Category: Food

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Pecan pie recipe

The blog seems to be turning into a repository for family recipes, which I’m pretty happy about (: Please enjoy!

This recipe is from my great aunt (by marriage, but she may have been related from another direction too. There were some first-cousin marriages). Unlike most pecan pie recipes, it features a not-too-sweet filling. (The pecans weren’t included in the original recipe, so please use your judgement on how many to add.)

Pecan Pie Recipe

(Probably meant to fill 9-inch pie pan)
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
(Not in original recipe, but about 8oz of pecans, chopped)
Uncooked pie shell
Mix ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake about 25 min at 350°F.

Substitutions:

Pecan pie is usually too sweet, so I was considering subbing brown rice syrup, which is super viscous, but not very sweet, for the corn syrup. Then again, this recipe is supposed to be perfect.

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Roast chicken and veggies

Roast veggies in the new 12″ skillet.
Huge (6 lb) and expensive ($40) roast chicken from our local farmer’s market. Fortunately, it had an organic, pastured, and sustainable life. The chicken’s not actually burned; the burned spots were an attempt to add flavor via mirin. That long skinny thing off to the left is the chicken’s spine.

We butterflied the chicken, which is supposed to help keep the breast meat from getting overcooked and dry. The meat has had many second lives, in soup, in tacos, and there’s a ton left over for future uses.

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Sake update

Our sake has been fermenting for almost three weeks now. It’s looking pretty good! The remaining experiments smell strongly of alcohol.

In order from left to right: rice + koji + bread yeast + brown rice syrup, rice + barley malt soaking liquid + brown rice syrup, rice + ginger + brown rice syrup, rice + chewing + brown rice syrup.

As I discussed in the planning post, you can use different sources of amylase to digest the rice. Koji works really well, chewing/saliva is fine, barley malt is less than desirable, and ginger doesn’t work (at all, as far as I could tell). The brown rice syrup, which started fermenting unaided in the cupboard, was added to provide a wild strain of yeast.

A close up of the koji one. The bubbles of CO2 from fermentation push the bigger bits of rice up to the top.

After taking these pictures, I threw away the ginger one. It wasn’t rotting, but it didn’t seem to be doing the right thing either. A few days later, I also threw out the barley malt one. It had a weird skin on the surface, maybe kahm yeast?

So I’m left with the koji experiment and the chewed experiment. Fortunately, they both smell strongly of alcohol. I hope they’ll be done soon (how do I tell when that is?). I may add another batch of rice to each. Doing this can push the alcohol content higher than it would otherwise be, since having more food available can trick the yeast into fermenting more.

Friend V from college is interested in sampling the experiments, including the chewed one! Yay! I thought I would be the only one trying it- it’s my saliva, after all.

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Feijoas and chickens

The other day, J and I took a trip to pick up free fruit.

Free pineapple guavas (feijoas) from someone on Freecycle! The fruits have an amazingly fruity, floral smell that’s apparently due to (naturally-occurring) methyl benzoate.

I’m not sure what I’ll use these for. Eating, of course, but they get overripe fast. I was thinking of making cobbler or drying some. Any other suggestions?

On the way to pick the feijoas up, we saw chickens!!! I guess zoning allows them in this area.

They weren’t scared of us at all. In fact, they walked up to us as if they were expecting treats.
The chickens had a ton of space. Definitely free-range, cage-free, and probably pretty happy. There were several different breeds, too. I wonder if any were heritage breeds?

During the trip, J and I stopped by Whole Foods to buy some stuff and to recycle some number 5 plastic through the Gimme 5 recycling program. Plastics are turned into plastic lumber and maybe into consumer products. They also recycle Brita filters!

Fancy coffee drink from Whole Foods.

We used the trip to go to our local Japanese grocery store, where we had dinner. I check out 99 Ranch’s and Nob Hill’s dumpsters on the way. Unfortunately, they both use compactors, so I couldn’t go diving.

Lastly, we stopped at Goodwill for more mason jars! I think we’re finally reaching the saturation point for prepared food storage. At this point, I’m attempting to get enough that we can store dry goods in jars too. It’ll make the kitchen cabinets a lot more organized.

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Popovers

We made popovers, an airy, eggy baked item. Although I like them a lot, I’d never realized how easy they are to make!

Mini popovers don’t work so well. The ratio of surface area to volume is too high and you end up with a dry interior. This is a large mini muffin tin.
A second attempt prepared in a porcelain mug. Much better!

Popover Recipe

6 eggs

2 cups (480 mL) milk

6 Tbs (90 g) butter, melted

2 cups (240 g) flour, sifted

1 tsp (5 g) salt

  1. Generously butter whatever you’re baking in. The original recipe (from Betty Crocker?) calls for ten 1/2-cup (120-mL) ramekins.
  2. Whisk together eggs, milk, and melted butter until frothy. Gradually beat liquid into flour and salt until mixture is smooth.
  3. Spoon batter into baking containers until three-quarters full. If using separate containers, put on baking sheet for ease. Place in oven preheated to 425°F (220°C). Reduce heat to 375°F (190°C). Bake about 30 min.

Substitutions: I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the flour. Because popovers are leavened by eggs and don’t require gluten, basically any type of flour should work.

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Tortillas

It was one of those nights where we had a bunch of leftovers that don’t fit well together. Fortunately, we were able to pull everything together by making tortillas!

I found this seemingly legit recipe. Tortillas are really easy in concept. The dough is made from ground corn, traditionally nixtamalized to improve nutrition, and water. The tortillas are formed by pressing, then briefly heated in a skillet.

Keep dough from sticking to press by sandwiching in between heavy plastic.
Cook briefly on each side on a very hot skillet.
The cooked, but a little crispy, tortillas.
Eaten with leftover: roast veggies, pinto beans, roast chicken, and rice. I believe there was homemade salsa involved as well.

Unfortunately, there were some difficulties. I pressed the tortillas flat using a Pyrex square baking dish, so each tortilla had a faint “Pyrex” emblazoned on it. It took a surprising amount of force to press the tortillas, and they were still too thick to cook properly. I see the benefit of a special press. We had to cook the tortillas longer than called for to cook through, but doing this caused the outside to be crispy, rather than soft and flexible.

Making tortillas used up our masa (one of the goals!), so this may not happen again anytime soon.

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Danmuji

I made danmuji, Korean yellow pickled radish, about a month ago. It’s supposed to sit for a month before being used, so this is the initial review!

I used Maangchi’s recipe, substituting oat bran for rice bran, and turmeric for gardenia fruits. Apparently, gardenia fruits are edible. Who knew? Gardenia is used as an ornamental, so maybe you could forage for them. The fruits aren’t supposed to taste like much, however. Much like turmeric, they’re mainly used for their yellow color. The rice bran was supposed to add a “complex flavor”. I’m not sure if the oat bran was a good substitution in this case. But it doesn’t seem to have done any damage!

Initially, there were too few jars, so I let it age in this lovely bowl.
The more official-looking one.

During the resting period, the radish ferments, according to Maangchi. However, I’m not sure if this is correct. The radish is supposed to be stored in the fridge, so it wouldn’t ferment very fast. And you add vinegar directly to the brine. In normal lactic acid fermentation, such as in kimchi, the brine becomes sour over time due to lactic acid buildup. There’s no need to add vinegar. So I believe that the radish is simply being pickled.

That said, perhaps it is supposed to be fermented; while good, the radish that I ate didn’t taste like commercial danmuji. It is crispy and vinegary, of course. There’s a very strong funky radish smell and flavor. J thinks it smells like rotting or maybe rotten meat, but I really just think it smells like radish. Delicious!

The yellow coloring hasn’t fully permeated the radish yet. At this point, it has a halo of yellow, with a completely white interior. Maybe with time…

Even compared to kimchi, this was an easy recipe. You should try it!

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Gochujang update

We made gochujang a while ago. I added more salt to the top to discourage mold, although there hasn’t been any.

The top layer of gochujang is a little drier, and is starting to get that maroon color. It’s been about a month since we made the gochujang, but it hasn’t seemed to ferment yet. No bubbles, no change in smell. It seems very well preserved. I guess I’ll just leave it out until we need it. It can mature for a few more months.

You’re supposed to put gochujang in the sun every day to discourage mold. Unfortunately we don’t have a balcony and nothing is allowed in the public walkway. So for a while (until I decided it wasn’t doing anything), I put it just in front of the door with the door cracked open. That way it is technically inside, but still in the sunlight for a few hours.

Our landlord contacted us the other night. Apparently another tenant has been complaining about a “horrible”-smelling (it doesn’t smell like anything) red paste outside our door. The tenant is also apparently thinks this means that we have bed bugs………..

Edit: J was all het up over it. He took it to mean that the neighbors think we’re dirty, and went on a cleaning binge. And now the shower’s super clean!