next quarter, and he said that they'll be making tuiles all the time, so I can get plenty of practice.

Overall, I didn't feel too bad about the pudding. The addition of egg yolks definitely made it more rich and custardy, and everyone gobbled mine down.

But the little tuile incident still bugged me. What went wrong? Temperature? Technique? Or the recipe itself? So over the weekend, I researched several different recipes and decided to try it again. Besides, it won't hurt to start practicing those tuiles now, right?

The result...

They turned out great! They solidified into golden, crispy wafer cups!

Now that I think about it, I may have added too much flour to the first ones I made in class and that's why they fell apart. Maybe I will try that recipe again using proper measuring equipment.

Memorial Day Week recap 2

We had a Memorial Day pot-blessing--so named because as a Christian church, we believe that every good thing that happens to us is not luck, but a blessing from God--at our church on the 30th of May. It was a brunch, so I made Quiche Lorraine with bacon, onion, mushroom, and spinach, with savory thyme crust. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it before putting it out on the table. By the time I remembered, alas, it was too late...the dish had been licked clean. Even my parents didn't get a chance to try it.
But I did have some leftover dough for the crust, so I used that to make a Shrimp & Avocado Quiche for our lunch the next day.

Shrimp & Avocado Quiche (makes 1 approx. six-inch baking dish, serves 2~3)

1 six-inch pie shell, parbaked

olive oil, as needed

1/2 small onion, peeled and sliced

1/2 medium avocado, peeled and sliced

6 large shrimp, shelled and deveined

1 egg

4 oz. milk

Salt & Pepper

2 oz. Swiss or Gruyere Cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 350F.

Heat olive oil in a pan to medium-high and saute the onions until translucent. Add the shrimp and just barely sear, being careful not to overcook. Remove from heat, set aside.

Combine the egg and the milk; salt and pepper to taste. Combine the cheese with the shrimp mixture; place in the pie shell and arrange the avocados on top. Pour the custard over the filling. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until the top is golden and the custard is set.

Serve hot.

For Week 9 at my Culinary School, we made Savory Bread Pudding. It was good, but I personally thought it tasted too much like Thanksgiving turkey stuffing. So I jazzed it up with grated Parmesan and Swiss Cheese, sprinkled on some rosemary, and broiled it for about a minute. Served with sweet peas on the side, they made a hearty breakfast.

For lunch that same day...

The weather was still chilly, so we opted for a hot bowl of udon. Topped with a hard-boiled egg, fried tofu, and some greens from our garden, our bowl of udon was just as happy to see us as we were to see it. :)

Memorial Day Week recap 1

The Rice Fusion Restaurant Review:
1158 S State St

Salt Lake City UT

A bunch of my friends and I went to a fairly new fusion Asian restaurant. One of my friends, Mike, writes online restaurant review articles and needed some help.

Located in downtown Salt Lake City, The Rice Fusion Asian Cuisine is among the new Asian-themed restaurants that have popped up all over Utah within the last two years. Let's see how this one rated...

The interior and overall atmosphere was nice, very spacious, with elegant interior design. Then we saw the menu. Wow. They had a little bit of every Asian fare, from coconut curry to sushi. In order to get as much variety as possible, we ordered a dish from different regions.

Here are our appetizers--Croquettes (Japanese) and Summer Roll (Vietnamese). The Summer roll was delicious, with shredd lettuce, cilantro, vermicelli and char siu pork in see-through rice wraps. The sauce was a bit too sweet, but overall was very good.

The croquettes on the other hand....

Notice the orange color on the breading. Notice the almost eery uniformity of the croquettes. Had they handmade their croquettes, they would never turn out like perfect clones of each other. These are most definitely once-frozen products, purchased then reheated. It didn't taste very good either--the potatoes were gummy, and the breading was somehow chewy, almost like mochi. And didn't even taste like potatoes.

Our next dish was Orange Soy Chicken (Chinese). They had a great selection of vegetarian dishes. Despite the fact that this "chicken" was soy-based, it actually tasted very good, with crispy exterior and tender interior. The only drawback was the orange sauce was too sweet and not at all spicy as the menu claimed it to be.

Our sushi was a hard disappointment. In this picture, from left: Citrus Roll (California roll with a slice of salmon and lemon on top), Spider Roll (deep-fried soft-shell crab), Xanax Roll (with cooked albacore tuna, fried crab, and asparagus, all deep-fried in tempura batter). The best one out of all of them was the Citrus Roll. The others, sadly, tasted very bland for the amount of ingredients it had. Everything sort of melded together in to some mushy shtuff and I couldn't taste each ingredients. And the sushi rice was terrible. It was dry and lacked the vinegar taste, which is critical to sushi.

Now for the dessert....their dessert menu was impressive for an Asian restaurant. We ordered White Passion (white chocolate and passionfruit mousse with pistachio genoise and white chocolate piece on top) and Pyramid Noisette (chocolate ganache, hazelnut mousseline, in marbled chocolate shell).

OMGoodness. They were heavenly. Rich yet light, they weren't cloyingly sweet, and the texture of the mousse was so smooth and velvety...

...but it turns out that they purchase their desserts from a pastry shop in California.

http://www.frenchpatisserie.com/images/brochure_2009_web.pdf

...All in all, it was pretty disappointing. Sushi was less than average, and the dishes mediocre. I would come back here only for the desserts and great service.