Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Malka's Mom's Challah
Living in New York, I eat a lot of challah ( a lot). So last week when my friend Miriam offered to teach me how to make it, I jumped at the opportunity to have fresh challah, straight out of the oven. Aside from possessing important socio-historical and religious significance, challah is also an extremely versatile and tasty bread. Although it involves a lot of rising time, it was surprisingly not that difficult to make.
Ingredients:
· 3 packets of yeast
· 3 cups lukewarm water
· 2 eggs
· ½ cup sugar
· ½ cup Vegetable oil
· ½ tbsp Salt
· ½ cup Honey(or a little more)
· 12 cups of flour
(makes 6 loaves)
Pour water into yeast and wait about 3 minutes. Mix sugar into the liquid, then oil honey and salt. Slightly whip the eggs in a separate bowl and add to the liquid mixture. Add 3 cups of flour at a time, knead as you add the last few cups. Bring the dough ball to the table and knead, until according to Malka's mother the dough is, "as soft as a baby's bottom." Let sit for 5 minutes, then cover dough with a slightly damp and oiled cloth. Let rise for 3-5 hours.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Fanagle a bagel...or five
Mix yeast and sugar into 1/2 cup of water, leave for 5 minutes then stir to dissolve. In a separate bowl mix flour and salt together, then pour in dissolved yeast mixture.
Pour half of the water into flour mix than stir in remaining water as needed. Put dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth. Gradually work in some extra flour until it forms a stiff dough. Put dough ball in an oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat it. Cover with a towel and let rise for an hour, until it about doubles in size. Punch down and then let rise for another 10 minutes (i don't know how necessary this step is, but its a great stress reliever).
Divide dough into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, pressing out air bubbles as you shape it. Take one flour coated finger and push it through each ball to form a ring. Slowly stretch the hole(I didn't make the hole large enough and some of the bagels expanded to become rolls while baking). Put bagels on oiled baking sheet and cover with damp paper towels, let sit for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 425.
Bring a large pan of water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Carefully put bagels in the water, boil for a minute or so until they rise, turn over and boil for another minute.Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Queso Fresco
Thursday, March 4, 2010
These are a few of my favorite things
Friday, February 12, 2010
To me, love me
Whip the cream(with an electric mixer, who do you think you are Julia Child?) to soft peaks, then refrigerate.
Combine the chocolate, butter, and espresso in the top of a double boiler over hot water, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool
Once the melted chocolate has cooled slightly, whip the egg whites in a medium bowl until they are foamy and beginning to hold a shape(this is where I messed up, really whip the whites, it takes awhile but gives the mousse its firmness). Sprinkle in the sugar and beat until soft peaks form.
Stir in the yolks to chocolate then add about one-third of the whipped cream. Fold in half the whites just until incorporated, then fold in the remaining whites, and finally the remaining whipped cream.
*Lots of mousse recipes recommend refrigerating it for 8 hours, but I think that if you can wait 8 hours clearly you don't like chocolate that much. Refrigerate it for awhile and then go ahead, its moudding, enjoy!
Cookie Monster
- YUM! you are going to read this recipe because anything that starts with this much butter is guaranteed to be delicious.
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 1 3/4 Cups Flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 12 tbsps unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp table salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- A lot of chocolate(I like chocolate chunks best because they don't melt all the way and add another texture to the cookie)
- Preheat oven to 375
- Mix flour and baking soda in a bowl
- Heat butter in a skillet constantly stirring. After the butter melts you will feel compelled to take it off the flame, resist this urge, the browned butter is what gives these cookies depth. After awhile, the butter will turn brown, frothy and begin to emanate a nutty, molasses smell- now its done.
- Add sugar, salt and vanilla to butter. Don't forget the salt! I'm not the biggest fan of salty-sweet combo but salt is really essential in chocolate chip cookies.
- Add egg and egg yolk, stir, let sit for a bit and then stir some more
- Stir in the flour
- Add chocolate chunks, really as much as you want, go crazy