Beef Panaeng (Curry)

Recipe taken (and only adapted slightly) from "Fundamentals of Thai Cooking". The panaeng is "perhaps one of the most popular in the Thai repertoire. Salty, sweet and redolent of Thai basil, with the background taste of peanuts, the Curry is enriched with coconut cream..." says the author.

Ingredients:

• 300 g beef skirt steak, cut into short strips (the author recommends beef brisket or cheek, or shank or rib)
• 0.5-0.75 cups coconut cream (see notes on cream below)
• 1.5 cups coconut milk (taken from whole young coconut by piercing a hole and straining)
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• vegetables: one Chinese eggplant and ~10 baby carrots chopped into medium pieces
• 3 Kaffir lime leaves, torn
• 3 chilies, cut into strips
• large handful of Thai basil leaves (~30 medium leaves)
• 3 tablespoons good qualities store-bought red curry paste
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts

Method:
use a mortar and pestle to pound the peanuts into the Curry paste until smooth. "Fry" the Curry paste in the coconut cream for 5-10 minutes. Season with the fish sauce. Stir in the beef and hard vegetables and cook for a couple minutes. Add the coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Add the soft vegetables and simmer until cooked through. Finish with the Kaffir lime leaves, basil leaves, and chilies.

Analysis:

• Forgot to include palm sugar from original recipe; seemed okay without
• cooked the beef in a relatively short amount of time compared to the several hour braising process described in the original recipe. Perhaps this would make the meat less tough than it was in my case.
• I used "young" coconut milk, which is clear instead of milky and has less of a distinctive coconut flavor. The result seemed satisfactory, though.
• There was a slight grainy texture of peanuts in the final product. I should either work the mortar and pestle longer or use creamy peanut butter instead.

Coconut cream:
I tested out the 2 different brands shown below. "Chaokoh" seems to be the biggest seller at the Asian market up in San Mateo. It however, has 4 added chemicals compared to the 1 in the Savoy brand. They both have similar fat content, between 17 and 20%. The Savoy had the problem, paradoxically (since the other one had the emulsifiers), of being totally emulsified/homogenized which makes it impossible to skim the cream off the top for use in the first step of a standard curry-making process.

Chocolate and peanut butter holiday treats

Somehow I got the idea to make these for Ken & Tina for Christmas this year. I hope all the sugar didn't put them into diabetic shock.

Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Brittle:
Recipe is complements of Rachel Ray. See the first photo in this post. Application of the peanut butter layer on top proved to be problematic. I tried to "melt" the peanut butter in the microwave instead of on the stove as instructed. The peanut butter ended up drying out slightly and being very stiff. When I tried to spread it over the melted chocolate, it just ruined the even spreading of the chocolate. I wonder if other peanut butter brittle recipes mix the peanut butter into the caramel mixture instead of adding it on top?
Making the caramel was a novel experience for me.

Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats:
Adapted and halved a recipe found at ABC news and another persons blog. Ingredients:

• 1.5 tablespoons butter
• 5 ounces jumbo marshmallows
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 cups rice crispies
• ~3 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

Melt the butter and stir in the marshmallows until melted. Stir in peanut butter. Stir in the rice crispies. Pour into a lightly greased 8 x 8 baking dish and moderately press down with moistened hands. After cooling, cut the treats into squares and cover with a layer of chocolate.

Potato and leek soup

Based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver's site (the user editable portion of the site).

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces of pancetta, roughly chopped
• one small onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 3 weeks, chopped (use white and light green parts only)
• 2 bay leaves
• ~2 cups low sodium chicken stock
• 1 pound (2 large) russet potatoes, diced
• ~1/4 cup heavy cream
  

Method:

• In a Dutch oven, or heavy pot, cook the pancetta over medium heat until slightly rendered
• add the onion, and stir to coat with fat, adding a bit of oil if needed; cook until onions are softened and translucent
• add the garlic
• add the leeks and sauté for a couple of minutes
• add the diced potatoes, season lightly with salt and pepper
• Add the bay leaves
  
• add enough chicken stock to just cover the solid ingredients
• Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes
• adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
• remove bay leaves and blend (optionally withholding one third of the solids to be added back in)
• Add in the cream and blend to mix to bring richness up to desired level
  

Analysis:

• I left out the blue cheese called for in the original recipe; was very respectable, but not spectacular without; possibly reduce the amount of cream if blue cheese is added
  
• I also didn't have the chopped chives for garnish, which would have been nice (used parsley instead)
  
• be careful not to add too much pepper! I think I hid some of the more subtle flavors with the large amounts I added.
  

Zucchini bread

Made this for the Christmas sing-along at Ken and Tina's house. started with this recipe and modified to make more healthy. My final ingredient list is (updated on 6/18/2010):

• 3.25 cups flour (one cup of this was whole wheat)
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 cups applesauce
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes for the small loaf pan and 50-55 for the larger loaf pan.

Review for 2nd attempt:

• perfect consistency: not dry like previous time
• still plenty sweet.  Try reducing sugar to 1/2 cup next time
• both loaves stuck to their pans again (rubbed with plenty of vegetable oil).  Try using butter next time?

Review for 1st attempt:

• Was a tiny bit dry: be very careful to not over cook; maybe use more applesauce?
• Stuck to bottom of pan: be liberal with the application of grease to the pan
• Perhaps replace the water with more Apple sauce?
  

Green curry paste & chicken curry

I was determined to make my own Curry paste from scratch. When I was at the (one day) cooking school in Thailand, we started making the Curry paste with the traditional mortar and pestle, but the instructor quickly had us switch over to using a blender for convenience. I figured if a blender is good enough for them, a Cuisinart is good enough for me. My recipe ended up being based partly on a "Cook's illustrated" westernized recipe and another more authentic one from "fundamentals of Thai cooking". Roughly, I used:

Green curry paste (see the ingredients in the first picture):
-24 green chilies (used Seranos instead of birds eye)
-large pinch of salt
-16 cloves garlic
-2 tablespoons galangal, chopped
-4 stalks lemongrass, chopped
-2 tablespoons lime zest
-1/4 cup coriander stems, chopped
-6 shallots, chopped
-2 teaspoons shrimp paste
-20 white peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon coriander seed
-1/2 teaspoon cumin seed

The first step is to toast the seeds in a microwave, or elsewhere, and grind them (I used my mortar and pestle for this). Then, throw everything in the food processor and blend to a paste. My paste ended up being very watery and fairly light green in color. My theory is that my choice of green chilies ended up providing too much water/volume in the final paste.

Making the Curry:
-sauté 1/2 of the Curry paste in some coconut cream mixed with a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a pot until nice and aromatic and with most of the harsher flavors gone
-Throw in your chicken pieces (dark meat cut into strips) and cook until nicely coated and browned
-Add about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and a can of coconut milk (14 ounces) and bring to a simmer
-At this point I added some strips of green pepper as the main vegetable in the dish
-once the vegetables and chicken is cooked, throw in 3 kaffir lime leaves (torn up) and a pile of basil leaves (torn one or 2 times)

Review:
-Curry paste had the texture more of a salsa than a paste (too much water got in, probably through the larger chilies)
-The final Curry was somewhat oily appearance; not sure why exactly
- Like the other recent curries I've made, this one was quite runny; perhaps reduce the amount of coconut milk next time?

Sichuan Green Beans

Mike and I basically followed the Cooks Illustrated recipe for this that came from "The best international recipe" tome. Mike is Chinese and he seemed to heartily approve of the result, which is enough validation for me. Our one modification was to add water chestnuts -- not the typical canned variety, but fresh ones that Mike found at the Asian market in San Mateo. They are certainly far superior, having a lighter texture and richer, sweeter flavor than the canned ones.

Ingredients for sauce:
-- water
-- soy sauce
-- Chinese rice cooking wine
-- sugar
-- cornstarch
-- ground white pepper
-- red pepper flakes

Ingredients for the main pipeline:
-- 1 pound Chinese long beans
-- 1/4 pound ground pork
-- 3 garlic cloves
-- grated fresh ginger
-- green onions, sliced thin on the diagonal
-- toasted sesame oil