Oui, Chef

Bittersweet Chocolate, Cardamom and Orange Cookies

Happy Holidays Everyone!

For those of you busy in your kitchens preparing for a house full of guests, here is a deep, dark and delicious chocolate cookie to add to your holiday spread.  My wife and I dreamed up these little lovelies for a Food52 contest a while back.  She called for the flavor profile of orange and cardamom, I added the fleur de sel topping, and our little baby was born.....aw, isn't she cute!  Don't you just want to squeeze her chubby chocolate cheeks?

All of us here at "Oui, Chef", Grid, Arthas, Boris, Peyton, Muppet, and my wife and I, wish you all a fun, warm, and delicious holiday season.  Thanks so much for being part of our adventures, for all of your great feedback, and for your support and inspiration.  We all look forward to cooking with you again in the New Year!

Cheers - Steve and the Gang

Recipe:

Bittersweet Chocolate, Cardamom and Orange Cookies

by: Chris Brodie and Steve Dunn

(Print Friendly Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup hazelnut meal/flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cocoa powder

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate cut into chunks

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Fleur de sel

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350 ℉
• Ready 2 sheet trays with silpats or parchment paper
• Combine the 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate and 2 oz. bittersweet chocolate in the bowl of a double boiler and melt, let cool.
• In a standing mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar.  Add the cooled chocolate, vanilla, and orange zest, then the eggs, one at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition.
• Sift together the AP flour, baking soda, kosher salt, cocoa powder, cardamom, and the hazelnut meal/flour.  Add to the bowl and mix on low speed until just incorporated.  Add the bittersweet chunks and chips, mix to distribute.
• Spoon the cookie dough by heaping teaspoons onto the prepared sheets, and place in the oven for about 14 minutes.
• When done, remove the cookies from the oven and immediately sprinkle them with a large grained fleur de sel.  Place on a rack to cool.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Macaroni and Cheese with Ham

I've been searching for some time for a homemade mac and cheese recipe with which to break Muppet of her addiction to a certain, well known, boxed mac and cheese mix comprised of a tasteless cheese powder and sad little pasta shells.  All prior efforts have failed miserably with the dish either being "too cheesy", "too dry", "too crunchy on top", or "too spicy" due to the incorporation of various seasonings.

The whole "too cheesy" thing makes no sense to me at all (I mean, can there really be such a thing?),  but I have been sympathetic to her other critiques and carried forth in search of a suitable replacement to her favored bowl of cardboard shells and re-hydrated cheese goo.  I am happy to report that finally, with the help of my very talented food-writer friend Melissa Pasanen (long-time correspondent for the Burlington Free Press, as well as a staff writer for Edward Behr's incomparable "The Art of Eating"), and Chef Rick Gencarelli, I have found a mac and cheese recipe that will hopefully serve to banish all boxed versions from my house in the future.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

I love the holidays!  Starting with Thanksgiving, which is my all-time favorite, right through to New Year's Eve, I love the rolling feast of it all.  With the advent of on-line shopping, I have finally been able to eliminate the one aspect of the holidays that used to make me dread them like the plague, and now that "retail" Christmas shopping is out of my life, the holidays are nothing but cheer for me!  They are a time to reconnect with friends and family, and to celebrate our health, peace and good fortune.  They provide ample opportunities for opening a few special bottles from the wine cellar, and most happily for me, offer a temporary pass to indulge in all sorts of delicious if not altogether healthy foods.  

That's not to say that I spend every day of December in a race to ingest as many fat and sugar calories as I can, but I certainly don't watch myself as I do during the balance of the year.   I send my internal food police on a brief vacation so that I don't feel like they are about to haul me away in handcuffs at every turn.

Turkish Figs with Anise and Walnuts

I was first served a treat similar to these by Patricia Wells, the famed cookbook author, when I was a student of hers for a week long cooking class in Paris.  We students enjoyed them with a glass of champagne as we were putting the finishing touches on lunch one day.  I must have eaten six or seven of them before she noticed my intake rate, and moved the platter to the other side of the room so that everyone else could get a crack at them.  These are the simplest nibbles to make, are terrific with cheese and wine before a meal (or as the French do, after a meal), or eaten as I frequently do, as a mid-afternoon snack with a cup of coffee or tea.  I always like to keep a Tupperware bin of these on the counter-top to provide a quick and healthy snack to anyone passing through.

Tell your kids that they are basically a Fig Newton without the "Golden Flaky Tender Cakey Outside", and they'll be snarfing them down right along with you.  Sweet like candy, with a delicious crunch from the walnut, and a crackling bite from the fig and anise seeds, they are a perfect school lunch snack as well.

I always make a big bin of them for the holidays as we frequently have lots of family and friends stopping by, and these will keep for weeks as long as you keep them in a well sealed container, ready for any visiting dignitaries.  Boris helped me slice a couple dozen figs the other day, while I roasted the walnuts and lightly toasted the anise seeds.  He then assembled the whole batch while I prepped my little counter-top photo studio to shoot the photos for this post.  In about 20 minutes flat we had a whole stack of these babies ready to go!

Recipe:

Turkish Figs with Anise and Walnuts

Adapted from a treat by: Patricia Wells

(Print Friendly Recipe) - although this is so simple, you hardly need one.

Ingredients:

Dried Turkish, or domestic Calmyrna Figs

Walnut halves, roasted

Anise seeds, lightly toasted

Method:

• Lightly toast the anise seeds in a small pan until just fragrant.
• If your walnuts are raw, roast them on a cookie sheet in a 350℉ for about 8-10 minutes.
• Cut the hard stem from the top of the figs and discard.  Slice each fig almost through along the horizontal "waist" of the fruit and open the fig to accept the anise seeds and a piece of walnut.
• Sprinkle a pinch of anise seeds inside the fig, top with a piece of walnut, and then close the hinged top of the fig back over the filling, pressing to make sure all your goodies stay intact.
• That's it!

Profiteroles

In my humble opinion, profiteroles , these lovely ice cream filled and chocolate topped pastry puffs, are one of the French's finest contributions to the dessert course.  That is saying something, I know, given the number of delicious pastries, mousses, tarts, and cakes that grace the annals of French gastronomy.  To me, profiteroles are the French equivalent of our "brownie sundae", something that is so simple, pure and delectable, that you can't imagine ever tiring of them.  They are easy to make, and seem equally at home being served after a Friday night pizza fest, or a formal dinner party.

We've made them a couple of times recently.  First, a few weeks ago, when we were blessed to have a few guest chefs join us in the "Oui, Chef" kitchen, and then again today as fodder for a cooking demonstration that Grid shot for a film production class he is taking. 

Our guest chefs were the delightful 5th grade twin daughters of friends who were joining us for dinner, we shall call them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  One of the girls (can't remember whether it was Dee or Dum) has already expressed interest in being a chef, and so was excited to join our "Oui, Chef" crew on temporary assignment.  While Mom and Dad enjoyed a pre-dinner nibble and a glass of wine, Dee and Dum donned their aprons, rolled up their sleeves and whipped up our dessert for the evening.

Bouchon's Quiche Lorraine

OK. 

This is not a recipe for the casual, "I just like to throw it together" kind of cook, and certainly not one you will be whipping up in a rush on a weeknight, but if you have any interest at all in making what is likely the best quiche on the planet, I urge you to stop clicking on your mouse and hang with me here for a while.

It also is not a recipe that you can give your kids free reign over, but it does have plenty of elements that the kids can help with, and I encourage you to make them part of the process.  Not only will most kids LOVE this quiche, but I think it important that we make the effort to train our next generation in the fine art of quiche making, an art that is still alive and well in Europe, but sadly died here in the States in the "real men don't eat quiche" days of the early 80's.  Americanized quiches baked in factory-made, soggy pie shells, with over-cooked, curdled custards make me want to scream....our kids deserve better, don't you think?

This dish is actually not difficult to make, but as with every recipe Chef Thomas Keller creates, it IS exacting, and therein lies its brilliance.  Keller is not one of those chefs who lives on the bleeding edge of culinary adventure, like Heston Blumenthal, Feran Adria, or Grant Achats.  These guys make their livings pushing the edge of the envelope with regard to cooking technology and high tech ingredients, that allow them to reconstruct food in ways that leave diners giddily questioning what exactly it was they just ate. 

In contrast, what Keller does better than anyone else is rip classic dishes down to their most basic elements, and then reconstruct them using only the finest ingredients, and with such a finely honed and thoughtful technique, that the end result is a dish that is instantly recognizable for what it is, but is of a quality that has been elevated almost beyond measure.  When finished, you will immediately recognize this dish as a quiche, but what you will have created will make every other quiche you have tasted seem like a cheap, plastic imitation.  Successfully creating this dish will not require technical wizardry on your part, but it will require a tight eye on a few key details.  The rewards for your vigilance will be ample, I assure you.  You game?.....Then let's go.