Chocolate cake

another recipe from Martha Stewart's "Desserts" book for this week baking. i baked them in mini cheesecake molds instead of spring form pans as Martha's recipe. i also added the grand marnier.

here's the recipe:

for the ganache:

55-60gr dark chocolate, coarsely chopped. i used El Rey brand 70% cocoa.
90gr heavy cream

for the cake:

355 gr dark chocolate, coarsely chopped, same brand as above.

90 gr sugar (to mix with yolk)
65 gr sugar (for meringue - or eggwhites)
85-90 gr butter, slice into 1/4" thick slices.
80-85 gr yolk, about 5 yolks
165-170 gr eggwhite, about 5 whites.
75 gr almond flour (ground almond), sifted.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons grand marnier, optional
powder sugar for dusting, optional
more butter to greasing molds

method:

cut parchment into 12 1 and 7/8" rounds to line the bottom of mold. also cut 12 3" x 12" strips of parchement to make the molds.

melt butter for greasing. brush parchment rounds and strips with melted butter, line bottom with rounds and roll strips into 2" cylinders. insert cylinders into mold. wrap bottom of mold with foil to catch dripping if any, set the whole thing on jelly roll pan.

Ganache:

over medium heat, bring cream to bubbling point, pour over chocolate, let it sit for 5 minutes and stir until smooth. Fill ganache in 12 small cubes in ice tray and freeze in freezer.

Cake batter:

in double boiler (or set a glass bowl over a pot of water, melt chocolate with butter over simmering water. let it cool down a bit.

beat egg yolks with sugar and vanilla until the color turns pale yellow, about 2 minutes on medium and 3 minutes on high.

fold melted chocolate in to yolk.

fold amond in to chocolate/yolk mixture. set a side.

beat egg white with a pinch of salt and then sugar to a stiff meringue.

fold meringue into yolk mixture in 3 to 4 portions.

fill parchment cylinders 1/3 way. unmold ganache from icetray and insert in center of each cynlider.

fill cylinders with the rest of batter, cover ganache completely.

freeze in freezer for an hr.

preheat oven at 375F. transfer baking tray from frezzer to oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

let the cake cool on rack for 10 minute before unmold.

add a few drops of grand marnier to each cake. dust with powder sugar - optional. serve warm, cake can be kept covered at room temp for a day or longer in refrigerator. for the best taste, re-heat cakes in microwave for about 15 seconds if not serving cake immediately.

Chouquet's

i was in the middle of baking the pistachio macarons and my friend called me up for brunch. Chouquet's is the place we wanted to try this time since i'd read in the paper a while back that the new chef is from Paris.

we got a table outside right away. the place is clean, modern, kind of normal bistro place - nothing worth mentioning about the decor.

the crowd here is definitely pacific height crowd, yuppies!

the staff were friendly and service was prompt, food came on time and i felt kind of rushed at the end.

i had the croque monsieur with mixed green salad and a side order of fries. the croque Mr was perfect, opened face, the bread was light and grilled to golden brown around the edges. the cheese was bubbling on top with spots of golden brown. the salad was ok, i thought the dressing could be more interesting. fries were perfect, golden brown, crispy and soft, not an easy thing to make. my friend ordered the smoked trout with fingerling potato salad. she got the smoked salmon instead. we asked the waitress if it was salmon and she insisted that it was trout. she was running around like crazy and my friend didn't want to make a fuss so she ate it anyway. it was very good she said, a bit heavy handed with the dressing! our waitress brought out the check and ask if we wanted dessert. we didn't want any desert but i thought it was rude to bring the check before asking us if we wanted anything else. while the food is good, i don't think i'll be back here anytime soon because of the salmon/trout incident and just simply of the bad waitress. San Francisco is filled with excellent restaurants, i hope Chouquet's realize this and train their staff adequately.

i forgot to take photos again!

pistachio macarons

using the same recipe from last week - except i used pistachio instead of hazel nut. i was experimenting with different temperature settings and the macarons came out a bit lop-sided. they still looked pretty good with good feet. i filled them with creamcheese and mascarpone this time, i thought it'd be not as rich as butter??? so here the filling recipe:

50 gr pistachio
30 gr powder sugar
70 gr mascarpone
70 gr cream chese
1/2 teaspoon pistaschio extract (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)

grind pistachio with powder sugar in coffee grinder to fine powder, sift through medium sieve. use hand blender or small food processor to blend everything together and done! i'll comment on the taste tomorrow.

yellow tulips

i went to Wholefood and couldn't resist getting the yellow tulips at pretty good price today, cheers to spring.

Chez Papa

It's been a long week at work! Friday night, i got off work at 7pm. all i wanted to do is to get dinner then go to bed. A friend at work also got out at the same time, we decided to eat some somewhere near work, Chez Papa.

the dinning space is quite small with about 12 bistro tables (for 2 each) and a couple tables outside. the light was dimly lit which i found very soothing after a long week.

the staff were almost all french, friendly and knowledgeable. the crowd - pretty normal, no children here on this friday night.

service was prompt, we ordered right away and the food came at perfect timing. i had 2 appetizers - ahi tuna tartar with avodaco mousse and the dayboat scallops with fava beans in pistou sauce. i like the peperika in the tuna tartar - added a kind of earthy spicey favor to the dish. the scallops were perfectly seared, delish with the fava beans and the pistou sauce. i washed it down with a glass of sancere, even though i shouldn't have since my belly was still sick. anyway, the sancere was perfect, nice and crisp, not too dry with a hint of fruit. my friend had the new york steak well done and a glass of rose. i had a bite of the steak - yummy with sweet caramelized onion sauce. we didn't order desert, everything sounded kind of heavy and we were stuffed anyway.

i didn't have my camera with me, didn't take any picture - good reason to come back.

http://www.chezpapasf.com/bistrot/01_home.html

Hazel nut macarons

i experimented with the macarons again this week. new flavor - hazel nut, chocolate with coffee chocolate frangelico buttercream filling. the macarons turn out great! i love it and will use this recipe/method from now on.

215 gr powder sugar
115 gr almond flour (i used 65 gr almond and 50 gr hazel nut for this one)
120 gr aged egg white (i left 5 eggwhites out, uncovered for 72 hrs then in refridgerator uncovered over night)
60 gr sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of cream of tartar
optional - 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder (i did)
optional - more cocoa powder for dusting (i did)

mix powder sugar, nut flour and cocoa powder. grind in coffee grinder, sift. cover with paper towel and keep in refridgerator overnight.
beat egg whites with salt and cream of tartar at low speed for 10 seconds to mix. add 30gr sugar, beat at medium speed until soft peak, about 30 seconds. add 30 gr of sugar, beat at high speed until stiff, about 2 - 3 minutes. tint meringue with color, optional.
add the cold dry ingredients to meringue at once, mix with hand (clean and dry)until everything is incorporated, about 15 - 20 seconds. with flexible spatulla, scrape batter from hand and side of bowl, give the batter a couple final fold. scrape batter into piping bag, pipe macarons. leave piped macarons out uncovered until skin is formed, about 1/2 hr to 1 hr. mine took about 1/2 hr. if leave them out too long, the macaron shells will get thicker.
preheat oven at 325F. i preheat the jelly roll pan as well, i found that my macarons turn out better with preheated pan. bake for about 8 minutes, rotate halfway for even baking. dust hot macarons with cocoa powder (optional). i also tried the convection option at 325F this time and the macarons turn out even better and baked faster, about 6 - 7 minutes. all the recipes i found on line said to never never ever use convection, well i did and my macarons look more professional than ever before. the convention baking, the macarons got good feet but did not flare out. with convection, the feet were high and belly out in the oven. at room temperature, the belly out feet will colapse and create the flare out feet. i will try this again next week to make sure this method works everytime.

for the filling i used french buttercream since i had all the egg yolks left over from the meringue.

75 gr egg yolk
75 gr sugar
30 gr water or less.
150 gr butter, soft (use more butter if prefer less sweet)
2 teaspoon unsweeten cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder, dissolve in boiling water below.
1 teaspoon boiling water
1 teaspoon frangelico

in a small saucepan, add sugar and water, only at enough water to wet sugar, not more than 30 gr. leave it out for 10-15 minutes for the sugar to dissolve a bit in water. bring sugar to a boil and lower heat to medium. beat yolk at medium speed until sugar register 240F or soft ball. pour sugar slowly into yolk, continue to beat at medium until all sugar syrup is done pouring. increase to high speed and beat until mixture cool down and thicken, about 5 minutes. add butter and blend with hand blender. add all the flavoring at this point before blending. using hand blender will create a better texture and taste (to me)since the hand blender does not incorporate air into the buttercream like mixer does. i find whipped buttercream always taste more slimmy and greasy, not good to me.
sandwich macarons with buttercream. i refridgerate macarons in cookie tin overnight before serving.
this recipe yields about 40 macarons 1-1/2 to 2" round.

Incanto

Friday night, birthday dindin for another friend at Incanto. Incanto is in Noe Valley which is one of the neighborhood in San Francisco that i've heard of alot but never had the need to go there. I'm glad i did go to this dinner party because there's quite a few cute restaurants, antique shops and furniture stores... that i'd like to have a peek.

there were four of us and we've arrived 15 minutes early and got seated rightaway. the restaurant decor is definitely rustic - an attempt to recreate the rustic italian country... the stone walls and pillars were a bit much for me, i feel the decorator(s) were trying a bit too hard???...

the staff were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. the crowd here on this friday night was more family oriented and casually dressed.

on with the food... the water (on the house) came in still and sparkling which is very nice, i like options. the bread plate came with tapenade and three different kinds of bread - italian rustic, foccacia and bread sticks. i like that too, more options. all the bread and tapenade were good, i didn't try the foccacia. my friend ordered a flights (in tasting portions), i was sick in the belly so i skipped the alcohol that night (and for a while...). she liked them all - the white was light and fruity, the red was woodsy, and the second red was a bit stronger, she said.

for the appetizers, we ordered three dishes to share - the tripe, the artichoke salad with lemon mint dressing topped with some hard cheese (i forgot), and antipasto sampling plate which has salami, mortadella, country pate, roasted garlic, sauteed baby broccoli... i did not try the tripe, it did not look appetizing to me and i never like tripe anyway - this was the birthday girl's choice. the artichoke salad was simple and good with a hint of bergamot in the dressing. the antipasto was good, except for the pate - it was very dry. i never had italian pate before, may be it supposed to taste like that???

then came the entrees, the birthday girl had the hankerchief pasta with pork ragu, the wine girl had the spear fish with chickpea, the little japanese girl had the sausage with onion and polenta, and i ordered the roasted pork shoulder with polenta. i did not try other's entrees since i try to eat less these days. i heard that all were good. my pork shoulder was good, reminded me of the pork dish i had at Range but that one was far more tasty. the favorite part of my dish was the polenta - super smooth, creamy and buttery... the food presentation is very rustic, it goes with the restaurant theme.

i was not going to order dessert but i did, we all did since we were all going to walk home from there ( a good one hour walk). the birthday girl has the lemon sorbet, i had a taste, very light and refreshing. the wine girl had the carrot cake with carrot orange sorbet. i did not taste the cake, she didn't like it as much, it's kind of like fruit cake, she said. i like the carrot orange sorbet, very interesting, the carrot flavor was definitely a refreshing surprise, i like it alot. the japanese girl had the pannacotta with strawberry, the restaurant signature dessert, said the waiter. i didn't taste and she liked it ok. i had the flourless chocolate cake with pink peppercorn ice cream and it was good! everyone had a taste of my dessert and it was voted the best one. the cake was velvety smooth and soft, almost like truffle. the icecream has a spicey peppery aftertaste, interesting, definitely the best dish of the whole meal for me. i would definitely try to make this cake at home.

one interesting note, the head chef here was on the "Iron Chef" competition, he didn't win but good publicity anyhow.

http://www.incanto.biz/index.html

Experimenting with the macaron again

i used the new recipe from my new book, les desserts. the macarons turned out the same as before, so nothing new here and i took no photos since the macarons looked the same as the ones i made before. i was hoping for the flare out feet and the dome top but not this time. the macarons turned out good with feet as before, just not the look i was hoping for, that's all. here's the recipe,

215 gr powder sugar
112 gr almond flour
120 gr aged eggwhite
60 gr sugar
1.6 gr cream of tartar

in this recipe, there's more eggwhite, sugar, cream of tartar and less powder sugar, almond flour than all the recipes i used before.
the method was the same as before. i don't like too much cream of tartar, it leaves a sour after taste.
i aged the eggwhites in the refridgerator instead of outside (room temp). i also chilled over night the almond flour and powder sugar after sifting. the recipe said cold eggwhite and cold powder are easier to incorporate. i couldn't tell the difference.
next time, i need to experiment with the mixing, may be that's the key to the flare out feet.

The Rotunda

Saturday, madame Yoko and i went to the furniture sale at Arkitektura in the late morning. she had to pick up some gift in union square, so we stopped by the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus for lunch.
i always love the space at the Rotunda - mezzanine layout with beautiful balcony overlooking the shopping levels below. and the dome ceiling is glorious! they have really good popovers here but not for me today, i need to eat healthier. we both get the tuna poke with wonton chips, she had a bloody mary and i, a jasmine green tea. it was delish and light, i felt healthier already.