Macadamia Nut Cream Pie – Attempt 2

Posted on 12 October 2010 by christao408

Please feel some sympathy for my tough plight. My attempts to find the macadamia nut cream pie of my childhood is forcing me to bake and eat pie after pie after pie. Oh, the horror! Yes, the quest continues and this past weekend I made another MNCP (let’s abbreviate, shall we?) using a recipe that Aaron graciously sought out from his sister.

Just looking at the recipe, it struck me as being pretty close to what I had in mind. The custard filling has cornstarch to thicken it and the ground nuts are added at the end of the process, so they aren’t cooked too much. Macadamia nuts seem to lose their flavor when cooked. The one thing I wanted to change was the shape. Her recipe is made with a shortbread crust in a 9-inch square baking dish but I wanted to use a traditional pastry crust in a pie plate. Other than that, though, I followed the recipe religiously.

The ingredients are simple: milk, sugar, corn starch, pinch of salt, eggs, vanilla, macadamia nuts, and a pre-baked pie crust.

I have a lot of trouble with pie crusts and need to practice more. This one shrunk on me something fierce. Too much water, I think. Maybe time for a food processor. (Wishful thinking with my lack of counter space.)

The larger portion of the milk and sugar are heated until near-boiling. The smaller portion of milk along with the eggs and corn starch are mixed together. Then you add a bit of the hot milk-sugar mixture into the milk-egg mixture to warm it up. This is called tempering. Then you pour the milk-egg mixture into the milk-sugar mixture, cooking for another five minutes or so until it thickens. Add the vanilla (there was too much at two teaspoons – tasted too vanilla-y) and the chopped nuts. It is then added to the pie crust and allowed to set in the fridge for at least six hours.

Looks pretty, despite my lame decoration with whipped cream. Maybe I should buy a more decorative tip for my pastry bag? But the real question is, how did it turn out? A short video answers that question:

In short, good taste but still not set. Thinking this through, I have a theory about the problem. I think it is the eggs. The eggs here look smaller than the ones in the US. It that is the case, then the recipe doesn’t have enough of the protein from the eggs to help give it structure. The two egg recipe probably could use a third egg. Anyone want to validate that theory or am I going to have to cook yet another pie and suffer through the experience of eating it, just to test the theory?

Yeah, woe is me, right?

Food in BKK: Soul Food Mahanakorn

Posted on 10 October 2010 by christao408

Krungthep (Bangkok) is both an excellent food city and a disappointing one. Excellent because Thai food is some of the finest fare on the planet – complex, multi-layered food made with very fresh ingredients – and disappointing because unlike some other cities in the world that are good food cities, Krungthep seems to be missing the sweet spot, that convergence of high quality, moderate price, and comfortable atmosphere. I’ve found any number of places that hit two of the three, but in the capital of the Thai kingdom, the culinary triple crown is elusive.

The endless number of street vendors and air condition-less shop houses provide authentic, inexpensive food but without the atmosphere that encourages you and your friends to linger. In fact, they would rather you don’t linger so they can seat more guests. The fancy restaurants, often in hotels, have great atmosphere and generally good food, but will bankrupt you. And then there is this whole breed of restaurants that have opened in the last half-decade that are the result of hi-so Gen X’ers who have too much money and too little food knowledge. Their restaurants are popular as a see-and-be-seen place but the food always looks better than it is.

Which was why I have been so pleasantly surprised by a month-old arrival on the local dining scene: Soul Food Mahanakorn.

Food writer Jarrett Wrisley (blog) whose work can be found in The Art of Eating magazine as well as the Atlantic Monthly’s food blog, is the proprietor and chef of Soul Food Mahanakorn – “Mahanakorn” is Thai for “metropolitan” – which is located a block away from my home on Soi Thong Lo. Earlier this year, I started reading the Atlantic Monthly’s food blog, impressed by the general quality of writing. Jarrett’s articles about Thailand and Thai food caught my eye because unlike so many food and travel writers who are mired in cliches, he seemed to have a true appreciation for and understanding of the many facets of Thai cuisine.

It didn’t take long following Jarrett’s posts to learn that he was in the process of opening a restaurant. Details came in bits and pieces but the menu’s tag line – “Good ingredients. Honest cooking. Serious drinks.” – sums up what he was writing about in his blog. It caught my interest: could I really find a restaurant in Krungthep that would be serious in its pursuit of good food without falling into the traps of either pretending or pretentiousness? And would that be delivered in an atmosphere that was convivial and at a price that wouldn’t place it in the only for special occasions category?

Tawn and I were unsure exactly which day SFM (as I’ve abbreviated the restaurant in my mobile phone) opened, but took at chance and stopped by a month ago on what turned out to be their first night of business. I think we have the distinction of being the second table seated. We took to the place from the start. The interior of the three-story shophouse, which was initially a little hard to identify as you walked along the street but now has a lighted sign outside, has a welcoming atmosphere with a good-sized bar on the ground floor with perhaps eight tables between the bar and the front of the restaurant. More seating is on the second floor with the kitchen on the top floor. One imagines the staff must have well-developed leg muscles.

The interior is welcoming, modern without being decorated in any specific motif. The wood paneling on one wall suggests perhaps a speakeasy in the Deep South but not in a Cracker Barrel sort of way. The chairs are retro 50s, custom made and comfortable for lingering over a drink.

If you were to explain SFM in reductionist terms, it is either a Thai izakaya or a Thai tapas bar, depending on whether you want a Japanese or Spanish point of reference. What that means is that it is a drinking establishment that serves small plates of food. You can certainly eat well without drinking, although you would be missing out on some clever custom drinks that feature indigenous ingredients and generous amounts of liquor. There is also a smart wine list that offers some real bargains.

But decor and good drinks, as important as they are, are not what is missing so often in Krungthep’s air conditioned restaurant scene. Does SFM deliver in the food department?

We’ve made four visits in the month since they’ve opened and the menu continues to expand. Quality has been high since day one and the execution continues to improve as the kitchen team becomes more familiar with the menu and dishes and presentation are refined. The menu is largely what could be described as Thai soul food – favorites from each of the four major regions of the country along with a few dishes that creep in from elsewhere in the region. For example, the gaeng hung lay pictured above, a Burmese style stewed pork with ginger that is really tasty and inspired my recent experiments with braised pork with star anise.

SFM is not fusion food – the food here stays pretty true to its roots. Jarrett takes some dishes and allows a little culinary license that honors the original but takes things to a new level. For example, one of my favorite dishes on the menu is yam makeua yao, eggplant salad dressed with a mixture of palm sugar, lime, fish sauce, and chili. The twist here is that he replaced the traditional minced pork with a little bit of bacon and added a touch of balsamic vinegar. I’m hard pressed to believe that any Thai mother wouldn’t agree that the dish is improved with these changes and would rush out to buy some balsamic vinegar for her cupboard. Another minor change is that the eggs, normally hard boiled, are served soft boiled. Reportedly, there was some push-back from his cooks but they have now accepted this change, which I think is delicious.

It seems that nearly every culture has fried chicken as a comfort food, even before the Colonel’s global proliferation. SFM’s menu is anchored by a gai tod done up in the style of the Southern Thai city of Hat Yai – that means seasoned with a salty, spicy edge that you can’t get enough of. The dish is served with an interesting twist: pickled watermelon, a condiment that really reminds me of food from the Southern United States where pickled watermelon rinds are commonplace.

Another dish from the South (of Thailand, that is) is khao mok gai – a baked rice with chicken the roots of which trace back through Malaysia to India. You would recognize this as biryani and it was even served with a cooling yogurt and mint sauce. This dish has become one of our favorites and it is a good example where the attention to quality ingredients really pays off.

SMF offers many specials based on whatever is available at the fresh market. This adds variety to the menu and ensures there is something new to try on each visit. A recent special was larb pbed – a duck salad that is traditionally Issan, or Northeastern Thai. Larb is commonplace on Thai restaurant menus the world round and it features minced or sliced meat (often pork but chicken and duck are common, too) tossed with shallots, cilantro, mint, and uncooked rice grains that have been toasted and then ground. The dressing is made of fish sauce, lime, chili.

What sets the SMF version apart is that it is made with smoked duck, which is a bit of an unusual and tasty twist to this classic dish. If you are worried about authenticity, though, there is no need to be. The Thais with whom I’ve dined have enthusiastically praised the food and the dishes are both instantly recognizable and recognizably spicy. Settings on the the Scoville scale have not been turned down one notch.

Another example of a “what’s fresh at the market” special is this sea bass baked in banana leaf with aromatic Thai herbs. This is how fish is commonly served in Thailand (although usually whole with head, fins, and tail attached) and the lemongrass, lime, and Thai dill infuse the tender, moist fillet with a very appealing flavor. The fish is served with a traditional spicy seafood sauce made of blended green chili, cilantro, and lime.

Another example of how “soul food” crosses borders is SFM’s tamarind glazed pork spareribs. These ribs will be familiar to any devotee of American barbecue but the sauce, which borrows heavily from the Thai sweet and sour flavors of tamarind and palm sugar, is something else entirely. It is served with a pineapple relish.

The attention to detail in the kitchen and commitment to quality ingredients and well-made food are appealing. The atmosphere is friendly and comfortable, not too loud but not austere and minimalist. But what really makes Soul Food Mahanakorn work is that it hits that sweet spot I mentioned at the start of the entry. It not only delivers on its promises about food and atmosphere, but does so at a reasonable price. Dishes run from about 100 baht on the low end to just over 200 for specials like the sea bass. Drinks are about 150-200 but all are doubles. Over our four visits, we’ve been able to enjoy a filling, delicious meal including drinks for an average of about 600 baht a person, US$20. That puts it solidly in the once a week category.

I almost hate to share the details of this place because while I want the restaurant to be very successful, I don’t want them to be so successful I can’t get a table! But here they are:

Soul Food Mahanakorn – 56/10 Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Soi Thong Lo) – About 100 meters up from Sukhumvit Road on the right hand side. BTS Thong Lo station. Telephone: +66 (0)85 904 2691
Hours are listed as daily on the website, but I believe they are closed on Mondays right now. 5:00 p.m. until late.

Fettuccine with Green Olive and Mint Pesto

Posted on 3 October 2010 by christao408

The macadamia nut cream pie was not served alone, although it would have made a pretty enjoyable meal. Instead, I served it with pasta in a green olive and mint pesto, a recipe I found on Domestic Daddy. The Domestic Daddy describes his site as “a fresh take on cooking, entertaining, decorating and other domestic arts and sciences from a real daddy … since my partner and I had our daughter Julia last year, I’ve learned to keep my projects simpler, faster and more fun.” Okay, Tawn and I don’t have a child, but the idea of keeping projects simpler, faster, and more fun appeals to all of us, right?

“Pesto” just means “paste” so there are many other types of pestos you can make than the basil and pine nut pesto you may be moth familiar with. DD’s pesto is made with green olives, a lot of mint, Parmesan cheese, and some garlic and lemon juice. This combination of ingredients wouldn’t have initially jumped into my mind, but they worked together surprisingly well. (Recipe here)

The challenge for me is a lack of a food processor. Instead, I had to chop things by hand and I don’t think I got quite the consistency that I was looking for. Still, I ended up with this pesto that I then mixed into fettuccine.

To add some protein, I marinated some chicken breasts in a buttermilk brine then grilled them in our quasi-panini grill. Sliced thin, they went into the past very nicely.

To go with the homemade rye bread I roasted some heads of garlic. This is so easy that when I have the oven on for some other task, I like to roast garlic before turning it off. The harsh flavors turn mellow and you can mash up the garlic with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar for a nice spread to put on the bread. Much more interesting than butter.

My appetizer idea was also taken from Domestic Daddy: miniature Greek salads. Dress cherry tomatoes, seeded cucumbers, and bell peppers in a red wine vinegar dressing then stir in some olives and feta cheese. Salt and pepper to taste (not too much salt since you have the cheese and olives, which are already salty) and add a little fresh rosemary. Serve in a small dish that you can hold while mingling with other guests. (Recipe here)

I had to laugh to myself a little while I was preparing this. Those who criticize the “gay lifestyle” must be talking about our penchant for changing up traditional recipes (“pesto made with mint!?”) and ways of serving food (“Greek salad in a coffee cup!?”). Such an unconventional lot!

Macadamia Nut Cream Pie

Posted on 2 October 2010 by christao408

The final days of September were crazy busy for me so I had to take a few days off from posting. Nonetheless, September was a productive blogging month for me. I managed to post 25 times, my busiest month since April. And I feel good about the quality, not just the quantity. There was a lot I wanted to share, from Tawn’s 30th birthday to old time-exposure photos, with lots of lemon, lavender, and dates thrown in!

Taro plants growing on Kaua’i – circa 1986

For my first entry in October, I’d like to share my adventures trying to make macadamia nut cream pie, which I prepared for a small dinner party last Saturday. This pie holds a special place in my childhood memories. I can’t vouch for how accurate or authentic the memory is, though. As a child in an airline family (my father worked for United) we had the opportunity to vacation in Hawai’i several times while I was growing up. One of the treats we would enjoy while in the islands was macadamia nut cream pie. One year in particular, we had an especially good pie from one of the local bakeries and so macadamia nut cream pie entered the mythology of my childhood.

Macadamias are also grown here in Thailand and are relatively inexpensive – a 500 g (about one pound) bag of unsalted whole nuts is available for about $12. Recently, I started thinking again about macadamia nut cream pie and decided it would be fun to make.

Searching for recipes, almost all of them seemed to be based on the same recipe from University of Hawai’i. Something about the way the recipe was written just didn’t seem right to me. Perhaps not clear enough, perhaps the proportions seemed off. I don’t know – but I had a bad feeling from the start.

Sure enough, the first attempt on Friday night didn’t work out. Macadamia nut cream pie is basically a custard filling chilled in a pre-baked pie crust. The custard, though, never came together and thickened. By the time I cleaned the kitchen at midnight, all I had was a finished pie crust and a bowl of sweet, macadamia-flavored egg soup.

Saturday morning I pulled out Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and perused the recipes. A crème pâtissière – a basic pastry cream – sounded like a good start because one of the options included stirring in some ground almonds to flavor it. Surely I could substitute ground macadamias? And as I read some of the other variations, a crème saint-honoré – a crème pâtissière with meringue (whipped egg whites) folded in – sounded like it would make a very nice, light and creamy filling for my pie.

Since I hadn’t made a cooking video in quite a while, my trusty cameraman Tawn set about filming me. Here are the results. Let me apologize right now for my repeated mispronunciation of “crème pâtissière”, which I pronounced as “crème pâtisserie”. My bad. Je suis très désolé.

The pie after being filled. I had quite a bit of extra filling, so I ended up filling two martini glasses, too.

Those were kind of difficult to store in the refrigerator. There you go – a chance to see what is in my fridge. Maybe that is a future blog series? “Refrigerators of Xanga!”

The finished product once plated. What I learned is this: while the filling is very tasty, a crème saint-honoré does not have the structure or stiffness to stand firmly on its own. Once sliced, it spilled forth from the pastry shell. Quelle domage! But it was very tasty and my guests, even those without major sweet teeth, cleaned their plates.

Next time, I may try just the crème pâtissière. Or, better yet, one of my guests who lived in Hawai’i for fifteen years asked an auntie of his to share her recipe, which turns out to be from Sam Choy’s cookbook. Reading it, it sounds much more like what I’m looking for. I guess this calls for a second attempt. Any volunteers to taste the results?

As for the filling in the martini glass, that actually made for a very pretty follow-up dessert the next few days, dressed up with a dollop of whipped cream and some bittersweet chocolate shavings.

The chef didn’t seem too disappointed with the outcome! I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Recovery and Donuts

Posted on 28 September 2010 by christao408

September 28, 2010 will go down in the history of Krungthep (Bangkok) as the day when the scars from May’s political violence truly began to heal for the Big Mango’s shoppers. It will also go down as a red-letter day in the spreading influence of American fast food and the subsequent spreading of Thai waistlines.

To the first point, Central World Plaza, the largest of the buildings that were badly damaged in the fires set by angry protesters after their leaders surrendered to police on May 19, reopened today.

While about 70% of the mall reopened today, the 70% that suffered no damage in the attacks, the remaining portion depicted above is expected to be rebuilt and open next August. The portion opening today includes the Isetan department store, the 15-screen SFX World Cinema, and the grocery store.

Can a mall’s reopening indicate political healing? Of course not. That was just a banal attempt to hook your attention as a reader. Under the surface, the issues and power struggles remain, yet to be resolved. But for those of us who live here, whose lives were disrupted by the political events of April and May, the opening of Central World Plaza is another sign of life getting back to normal.

In other news – and possibly an attempt to draw away some attention from Central World’s reopening – the first Krispy Kreme doughnut franchise in Thailand opened today at the Siam Paragon mall, just down the street from Central World. Doughnuts have been popular in Thailand for at least a few years, as evidenced by countless Dunkin’ Donut and Mister Donut outlets. Last year, a Malaysian chain called Daddy Donut entered the market and they even have a mobile donut truck that sets up in different locations to sell donuts to hapless passersby.

Nonetheless, there is no lack of hoopla surrounding the opening of this first Thai Krispy Kreme. If you want my opinion, I think the fad won’t last. The Hong Kong locations of Krispy Kreme only lasted a few years before they closed and I don’t think the Bangkok crowd, which is quite fickle with its fads, will turn Krispy Kreme into an overwhelming success.

The big question is this: What’s the big deal? Thai culture has so many fantastic desserts and snacks and they are inexpensive, readily at hand, and perhaps slightly healthier than a doughnut. As I notice the Thai high school and university students in their uniforms, bigger, taller, and heftier than their counterparts were even a half-decade ago, starting to approach the bodily proportions of their peers in the American Midwest, I can’t help but wish the influence of Western style fast food chains would wane.

So here’s to progress, as it were. A reopened mall and a new fast food shop. Bangkok, you’ve come a long way.

Weeknight Roast Chicken

Posted on 24 September 2010 by christao408

By Wednesday night, the leftovers were finished. The black bean chili was gone. The braised pork in star anise and ginger was gone. The refrigerator was looking bare and it was time to cook again. Wanting the warmth of a homemade meal without too much hassle, I opted for weeknight roast chicken.

What makes it perfect for the weeknight? For starters, it doesn’t use a whole chicken but instead uses pieces. This cuts down on a whole lot of roasting time. Additionally, I can make a double batch just about as easily as I make a single batch, so I can get plenty of leftovers – leftovers that can be repurposed into other dishes!

The first step when you walk into the door is to get your chicken ready. There are a variety of ways you can do this depending upon how much effort you want to put into it. My favorite way is to take a couple of cups of buttermilk, a tablespoon of salt, and a couple of hearty dashes of cayenne pepper and mix them together in a plastic zipper bag. Dump in the chicken, shake it up so the chicken is completely coated, and then set it aside to marinate. If the buttermilk brine is too much work, just sprinkle both sides of the chicken pieces generously with salt and set in a bowl to give the salt a chance to work its magic.

Turn the oven on to about 350 F / 180 C. While it is heating, prepare some root veggies. I had some potatoes, carrots, and Japanese pumpkin on hand. Other tubers or root veggies would be fine, too. No need to peel potatoes and carrots if you don’t want to – a good scrub of the exterior is fine. Now, when it comes roast chicken with root veggies, the veggies are the things that can take some time. A shortcut, if you want to take it, is to boil a pan of water with some salt in it and parboil (pre-cook by boiling) the veggies. The softer things (pumpkin) only need a few minutes then pull them out. Potatoes need more time and carrots could use eight minutes or so.

Put the parboiled veggies in a bowl or save yourself the washing and put them directly into a baking dish. This is a good time to throw in some sliced onions and/or some whole cloves of garlic, if you would like. Add a generous pour of extra virgin olive oil, another sprinkling of salt, several turns of the pepper mill, and then you can add some herbs, too. Rosemary makes the kitchen smell marvelous and some thyme (I happened to have fresh on hand) is really nice, too. Stir the veggies a few times so they are coated with the oil, salt, etc.

If you haven’t parboiled the veggies, you should go ahead and put the dish into the oven and give them about fifteen minutes head start on the chicken, covered with aluminum foil.

If you marinated the chicken, take it out of the buttermilk, rinse the pieces off, and pat dry with paper towels. If you didn’t use the buttermilk, you can just pat dry with the towels. Add some fresh ground pepper and a drizzle of the olive oil, and then place on top of the veggies with the skin side of the chicken facing up, and bake, covered with foil, for about twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, remove the foil and continue cooking until the chicken is nicely browned, about another twenty to twenty-five minutes.

Check the veggies with a knife – they should be cooked to the tenderness you like. I like mine to still have a little firmness to them but not too much. Check the chicken with a thermometer – you’re looking for an internal temperature of 165 F. Pull the dish out and let it rest for about five minutes before serving. There you have it – a healthy and easy weeknight dinner.

Braised Pork with Star Anise and Ginger

Posted on 21 September 2010 by christao408

There’s a new restaurant in the neighborhood, one about which I’m excited to write just as soon as I can get some pictures of their food. Eating there, I enjoyed a Burmese style stewed pork dish that was resplendent with ginger and it got me thinking about stewed pork. Since we were in the midst of some drizzly weather that seemed stew appropriate, I sought out some recipes and settled on one for braised pork with star anise and ginger.

Star anise is one of my favorite spices, its evocative aroma reminding me of a big bowl of Vietnamese phở even if the actual dish in which I’m smelling it is unrelated, like this stew.

I took chunks of boneless pork butt (which is actually the shoulder – go figure) and after browning them, simmered them for a few hours in a mixture of ginger, garlic, soy sauce, stock, a little bit of vermouth, and honey with a few star anise and a cinnamon stick thrown in. Once the pork was so tender it fell apart with a nudge, I added some bok choy and let that cook for about five minutes before serving it with a nice scoop of organic jasmine rice. What a delicious meal. For those of you who don’t like pork, this recipe would go wonderfully with beef, lamb, or even chicken.

Mexican Black Bean Chili with Red Cabbage and Apple Slaw

Posted on 20 September 2010 by christao408

Last week our weather was a little cool. Well, relatively speaking. Several days were overcast and drizzly all day long, more Seattle-looking than our usually rainy season weather which owes more to Midwestern summer thunderstorms than anything else. It seemed an appropriate time to cook some warm, hearty comfort food, so I dug up a recipe for Mexican Black Bean Chili and made it in a Monday night meal along with some buttermilk cornbread muffins and a tasty red cabbage and apple slaw.

Beans are super-healthy, incredibly inexpensive, and easy to use. Make a large batch and freeze up the extras so you can thaw them out and make a fast and easy weeknight dinner like this one. This chili uses chopped onions and peppers (I added some carrots, too, as I had some on hand), and plenty of cumin, lime juice, chopped cilantro, and dried chipotle pepper to add a nice kick. One thing I add that isn’t in the recipe is a few tablespoons of cornmeal. I add then to the aromatics as they are sauteeing in a little bit of oil. This creates a roux that thickens the chili and adds a nice flavor, too.

To garnish, I used a little leftover homemade salsa and avocado cilantro lime cream sauce from fish tacos a few nights earlier.

The slaw is a nice alternative to the usual green cabbage slaw. Not only does this offer more vitamins, it also has more flavor. The recipe is based loosely on the one from Blue Smoke BBQ but I play around with it. For starters, I leave the peel on the apples (more fiber and flavor) and slice them thin instead of chunks, which adds more visual interest to the dish. Additionally, I play around with their dressing recipe, reducing the mayonnaise, using apple cider vinegar for their white balsamic, leaving out the chilies, and adding some nigella seed. Sitting alongside a cornbread muffin, I think it is quite pretty.

The combination makes for a very tasty and very healthful meal. To top it off, chili is one of those dishes that benefits from a night or two in the refrigerator, so it made even nicer leftovers later in the week!

Lavender Lemon Buttermilk Scones

Posted on 17 September 2010 by christao408

This is turning into some sort of an Iron Chef thing where I get inspired by a certain ingredient or combination of ingredients and return to them day after day. In this case, I had pulled the lavender from the back of the cupboard and resolved that I had better start using it before it went bad, combined with a good price on lemons at the Gourmet Market at Emporium. Continuing on the theme, I decided to try a recipe for Lavender and Lemon Buttermilk Scones.

Now, buttermilk biscuits are one of my specialties, one of the few recipes that I can make (and actually follow the recipe!) from memory and that I can turn out consistently, time and time again. Scones and biscuits are relatives and the biscuits I make reminded a former British roommate of mine of scones, so I figure I can move from one to the other pretty easily.

The recipe I used was from the EatLocal blog on WordPress, but like many similar versions of the recipe I found online, this one was credited as being adapted from Leslie Mackie’s “completely fabulous” Macrina Bakery Cookbook, so that’s maybe where credit is really due.

Lemon Lavender Scones

2 cups flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tsp dried lavender, divided use
4 tbsp chilled butter
½ cup nonfat yogurt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

Heat oven to 400°F. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest, and 1½ tsp of lavender.

Cut butter into pieces and cut into dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, or crumble in with your fingers. Separately, whisk together yogurt and buttermilk. Combine wet and dry ingredients to form a dough that will be wet and sticky.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times, then shape into a square about 1′ thick. Using a kitchen knife, cut the dough into eight triangles. (As you can see, I used a biscuit cutter for a round shape.)

Transfer to an oiled baking sheet (I just used parchment paper instead of oiling and brushed the tops of the scones with cream) and bake 20 minutes, or until scones are golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet. Meanwhile, dissolve powdered sugar in lemon juice and mix in ½ tsp lavender, then drizzle over scones.

I wasn’t terribly patient – we were hungry and had a condominium juristic meeting to attend – so I put the sugar-lemon glaze on while the scones were warm, so instead of glazing it just absorbed. Still, they tasted really good. The tops also cracked, which leads me to believe I should have turned the oven down a little. My oven is a convection and I think you’re generally supposed to cook at a slightly lower temperature but I don’t always heed this advice.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy these scones as you begin your weekend!

Lavender Lemon Panna Cotta

Posted on 16 September 2010 by christao408

Nearly two weeks ago I made a greek yogurt panna cotta for a brunch dessert. Since then, I have done some cooking with lavender and lemons. Looking in my refrigerator, I saw that there was some yogurt left as well as some more lemons on the counter and plenty of lavender, so I decided to revisit the panna cotta but this time with lavender and lemon as the flavoring.

I added lavender to the cream and sugar mixture, brought it to a near-boil, and then let the lavender steep for two hours off the heat. Afterwards, I strained the flowers and reheated the cream. Taking it off the heat again, I dissolved some hydrated gelatine into it, then whisked the yogurt in.

For fun, in addition to putting it in ramekins that could be unmolded onto a plate, I poured some of the mixture into shot glasses. These were put in the refrigerator overnight to set.

The next day, I made another mixture with lemon juice, sugar, and gelatine. This was poured on top of the panna cotta and allowed to set for a few hours. Upon eating it, you had a sweet-tart lemony jelly on top of the lavender panna cotta. Quite nice and it makes for interesting presentation. A garnish of mint would have been nice, too, but I didn’t have any.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: food