Category Archives: food

To use up the leftover antique puff pastry, I decided to make little tarts with sous vide lemon curd. There are lots of sous vide lemon curd recipes out there but I based mine this one, using a ziploc bag instead of a mason jar as the cooking vessel. That way I could just cut a […]

For Christmas dinner, I decided to do a modernist pork tenderloin Wellington. Two things make it “modernist” Meat glue to form the tenderloin into the desired shape Sous vide precook so the pork won’t be too rare inside the pastry We bought a 1.5 lb pork tenderloin. Like all tenderloins, this comes in an inconvenient shape for […]

I never got around to making the final post of this set. So, here, before doing a Xmas dinner post, is the last part of my procrastinator’s Thanksgiving. Pie is done. Dressing is done. Cranberry relish is done. Spatchcock cooking time estimates are much faster than traditional, so I was able to take a bit […]

Fortunately, we’re an evening dinner family, not an afternoon Thanksgiving family. Apple Pie As I start this post, I’ve been working on an apple pie. I’ve been using the Kenji easy pie crust recipe. Although experts seem to agree that Granny Smiths are not the best for pie, that’s what I use. Someday we may […]

Decided very late to do a semi-traditional Thanksgiving dinner, i.e. Turkey and sides instead of Spaghetti Carbonara. Starting to plan and shop on a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving is not ideal, but what the heck (I bought some pancetta just in case). We’ve been meaning to try the spatchcock (butterflied) method. Kenji at Serious Eats […]

The pseudo Black Forest Cake was a success a couple of weeks ago (yes, posting here is very sporadic) and I was talking about it with one of the grad students as part of a broader conversation about cooking. This inspired her to make Colombian empanadas, and I found one at my desk on Friday. […]

Once the Genoise was cooled, I made cake syrup and chocolate shavings (sort of). Cake syrup is just 50% sucrose plus flavorings. The recipe calls for 50% syrup an 50% Kirsch. We didn’t have Kirsch and Texas doesn’t sell anything over 17% alcohol on Sundays, so I used some Frambois we had around. The recipe […]

Debby’s father’s birthday is coming up and one of her sisters is visiting. We decided to be overly ambitious and make a chocolate cake. Not content with just making a cake (I’m usually more of a pie person), I decided that Joe Pastry’s Black Forest Cake looked good. It starts with his Chocolate Génoise 2 […]

Lately I’ve been using Kenji Alt-Lopez’ Easy Pie Crust recipe from Serious Eats. Posting here will help find the link and preserve the very minor modifications I’ve made.  The original calls for using 2/3 of the 12.5 oz of flour in the first step. This is ridiculously precise, so I’m just doing the weighing of […]

Sunday brunch: Food processor hollandaise melt half a stick of butter. While melting, in the processor bowl 2 egg yolks dash of dijon salt pepper juice of a lemon pulse add the melted butter After processing, I suspect that the butter was not hot enough to cook the egg yolks, and the sauce was too […]