Bouillabaisse: Something Smells Fishy!

Today was a productive day! I had went to a cable class last night at the gym and was really, really hurting this morning. I feel muscles that I usually forget I have. As much as I wanted to just laze around and relax I decided that I should go back to the gym today and do some cardio and stretching for my very sore legs. I am very glad I decided to go, but I’m still awfully sore. After I finished at the gym I stopped at the grocery store to buy some seafood for making Bouillabaisse. Piyush was requesting I make it and I was kind of craving it so it seemed like a good night to learn to cook seafood. I’ve never really cooked seafood much before so I was a little nervous, but it was so easy!!! I was really intimidated by the mussels and clams, but I ended up showing them who was boss and they opened with no issues.

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What, exactly, is Bouillabaisse?

Bouillabaisse is a French style seafood soup, and it is yummy! In a traditional bouillabaisse there are at least 3 different types of fish, most which are not available in Rochester, Minnesota. The broth is flavored with vegetables, shellfish, herbs and spices. Saffron is a spice that usually plays a large part in the flavor of the bouillabaisse and although it is quite expensive (the priciest spice in the world!), I don’t recommend leaving it out. The name bouillabaisse comes from the way the dish is prepared. The ingredients are cooked separately and are not added all at one time. The broth is boiled first and then the fish are added one by one. Each time the broth comes to a boil the heat is lowered.

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This recipe was inspired by the Bouillabaisse I had at Zzest a few weeks ago. I knew most of the ingredients to use but had no idea of the quantities or the techniques. I just bought what I knew I needed and a few other things that I thought would work well. It took about an hour and a half, most of that time was spent letting the broth simmer and develop the flavor. And let me tell you, this seafood stew is amazing! It tasted just as good as what you would get at a restaurant.

Success!

I don’t really measure things when I cook but I tried my best to estimate and write down what I did so that I can make this many more times!

Piyush liked it so much that he even gave me an A+, and he never gives anything an A+. Usually he has so many opinions on everything I cook. This dinner was the perfect way to end the day. I had a nice, big glass of wine—a red from Cannon Falls, MN. Its called “Gunflint Red” and it is wonderful! It sort of reminds me of a malbec. It’s a little peppery and paired wonderful with the Bouillabaisse.

Its a good thing he enjoyed his dinner, it made so much that we'll be eating it for a couple days!

The Recipe

1 white onion, diced
1 green pepper, chopped
About 2 large red potatoes, peeled and diced
4 fat garlic cloves, minced
about 1 c. dry white wine, maybe even more?
28oz. chopped plum tomatoes + juice
large pinch of saffron
salt/pepper to season
about 1/2 c. flat leaf parsley, chopped very fine
bunch of chopped chives
olive oil, as needed
zest of 1 orange
scallops, jumbo shrimp, mussels, clams, ect. (I used the previous in addition to a 1lb. cod fillet) –amount based on how many servings you are making

Directions:

Heat some olive oil in a heavy dutch oven. Once it gets hot add the potatoes, onions, garlic, green pepper and orange zest. Cover and sweat everything until it’s tender and perfect!
Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Stir it together and bring to a boil.
Add the tomatoes, parsley and chives. Simmer, stirring occasionally until the broth looks rich and soup-like. Add salt and pepper to taste. The broth will taste a little “off” at this point. The wine will be strong and so will the acidity from the tomatoes. That’s okay.
Add about 1 cup of water and the pinch of saffron. Let the saffron steep for about 10 minutes. Stir everything together and give it another taste. Add more saffron if you want. Don’t add a lot right away though because it’s pretty strong and can be very overwhelming.
Turn the flame to about med-high and add the clams/mussels into the broth. Cover the dutch oven and let them cook (about 3 minutes). When they open, remove them with tongs and place them into a bowl. Set this aside.
While the broth simmers along, deepening the flavor, start cooking the seafood individually.
When your scallops are perfectly seared and your shrimps are a pretty pink, put everything back into the broth and let it simmer about 15 minutes or until everything is heated through.

Serve with some grilled bread and a stellar wine! Enjoy!

Piyush's dinner, before he dived in!

If you decide to have an amazing bouillabaisse dinner, make sure you add an empty bowl to your table. You’re going to need a place to get rid of all those shells!

And now I’m going to go watch Teen Mom. …Don’t judge me! 🙂

Macarons for My Husband

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I love macarons! I’m not talking about those coconut things people always make for Christmas either. Those are Macaroons, and they are okay, sure, but they don’t even hold a candle to the French Macaron! The french macaron is a dainty, chewy little piece of heaven. After one bite your life will be changed. You will never want another cookie again! You think I’m kidding, I’m sure, but I most definitely would not kid about Macarons! They are my favorite cookie because they taste so yummy but also because they are a pain the ass to make. Is that weird? I don’t know. I love the challenge.

So often when you make macarons something goes wrong. The tops crack and they look weird with no feet or the shells get a funny bump on the top of them. The shells might look grainy or maybe the cookie isn’t as chewy as it should be. I’ve tried so many ways to make macarons and I think I have finally found what works for me. I really liked BraveTart’s recipe. It works for me and even allows me to throw in extra ingredients too. I often forget to add the salt (oops) but I haven’t noticed that it affects the taste or the success of the macaron.

The Recipe: (adapted from BraveTart)

4 ounces (115g) blanched almonds or almond flour, or whatever nut you like
8 ounces (230g) powdered sugar
5 ounces egg whites (144g), temperature and age not important*!
2 1/2 ounce (72g) sugar
the scrapings of 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp (2g) salt

*I find that using egg whites that are a couple days old and brought to room-temperature give me the most consistent results. I’ve used fresh whites that were still chilled before too. Sometimes they work great, most of the time my shells crack. I also noticed that after I pipe the macarons,

letting them sit for about an hour really helps to prevent cracking. The meringue gets a little dry and this helps the macaron keep its beautiful smooth top (and bottom).

I bake them at 300 degrees and hope for the best. Usually I sit by the oven watching them for the first minute. I can usually tell if they’ll crack or grow little feet by then. This is what you want to see:

See how the shell is rising? There is a little fluffy part at the bottom? That fluffy part is what you want, it's called the "feet"

So the other day Piyush told me that he wanted some macarons. We made a deal. If he cleaned the cat litter box, I would make him any flavor macarons he wanted. He loves chocolate ganache so he chose for me to make him chocolate macarons with dark chocolate espresso ganache. They were delicious but the coffee flavor was way too strong for me.

I made the basic macaron recipe and added a couple spoonfuls of cocoa powder to the almond flour. I didn’t add any food coloring to the shells because I figured the cocoa would give it a decent tint—and I was out of brown food coloring. I made the ganache by melting chocolate with some espresso and heavy cream on a double boiler.

They didn’t turn out as smooth and pretty as I would like but right in the middle of mixing everything up I got some phone calls and had to figure out our home insurance stuff, so the macarons were neglected when they needed me the most.

Gosh, owning a home is a lot of work and it’s confusing too. We changed insurance companies and whoever I spoke with at the mortgage company last month gave me the wrong department and fax number to have the new binder sent to. We called a few times to verify everything was received and that our new insurance company was on file and we were assured it was all correct. WRONG! Although they received the binder and had it on file, the department that needed it never received it so our previous insurance company was paid a tremendous amount of money for a policy that didn’t even exist anymore. We had to get the refund and figure everything out. Annoying! It’s fixed now and I’m glad that we realized what happened before we leave the country next month!

Piyush, happy to be eating Macarons after work!

Oh, the other thing about Macarons… even if the shell cracks and they don’t look as pretty as you’d like, they still taste better than anything you’ve ever tasted!

What a Beautiful Baking Day!

5 Replies

I love this crisp weather. It’s absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, the crispness in the air also means that snow will be here sooner than later. That makes me sad. But the snow isn’t here yet, so I’m going to do my best to enjoy autumn as long as I can! I love everything about autumn. I love pumpkins, colored leaves, apples and baking! Man, do I love baking. During the summer I still bake, but I never feel completely inspired. I just don’t feel like turning on the oven inside when it feels like an oven outside. Yuck. But now that the days are in the high 60’s and low 70’s, and since I had to work all weekend long, I thought I’d bake my co-workers a Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake.

This cake is really moist and has a really good flavor. Some would say it was because of the pumpkin—who doesn’t love pumpkin?—but I would disagree. I think it’s the browned butter, baby!

To make brown butter you just take regular butter and drop it into a skillet (I prefer my cast iron for this) until it foams up and turns a golden color.

The butter will eventually melt entirely and the foam will subside quite a lot. Brown butter isn’t just for baking though. Have you ever made scallops and finished them with a butter bomb? I recommend it! Sear them nicely then toss in some butter with a couple sprigs of thyme stuck in it. Finish the scallops by “poaching” them in the butter. I don’t know if poaching is the right word, maybe basting would be better? Anyway, they are delicious!

Back to the cake! This recipe is a keeper, but the only thing I would do differently is to bake it in multiple pans, maybe 2 or 3. I just used one 9″ x 3″ cake pan and it takes forever to bake this way! It will bake all the way through but I noticed my layers were a little more “doughy” than I’d like. Some people love “doughy” though, so do what you want!

I decorated the cake really quickly using a Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream. This stuff is delish. I don’t really have a recipe for this but I think I had seen it somewhere. I just don’t remember! I just make a regular buttercream, adding some brown sugar and cinnamon. You have to cream the butter with the sugar though or else the frosting will be really grainy.

Before I left for work I cut a slice off to keep at home for Piyush. The night before he had been begging me to cut into the cake (before it was even frosted). He said the house smelled so good he just wanted to eat it! I told him no, so then he asked me if he could eat the cake scraps? I told him I didn’t level the cake so there were no cake scraps. I wish I took a picture of his reaction. He was so disappointed and tried to talk me into not taking the cake to work and leaving it for him. For someone that insists he does not like sweets, he sure doesn’t like to share them!

I ate one bite of the cake, the pointy end of Piyush’s triangle piece, and it was indeed amazing. I sliced the rest of the cake and took it to work. It was gone in 5 minutes. I’m not even joking.

Pumpkin Brown Butter Cake

(adapted from Fine Cooking)

Ingredients:

6 oz. (3/4 cup) unsalted butter; more for the pans
9 oz. (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for the pans
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 tsp. table salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 can pumpkin
1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Make the brown butter (see how earlier in the post) and set aside.
Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt and cloves in one bowl.
Combine the two sugars and add in the eggs. Cream together. Add in the buttermilk and whisk it until its all combined.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and start mixing. Slowly drizzle in the brown butter until everything is combined nicely.
Pour batter into greased pans that have the bottom lined with parchment paper (this makes it a million times easier to get the cake to slide out of the pan).
Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven. I had to bake mine for over an hour but that was because I poured all the batter into one 9″ x 3″ pan. Use a couple shallower pans and you should only have to bake it for around 45 minutes.
Cool the cake and then frost it with whatever you choose!

I’ve got all sorts of frosting left over…so be prepared to see some pumpkin spiced macrons. I think those sound amazing!