Category Archives: West

Tasty Madeleines

Posted on September 22, 2009 | 8 Comments

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Hello Everyone! Here is a classy yet delicious snack that you can enjoy with a good ol’ cup of tea/coffee–madelines! A few years ago, H went on a trip to Paris and returned with a new love for great parisian pastries. This past weekend, we went out and purchased a madeleine pan and got to work. After many failed attempts, (we must have made at least 5 batches!) we are pretty satisfied with what we have come up with. :) So, what do you say? Let’s give it a try!

What You Need:

  • Madeleine pan – there are mini size ones as well as the regular large size ones. We used a mini pan.
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tablespoon honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • powder sugar for dusting (optional)

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What to Do:

First off, combine the eggs and sugar and whip till smooth. It will be easier to use an electric mixer.

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Next, add in the salt, honey, and vanilla.

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Add baking powder into a separate bowl. Sift flour into the bowl as well. Using a rubber spatula, add the mixture into increments and mix until all is incorporated and smooth.

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Melt the butter and add into the batter. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven at 375 F. Generously grease the madeleine pan. You want the cookies to come out in one piece with the shell like design, so yes..grease it up!

Now, is the somewhat tricky part. In order to fill the pan, we found it easiest to use a makeshift pastry bag. We tried to fill it up by just spooning the batter onto the pan, but it was difficult to do. Since we did not have a pastry bag handy, we just used a regular ziploc bag and filled it with batter. We then cut a small corner of the bag off, and wa la–makeshift pastry bag.

It is important to not to overfill the molds! We filled ours to the top initially and ended up with huge hunchback looking madeleines. We later found out that it is best to fill it up a little more than 1/2 way:

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Once you have filled the pans, tap the pan onto a working surface to roughly distribute the batter into the molds. Then, slip it into the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes…it may take longer depending on the oven that you have. When using our oven, 10 minutes was too long, so keep watch around the 8 minute mark to figure out how long is long enough. These cookies are done once the edges are golden brown.

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Now, if you want to make these cookies a little more decadent, sprinkle on some powdered sugar!

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ENJOY! :) This recipe makes about 30 mini madeleines.

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Tasty Burgers – BBQ & A Twist on Classic

Posted on July 5, 2009 | 8 Comments

Happy 4th of July!!!

Tasty BBQ Burger

Tasty BBQ Burger

Tasty Twist on Classic Burger

Tasty Twist on Classic Burger

Hello! Sorry for the delay, we meant to upload these yummy  recipes for the 4th of July.  However, our busy schedules got the  best of us again!  Today, we’ll show you how to make a classic American dish: burgers!!! Here, we did our burgers two ways.  First we have a classic BBQ burger with cheese, bacon, grilled onions, coleslaw, and a yummy sauce.  Next we have a very traditional burger, our take on in-n-out and upscale bar american food with Parmesan crisp, lettuce, tomato, onions, and a tasty spread. Both of them are extremely delicious and great ways to spruce up the traditional burger. ENJOY!

Burger Recipe

What You Need…about 6-8 servings

  • 1 lb Beef Chuck (at least 10% fat)
  • 1lb Beef Sirloin  (20% fat recommended)
  • Salt/Pepper
  • 4 slices of bacon cut into small slices
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 whole onion
  • hamburger buns (we used onion buns)
  • cheddar cheese (we have a block pictured below, but sliced will be best)

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What to Do:

Prep Work: slice onions and dice garlic. Saute both until both are caramelized and brown. Also, saute the bacon slices until crisp. Save the bacon fat.

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Mix your meats in a large mixing bowl. Shape/Mold your burger to fit your bun, thickness is up to you. Make sure however that the burger is wider than your bun because the meat will shrink in size once you cook the meat.

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Season with salt/pepper on both sides before cooking (like steak).  Make sure to indent the center of the meat so that when cooking, the edges of the meat will not rise to be higher than than the center.

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In a pan, add 1 part canola or vegetable oil and 1 part bacon fat. Sear one side of the burger for 1 minute. Flip and sear 2nd side for 3 minutes. Base the burger with the grease in the pan. Flip burger over and cook for 2 more minutes for a medium-rare to  medium (perfect).

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Assembly for BBQ Burger

Extra things you will need: bbq sauce, coleslaw

We want cheddar cheese to be melted onto the meat. Right before the meat was about done, we placed a slice of cheese on top of the meat so that the cheese would melt. For the BBQ burger, we made a special BBQ sauce. It takes about 20 minutes to make this sauce, so it would be wise to prepare this sauce during your prep work. If you don’t want to make a sauce, feel free to use a bbq sauce from a bottle. :)

BBQ Sauce: 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup worchestire sauce, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup molasses, 1/4  cup water, 1/4 cup brown sugar, generous sprinkles of onion powder, garlic powder and ground mustard. Mix all together and bring to boil. Let simmer for 20 minutes or until sauce thickens.

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When ready, assemble the burger: Bun–> meat–> cheese–>grilled onions–>bacon crisps–>bbq sauce–> coleslaw–>bun !!!

We made a coleslaw the week before using a recipe we got from a soul food book. We love it! If you would like the recipe, please give us a message and we will gladly give it to you.

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Assembly for Twist on Classic

Extra things you will need: grated parmesan, tasty sauce, tomato slices, arugula

Instead of regular slice of cheese, we made a parmesan crisp. To make one quick and easy, heat up a fry pan and grab a good handful of the grated cheese and sprinkle onto pan so that you make a round thin layer of cheese on the pan. Heat for about 2 minutes, flip and heat another 2 minutes.

For the special sauce, we made a quick thousand island like sauce –our hommage to the famous animal style sauce from in-n-out. :)

Sauce recipe: mix 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup mayo, 1 tablespoon dijon mustard, and 1-1 1/2 tablespoon of relish.

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assemble like this: bun–> sauce–>meat–> parmesan crisp–>arugula –> tomato slice–> sauce–>bun

Note: it doesn’t really matter how you assemble the burger…this is just a guide on how we did it. :)

ENJOY!

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Tasty Western Style Short Ribs

Posted on March 19, 2009 | 1 Comment

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It’s update time!  This past weekend, we were inspired to create some kind of tasty food to last us throughout the week.  Since both of us really love meat and K especially loves ribs, we decided to try short ribs western style!  A few months ago, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the now defunct Gordon Ramsey restaurant at the  London. K had the braised ox cheeks there which H thought were braised short ribs.  Our discussion of this inspired us to make some short ribs at home!

  • Beef Short Ribs (bone-in is best) 2.5-4 lbs
  • Carrots 2 – 3 stalks
  • Beef Broth -3 cans or 1 box from trader joes
  • Red Wine (we used Merlot) – 1/2 bottle
  • Thyme – big pinch
  • Garlic – 6-10 cloves
  • Salt/Pepper
  • Optional: balsamic vinegar

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What to Do

First begin by searing the short ribs meat side down. Make sure to season your beef well with salt/pepper. You really need to get a good sear on any type of braised meat to seal in the flavors of the meat.

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Meanwhile, rough chop your onions and root vegetables into decently sized pieces

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When all the meat is brown, take them out and set them aside.  Now, drain some excess oil off of the pan and now we can start browning our onions and carrots.  A lot of short rib recipes call for celery too but we just didn’t have any around the house at the time.  We would recommend it though.

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Next, add in about half the bottle of red wine into the pot and allow to come to boil.

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Now is a good time to add your thyme!  A big pinch full is good at this point along with a good pinch of salt and pepper.

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We want the red wine to reduce about 1/3 – 1/2 before adding in the beef broth.  After adding the beef broth, bring the entire mixture to a boil again and allow to reduce for 8-10 minutes.

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Our pot wasn’t big enough to handle all our meat so we had to transfer everything to a baking dish.  Of course if you have a big dutch oven, you should definitely add your meat back into the pot and then chuck the whole thing in the oven to cook.  Using the baking dish method, make sure to cover the baking dish very tightly with aluminum foil before we putting it into the oven.  Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees C and then bake your dish for a good 2-3 hours.

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*the picture above contains some beef shank we had in the fridge.  We recommend only using short ribs in this braising recipe, however the beef shank came out pretty tender and tasty as well.

After 2-3 hours of bake time, your short ribs are done.  They should be literally falling off the bone.  A good tip is to make this dish the day before you would like to serve it.  The reason behind this is because the sauce that is left over from cooking tends to be really full of oil & fat.   What’s best is to remove the short ribs after they are down and stick the liquid mixture into a bowl and allow to cool completely overnight in the refrigerator.   In the morning, you can scoop out the top layer of fat that will accumulate so that your sauce is nicer and slightly more healthy.
When the time comes to eat, boil the sauce mixture with the short ribs added back in.  If the sauce is a little dry, you should add additional beef broth.  When everything comes to boil, serve up some home-made mashed potatoes and top it with your ribs and a  ladle of your sauce reduction.

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Enjoy!

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