On National Ice Cream Day(7/19/2010)

National Ice Cream Day - 3rd Sunday in July
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed July as National Ice Cream Month. He also established National Ice Cream Day as the third Sunday in the month.
( This is official , not something businessmen made up for selling more ice cream)

On the national ice cream day, we had a ' Fire and Ice' event.
Fire: Hot Pot
Location: Little Q Hot Pot
Address:196 Massachusetts Ave Arlington, MA 02474
Review: Very tiny serving size, be prepared to ask for multi serves if for a big group
Conclusion: In this country, I have to make my own hot pot party 
(There are several things that I have to make own in this country:
Korean BBQ, Bibimbamp, hot pot, chicken noodle soup and most of other kinds of soup..)

Ice (I): Toscanini's 

Location: Central square

We ordered 13 flavors of ice cream, unfortunately, they change the menu regularly, so some cool flavors got missed , like the spicy one and tea flavor( not an ordinary green tea one), I encourage everyone to try the spicy ice cream if you have a chance. It's very good balanced, if you are a fan of spicy mexican chocolate, you would love this one

right: maple cayenne chip( spicy)

Left: earl  grey(tea!)

Our ice cream is under prepared

Total 13 flavors, labeled

Beyond imagination, but I actually don't think it's a good combination, I couldn't taste fig very much

I would like to see salty chocolate ice cream with almond, as chocolate with sea salt

These two have very alike flavor, the hazelnut one seemed to have more blacksesame flavor than blacksesame ice cream,  whatever, we love it's nutty!

Christina's has a burnt sugar one, that is something either you love or hate

But this one, after the  first bite, it was nothing but 'burnt', we even doubted they forgot to put sugar in it

But later, some of us got to like it.

Some impressive but lack of pictures: 

lavender (****): very intense, but it didn't remind me lavender at the first place without looking at the label

Blueberry pancake: yes, that was pancake!(*****)

Ice(II): Christina's 

Location: Iman square

I thought we would have more flavors in Christina', but it ended up Toscanini has more exotic flavors.

But still, highly recommend green tea and red bean here, a while ago, they had rose flavor, but gone already

Total seven flavors

Sweet corn! 

I would like to follow up with more ice cream tasting report

Ice cream is sweet, cool, make you feel good, 

it's also Legendary !

Le Cordon Bleu open house and french cooking demo

I went to the open house in Le Cordon Bleu Boston , I got to visit the classrooms----actually kitchens, and had an French cooking demonstration. I know it's a place that I am supposed to be in, I am always most happy cooking in the kitchen, there were hundreds of nice gears and lots of fresh ingredients, I wouldn't notice how time passed if I was cooking or experimenting there. But I can't make myself move on to become a student here  and change my whole life. At least now, it's not a right time for me. Maybe I just can 'love cooking with abandon', but I think I can 'cook with abandon', and I am not afraid to claim that.

Those are the 'classrooms'

This is the restaurant 'Technique(tek-neek)' for students, they will do cooking, serving and all the other kinds things in real world restaurants there. I got to see the menu, which is very tempting French cuisine , but with a good deal

This is the kit box that every student will get one on their first day. Then they only need to carry this whenever they go to school, no laptop please!

After the tour, there was a French cooking demo, Chef demostarted salmon two ways for us: poached and sauté with vegetable(fennel, zucchini , carrot, tomato ragu and sweet corn puree)

The two big screens are showing what is going on on the cooking table, this is also how it works when they teach

1. Make sweet corn puree

chef said, using a larger flat container, so the sweet corn will only be in the container but not everywhere

Also, using the back of the knife to do it another time, to get the sweet pulps. Chef also revealed a secrete about food, the real flavor is always in an uneatable parts, which is the best for making stock

So we saved the sticks for corn stock( some onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaves)

Next step is to saute the sweet corns. Heat pan with butter,  instead of throw sweet corns into the pan directly, Chef used a technique here, removed the pan from the stovetop, then added the sweet corns , it will prevent the corns from being browned. Then added corn stock, let it cook for 10 mins until fully cooked, used a blender to make puree

this is the sweet corns in corn stock

2. Making ragout, this is French ragout (main-dish stew), different from Italian tomato sauce ragu. Heat pan and butter, put all the ingredients into the pan, add fish stock and let it simmer. Chef pre-boiled the carrot, because it usually takes long for carrots to be cooked, and if you want to get fully cooked carrots by saute, it will lose the bright color, so the best way is to pre-boil them

When ragout was simmering, Chef showed us how to dice tomato, skinless, seedless ones. It involves cutting a cross on the top of the tomato, boiling it for 5 seconds, then remove the skin.

For me, it's a kind of waste, oh well, this is how fine dining works. 

At the end, Chef added the parsley butter, he made a day ahead, so the ragout turns into vivid green

3. Prepare salmon. 

For poached salmon. we need to remove the skin, Chef said: "cut into the skin 1 inch, pinch it, flip, take the skin off'.........but I really had a hard time doing this. > <'

Season the fillets and let them rest a few minutes, pat VERY VERY DRY. Don't put the salmon in to the pan until the pan is VERY VERY HOT(  my problem is, my nonstick griddle can never be very hot :(( , time to get new gears!)

seasoning salmon, always in a higher position to season more evenly

poached salmon in fish stock(lower left), saute salmon( upper, right)

this is something new: after skin side is done, flip it, pour out the oil from the pan, then add some butter into it

splash butter onto salmon

4. Plating: add ragout, add corn puree in the center, put the fillet on

Really nice , real, really ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now my turn:

Making parsley butter: picked the leaves and boil them about 5 seconds, immediately put them into ice water. using a blender to make puree, whipped into softened butter.

For some reason I didn't get very fine parsley puree, I don't know if I should blame my awkward blender or my skills. 

I ended up with something like this, and this basically predicts the failure of my ragout

get corns and make stock

refining the puree

diced tomato

you can tell from the pattern on the skin, I used griddle pan, also I think I need a cast iron pan to get that perfect crust. 

It's easy to tell the differences between mine and the Chef's . A long way to go, immature chef Gaogao, well, I will be back to make them again1!

FIFA party--challenging KFC fried chicken

No one thinks fried chicken is healthy, but it's just so great, for some people, it's something they have to eat regularly. You can never imagine how awesome KFC is in China, it's something we miss back at home.
It's so hard for me to make it without a deep fry thermometer, well we eventually made it , left a house of smoke...

This is buttermilked fried chicken. Buttermilk makes wonderful battery by those magical chemical reactions. Everything sounds more tempting after put ' buttermilked' before it: buttermilked pancake, buttermilked waffle, buttermilked onion ring... buttermilked fried chicken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttermilk

I have read /watched bout buttermilked fried many times, theoretically:
1.Brine: soaked the chicken in season buttermilk overnight: 2cup buttermilk with 2Tbs kosher salt( 1Tbs table salt)
2. pat chicken dry: chicken +seasoned flour +buttermilk+seasoned flour: press to let more flour stick on the chicken
3.let chicken sit 0.5-1hr before deep fried
4. 375F
Besides those, we also put chicken in 425F oven to 'raise-up' the skin
A lot of effort and smoke,  not too bad as a firstime work . But after we checked out KFC product, got to know:
1. more salt rate in brine, (KFC is a little bit salty for me though), I will adjust to 1.5 Tbs salt with 2cup buttermilk
2.more layers, at least three to achieve the crispiness.
well, ours couldn't be counted as 'crispy' but ok to be as 'original' ones, I guess.

I am just so not good at fried food, my onion rings failed 3rd times, things getting frustrating, but other food seemed very welcomed.

Cheese puffy:
it's made from "pâte a choux doug", like make roux first(cooked), then add egg and other stuffs( usually cheese here) , then bake or deep fried.
more information: http://blog.ruhlman.com/2009/01/pate-a-choux.html
If baked, high temperature to form the shape, then medium to bake inside

buttermiked fried chicken with cheese puffy

Baked almond  crusted goat cheese, strawberries with fig +blueberry balsamic syrup

Everything in this salad is cooperated perfectly, baked goat cheese is pretty simple, as you bake crusted fish or chicken, layers are: cheese+flour+washed eggs+almond, 350F baked about 10min, check them frequently. The dressing is I mixed my secrete fig balsamic syrup with blueberry syrup( which made in Acadia :P

cucumber with beet hummus  , goat cheese, mint/basil

Beets hummus : I like beets, impressed by its stunning color( like red velvet cake, color is really something important in food). It is just to replace chickpea with baked beets in hummus,recipe from simply recipe:

• 1/2 pound beets (about 4 medium sized beets), scrubbed clean, cooked, peeled, and cubed*
• 2 Tbsp tahini sesame seed paste
• 5 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 small clove garlic, chopped
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp lemon zest (zest from approx. 2 lemons)
• Generous pinch of sea salt or Kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper to taste

this is the family bucket we got on the same day for a night snack.... It's a long long way to go to make perfect fried chicken~~~~

made in KFC

Red Cake Addiction

"A Red velvet cake is...... It is usually prepared as a layer cake somewhere between chocolate and vanilla in flavor, topped with a creamy white icing. Common ingredients are buttermilk, butter, flour, cocoa, and red food coloring or beetroot; although beetroot is traditionally used, many prefer food coloring since it is seen as more appealing. The amount of cocoa used varies in different recipes. A typical frosting is a butter roux (also known as a cooked flour frosting). Cream cheese or buttercream frostings are also used.^[1]"

^{I had never made cupcake before,this is where I started..... I made three times and eventually got myself comfortable with making those red cake. Because I had so much unpleasant failure with bakery in the  early years, I am always afraid of bakery, but now, it seems it's still promising to get a decent grade for pastry if I go to culinary school}

First time（ipone picture)--very awkward 

Second time

I ran out of red color, then used orange instead, because it has cocoa powder, so it's not a very bright orange color. I know some people made green /blue velvet cake,but I got told they never look like food, few people want to eat a blue/green monster. Relieved I picked the right color

The last time, the  formal ones

aware I shot some cream cheese icing into the cake, 

The recipe , I  basically refer to this
http://www.crumblycookie.net/2009/02/12/red-velvet-cake-comparison/
I think she must be more into the red cake than I am
oh, well, glad and grateful for her work.
the keys are:
1. buttermilk
2. half vegetable oil+half butter, vegetable oil can make your cake more moisture
    the replacing rate is 4:5 = vegetable oil: butter
3. salt, important, you can't taste it, but there will be something wrong if no salt
4. never over baked, when the toothpick is totally dry after pulled out of cake, it's too late, you will  end up a dry cake. so move them out of muffin pan when there is still some battery left on toothpicks
5. always sift flour and cocoa powder before mixing them 




For cream cheese icing, I referred to one from  http://www.joyofbaking.com/RedVelvetCake.html
and it rocks, I love it more than all the other from stores. I used 16oz cream cheese instead of 8oz cream cheese and 8oz mascarpone. but I believe it will be amazing with fancy mascarpone

1 1/2 (360 ml) cups heavy whipping cream

1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature

1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) tub of Mascarpone cheese, room temperature

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup (115 grams) confectioners' (icing or powdered) sugar, sifted

Boston red velvet cake places::
For making the best red velvet cake, I have visited a bunch of bakery , and it seems Mike's pastry make the best one so far. But I will keep trying, still too early to conclude

Danish , Medford:  red velvet cake with pretty decoration , but not real cream cheese topping

Sweet @ Harward sq: Fancy cake, not very impressive though

Lulu @ North end:  good deal($2.5), cream cheese topping, OK

Mike's @North end:  Incredible moisture, they must put some secrete ingredient in it!

I read some article, saying using honey, which can absorb the water from the air, so no worry about dry out your cake when they are in the boxes

I will try it some day

some places have red velvet cupcake:

kick ass @Davis sq(easy to get sold out on Sat nights, the daily cake for Saturday is red velvet cake) 

Brew awakeness  , Hingham  (sold out on the Sunday I was there)