Dinner party

Last night we had a handful of people over for dinner (8 including myself) and the menu included:

• Sous vide filet with a blue cheese crumble
• Bacon wrapped asparagus
• Russet potatoes oven roasted in duck fat and thyme with thinly sliced shallot rings.

I'm really happy we didn't have any vegetarians over because I totally didn't realize that the meal was completely vegetarian unfriendly. Oops.

The filet was cooked at 131 for an 1.75 hours and seared with my blowtorch aka my attempt to make sous vide cooking manly.

The asparagus were wrapped in thinly sliced bacon and set in the oven for ... I seriously have no idea how long. Until they looked done? I'm really particular about my bacon and just watch it like a hawk until it's awesome. Because of the potatoes they were in the oven at 500 degrees for a time, then 400 degrees.

I pretty much had nothing to do with the potatoes other than finding the recipe and lending a small helping hand here and there because I had my friend Josh over to help (thanks Josh!). We followed serious eats recipe for ultra crispy potatoes. They were delicious but not as crispy as we hoped, I think that we left them in the boiling water too long.

Oh, and the wine didn't suck at all. 1998 Penfolds Bin 389 and a 2010 Colline Novaresi Barbera (which makes me realize how much more I need/want to learn about Italian wine).

Brown butter banana bread

I love browned butter; everything about it is amazing. I took my family's banana bread recipe (which yields the best banana bread I've ever had) and browned the butter. Side note - when you brown butter it becomes dehydrated... you can counteract this by adding an ice cube. Additionally the ice helps cool the butter to usable temperatures faster.

1 stick of butter - browned
1 1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
1/4 c sour croup
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 ripe bananas - mashed
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the sugar and butter until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, sour cream, and bananas one at a time, blending thoroughly after each addition.

In a separate container, mix together dry ingredients. Add in small batches to the batter, mixing well with each addition.

Pour into greased 9x5x3 loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a toothpick is dry when inserted in and removed. I find that this happens at ~55 minutes.

MOAR COOKIES!

I've continued to hone my cookie recipe and have come to the last stage of development: chocolate. I'll be doing a 4 more batches:

• Trader Joe's chocolate chips
• Barry Callebaut chocolate chips
• Scharffen Berger chocolate chips
• El Ray Bucare chocolate block (hand chopped)

We'll see how they stack up, but for now here's where I've landed in my chocolate chip recipe (oh, and I'm also going to try heating the dough to 80 degrees before incorporating the chocolate, the little chocolate bits should melt into the dough which should look awesome... we'll see):

Ingredients:
7.6 oz semi-sweet chocolate
.6 oz dark chocolate, ground in food processor
2 sticks of butter
10 oz flour
5 oz granulated sugar
5 oz dark brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tbsp kosher salt
2 ice cubes
2 tsp vanilla extract
Sea salt for garnish

Steps:
Brown the butter. Once browned, transfer to a separate metal bowl and whisk in first ice cube until melted. Put in the fridge and allow to cool further

Mix together the flour, salt and baking soda. Don't over mix.

In a stand mixer with the whisk attached mix 1/2 the sugar, vanilla extract, and the two eggs until well beaten, 5 minutes on medium speed. Egg/sugar mixture should come off of the whisk in ribbons.

While that's happening grind the dark chocolate in the stand mixer. The visual effect of having chocolate flakes in the cookie is awesome.

Check in on the browned butter. Depending on how long you took to do the previous steps it could be anywhere from near solid to piping hot. If anything warmer than room temp + a few degrees whisk in the second ice cube until the butter is little warmer than room temp.

Switch the whisk attachment for the paddle and add in the rest of the granulated sugar, browned butter, brown sugar, and flour mixture. Mix until combined with some dry flour still visible, about 15 seconds on low speed. In my stand mixer the bottom tends to not mix as well so every 5 seconds I will stop the mixing and do one or two manual turns of the forming dough so that the stuff on the bottom comes to the top.

Add in the chocolate and mix on low speed for 15 seconds. Again, I will stop it every 5 seconds or so and manually turn the dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, put it in an air tight container and let sit 1-2 days in the fridge. Aging the dough yields excellent results.

Scallops

While walking through my neighborhood market trying to decide what to cook for dinner tonight some scallops caught my eye. I've never made scallops before. Scallops are delicious. Perfect.

I decided that my end dish would be pesto pasta with pan seared scallops (wooo alliteration!). Because I'd never cooked scallops I decided that YouTube would be a good place to start.

The end result:

Now to be honest I selected only the best looking scallops out of the ones I cooked for the photo because it was difficult to get that sear perfect. I think that next time I'll find bigger scallops that don't flop over so easily and so I'll have fewer to manage at a time. That said cooking them in olive oil with salt and pepper was enough to give them an awesome flavor.

Sriracha, oh how I love thee

I've been continuing to toy around with hollandaise sauce to hone my skills and experiment, and tonight I hit paydirt. Broccoli with Sriracha hollandaise. Oh, and the steak was pan seared in browned butter. Yum.

Because I was cooking for myself I made small amount of hollandaise. Recipe:

2 egg yolks

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 stick butter

Salt, pepper, and Sriracha to taste (about 2 solid squeezes)

Eggs Benedict & home made doughnuts.

I've heard many times that hollandaise is notoriously difficult to get right... too cold and your hollandaise is too runny, too hot and the eggs start to scramble Given my affinity for all things brunch it was the perfect thing to tackle next. I watched a several videos, read a bunch of recipes, and even ordered a hand blender to make fool proof hollandaise from the serious eats video.

videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn66JZnA61c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jhGKIkgTcQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWzVV_XrcM

recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/hollandaise-sauce-recipe.html
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/blender-hollandaise-sauce/
http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/buttersauces/r/hollandaise.htm

Before the blender arrived I decided to try making hollondaise the traditional way (mostly to work on my kitchen skills). To my surprise the sauce came out perfectly the first try (okay, maybe not perfectly... it was a bit too lemony, but the consistency was spot on)! Wanting to show off my new skill I invited a couple people over for Brunch the upcoming Sunday (today). A couple turned into 18, and somehow I also got it in my head that I should make fresh doughnuts (having never made doughnuts before in my life). On top of that I had never poached an egg in my life.

Naturally I turned to serious eats for both the egg poaching instructions and the doughnut recipe, both of which turned out phenomenally.

Breakfast menu: overnight french toast (a staple) // eggs benedict // glazed doughnuts // chocolate chip pancakes.

I ended up doing about 6.5 hours of prep work (largely spent poaching eggs because I'm utterly incapable of doing more than 2 at a time). To top that off I also forgot about proofing the doughnuts which caused a backup in the oven that delayed everything and caused a complete clusterfuck in the kitchen in an attempt to catch up. All's well that ends well though - my brunch guests bailed me out by helping with frying the doughnuts, Canadian bacon, and plating.

Side note: 2:00 was too long to fry the doughnuts for... 1:30 - 1:45 per side was sufficient. Also, you'll get more yield (less waste) by just doing doughnut holes. That'll probably be my next move.

Hollondaise:
Ingredients
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick)
Pinch cayenne
Pinch salt

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/hollandaise-sauce-recipe.html?oc=linkback


Doughnuts:

YEAST-RAISED DOUGHNUTS

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About This Recipe

YIELD:	makes 15 doughnuts
ACTIVE TIME:	2 hours
TOTAL TIME:	14 hours
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:	deep fat frying thermometer, round cutters, mixer with dough hook attachment
THIS RECIPE APPEARS IN:	Sweet Technique: How to Make Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/8 cup whole milk, warmed to 90°F
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons (one package) active dry yeast
• 2 whole eggs, beaten, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 quarts frying fat (lard, crisco, or neutral oil)
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 pinch salt

Procedures

1. 1
   In a small bowl, stir to combine the warm milk and sugar. Add the yeast, stir, and allow the mixture to sit for five minutes. It will begin to foam on top. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg and melted butter and set aside. In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine the flour and salt. Add the milk mixture and mix on low speed until the flour is hydrated, then increase the speed to form a dry-looking dough. Lower the speed, add the egg mixture and mix until it is integrated. Then mix the dough on medium-high speed for approximately 10 minutes, stopping to scrape the dough off the hook and edges of the bowl. As it mixes, the dough should make a slapping sound against the edge of the bowl. Once the dough is smooth and very stretchy, you are done mixing. Oil a large bowl with a little vegetable oil and place the dough inside. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight.
2. 2
   The next day, flour a work surface and turn the cold dough out onto it. Flour the top of the dough and press it flat, then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to a uniform 1/2 inch thickness. Flour round cutters and 2 sheet trays lined with plastic or silicone mats. If you do not live in a hot, moist place, preheat the oven to its lowest setting to warm it for proofing, then turn it off. Using the floured cutters or a doughnut cutter, cut out the doughnuts and place them on the prepared tray. Be sure to give them space, as they will expand when proofing. Place them in the warm, moist environment to proof for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are very puffy and fragile to touch.
3. 3
   Prepare your frying oil and glaze setup. Place a large, heavy pot on the stove and rest the thermometer inside. Pour in the oil and set the pot over medium heat. The goal is to get the oil to reach 375°F and it is important to watch the pot at all times to maintain that temperature (and for safety). Set up a cooling rack covered with paper towels next to the stove and get tongs, spiders, chopsticks, or strainers ready (whatever you prefer to turn the doughnuts and remove them from the hot oil). On another burner, warm the milk in a small saucepan set over low heat until the milk begins to steam. Remove it from heat and add the confectioner's sugar, pinch of salt, and vanilla, and whisk until they are smooth. Pour the glaze into a bowl and set the bowl over a small saucepan of water and set aside.
4. 4
   Once the oil has reached 375°F, begin to add the doughnuts, one at a time, until there are three in the pot. Fry the doughnuts for approximately 2 minutes before turning them, and fry for an additional 2 minutes on the other side (if you feel like they are getting too dark, it's okay to turn them earlier). Place the doughnuts on the prepared cooling rack. Break one open to ensure that it is cooked, and if additional time is needed, add the doughnuts back to the oil to finish and add a bit more cooking time for the rest. Fry the rest in similar fashion, and allow all of the doughnuts to cool.
5. 5
   Glazing: Place the pot of water with the bowl of glaze set over it over low heat and stir to bring it back to a gooey liquid. Remove from heat and use your fingers to carefully submerge each of the doughnuts in the glaze. Place the glazed doughnuts on a clean cooling rack to dry. The glaze will become more translucent as it dries. For best flavor, serve immediately.

Chocolate chip cookies

When people ask used to ask me me if I bake my response was a resounding no. I disliked that you can't test and alter the recipe while cooking and greatly preferred the improvisational aspect of cooking.

Now that I'm trying to expand my boundaries I decided to give baking another try, starting with chocolate chip cookies. Every time I've done them in the past (and we're talking 8+ years because I hated baking so much) they end up too crispy, flat, and terrible.

But... if I'm going to revisit baking go big or go home, right? Enter brown butter sea salt nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I decided to do these because Nutella is, in my mind, heaven in food form and because the recipe looked more complicated than your standard cookie. And maybe because I was having friends over for dinner and wanted to impress a girl (dinner menu: smashed avocado and bacon bruschetta // sous vide rack of lamb with mint pesto // oven roasted potatoes // mixed green salad with goat cheese, craisons, walnuts, and a Brianna's blush vinaigrette // peanut butter ice cream // aforementioned cookies). The cookies were the only thing I hadn't made in the past and of course the oven broke. The cookie dough went into the freezer where it was forgotten for several days.

It's hard to describe the sensation I felt when the cookie dough was rediscovered, but it was probably how you would feel if you walked home one day to find that your house was infested with golden retriever puppies. I baked them and had no fewer than 11 cookies in a sitting. They were aweome.

After making a second batch I decided that while incredibly tasty they weren't exactly what I was looking for (I'd say a touch grainy a little too sweet) so I went on my favorite website, Serious Eats, in search of another. Behold the holy grail of cookie articles.

I was compelled to make the recipe at the end of the article, and was stunned at the results. Literally the best cookie I've had in my entire life. I did a blind taste test with both recipes - the Serious Eats recipe won handily.

These cookies (and the article on cookie science) also changed my tune on baking. While you can't alter the recipe part way through, you can change the result by having an understanding of what's chemically going on when you're baking. I like nerd things.

Chewy chocolate chip cookies with crisp edges, a rich, buttery, toffee-like flavor, big chocolate chunks, and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Note: For best results, ingredients should be measured by weight, not volume.

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

Every recipe we publish is tested, tasted, and Serious Eats-approved by our staff. Never miss a recipe again by following @SeriousRecipes on Twitter!

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

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About This Recipe

YIELD:	Makes about 28 cookies
ACTIVE TIME:	30 minutes
TOTAL TIME:	1 day
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:	baking sheet, whisk, rubber spatula, 1 ounce ice cream scoop
THIS RECIPE APPEARS IN:	The Food Lab: The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
RATED:

Ingredients

• 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 standard ice cube (about 2 tablespoons frozen water)
• 10 ounces (about 2 cups) all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
• 5 ounces (about 3/4 cup) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5 ounces (about 1/2 tightly packed cup plus 2 tablespoons) dark brown sugar
• 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, roughly chopped with a knife into 1/2- to 1/4-inch chunks
• Coarse sea salt for ganish

Procedures

1. 1
   Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, gently swirling pan constantly, until particles begin to turn golden brown and butter smells nutty, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and continue swirling the pan until the butter is a rich brown, about 15 seconds longer. Transfer to a medium bowl, whisk in ice cube, transfer to refrigerator, and allow to cool completely, about 20 minutes, whisking occasionally. (Alternatively, whisk over an ice bath to hasten process).
2. 2
   Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Place granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on medium high speed until mixture is pale brownish-yellow and falls off the whisk in thick ribbons when lifted, about 5 minutes.
3. 3
   Fit paddle attachment onto mixer. When brown butter mixture has cooled (it should be just starting to turn opaque again and firm around the edges), Add brown sugar and cooled brown butter to egg mixture in stand mixer. Mix on medium speed to combine, about 15 seconds. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until just barely combined but some dry flour still remains, about 15 seconds. Add chocolate and mix on low until dough comes together, about 15 seconds longer. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate dough at least overnight and up to three days.
4. 4
   When ready to bake, adjust oven racks to upper and lower middle positions and preheat oven to 325°F. Using a 1-ounce ice cream scoop or a spoon, place scoops of cookie dough onto a non-stick or parchment-lined baking sheet. Each ball should measure approximately 3 tablespoons in volume and you should be able to fit 6 to 8 balls on each sheet. Transfer to oven and bake until golden brown around edges but still soft, 13 to 16 minutes, rotating pans back to front and top and bottom half way through baking.
5. 5
   Remove baking sheets from oven. While cookies are still hot, sprinkle very lightly with coarse salt and gently press it down to embed. Let cool for 2 minutes, then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. 6
   Repeat steps 3 and 4 for remaining cookie dough. Allow cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container, plastic bag, or cookie jar at room temperature for up to 5 days.