Mocha Walnut Muffins

1.5 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tsp bake powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1/2 cup coffee
1/2 cup milk/lactaid
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup sugar

Preheat
375F

Dry stuff

In a bowl combine flour, walnuts, chocolate chips, baking soda and salt. Give it a quick mix and set it aside.

Wet stuff

In a bowl mix egg, melted butter, coffee, milk, vanilla, sugar and peanut butter. It's ok if the peanut butter isn't totally dissolved. If there's some clumps, it's fine.

Pour the wet into the dry. Stir until it is thoroughly mixed. Once it is mixed, fill 12 muffin pan and bake for 18 minutes. Let it cool for a few minutes and eat while still warm.

New Year Muah Chee

Today is lunar new year and I wanted to celebrate with the kids. Normally, chinese eat new year rice cake. I looked at recipes over the weekend and tried to find one that isn't super sweet. All of them ones I found use red sugar in equal parts with sweet rice flour. I'm not big on sweets, so I searched for mochi recipes. Again, most of the recipes I found had more sugar than I like until I found this recipe

Using that as the starting point, I made a few minor changes. Here is my recipe

1 cup mochiko (aka sweet rice flour)
1 cup goya cocanut milk
1/2 cup water
1 pinch salt

1 cup roasted peanuts
4 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbs toasted sesame seeds

Before you make the muah chee, make the peanut mixture. Put the peanuts and raw sugar into a food processor and pulse for a minute or two. Pour the peanut sugar mix into a glass or non-stick baking pan. Add the sesame seeds and mix.

In a large microwave oven safe bowl combine sweet rice flour and salt. Give it a quick mix. Add the cocanut milk + water and mix. Microwave the for 2 min on high. Remove from the microwave and knead it for 5-6 min until it starts to look shiny.

Microwave for 2.5min and then knead again for 5-6min. Cut chunk of the mochi and put it in the pan with the peanut mix. Move it around and cut them into small bite size pieces with kitchen scissors. Repeat this process until all of the mochi is coated in the peanut mix.

Eat immediately while it is still warm.

Slow Poached Egg the easy way

Today I wanted slow poached eggs to go with the ramen. The last time I made it, it was quite tricky to get the fire just right. I had to check it every 10 minutes. That got me thinking, can I use my rice cooker to do it? After some googling, I found the warm temperature is 140F and that is the same as David Chang's recipe. Here's my technique.

I have a Tiger fuzzy logic rice cooker. Any fuzzy logic rice cooker should work. Start by turning on warm. Bring about 4-5 cups of water almost to a boil. When I see steam start to come out of the spout, I turn it off and pour enough into the rice cooker to reach the 4 cup line. I let the hot water sit until the temperature drops to 150F.

Carefully put 4 room temperature eggs in the rice cooker and close it. Set a timer for 45 minutes. When it's done, remove the eggs from the water and set it aside. Use it immediately in your ramen or just eat it.

Ramen recipe for soothing your soul

Over the holiday I got a nasty cold traveling to Portland OR. Last week I had to travel to Philly for work, but I wasn't 100% recovered. Luckily, philly had some good restaurants like http://www.pho4seasons.com/, http://www.vimanthai.com/ and http://www.ramenbarphilly.com/. The Tonkotsu ramen was really nice, and inspired me to make ramen on Saturday. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients

Fresh frozen lo mein noodles

2 32oz boxes of chicken stock
2 lbs of pork neck bones
1 packet of pho seasoning

1 large onion pealed
6 cloves garlic
2 inches of giner pealed
5-7 pieces of rock sugar
1 tbp salt
1 tsp mirin vinegar
1/4 cup Nuoc Mam

2 cups water

Noodle condiments

bok choi/broccoli/spinach
2 carrots julienne
meat of  your choice


Making the soup

I start by putting the pork bones in a pot and bring it to a boil. I let it boil for 5-10 minutes and then dump the liquids. This step helps to get rid of the scum and makes the soup clear. I rinse off the bones to get any scum off and I wash the pot. Put the bones back in the pot with the chicken stock, garlic, ginger, pho spice, onion, nuoc mam, rock sugar, salt and 2 cups of water. Any good fish sauce will do. Depending on your taste, use more or less rock sugar. Bring the soup to a boil and then turn it down to simmer. Let it simmer for 5-8 hours. When the soup is done, the meat should be falling off the neck bones. Taste the soup and add more salt if needed. This is really a personal preference. The fish sauce is salty, but you might want a bit more depending on what you put on your ramen.

Preparing the lo mein

5 hours before you need them, take it out of the freezer to defrost. 1 bag of noodles divides into 4 servings. The noodles should be at room temperature when you divide them into 4 servings. Set it aside.

Prepare the veggies

I vary the veggies I put in my ramen depending on what I have on hand. Bok choi, broccoli, spinach, bean sprouts, carrots and nappa cabbage are some of my favorites. Wash the veggies and cut them so they are bite size. Start a big pot of water, add a tsp of salt and bring to a boil. For broccoli, boil them for 90-100 seconds and cool in a ice bath. For bok choi 60 seconds. I use a noodle basket to blanch the veggies.

Once the veggies are blanched, you're ready for the final step. Bring the soup to a rolling boil.

Cooking noodles

Put 1 serving of lo mein in the noodle basket and boil it for 90 seconds. You can go longer if you want softer noodles, but not more than 2 minutes. Put all of the ingredients in a big chinese bowl. When all four bowls have the noodles and toppings, laddle enough soup to cover everything.

I like pork belly in my ramen, but any kind of savory meat will go with it. Sometimes I use ham or just boil some chicken breast. Fresh pickles is a good side dish with ramen. I use Maangchi's recipe, which can be found here https://www.youtube.com/user/Maangchi

wholewheat cinnamon muffins

Tonight I decided to make wholewheat cinnamon muffins with freshly milled wheat. This is a variation of different recipes I've used in the past.

2 cups freshly milled wholewheat
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 large egg
1 cup milk
pinch nutmeg
1.5 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp melted butter

Preheat the oven at 375F

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the egg, melted butter and milk. Pour the wet mix into the dry and combine until they are mixed. Don't over mix. Divide the dough into 12 muffin and bake for 15-20min.

Flour, I never understood you until now

I'm glad I bought a mill and decided to give it a try. For 40+ years I've been eating food made with flour. Growing up we ate breads and pastries made with white flour. All this time, I thought I was tasting flour, but really I was missing the whole picture. After I got married, I switched to wholewheat bread and learned to like it. For many years I ate and enjoyed Mathews wholewheat sandwich bread.

The thing is, what I was tasting wasn't really wholewheat. It was the sugars and other flavors Mathews added to the bread. When I started going to Rose32, I was amazed at how awesome the breads are. Not just the french baguette, every loaf had a rich and complex flavor. Frank's loaf, local loaf and other whole grain loafs were simply amazing. I attributed it frank's skill, recipe, yeast and oven.

Baking with home milled fresh flour has really opened my eyes. Even though I don't have Frank's skill, yeast or Italian stone oven, the last 2 loafs I made have a bit of that richness it was missing. There are many things I like about modern technology and how it's improved the standard of living, but often I feel we too detached from nature. Eating freshly milled flour is making me see how detached we are from the soil. The richness our planet provides is there, but we've largely ignore it to the detriment of every creature living on this rock.

Part of me is angry and wants to scream "how the fuck did we get here?" Another side is thankful for people like Montana flour and make their products available. I really wish US culture would change and people would stop and notice how lucky we are. We live on a planet that provides us with soo much. It is our duty to treat this planet with greater respect.

Wholewheat loaf

I've been experimenting with wholewheat loaf for a few weeks. I'd been thinking about milling my own flour and didn't think it makes much difference. Boy was I ever wrong. The bottom line is home milled flour produces a loaf that is different in texture and flavor. Store bought wholewheat has a slight bitter after taste and it tends to be more dense. The flavor is richer and fuller with a naturally sweet after taste.

2 cups home mill hard red spring wheat
1 cup KA all purpose flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1.5 cups warm water

Preheat dutch oven at 500F for 30min

I use the no-knead technique and let it rise at minimum 12 hours. With store bought wholewheat it tends to work better rising 14 hours. After the dough is formed into a loaf, I let it rise 35-45min and then bake it at 450F for 30 covered and 8min uncovered.

A couple of other notes. When I mixed the home milled flour, it mixes easier and absorbs the water much faster than store flour. I set my wondermill between bread and pastry flour, so that probably contributes to the texture. From a crumb perspective, the home milled flour is light and chewy. It's not as fluffy as 3 cups of KA all purpose flour, but the texture of the gluten tastes the same. Whereas with KA wholewheat flour, it is noticeably more dense and not as chewy.

 I milled 6 cups, since that's what I need for this week.

The dough once it is mixed

The final loaf is a little lighter in color than store flour