Christmas Dinner 2011

Even though I have a two-week break from research, it seems that I need to keep myself busy. My mind was set to write a holiday card message to my long-distance family and spend some quality time with friends and family.

Recently, my research group produced a sample out of carbon atoms that has the shape of a snowflake. In science terms, it is called a fractal. The dimension of the sample is about the diameter of a human hair. My colleagues had this idea of having this sample as an image for a custom-made (or limited edition) holiday card. I found this idea so neat that I brought the image to a print and copy centre, and make a few holiday cards out of it.

With my photography skills improving, I have been posting less frequently food that are made by my friends during cooking meetings. I felt that the quality of these pictures are not up to par mainly due to composition and improper lighting, also I'm used to take food pictures in my "studio". I used to publish quite a lot of recipes when I started this blog. These meetings are still very active, cooking together twice a month, and it has been running for over 3 years now. The cooking group is still expanding, attracting new graduate students to join us. If my three original officemates and I haven't started this cooking project in Fall 2008, this blog would not exist and I probably would not have so many great friends made along my graduate studies. The name Random Cuisine surprisingly still holds over the years.

I'll finish this post with some pictures of our Christmas dinner.

Sharing food with great friends

Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs

Apple, Raisin and Walnut Salad

Salted Duck Eggs

Salted Duck Eggs with Tofu

Tuna Pie

Meal with a glass of sauvignon

Desserts: Lemon Bars, Gingerbread cookies and Apple Pie

Gift Exchange

Happy Holidays!!!

Prosperity Cake - Fa Gao

Chinese New Year is probably the most colorful and important of all the traditional Chinese celebration. This is the time for us to congratulate ourselves and each other on making through the year. It is the time to leave the old year behind and welcome in the new year.

For three years straight, Chinese New Year Eve is the day that I hang out with my friends and some fellow food bloggers for the giant Chinese New Year feast at Beijing restaurant in Montreal (by the way, this is not part of Chinese tradition). You can read about this feast in my previous post from two years ago or from my foodie friend Evelyne on Cheap Ethnic Eatz. On Chinese New Year, we make traditional baking goods like Nian Gao (Chinese New Year cake), sesame seed balls stuffed with red bean paste, and Fa Gao (prosperity cake). The recipe for Nian Gao can be found here.

Fa Gao translated from Chinese means both the "cake that has expanded" or "prosperity cake". The Chinese believes that when these cakes blossom, it looks like a smile which will bring good luck and prosperity for the rest of the year. These cakes are sweet, light and fluffy. Often, these are dyed in bright colors.

Makes 6 muffin-sized cakes
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Steaming Time: 15 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup water
1 1/2 block Chinese brown candy (or about 1/2 cup brown sugar)
1 cup white rice flour
1 tsp baking powder + 1 tsp water

Procedure

1. In a saucepan, combine water and brown candy over medium-high heat. Stir until dissolved. Cool to room temperature.

2. In a medium bowl, add rice flour and gradually add sugar mixture while stirring.

3. In a small bowl, add baking powder and pour in water until combined. You should hear a little sizzling and see some bubbles forming.

4. Stir it into the batter.

5. Line the mould with muffin paper. Pour batter almost all the way.

6. Steam for 15 mins. Serve. Never open the steamer midway, otherwise you won't get the smiley face :).

Gung Hay Fat Choy! 

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

Bonne année lunaire! 

Happy Chinese New Year! 

May the year of the Rabbit brings you and your family good health, success, happiness and prosperity.

Tourtière (Québec Meat Pie)

The past week, I spent my holidays with my brother in Varadero, Cuba. Exploring both the paradise part and the cultural part of Cuba, it was simply an unforgettable and worthwhile experience. Unfortunately, Cuba was cold for 3 days, so beaches were out of the question. The weather did provide us the opportunity to explore towns around Varadero and meet some great locals. I'm amazed how easy you can enter someone's house simply by asking. Before our departure, we brought a pack of 24 2/HB pencils and candies in case we get hussled by the locals. I'm surprised that husslers are not that common around Varadaro, but do watch out once you are in the capital of Cuba, Havana. The moment you get out of the vehicle, they will start to bother you. Prepare to give your stuff away.

Anyhow, this is a brief summary of my trip. It was definitely a well deserved break. I will write one or two posts about Cuba.

Obviously, we can't leave Cuba without buying any rums and Cuban coffee, so we brought back one 1kg of coffee and 4 bottles of rums: one aged 3 years, two 5 years and one 7 years. Expect some recipes involving rums for 2011!

Food bloggers are still writing about their holiday meals, so I guess I'm not too late writing about mine also. Apart from making a successful Yule log, I also wanted to bake our classic Québec meat pie. I never made one before and it was on my to-do list for years. A few days before my departure to Cuba, my friend's parents came to town from Taiwan. This is their first visit to Montreal, what a great opportunity for me to provide them a little taste of Quebec's tradition.

I was searching for a Tourtière recipe and found a really good and convincing one from a recent post on Simple Bites. At first glance, the recipe requires over an hour to cook the ground meat. Usually, when cooking for that long, it becomes blend and hard to chew. This is not the case if you add some water during the cooking process which helps soften the meat. This is standard for all meat pies. An unusual ingredient is rolled oats. I didn't know what was it purposes until I tested it out. It seems that the rolled oats acts as a binder to hold the ground meat intact.

The original recipe is for two pies. I adjusted to make it for one pie and I only had puff pastry available in the fridge. I'm pretty amazed of the final result; the flavors match perfectly to the ones I used to eat. I'm glad that my friend's parents were very satisfied. This recipe is definitely a keeper for next Christmas!

Makes 1 pie
Adapted from Simple Bites
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 1 h 30 mins
Baking Time: 20-25 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs ground pork (and/or ground beef, ground lamb)
3/4 cup cold water
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp sage
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt
1/3 cup quick oats (or old-fashioned rolled oats)
2 puff pastry sheets
1 egg, beaten for glaze

Procedure

1. In a large pot, combine pork and cold water. Bring it to a boil. It should be a bit soupy.

2. Turn heat to medium-low heat. Add onion, celery, bay leaves, thyme, sage, rosemary, nutmeg and cinnamon. Cover and cook for 1 h 15 mins, stir occasionally. If necessary, add a few tbsp of water if mixture dries out.

3. Halfway of the cooking process, season with salt to taste.

4. Stir in quick oats and cook for 1-2 mins. Remove bay leaves and cool until warm.

5. Meanwhile, roll out one puff pastry sheet to line a 8'' x 8'' baking pan and the other puff pastry for the top crust.

6. Preheat oven to 400F.

7. Transfer meat mixture onto the puff pastry and spread it evenly. Brush outer edges with beaten egg.

8. Place top crust and pinch edges to seal. Trim edges and cut a few slits in the top crust to vent the steam. Brush top crust with beaten egg.

9. Bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. Serve with ketchup.

I wish everyone Happy New Year and all the best wishes for 2011!

Double Chocolate Yule Log - A Success

Christmas is coming soon! What are your Christmas plans? Have you thought of making a Yule log for this Christmas? Remember my last year's Yule log. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. The ganache was hard as chocolate and the génoise cracked while I was rolling it. Well it is not happening this year! Like in science, you analyze carefully what went wrong and hope that all goes well the second time. It would be a boring post if I follow my last year's recipe. This year, I'm making a whole new one. I wrote down on paper all possible flavors of frosting, génoise and filling. The goal is to find the best matching flavors and also, the structure should be esthetically eye-catching.

Here is what I came up with. I decided this year to make a chocolate génoise with a vanilla cream filling. Instead of making a chocolate ganache, I chose to make a chocolate frosting. Now that I have all the recipes written down, it is the time to shop at my local supermarket and get all the missing ingredients. While going through the list of necessary ingredients carefully, I noticed that I didn't need to buy any chocolate pellets. All I had to buy is only one carton of whipping cream. As for the rest of the ingredients such as icing sugar and cocoa powder, I have it already in my pantry. That's a money saver! 

You can't believe how proud I was of the finished product when I made it last Sunday. Compared to last year, this is much better. The génoise rolled so perfectly without any cracks and the frosting was smooth, creamy and heavenly. I asked my brother to bring his friends to test out the Yule log and they all went for seconds. I can tell you that my bro never goes for seconds when it comes to desserts. I still had half of the Yule log left so I share the rest at work with whoever that hasn't left for the holidays. I'm glad that everyone enjoyed it, some even invites me to make another Yule log for the Christmas lunch at work last Tuesday. They were complaining that they didn't eat enough to satisfy their sweet tooth. 

Since I had some chocolate frosting and half of carton of whipping cream left in the fridge, I made a second Yule log without any problems. At the Christmas party, when I took out the Yule log, my friends, technicians and supervisor can't believe that the Yule log is homemade and seems like store-bought. Unfortunately, I had to forbid them from getting seconds, even a few of them were nagging me for seconds while I was cutting the Yule log and distributing to people who haven't tried it yet. In total, I shared it to about 20 people including my technicians and my supervisor. Well for the naggers, they scrapped every possible bits of chocolate frosting remaining on the parchment paper. 

If you want to make a Yule log successfully this Christmas, I have written all steps as clear as possible and took a picture of every steps. Hopefully, you don't end up like my last year's attempt. One important key point to remember, once the génoise is ready, immediately roll it once taken out of the oven. Good luck!

Makes 1 Yule log
Génoise adapted from Allrecipes

Preparation Time: 45 mins (génoise) + 10 mins (filling) + 10 mins (frosting)

Baking Time: 12 mins (génoise)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Chocolate Génoise

5 eggs, separated
1 cup white sugar, divided

1/2 cup cake flour ( or 7:1 all-purpose flour : cornstarch)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Vanilla Cream Filling

1 cup whipping cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp icing sugar

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

2/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup milk

Procedure

1. Oil a 15'' x 10'' x 1'' baking pan and line it with wax paper. Grease with butter and coat with flour.

2. In a large bowl, place egg whites, stand for 30 mins at room temperature.

3. In another large bowl, beat egg yolks until light and fluffy. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup sugar until thick and pale.

4. In a small bowl, combine and sift flour, cocoa, and salt.

5. Gradually whisk in the dry ingredients into egg yolk mixture until blended. Set aside.

6. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until it starts to foam. Add in cream of tartar and gradually add 1/2 cup sugar. Beat until stiff peaks. As a test, the egg whites should not fall if you invert the bowl.

7. Incorporate 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. 

8. Fold in the remaining egg whites, 1/3 of egg whites at a time until incorporated. 

9. Preheat oven to 350F.

10. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 12 mins or until it springs back when gently pressed.

11. Meanwhile, prepare a parchment paper and dust with icing sugar.

12. Invert cake to prepared parchment paper, remove wax paper and immediately roll up the cake with the parchment paper, starting from the short side, while it is still hot and pliable. Let it cool.

13. Prepare vanilla cream filling. 

14. In a large bowl, beat cream until it starts to thick. Add in vanilla and icing sugar. Beat until soft peaks.

15. Unroll cooled cake and spread filling with a spatula spreader. Roll it up again. Set aside. Notice that the cake has no cracks.

16. Prepare the creamy chocolate frosting.

17. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and cocoa powder until creamy.

18. Add in milk and 1/2 cup of icing sugar. Beat until incorporated. 

19. Continue adding 1/2 cup of icing sugar until it reaches a frosting consistency.

20. Make a diagonal slice at both ends of the cake. Place it anywhere on the cake.

21. Frost cake with a spatula. Draw lines to resemble like a tree bark. Use a sieve and sprinkle with icing sugar for a snowy effect.

Et voilà! Not too difficult, right? Let me know how it turns out.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!