Sunday, February 28, 2010

San Francisco Chinatown followed by The Perfect Sirloin

What to do on a lazy Sunday? Lucky enough to live only an hour from San Francisco, it always seems a good idea to go there and spend the day walking and eating. The plan was to go to the Ferry Building's Farmers Market, but that's on Saturday - bummer. After a leisurely walk along the waterfront we dove into Chinatown - always good, but especially so on the verge of a China trip!

Rule #1: If you go to Chinatown, never eat in the tourist restaurants, but instead seek out the hole in the wall dim sum bakeries and noodle shops. We went for dim sum, and this was our $5 breakfast:


Fabulous shrimp, spinach and pork dumplings as well as some rice parcels with goodies in them. Strolling along Grant Street made my mouth water....


 


But alas, it all had to stay there, this blog is about my happy meat and I have a beautiful, happy sirloin steak waiting at home. It's been marinating in Teriyaki Sauce with a bit of Sriracha for kicks.


Notice how the grass fed beef doesn't have the marbled look, but the fat is in distinct areas? Much easier to cut off and hence better for you. And sooo yummy! Off to the BBQ it goes... And a little later it's at 130F internal temperature, gets a little rest, and here it is:


 


Spinach sauteed with some of the marinade as a side - voila, the perfect dinner!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Mini tiered Cordon Rose Cheesecake

Eggs, eggs, eggs... What can I do with them? Bake! Michelle and Bill are coming over later, good excuse to do another wedding cake tasting! The second flavor of their cake will be a cheesecake. What am I saying, not any cheesecake, no, a Cordon Rose Cheesecake, straight out of Rose Beranbaum's Cake Bible, sandwiched between layers of biscuit. And since it's winter and we're in citrus season here, there'll be lots of citrus going on. Here is the decoration in progress, candied kumquat slices and a lemon rose:


I'm making the bisquit the lazy way, by beating the entire eggs and the sugar together in a waterbath. I seem to get better consistency with that method, and it saves quite a bit of time.... Looking forward to soon having an outlet close to my stove!


Add the sifted white whole wheat, starch, and brown butter and you're ready to go!

To add some excitement I decided to try a new decorating technique, a chocolate band / lattice that's wrapped around the cake. I covered the cake in white chocolate ganache, just to be safe, and then made the chocolate band. After 2 trials that ended in remelted chocolate I decided that it was good enough for my first trial. The top layer has the lattice, the bottom just a solid chocolate band.



Taste report will follow....

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Beautiful Eggs

Ok, I'm a city girl. Which probably makes me more excited about real food than people that grew up around it. Imagine my excitement when I went to my favorite lamb and egg purveyor, Karin Sinclair of Sinclair Family Farms in Penryn, and picked up some 2nds and they looked like this:


Blue eggs! From chickens! I learned that different breeds of chickens have different color eggs, and some of Karin's new ones just happen to make blue eggs and green eggs. And as all of her eggs, they taste delicious, especially soft boiled.

Stay tuned for what I'll turn them into other than soft boiled eggs.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Chocolate Oblivion Cake with Lacquer Glaze

So this blog is about what I'll do with my quarter cow and the 100 dozen eggs that I bought in an egg share. But I don't want to be predictable so I'll kick it off with an entry about a cake. Used two eggs in it so it counts, anyways!


My friends Michelle and Bill will get married this summer, and I offered to bake their wedding cake. Because I like them, and because I like baking cakes, and because I like crazy projects! I made my first wedding cake last year, and it was a beautiful combination of two of Rose Beranbaum's cakes, the Cordon Rose Cheesecake and the Chocolate Truffle Oblivion Cake and an extra layer of Baumkuchen, an almondy cake made following my Grandmother's recipe.

Anyways - back to this cake: It's a test cake for Michelle and Bill, and it was the Chocolate Truffle Oblivion. The final cake will have a white chocolate ganache as frosting, but I wanted to try out the Lacquer Glaze in Rose's new Heavenly Cakes book.

So here it is. I made a small version, in a 6" pan. The glaze came out perfectly!