Make mayonaise.

Dice 1 whole fennel root, you might not need it all. Mince 2 scallions. Mix these in a bowl with about 1/4 cup homemade mayonaise. Stir in 1 tsp curry powder and a healthy pinch of salt and a few good grinds of pepper.

Peel and rinse your eggs and pop out the yolks. They will probably be a little moist, thats what I am going for. Smash the yolks into the mayo mixture. Cut the egg whites into a small dice and stir into the mixture. Taste and serve.

I ate mine on toast. Then I mixed my leftovers into some grain salad from whole foods salad bar. Also, I used curry powder that my housemates made from the Eve Cookbook. Deeelicious.

Adapted from [ Simply Recipies ]

At the store I picked up some redskinned potatoes. I rinsed, cut and boiled them in salted water. Then I softened some scallions in clarified butter and tossed the potatoes in the hot pan.

Lastly, I cooked a minced shallot in plenty more clarified butter, added some sliced button mushrooms and salt, cooked most of the liquid out and then added some sliced bok choy. Into this I tossed some red pepper flakes to give it some spice. I didn’t add anything else to this and it was good, but it could have maybe used some lemon juice or a fresh herb to give it a more interesting flavor.

The fish with mayo was good. I wouldn’t have done this with store-bought mayonaise, but with homemade it didn’t have that heavy mouth feel that mayonaise sometimes has. The lemon flavor came out and was delicious.

I still haven’t had that egg salad. Maybe tonight.

Around the same time, I became aware of the Ratio App for the iPhone/iPod touch. I bought the app and realized I suddenly had the power to make a whole number of things using this handy little app. It gives you base recipes and procedures and an easy way to scale any of them. It lets you add notes and save specific recipes.  Unfortunately the ’share’ feature of the app just posts a general link on twitter, it doesn’t actually let you share the recipes that you’ve created. Anyhow, I now own the app and the book.  I highly suggest both of them, then again, I’ve been a Michael Ruhlman junkie lately.  Pick them up:  Ratio App or Ratio, the book.

On to the bread.  I used the Ratio app on my iPod touch and adapted from there.  I started with 600 grams of flour, because Michael suggests that as a good basic loaf size.

Put this back in the bowl and cover with plastic. Let this sit in a warm spot until it has doubled in size. A turned-off oven is a good place for this. It will take longer the cooler it is, warm spots are good, but not much warmer than 75F. Take the dough out of the bowl and punch it down, knead it a bit by folding and pressing and rotating it. You want to redistribute the gasses and yeast in the dough. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes just to loosen up. Then shape the dough into a dome shape. I do this by making big pinches on one side of the dough to pull the other side taught, making a round shape. I put my formed dough on to a large sheet of parchment paper. Let this sit for an hour.

This was my first attempt at guessing the proportions of these ingredients and I think it worked out really well. The bread was sweet and spicy and everything I could wish for. I’d definitely make this again, if I didn’t get distracted by other inspiration.   I also used this almost exact same recipe to make a cheddar chipotle bread using 2 minced chipotle peppers and a full cup of shredded cheddar cheese.  It was also delicious.

Update: The Ratio App for the iPod lost my saved recipes! I think it was due to an update it had recently. It is still a great app, but don’t let the app store the only copy of your notes or recipes.

[ http://wheelsinmotion.us/about/another-chili-ride-ypsi-pg371.htm ]

I so want this.

I have to say, every time I’ve attempted to put bacon in baked goods in the past, it has been a dismal failure. A batch of bacon fat swedish cookies from the NYTimes magazine were a particular failure. I think I personally have a strange physiological aversion to bacon fat. Not bacon itself, but the fat. If I eat bacon, I’m happy; if I eat something with bacon fat in it, I feel weird in my brain. I already had an idea of how I wanted to accomplish bacon apple pie, but looking on the internet to see what other people did came up with some really gross concoctions that would be filled with bacon fat. (See this and this)

Okay, here is what I did:

Pie Crust: King Arthur Flour’s Pie Crust Recipe. I used this recipe almost verbatim. I used a combination of 3oz whole wheat pastry flour and the rest all purpose flour. I also made this in the stand mixer with the paddle attachment. I whisked the flour and the salt by hand, put the bowl in the mixer on low, added the shortening until it was in smaller bits, then added the bigger, already cut into pats. In the past, when doing this by hand, I would freeze the butter and cut it into tiny cubes, but just using refrigerated butter in the mixer seems to work just as well. I also just added tablespoons of ice water until the dough came away from the bowl.

Apple Filling: I using entirely granny smith apples, I used a recipe from my baking book for class. The recipe was for 9lbs of apples and multiple pies, so I had to scale it down using a calculator and guessing on the smaller ingredients. The recipe called for 4100 grams of apples, sliced and tossed with lemon juice. I peeled, cored and sliced 5 granny smith apples. I ended up with 969 grams of apple slices, so I did the math on the recipe to get the rest of my weights. In a separate bowl, mix together 213 grams of sugar, 21 grams of cornstarch, 2 grams of salt, 2 grams of cinnamon, 1/2 gram of nutmeg.  Admittedly, my scale isn’t precise enough to accurately measure 2 grams of something, let alone a half of a gram.  I compensated for these inaccuracies with common sense.  Now, I mixed all of these things right in with the apples without pre-mixing.  I also did this about 30 minutes before assembling the pie.  When I make this pie again, I’m going to leave the apples sitting in the lemon juice until just before I prep the pie.  That way I don’t end up with a bunch of liquid from the apples sitting in the bottom of the pie crust, making it soggy before baking.  Also, pre-mixing the ingredients separately ensures that the cornstarch is well-distributed with the sugar.

Crumble Topping: I used a random recipe from the internet. I was going for just sugar, butter and flour. I also used a teaspoon of bacon fat. Here’s how it went: In a bowl: 3/4 cup of AP flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, 5 tablespoons of butter, cut into pats, 1 teaspoon bacon fat, room temperature. I tossed this well to combine all the dry ingredients and then smushed the butter in until it had a chunky sand consistency. Then I added the best part, 1/4 cup bacon, finely diced. Mincing would work, too.

Baking: Place the pie in a pre-heated 400° oven. Place something foil-lined on the rack below the pie to catch any overflow from the pie as it cooks.

So here was the problem: The center of the pie didn’t get hot enough to cause the cornstarch to coagulate. When we cut this open after cooling, it was a liquidy mess.  I should have known better! I knew the center of the pie wasn’t getting very hot because I had taken its temperature when the crust first started to look browned enough. Harold McGee says that cornstarch thickens between 140 and 180°. Next time I’ll watch the internal temperature to make sure it’s well within that range. I poured some of the liquid out of the pie and put it on the stove in a pan.  In 5 minutes I had a beautiful apple cinnamon jelly.  If only that had happened inside the pie! I think with a covering of foil to protect the crust and the topping for the first 20 minutes or so, I could have had a perfectly baked pie. I’m also unsure if the bacon fat in the crumble was completely necessary. I’m definitely going to make this pie again and try it get it just right.

First off, I used Momofuku’s slow poached eggs in my dish. This involves getting some water to 145°, adding some eggs, and keeping it just barely above 140° for 40-45 minutes. I quick fried them in some of the oil for this dish just before serving. Skip this if you just want to use regular fried eggs.

I prepped all these things last night while I was cooking other things: 1 leek, julienned, 2 Tbs each ginger and garlic, chopped into small bits. You don’t want the garlic and ginger to be too fine, but they need to be small. 2 cups of rice or other grains, cooked. I used wild rice mix that I had in the cupboard. I simmered it in a big pot of salted water, then strained it, like pasta.

Get a good layer of peanut or other oil in the bottom of a large frying pan and put it on medium heat. When the oil is warm put in the garlic and ginger bits. Toss them around until they get fairly brown. Be careful not to burn these. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Toss a little salt with them. Add the leeks and a little salt to the oil and cook them until softened, just a couple minutes. If you think you have a bit too much oil, pour a little off, reserving it for later. Toss in your rice and turn the heat on high. Stir-fry the rice with the leeks until the rice is warmed through and it’s good and, um, fried. If you want to use the same pan, reserve the rice and leek mixture and use this pan to fry your eggs. They should be sunny-side up, and use some of the reserved oil if you need it. Like I said, I used the Slow-Poached eggs, I fried them in a little bit of this oil.

To serve: Put some rice/leeks in a dinner bowl, egg on top, sprinkle garlic/ginger bits over the whole thing. Season with soy sauce and sesame oil. Amazing.

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s post on nytimes.com: Ginger Fried Rice

Download audio file (06-Hang-Up.mp3)

Every 10 minutes I opened the oven and basted on more of the soy & tare mixture. After 30 minutes I flipped the bird breast side up and basted it again. Repeat this process until the bird looks like it might start burning, or an hour has gone by. I also put a 1/4 cup of water into the dish if the juices in the dish were burning, or starting to. Normally I’d check the temperature, but after an hour at 400°, this bird is cooked. I removed the bird and let it rest on a plate. I tossed the potatoes a bit in the pan and put them back in the oven to crisp up a bit more while the meat had a rest.

Chop up the bones from 2-3 chicken backs, or use duck parts or turkey parts or whatever poultry bones you have. Extra meat and skin is good, too. Put them in an oven-proof saute pan or pot. Roast in a 400˚ oven for 45 minutes or so. You want the parts well browned, but not black at all. Take your bones out of the oven and put them on the stovetop over medium heat. Splash about ½ cup of sake into the pan and use it to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Once all the brown bits are up, add another ½ cup of sake, 1 cup of mirin, and 2 cups low-sodium soy sauce. Stir this into the pan, kick up the heat, bring this to a boil and then reduce the heat to a slight simmer. Let this cook for an hour. Pick out the bones and strain through some cheesecloth.

This stuff is salty and amazing. I can’t wait to use it.