Saturday & Sunday: Meals Between Meals

On weekends, Don and I never have just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Instead, we have pre-breakfast snacks, a sort of breakfast followed by a proper lunch and then many, many afternoon treats and drinks, dinner in the later evening, and then another smaller meal, and maybe a third or fourth dessert afterwards.

Most of our meals/snacks are eaten out, but the ones I enjoy the most are the ones we create ourselves. Don takes care of the savoury side, and I do the sweet, so it works out quite nicely.

Highlights from this weekend:

We made our weekly visit to the Greenmarket on Saturday morning for basic staples: eggs, Ronnybrook milk, and anything else that catches our eyes.

The ever trendy ramps are in season, (and just as quickly, are about to go out of season), so he got a few of those cause, can you believe it - up until this weekend, I've never had ramps before!

I was in the mood for pasta, so we went straight for the fresh beet pasta from Hudson Valley Farmhouse...

...and made little meatballs from the sun-dried tomato and chardonnay sausage at Flying Pigs Farm. With a generous hand of browned butter and plenty of talent, Don whipped up a most ideal spring dish in less than an hour.

The beet pasta turns a gorgeous pale pink after cooking, the colour accentuated with saut�ed ramps, butter, and sweet little rounds of sausages. Complete, no? "Wait!" he said, when I nearly took the first bite. I paused, and because sometimes, more is more, Don grated slivers of fresh parmesan, turned the black pepper a few rounds and then finished with just a sprinkle of Maldon salt. Perfect!

While he was working on the pasta, I got to start on brioche dough. We took turns babysitting the dough over the afternoon, with plans to turn it into a Sunday morning snack. Vanessa brought over brioche tins, and Don shaped the dough into classic brioche � t�te.

Now wouldn't it be lovely to wake up to this every morning? A dozen warm golden brioche, just minutes from the oven and a jar of Greenmarket raspberry preserves from Philip's Farm. Extra pats of butter always welcomed.

Don noted that it was on the yeasty side - perhaps I let the sponge sit for a tad too long before mixing it in with the dough, good to keep in mind for next time. I was happy with the texture, though wish it browned more evenly. I'll have to play around with the oven temperatures and rack setting. Post brioche, we went out for lunch at Taim, and then came back to...

...bake mini madelines using this recipe Kathryn recommended. Notice this is the first time we've made mini ones? Don just got a darling pan from Broadway Panhandler but a few hours before, and I simply could not wait to put it to use. Don't worry, we did not eat it alllll alone - they were shared with friends at dinner an hour later :)

Will Be Back Soon...

...even tomorrow, maybe?

But for now, busy, baking madelines...lime zest, fresh vanilla...a warm oven on a cool day, oh my, oh my. Perhaps honey & lavender on another occassion, dark chocolate & hazelnut on another? The possibilities are endless.

P.S.
Thank you, Don, for the abundance of vanilla beans, citrus fruits, and letting me invade your kitchen :)

Not Paying Attention to the Madelines

For breakfast: blueberry madelines with dark chocolate chips.
What I learned from baking this morning:
1. Do not bake when you are daydreaming
2. Do not bake in a rush
Madelines are the one baked good I could do with my eyes closed. I have one madeline recipe I know by heart and all the madelines I've made are variations of this recipe adjusted for mood and tastebuds. Madelines were the one baked good I never messed up until today.

The batter was too wet. The cookies did not brown evenly. They tasted disappointingly heavy. Needless to say, my mind was elsewhere while I stood there measuring, mixing...I don't daydream too often when baking...today must have been an 'off' day.

Past Madelines:
Lemon Madelines
Cherry Madelines
Chocolate Chip Madelines

Dinner at Grandma's...and a photo of my dog!

It's been stated by many people many times before, but it is true: one of the best meal to be had is at your grandma's house. Or in this case, my grandma's house. For the past 21 years, my family has spent every Saturday and Sunday dinner at grandmas. Dinner is always cooked by grandma and grandma alone. She never let anyone help, whether it was with the prep, actual cooking, or even cleaning up. We were to do nothing but eat and enjoy. And enjoy I have! When I went to college I found that the food I missed most was not spam musubi or coco puffs, in fact it was not even a specific food. What I missed most was everything and anything my grandma cooked.

Bei: a mix of shredded pork (both boiled and barbecued), and shredded pig ears tossed in roasted rice powder

She heard my pleas, and sometime in the middle of a cool Manhattan October, my freshman year at NYU, I found an enormous package of food my grandma packed in dry ice and overnighted to my dorm. Inside I found Vietnamese pork chops, shoyu eggs and stewed pork, bei (above photo) divided into single serving bags, and even a jar of nuoc nam! I can't remember how she had it packed and how it managed to get here in mint condition. All I could remember was how incredible grateful and I was, and that I should give my parents a call and ask them to pay her back for the exorbitant shipping cost from Hawaii!

Apple Tarts

I don�t appreciate these weekend dinners near enough, and even if I did, I would have no clue how to express my feelings. I just visit every weekend, sometimes with dessert in hand, my grandma likes my apple tarts...

Chocolate Chip Madelines

...and madelines, but somehow, all these gestures, whatever I do, could in no way truly express my gratitude. But I think she knows, to a certain extent at least, how these routine dinners have kept our family together and in good company all these years.

Tonight we had eggplant. This might look sloppy, a even a bit yucky, but this is what my parents grew up on in Vietnam during the 1960s. Grandma starts out with six pounds of eggplant, boils them for about half an hour. Remove from water, let cool, and peel off the skin. Make sure to drain off excess water/eggplant juice. Heat up a big wok, add a mix of vegetable and sesame oil, and brown a lot of minced garlic. Add in the eggplant and start frying. We season this dish with nuoc nam, chopped chili peppers from the garden, a few pinches of salt, and couple pieces of rock sugar. Right before it's all pau, crack in three eggs and scramble with the eggplant quickly, then remove from heat.

The dish is divided into four bowls, laid out across the long dining table. We start our dinner with a steaming bowl of rice, and pile on the eggplant. I like to mix the rice and eggplant together, but my dad thinks mixing it is not very aesthetically appealing, so he eats it separate. It's a truly wonderful, homey dish. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, creamy: yes, spicy: yes, chock full of nuoc nam flavor: yes, nidbits of scrambled eggs thicken and tie it all together, make for one might find dish, as ugly as it might look.

Prior to steaming...

Next we have a steamed dish. Lots of thick cut funn (just purchased in Chinatown this morning) is laid out at the bottom of a pan, topped with my grandma's own fishcake, and shrimp. She ladles a shoyu/nuoc nam/sugar based sauce generously over the entire dish, topped with minced garlic, and steams it for exactly 10 minutes.

Post-steaming...

It's a pretty refreshing dish, and much lighter than other funn dishes I'm used to. I love funn of any kind, but unfortunately enough for me, the kind I love most is fried and topped with a heavy black bean sauce and plenty of beef (and some broccoli), hehe.

Mix and eat!

After steaming, the funn simply soaks up all the sauce, giving it plenty of flavor...my general understanding is that nuoc nam + starch of any type = good.

No meal at Grandma's is complete without soup, and tonight we had something new she wanted to try on us. She had gone out to a friend's birthday party last week and was particularly fond of a type of soup she never encountered before. She noted down the ingredients and flavors in her head and tried to replicate it tonight. It was pretty awesome! It's a kabocha based soup, but it's not thick like other sorts pumpkin based or chowder soup. Chopped kabocha, barley, lotus seeds, chestnuts, and longan is all boiled together and then strained out for a light, savory soup. I imagine it could be easily converted to a sweet dessert soup.

She serves the broth in the middle of the table and places a bowl with all the boiled ingredients on the side, instructing us to spoon the soup into the bowls add in the other ingredients if we wished. The boiled ingredients, as you may imagine, are not left with much flavor, but I enjoy it quite a bit on its own with a splash of shoyu on top.

Hayden mangos all around for dessert! Unfortunately my grandma's house was not blessed with a mango tree (although there are tons of chili peppers growing out front!), so we buy mangos from a friend in Chinatown. Tonight's mangos were especially delicious, and as icing on the cake, they were very well chilled. I like my mangos near frozen, and these were pretty darn close. My grandma does all the slicing, one mango a person and we devour them at the dinner table, in silence, paying our respects to the crisp sweet goodness of these island fruits.

Our Mr. Buddy here also enjoys visiting Grandma's...he's always given plenty of treats slipped under the table! So that was dinner tonight, hope you enjoyed it :)

Cherry Madelines

A brief interruption...

Cherry Madelines, anyone? ;)

Satura Cakes, Take II

A short summary of Satura Cakes:
Cakes Eaten with Spoon, Fork or Hands: Awesome!
Messy Cakes / Puff Pastry: Good
Madelines: Bad! :(
Brownies: Just OK

I�ve had such a good track record with the desserts and cakes from the Satura Cakes in Ward that I decided it was time to venture away from the dessert case and towards the huge table in the middle of the room which houses a magnificent spread of madelines, cookies, chocolate, and brownies. But it was a bad idea. So if I were you, I'd swish that hiney right around and head back to the dessert case. Because...

...some of the madelines don�t have humps!! Hehe, I�m kidding. Sort of. Some of their madelines don�t have the hump that make a madeline a madeline�which should have been the first sign that something was wrong. But I was stupid and went ahead and had, not just one, but all four of their madelines. It was a good thing this madeline tasting was split between Shann, Trisha and I. Otherwise it would have been highly inefficient allocation of madeline funds.

There�s not much to say except: avoid all the madelines. Which means as intriguing as lilikoi, green tea, coffee, and chocolate madelines may sound and appear, do not venture there! They are all equally dry, crumbly, tasteless, except for the coffee, and that�s only cause it seemed to be on ground coffee bean overload. They run about $2 a piece, and at this rate, you should just march next door to Beard Papas for a silly cream puff (which I actually really like) or, plunk down another two dollars for a real dessert.

Their brownies, which are placed next to the madeline also do not count a real dessert. And that is because it is not moist or fudgy, nor is it cakey. It is not even, gasp, chocolately! It is just dry. But I hold the brownie in higher respect than the madeline because it had a very happy ratio of mac nuts to brownie base. And I love mac nuts.

But I take back what I said about going to Beard Papa for cream puffs. This is the Beard Papa puff from the Ward location:

You should just stay at Satura's for the cream puffs. And this is the Satura puff:

Cause if the caramel crunch flavor is on the menu, you�re good to go. They don�t fuss around or attempt to fabricate a double layer choux pastry crust. It�s almost a rustic, hearty cream puff, with a touch refined elegance that seems to pervade all Japanese inspired pastries. The pastry is crunchy with just the right heft, not airy light and buttery. The filled innards have a most wonderful mouthfeel; a billowing mound of caramel cream hinging on the taste of whipped flan and studded with crunchy toffee bits.

The cream puff is a no-utensil-use-hands affair, so you are in search of something more dainty, the roli poli is a wise choice. If you�ve lived in Hawaii for a while, you�re probably familiar with Jesse�s Pianomo Rolls sold in nearly all our local supermarkets. A Google search didn�t give me the distributor information, but if you�re up for making your own, Betty Shimabukuro at the Star Bulletin seems to have it figured out. A pianomo roll is simply a very light sponge cake with plenty of egg whites for volume, spread with whipped butter (just buttah, nothing else!) and rolled up with a dusting of sugar. When it becomes a roli poli, the whipped butter is replaced with barely sweetened pastry cream in even ratios with the sponge cake. Either way, it�s hard not to love both. So get your roli poli here, and on the way home, stop by Times (my favorite supermarket) and pick up a box of pianomo rolls for yourself. And another for your family.

On a different occasion, I had the green tea mille fille featuring caramelized puff pastry layered with green tea custard. This dessert is a disaster to share and should not be ordered on date unless you don�t mind an explosion of puff pastry and matcha powder when you attempt to gracefully demolish it with a fork. But if you�re sharing it with mom, then it�s totally okay! The custard could use more flavor, I wouldn�t have suspected green tea unless told ahead of time. Not as excited as forking into an upright roli poli or sinking your teeth into a cool caramel crunch cream puff, but thumbs up for appearance!

Satura Cakes
Ward Center
1200 Ala Moana Blvd.
Building 6, Suite 601
Honolulu, HI 96814
(8080 537-1206

Baking: Lemon Madelines

Tonight something super exciting happened.

I made madelines for the first time in my life! It all started last week when I bought my very own madelines priced from William Sonoma (I thought it was overpriced at $22, but then again, I can't find any other place in Hawaii that carries madeline pans).

The pan sat in our living room for five or so days and I just could never find the perfect time to make them. Until 9:00pm tonight when I had absolutely nothing to do. So I whipped out a pile of madeline recipes I've been saving up for the past few months, picked one that sounded good, and got to work! Man it felt goooood to bake!

I used a very basic recipe, flavoring it with plenty of lemon zest and vanilla. The recipe called for 12, but I filled the pan a bit too much so there was only enough batter for 10. We paired them with mugs of my dad's favorite Chinese tea for a late night snack - what better way to end a Monday night?

Ok, I'll stop bombarding you with madeline pictures! Good Night!

Milk

After lunch at Mozza on Saturday, Dad and I headed a few streets over to Milk on Beverly. Opened just a few weeks ago, Milk has already garnered it's share of food blogging reviews, here, here and here!

The menu offers both simple breakfast and lunch item, but the real focus here is desssssseet, yes indeed! A full lunch, dessert included, at Mozza less than 15 minutes ago, I was already full, but who knows when the next time I'll be out here again. So dessert it is! Borrowing the words of a true milkshake connoisseur, as Robyn said, "milkshakes help digest." If you think about it the right way, they really do!

A blend of house made vanilla ice cream, melted chocolate malt balls and a caramel chocolate swirl, the Milkie Way Malted ($4.50) was rich, full-bodied, but surprisingly not too sweet. That distinct, slightly gritty, almost salty malt touch was key to balancing the sweet-salty action. Flavorwise, they had it down pat. But! But! They made one huge mistake, milkshake-wise. It was THIN! Thin as in my-straw-could-only-stand-straight-up-for-5-seconds kind of thin. And that is a big failure. A true milkshake should be soooo thick that we could stick a heavy metal knife right though, and it would still stand nice and tall. It should be so thick that we must muster all our energy to spoon, not suck it up. But if we do choose to suck it up, our cheeks should shrink in, our lips out tight and all the oxygen in our head, depleted from milkshaking. I will find that milkshake one day. Until then, Milk should consider more ice cream and less milk in their blend.

To their credit, there were quite a few, many of them creative, milkshake options ranging from Strawberry Shortcake, to Coffee Toffee Crunch and a Passion Shake. They even have ice cream bonbons at only $.25 a piece along with ice cream sandwiches (I think it had a macaron "crust") and housemade ice cream bars.

Housed along the other side of the register counter is my favorite form of desserts: baked goods! Apple pie bread, banana bread, melted chocolate cookies, snowballs, and even a blue velvet cake. But what caught my eye were the beautiful madelines, perched high above the other treats in their own silver platter. And they were not any plain old madelines, but chocolate hazelnut creations. At $.75 a piece, I bought a couple for the ride home and one to have right then and there...while they were still warm! It was almost like biting into a soft nutella cake, the blend of chocolate with ground hazelnuts created the flavor of nutella, only in a more delicate, buttery cake form. The thin shell of the madeline was juuuust crusty, as you like it, but the innards! Oh so tender, finely grinded nuts, butter butter all around.....how madeline deprived I've been in LA!

Milk
7290 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 939-6455

Bouchon Bakery

What happens when you get two girls with a terrrrrible weakness for sweets and pastries? Eager visitors to the grand opening of Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center! I met Robyn around noon and we quickly subway-ed our way up with visions of cakes, muffins and brioches dancing in our minds. And the weather was so nice, too.

The "Bakery" includes both a sit down service area (oddly located behind a massive Samsung sign) and a takeout bakery counter. We hemmed and hawwed a bit before deciding to opt for the bakery counter. Why? Well we wanted SWEETS...and maybe some salty, but our goal here was to sample alllll, or as many as possible baked goods and desserts. Not to mention the fact that we'd rather invest $20 in a trio of cakes than one sandwich. Yahhh!

I just thought this was an interesting shot. The window though which all the bistro orders are sent out. Love the colors. Soft green pastels and whites, reminds me of Financier. Bakery. Serious business, you know, with all those black ties and suits.

That's Sarah in behind the counter. A good friend of Robyn, I only got to meet her this once before break ended (how quickly 10 days passes) but she was awfully sweet and made plenty of delicious recommendations. (Oh man, I�d get so fat from working here�one day I�ll tell you about my summer working at the Japanese bakery Saint Germain back home in Hawaii).

Overwhelmed by the options, Robyn and I had to make a plan. We'd start with a couple, or three items. Eat our way though those and then strategize what to have next. Brilliant, no? :) First, a picture perfect brioche. On the small side, but we'll call it "dainty." All at once richly eggy, yet light with a golden brown surface dotted by sugar crystal. But I daresay, I do love Claude's brioches more, they've got more of a rustic loving feel and buttery flavor.

Banana muffins don't get more banana-ey than this. Honestly, it tasted like banana...transformed into muffin! Sheer sweet taste of bananas alone in the texture of soft, moist batter. The sticky bun was a little too sweet for me and I would have preferred thicker layers of dough to soak up the caramel. Nonetheless, contrasts between nutty bites of pecans, melty caramel and round ribbons of sweet dough make for a pretty happy snack.

Having covered a decent round of baked goods, we huvveyed (another word for "joyfully jogged") back to the bakery counter and returned with a Paris Brest and a seasonal Apple Tart. Note: this was not just any apple tart. It was like all the best pudding, tart and pie components combined. The base of the shell was filled with a thin layer of apple puree, then layers of sweet sliced apples. The top was the best: a half-inch thick layer of a caramel flavored gelatin-like meringue/mousse. Meringue or mousse? Almost jello - on the verge of agar-agar? I don't know! Put all that together in the flavor of a mellow smooth caramel. A glimmering puddle of thinned caramel liquid, toss of chopped nuts and a sweet apple was the ideal way to top off the tart. Oh yeahh...
The Paris Brest was decent, but we were both slight disappointed - so much lost potential! It was beautiful to look at but the cream filling hovered on bland and wasn't rich enough to balance the crispy pastry shell.

A part of me would have felt guilty if we didn't leave with at least one savory item, hence the ham and cheese on baguette. We asked for it to be pressed but were told that the kitchen was doing that at the moment (opening day chaos perhaps?) Accompanied by a brush of sweet butter and dijon mustard, it was simple well prepared sandwich. But it was cold. And baguette sandwiches shouldn't be eaten cold, in my opinion. Those of you who've eaten sandwiches with me might have noticed that I eat in layers. haha. Even sandwiches (it does NOT defeat the purpose of a sandwich). I think it�s cause I have a need to taste everything individually. First the top half of the baguette, then cheese and ham...the butter. I liked the butter the best. It was a soft sweet, very full tasting butter. I read that Keller sources his signature "sweet butter" from a single lady in northern California who produces only for him. Does that mean I can't buy a pound or two for myself?

The madeline on the left was barely flavored with hints of lemon, light and soft cookie/cake like. I haven't had enough madelines to make comparison, but it something I'd eat again if it was given to me, though I wouldn't make a ride up here for it. Though what I would make ride for is the sexy sexy caraaaamel macaron. Aside from skimping a tad on the caramel creme, the cookie itself rivaled that of Financiers. A smooth surface giving way to moist, sweetly caramel innards with a slight chew � it quickly vanishes in your mouth leaving only a hint of caramel...smoking there, in the air somewhere... Did I tell you I love macarons? I could eat them day and night and never cease to by amazed by the complexity of flavors and changing texture for the very moment it passes your lips.

Thank god for ovens.

Bouchon Bakery
10 Columbus Circle
nr. 59th St., third flr.
(212)823-9366