More than just pecan pie baking in the oven

Little did I know that at the same time I was pulling the pecan pie out of the oven Fri night, that there was another little bun ready to be taken out as well. Congrats Andrew and Yurah on the brand spanking new addition to your family! We can't wait to meet the lil guy although from what I hear, he's a supersized bun =P

As I mentioned on my last post, I was going to make the bittersweet chocolate pecan pie at our Burlingame location (since I had all the ingredients) with the intention to sell it there. I made the crust and filling there (see pics taken from my camera phone below) but ran out of time to actually sell the pie so took the crust and filling home to chill. My intentions were to come back to the store in a couple of days (next time I was scheduled) to sell it but I forgot the filling and crust at home. Plan B, bake it Fri night and serve as dessert at Kirk and Ei-Lun's surprise engagement party.

There were some variations I made to this pie recipe:

- I used a pie crust recipe that I have found to be foolproof and although I was interested in using vodka, did not have any at the store lying around. Perhaps next time I make a pie at home, I will experiment with this method. My pie recipe is similar to the Gourmet one except it calls for more salt and some baking powder to help the rise and tenderness.

- Didn't have dark corn syrup and so used light

- Didn't have bittersweet chocolate on hand and so used a 60% cacao semi sweet chocolate.

- Instead of adding the pecans to the pie crust and then the filling on top, I mixed the nuts and filling together in a ziploc bag so I could easily transport home. This seemed to bake up just fine.

- Used chopped toasted pecans instead of halves, like Yurah suggested.

- Also baked only for 50 minutes as per Yurah's post.

The pie turned out nice and toasted on top but upon cutting, the inside was still moist. The crust did not overbrown, probably due to the 50 min vs. 60 min baking time. It's not that the pie was not good, but I am just not a huge fan of pecan pie. When Lee tasted this on Sat night, she mentioned that she loved pecan pie but was not a fan of the chocolate in it. I actually liked the chocolate in the pie, thought it had a nice flavor contrast and made the pie stand out instead of being too regular. I think it's a matter of preference from traditional recipes too. For example, I like some cream cheese in my pumpkin pie, but some people prefer the more traditional pumpkin only flavor.

I can see making this pie again for something like a Thanksgiving dinner that I know would be a crowd pleaser but probably not for myself since pecan pie is not top of my list on favorite pies to eat. It was super easy to put the filling together and I can see if you end up using a prepared pie crust from the supermarket, how it would be a pinch to make on any given day.

Crawfish Etoufee and Crab Cakes- Yens

We decided to have our neighbors, Elaine and Don, be our guinea pigs for the New Orleans test dishes. Since they were going to move away, we thought, "What the heck, if the food turns out bad, we won't have to see them again."

The night before, Andrew started on the crab cakes and I started on the tartar sauce. We bought the Wild Caught Lump Crab meat from Whole Foods. I am not sure what lump crab meat is; all I know is that it's different from claw meat. Anyway, we didn't veer from the recipe too much. The only things we changed were the saltines, where we used panko crumbs; and in the tartar sauce, we used cornichons instead of dill pickles. Andrew prepped the crab cakes and set the mixture in the refrigerator for the next day.

The next day, I started making the dessert. For this dinner, I decided to make a different New Orleans dessert: Banana Chocolate Bread Pudding. Here is the link to the recipe for the bread pudding: http://www.emerils.com/recipe/644/Banana-Chocolate-Bread-Pudding. It was super easy. You just need to dump all of the wet ingredients together and mix. Then have the bread soak in the wet ingredients with the banana and chocolate. Then bake. I didn't make any sauce for the bread pudding, mainly because of timing. I would have added a caramel sauce. However, in the end, the bread pudding was moist enough to not really warrant a sauce.

For the etoufee, we went for the crawfish meat which I purchased frozen from Whole Foods. From John's suggestion, we also did not put in the crawfish until the roux was reconstituted with the broth. In hindsight, I don't think that the crawfish would be as delicate as the shrimp would be so I don't think it would really matter when you put in the crawfish meat. It would probably hold up well at anytime. Since we had several boxes of chicken broth, we didn't buy extra fish stock. I think that since the crawfish was flavorful enough, there was no need for the added fish stock flavor.

Plating-wise, I laid the crab cakes on a bed of arugula which was tossed in a lemon vinegarette with some shavings of Parimgiano-Reggiano. The arugula added a nice lemon, peppery contrast to the crab meat. It was a nice compliment to the crab cakes.

For the etoufee, I just poured the etoufee over the rice. Nothing inventive. Agne's and Tim's presentation was definitely the way to go.

Wild Crab Meat

Crab Cake Mixture.


Cornichons.

Tartar Sauce.

Sauteing the vegetables.

Adding flour to the veggies.

Etouffe with crawfish.

Pan Frying the Crab Cakes

Crab Cake on a bed of arugula and Parmigiano shavings.

Unexciting presentation of the crawfish etoufee. However, the flavor was just the opposite!

Shrimp Etoufee for Mother's Day

As part of my Mother's Day festivities, I had to cook Shrimp Etoufee and clean up a dirty kitchen - what great Mother's Day. Hahahaa, actually Tim and I planned for it and wanted to do it together as a fun activity. Given we've had hardly anytime time to ourselves since the opening of the Burlingame store, we were looking forward to it. Prior to cooking dinner though, Tim cooked me a superb brunch from the Bouchon cookbook, Apricot french toast w/ Creme Anglaise, Chicken Apple Sausages, and Eggs with Smoked Salmon. This got me thinking we should have a brunch themed "dinner" one of these days. We then spent a lovely day strolling Sausalito with Alia, and ate some fish and chips from a dive that were actually quite tasty, followed by some Lappert's ice cream. After we fed Alia and put her down to sleep, the fun part started: Le Shrimp Etoufee.

Tim prepped all the vegetables and as you can tell from the photo below he has a great mise en place. He's much more precise than I am at chopping and dicing and has expressed interest in taking a knife course. If anyone is interested in taking one with him, we hear there is a great one offered by the Kitchen on Fire cooking school in Berkeley.

This dish was quite easy to prepare (sans chopping all the vegetables) and was an easy one dish supper. Perfect for a Sunday evening meal. We halved the recipe and also used shrimp as did Lee and John. However, we weren't so adventurous (or should I say we were just plain lazy) in trying to make our own stock. However, we found a great alternative at Whole Paycheck. A canned fish stock that actually tasted pretty authentic. I didn't really want to use chicken broth and so was happy to have found this option.

As John suggested, we didn't put the shrimp in when making the roux, since the mixture had to simmer for another 30 minutes once the roux was made. We put the shrimp in 12 minutes before our 30 minutes were up and they turned out perfect. Juicy and and nicely cooked.

The only hiccup we had was that we accidentally added the entire amount of cayenne (1/4 tsp) instead of halving it. When tasting the dish, I felt it was a bit too spicy until we figured out the mistake. Note to self, make sure you halve all ingredients properly when taking a recipe down in scale.

The dish was tasty but I wondered if the flavors would meld better the next day as the recipe suggested. We'll be eating this again tomorrow as leftovers and can report back. I think the extra cayenne also overpowered the dish so I'm excited to taste the version with less at our upcoming dinner.

Finally, we noticed John's comment on how hard it was to plate this dish to make it look nice, so Tim came up with this fancy "parsley bonsai tree" on top of the rice. Apparently, he's always wanted to do this :)

Next up this week, we'll be trying the bittersweet chocolate pecan pie. Since I happen to have all the ingredients at Teacake, I'm going to make this at the Burlingame store this week and sell it by the slice! I'll know if it's a winner if it sells out. Watch out for the next update!

Louisiana Deviled Crab Cakes

Louisiana Deviled Crab Cakes

In sourcing the crab for this recipe, Kirk and I found several brands of canned and jarred lump crab meat at Ranch 99. We picked a few jarred ones that consisted of mostly leg meat. The price wasn’t too bad this way. I had heard that buying crab meat from Whole Foods was expensive.

To start, Kirk cooked the onions, bell peppers, and celery in butter. Meanwhile, Ei-lun was whisking the egg, sour cream, mustard, and other ingredients together. We didn’t have Saltine crumbs, so we used breadcrumbs. Kirk then added in the crab meat from the jar.

I was excited at this point because I had just purchased some round cutters, and I used them to form the crab cakes. They look evenly round. I tried a few mini ones with the smaller round cutters. Ei-Lun then breaded the cakes, and then Kirk fried them in the remaining butter.

Lee had prepped up the tartar sauce, and we topped the cakes off.

I thought these tasted really good, and I thought I would make them again. Lee and I did, in fact, make them for Lee’s family as an appetizer at a later date. The tartar sauce really went well with the cakes and I suggest having it with the crab cakes so they aren’t too dry. One thing I learned on this round of cooking was that it was really fun to cook in a “team” atmosphere. It kind of felt like a pro-kitchen where we each had different tasks, and that allowed us to really move fast while we were cooking. Also, I think canned or jarred crab meat is just as good as fresh crab meat when making crab cakes. It really saves a lot of time and money; and I thought it tasted great. I like the spice in this dish as well.

The initial fry of the first set of ingredients.

Adding in the crab meat.

Final mixture.

Using the round cutters to mold the cakes into consistent sizes.

Ei-Lun breads the cakes.

Ei-Lun places the cakes into the pan.

Frying.

Crab cakes almost done frying.

At rest.

Topping the cakes with tartar sauce.

Dat's some good 'ole crab cake with tartar sauce.

Shrimp Etouffee

Shrimp Etouffee on rice.

The night before, Lee made the shrimp stock by peeling the shells and tails off of the shrimp and putting them with the onion, garlic, and other herbs listed in the recipe. We refrigerated the stock and let the ingredients chill overnight.

The next night, my parents, my brother and his wife and their baby, Bethany, came over for dinner; and we made the etouffee as the main entrée. Instead of crawfish, we used shrimp.

To start, Lee made the white roux by sweating the onions, celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, and herbs in butter. Then she added the flour to finalize the roux. Then we added the shrimp. Both of us thought that adding the shrimp in at this stage might dry it out. But we followed the recipe to see how the it would turn out. At this point the roux was of a pasty consistency. But after adding the rest of the ingredients and the stock, the etouffee resembled a soupy gumbo. As it cooked it thickened up somewhat and we added in more stock to thin it out. It stewed while the rice was cooking.

Once the rice was ready, we attempted to plate our dishes, but we didn’t really know what would look good. After a few tries, we found that it was just easiest to put the rice on the plate and pour the etouffee over.

We did find the shrimp to be a little overdone, but the flavor of the “stew” was pretty good. In the future, we thought we’d put the shrimp in near the end to keep it from being overdone. Everyone, however, enjoyed the etouffee, and overall we found it to be a pretty simple dish to make.

Sweating the veggies in butter.

Peeled shrimp, ready for warm bath in roux.

The second set of vegetables prepped to go.

Adding the second batch of ingredients to the make the roux.

Adding flour to finalize the roux.

White roux in the making.

We have our white roux.

Adding in the shrimp stock.

Shrimp stock married to the roux.

Seasoning, parsley, etc. added in.

Shrimp Etouffee!