Archives for October 2012

Jacques Pepins Apple Galette

October 30, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I had the great fortune of cooking with Jacques Pépin for a whole week at the end of a multi-month culinary course I took at Boston University many years ago. Cooking a variety of dishes under Jacques' direction marked the culmination of the course, as we students helped him prepare the dishes to be served to the guests at a large hands-off cooking demonstration he gave at the end of the week.

It was not only an honor and privilege to share a kitchen with Jacques, but it was also a blast. He had mad skills and decades of great stories to share, but more importantly, he was a patient and dedicated teacher. It was a fun filled week that I'm sure I'll never forget.

Murgh Korma

October 26, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, Zach and Clay, the dynamic duo behind the awesome blog "The Bitten Word" recruited a bunch of their readers to participate in a cover-to-cover cooking extravaganza. You see, each week the guys cook and blog about a few select recipes culled from the numerous cooking magazines they receive, and wondered what it would be like to cook every recipe in each publication rather than have to choose just a handful. Knowing that they couldn't manage that feat by themselves, they asked a bunch of their fans (and I'm a big one) to help out a bit.

Meatless Meatballs!

October 23, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

So dig this. A couple of weeks ago my father in-law, George, popped by with a dish of some "meatballs" that were the product of his latest kitchen experiment. Still slightly warm from the oven and fragrant as all get out, we couldn't wait to try his new goodies. I popped one in my mouth and thought immediately that it was a tender veal meatball that had been braised in a rich tomato sauce. Was I right?

No.

Asian Pickled Peppers

October 19, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Are y'all ready to bring some heat? Good, 'cause have I got a treat for you. This is one of those recipes that's so easy that it practically makes itself, and so good that you'll be left wondering how you lived this long without it. A little patience is required for the full effect of the pickling to have its way with the peppers, but even after just 2 days in the drink, these things are addictive!

Blueberry Streusel Cake Redux and a Giveaway!

October 16, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

No you're not seeing double, this cake is a re-post from the Oui, Chef archives and I'm awfully excited to be sharing it with you again.

Why?

Because this cake has just been chosen as a semi-finalist in a great new recipe contest sponsored by MobileSkillet, the mobile app development company that specializes in helping clients create cooking apps for the iPhone and iPad, and the people behind the super popular "TruffleHead" cooking app. The ultimate winner of this contest will be awarded a MobileSkillet app and services with which to launch their own mobile cooking app!

The MobileSkillet app framework is awesome, and I would be so excited to build a Oui, Chef cooking app on their platform. Of course, before I can do that I need to win this competition, and that is where you, my devoted readers, can really help me. You see, the semi-final round of the competition will in part be decided on Pinterest, with the Top 10 most popular recipes advancing to the final round, where a panel of professional judges will cook and test each recipe before declaring the ultimate winner.

So….I have a favor to ask of you. If all of you Pinterest users could click on this link , go to the contest's Pinterest Board, search for my Blueberry Streusel Cake recipe and vote for it, I would be so grateful! Not a Pinterest user yet? If you'd like to join, you can send me an email (at the contact me link above) stating so, and I can send you an invitation to join the Pinterest community.

How does voting work once on Pinterest? Each voter is allowed to "Re-Pin" and "Like" just one recipe, and only one time. As much as I would appreciate your stuffing the ballot box for me, voting more than once for my dish will disqualify me, so please do follow the rules. If you can click once to "Re-Pin" the recipe to your own Pinterest board and once to "Like" the recipe, then that will count as a complete vote for the recipe.

In order to get LOTS of you to go and vote for my cake, I've decided to craft a little product giveaway as a bribe incentive. In order to qualify for the prize, please go and vote for the recipe, then come back here and leave me a note in the comment section of this post letting me know you've done the deed. As votes will be counted through November 12th, I'll do a random drawing on November 13th from all of your eligible comments and I'll send the winner this terrific 3 piece Wusthof "Santoku" knife set.

Obviously, you could leave a comment here without actually going to vote for my recipe, but know that if you do and are chosen as the winner, these knives will arrive with all sorts of bad Juju attached, and believe me when I tell you that the last thing you want in your kitchen is a sharp knife with bad Juju!

As for the cake, I can honestly say that it totally rocks and is completely worthy of your vote. For those of you that missed it the first time around, click on this link to get the back story on this baby. If you don't really care about how and why it came to be and just want to get busy making one for yourself, I've reprinted the recipe below.

I hope you love the cake, and thanks so much for your Pinterest Vote, you all are the best!

Cheers – Steve

Blueberry Streusel Cake

by: Steve Dunn

notes: < Serves 10-12

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

for the cake:

1 cup all-purpose flour (plus more for the pan)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups fresh (or frozen and thawed) blueberries
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

for the streusel topping:

1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

Instructions

Heat oven to 350℉ and set a rack in the middle setting.
Butter and flour a 9" spring form pan taking care to knock out any excess flour. Set aside.
Sift the A/P flour, salt and baking powder together in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a standing mixer beat the butter and sugar on high for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Turn the speed to medium and add the vanilla and the lemon juice, then the eggs one at a time allowing each to be fully incorporated in the batter before proceeding. Turn the speed down to low and add the flour mixture and mix until the batter is smooth and the flour fully incorporated.
Place the berries in a bowl and sprinkle with a pinch of flour, toss to coat. Remove the mixing bowl from the machine and fold the berries into the batter gently by hand until nicely dispersed. Spoon and press the batter in the buttered pan, evening the top with a large spatula.
For the streusel, dump all the ingredients into a medium sized bowl, and working with your hands, mix until the the topping resembles wet sand. Evenly sprinkle all the streusel onto the cake in an even layer.
Pop the pan into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes (ours was done at 45), or until a tester in the center comes out clean. Let the pan cool on a rack for 20 minutes or so before running a knife between the cake and the pan and releasing the springform side. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

Flapjacks

October 16, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

As you can tell by this picture, these are not the flapjacks we're accustomed to here in the States. Here, when we talk about "flapjacks" or "hotcakes" or "griddle cakes", we're tossing about well known alias' for pancakes, those golden vehicles famed for delivering obscene amounts of melting butter and maple syrup into our systems. Why do we have so many names for such a simple dish? Who knows…….probably just to confound foreign visitors.

Spicy Noodles with Sweet Potatoes, Spinach and Tofu

October 12, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Can I be completely frank with you about something?

I'm not a big fan of tofu.

I know this news doesn't come as a big shock to those who have been with us here for a while, but I felt that it was time I just stated that fact unequivocally.

Why am I feeling the need to come clean about this right now?

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Granola Bars

October 9, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I don't know about you all, but it seems like half of our food budget these days is spent on "healthy" snacks that the kids can bring to school for lunch or after-school sports. Granola bars have long been a favorite of the gang, and with four kids shoving them into their backpacks as they race out the door each morning, we go through a ton of them each week.

I've experimented over the years with making homemade versions, but none have ever turned out that well. They were either so sticky that you felt like you needed a bath after eating one, or so dry and boring that munching on one seemed only a small step removed from strapping on a horse's feed bag for a snack. There had to be a better way……

ChickenThighs with Maple-Cranberry Sauce

October 5, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I know this dish looks like it was designed for a holiday table with it's abundance of red and green on the plate, and while it would certainly be a welcome meal during the holiday season, we're eating it now to celebrate another season…..cranberry season!

Avocado Soup

October 2, 2012 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Got a blender?

Good…… because as long as you do this will be the easiest recipe you'll ever find here at Oui, Chef. Without a blender you'll be in a bit of a pickle, but with one you can have this delicious soup sitting in a bowl in front of you no more than 10 minutes after reading this post. As this is a chilled (or room temperature soup) there is no cooking involved, you simply toss the whole ingredient list into a blender and blitz all the goodies into silky submission. Taste to check for seasoning, make a few balancing adjustments, and you are home free.