¡Tortas!

Sometimes inspiration comes from several places, all hitting you within the space of a few short days. The Oak Cafe at school is doing a Mexican street food menu this week. I've been sort of craving tortas. I was curious about making a version of bolillos, the rolls used for this sandwich. Then, a Mexican friend tried some bread that I'd made and said it tasted like the bolillos she had as a child in Mexico.

My bread was sourdough, so I started thinking. Maybe bolillos, like most food in Mexico, taste different than our version. Maybe they've got more flavor, more complexity. So, why not use a light sourdough formula from a poolish and see what happens?

The other ingredients - carnitas and chile colorado - are simple enough to make if you have time.

For the carnitas, I cut some pork shoulder into 2" cubes, added a quartered lime, some salt and some garlic and braised it for about three hours. The fat slowly renders out as the water evaporates, so in the end the meat can fry a bit and brown in its own fat. You can also take the meat out, increase the heat to high and boil away the water. When you're down to the fat, reduce the heat and brown the meat. Done.

The chili colorado was a bit different. I thought I had a great stash of chilis, but only had cascabels, moritas and some hot New Mexico Hatch peppers I'd dried last summer. Chiles negros, anchos and guajillos are now on my shopping list, so I can get more chili flavor without the heat. I had all the other ingredients: brown stock, fresh garlic, a bit of ripe canned tomatoes, salt, black pepper, onion, celery, carrot, cumin and coriander seeds.

The chilis get seeded, then sautéed in a bit of vegetable oil after the spices, onions, carrots and celery. The trick is to heat them up without scorching them, to release their flavor. Then the chopped garlic, and finally the stock and tomato to cool things down. After that, a bit of simmering and into the blender for a quick purée. The sauce gets returned to the pan, and dosed with red wine vinegar according to how tart you like things. Finally, adjust the salt and everything is ready to go. One local restaurant goes fairly heavy on the vinegar, but it's safer to add in increments while tasting to find the level you prefer.

When everything's ready, cut a bolillo in half, toast it lightly, add a layer of salsa, some carnitas, some more salsa or cilantro and sliced avocado. I never get enough avocado in restaurants, so this transforms the torta into a real luxury.

You can serve tortas open faced, covered or wet. If you like them wet, completely drowned in salsa, make the salsa more liquid, almost soupy, by adding more stock.

Black swans

I made these almost a year ago, as an experiment. We had to invent a pâte à choux variation, or maybe it was just a dessert formula... I forgot. It's not important, though. I do remember thinking, "but what if this doesn't work?".

So, chocolate pâte à choux, chocolate pastry cream, and there they are - a fancy version of éclairs. They look good swimming across a blue plate.

Pipe some pâte à choux into "S" shapes, pipe some more with a star tip, just like a normal éclair. Slice in half horizontally, then slice the top piece vertically to make the wings. Pipe in some chocolate pastry cream, place the head and neck (the "S" curve) and press the wings into the pastry cream.

Voilá! Black swans. Maybe if I were a virtuoso pastry bag artiste, I could have somehow given the bird a beak. There has to be a way! Maybe with a mold and some tempered chocolate... but then might as well cast the bird in two pieces and assemble - chocolate would hold really fine detail, right down to feathers.

Now I'm wondering... what about making white swans with meringue, then alternating the black and white swans on a blue platter...

Baba Cakes

The blue flame glows in the dark room, swirling inside the funnel-shaped tuille for a few seconds until it fades.

Damn, that's impressive. Especially for a cupcake. But this isn't any ordinary cupcake. This is not something you give to your underage children. It's more of a dessert and cocktail blended into a single decadent entity.

It's more dynamic than a cupcake, too. Normally, you buy a cupcake, eat it and throw away the paper. These have a bit of showmanship. They get plated, someone pours hot rum into the cup, you pick it up and blow out the flame or wait for it to diminish. The rum sinks into the cake.

Take a bite. Raisin, rum, buttercream, dark sugar will unite to proclaim to your senses that this is far from your typical sugar bomb cupcake. It's more like an exotic visitor from Europe, a bit risque, even perhaps dangerous. There's rum in there! An alcoholic cupcake? Yes! Your visitor may be unusual, but he certainly knows how to entertain!

In fact, the cake is too rich for mass consumption that could lead to drunkenness. You won't wake up in bed with someone you hardly know who speaks with an accent. There could be a moment of rum-induced change of consciousness, but only a moment. There is also a built-in warning. If the tuille melts, you've added too much rum. Normally, this would only happen if you filled it twice. Not recommended, since you've exceeded the design parameters by 200%.

The rum soaks into the cake from the bottom of the tuille funnel, so you're not supposed to get a shot of pure rum. The rum melds with the raisin, sugar and baba dough, accented by the raisins in the buttercream. It's still a cupcake, not a shot glass after all. You could also heat a rum-sugar-water syrup and use that, for a reduced alcohol version.

Remember that this formula comes from an advanced baking class, so there's a lot going on. We had a team of four people doing things at the same time, so you can get together with friends to make these.

Baba Cakes

This is enough for about 30 rather large cupcakes or even more small ones.

Rum syrup
You can prepare this in advance.
yield 2 lb 3 oz

Ingredients
 6 oz    Brown sugar
    14 oz oz    Granulated sugar
    1 oz    Lemon juice
    6 oz    Water
    8 oz Dark rum
    0.1 oz    Vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Place the sugar, lemon juice and water in a small saucepan and cook over high heat until the sugar dissolves. 
2. Pour into a 4-cup heatproof stainless steel or other non-reactive pan and allow to cool. 
3. Add the rum and vanilla and set aside. Alternatively, you can heat the rum with the other ingredients in the first step to vaporize some of the alcohol.

Chocolate tuiles
yield: 14 oz

Prepare these in advance so they’re ready to go when the cakes are baked.

Ingredients
2. 4 oz    Cake flour
1. 3 oz    Dutch-processed cocoa powder
4.5 oz    Confectioner’s sugar
2.3 oz    butter, unsalted
3.5 oz    egg whites, room temperature
0.1 oz    vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Line sheet pan(s) with silicone baking mats. Cut out 3” to 4” diameter circles from a manilla file folder.
2. Mise en place: have shaping and cutting instruments ready: tapered dowels, round cutters.
3. Sift together the cake flour and cocoa powder
4. Cream together the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment, starting on low speed and increasing to medium speed until smooth, 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
5. Add the egg whites and vanilla and mix on medium speed until fully incorporated. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
6. Turn off the mixer and add the dry ingredients. Mix on low speed until incorporated. Do not overmix.
7. Use an offset spatula to spread a very thin layer of tuile into the circular openings in the modified folder. Do not place more than four openings on a pan, since they will set up quickly and be difficult to form.
8. Bake at 325°F until golden brown but still soft, 8-10 minutes. Watch carefully - the convection oven may be too hot and can overcook things!
9. Remove the cutout template from the silicon mat.
10. Using a cone-shaped item, form the tuiles into cone shapes. Reheat as necessary to shape (try to avoid this if you can).
11. Reserve for later.

French raisin buttercream
This can be made while during the first proofing (bulk fermentation).

yield: 3 lbs 9 oz

Ingredients
6.2 oz    raisins
2.3 oz    rum
0.3 oz    vanilla extract
6.2 oz    eggs, whole, grade AA
6.2 oz    egg yolks
14 oz    granulated sugar
3.1 oz    water
1 lb 2.7 oz    butter, unsalted

Instructions

1. Place the raisins in just enough rum to completely cover them, and purée until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and set aside. If you gently heat this mixture, you can reduce the alcohol content.
2. Whip eggs in mixer fitted with a whip attachment on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
3. Combine sugar and water in heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar, then stop stirring. Heat until the mixture reaches 240°F (soft-ball stage).
4. Slowly pour the hot sugar syrup into the eggs while whipping on medium speed. Continue to whip until cool.
5. Gradually add the butter, beating until incorporated after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
6. Blend in rum/vanila/raisin mixture.
7. Store covered under refrigeration until needed.

Baba Cake
Yield: 2 lb 14.5 oz (46.5 oz)

Ingredients
1 oz     lemon zest (about 1 oz per lemon)
1oz    dark rum
13 oz     Milk, whole (1/2 gallon)
0.9 oz    Brown sugar
0.9 oz    Granulated sugar
1.2 oz    SAF yeast
8 oz    Eggs, grade AA
1 lb 3 oz    A.P. Flour
0.1 oz    Kosher salt
6 oz    Unsalted butter

Instructions

1. Pre heat proofer. Line pans with paper inserts. Pre heat oven to 375° when dough is put into pans.
2. Instructions
3. Combine the lemon zest and rum in a small bowl, bring just to a simmer and set aside.
4. Heat the milk to 115°F (46°C) and then pour it into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Stir in the yeast and sugars.
5. With the mixer on low speed, first add the eggs, then the flour, salt, and butter. Raise the speed to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes.
6. Scrape down the bowl and beater to form the dough into a loose ball. It will be very soft.
7. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and allow it to proof until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
8. Drain the zest (empty the rum remaining into the prepared syrup), fold into the dough with a spatula.
9. Place the cupcake paper on a scale and add 1-½ ounces of dough to each cake, then place the cups into a cupcake pan.
10. Cover the pan with a damp towel, and proof until the dough reaches halfway to the top of of the pan, 30 minutes in a proofer. You want to leave room at the top for the buttercream, and the cakes will rise during baking.
11. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Bake the cakes for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Start checking them after 12 minutes, in case your oven runs hot.
12. Remove cakes from cake pan and place on a cooling rack (keep the paper wrappers on them). Allow to cool a bit so they’ll be easier to cut.

 Cupcake assembly

1. Cut out a conical shape in the center of each cake with a paring knife, and insert a tuile into each cake.
2. Pour the rum syrup very slowly onto the slightly warm cakes, allowing it all to soak in thoroughly. Amazingly, the liquid will be absorbed into the cake, and will take more syrup than you would think. If you want drier cakes, cut the syrup recipe down by half.
3. Pipe buttercream around each tuile with a star tip, covering any ragged edges created when cutting into the cake.

Plating

1. If the guest is a minor, give him a Newman O. These tricks aren’t for kids.
2. Place the baba cakes on plates.
3. Heat a small quantity of dark rum (like Zara) in a pan with a pouring spout. Don’t get it hot - you just need it warm enough to volatilize the alcohol. It could ignite if you get it too hot, and that would be bad. Throw a wet towel over it to extinguish and set it aside to cool.
4. Holding it away from your body, light the warm rum. For better effect, do this tableside.
5. Carefully pour the flaming rum into the tuiles, not too much. This is more for the flame effect than anything, and remember that there’s already rum syrup in the cakes. If you pour too much rum, the tuilles will collapse due to the moisture - consider it a built-in warning.

Consume in moderation (these things are rich, so I can’t eat more than one). Do not drive or operate machinery after eating. If you work in a sawmill, save these for after your shift when you're safely home.

Soup and Salad

After the carnivore's menu, we needed something greener, healthier and most importantly lighter.

Soup and salad, with leftover whole wheat baguettes and water seemed like a great after the pig-out meal.

The Soup
Roasted Carnival Squash, Garlic & Arugula Soup
Cut up the squash, add a bit of beef stock and roast at 350° F until fork tender. Set aside.
Mince some garlic and quickly sauté it in some hot oil. Just as it starts to get a bit of color, add the squash and some beef stock. Let simmer a bit, then blend to a smooth consistency. Add cream to taste, salt, black pepper and chili flakes. Garnish with arugula.

The Salad
Raddichio & Arugula with Meyer Lemon Dressing
Wash the arugula, spin dry and set aside.
Quickly blanch asparagus spears, set aside. When cool, cut in half lengthwise.
Wash the radiccio, then slice from top to bottom into quarter to half-inch thick sections. Set aside.
Make the dressing with fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon juice, a bit of fresh lime juice and enough white wine vinegar to bring up the acidity. Add a pinch of salt and some black pepper and some new crop olive oil.
Place the arugula in the plates, then top with the radicchio. Add the asparagus spears as a garnish.
Drizzle with unfiltered, unrefined new crop olive oil.
Beat the dressing to temporarily emulsify it and drizzle it over the salad.

The acid in the dressing tones down any bitterness in the greens, and the asparagus adds a note of richness. Overall, it's still light and fresh, since the only fat in the dressing is itself a fresh-tasting olive oil.

A valentine's menu for carnivores

Some might think guys are the real carnivores, but sometimes this isn't the case. Although I enjoy a nice piece of beef from time to time, this meal was inspired by a woman. A woman who was craving red meat. Not only red meat, but marrow bones, cooked slowly in a court bouillon flavored with mirepox. Then a pan-seared steak served rare, with a side of cipollini onions and baby potatoes braised in beef stock. A bit of marrow-infused Bordelaise sauce and the second course was done. Dessert was an upside-down lime-apple crumble, sort of a Franco-American take on the classic tarte tatin.

I think she got enough marrow bones to satisfy her craving, and then some. There really are things that should be consumed in moderation. So, the dinner that followed was much lighter - too tasty to qualify as atonement and not quite healthy enough to qualify as totally restorative.

I was in class on Valentine's Day this year, in case you were wondering why this menu appeared the day before V-day for a meal that happened two days before Eros came to town.