It’s important to note here that we deviated from the traditional Thai recipe and methodology. This is a kid-friendly recipe, which dramatically cuts down on the “hot” and ramps up the peanut. Kids have so many more tastebuds than adults that they taste things more dramatically. Also, traditionally, the chicken is skewered and grilled, with the sauce served on the side, whereas I pan sauteed everything in one pan. We served it on a bed of jasmine rice, which complimented it very nicely.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken (we used breasts, traditional recipe uses thigh)
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder (more or less to taste)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp veggie oil
• 1 sweet onion (we used purple)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 tbsp extra crunchy peanut butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cumin (ground)
• 1 tsp coriander (ground)
• 5 tbsp water
• (fresh lemongrass if you’ve got it…but don’t kill yourself trying to find it if you don’t live near an Asian market.)

Directions:

(If making rice; start it first, it’ll take longer than the rest of the prep.)

Dice your onions, and garlic, then cut your chicken into 1 or 2″ cubes.  (For sanitary reasons, do the chicken last.)

Heat your oil (I used olive) and sweat the onions and garlic.  (Don’t get them brown (caramelized), just soften them up. Remove them with a slotted spoon, and toss in your chicken to brown, stirring as needed to keep them from sticking or burning.

While the chicken is cooking, combine everything else and wisk until smooth.

When the chicken is fully cooked, reduce heat to a simmer.  Add onion mix back to the pan.  Pour on the sauce, heat until bubbly and slightly reduced.

Serve, and sprinkle with chopped fresh lemongrass (if available).

Voilà, you are done! Easy Americanized Chicken Satay.

So, in prep for Halloween, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the little figures that are going to go with the haunted house cake I’m going to bake.

I could use fondant, but it dries really hard, and it doesn’t taste all that great…where as chocolate…well, everything tastes better with chocolate.

I know how to make modeling chocolate with real chocolate, but I was wondering if it was possible to make it with the candy melt disks. Mostly because I have a ton of them, and they come in a wide variety of colors, so that’s a step already eliminated. As it turns out; it works pretty well.

Modeling Chocolate from Candy Melts:

• 7 ounces (200 grams) Candy Melts
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Melt the candy in a large pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, 1 minute /half power, then 2 more bursts of 30 secs at half power, stirring at the end of each heating cycle.
2. Grease your measuring spoon with veggie oil or shortening, so the corn syrup will easily slide off.
3. Stir the candy until smooth and lump free, then add the corn syrup. The candy will start to seize almost instantly, but keep stirring until you’ve incorporated all the syrup. You’ll end up with a big blob of warm candy. It’ll have the texture of a tootsie roll. (Well, a warm tootsie roll.)
4. Put your blob in a freezer safe resealable bag and pop it in the fridge. Once your dough is cold, you can take it out, cut off a piece that you want to work with, and knead it until it’s a workable mass.

It’ll be really hard when you first take it out of the fridge. If you have time to let it warm up a bit, it will be easier to work. You can mold it like it were fondant or marzipan. Here’s some pictures at google on the groovy stuff people are doing with modeling chocolate. Wrapped well, you can store this stuff in the fridge for darn near forever.

If you’d rather use real chocolate; here are the ratios for doing that: (keep in mind that for melting chocolate, you may have better results using a double boiler, bain marie, or chocolate pot…although I’ve done it successfully in the microwave; the idea of nuking chocolate tends to make chocolatiers get the vapors.)

Dark Chocolate Modeling Paste:
7 ounces (200 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup (60 ml) light corn syrup

Semi-Sweet Chocolate Modeling Paste:
7 ounces (200 grams) semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3 1/2 – 4 tablespoons light corn syrup

White Chocolate Modeling Paste:
7 ounces (200 grams) white chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Milk Chocolate Modeling Paste:
7 ounces (200 grams) Milk Chocolate
2 1/2 – 3 tablespoons light corn syrup.

Carrot Bread

This experiment turned out so well!

Ingredients:

• 2.25 tsp dry yeast (1 cake yeast)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3.5 cups bread flour (500 grams)
• .5 pound grated carrots (250 grams)
• 1 tablespoon melted butter (cooled to room temp)

Directions:

Sprinkle the yeast, then the sugar into .5 cup of water and let proof for 10 minutes.  Stir to dissolve.

Mix the flour and the salt in a large bowl.  Make a well in the center and pour in the dissolved yeast, then add carrots, then add butter.  Mix in the flour from the sides of the well.

Add water, as needed to form a moist (sticky) dough.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Flour your hands, and knead for 10 minutes.  This dough is super sticky, and you may need to add a tablespoon of flour now and then to hands and surface, but try to not add very much, to avoid a dense bread. The dough will still be sticky at the end of your kneading time…that’s ok.

Put the dough in a lightly buttered/greased bowl and cover with a linen towel.  Let it rise until doubled in size…about 1.5 hours.  Punch down, and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

Shape the dough into a round loaf and place on either a floured baking tray or a parchment lined baking tray.  Cover with a linen towel and let proof until doubled in size…about 45 minutes.

It should look like this:

Carrot bread dough - 2nd rise

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven (200 degree C).  Steam is optional, but I think it made the crust nicer.  You can add steam either by adding icecubes in a baking pan below the bread, or do what I do, which is to spritz the oven (careful to avoid electrical elements) right after I put the bread in.

Bread should be golden and hollow sounding when tapped underneath.

Cool on an elevated wire rack.

Enjoy!

So, I’ve been working on some new recipes, trying to find the perfect thing for dessert for a big party.  Something that goes with the Sumatra Caviar.  However, the cookies, while wonderful, aren’t the texture I needed.  That said, these are some pretty amazing cookies, so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Ingredients and Preparation instructions behind the cut.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons molasses
1 large egg white
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preparation
Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl, and stir well. Set aside. Place brown sugar, butter, molasses, and egg white in a standing mixer and process until blended. Add dry ingredients to mixer, a half a cup at a time.  Mix until blended, dough will be stiff. Gently press mixture into a ball; wrap in plastic wrap. Chill 2 hours (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 350°.

Shape dough into 40 (3/4-inch) balls. (Or use a #100 scoop)  Place granulated sugar in a bowl. Dip balls in cold water; shake to remove excess moisture. Roll wet balls in sugar. Place 3 inches apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake  for 8 -10 minutes. (See note)  Let sit on sheet for 2 minutes, then remove from pan; let cool on a wire rack.

(Note: I have a professional grade convection oven, and these cookies take about 7 minutes in my oven…I’m estimating that it should take no longer than 10 minutes in a conventional oven, but you may want to keep an eye on the first batch and note the time it takes till they are golden brown and puffy.)

So good, so good you see.  They’re cakey and soft and chewy and wonderful.  Yum.

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh chicken livers, cleaned
• 1 cup milk (aprox)
• 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 cup chopped yellow onions
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons green peppercorns, drained
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon tarragon
• 1/8 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup Cognac or brandy
• Chopped parsley leaves, for garnish
• baguette, pain de mie, toast points, or crackers, accompaniment
• French cornichons, optional accompaniment

Directions

In a bowl, soak the livers in the milk for 2 hours. Drain well.

In a large saute pan or skillet, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken livers, 1 tablespoon of the peppercorns, the bay leaves, thyme, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring, until the livers are browned on the outside and still slightly pink on the inside, about 5 minutes. Add the Cognac and cook until most of the liquid is evaporated and the livers are cooked through but still tender.

Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Discard the bay leaves.

In a food processor, puree the liver mixture. Add the cream cheese in pieces, tarragon, cardamom, cinnamon and allspice, and pulse to blend. Fold in the remaining 1 tablespoon peppercorns and adjust the seasoning, to taste.

Pack the pate into 6 individual ramekins or small molds, about 4 ounces each. Cover with cling film (press the film down firmly on top of the terrine), and refrigerate until firm, at least 6 hours.

To serve, place the ramekins on individual plates. Garnish the tops with parsley and surround with toast points. Serve with cornichons on the side.

I figured as long as I was making them, I’d do an instructable on them.

So, in case anyone else is carb starved and must have easy to make bread, I give you:

How to make traditional baguettes by hand.

Here’s a slideshow of how to do it from my flickr stream.

Quick banana bread from scratch.

Yum!

Fortunately, PMS is not a stranger ’round these parts, so I’m prepared. I’ve got four PMS blends that I keep in the studio for just such an occasion. (I have four because I tend to pick the one that smells best to me on a given day.) These blends work well as massage oils, they can be made into spritzers by switching the carrier oil with witch hazel, they can be put in a room diffuser or worn as perfumes.

PMS Blend One: (This is my fave, and the blend I use in Lunar Garden soap)

• Grapefruit – 4 drops
• Clary Sage – 4 drops
• Ylang Ylang – 4 drops
• Geranium – 5 drops
• Carrier oil – 5 ml (1 tsp)

PMS Blend Two: (Note that bois de rose should only be sourced from sustainable growers, and Lemon can be substituted for Melissa.)

• Bergamot – 4 drops
• Fennel – 3 drops
• Bois de Rose – 4 drops
• Melissa – 3 drops
• Carrier Oil – 5 ml (1 tsp)

PMS Blend Three:

• Bergamot – 6 drops
• Geranium – 6 drops
• Palmarosa – 7 drops
• Carrier Oil – 5 ml (1 tsp)

PMS Blend Four: (I think this one works best in a diffuser or a tart melt, as some people have skin allergies to spicy oils.)

• Lemon – 5 drops
• Chamomile – 3 drops
• Geranium – 6 drops
• Allspice – 3 drops
• Clove – 3 drops
• Carrier oil – 5 ml