Miel Cooking

The best salad

2011-05-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

I've made in a long time:
Little gems, arugula, fava beans, avocado, chives, lemon vinaigrette.

EGGS & GREENS

2011-04-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series... because who doesn't eat a meal of eggs and greens at least once a week(or day)?
Let's share.
Above is the best I've done in a while: sauteed asparagus, chopped tarragon, fried eggs, mascarpone. Yumtron.

Sexy Salad at The Hub SoMa

2011-04-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Early stages of a spinach-celery-fennel salad

A few days ago I did a little guest-chef stint at The Hub SoMa, a sustainably-designed co-working space/resource for change-makers...
They do a "Sexy Salad" day involving a guest chef and a CSA-style box of produce from Albert and Eve, an organic-produce delivery service, hoping to inspire its members to sign up for a produce delivery. I had a pretty good idea of what would be in the box, but there were still some surprises and it was pretty challenging and fun to make salads out of the contents.

Raw chard and green mango salad with citrus vinaigrette

Plus, there isn't really a kitchen at The Hub - so collards and onions went on the griddle and diced sweet potatoes went in the rice cooker with quinoa, and it all worked pretty well!

Blood orange and grapefruit salad with cilantro

Overall, a great time - The Hub's members were super excited and ate everything. And I had two awesome helpers, Jake and Yonghwan, who washed all my produce and picked herbs and were so cheerful and diligent!
All of these photos came from The Hub's facebook page, link below if you want to see more of the Sexy Salad scene.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=291067&id=105486047944&l=0260ac70f2

Miel on DailyCandy!!

2011-02-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

Thank you Karen Palmer, editrix extraordinaire of DailyCandy San Francisco! Check out the article...

Hummus with Ras-el-hanout

2011-02-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

Next time you're making hummus, throw in some Ras-el-hanout - it's delish! The name means "top of the shop" in Arabic, meaning a personal combination of the best spices a shop has to offer. With anywhere from 10 to 100 ingredients, it contains all the usual suspects in North African spicing. Of course you can find it pre-made, but it's also fun(and fresher!) to find a recipe and toast and grind your own. It will transform your humble hummus into a warm, complex, spicy delight!

Corpse Reviver #2 - a tasty cocktail

2011-01-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

First, apologies for the awful name. I did actually see it written somewhere recently as just 'Reviver #2'. Behold the recipe and its variations.

Equal parts(1 ounce?) of:
Gin
Lillet
Cointreau
Lemon juice
and a few drops of pastis
Shake with ice and serve however you like.

Tonight's version was made with Luxardo triple sec instead of Cointreau, and my homemade vin d'orange in place of the Lillet. We tried it up but added some ice because it was too strong for our delicate constitutions. It was quite refreshing.

p.s. A pint or quart canning jar makes a great shaker! After shaking, unscrew the band and remove it, and use the flat lid as the strainer by moving it aside a touch.
p.p.s I learned of this cocktail a long time ago from my bartending colleague Keli Rivers - one of those people who's been rediscovering old cocktails for many years now.

Cardamom-Pistachio Brioche Morning Buns

2011-01-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

It has been a very long time! (Sorry.)
So here is today's breakfast treat: brioche, flavored with some orange flower water(thanks, TofC!), rolled up with sweet pistachio-cardamom butter. Definitely not a gooey, sticky-bun-type thing. Much more civilized, I'm sure.

the pistachio-cardamom schmoo in the mortar

ready to rise

These were actually pretty easy, plus my Mom helped me! I used Madeleine Kamman's recipe for Brioche de Boulanger - "bakers' brioche", as opposed to Brioche Mousseline, or Brioche de Patissier - "pastry chefs' brioche", which is much richer(and more difficult). Most old French standard cookbooks will have two recipes, and this one is made all in the mixer and rises overnight in the fridge. You just let them warm up a bit and then bake for 15-20 minutes - and this can all be done while you're still on your first cup of coffee!

A vague recipe:

2 standard muffin tins - brushed with 2 tbs melted butter. I suppose you could use one of those giant muffin tins and get half as many...

1 cup toasted pistachios - or other nuts, to your fancy

1/2 cup sugar

6 tbs butter - the rest of the stick after the brushing of the tins - at room temp

a dash of vanilla if you want

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 - 3/4 tsp freshly crushed cardamom, according to your taste. I think it should be quite strong when you taste it because it's going to be distributed among 24 buns...

Pound the pistachios in the mortar until they are mostly finely-chopped and getting a little pasty. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Or you could do it in a food processor.

1 recipe of a simple brioche - for 1 standard loaf. If it makes 2, cut it in half...

Add 2 tbs orange flower water to the dough with the wet ingredients.

Follow instructions up to the shaping point, when instead of shaping it into brioches à tête or a loaf, you will pat it into a large rectangle on a lightly floured board. Spread the pistachio butter evenly on the dough, leaving an inch or so border at one edge to seal - no need to be exact. Roll it all up tightly and cut into 24 slices, putting each into a slot in the muffin tin. You could probably line them up in a baking dish, too - just give them some room to puff! (If they seem small, well, they kind of are. I meant to do 12, but they were going to be way too big, so I cut each one in half. This demure size just means you get more crust and caramelly bits. And you have to eat more of them.)

Now cover and let them rise according to your recipe - I gave them an hour on the counter and then into the fridge overnight. Another hour or so in the morning to warm up and then I baked them at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. (If you use a giant muffin tin and only shape 12 buns, after 15 minutes I'd turn down the oven to 375 and give them another 15 or so to finish, so they don't get too dark.)

Happy breakfasting!

l'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

2010-10-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

I had lunch there last week before I went to Italy, and it was pretty amazing. The space is interesting but the decor is totally bizarre and a little distracting. I must say, though, it was the best food I've had yet in Paris.
I had an eggplant confit-zucchini-tomate confite-mozzarella 'millefeuille' that had possibly the best mozzarella I've ever eaten; it was somehow fluffy. I then had veal sweetbreads with a little chard leaf folded around an onion-bacon saute, and a perfectly-reduced jus; it was so good I cried. And for dessert I had an incredible coffee-chicory affair. At the bottom was an unsweetened coffee gelee, sprinkled with hazelnut crunch. On top of that was a scoop of perfect coffee-chicory ice cream, and the whole thing was covered in coffee whipped cream, which was the exact same color as the ice cream. I hardly could tell where the ice cream stopped and the whipped cream started. Then there were these paper-thin, melting, bubbly waves of chicory wedged in the top - they were very delicate, crisp, and melted instantly on my tongue.
Highly recommended.

These are not potatoes,

2010-10-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

THEY ARE TRUFFLES!!!!!!

Donato with one of his treasures.

Jared, the fantastic Canadian sous-chef.

Tartufi bianchi d'Alba:

I think there may not be anything more delicious or intoxicating on the whole planet.

Noyers

2010-10-11T02:23:00.000-07:00

front of the house

view from my window study leading into my room

view down the original 16th-century staircase

more church from my room

Auchan, a giant supermarket

2010-10-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Noyers yesterday, a too-cute-for-words medieval village near Chablis, to hang at Rod and Marco's house - more to come on this place, we'll be here for 10 days.

After Rod picked us up at the Tonnerre train station, we stopped at the crazy Safeway-style supermarket called Auchan. Kind of awful, but kind of rad, because it's in France and everything is so fascinatingly different.

I loved these cans... (do we have canned potatoes in the US?)

And these baskets of mussels with seaweed around them were on their own sailboat display stand near the fish counter; the boom box in the back was playing the sound of waves crashing. For real.

Possibly the best, and most bizarre, were these sets of bottles of wine in slippers. Strange, but I kind of get it; pop the cork, get the slippers on, relax... but then there was a giant slipper with a magnum in it. If you know anyone with only one foot, size 22, Auchan has it covered.

Lost in Translation

2010-10-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

While waiting in line at the rue de Buci 'Carrefour' grocery store the other day, I found myself checking out all the sugary breakfast cereals. Herewith, three entertaining choices...

Electro' Choc

Miel Pops Cracks (!)

my personal fave, Croc Bizz

Caramel Curd

2010-09-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

As anyone who has ever visited or lived in France knows, the yogurt aisle is a veritable wonderland. I have a yogurt every morning, and I'll probably never have to eat the same one twice. The first time I bought a round of yogurts, a sheeps'-milk "caillé" made it into the mix, and we were surprised when we cracked into it and found that it was not at all sour. The ingredients were simply, "lait, présure". Pressed milk? Awesome!

So today, when Danielle and I were walking back from the market, we dropped into the grocery store to pick up some things and found this caramel version - trés délicieux! It was just like flan without the eggs - super light, refreshing, caramely, not too sweet.

Upon a moment of further research, I found the word "présure" actually means rennet. So it's curdled milk! And it comes in a charming little waxed-paper tub. Next up, chocolate curd....

Pierre Hermé

2010-09-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

Just a little snack of macarons before a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens... the caramel was out of control. It was pretty much burnt. So good.

And the window display was amazing!!!! 4 slots, all with this photo of Dalí, with the vanilla beans on little pain d'épices-looking cakes. Genius.

I saw Notre Dame!

2010-09-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

We rode bikes to the middle of town yesterday and then walked across the Seine and checked in with Notre Dame - craaaaaayzy.

I love Paris so far!

P A R I S

2010-09-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

(L'As du Fallafel)

I arrived in Paris yesterday! After 15 hours of air travel, 2 hours of sleep, and a loopy cab ride, I made it to Danielle and Adrian's apartment, and then managed to stay awake until MIDNIGHT! (2 or 3 coffees and bike rides and Paris sights kept me going.)

Of course, it's pretty magical. We jumped on city bikes and rode into the Marais, where we walked around for a while, checking out windows and popping into stores. (The Annick Goutal perfume shop - incroyable!)

When snack time arrived we went for the 5euro fantasia at L'As du Fallafel, the platonic ideal of a falafel sandwich. Layers of crispy-creamy falafels, yogurt sauce(sauce blanche), marinated shredded red and green cabbage, julienned cucumber, chopped tomato, hummus, delicious oily roasted eggplant slices, and a big dollop of harissa all married to form the platonic ideal of a falafel sandwich. I was particularly impressed with the conscientious layering process, which gave changing but always perfectly-balanced bite vignettes as you moved towards the bottom.

Garden Check-In

2010-06-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

So the tomatoes are doing well, it's not been very hot here until yesterday, so they look just like the tomatoes I planted in barrels and have been watering. First green toms below...

(p.s. I posted last year's green tomatoes around this time, but I never talk about eating them.)

And I have a few herbs and the beans are rocking out. There is one lone head of Broccoli di Ciccio, destined for tonight's dinner of sausages and rice. You can just see the beans in the background, purple-flowering away...

I never actually blog...

2010-06-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

but I'm going to start!!! And I'll tell you first that I'm going to dry-farm some tomatoes here in Pacifica. Dry-farming = not watering after the first time, when planting them. They have to send super-deep roots looking for groundwater, and take what they can from dew, etc. They get all scraggly and sad-looking and don't produce very many, but they are the most delicious tomatoes on earth, because they have very little water and thus are super concentrated in flavor. It works in Santa Cruz, Sonoma county, probably anywhere there is coastal fog flow. I'm hoping that the lack of water will make a delicious tomato in a place where it rarely gets over 75 degrees.

Valrhona Cocoa

2009-12-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

Dudes.

Valrhona cocoa powder is the most delicious cocoa available.

It is worth the extra money.

It tastes better than any other cocoa. It makes things so good.

Get some today.

Some dinners I've made...or will

2009-09-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

So I got this new job in which I cook dinner for a family 4?3?5? nights a week. This means that I get to cook a lot! Yay!

I made some delicious food the other night, which I'll share with you... no photos though. Perhaps when I get my groove on I'll have time to photograph the food before I deliver it to the dining room...

Little gems with herby crème fraîche dressing, pancetta, and beets

Sautéed Georgia white shrimp with fresh corn polenta, buttery zucchini, and lemon-scallion salsa

Blueberry buckle with whipped cream

Another highlight: fresh tomato soup; flatiron steak, potatoes, spinach; melon granita with ginger chewies.

Coming soon: black cod with soba noodles, ginger, sesame and greens, plus 'elephant heart' plum sherbet...

Also, be on the lookout for a caramel ice cream recipe...

(someday it will get colder and I'll stop making so much ice cream, promise.)

UPDATE! Chocolate Ice Cream

2009-09-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

More testing reveals the new, improved, easier recipe for chocolate ice cream. No more greasy spoon, and just one dairy product to buy. I've edited the previous post, so check it out!

Chocolate Ice Cream

2009-08-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been a few months. But now I have a link here from my website, so I better step it up. Or at least start recording the minutiae of my cooking and eating.

I had some leftover cream, and some leftover streaky chocolate from a failed tempering project, and I thought, "I don't have a go-to recipe for chocolate ice cream."

...et Voilá! I really just tweaked a recipe from the Chez Panisse Desserts book, Clay's Chocolate Ice Cream, because I thought it was a little sweet. I also wanted to use one kind of chocolate, for ease. But it's basically the same, including that little trick of melting the chocolate with some butter. Yum!!!!

Makes a quart+.

3 c half&half

6 egg yolks

1/2 c sugar

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 72%)

1 oz. butter (aka 2 tbs)

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla, optional

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Heat 2 c of the half&half with the sugar and salt until steamy and a little bubbly at the edges. Gradually add to the egg yolks, whisking all the while. Return the mixture to the saucepan and, stirring constantly, heat over low until it is well thickened. (I usually know it's done when I scrape the bottom of the pan with my silicone spatula, and a little bit of more solid custard comes with. Then I remove it from the heat and continue to stir for a few minutes so the custard is cooked evenly.)

Add the custard very gradually to the melted chocolate(it will do a seizing-like thing), stirring, and when that's done, strain it into a bowl and add the remaining cream. Add the vanilla, if you want, and chill very thoroughly, best overnight. Then churn in an ice cream maker of your choice, and savor some really rich, creamy, perfectly-chocolatey ice cream!

Tiny Green Tomatoes!!!!!

2009-06-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

Soon they'll be red and sweet and delicious...

Yogurt Panna Cotta

2009-05-08T14:53:00.001-07:00

Panna cotta is one of my favorite desserts. It's so simple, yet so many are not quite right - too stiff, too fatty, too sweet. It's a delicate game to achieve the perfect balance.

Fortunately, we here in the Bay Area are blessed with some delicious dairy products, and I pretty much use exclusively Straus. We consume a lot of Straus yogurt in our house, and as far as yogurts go, it is quite thin, and quite tart. I imagined that in the right quantity, it would the perfect lift to the cream in the panna cotta. After a few batches, I came up with this recipe, which I think is delectable. It is yogurty, rich with cream, and unmuddled by vanilla or other flavorings. It makes the greatest breakfast. (For a lovely photo with all the accoutrements, check Danielle's blog entry.)

I urge you to consider the yogurt you are using as an indicator of the amount of sugar needed: for a mild yogurt, you could decrease the sugar by a few teaspoons, and/or just replace a bit of the cream with more yogurt. The point is that it's ridiculously easy, can be made in 10 minutes, and would probably take major deviance from this basic recipe before it tastes bad. The one thing that needs to stay the same is the 2+ish cups of liquid to 1 teaspoon of gelatin; better to err on the side of a little less gelatin when measuring.

YOGURT PANNA COTTA (4-6 individual panne cotte, depending on the size of your dishes)

1+1/2 c cream

2/3 c yogurt

5 tbs + 2 tsp sugar

pinch of salt

1 tbs cold water (tap temp)

1 tsp powdered gelatin

Put the water in a little bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. There’s just the right amount of water so that in a few minutes, the whole thing will come out in a blob.

In a saucepan, heat 2/3 c of the cream, the sugar, and the salt, until the sugar is dissolved and it’s quite hot. It can simmer around the edges. Mix the remaining 2/3 c cream and the yogurt in a bowl.

If you want to unmold them, grease your ramekins with a little plain vegetable oil: most easily done by swiping them with an oily paper towel.

When the sugar has dissolved, turn off the heat and stir in the gelatin mixture, until it is dissolved. Then gently whisk the warm cream mixture into the cold yogurt mixture. You don’t want too many air bubbles, so after it is fairly well combined, you can stir again with a spatula to be thorough and to calm the mixture down a bit.

Divide the mixture among your dishes, and cover and chill! They need at least 2 hours before they are set at all, and really should be chilled for 5-8 hours if you want to unmold them. They are delicious with any fruit, and most cookies, preferably something crisp and light.

Fried Chicken Sandwich

2009-05-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

I've finally eaten the infamous fried chicken sandwich from Bakesale Betty! It's been years, and I've heard all sorts of wonderful things, but it just has never happened. So we blasted over there yesterday afternoon, ordered some, and pretty much inhaled them.

And my verdict was: Pretty Darn Good. Nice coleslaw, plenty of it, nice chile heat and pleasant pickley onions. The chicken was moist, the right temperature, and there were 2 hunks - the right amount. I felt like the "fried" of the chicken was a little hard and crunchy for my sensitive teeth, and everything was a touch dry and underseasoned. With a lighter, crisper coating on the chicken, more salt on everything, and a smear of mayo on the roll, this sandwich would be really good. For $7.xx, it's still a good lunch.

p.s. I asked them where all their ingredients come from, and a friendly employee came right out from behind the counter to rattle off the list of sources: Acme torpedo roll, Fulton Valley chicken, Bariani olive oil, and they were using Swanton's strawberries on the shortcake that day, which we didn't eat. They do get a bunch of produce from Berkeley Bowl, but I can understand a little bit because they make about a thousand sandwiches a day (and had almost 30 people working there)!

Gardenous Wonderment

2009-05-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about my garden right now. I started digging up part of the lawn almost the same day we moved into this flat, about 3 months ago. Although space is a bit limited, we've already harvested multiple rounds of radishes and kales, and will soon have a never-ending supply of lettuces. It's been fun working in this milder weather; I put things in the ground weeks earlier than I would have up in Sonoma County.

MY FIRST BLAWG!!!!

2009-05-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Welcome to the Miel Cooking blog.

Let's geek out on food!!!

And to start 'er off, here's a random photo from yesterday's luncheon that Danielle took. We did a photo session for my website proper, and this was some delicious hand-rolled fettuccine with green garlic, peas, fava beans, and mint. So springy!