Food Engineering

GUMBO!!

2010-05-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to upload a post about my gumbo. :D

I am from Louisiana, and gumbo is one of my favorite dishes. We used to make it all the time when I grew up. I learned from the best, and my recipe is a blend between my mom's and dad's gumbos.

Its a great meal for chilly spring days. I also happened to make bread bowls the day before, so it seemed fitting to go ahead and serve the gumbo in bread bowls.

This is for a large 12qt pot batch of gumbo...so use a big pot, or cut back on ingredients

Ingredients:

1 heart celery
2 large yellow onions
2 bell peppers
1/2 stick of margarine or butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 qt Chicken broth
3 bay leafs
1/2 cup dry instant roux mix (or look up recipes for making roux from scratch. I want to try to learn how to make my own.) I use Tony Chachere's from http://www.tonychachere.com/

12 chicken thighs
4 lbs of assorted smoked sausage (andouille is good and spicy, kielbasa works too.)
4 Tbsp salt
lotsa fresh cracked pepper to taste
some other herbs if you want, not really necessary

Instructions:

So Ive been making my own gumbo for 6 years, and every single time I make it, it gets so much better than the last time.

1. The soup base is made up of the celery, bell pepper, and onions.
Dice all of them and sweat them over med heat with the oil and butter for 15 min. This gets them really soft and melded. Add salt here to pull out moisture from the vegetables to start the broth.

2. Once that smells amazing, add 1 qt chicken broth, and more water to fill your pot 3/4 of the way up.

3. Bring to a boil

4. Once boiling, start to mix in the roux powder. Use a whisk and get the soup swirling violently, and sprinkle in the powder slowly. You want everything to dissolve well, and try to avoid clumps forming. Try to reach a deep brown in color. The darker the more flavorful. I shoot for milk chocolate in color.

5. Add the bay leaves.

6. Add 12 chicken thighs. Careful not to splash. Maintain boiling for 15 min to cook chicken.

7. Remove chicken and shred with fingers or forks, its ok to let the cool a bit for handling.

8. Add chicken back to gumbo

9. Slice sausage into rings and add to gumbo.

10. Season with salt and pepper, add cajun spicy seasoning if desired.

11. Bring down to med heat and let simmer for 10min - 1 hour to develop flavors.

12. Its ready to eat!!!!

13. Store covered gumbo pot in fridge over night. It ALWAYS tastes better the next day!!!

Thats pretty much it. Super good, invite friends over to help cook it. Good food good times.

Hang free folks, hang free.

ENJOY!!!

Darin

Mahi Mahi with Edamame

2009-11-22T04:49:00.000-08:00

Been a long time since i last posted a meal. Last night I decided to get back into the swing of cooking. It was awesome.

So I made Mahi Mahi with a lemon soy sauce reduction over rice and edamame.
Amazing flavors working together here.

Jess hung out for just a bit before going out with the girls. haha, she missed a great one. :P

I made a sauce by combining equal parts lemon juice, soy sauce, and a stir fry sauce, then zesting a lime into it.

I pan seared the Mahi Mahi first, and then I tossed it in the oven at 400F to cook further. I used butter and peanut oil in the pan to get nice crisp exterior.

Awesome in the oven shot

I checked the fish for doneness after about 6 minutes in the oven. It was perfect!

As it rested, I put the sauce mix I made into the hot pan to simmer down. It was good but it was missing something. So I rummaged in my fridge and decided to add a splash of Vanilla Soy Milk. It was kinda random, but turned out to be amazing. The creamy sauce was perfect for the fish, and the sweetness really went well with the sour lemon juice. Everything I read about mahi mahi seemed to pair it with a fruity sauce made of mangoes or pineapples. So I figured a sweeter sauce would work.

Here is the final shot. I put the fish over rice and spooned the sauce over it all. I had steamed edamames as a side as well. Delicious!
I need to write these recipes down haha.

I shouldav plated on a different plate, as that gold one looked gross haha.

enjoy!

2009-08-28T12:26:00.001-07:00

been a long time since i posted anything. Never new how time consuming it would be to try and take pictures while cooking. Ill see if i cant start doing that again.

I got home from a week in mexico with Jess the other night. Had an awesome time. Lotsa nice people in mexico.

I start graduate school this coming monday. Back at Drexel for at least 2 more years.

wish me luck heh

over

Challah

2009-03-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

After a disgustingly rainy Saturday, baking seemed in order. Jew girl suggested making challah since she was forced against her will into making bacon the other day, and needed to redeem herself. Since the bacon was oh-so-good, pirate boy consented. While the challah didn't turn out exactly as intended (pirate boy only added in 1 packet of yeast instead of 2), it was still unexpectedly delicious. More dense like a biscuit or scone than traditional challah; but great with some butter and jam.

Ingredients
Challah
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 (1/4 ounce) packages dry yeast
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups warm water (80 - 90)
Glaze
1 egg, beaten

Directions

1. First measure out all your ingredients.

2. Now from the 1/2 of cup sugar take 1 tablespoon of the sugar & combine it with the yeast(2 packets!) & warm water (you know you have the right temperature of warm water when it's the same temperature as the inside of your wrist).

3. I let my mixer bowl which is metal (kitchen aid) sit in a hot water bath while the yeast dissolves, 10 minutes.

4. After the yeast has dissolved (it's nice & foamy) add to it the rest of the sugar, salt & 3 1/2 cups flour.

5. Mix well (I use the bread hook).

6. Add egg (already beaten) & oil.

7. Slowly start mixing in most of the remaining 3 1/2 cups of flour.

8. The dough will become quite thick.

9. When the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, turn it onto a floured surface& knead for approximately 10 minute.

10. Add only enough additional flour to make dough manageable.

11. Knead until dough has acquired a "life of its own"; it should be smooth & elastic, springing back when pressed lightly with your fingertip.

12. Place dough into a large oiled bowl turning the dough once so its oiled on all sides.

13. Cover with a damp towel & let rise in a warm place for 2 hours, punching down in 4-5 places every 20 minutes.

14. Make Macaroni and Cheese in the meantime.

15. After the 2 hours, turn your dough onto your working surface.

16. Now comes the forming part.

17. We made one large braid and a bunch of smaller knots to bring to a house warming party. I also made a T-Rex.

18. Prepare your baking sheet lining it with parchment paper.

19. Preheat oven to 375°F.

20. Place braid and knots on baking sheet.

21. Now let the challah rise for 1/2 an hour.

22. After the challah has risen glaze with beaten egg & add mohn or sesame if you wish.

23. Almost done!

24. Put in preheated oven & let bake for exactly 25 minutes!

25. Turn off oven & leave Challahs in for exactly another 10 minutes!

26. Remove from oven.

27. Enjoy!

So because I left out the second yeast packet, these little rolls were very dense and did not rise. However, the flavor was great, and they tasted wonderful.

http://www.recipezaar.com/Famous-Challah-90765

French Toast and Bacon

2009-03-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

French toast is quite possibly one of the easiest breakfast foods to make (pretty difficult to screw up)and rather impressive.

Start with cracking eggs into a bowl and rapidly whisking. Put a dollop of olive oil into a skillet and bring to heat. Take the bread and coat with the egg mixture, making sure to remove the excess with your hands. After placing on the heat, sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Turn over. Add syrup and enjoy!

The Jew also cooked some bacon :-) But Shhh, please don't tell her mom

Midnight delight

2009-03-23T20:56:00.001-07:00

What happens when you make a girl drive to Jersey to see 'I love you, Man', keep her waiting, then not get popcorn... a midnight dinner of course! After schlepping back from the dirty jerz (sidenote: did you know that they changed the toll to 4$?!) and realizing there was a lack of groceries in the fridge, starvation and creativity kicked in.

So what do you get with frozen chicken and veggies, stir fry and soy sauces and risotto - one hell of a meal!

First you cook the chicken. Let the chicken sit for 6 minutes on each side to ensure through cookage. Season with salt, pepper, basil, garlic powder, and a slash of chicken broth.
Before:

After:

Look how delicious and awesome the browning of the skin is.

Next we started making risotto.

First we sauteed onions with the dry risotto.

By adding small amounts of chicken broth during cooking the risotto becomes very creamy and delicious.

We threw in frozen veggies to round out the flavor.

Jess was awesome, and put in the soy and stir fry sauce because she was craving Chinese food yet too lazy to order it.

Best shit ever

Soft pretzels with flax meal

2009-03-03T20:47:00.001-08:00

I am a huge fan of soft pretzels. Hell, most Tuesday nights at midnight I even go on a bike ride through center city to get fresh hot soft pretzels. I am also a fan of Alton Brown. He had a show on soft pretzels so I Just had to try them.

Here is a link to the Alton Brown Recipe from Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe/index.html

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 package active dry yeast
22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil for pan
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Pretzel salt

"Alton Brown's Soft Pretzel Recipe" http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe/index.html

It is such a simple recipe. Flour, water, yeast, butter, salt, and sugar. This time I added a twist, flax seed meal. Flax seed is supposedly very healthy for you, and I like the nutty flavor it adds to things. Seemed to be a good idea.

Using a stand mixer makes this recipe super easy. I like to mix the dough in the machine but I prefer to knead by hand as it is a great stress reliever.

Here is my dough in the mixer.

Letting the dough rise for 50 minutes.

Doubled in size.

After rising, I punch down the dough and break it into pieces. Alton suggests 8 pieces.

A cool thing about baking your own bread, you can put it in whatever shape you want. My friend Annamae wants an 'A' pretzel :D. I also wanted to try out a pretzel bun for my friend Jess. She wanted to know if I could make them.

The trick to getting a proper brown color on your pretzels is to toss them into a boiling solution of water and Baking Soda, also known as Sodium Bicarbonate. More traditional recipes call for lye, which has a pH of 13-14. The alkaline solution is what starts to break down the gluten in the dough and helps form a crispier brown crust during baking. But for those of us who don't want to mess with caustic materials, baking soda with its pH of 9 is sufficient.

Here is a pretzel in the boiling solution. 30 seconds should do it.

Place the pretzels on the baking sheet and in they go! 12-14 minutes.

And here they are, delicious Flax Meal Pretzels!

Matt made a cheese filled pretzel log, and it was my favorite of this batch. I will definitely make more of those next time.

Om nom nom so goood.

I like mine with spicy mustard :D. Enjoy! These turned out so well. I can't wait to make a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with the pretzel bun.

The flax meal does alter the flavor some, but in a good way. It made the pretzels more rustic. I recommend trying these!

Ive taken up baking

2009-03-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

Being a materials engineer has its ups and downs. I'm sick of thermodynamics and ceramics processing. So Ive decided to spend more of my time making food. I love food. Its probably the most important part of my life, making and enjoying good food. I really enjoy cooking meals for other people and usually getting approval. Ive taken up baking, and its been very enjoyable thus far. Expect good things!