Enstrom’s Style Almond Toffee with Matzah

I made Enstrom’s style almond toffee but with a matzah cracker base. I should call it “Enstrom’s Gone Jewish Almond Toffee.” I started off making Enstrom’s almond toffee but then I remembered my 7th grade home ec teacher used to make a shortcut toffee with saltine crackers and melted toffee and chocolate chips. I didn’t have any saltines but I did have a case of matzah crackers. Matzah crackers are great because they are thinner and crispier than saltines.

The toffee was a hit but we hardly made a dent so I packed it up and took it to work. I had to get the yummy toffee out of the house. Every time I sat down, I had a small piece in my hands. The toffee disappear in a matter of hours. I even got a request for the recipe. You know when something is good when someone asks you for the recipe.

Enstrom’s Style Almond Toffee with Matzah

1 pound salted butter
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 ¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup water
1 ½ cup whole almonds
3 to 4 matzah crackers
12 ounces chocolate chips

1. Heat a 3 to 5 quart heavy bottom pan over medium heat. Add the butter and to melt slowly. Add the salt. Add the sugar and the water. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon.

2. Continue to cook about 7 minutes. The water will evaporate and the sugar will slowly melt and combine with the butter. Add the almonds.

3. Continue to slowly stir the mixture for about 10 to 15 minutes or until it reaches the hard crack stage (about 290 degrees F on a candy thermometer). The sugar will turn a dark caramel color. (Do not undercook the sugar or you will get chewy toffee. Don’t overcook the toffee or you’ll end up with burnt sugar.)

4. While the toffee is cooking, prep a half sheet pan and line with foil or a silpat or both. Lay the matzah crackers on the lined sheet pan. You will have to break the crackers and piece them together. Put the sheet pan on trivets or cooling rack to protect your counter from the heat of the toffee.

5. One the toffee mixture has reached 290 degrees; pour it over the matzah cracker and spread to evenly coat.

6. Sprinkle the toffee evenly with chocolate chips and let sit about five minutes (or until chips are shiny) and then spread the melted chips to evenly coat the toffee.

7. This is optional but you can also sprinkle some sliced almonds (or crushed powdered almonds like they do at Enstrom’s) on the chocolate layer.

8. Allow toffee and chocolate to cool completely and then break into smaller pieces.

I used mini chocolate chips.

Read More

Goi Cuon (Vietnamese Spring Rolls) with Peanut Hoisin Sauce

My friend made Goi Cuon (or Vietnamese Spring Rolls) for the baby shower the other weekend. I was amazed by the way she rolled them. She is a master goi cuon roller. They looked so professional. It is not surprising because her family owned/owns several restaurants and they make some of the best goi cuons in San Diego.

I watched her roll them the morning of the shower. She used 1½ skins for each roll. She had a stack of very large round skins and a stack skins that were cut in half. I asked her why she had the half circles. She told me that it is trick used to help the rolls stay fresh for several hours. The trick worked.

There is quite a bit of prep work that goes into making these rolls. It is an exercise in mise en place. Once everything is prepped, you can either roll them all or wait for your friends to come and everyone can roll their own. Rolling spring rolls is another exercise of self-control and moderation. One must possess enough self control to not over-stuff the rolls. It is tempting to want to jam-pack all the yummy ingredients in the roll but one must remember that we are making spring rolls and not burritos.

Ingredients for 20 large rolls:
30 extra large shrimp
1 pork loin, poached, and cut into thin slices (I don’t like pork in mine.)
1 head Green leaf lettuce, washed and torn into pieces
1 bunch cilantro
1 bunch mint, leaves only
2-3 cups bean sprouts
1/2 package vermicelli rice noodles
green onions or chives (I think this is optional. It makes the rolls pretty but I always pull it out before eating.
30 large rice paper wrappers

Mise en Place:

1. Shrimp – Put shrimp (with shells on) in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Add about 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoons vinegar and 2 teaspoons salt. Boil until pink. Drain and allow to cool. Once shrimp is cool, carefully remove the shells. (Also devein them. I buy already deveined shrimp.)
2. Poach pork loin, cool and then slice.
3. Mix lettuce, cilantro, mint and bean sprout. Wash and drain.
4. Boil vermicelli noodles.

Vermicelli Rice Noodles:

After cutting the shrimp, I arrange them to make it easier to use the same side shrimp for each roll.

I watched my friend roll them but I couldn’t remember so I emailed her. She responded using her phone. Her response is below.

"I cut the wrapper in half dry with scissors

place half sheet in middle of whole sheet, hold together and then wet

I always use the larger wrappers with the three girls on it (my fav wrapper it's hole proof lol)

I like all my veggie and meat on the edge close to me like 1/4 the ways up then line shrimp in front of veggie pile

roll bottom wrapper over pile just enough to enclose stuffing then sides one by one and finish rolling up

if it's unclear call me"

I'll do the assembly instructions using photos. (This is my interpretation of my friend's method. It is not her method.)

1. Count 10 wrappers and cut them in half. (You will need a total of 30 wrappers to make 20 rolls.)

2. Hold the half skin in front of the whole skin and dunk in warm water.

3. Place on large plate.


4. Arrange veggies and noodles centered on lower edge of skin. (This is also the time to add the sliced pork loin, if using.)

5. Roll up and arrange the shrimp pieces.

6. Fold the edges.

7. Tightly roll.

Peanut Hoisin Dipping Sauce

This is not my friend's recipe for peanut hoisin sauce. I got this recipe from an old coworker named Daisy. It is so yummy. I think some of my friends use the spring rolls as a peanut hoisin sauce delivery device.

I like to make the sauce (and prep the shrimp and vegetables) the night before.

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter
MSG
1/2 cup water
Huy Fong Foods Chili Garlic Sauce (aka cock brand chili garlic sauce) - to taste

Method:
Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and garlic. Cook until garlic is golden. Add the rest of the ingredients and allow to slowly melt together.

Read More

Pizza Lue

The reason why I am posting about this is because my dear brother commented on my blog. He said I post about too many western recipes. I should focus on more Lue recipes. I told him that it would be impossible for me to only blog about Lue recipes because I know approximately six Lue recipes and I'm not certain all six are authentic.

I made a conscious effort to make a "Lue" dish over the weekend. I had leftover sticky rice in the fridge. I took the leftover rice and made one of my favorite breakfast recipes. We call it "Pizza Lue." The name is made up but we've been calling it "Pizza Lue" for so long, I'm not sure I know the real name. I'm not even sure if it is a real dish eaten by the Lue folks in Sipsongpanna.

I don't expect anyone to read this blog entry and then feel inspired to make "Pizza Lue." I know the ingredients do not make this dish sound very appetizing and I'm not sure anyone outside of the Lue community would be able to get their hands on the fermented soybean paste. It is not sold on the shelf of your local Asian grocery store. I got my little jar from my aunt. (Note to self: I must learn how to make fermented soybeans.)

Start off by reheating your leftover sticky rice and form the rice into one large circle (about the size of your frying pan) or into smaller circles.

Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a nonstick pan. Fry both sides of rice until crunchy and slightly golden.

Spread fermented bean paste sauce on one side of the rice.

Dip rice in eggs mixture (eggs, water, fish sauce, black pepper and MSG) and fry until eggs are cooked.

Read More

The Last Few Weekends and a Recipe for Cafe 222's Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast

I spent the last two weekends with my family and friends. (Weekends with my family and friends are not exactly relaxing. It involves a lot of drinking and very little sleeping.) The first weekend was a snowboarding/skiing trip in Breckenridge/Copper Mountain. The second weekend was a baby shower in San Diego.

We planned a day of eating and shopping for one of the days I was in San Diego. We started the day off with brunch. My friend Kellie wanted to try a restaurant featured on an episode of Bobby Flay's Throw Down. The five of us met up and walked over to Cafe 222. (We were looking for Cafe 211. Don't ask. It's a long story.)

The restaurant is really close to the convention center and the convention center hotels. I could see the Marriott from where we were sitting. As I sat there, all I could think of was the day I was standing on one of the Marriott's balconies, looking out towards downtown San Diego. And as I was typing this post, I remembered taking pictures from the balcony. I searched through my gmail account for the pictures. I have a picture of Cafe 222 in one of my pictures. The pictures were from August 2005!

We walked by Lion Cafe on the way to the restaurant. (I think it is the only Lion Cafe on the mainland.) I had to grab a cup of my toasted coconut coffee. When we arrived at the restaurant, the girl told us the wait was 20 minutes. We waited 25 and went to ask if it would be much longer. We were hungry. The girl told us it would be another 20 minutes. We ended up waiting over an hour for a table.

By the time we sat down, we had memorized and mentally reorganized the menu. We even memorized the daily specials. When our waitress came by to take our drink orders, we were ready to order our meal. Kellie wanted to try the peanut butter banana french toast because it was Bobby Flay's favorite. I don't ever think about ordering stuffed french toast. I like my french toast unstuffed and made with either challah, brioche or soft french baguettes. The peanut butter banana french toast was delicious. I'm glad Kellie ordered it.

When I returned to Denver, I decided I wanted to make it so I looked for the recipe. I was in luck. The recipe from the restaurant is posted on the food network website. I printed it out and made a shopping list.

I did, however, make a couple minor changes to the recipe. I thought heavy cream was a bit too decadent so I compromised by using half and half. (I use 2% milk for my usual french toast recipe.) I also added a tablespoon of flour to the dunking mixture because a few reviewers said their french toasts turned out too mushy. It is trick I use to ensure I get fluffy and not mushy french toast. I used both wheat and white bread to see if it made much of a difference. (Our french toast at Cafe 222 was made with wheat bread.) Both tasted great.

Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast from Cafe 222

• 6 slices day-old white or wheat bread (I used four slices of wheat and two slices of white.)
  
• 1 to 2 ripe bananas
• 8 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
  
• Honey, for drizzling
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup heavy cream (I used half and half instead of cream.)
  
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon dark rum
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• Dash salt
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
  
• Butter or oil, for frying (I used a combination)
  
• Powdered sugar, for topping
• Maple syrup, for topping

Directions

Remove crust from bread. (I didn't remove the crusts. The restaurant didn't either.) Lay bread out on counter and spread a thin layer of peanut butter on each slice. Peel banana and slice enough to cover every other piece of bread. (You will be making 3 complete sandwiches). Drizzle a small amount of honey on each piece of bread that does not have banana on it. (These are the tops). Place honey drizzled piece of bread on top of a piece with bananas on it to make a sandwich. Repeat until you have made 3 sandwiches.

In a shallow medium sized bowl, gently whip, by hand, the eggs, cream, vanilla, rum, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and flour.

Heat skillet to medium heat, around 350 to375 degrees F, or until butter melts and begins to sizzle. Dip 1 sandwich at a time into rum batter and place into skillet. Cook until golden brown (about 3 to 4 minutes before turning) on each side. Remove from skillet and cut in 1/2 diagonally. Top with powdered sugar, butter and maple syrup.

I took tons of pictures and then realized I forgot the powdered sugar.

I love the melted peanut butter, the runny honey and the sweet bananas. It is so good you don't even need syrup.

The three pictures below are from Cafe 222. I took them using my phone. I love eating with my girl friends. They kept rotating the plates in front of me. I ate whatever was placed directly in front of me.

The potato pancakes served with applesauce and sour cream.

The All-American is in the foreground, the spinach and swiss scramble is on the green plate on the right and I think the cornmeal waffles are behind the waters.

And this is the the famous peanut butter banana stuffed french toast.



Pictures from Cordelia Ann's Shower:

I didn't take pictures of all the food. There were three tables overflowing with food.


My friend is so creative.

My chocolate dipped pretzels.

My creative friend also made two trays of these yummy spring rolls.

And more eating: Mr. Dumpling Restaurant

My brother took me out to lunch before dropping me off at the airport. He wanted Shanghai-style dumplings at Dumpling Inn Restaurant but they are closed on Mondays so we went to Mr. Dumpling Restaurant instead. The restaurant was very nice but the service was slow and the food was just so so.

For a restaurant with "dumpling" in its name, I expected little packets of heaven. I didn't get what I was expecting. We ordered several varieties of dumplings to try. The dumplings came out in a tower of stacked metal steamers. The server did not identify the tiers of dumplings for us so it was like picking from a box of mixed chocolates. Each dumpling was a mystery. The texture of the dumpling dough was thick and gummy. The fillings were underwhelming. They were not offensive but just underwhelming.

My brother and his fiancee loves this Chinese Stir-Fried Rice Cake dish. It is very good. I think it is better than rice noodles because they are thicker and chewier.

The Chinese doughnuts (You Tiao) were not very good.

The steamed and pan-fried pork buns were huge!

We ate most of the dumplings before I remembered to take pictures. The soup dumplings were very interesting.

Read More

Candied Pumpkin

This is another stock post that I keep for those periods when I am too busy to cook and blog. (I was out of town for a baby shower. I'll post pictures from the shower after I download them from my phone.) I made this back in early December when I had an extra sugar pumpkin from Thanksgiving.

The recipe is pretty simple and straightforward. I didn't use the exact same method as my grandmother but her cooking is very forgiving. I used a sugar pumpkin instead of a pumpkin from grandma's garden. I also substituted granulated and palm sugar for the piloncillo sugar cones.

Candied Pumpkin

1 sugar pumpkin, butternut squash, buttercup squash or kabocha pumpkin
1 ½ cups granulated sugar (or two Piloncillo cones)
2 cups water
2 disks palm sugar (about ½ cup)
pinch salt
½ cup coconut cream

1. Cut pumpkin in half and scoop out the insides. Wash thoroughly and then cut into 2 inch by 2 inch pieces. Set aside.
2. In a large saucepan, caramelize granulated sugar until golden brown. Carefully add water and palm sugar and allow sugar to dissolve. (If using piloncillo sugar, skip the caramelization step but cut the cones into smaller chunks and dissolve in water. Omit palm sugar.) Bring syrup to a boil.
3. Add pumpkin pieces and cook until soft. Turn off heat and allow pumpkin to soak in syrup for about 30 minutes or longer.
4. Meanwhile, make coconut sauce by heating ½ cup coconut cream with about ¼ cup pumpkin cooking syrup.
5. To serve: Place several wedges on a plate and drizzle with coconut sauce.

Read More

Awesome Meatloaf

Ugh, I've haven't been around much to do any cooking or blogging. This last weekend was the ski/snowboarding trip in Breckenridge/Copper and I'm leaving for San Diego tomorrow evening.

I did manage to find pictures of this meatloaf I cooked sometime last week. I always make this meatloaf at night so the pictures are always terrible because of the terrible lighting.

Awesome Meatloaf

1/2 onion
2 carrots, peeled if you want
3 whole cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 red bell pepper, seeds removed
1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
1 1/2 pounds bulk pork italian sausage
3/4 cups bread crumbs (I use homemade bread crumbs that I toast is the oven and run through the food processor)
1 cup finely grated jack or mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon anhco chile powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme

For glaze:
1/2 cup ketchup
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Dash of tapatio hot sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In the bowl of a food processor, combine onion, carrots, garlic and bell pepper. Pulse until the mixture is fine.

3. Place mixture in a large bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and gently combine thoroughly. Do not squeeze the meat mixture.

4. Divide the mixture and form two loaves. (You can use a loaf pan to shape the loaves.)

5. Line a baking sheet with non-stick aluminum foil or parchment paper. Place loaves on lined baking sheet. Place on center rack of preheated oven.

6. Combine the ingredients for the glaze. Brush the glaze on the loaves after they have been cooking for about 10 minutes.

7. Bake loaves until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees (about 1 to 1/2 hours).

8. Allow to stand for about 15 to 30 minutes before slicing.

Read More