Chocolate Ice Cream

In my last post, I showed you how I make Vanilla Ice Cream.  In this post, I give you my recipe for Chocolate Ice Cream.  It seems that my friend Megan wants to make Chocolate Ice Cream first.  So Megan, this one's for you.


Anyway, the main principles I discussed in my Vanilla Ice Cream post apply to Chocolate Ice Cream as well.  The key difference between the two recipes is of course the flavoring used.  In this recipe we will be using cocoa powder to create an intense chocolate flavor.  As always, the quality of the ingredients that you use account for the quality of the final product.  But that is why you are a home cook in the first place: you want to make a high quality product that tastes great.  


Back to cocoa powder.  As I am sure you are aware, there are a lot of different kinds of cocoa powder out there and this is where the fun comes in.  Remember excellent cocoa powder = excellent chocolate ice cream.  You could experiment with different kinds of cocoa powder and see what kind of flavor your ice cream has.  An excellent place to buy cocoa powder is www.chocosphere.com.  I use Callebaut Belgian Cocoa Powder 22-24% Fat Content.  I had to buy a 1 kilogram (kg) bag which is equivalent to 2.2 pounds (lbs).  I know its a lot, but there are so many things you can do with cocoa powder that it is well worth buying in this quantity.  The Chocosphere people are wonderful.  They have a good website and lots of different types of chocolate for sale from a wide variety of manufacturers.  Don't hesitate to call them as they are very helpful.  Highly Recommended!  (P.S.: They have lots of different kinds of chocolate chips for cookies too!!!)



Now as my cocoa powder is labeled as "Belgian" I believe that is has undergone the "dutching" process.  Native cocoa powder is acidic and in the dutching process, base is added to neutralize the acidity.  Although this sounds a bit chemical, there's nothing wrong with this.  (Breathing is chemical too by the way.  If it wasn't, you wouldn't be reading this)  The dutching process enhances the flavor of the chocolate.  I believe that Cooks Illustrated did an article on this a few months ago.  Check them out, they are an authoritative source on many topics.


Now on to the recipe.  As you may have noticed, in this recipe I only use 1 egg yolk.  Testing showed me that I only needed one.  Also, after the ice cream base cools in the refrigerator, you will need to stir the mix before you pour it in the ice cream maker because some of the chocolate solids will settle out.  


In the recipe, I specify using 3 ounces of cocoa powder.  In order to measure this out you will need a scale.  I highly recommend buying yourself a good scale.  This is one of those kitchen gadgets that is worth every penny and let me emphasize that I add gadgets to my kitchen very sparingly. You won't find any "strawberry hullers" in my gadget drawer.



Why should you buy a scale?  Recipes normally use volumetric measurements like cups and teaspoons to measure out ingredients.  Volumetric measurement of solid ingredients can be highly variable.  This is due to the "compressibility" of the powders being measured.  The compressibility is the difference between the tap density and bulk density of the powders.  For example, table sugar and table salt have a low compressibility because the flowability of the powders is so good.  Flour on the other hand has a big difference between the tap and bulk density.  Thus many recipes recommend sifting the flour before hand so as to achieve uniform control over the amount of flour being used in the recipe.  Too much or too little flour can mean a failed baked good.  Weighing ingredients takes all of the guess work out of the recipe.  So by all means, buy a good scale for your kitchen and you won't regret the expenditure.  When you do buy your scale pay attention to the overall capacity of the scale.  It's sensitivity (ability to reliably measure small quantities) depends on the ultimate capacity of the scale.  For example, you don't want to measure a 1 pound quantity on a bathroom scale which can measure up to 300 pounds.  Your measurement will have too much error in it.  So get your self a cooking scale or food/diet scale which has an upper range of say 2 -3 pounds.  You may also want a scale with a larger capacity, say 10 pounds as well.  Take good care of your scale and it will last you a long time.



Since you might not have a scale handy, I estimated that 2/3 of a cup of cocoa powder should weigh three ounces.  But of course, I did not "pack" the cocoa into my measuring cup and if you use a different brand of cocoa powder you may need more or less of it.  See why you should buy a scale?  Now at last the recipe is below....

Amount	Ingredient
3 cups	Heavy Cream
1	Egg Yolks
3 oz (or 2/3 cup)	Cocoa Powder
2/3 cups	Sugar
Pinch	Kosher Salt

Directions

1. 1.  Put the cream, cocoa powder and egg yolk in a blender.

2. 2. Blend the cream, cocoa powder and egg yolk together at a medium speed for 15 seconds.

3. 3.  Put the sugar and salt in a sauce pan.

4. 4.  Add the cream/cocoa/egg mixture to the sauce pan with stirring.

5. 5.  Heat the mixture in the sauce pan with continuous stirring over medium heat until a    thermometer registers 175 F.

6. 6.  Remove the saucepan from the heat and pass the ice cream base through a sieve.

7. 7.  Put the ice cream base in the refrigerator and chill it completely.

8. 8.  When the ice cream base has been chilled, set up the Kitchen Aid mixer insert and turn on the mixer.

9. 9.  Add the chilled ice cream base to the Kitchen Aid insert and mix for 17 ½ minutes.

1110.  Stop the mixer and transfer the ice cream to a plastic container and freeze overnight.

1111. Enjoy eating your excellent homemade ice cream.

Vanilla Ice Cream

So, Megan got a Kitchen Aid mixer last year for Christmas. This year she got the ice cream maker insert for her mixer. Thus, Megan is in need of a good ice cream recipe which is where yours truly comes in. I got my Kitchen Aid insert back in the Summer and have been working on perfecting my ice cream making. There are actually two important parts to the recipe: the formula and the process (Formula + Process = Product). So let’s get down to brass tacks and discuss the important elements of the recipe.

The first critical element is the cream itself. Here the ice cream formulator has a good deal of discretion. The ultimate formulation uses all heavy cream which makes the richest ice cream since it contains about 30% butterfat. If you were to use all light cream the butterfat content would be about 18%. The recipe calls for three cups of cream. Thus you can mix different types of cream together and get different butterfat levels and degrees of richness.

Just for fun, next time you are in the grocery store check out the fat content of the various types of commercial ice cream. Once you have done that, look at the product descriptions on the cartons. Many will declaim their “rich and creamy taste” despite having absurdly low fat content. You will find absolutely no correlation between the claims on the label with the fat content. The only way to produce a “rich and creamy taste” with low fat content is with chemical additives to modify the organoleptic properties of the ice cream. Which is why you have decided to make your own ice cream in the first place: you’re tired of being hosed.

The next critical element is the addition of egg yolk. So why did I add egg yolk? They reduce the prominence of ice crystals in the ice cream during storage. There is a fair amount of water in heavy cream. The water wants to separate from the fat and crystallize out. The commercial ice cream makers circumvent this problem by adding natural or semi-synthetic gums to the ice creams. Examples of these are guar gum or cellulose gum. These gums also help product the “rich and creamy taste” we talked about earlier.

We are not adding gums to our ice cream; however we do want to minimize the size and number of ice crystals in our ice cream. This is where egg yolks come in. Egg yolks contain lecithin which is a natural emulsifier. (Egg yolks are the heart of mayonnaise which emulsify the oil and water together) Thus I am using the lecithin to emulsify the fat and the water in the cream in the recipe. When you buy cream from the grocery store and pour it out it appears to be a uniform mixture. This is because it has been homogenized. Homogenization is an ultra high pressure and shear mixing process which breaks up the fat into microdroplets which easily disperse in the water phase of the cream so that it appears to be uniform. We are going to add our egg yolks to our cream in a blender and mix to create a real emulsion.

We are then going to heat our egg and cream emulsion in order to make the egg yolks safe for consumption. This is going to require the use of thermometer. I use a digital instant read meat thermometer. This is important because you don’t want to overheat the egg yolks. If you do, you will cause them to solidify and separate out. In other words, you can “scramble” the eggs if you overheat them in the milk mixture. So keep stirring and watch your thermometer.

Now, on to the vanilla bean which we will use to flavor our ice cream. When you purchase whole vanilla beans from the grocery store they come folded up in a bottle. A whole vanilla bean is about 6 inches long or so. For this recipe you cut the bean in half and use that. I also slice the bean in half lengthwise. This exposes more of the interior of the bean during the heating step and I believe enhances flavor release. This also allows more of the tiny brown bits inside the bean to get loose during heating providing the authentic specks indicative of real vanilla. What if you don’t have any real vanilla beans at hand and you need to make ice cream. In that case you use vanilla extract. I don’t have a firm suggestion as to how much extract to use. I would start with 2 teaspoons and go from there. The vanilla beans make a very intensely flavored ice cream base, so 2 teaspoons is not too much. Be careful not to draw conclusions on the flavor of your ice cream based upon tasting the ice cream base itself. The frozen product tastes much different than the liquid. You will also note the use of a pinch of salt in the formula. The salt taste does not come through and acts as a flavor enhancer in the recipe.

Ok, I think I have covered all of the theoretical basics so on to the recipe and process.

Amount	Ingredient
3 cups	Heavy Cream
2	Egg Yolks
½	Vanilla Bean
2/3 cups	Sugar
Pinch	Kosher Salt

Directions

1. Put the cream and egg yolks in a blender.

2. Blend the cream and egg yolks together at a medium speed for 15 seconds.

3. Put the sugar and the vanilla bean which has been sliced in half in a sauce pan.

4. Add the cream egg mixture to the sauce pan with stirring.

5. Heat the mixture in the sauce pan with continuous stirring over medium heat until a thermometer registers 175 F.

6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pass the ice cream base through a sieve.

7. Put the ice cream base in the refrigerator and chill it completely.

8. When the ice cream base has been chilled, set up the Kitchen Aid mixer insert and turn on the mixer.

9. Add the chilled ice cream base to the Kitchen Aid insert and mix for 17 ½ minutes.

10. Stop the mixer and transfer the ice cream to a plastic container and freeze overnight.

11. Enjoy eating your excellent homemade ice cream.

Baked Beans! Yum!

Baked beans are a wonderful dish and the only kind I have ever eaten are those made by Campbells. I know there are other brands out there, but that is what I was raised on. Old habits die hard you know.

Until now I have never tried to make baked beans. I have always been under the impression that it was hard to make a good batch and that it took a long time to make them. I know that I would judge anything I made vs. Campbells and that my version would suffer in comparison. In fact, I know someone who tried to make baked beans at home once. Let's just say that after all the time and effort the results were less than stellar.

However, hope springs eternal and your faithful servant decided to give home made baked beans a serious shot. Much research into various recipes was conducted and three important observations were made.

The first is the preparation of the beans. One can begin to make baked beans using dried beans or one can start with canned beans. Canned beans have a significant advantage: they are already hydrated and cooked to a satisfactory level of tenderness. If you purchase canned beans, then you are ready to make baked beans right away. If you decide to purchase dried beans then you must get them to the same finished state as the canned beans. This will take soaking and cooking time which will add about 3 hours to your overall preparation time. How do you want to spend your time? I used canned small white beans from Goya foods which worked very well in my recipe. Highly recommended!



My second observation was that once you had the bean question resolved, the next part of the recipe was the seasoning schedule. All recipes require the use of onion. But not all recipes call for sauteing the onions before baking your beans. This is a serious error! You must saute your onions prior to making the beans otherwise the flavor will be off. After the onions, there is quite a wide range of seasoning options. This is where you can make this recipe your own. However, make your first batch according to the recipe below so that you know what you are doing. Once you have mastered the skill, then you can begin to experiment. One step at a time grasshopper!

My third observation was that this recipe was basically just braising beans in a flavored liquid! We braise pot roast so this same technique is the secret to baked beans.

Thus we have the three main parts which make up the secret to great baked beans.

Now on to the recipe. For this recipe you will need a enamel lined cast iron dutch oven. I used a 4-5 quart Le Creuset. You can use another brand, just be sure that it has a snug fitting lid and is enamel lined.

Here is the ingredient list:

• Three 15 ounce cans of small white beans; navy beans for example
• 4-5 ounces of good quality thick cut bacon
• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tbsp dark molasses.
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp dry powdered mustard
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1-2 cups bean water

1. Turn on the oven and set to 300F

2. Rinse the beans.

• Open the cans of beans. They will be in a rather thick and slippery liquid.
• Dump all of the beans in a sieve and allow to drain 10 minutes
• Get a large bowl and put 4-6 cups of cold water in it.
• Put the beans in the water and swirl them around by had to wash off the slippery liquid. If needed remove 1-2 cups of the water and replace with 1-2 cups of cold water.
• Once the beans no longer feel slippery, pour the beans and water through a clean sieve. Make sure you collect the rinse water and save it because this is the "bean water" referred to in the recipe.

3. Dice the onion.

4. Dice the bacon into half inch pieces.

5. Put the bacon in the dutch oven and saute at a medium heat until the fat is rendered.

6. Remove the bacon from the dutch oven and drain on a paper towel.

7. Add the onions to the dutch oven and saute for 5-6 minutes or until translucent.

8. When the onions are done, take the dutch oven off the heat and allow to cool 10 minutes.

9. Add the drained beans to the dutch oven along with the bacon and all of the seasonings.

10. Add the 1-2 cups of bean water to the dutch oven. The idea is that the beans are covered with water and everything moves freely when stirred. Save the remaining bean water for later use if needed.

11. Put the dutch oven back on medium heat and stir until all of the seasonings are evenly mixed together.

12. When the bean mixture just comes to a boil, cover the dutch oven and place it in the 300F oven. Set an oven timer for 60 minutes.

13. After one hour of cooking time, stir the bean mixture thoroughly. The sauce will still be thin and the beans will still look white. Don't bother tasting anything at this point. Set the oven timer for another 60 minutes.

14. After another hour of cooking time, stir the bean mixture thoroughly. By this time, the sauce will be much thicker and the beans will look more like the real thing. At this point, you can taste the beans. But don't make any adjustments to the flavorings. It's still too soon to tell. Set your oven timer for 30 minutes.

15. After 30 minutes, stir the beans again. This time your sauce will be nice and thick and your beans will have the classic color of baked beans.

16. Turn off the oven and allow the dutch oven to stay there for another 30 minutes.

17. Remove the dutch oven and you are ready to serve your beans.

NOTE: if after one hour of cooking time, it appears that your sauce is looking too dry or thick, you may add some bean water to adjust the viscosity. But with a good lid on your pot you shouldn't have to do this.

Now I know this took a bit of effort, but the results will be fantastic. I served this recipe to 8 people on Memorial Day and there was hardly any left over. I can't wait to make another batch. When I do, I will take plenty of pictures and add them to this recipe. Good luck and let me know how you make out! JJ>

Will Pumpkin Pie Make Me Famous???

So I got an email the other day from America's Test Kitchen which said (and I quote) :

"America’s Test Kitchen is gearing up to tape its 10th season. If you have any funny stories, experiences, or have a related cooking question about the following recipes, and would like to share them with America’s Test Kitchen, please submit them to us!"

I clicked on the link in their email (naturally!) which took me to a listing of the recipes they were interested in. Well don't you know pumpkin pie was on the list. I have a funny story about pumpkin pie and so I thought I would send it to them. Who knows, maybe I could get on TV! Nerd TV. But hey it's TV and not the disgusting kind either. So what follows is the contents of the email. I will keep you posted...

My Mother’s Pumpkin Pie

My mother gave me her pumpkin pie recipe and that is what I used for many years. I always thought of it as a family heirloom recipe. One that was developed and honed over the years to perfection. Only it didn’t taste anything like perfection. It was actually kind of awful.

There was one ingredient in it that I never liked. The ingredient in question? Condensed milk. I have never liked condensed milk. Ever. The thought of cooking down milk and evaporating out much of the water was never a culinary process that I thought maximized the taste and flavor of anything much less a delicate dairy product like milk. In my opinion, evaporated milk starts with an off taste which carries through to everything its used in.

So after many years of making my mother’s pumpkin pie, I revolted. I swore I was never going use condensed milk again. So I decided to get out my various cookbooks and research pumpkin pie recipes.

Now this is all well and good you may say. However, the day I decided to do this was just before Thanksgiving Day. I had been assigned the job of bringing the pies to dinner the next day. So there was no real time to experiment on the recipes. It was going to be a one shot deal. The most worrisome thing of all, was I would be bringing a pie that no one had tasted before. Would my family revolt at not having the “family classic”? The pressure was on.

Back to my recipe research. I got out my various recipe books to look over when it dawned on me to begin my recipe search in the most basic place of all: the back label of the Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin can.

The recipe started out well listing sugar, salt, flavors, egg and pumpkin. Suddenly it took a serious turn for the worse. It had evaporated milk in the recipe! Where did that come from? Oh my god, I thought, this recipe looks familiar to my mother’s recipe. I quickly got out the family recipe to compare with the one on the can. Sure enough, the family “heirloom” came from the back of a can!

Talk about disappointment. Here I was thinking I had a recipe which contained the collective wisdom of the ages. Could it get much worse? Thus emboldened by the discovery of a self inflicted con, I decided to introduce the family to a brand new pumpkin pie recipe for Thanksgiving. Consequences be damned.

My search for a new pumpkin pie recipe ended in the America’s Test Kitchen Baking Book. Here was a recipe that used milk and cream instead of condensed milk. That substitution alone convinced me to give the recipe a try. Careful study and execution of the recipe assured success. The next day when I served the pie to my family, there was universal acclaim. In fact, I had never seen my family eat so much pumpkin pie before. The proof was in the eating and that was the end of my mother’s heirloom recipe. We have a new recipe in the family now that I have already passed on to my children. Thanks ATK! Job well done!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know - Herbed Garlic Paste

So Miss Katie wants to know how to make herbed garlic paste.

Making herbed garlic paste is actually pretty simple. Here is what to do. Peel two cloves of garlic and push them through a garlic press.

You should use a garlic press because it produces a very fine mash of the garlic which is easier to blend with the remaining ingredients. Hand mincing of the garlic won't work nearly as well. You could crush minced garlic by pressing it hard under the blade of a chef's knife, but again the garlic press beats this hands down. So if you don't have a garlic press, now is the time to go down to the kitchen store and buy a good one for yourself. I use a Zyliss garlic press. (Highly recommended people!) I have had mine for 10 years and it will last me the rest of my cooking lifetime. So buy yours now, take good care of it and it will last you a good long time too.



[Sidebar One...A garlic press comes under the general heading of a kitchen gadget. Actually a better description of it is a kitchen tool. Gadgets are things that you don't really need and take up space in your kitchen. Gadgets are for the hopeless and not for you. What you need are good solid tools. So resist all temptations, and there are many, to buy hopeless single purpose kitchen gadgets. You have neither the space nor the money to waste on such frippery. (God, I have always wanted to use the word frippery in a sentence)]




[Sidebar Two...The pungent flavor of garlic is only released when it is crushed! If you were to peel a whole clove of garlic and cook with it, it would only impart a mild flavor. The act of crushing releases an important enzyme in the garlic cells which activates the pungent garlic flavors and aromas. So to maximize garlic flavor and pungency, pushing it through a garlic press works best.]




Ok, so where were we???? Ah yes, you peeled two cloves of garlic and pushed them through your snappy new garlic press. Place the mashed garlic on a flat surface. Add to this pile of garlic 1/2 tsp of kosher salt + 1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper + 1/2 tsp of olive oil + 1-2 tsp of dried herbs (basil, majoram, thyme - your choice to use one or all three.) Using a spatula, mix all of these together (levigate actually) until you have a uniform paste. If you need to add a little more olive oil to aid mixing, please do so. If you want some more salt you can add this as well. The amount of ingredients here is really very flexible so don't be afraid to experiment. Just don't forget to take notes on what you actually did!

Please note that the recipe calls for KOSHER salt. Kosher salt is a large particle size salt which will aid the mixing and particle size reduction process that occurs during levigation. If you don't have any Kosher salt then take yourself down to the grocery store and buy some. It comes in big boxes and is really cheap and never goes bad. Plus you can dip the rim of your margarita glass in the stuff before filling it up.

So once you have your paste, you can then proceed to apply it to your steak. You can use your hands to do this or you can use the back of a spoon. Your choice. If you find that the recipe did not provide enough paste to cover the steak to your satisfaction you can always make more. This recipe is very easily scalable. You can double or triple it or more if you like. You will certainly need to do this if you plan to coat a large roast like I did last Christmas. Please note cooking fans, that when it comes to garlic paste it is strictly a case of use it or lose it. You cannot store the excess! So keep this in mind. Of course, in my opinion there is no such thing as too much garlic.

Ok, so I hope that answers your questions about herbed garlic paste. Any comments or questions, just let me know. Ok????

(That was a long answer to a short question wasn't it???)

Buying and Roasting Filet Mignon

Ok, here we go...

So Joan and I were at a wine tasting last night and met a couple (Mike and Vicky) we had met at a wine luncheon in February. The tasting was held by Kreston's Liquors in Wilmington (who we highly recommend BTW) and the tasting was hosted by Alain Blanchon who is one of our all time favorite wine distributors. Alain had Francois Thienpont with him who was the producer of the wine. (Hmmmm, maybe I should do a separate post on this?? Yes, I think I will. (Someone once asked if talking to yourself meant you were crazy. The reply was only if you answered yourself. I think I just answered myself)) (Check out those nested parens math majors!)

So I was describing to Mike the oven roasted filet mignon I served at Christmas Eve. He had never heard of doing this before. He only grilled them and asked me for details on the prep. He asked me where I got my beef and I told him Doc's in Hockessin. (Which is a butcher shop. But you could google that your self) Mike gets his meats from Costco which I had heard had good stuff. Anyway, I emailed Mike my analysis which follows..

As far as the whole fillet goes, here is how I cooked it. I bought a whole filet mignon from Doc's which weighed in at ~7.1 lbs. The butchers at doc's trimmed it down to a final weight of 5.75 lbs.
I had them save some of the trimmings for me so I could make stock.
(I need a post on stock I think. Somebody remind me.)

Doc's gave me a final weight and roasting time of 50 minutes at 425F based on the weight of the cut. As is usual with such cuts, one end is not as thick as the rest of the roast. So I tied the roast to balance the thickness. I usually do this anyway with roasts.

I prepared a paste of fresh ground pepper, garlic, kosher salt and I think Herbes de Provence.
I smeared this all over the filet. My biggest problem was finding something that would hold the whole roast. The pic shows the roast after cooking and is a bit shorter than the uncooked roast.
I have a fairly good set of equipment here, but that had me a little worried. I did fail to take the temperature of the roast after it came out of the oven and after resting. We like beef on the rare side here. (Fish well done, if you please) I think I would have gone 60 minutes in the oven in retrospect. I picked roasting over grilling as we had 12 over for dinner that night and roasting was easier. Believe me, no one complained!




As for Doc's vs. Costco...

I visited Costco a month or two ago to check them out. We had heard from others that they had good stuff at good prices. And frankly, who can ignore good prices nowadays? The thing that concerned me was their meats were not from branded sources. This worried me. Everything was Kirkland brand I think. Except the pork products were from Swift. Swift is a well known pork producer so no issues there.

Now once upon a time I used to go to a local butcher in Avondale. One day I asked him why his london broil was $4 a pound and the Acme's was $2 a pound. He said that Acme bought all of their meats in bulk in order to support timing and distribution of sale ads. Also, in order to be able to sell at the price points their consumers expected, Acme bought from who ever was the low price supplier at the time.

The local butcher bought all of his beef from either one or another supplier out in the mid West. Thus the local guy got a consistent supply of beef that he could always count on as being high quality. And so could the butcher's customers. Eventually, this butcher folded up shop. Which was a real loss because he had some killer beef and lamb chops. However, based on all of this I tend to stick with small local butchers and ask them who their supplier are. I like to support my local independent businessman.

Which brings me back to Costco and Kirkland. If Costco needs to present a certain product at a certain price point they need flexibility in suppliers in order to do so. They are an Acme only on a different scale. Their corporate purchasing criteria is price because that is their customer's purchasing criteria. So a very long winded story short, I did not feel comfortable buying the generic brands from Costco. If I bought their beef once and it was good, could I count on it in the future?

Since this is all speculation on my part and I don't know Costco's actual business practices for sure, we kind of stick with Doc's. If things really start to press, I guess we could try Costco.
But that is my current thinking on the matter.

So, anyway, that's my very first post and I'm stickin to it!