Aplets and Cotlets Copycat

After so many years, I finally was able to make "almost as good as the original" Aplets and Cotlets. These jellied fruit candies are my Christmastime favorite. The candies are very similar to the French jellied fruit bars pâtes de fruits. I like that the candies are not too complicated to make and are moderately sweet. I'll definitely make more with other fresh fruits such as pineapple and cranberries.

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Pumpkin Brioche Biscocho

 Philippine-style biscocho is a super crunchy twice-baked yeast bread. There are 2 kinds of Filipino biscocho, the plain ones and the sugared variety which I prefer specially with thick chocolate drink or with coffee. I made sweet biscocho 5 years ago with regular white bread. This time I used pumpkin brioche shaped into loaf and they came out really really really good.

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Pişmaniye - Turkish Candy Floss

I love our Korean grocery store. It stocks sweets and treats from various countries, not just from Asia. The store has lots of items from Greece, North Africa, Middle East, North Africa, and lots of yummy stuff from Turkey. Yesterday, I picked up a packet of Turkish candy floss or cotton candy called pişmaniye which I read about many years ago. The one I got has ground pistachio. The cotton candy is sooo good, very light and not as sweet as ordinary candy floss. Today I made simple milk pudding served with a little pişmaniye on top. Delicious! You just have to try it.

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Celery Root, Parsnip, and Potato Gratin

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Carne de Ternera en Adobo

One of the recipes in the Filipino cookbook THE ADOBO BOOK is written in Spanish, there is no English nor Tagalog translation. The recipe was shared by the late Señor Adi Got who said "This is a Basque recipe from the land of San Sebastian, where the males double as cooks and pelotaris."  From the author's notes:

This family was one of several prestigious families who were members of the Tabacalera estate that established a Spanish community in chosen regions in the Philippines. 

This was a personal recipe of the late foodie Señor Adi Got. He refused to translate it from Spanish insisting that part of the flavor of the dish was in the language. In some way, it connected the Filipino adobo to the Spanish counterpart...interfaced culinary origins...sort of...

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Cranberry Walnut Bread

Watching a local TV show about food and restaurants around the D.C. area, I got hungry and salivated for the crusty cranberry walnut bread the host sank her teeth into. Washington D.C., although near where I live, is still way too far to drive for a loaf of bread. I haven't checked out our local bakeries either because I have been a bit under the weather and haven't been out of the house for almost a week. It's just a simple cold so baking it myself wasn't too taxing, and the only choice for me.

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Candied Breadfruit

Last week I had a somewhat strange experience at the Korean grocery store. I just picked up a large portion of winter melon (KUNDOL in the Philippines) which I was going to candy for Italian and Spanish nougat. Whenever I plan to make the kundol sweets, candied breadfruit, RIMAS in Tagalog, always comes to mind. I was silently wishing I would also find fresh breadfruit, and then to my utter surprise, right in front of me was a large bin full of breadfruit. I've never seen a fresh breadfruit before in my life and the only reason I knew was because there was a large sign that said BREADFRUIT. I've only known it in its candied triangular shape glazed with dried sugar syrup similar to marrons glacés. I remember its flavor and texture also somewhat resemble the candied chestnuts.

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Cranberry Pear Gelatin Mold

Every year for Thanksgiving I make spiced cranberry sauce to go with turkey. This time I wanted to try something different without the usual spices and found a recipe for Jello molded salad. I like it and I'll probably make both sauce and gelatin mold for this year's Thanksgiving Day dinner. 

The original recipe uses bottled cranberry juice. I made my own sweetened juice with fresh cranberries, sugar, mandarin orange peels, and a chopped teeny tiny Seckel pear.  

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Fruitcake

It's that time of the year again for fruitcakes which I don't really bake every year. I'm in the mood for some this coming Christmas season but changed the Fruitcake recipe I posted 6 years ago by increasing the amount of fruits and also altering the procedure. This is a large recipe; you may want to halve it.

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White Beans and Virginia Ham Soup

It's early Autumn and we're having really cold mornings. Yesterday it was 36°F, I could see my breath while cleaning the yard for the winter. Tomorrow and the next 2 mornings it will be even colder to almost freezing. Darn this global warming thing! /sarc

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Pumpkin Brioche

I'm still in my pumpkin love period and added puree into a brioche dough. To half of the dough I added pumpkin seeds and shaped into a medium size "brioche a tete" and a few teeny tiny ones. I divided the other half into eight portions and filled them with sweetened and pie spiced pumpkin puree. I love them both. They're fragrant and slightly sweet; very autumn-y.

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Italian 00 Flour Pizza

When I joined a baking community a few years ago, a lot of bakers recommended Italian 00 flour which has a lower gluten content and is finer in texture than American all-purpose flour. They promised the pizzas and breads made with this flour would be more flavorful and fragrant. This type of flour though was not available at the time but King Arthur started selling a similar flour although some bakers said the pizzas they baked with it didn't have the same aroma and flavor. How can they tell with all the toppings on the pizza? Texture, maybe, and bite too but I'm not sure about the "fragrance" of the dough. I bought a small bag of imported Italian 00 flour from our local grocery store, Giant, so probably they will start appearing in most stores. One thing for sure with this flour, it makes perfect Neapolitan style pizza with its signature crispy tender crust. I have to bake another batch with minimal toppings using this flour and ordinary all-purpose flour for a taste and aroma test.

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Cherry Tomato Confit

Had I known earlier that confit of cherry tomatoes is so good, I would have made it and often. The tomato confit is slightly sweet and has intense tomato flavor with a hint of garlic and herbs. I just love it on top of slices of freshly baked crusty bread or pasta.

I found a recipe for Italian clam soup with added tomatoes but instead of making soup I topped a few steamed clams with the cherry tomato confit and had them for lunch with a few slices of bread smeared with the oil and garlic from the confit. What a wonderful delicious lunch I had.

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Authentic Texas Border Chili Revisited

It's that time of the year again to enjoy all-meat no-beans chili so I'm re-posting the recipe for my all-time favorite, Authentic Texas Border Chili. The secret to a better tasting chili is roasting the cumin seeds before using. The one thing I really don't like about store-bought chili powder is the [offensive] raw flavor of cumin seeds which ruins almost all the food it's added to. 

Enjoy this flavorful chili with saltines, oyster crackers, table water biscuits, or on top of hot dogs, pasta, pre-cooked pinto beans, and steamed rice. 

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Pumpkin Spice Syrup

Expensive bottled raw sugar syrup being sold in grocery stores had me scratching my head. Why buy them when one can just simply boil water and raw sugar crystals to make syrup. Well, I also could not understand people paying insane amount of money for bottled flavored water and for Starbucks coffee.

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Maple Walnut Apple Crisp

Apples apples apples! I just love apples. Cakes, muffins, ice cream, pies, you name it, I'll eat it. Today it's an easy baked apple crisp topped with walnuts and oats, the recipe adapted from here. The apples I used called zestar, an early autumn variety, were very fresh from a local apple orchard. They're crispy, tart, and a tad sweet; great for snacks, salads, and baked desserts.

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Egg White Kimchi Omelet

My refrigerator and freezer have lots and lots of egg whites. I've already used a few cups for cookies and other desserts but the containers always seem full. Omelet to the rescue! I added chopped kimchi and scallions to the beaten egg whites, cut the omelet into rectangles, and layered with roasted nori (seaweed) and rice for a healthy meat-free lunch. Simple, delicious, and satisfying.

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Pistachio Paste

One of the cooking ingredients that is not easy to find in grocery stores is pistachio paste or butter. However, in recent days, pistachios in shells or roasted shelled started to have a significant presence almost everywhere, from the local grocery stores to Walmart and Target, and of course online stores that sell nuts in bulk. I bought a 3-pound bag of shelled raw pistachios because I wanted to make paste to use for ice cream and baked goods. The roasted ones are just too brown and produce an odd color that is not too appealing.

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Calamansi Macarons

It's been a long while since I made macarons. They are time consuming to make and the process gives real meaning to "labor intensive". Even writing down the recipe is a chore. Hahaha. But the end result is very rewarding, specially this batch flavored with Philippine limes, calamansi. The recipe is adapted from Piere Hermé's Lemon Macarons from his book MACARONS. They are sweet and tart and utterly delicious. I urge you to try making them at least once. You won't be disappointed.

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Copycat Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

I love the fluffy soft King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls but they are cloyingly sweet for me. A lot of copycat recipes online also have a ton of sugar and some have pineapple juice. Because...Hawaii. Um, yeah. On the list of countless ingredients is potato flour. According to numerous baking blogs, addition of mashed or flaked potato makes breads extra moist and fluffy soft and it also helps in keeping the bread stay fresh longer.

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Fried Milk (Leche Frita) and Fried Corn Soup

creamy and moderately sweet with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla Leche Frita
Have you heard about thedeep fried corn potage or soup introduced at KFC Japan early this week? It's crazy, I know, but it certainly got my attention. Looking at the photo of the of the fried "soup" nuggets, a Fillipino snack/dessert pudding called Maja Blanca which is made of coconut milk, sweet corn kernels, and cornstarch immediately came to mind. It also reminded me of the Spanish sweet snack Leche Frita, literally fried milk, but is actually chilled pudding, cut into squares, dipped in egg and bread crumbs, then fried.

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