Pressure Cooker Hardboiled Eggs

4 large eggs on trivet + 1 cup water – steam 6 min / keep warm 1 min / quick release and put in cold water – slightly overdone

Tyler Florence’s Chicken Marsala

Recipe here. Made with chicken tenderloins (which, in my opinion, hold up better to reheating than chicken breasts). No prosciutto because I didn’t have any, and no parsley because I don’t really like it. The marsala I used was sweet marsala and added a nice flavor to the sauce, although dry marsala may have been more appropriate for a savory dish. Possibly due to the lack of prosciutto, the sauce did not thicken up as much as I would have expected, so I would recommend adding a bit of flour or cornstarch if you’re skipping out on the fat. Sadly the marsala flavor was pretty weak in the leftovers, so this is definitely a dish best eaten fresh.

Serious Eats’ Bolognese

While visiting Julie and Sergio in Canada, Sergio put me to work making Serious Eats’ Best Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce. I followed the recipe pretty closely but used 6 sheets of gelatin because Canada (not sure what the sheet-packet equivalency is), didn’t have any chicken livers or sage, and was a little short on parsley. One recipe makes a hefty amount of sauce – enough to feed 4 people for 3-4 days – and even though it was good I’m not sure it was worth the amount of time and effort that went into it. I also found it surprisingly un-tomato-y and thought it could have used at least a small can of tomato paste on top of the pureed whole peeled tomatoes.

Thomas Keller’s Devil’s Food Cake

Julie’s annual chocolate birthday cake!

recipe: devil’s food cake and chocolate cream from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook

I skipped the chocolate glaze which would have made it the full palet d’or in the book. I doubled the cake recipe and baked it in 2 round cake pans (can’t remember if they were 8″ or 9″) instead of a sheet pan. Halving the chocolate cream recipe was just sufficient to thinly frost a 2-layered cake, but the cream was pretty dense so I would incorporate some extra whipped cream to lighten it up. The cake was tasty and very moist (it has a healthy amount of mayonnaise in it, which might sound weird but has no impact on the flavor) and even held up well to refrigeration for a few days. This is a solid cake recipe, but in typical Thomas Keller fashion, definitely requires a stand mixer and the chocolate cream was a pain to make.

Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

cupcake: Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake – I think this adaptation, which looks mostly the same except for a slightly different amount of baking soda and lower baking temp/shorter baking time for cupcakes
frosting: the usual (Savory Sweet Life’s chocolate buttercream)

The cupcake batter was very liquidy, most likely because of the coffee, but baked up fine. I was not a huge fan of the cupcake on its own, which I sampled while they were still warm; however, it tasted pretty good with frosting the next day.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Leftover Chocolate Frosting

I made a tiny batch of 6 cupcakes to use up the chocolate buttercream left over from the last post. I quartered the Taste of Home White Cake recipe as reviewed by Laura’s Sweet Spot in her vanilla cupcake comparison.

Overall, this cupcake was super light and fluffy, almost like a chiffon cake. I liked it a lot but wouldn’t recommend it if you prefer your cupcakes on the cakey/dense side. It was not too sweet which made it perfect with the frosting, but if you plan on eating them without any frosting, increase the amount of sugar and/or vanilla.

Small-Batch Vanilla Cupcakes
Adapted from Taste of Home/Laura’s Sweet Spot
Makes 6 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1/4 stick (1 oz/2 tbsp) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/8 cups sugar
• 1 egg white, room temperature
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/16 tsp salt
• 1/3 cups buttermilk, room temperature (or if you don’t have buttermilk, measure 1/3 tbsp vinegar into a measuring cup and dilute up to 1/3 cup with regular milk)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F and line 6 cups of a regular muffin tin with paper baking cups.
• Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
• Add egg white and beat well.
• Stir in vanilla extract.
• In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk to combine.
• Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter/sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition – add flour in 3 additions total and buttermilk in 2 additions total.
• Distribute the batter evenly among the baking cups. Bake cupcakes for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

cake: Devil’s Food Cake Cockaigne from the Joy of Cooking book
frosting: Savory Sweet Life’s chocolate buttercream

The cake came out looking a little weird. The outside of the cake was a lighter color than the inside of the cake for some reason. If I were to make this recipe again I would use something better than Baker’s unsweetened chocolate. It was saved by the frosting which is my go-to recipe for chocolate buttercream.

Testing brownie recipes

Brownie #1: Best Brownies from Allrecipes (9.14.2014)

Used Valrhona cocoa powder from Surfas which is Dutch-process (according to David Lebovitz, you should use Dutch-process in recipes with baking powder and natural cocoa powder in recipes with baking soda). Made a single batch in an 8×8 pan and skipped the frosting.

Results: This was a super easy one-bowl recipe which didn’t require melting any chocolate. The brownies were fudgy without being overly dense. My labmates seemed to like them, I thought they were pretty good but not the best brownies I’ve ever had. (For the record, my favorite brownie mix is Pillsbury’s Family Size Chocolate Fudge.)

Braised Mexican Beef

Braised Mexican Beef
Adapted from Nom Nom Paleo
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed of large pieces of fat and cut into 1.5-2″ chunks
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (could increase this)
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt (Diamond Crystal brand)
• freshly ground black pepper (eyeballed)
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced (could increase amount or use larger pieces, they seem to have mostly disintegrated)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 4 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (original recipe calls for 6 cloves, which would probably be even better)
• 1/2 cup roasted salsa (I had Trader Joe’s Fire-Roasted Salsa, which had no salt added and tastes pretty meh on its own – I would probably pick a different one next time)
• 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp fish sauce
• chopped cilantro to garnish

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 300°F with the rack located in the lower middle.
• In a large bowl, combine beef, chili powder, cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Mix with your hands to coat the meat evenly.
• Heat oil in an oven-proof dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent. Stir in tomato paste and fry for 30 seconds. Add garlic and cook until fragrant.
• Add seasoned beef, salsa, chicken broth, and fish sauce and combine well. Bring to a boil, then cover pot and transfer to the oven for 3 hours or until beef is tender. Adjust seasonings to taste.
• Fish out the meat into a large serving bowl. Cook the remaining liquid/juices over medium heat until reduced to a thick sauce, then recombine with the meat.
• Serve on warm tortillas with cilantro and any other desired toppings.

This recipe was SO GOOD. For the tortillas, I used Trader Joe’s corn and wheat tortillas which are actually pretty tasty as far as store-bought corn tortillas go (much better than the cheap Guerrero corn tortillas anyway). It might also be good to brown the meat on all sides prior to braising, maybe before sautéing the onions, garlic, and tomato paste to avoid having to dirty an extra pan.

Blueberry Cornmeal Butter Cake

Recipe from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I’m not sure if this was objectively better than SK’s blueberry crumb bars which I’ve previously posted, but my labmates totally devoured this cake. I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and it worked great. It also needed about 10-15 minutes longer in the oven than the recipe stated.

Personally, I expected this to be more like a blueberry cornbread, but the cornmeal flavor didn’t really come through. Perhaps some freeze-dried corn powder à la Christina Tosi/Momofuku Milk Bar…? Also, there was a lot of streusel topping which made the whole thing kind of crumbly – I think you could comfortably halve the amount of streusel (except maybe keep the full amount of butter to keep everything together).