Irresistible Chinese Five-Spice Peanuts

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Juliana
Chinese Five-Spice Peanuts

Chinese Five-Spice Peanuts make a perfect party snack

Ever since Robin and I developed our Five-Spice Roast Pork dish for The Lazy Gourmet (p.126) I’ve been a little bit obsessed with Chinese five-spice powder, an intriguing and hard-to-describe spice blend made of (most commonly) cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennel, and Szechuan peppercorns. While it’s usually used in savory meat, seafood, or vegetable dishes, five-spice powder’s rich, warm flavor is strangely irresistible on the sweeter side, too. A quick Googling of “five-spice desserts” might surprise you with results like Chinese Five-Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes and Five-Spice Sweet Potato Pie.

Reader Mandy, who commented on my Ten Favorite Homemade Holiday Food Gifts (That Aren’t Cookies) post, mentioned some five-spice nuts that she’d made as a holiday gift and I thought that sounded pretty great. While Mandy used pistachios, I decided that a huge batch of sweet and salty five-spice peanuts would be a perfect inexpensive finger food for the housewarming party I was in the midst of planning. (And when I say huge I mean huge. If I believed in astrology I would blame my Cancerian nature for always, but always, overcooking. Luckily, the six pounds of spiced nuts and seven pounds of pickled carrots that are still sitting in my fridge are freaking delicious and will stay good for weeks to come.)

p.s. I’ve been eating these crunchy sweet treats by the handful, as a snack, but I bet they’d be great tossed into an Asian-style salad or mixed into rice.

Chinese Five-Spice Peanuts

Giving my peanuts a Chinese Five-Spice powdering

Chinese Five-Spice Peanuts
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1½ cups raw, shelled, unsalted peanuts

Set a large baking sheet or dish out on the counter before you begin. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. When butter begins to bubble (but before it burns) add five-spice powder, sugar, and salt. Stir until sugar and salt are dissolved. Add the peanuts, stirring frequently until they begin to turn a light brown (4 to 5 minutes).

Spread the peanuts out in a single layer in the baking dish. Let cool to room temperature. If they’ve stuck together, just give them a stir to break them apart.

Make it ahead
Peanuts will keep well in a tightly-sealed container on your countertop for a few days (or more). Store them the fridge for even longer preservation.

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Sweet and Savory Curry-Persimmon Salad With Cashews

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Juliana
Persimmon Salad with Curry, Cashews, and Yogurt

Creamy, crunchy, sweet, salty, minty, spicy, Fuyu persimmon salad

My mother’s bountiful Sonoma, California garden has been the cause of many of my cooking adventures. Such blog hits as Israeli Salad, Basil-Mint Pesto, and Zucchini, Corn, and Almond Salad were all direct results of her very green thumb. I’ve simmered her figs into Fig and Onion Jam (The Lazy Gourmet, p.158), tossed homegrown watermelons into countless fruit salads, and have fried and eaten more green tomatoes than I’m able to comfortably admit. Or to comfortably eat. But I do it anyway.

I didn’t even remember that Mom had a persimmon tree when I recently found myself in possession of a large bag of ripe, firm Fuyus. I can’t explain why, but for some reason I was overwhelmed with the very specific urge to wrangle them into a sweet and savory creamy salad—like a chicken salad, but with persimmons instead of chicken. Unable to find a recipe that hit the mark, I recalled the fact that I am an actual cookbook writer, and therefore authorized to invent new dishes. What I wound up with was precisely the creamy, crunchy, sweet, salty, minty, spicy, chicken-free fruit salad that I had been craving. As any kitchen experimenter knows, it doesn’t always work out that way, but this one was a surprising and satisfying keeper. Enjoy! Continue reading →

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The Science of Chocolate: Sweet Science Lesson From KQED’s QUEST Series

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Juliana

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s another tasty science lesson from KQED’s excellent QUEST series. (See previous posts on the science of cheese and sourdough bread.)

From the QUEST website: “Chocolate: It’s been revered for millennia by cultures throughout the world. But while it’s easy to appreciate all of its delicious forms, creating this confection is a complex culinary feat. Local chocolate makers explain the elaborate engineering and chemistry behind this tasty treat. And learn why it’s actually good for your health!” Enjoy!

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Crepes with Peas, Pancetta, and Mint

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Juliana
Pea, pancetta, and mint crepe filling

Pea, pancetta, and mint crepe filling. Photo: aprphotography.com

So, are you hooked on making crepes yet? A while back I posted a basic recipe for crepes, along with some pointers on technique. (It’s really pretty easy. And addictive.) Then I posted one of my favorite fillings: a super simple sauté of shrimp, tomatoes, and chives. Today I’ve got another favorite to share: a combination of peas, pancetta, mint, and chevre.

For those of you not familiar with pancetta, it’s an Italian-style bacon (salt-cured pork belly). The biggest difference between pancetta and American-style bacon is that pancetta isn’t smoked the way American bacon is. You’ll usually find pancetta at the deli or butcher counter of your supermarket, or an Italian specialty store, where it’s sliced to order. If you can’t find it, just substitute regular American-style bacon.

Crepes with Peas, Pancetta, and Mint
5 ounces (about 1¼ cups) diced pancetta
1 large leek, chopped (the white and light green parts only)
1 pound frozen peas
½ cup white wine
5 ounces chevre, crumbled
¼ cup half-and-half
3 tablespoons lemon juice (from about one lemon)
¼ cup fresh chopped mint, loosely packed
8-10 crepes

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned and crispy (5 to 7 minutes). Remove pancetta from the skillet and set aside. Add leeks to the hot pancetta fat and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly browned. Add peas and wine. Bring wine to a simmer and continue to stir occasionally until peas are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add chevre and half-and-half and stir until cheese is melted and distributed throughout the peas, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cooked pancetta, lemon juice, and mint.

Place some pea mixture into each crepe, roll up, and serve.

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Are Broccoli Stems Edible? Yes! (Plus a recipe for Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli with Garlic and Pine Nuts)

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Juliana

I’m surprised by how often I read a broccoli recipe that calls for using the florets and discarding the stems, or stalks. A few years ago I took a Chinese cooking class, and among the many valuable things I learned from Ms. Mabel Lee was that broccoli stems are not garbage. Just trim off the rough, leafy outer layer and cut the stems into sticks or rounds. Then cook them along with the florets. They’re tender and flavorful—and if you’ve been accustomed to throwing them away, they’re free food!

how to prepare broccoli stalks

Don't throw away those broccoli stalks! Just trim, slice, and cook along with the florets.

The reason that broccoli stalks are on my mind right now is that I recently made an unusually delicious broccoli dish. I was looking for a side dish for my brother-in-law’s birthday dinner when Ina Garten’s Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli caught my eye. Feeling I should browse a few more ideas, just to be fair to the rest of the internet, I next noticed a post by Adam Roberts of The Amateur Gourmet talking about how Ina Garten’s roasted broccoli was the best he’d ever had in his life. I gave in and decided I’d better just try it.

Roasted broccoli, with its browned and lightly crisped edges, is approximately one thousand times better than steamed, sautéed, or almost anything-elsed broccoli. And this particular recipe—which includes thin slices of roasted garlic, Parmesan, pine nuts, and pepper—could not be more packed with my personal favorite flavors. I made another huge bunch tonight and ate almost all of it standing right there at the oven. In order to pry myself out of its spellbinding grip, I desperately stuffed the remainder into the fridge so it would get cold and lose its appeal. (It’s even pretty good cold, but thankfully the trick worked.)

Roasted Broccoli with Parmesan

Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli with Garlic and Pine Nuts. Possibly the best broccoli I've ever had.

I made a few small changes—mostly in the proportion of ingredients—to my version of this recipe, which I’ll provide below. Also, the original includes lemon zest and juice, but mine doesn’t because I forgot to put it in that first time and I can’t imagine the dish being any more perfect. I decided to leave out the fresh basil too, because as much as I love basil, I felt it was overpowered by the other flavors and didn’t really add that much. And of course, my version includes the stems! Continue reading →

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Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding: The Perfect Ending for an Elegant Christmas Dinner

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Robin
Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding

Festive yet surprisingly easy, Sticky Toffee Pudding with Toffee Sauce is a decadent Christmas dessert

I tasted my first Sticky Toffee Pudding while visiting Edinburgh when I was pregnant with my son. True to the myths about pregnant women, I had cravings. Uncontrollable, intense cravings. For instance, seeing a box of Nilla Wafers in the supermarket one afternoon set me off on an unswerving path to consume that childhood indulgence known officially as Nilla Banana Pudding. I remember staying up late one night making it from scratch, eating the whole thing over the next several days, and then not being able to look at a banana or a Nilla Wafer again for a long, long time. Nilla Banana Pudding, it turns out, is one pudding that sounds better than it is, at least to a pregnant lady.

But then, at 7 months pregnant, I found myself in Edinburgh where it seemed nearly every restaurant menu boasted some version of Sticky Toffee Pudding. While there are endless variations on the dish, they all include a super moist cake (a pudding in British parlance) enriched with dates and a rich, gooey caramel-like sauce. This is a pudding that, pregnant or not, I could eat any time—suffice to say, I ate a lot of STP in my week of being pregnant in Scotland—but it’s especially well suited to a festive holiday meal on a cold winter’s night.

You can make the cake in a bundt pan, soufflé dish, or even just a regular square or round cake pan, but for an elegant Christmas dinner presentation, I like to make it into six mini cakes using a 6-cavity mini fluted tube pan or a 6-cavity mini bundt pan. Continue reading →

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What Am I, Chopped Liver? Easy Chicken Liver Paté with Cognac Butter

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Robin
Easy Chicken Liver Pate

Easy chicken liver pate with cognac butter

“What am I, chopped liver?” Such a deft colloquialism, it is. The implication at first glance being that chopped liver is forgettable, not worthy of notice, insignificant. But good chopped liver is such a wonder of culinary genius, combining the cheap, “throw-away” parts of an everyday chicken into a luxurious spread that is worthy of, and often appears on, the chi-chi-est of restaurant menus. And therein lies the rub. Chopped liver is far too often mistakenly overlooked when in reality, it should be heralded as the star of the show, the belle of the ball.

This simple recipe, which is adapted from Tartine Bread, in which it is called “Baker’s Foie,” is totally rustic and yet, well, let’s just say, it ain’t just chopped liver. Unlike my Jewish grandmother’s chopped liver, it contains butter (though I’m sure it would work equally well with schmaltz or even rendered duck fat) and a food processor rather than a food mill for grinding. Calling it Chicken Liver Pate is a good step towards giving it its due, but I think the addition of cognac justifies calling it Pate de Foie de Poulet, just in case anyone might mistake it for just a forgettable dish of chopped liver. I like to serve it as an appetizer on Jewish holidays, especially Hanukkah, or as part of an elegant New Year’s Eve cocktail spread. Continue reading →

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Easy Homemade Sufganiyot (Israeli Jelly Donuts for Hanukkah)

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Robin
easy sufganiyot jelly donuts

These easy homemade sufganiyote (jelly donuts) are sure to be the hit of the Hanukkah celebration

One day several Decembers ago, a friend mentioned in passing that she had stopped in to Mollie Stone’s on the way to work to pick up Krispy Kreme donuts for her coworkers. “You know, for Hanukkah,” she said casually. Actually, it was the first time I’d heard of the tradition of eating donuts for Hanukkah, though it makes perfect sense since the holiday is all about celebrating the miracle of the oil. What better way to celebrate oil’s miraculousness than with crispy, sweet fried dough? I was intrigued. Could this finally be the excuse I needed to indulge in the most sinful of treats? I believed it was and on the spot, I created my own family tradition of serving an assortment of store-bought donuts for dessert on Hanukkah, including my childhood favorites,  buttermilk-based Old Fashioneds with chocolate icing. When I’ve mentioned this Hanukkah tradition to Jewish friends, though, more than a few have scoffed. Apparently, you’re not just supposed to eat just any donuts, but jelly donuts. And, to boot, a very specific type of Israeli jelly donut called sufganiyot. Yeah, I don’t really know how to pronounce it, either (the Internet says it’s SOOF-gun-yote), but this year I decided to try making them and, well, I’m a convert. Continue reading →

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Easy Latkes for Hanukkah: Enjoy Crispy, Delicious Potato Pancakes without Missing the Party!

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Robin
Easy Latkes Recipe

Easy, make-ahead latkes are crispy and delicious

The main thing I remember about my childhood Hanukkahs is my mother’s latkes. And not just the latkes themselves—as delicious as they were, crispy-fried, fresh from the frying pan—but also the image of my mother in the kitchen, first peeling and hand-grating (the food processor just doesn’t cut it here) piles of potatoes and then hunched over a pan of hot oil frying the little potato pancakes to a crispy golden brown. Every year she threatened not to make them, but every year, our whining and declarations of how she was the best mother/cook/latke-maker won out and, again, she’d spend an entire night toiling away in the kitchen while the rest of us enjoyed ourselves. No wonder my mother is not the biggest fan of Hanukkah.

I’ve tested a lot of latke recipes over the years, trying earnestly to find one that doesn’t require me to hand-grate pounds of potatoes or spend hours hunched over a pan of hot oil. In the end, I’ve decided that there really is no way to make a delicious latke that doesn’t involve spending a certain amount of time hunched over a pan of hot oil (not to mention, the whole point of the holiday is to celebrate the oil, right? Baking just won’t do). But before you take away my Lazy Gourmet ID card, I have learned one very important latke trick: you can spend a leisurely afternoon frying them ahead of time (days, weeks, probably even months!), freeze them, and reheat them the night of your Hanukkah celebration and—here’s the exciting part—they will still be crispy and delicious. Your guests will wonder if you have a hired latke maker toiling away behind the closed kitchen door. Continue reading →

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The Best Gifts for Cooks: Kitchen Gadgets, Cookbooks, and Cooking Tools Any Home Cook Will Love

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Robin
gifts for cooks

A few of our picks for the Best Kitchen Gifts: Fancy aged balsamic vinegar, Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, the handy Belkin Chef's Stand/Stylus, and Kuhn Rikon's 4-Quart SS Pot with Cozy

Every year around this time, my family starts asking me what I want for the holidays. The first thing I always do is to look around my kitchen and contemplate what cool cooking gadget, kitchen tool, or hot new cookbook I can’t live without. Frankly, between not wanting to offend my family with my greediness and being overwhelmed by the vast array of great products to make cooking faster, better, more fun and, of course, lazier, more often than not, I end up paralyzed by indecision. I usually end up telling these well-meaning askers something to the tune of “Oh, I don’t need anything!”  But this year I’m taking a new approach and creating a shopping guide for anyone who needs to buy a gift for an obsessive home cook like me. If my family happens to see it, well, they can rest assured that I’d be thrilled to see any of these items under my tree. And—bonus!—now I’ll finally find out whether or not my mom actually reads my blog.

Slice and Dice with Ease
My time-tested method for carving a roast chicken is to say, “Honey, the chicken’s done!” But since I just finally learned how to make an incredibly delicious roast chicken (I’ll be sharing the ingeniously simple method here soon!), it’s time I resolve, once and for all, to learn to carve a chicken myself. Of course, that means I need a new toy and this Zwilling J.A. Henckels 8-Inch Carving Knife looks to be just the thing every would-be chicken carver needs.

This Bamboo Over-the-Sink Cutting Board with Built-In Silicone Colander is the perfect gift for a slightly obsessive, space challenged home cook. Bamboo has natural anti-microbial properties, the colander is made of food-safe silicone, the board is reversible so you can avoid cross-contamination, and the whole thing sits neatly over your sink, avoiding widespread messes and increasing your work space at the same time. Continue reading →

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