crispy shallot dip

a much better alternative to onion dip made from a packet.

2/3 c. olive oil
2 lbs. shallots, thinly sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 pint sour cream, room temp.
salt and freshly ground pepper
potato chips for serving



In a large skillet, warm the olive oil over moderately high heat. Add the shallots and stir in the thyme. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally until the shallots are brown and crisp, about 30 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the shallots to paper towels to drain. Discard thyme sprigs if used.



In a medium bowl, mash together the cream cheese and sour cream with a wooden spoon. Stir in the shallots. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (the recipe can be made up to 1 day ahead; cover and refrigerate)



Food & Wine

Matcha Sesame Shortbread Cookies

I was inspired by Foodgal's Ghoulish Green Cookies, which were chubby squares dusted with powdered sugar, but sounded so very interesting. I did a little online research and thought these cookies actually looked the best, but I wasn't about to make two different cookie doughs! I ended up adapting this recipe from the famous Lovescool blog.

Ingredients

Yield (2” round cookies): Approx 25
3/4 cup (2.25 oz) Confectioners sugar

5 oz Unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1- 3/4 cup (8.5 oz) All-purpose flour

3 Large egg yolks

2 TBS Matcha (powdered green tea)
1/4 cup black sesame seeds

1 cup Granulated sugar (for coating) I used sugar in the raw

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Whisk the confectioner’s sugar and green tea together in a bowl.
Add the butter and green tea/sugar mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth and light in color.
Add the flour and mix until well combined.
Add the egg yolks and mix just until the eggs are fully incorporated and a mass forms.
Form the dough into a disk and chill in the refrigerator until firm (about 30 minutes).



Roll the dough out to ½” thickness.
Cut the dough with a cookie cutter (you can use a juice glass if you want).
Toss each cut cookie in a bowl of granulated sugar to coat.

Place the sugar-coated cookie on a parchment lined pan. Bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes, or until slightly golden around the edges.

You can purchase Matcha (powdered green tea) from Asian grocery stores or specialty tea shops. Ito-En or you can order baking grade matcha online. The higher quality matcha you use, the brighter green the cookies will be. Store the cookies in a tin or other container that blocks out sunlight to preserve the color because the green color will fade. I used koichi that was so expensive that I was loathe to drink it and instead decided to enjoy it in these delicious cookies...

Salad of Leeks, Beets and Avocado

I found this delicious recipe to use all of these fine spring vegetables that have ripened to perfection in my pantry. It's from The Lutece Cookbook, co-authored by Chef Andre Soltner, who helmed the famed kitchen at Lutece for 30 years. He now is Dean of Classic Studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York and I was tickled to see him once as a stern guest judge on an episode of Top Chef.

SALAD OF LEEKS, BEETS AND AVOCADO

Serves 4

4 small red beets
4 medium leeks, the white part only
2 avocadoes, ripe
4 small shallots, peeled and chopped fine
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1-1/2 tablespoon vinegar (tarragon vinegar preferred)
generous pinch salt
pepper, freshly ground
2-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tablespoon minced chervil (or Italian parsley)

1. Cook the beets, covered in boiling salted water until they are tender-about 45 minutes. Peel the beets, cut them in 1/8 inch slices, and set them aside at room temperature. Do not chill them

2. Split the leeks in half lengthwise, and wash them thoroughly. Tie them in a bundle, and cook them, uncovered, in boiling salted water until tender - about 15 to 20 minutes. Set the leeks aside at room temperature. Do not chill them.

3. Cut the avocados in half -- to the seed -- lengthwise. Twist the 2 halves in opposite directions to separate them. Remove and discard the seed. Peel off the skin, and cut the avocados in 1/8 inch slices. Arrange the slices decoratively on 4 plates with the beets and leeks.

4. In a mortar and pestle, smash the shallots. Add the mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper. Whisk these ingredients together and then, whisking constantly, slowly add the oil. Pour this vinaigrette over the vegetable. Sprinkle the salad with the chervil (or parsley). Serve at room temperature.

I added steamed asparagus and some bits of goat cheese I had in the fridge. Delicious with a crusty baguette and butter... Mr. K, who has long been a beet-hater, actually liked this salad. Despite initial fear and trepidation he said he finally has had a moment when he didn't hate beets.

Scalloped Potatoes with Three Cheeses

Bon Appétit | November 1999 | by Rick Rodgers

Yield: Makes 12 servings

Total time can take up to 2 hours (includes 2 rounds of baking for 45 minutes)

This is so good and much easier to cut all those potatoes if you have a mandoline...

3/4 cup (packed) grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese (about 4 ounces)
3/4 cup crumbled Danish blue cheese (about 4 ounces)
1/3 cup (packed) freshly grated Parmesan (about 1 1/4 ounces)

4 russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter

2-1/2 cups whole milk

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Mix cheddar cheese, blue cheese and Parmesan in small bowl.

Arrange half of potatoes in prepared baking dish, overlapping slightly. Sprinkle with teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Sprinkle onion over, then flour. Dot with 2 tablespoons butter. Sprinkle half of cheese mixture over. Top with remaining potatoes, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 2 tablespoons butter. Reserve remaining cheese.

Bring milk to simmer in medium saucepan. Pour milk over potatoes (milk will not cover potatoes completely). Cover baking dish tightly with foil. Bake 45 minutes. Uncover dish (liquids in dish may look curdled); sprinkle potatoes with reserved cheese mixture. Bake uncovered until potatoes are tender and cheese is deep golden brown, about 45 minutes longer. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Cover and rewarm in 375°F oven about 20 minutes.) Remove from oven; let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Hot and spicy rice cake (ddukbokkie)

I followed my favorite Korean cook, Maangchi's recipe but made a combination of her spicy and not so spicy versions, including some lean beef stew meat and substituting dried shiitake for fresh white mushrooms, since that was what I had.

1 cup tube shaped rice cake for ddukbokkie
1/2 lb stew beef
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar
2 cloves minced garlic
3 tbs of sliced onion
3-4 sliced white mushrooms or 3 dried shiitake - your preference
2-3 tablespoons red pepper paste (kochujang) or more, depending on your taste
1 tbs of hot pepper flakes (optional)
2 stalks green onion chopped into 2 inch lengths
4 cups water
dried anchovies

Directions:

Separate the tubes of rice cake into individual pieces, rinse.


In a pan, pour 4 cups of water and add 7 large dried anchovies after removing their heads and intestines inside of a metal strainer and throw in the dried shiitake if you are using those. Boil the water for about 20 minutes over medium heat. After about 10 minutes, I pulled the shiitake out and cut them into smaller pieces and threw them back into the stock to fully reconstitute.



In a separate saucepan, saute stew beef with soy sauce, sugar, garlic, and sliced onion.


Remove the anchovies and add liquid to the saucepan with the beef. Simmer until meat is tender (this can take a while especially if you are using stew meat - it took over an hour, so I added water to the pot as it cooked down. Once your meat is ready, stir in the fresh mushrooms if you're using those, along with 2 green onions chopped to 2 inch lengths. Add the rice cakes, hot pepper paste and 1 tbs of hot pepper flakes (optional), stirring constantly.



Keep stirring until the sauce has thickened and the rice cake is shiny and softened. Transfer it to a plate and serve! It's delicious and I want to try making it with noodles and fishcakes as in this recipe at Peter's Home Cooking Diary next time!



p.s. I had some leftover and put it in a tupperware, which I don't recommend. The rice sticks had absorbed a lot of the liquid and were squishy and loose - very unappetising.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen who proclaimed it to be their favorite chocolate chip cookie, adapted from David Lebovitz's, Great Book of Chocolate. Hmmm, I am a tollhouse cookie girl and don't know why I keep trying to find something better! This cookie has a high chocolate to cookie ratio, and the cookie is crisper.

I had just listened to food scientist Shirley Corriheron being intereviewed on the NPR radio program All Things Considered about her new book Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking. To prevent flat cookies, she suggests using an unbleached flour or a bread flour because they're higher in protein. More protein sucks in more water when they join together to make gluten, she says. She also suggests melting the the butter for the same reason, and that making cookie batter the night before is a good thing. The comments all mentioned flat cookies, so I decided to go with the bread flour, melted butter and then refrigerate the dough over night. I also used Scharffenberger semisweet chocolate chunks.

Makes 20 cookies

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup (130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped

Adjust the oven rack to the top third of the oven and preheat to 300F (150C). Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda.

Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop the cookie dough into 2-tablespoon (5cm) balls and place 8 balls, spaced 4 inches (10cm) apart, on each of the baking sheets. Since I had refrigerated the dough overnight, the dough was very stiff and firm.

Bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

My opinion? These were not better than Tollhouse cookies, which have the perfect flavor combination of butter, salt, cookie dough and chocolate. These were stiffer and tasted less buttery and maybe it was the fancy bittersweet chocolate chunks that were less sweet than the Nestle's chips... We ate them all though!

Short Ribs Stracotto

Recipe by Craig Stoll, Delfina Restaurant, San Francisco, CA who serves the short ribs over fresh fettuccine topped with gremolata that has been air dried to concentrate the flavors. It's even better the next day.

This is a beautiful winter dish that fills the house with delicious savory smells while it cooks. I ended up cooking it the day before and then putting it in the refrigerator overnight so that I could skim the fat off easier (there was quite a bit of fat). For the asian in me, it's better with plain white rice!

Serves 4 to 6
Start to finish time: 13 hours
Active cooking time: 4 to 5 hours

Stracotto
6 (2-bone) beef short ribs (chef stoll uses short ribs from the chuck, which are meatier than ribs from the plate)
3 cups dry red wine
5 allspice berries
2 or 3 whole cloves
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cups beef stock
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs rosemary
2 sprigs sage

Gremolata minced zest of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

To make the stracotto, put the short ribs, wine, allspice, and cloves in a shallow baking dish. cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at leats 8 hours or up to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325 f.

Remove the short ribs from the wine, reserving the wine, and pat dry with a paper towel. Librally season the ribs on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large, high-sided, ovenproof saute pan with a lid over medium high heat. Add the ribs and cook, turning as needed, for about 3 minutes per side, or until browned on all sides. Transfer the short ribs to a plate.

Add the onion, carrots, and celery to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, until soft. Strain the wine through a fine-mesh sieve into the pan. Bring to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes, or until reduced by one-third. Add the stock, bring to a boil and add the ribs. Add the bay leaves, rosemary, and safe, cover, and bake for about 3hours, or until the meat is so tender it falls off the bone. Let cool.

To prepare the gremolata, place a piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. spread the lemon zest, garlic, and parsley out on the parchment paper and let dry while the ribs cool.

Tip the pan to skim away the fat on top of the vegetables, (as an alternative, you can refrigerate the short ribs and vegetables overnight or long enough for the fat to solidify and then remove it). Transfer the short ribs to a saucepan large enough to hold the ribs in a single layer.

Press the vegetables through a food mill with a small holed disk held over a bowl, or puree in a ablender and press through a large0mesh sieve into a bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper and pour over the ribs. cook over low heat until the ribs are hot, about 30 minutes.

Divide the short ribs among warmed serving dishes. Spoon the sauce over the ribs. Combine the gremolata ingredients in a small bowl and sprinkle over the ribs Serve.