It’s morning and I’ve finally woken at a decent time, though I still can’t sleep at night for the silence.  I miss that L.A. lullaby of police sirens, music, traffic, voices, dogs barking and the Santa Anas ratting my window panes on a windy night.  I’m sitting on my bed still a little sleepy, wondering what to wear and thinking of those cold mornings in Atwater Village where the creaking of ancient hardwood floors would wake me and the smells of breakfast drifting from the kitchen would lure me out of my cocoon of blankets.

One of my favorite things my grandmother would cook was huevos con chile, scrambled eggs with salsa.  She’d wake up early, about 5am and throw open all the windows and doors to let the fresh air in.  She’d then go outside and water all her flowers and plants while my grandfather irrigated his garden.  From my bed, I would hear the water, feel the dewy morning chill and snuggle in to sleep a little more.  Safe, comforting sounds.  I’d wake again to the creaking of the floorboards, the rattling of pots and then the smells.

Sometimes I’d jump out of bed and run to help in the kitchen.  I’d see the comal going with tomatoes and chiles on it and know she was making salsa.  My grandfather would be there in the kitchen with his rolling pin dusted in flour, rolling out those massive flour tortillas he loved to make.  He worked powerfully and fast.  A quick three turns of the pin and he would have this huge tortilla that barely fit the comal.  I never failed to be amazed by how giant they were and he never tired of showing off for me.

My grandmother would put the molcajete in front of me and the peeled chiles, tomatoes and a few other things like roasted garlic cloves, translucent quarters of onion.  She’d start grinding the chile mixture while i stripped cilantro stems of their leaves and flowers.  She then would take about half of the freshly made salsa over to the stove where she’d scramble eggs and then pour in the salsa which sent off this luscious, spicy steam that made my mouth water.  Before I knew it, there’d be a plate in front of me with eggs colored red and green from the salsa, a scoop of beans with cheese, maybe fresh slices of avocado,  cantaloupe or papaya with lime and one of my Papa’s mega tortillas.

The first bite always tickled my tongue and put a smile on my face.  The eggs were always perfect, the tortillas fluffy and warm, and the best part was my grandmother finally sat down and I could jabber at her, my Aunt Jessie and my Papa while we ate.  What did we talk about?  Why food of course, recipes we wanted to try, how the chiles were growing in the garden and how many rows of cilantro there were.

What are your favorite memories of breakfasts?

My grandparents were avidly religious, devout Catholics which meant that my grandmother spent a lot of time working for the little church down the street, Christo Rey.  When I was little, they’d have little tardeadas or late afternoon celebrations.  There were booths where food was sold to make money for the programs at the church, etc.  My grandmother tended a booth and hers was one of the busiest there.  She sold sopes, those wonderful cripsy corn tortillas with the pinched up sides filled with meat, beans and other toppings.

I remember helping make the sopes.  My job was to pinch up the sides of the tortilla, not such an easy job given it was a hot little thing.  My grandmother was make the masa, shape it into little balls and my Auntie Jessie would press them in the tortilla press.  She’d then had a fat little tortilla to my grandmother who would toast it on the griddle or comal till it was well cooked.  The hot sopes would land in a plate near me and my grandfather and we had the job of making the sides.

To create the sides on a sope it has to be hot or it just doesn’t hold up the side very well so you take it and pinch into the hot dough and pinch all the way around till you end up with about a 1/4 inch rim around the tortilla.  I always felt very brave and grown up pinching sopes because the tips of my little fingers would burn with the heat of them.  We kept a little bowl of cold water nearby and I’d dip my fingers into it when I felt them growing too hot.

Over the years, my fingers grew more and more accustomed to it and rather desensitized.  I pinch the sides of a sope without even thinking about it now, but when I was a kid in my grandmother’s kitchen it seemed a very grown up, big girl job that I was very proud to be able to do.

My grandmother and aunts made 100’s of sopes, chopped massive piles of tomatoes, onion and cilantro, shredded head after head of lettuce, cooked enormous pots of beans and meat.  They’d then schlep all that stuff to the church, set up the booth and using a little camping type fire, would immediately start heating the oil to fry the sopes in.

Soon enough there’d be a long line and the tias and my grandma would fry and fill, fry and fill.  I never remember a time when my grandmother’s booth didn’t sell out completely and then we were free to enjoy the event.  Once, there were even voladores that came and sent us all to gasping as they flew round and round the pole tied by just what appeared to be a ribbon.  I remember holding my grandpa’s hand thinking that they would fall and I still remember how he squeezed my hand and smiled down at me with that special smile that always made me feel safe and warm.  He was proud of the voladores, proud of being Mexican and proud of his heritage.

It’s been many, many years since those days of church fairs, sopes, cracked confetti eggs on the heads of my cousins and the music of boleros drifting in and out of the crowds of people in the transformed church parking lot, but the smells, sounds and memories are still as sharp as that first sting of hot dough on my fingers.

My daughter-in-law Mireya is from the state of Puebla in Mexico.  Sitting in her very modern kitchen 2200 odd miles from where I was born and raised, brings back memories of another time, another kitchen.  In that kitchen with it’s creaky old floors, the Los Angeles sunlight that streamed through the small window along with the smell of herbs and flowers, and most of all the love of my grandparents; I learned to love cooking.

This kitchen is cold to my L.A. body used to sunlight and drought.  It’s very modern and sleek with its black granite counters and stainless steel appliances and the glaring white of the snow outside, but its an incredibly warm kitchen in the ways that count.  There is love here in abundance, there is a keeping of tradition, a love of culture and family and the tastes and smells of it bring me home, keep my grandmother’s memory alive and bond me with this wonderful woman my son married.

Today she is making posole, but not the posole I am used to.  She is making what is known to be the traditional posole which is what we call posole blanco or white posole.  It is different from the one I make (Posole Tapatio) which is red and flavored with epazote.  Her recipe is exciting for me, a new one to learn and it belongs here in the archives of my family.

Last week we had green posole made with chicken, hominy and yerba santa.  It was delicious and completely different from what I am used to.

I watch my daughter-in-law work in brisk, quick steps.  She is deft in the kitchen, reminds me of the purposeful, quick moves of my grandmother and great aunts in their kitchens.  In some ways, she reminds me of my dear friend Elodia who moves with the same purpose and body language.  Mireya is nothing like Elodia though.  Lochi’s as I call her is tall, light skinned and thin where Mireya is very petite, dark-skinned and curvy.  They move the same though and as I watch my daughter-in-law, I am transported back to the kitchen of my friend near the hills of Griffith  Park where I grew up and can almost hear the years of laughter and good talks had at her kitchen table.

I read somewhere that Posole is an ancient recipe from Aztec/Mexica times which I well believe, given mole is from the same pre-Hispanic origin.  The word pozole in Nahuatl means espuma or foam and it gets its name from the foam that arises when the dried corn or cacahuazintle is boiled.  There are Conquest documents that talk about the pozole of Mocetuzuma having body parts in it but I highly doubt the veracity of any Conquest document.  To them, the Mexica people were the very devil, so I take most of what they said with a grain or two of salt.

Mireya’s Posole Blanco

1 pound of dried corn or cacahuazintle, prepared Nixtamal or  2 15-oz cans of hominy if you prefer it
2 pounds pork shoulder, cubed
oregano
salt to taste
chile pequin powder
shredded lettuce
diced white onion
lemons

If you’re using the maiz (nixtamal corn)they sell bagged in the store for posole, there’s no need to use the lye to soften it.  Just open the bag and let it soak overnight in water.  Clean off all the floating bits and strain it out.  If you want to try dried corn, you’re gonna have to use lye and that’s another post in the making.   Mireya uses canned hominy because that’s what my grandson Luis likes.  Kids tend to prefer canned hominy over the more gritty maiz or nixtamal.

Fill a stockpot half way with water, add the pork and hominy, salt to taste and a pinch oregano and cover.  Should boil on low flame 2-3 hours till the pork is so tender it falls apart at the touch of a fork.

If you are using the nixtamal, the maiz should boil first with salt to taste and a clove or two of garlic if you want, until it blossoms into what looks like little flowers and gives off the characteristic foam that gives the stew its name.  When the maiz blossoms, its time to add the pork and continue cooking.

Pour the stew into bowls and top with chopped onion, pinch of the powdered chile pequin for color and flavor, oregano, shredded lettuce and squeeze a lemon over it.

Serve with corn tortillas.

The rain beats against my window with no rhythm, no rhyme.  At times it is unrelenting, vicious in its determination to get inside.  It batters the windows, rattles them; then frustrated, it takes a breath and prepares for the next assault.  It’s been raining five days now in Los Angeles.  There have been tornado warnings, 65 mph gale winds, hail and rain in buckets enough to generate a Twitter hashtag called #theendoftheworld.  At times the rain is gentle, soothing; the kind of rain that makes one long for Sunday papers in bed, a good book, a cuddle with a loved one or the smell of bacon and coffee drifting upstairs to waken you.

I love that kind of rain, it always propels me to the kitchen, to bake or make soup – the vegetable rich, lemony caldo de pollo that my grandmother made so often.  Brimming with color from corn on the cob, translucent green cabbage, dark green zucchini, bright orange carrots, the pale quarters of onions and the earthy dark of unskinned potatoes.  She’d serve it in a deep bowl over a scoop of red Spanish rice with warm corn tortillas wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm and a half slice of lemon to squeeze over it.  She always did hers a little different, a way I thought special.  To hers, she’d slice up a regular banana, not a plaintain but a banana and add a sprig of mint.  It gave an unusual sweetness to the soup that was distinctly Grandma Lupe.  No one else ate it that way, it was Grandma’s soup.  Sweet, distinct, unusual with a gentle touch, just like her.

Always on the table was the fresh salsa de molcajete she made and my grandfather, Papa Chava would pile it up on his bowl.  It added a smoky, spicy flavor to the soup that I loved and still do now with the added flavor of memories.  I make it often, roasting the tomatoes on the comal till their skins burst, wrapping the roasted chiles in a damp cloth so their skins can steam off and gently removing the cilantro leaves from their stems to add whole to the salsa.  I am recreating my grandmother’s steps, I am keeping her memory alive in my kitchen.

My grandmother’s salsa had little cilantro flowers in it because my grandfather grew cilantro in a way to ensure she never ran out.  He’d stagger the planting carefully so that there were soft earthy mounds with tiny stems poking their heads out, the next with the cilantro a little bigger, the next in full cutting mode and the back mounds were left to go to seed.  He gathered those round seeds and dried them carefully, saving them in an old glass baby food jar that he kept in his garage/gardening shed.

When the cilantro flowered, my grandmother loved to put the tiny white blossoms in her salsa and in the tomato relish (I guess you can call it that) that she made for tacos and tostadas.  The blossoms were surprisingly flavorful, that sharp green tang of the cilantro intensified.  You’d never know such a tiny, wispy flower would pack such a punch.  Store bought cilantro just isn’t the same.  The leaves are so much bigger, the flavor not as intense and of course, there are no delicate, lacy white blossoms to beautify and flavor your dish.

The rain is calming now and I’m still making up my mind whether to go out, bake or make soup.  For now, I’m content to snuggle in, pet my dog and remember a kitchen where love what the secret ingredient.

This is a really simple, homey recipe.  There are no quantities listed because it all depends on how many you want to make and sweet potatoes vary in size.   These tacos are slightly sweet and the orange-honey dipping sauce gives them an extra kick.  Very good on on a cold day.

Sweet potatoes
Water
Cinnamon stick
Corn tortillas
Olive oil

Peel and slice sweet potatoes into large chunks.  Put in saucepan with just enough water to cover them.  Add cinnamon stick.
Bring to boil, then lower heat.  Cook until soft enough to mash but still firm.

Strain the cooked sweet potatoes and reserve the liquid they boiled in.

When the potatoes are completely drained, mash and set aside.

Heat corn tortillas on a griddle and scoop a spoonful of sweet potato into each one.  Fold over and squish it so that it holds together.  Assemble until you’re out of sweet potato.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet.  Add enough to cover tacos.

When oil is hot enough slide in the tacos and fry until hard and crispy on each side.

Remove from oil and drain excess oil.

Serve with dipping sauce.

Dipping sauce

Juice of an orange
Honey
Reserved liquid from sweet potatoes

Mix the juice of an orange with some of the reserved liquid from the sweet potatoes and add enough honey so that you get a syrupy mixture.  That’s it.

Fiestas Patrias is a big deal for me.  I usually go all out and have a big party, invite tons of people, make mountains of red, white and green food, have papel picado and paper flowers decorating the house, my Aztec dancer group dances, the big Mexican flag is out, there’s music (sometimes mariachis) and we all go out the door at midnight and scream at the top of our lungs, “Viva Mexico!  Viva Zapata! Viva la Patria!”

Yeah, we’re those crazy, noisy, party-loving Mexicans down on your block.

Last year, I didn’t host the party.  I was ill and battling something for months that made me incredibly tired, a slacker blogger and have serious lack of stamina to stand in a kitchen for hours cooking.  This year, I had thought I could do it.  I’m feeling great actually so I was geared up to throw a huge one and make up for  last year.  Then I got the call from my daughter telling me she was HIV+.  I suppose this has no place on a cooking blog, but it’s my blog and my life so there you go.  Welcome to my world.  She’s my only daughter.  I’ve three sons and one daughter.  After finding out, I went to bed for a little over a month and barely left it.  Not like me at all.  I’m usually the optimist and the “let’s fix it” person.  Not this time.  This knocked me down hard and it took a long time getting back up.  I’m up.  I’m fighting because that’s me.  I’m learning all I can and I’m being strong for my girl.

As far as Fiestas Patrias goes, I decided not to do it at all.  Not in a party mood, although I did go to Olvera Street for a little while to get my fill of it on Sunday afternoon.  Check out my photos of the event there, si quieren. 

I was sitting here at my desk working when I looked at the little Mexican flag in my pencil cup and thought to myself, “I should at least do a tiny Fiestas Patrias for Jasmine & Aiden.  They need to experience their culture”.  Bueno.  I got up, ran to the store and picked up a few things.  This is what I made:

Ground Beef Hard-Shelled Tacos (my daughter’s favorite)

What my grandmother would call salsa patria – a mixture of chopped tomatoes, cilantro and onion sprinkled with salt.  We use it to serve over tacos or as a side dish.

A chile salsa I only make de vez y cuando (once in a while).  It doesn’t have a name and I can’t remember which aunt taught me to make it, but it’s very delicious.  Made with chiles gueritos, cilantro, onion, garlic, salt, white pepper, tomatoes and vinegar.  Recipe below.

White rice

Boiled chayotes served with lemon, salt and chile powder.

Tunas (prickly pears) ice cold and sliced.

Fried chiles

That’s it!  Very simple, very homey but still with the red, white and green theme.  Still traditional and very much enjoyed by all.

Recipe for the tacos:

Extra lean ground beef
1/4 of an onion, chopped fine
dash cumin
dash white pepper
dash ground bay leaf
salt to taste
oil
corn tortillas

Cook the ground beef with the onion and spices on medium heat, making sure it’s finely crumbled.  Set aside when completely browned and the onions carmelized.

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan on medium heat.  I like to pour the oil about half way to the top.  Use any oil you like, this time I used extra virgin first cold-pressed olive oil.  Whatever works for you is fine.

When the oil is hot, slide in a tortilla and quickly flip it to the other side, then fold carefully.  Tongs will help.  I use two forks – I don’t know why, it’s just easy for me to hold the taco shell open with one and hold down the other end of it with the other one.  If you let the taco shell close, it will harden shut and you won’t be able to fill it.  Keeping it open while frying is key.  Fry till golden brown and crackly hard.  If you don’t fry it long enough, it will be chewy and get soggy from the filling quickly.

Set each taco shell aside on either brown paper or paper towels on a plate or pan so that the oil gets absorbed.  Bad enough we’re frying them, so make sure to get all the excess oil off.

Stuff the tacos with the beef and any other fillings you like.  For these, I just stuffed them with the meat, the salsa patria and chile salsa.  You can add lettuce, tomatoes, rice, beans, cheese, whatever.  It’s completely up to you and tacos are very flexible.  I make some from mashed potatoes that are to die for.  I’ll put that recipe in another time.

Salsa de chiles gueritos con vinagre (Chili salsa with vinegar)

Yellow chiles – chiles gueritos (how many depends on how hot you want it, for this one I used three in the sauce, but fried more to serve on the plate)
Cilantro, chopped or torn
1 tomato, diced
¼ of an onion, sliced and fried with the chiles
3 cloves of garlic, whole and fried with the chiles
salt to taste
white pepper, a dash
½ c. vinegar (any kind you like – this time I used white balsamic)

Wash the chiles and pat them dry, them fry them in a little oil.  Since I had just finished cooking the ground beef for the tacos, I fried them in that with a little more oil.  The meat drippings add flavor to the salsa.

Add the sliced onions to the chiles and fry those as well as the cloves of garlic.

Chop or tear your cilantro (about a handful) and set aside
Chop tomatoes and set aside

When the chiles are well-browned, take them out of the pan and wrap them in a clean, damp cloth and let them sit a few minutes.  This steams the skins off.

After the chiles are cool enough to handle, peel them and remove the stems.  Leave in the seeds if you want it hot or take them out for mild.  I didn’t bother de-seeding or de-veining in this instance.  Add the prepared chiles to a food processor.

Add the onions, vinegar and garlic to the food processor with the chiles with a dash of salt.  Puree, but not too smooth.  You want a little texture.

Add the chile puree to a bowl with the fresh chopped tomatoes and cilantro.

Add salt and white pepper to taste and stir.

That’s it.  You’ll find this salsa spicy, tangy and delicious on tacos or other dishes.

Buen provecho y feliz fiestas patrias.

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So there was this chocolate sauce just sitting in my fridge, left over from the eclairs.  The chocolate glaze was in there too.  Seriously, they were calling me, begging not to be left in there on their own.  Several times, i walked over and thought maybe I should make more eclairs.  Maybe creampuffs.  No, it’s too hot. Then today it got to be too much.  I finished the chapter in the book I was reading and headed for the kitchen .  I sat at the table with the recipe and my cup of coffee and decided to go for it.

The chocolate glaze had hardened so I set it in simmering water.  I decided to do the same lavender-orange pastry cream since it turned out so delicious and decided at the last moment to pour a little lavender into the chocolate glaze.  I love lavender chocolate.

The pâte à choux was easier to do work with this time.  I’m not sure why but it was.  In fact, the whole thing was so simple, I am worried for my hips.  I could easily make these all the time.

I piped big fat circles onto parchment paper covered baking sheets and set them to bake.  I know!  Baking again in August.  Crazy I tell you.  Estoy pero bien loca.  That means I’m pretty crazy in Spanish.

The circles puffed beautifully, everything went like clockwork.  I decided to scoop the remaining chocolate sauce on the bottom of each cream puff, then load it with the cream and top with glaze.  They were delicious, rich and sinfully decadent.

I think I’m going to live to regret having these in my repertoire…you see my dilemna.

Jasmine really loved the chocolate glaze.

The Challenge: Chocolate Eclairs from Pierre Hermé’s book, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

The Hosts: Tony Tahan and Meetak

Many, many thanks to our wonderful hosts this month. What a wonderful recipe they chose and how supportive and marvelous they were. (Insert applause here).

Hurry up Autumn, I’m getting a little tired of baking in a 100 degree kitchen and worrying I’m going to drip sweat into dough or something. This month’s challenge was Pierre Hermé’s (swoons cuz he’s my loverman and I worship the pastry laden, rose petal Isapahan ground he walks on) luscious chocolate éclairs.

Did I stay true to my idol’s recipe? Um well I changed one little thing. The cream filling was not chocolate but something summery and lighter. Lavender-orange pastry cream. The rest was true to Mr. Hermé’s recipes (is it not wonderful that he is not only a pastry God but has the same last name as that vintage buttery leather 72k handbag on ebay)? I’m just saying. Pastry, Birken…ecstasy, heaven. Okay, okay get on with the recipe. No one cares about my obsession with Hermé, both the bags and the chef. And yes, I know the bag is Hermes but its close enough for me.

Marissa dropped the kids off early and we washed up and got ready to bake. The first thing we started with was the pastry cream. It turned out perfectly, smooth, thick and lucious until i put it into its ice water bath. I turned to grab ingredients for the chocolate sauce and Aiden took the opportunity to add about a quarter cup of ice water INTO THE CREAM! Yeah, so. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. He’s three, he thought he was creating something wondrous and being helpful. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t. It was his little creation. So we had runny cream filling, so what?

I took several deep breaths and moved onto the chocolate sauce, which was divine. Mmmmm chocolate. Jasmine and I made the glaze together. She looked at me and said, “Grammy, you’re going to put chocolate in chocolate?” and looked puzzled. When I said yes, she beamed and squealed something about chocolate and more chocolate. I agreed. Chocolate on chocolate is a marvelous thing. When it was all done, I reached for a bowl to pour it in and Jasmine quickly grabbed her favorite Barbie bowl instead. Beaming proudly, she said “Grammy that yummy chocolate can use my bowl.” So it was that Pierre Hermé’s sleek, sophisticated chocolate glaze ended up in a 99 cent pink plastic Barbie bowl. I won’t get into my militant feelings about Barbie because Jasmine can read now.

Next up the Pâte à Choux. Yeah oooooooooh. I was dubious about the whole cooked dough thing and I could tell Jasmine was too. She wanted to know why it wasn’t going straight to the Kitchen-Aid but I just shrugged and started heating the milk. When it was boiling, I handed her the cup of flour and nodded. “All of it Grammy?”, she asked. I nodded. She looked at me, her little eyes wide and then shrugged and dumped it in. Wow. I started stirred and we had a big lump of golden dough. I kept stirring to dry the dough and it did create a little crust on the bottom of the pan. Once it had been dryed enough, I transferred it to the Kitchen-aid and started mixing.

Now the crap part they don’t tell you about. Pâte à Choux is sticky, way sticky. Getting it into the pastry bag was a mess. Working with it was tough. I thought I had done something wrong, so I took a minute to chat online with a chef friend. “Is Pâte à Choux supposed to be stick?” Answer: “it has been every time I’ve worked with it” Great. Back to work. Aiden kept eating the sticky dough and I couldn’t get the gunk off my hands but managed to pipe some éclair-like blobs onto the baking sheet. I popped them into the oven and did the oven door wooden spoon trick later in the baking. They came out beautifully and puffed up proudly. Things were looking up.

Jasmine and Aiden were so excited they couldn’t stand it. I could barely fill the mini-eclairs and cream puffs fast enough. The lavender-orange filling was so good with all that chocolate. Marissa came home and ate several in quick succession and we both decided for the sake of our butts to take the rest of the platter over to That Yarn Store for David and the gang to munch on.

We had so much fun making these and I can’t wait till the weather is cool and we can do it again. Next time though, I’ll make cream puffs only. They held much more pastry cream and were easier to pipe.

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe), fresh and still warm

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by
positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with
waxed or parchment paper.

2) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.
The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.

3) Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the
handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the
oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue
baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking
time should be approximately 20 minutes.

Notes:
1) The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Assembling the éclairs:

• Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
• Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the
bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.

2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40
degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of
the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the
bottoms with the pastry cream.

3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms
with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream
and wriggle gently to settle them.

Notes:
1) If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water,
stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create
bubbles.

2) The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• ½ cup (125g) whole milk
• ½ cup (125g) water
• 1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

1) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the
boil.

2) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very
quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You
need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough
will be very soft and smooth.

3) Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your
handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time,
beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough.
You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do
not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you
have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it
should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.

4) The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.

Notes:
1) Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.

2) You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking
sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the
piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.

Chocolate Pastry Cream
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by PierreHermé

• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Velrhona Guanaja, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy?bottomed saucepan.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice?water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.

5) Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice?water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice?water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

[bNotes:[/b]
1) The pastry cream can be made 2?3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.

2) In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.

3) Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not scramble.

Chocolate Glaze
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1 cup or 300g)

• 1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
• 3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

1)In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.

2) Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Notes:
1) If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly
in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water.

2) It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

Chocolate Sauce
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1½ cups or 525 g)

• 4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup (250 g) water
• ½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

1) Place all the ingredients into a heavy?bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.

2) It may take 10?15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.

Notes:
1) You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using.
2) This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.

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Arroz con pollo

delicioso!

Today, Marissa and the kids came by and I decided to give it a shot.  I pulled out rice, onions, garlic, red peppers, the Bijol (a Mexican spice blend), saffron and oregano.  I didn’t have peas but Marissa doesn’t like them anyway, so I figured we were good to go.

I handed Marissa the camera and got to work chopping onion into nice thick squares, slivers of garlic, rounds of red pepper.  Jasmine and Aiden started to get excited and Aiden helped pour out the oregano.  I only know my grandmother’s recipe, which is no recipe – it’s a handful of this, a bit of that, un poquito aqui, un manito aya.  I hope my readers can figure it out from the pictures and the story because this time, this time it was like my memories of a fluffy mound of golden delicately flavored rice that melted on the tongue and the tenderest, chicken falling off the bone and flavored with the soul of the crocus.  It was magical.

Arroz con pollo/Chicken with rice

One cut up chicken
Enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large frying pan
1 onion
five cloves of garlice, sliced thinly
chopped red peppers (not the hot kind)
dos manotes de arroz (two big handfuls of rice)
a manito (little handful of oregano) I think this ended up being about a tablespoon
un poquito de saffron (a little bit of saffron) like a pinch
un poquito de Bijol (about a ¼ tsp)
salt and pepper to taste
peas (optional)
chopped tomatoes (we were out of fresh so I used a 16 oz can of stewed)
water

Coat the frying pan with olive oil and let it heat on the stove.  Not too high a flame, you don’t want smoking oil.  Just get it nice and hot.

Wash the chicken pieces and pat them dry.  Season with salt and cracked pepper.

Add the chicken to hot oil and let fry till crispy brown on one side, then turn and do the same with the other side.  It takes as long as it takes.  Use a lid or it will pop all over.

Once the chicken is browned completely, scoop it out and set it aside on a platter.

Drain the oil from that pan and pour it into another large skillet (one that has a tight fitting lid).

Add the oregano, garlic, saffron, and peppers to the same pan and deglaze it with about a cup of water.  Set that aside.

Heat up the oil in the second skillet.  Add in the onions and about two cups of long grain rice and let brown completely, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

When it’s all browned, add the water and spices from the deglazed pan to the rice. Add salt to taste, I’d say about a teaspoon.

Add the chicken pieces one by one, skin side up around the pan.  Add just enough water to be about a half inch from the top of the pan.  Cover, lower flame to the lowest it will go and then simmer for about 40 minutes.  The rice should be fluffy and golden and the chicken so tender it falls apart at the touch of a fork.  All the water should have been absorbed by the rice.

Serve and enjoy!

Buen provecho.

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Oh,…I looked out the window and what did I see,
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring had brought me such a nice surprise, popcorn popping right before my eyes.
I can take an armful and make a treat, a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn’t really so… but it seemed to be… Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

Aiden learned this song in his nursery class at Sunday School during church last week and he’s been humming it ever since.  Jasmine wanted to know the words, so I sang it to them this morning and spent most of the morning teaching them the words and finger motions to it.  Then all of a sudden Jasmine says, “Grammy, what’s a popcorn ball?” and I about died.  I couldn’t believe I had been so remiss as to not make popcorn balls with the grandkids. Yikes!  There was nothing for it, but get out the aprons and head for the kitchen.

I popped popcorn and tried to get shots with the camera while it was popping but didn’t really get good photos.  I did however, manage to decorate the just mopped floor and demonstrate to the grandkids why we must never take the lid off as a stray popcorn missile hit me in the arm with its heat.

Once that process was done, we set the popcorn to cool in a baking dish and I went about making syrup, keeping the kids safely outta the kitchen.  I decided on a whim to flavor the syrup with cardamom and vanilla and it turned out really well.

Aiden was having a hard time waiting for the syrupy popcorn to cool but he spent the time decorating himself with butter. He was a shiny, greasy bundle of love by the time the popcorn was cool enough to mold.  We made a few popcorn balls and that was it, we were done.  We ended up with a few balls, lots of gooey caramel corn and two sticky, hyped up grandkids.  Now that’s a Saturday!

Cardamom-Vanilla Flavored Popcorn Balls

Ingredients:

A couple of apron-covered kids like these:

Chefs J&A

Add popcorn to buttered baking dish and set aside till syrup is done.

Cardamom-Vanilla Syrup

6 tbsps.of butter
1 c. corn syrup
3 c. confectioner’s sugar
3 tbsp. water
1 c. marshmallow cream
1 tsp.cardamom
1 tbsp.vanilla

In a saucepan, combine the butter, corn syrup, water, confectioner’s sugar and heat over a medium flame, stirring slowly but constantly.  Once it’s to a boil, add in the marshmallow cream and cardamom.  Lower the flame and keep stirring till well-mixed.

Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Stir.

Slowly pour over the popcorn in the baking dish, mixing gently with a wooden spoon until the popcorn is thoroughly coated.

Add syrup to popcorn and let cool till it’s warm enough to work with your bare hands but not too cool.

Butter your hands so the popcorn doesn’t stick.  Mix all the syrup and popcorn well, then shape into balls of whatever size you like.  Let cool and wrap in plastic wrap.  That’s it!
Well, Jasmine wanted pink sprinkles on hers and I got to thinking about dipping them in chocolate but restrained myself (barely).

Hard at Work