A La Cuisine!

Announcing July's Is My Blog Burning?

On July 31st, I’ll have the honour of hosting the 17th edition of the food blogging phenomenon Is My Blog Burning?  Created by the eminent Alberto of Il Forno, IMBB brings together dozens of bloggers from around the world each month to cook dishes with a common theme.

The event has been the inspiration behind many other wonderful food blogging events including Sugar High Fridays, Wine Blogging Wednesdays, Paper Chef, Does My Blog Look Good in This? and of course the eccentric End of Month Egg on Toast Extravaganza.

For July, I’m delighted to announce that the theme will be… tasteTea! 

Huh?

Let me clarify.  tasteTea, as in a tasty dish of your choice prepared with tea.

Any dish or drink that’s made with tea qualifies.  On the weekend of July 31st, simply post an entry about your tasteTea dish on your blog, and e-mail me a link to it at alacuisine@gmail.com.  Beginning August 1st, I’ll profile 10-15 entries each day until we’ve looked at them all.  Hopefully this will give each entry a bit more exposure than normal, and will prevent me from going insane if there are many entries.

Everyone, whether you’re a food blogger or not, is welcome and encouraged to participate.  If you need a place to post your entry, I’d be glad to host it for you.

For many of us, tea is very much a ritual in our lives.  Often it’s not so much about the tea itself, but the events with which we associate tea with.  As an optional part of this month’s IMBB, I’d like to invite you to share with us your own tea rituals and experiences.  Depending on the number of participants, I’ll either link to your entry as part of the main round-up or do a separate mini tea rituals round-up.

I’m very excited about hosting this month’s IMBB, and I look forward to reading everyone’s entries.  If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment.

Now, let's get brewing!

Miss Gla'Gla, you’re so fine and delicious (IMBB 16)

It was love at first sight.  Her slim, gorgeous figure set against her flowing raspberry highlights.  And everyone simply knew her as “Miss Gla'Gla.”   

Okay, so I haven't fallen for a girl with a funny name, but I am smitten with Pierre Hermé's macaron ice cream sandwich that’s called Miss Gla’Gla.   The first time I saw it on Pim's blog, I just knew I had to make it.  I love macarons and I love ice cream sandwiches.  So Pierre Hermé, if you’re reading this, I think you’re a genius for combining the two.  (And seriously M. Hermé, if you actually do read my blog, I would be more than happy to share my thoughts on your other creations, if you would kindly send me some samples.)

Today marks the 16th edition of Is My Blog Burning? hosted by the ever stylish Viv of Seattle Bon Vivant.  The theme is eggs, which is perfect, because yolks are essential for making rich and smooth ice cream, and whites are responsible for the volume and shape of macarons.  Seeing that I didn’t have an actual recipe for the Miss Gla’Gla, I decided to use three flavours that I’ve come to love.

IMBB 11: Fried Azuki Bean Ice Cream

Before I had even started, I knew that this dish could easily turn into an absolute disaster.  On Saturday I made azuki bean ice cream, and today my plan was to coat scoops of the ice cream with panko (Japanese bread crumbs) and deep fry them in hot oil.  Two outcomes seemed likely.  Either the ice cream would instantly melt into a puddle of purplish muck and cause the oil to pop and explode, or the panko would insulate the ice cream enough to form a shell, and keep the scoop of ice cream intact.

As it turns out, my results were somewhere in between the two.  While I waited for the panko to brown, the ice cream began to melt, and everything barely remained in one piece.  It did, however, taste quite good - good enough to use it as my entry for the eleventh edition of Is My Blog Burning? hosted by Cathy of My Little Kitchen.  The theme for the event is Beans, Beans, the musical fruit.

Macarons (IMBB 10)

I have never been to Paris, but when I eventually go there someday, I plan to visit the renowned pâtisseries of Pierre Hermé and Ladurée to try out all their macarons.

Without a doubt, macarons are my favourite type of cookie. And since Jennifer of the Domestic Goddess has proclaimed cookies to be the theme for this month's Is My Blog Burning?, I chose to make three flavours of macarons: Matcha-Chestnut, Caramel-Fleur de Sel, and Toasted Sesame.

Macarons (not to be confused with coconut macaroons) are characterized by their smooth and paper-thin, dome-shaped shell. Underneath is a chewy, cake-like layer, and underneath that, is a ruffled skirt called the feet. Macarons are simply made from egg whites, ground almonds and icing sugar, and they're often sandwiched together with a spread of buttercream or jam. The result is a 'cookie' that gives an initial crunch before slowly melting in your mouth.

Coconut Panna Cotta and Pineapple Gelée Terrine (IMBB 9)

Three weeks ago when Derrick announced that the theme of this month’s Is My Blog Burning? would be terrines, the possibilities seemed limitless. But fast forward to yesterday, and I was clueless as to what I would be making. All my sources had come up empty – there were an abundance of terrine recipes, but none looked appealing enough to make. Desperate for ideas, I turned to my flavour matching guide, Culinary Artistry, and chose the ingredient pairing of pineapple and coconut.

What should I make? A terrine of pineapple and coconut sorbets? A coconut terrine cake sandwiching layers of pineapple chutney? After several minutes of careful thought, and an hour of television to ease my mind, I settled on coconut panna cotta and pineapple gelée for its lightness and smooth texture. I didn’t have a recipe for either, but at least I now knew what I was doing.

I spent last night reading various panna cotta and coconut-flavoured recipes, and made the terrine this morning. The recipe I came up with is quite straightforward, and the terrine was delicious and refreshing. The intense and slightly tart pineapple gelée balances the light and creamy coconut panna cotta. Both melt in your mouth at about the same rate, so the flavours blend together nicely. For garnish and to provide textural contrast, I added some pineapple brunoise, coconut shavings, and pineapple glaze on the side.

Deconstructed Glass of White Wine (IMBB 8)

I’ll be the first to admit that the title of this post is misleading. That’s certainly a plate in the picture, not a glass. And that cloudy pool of yellow (thankfully) isn’t white wine; it’s grape juice gelée that’s been slightly fermented.

What is true about the title, is that the eighth edition of Is My Blog Burning? is being hosted today by Donna of There’s a Chef in My Kitchen. This month’s theme is cooking with wine and spirits, so hopefully my use of grape juice qualifies, although I admit it’s a bit of a stretch. You may have noticed that the title also contains an ambiguous ‘deconstructed’ qualifier. This means that the dish has been broken down into its basic components and reassembled in a style different from the original. It also provides me with an excuse for the misleading title - the glass of white wine has been 'deconstructed' beyond recognition.

The dish I’ve chosen deconstructs white wine into its many flavours and aromas, and is adapted from José Andrés of Washington’s Café Atlantico. The pool of grape juice gelée serves as the base, and twelve flavours commonly found in white wine line the edges of the plate. Simply take a spoonful of gelée with one of the ingredients and taste.

According to Andrés, “the idea [of the dish] is to be very open to wine, without being afraid of saying or thinking the wrong thing about it. When someone says they taste lychee in a Gewürztraminer, they mean they taste some exotic fruit that they experienced at some time in their lives. The idea of the deconstructed white wine is to trigger those memories, but also to give people a reference point for flavours they may not have been able to identify before.” ¹

Crystal Shrimp Dumplings (IMBB 7)

During my last year of university, amidst a barrage of assignments and exams, dumplings were my saviour. Simply plop them in boiling water, and they’d be ready to eat in under five minutes. For lunch or dinner, or as a nutrient-rich snack during a dreaded all-nighter, I spent my final eight months of school living on frozen dumplings.

Although I’d eaten hundreds of dumplings, I had yet to make them from scratch. And so the dumpling theme for this month’s ‘Is My Blog Burning?’ hosted by Jarrett of Food Porn Watch, gave me the perfect opportunity to try my hand at Chinese crystal shrimp dumplings, one of my favourite dishes at Chinese dim sum.

Crystal shrimp dumplings (called ‘haar gow’ in Chinese), are made from a shrimp mixture that’s been wrapped in a thin, translucent dough and steamed in a bamboo steamer. I used a recipe from Corinne Trang’s Essentials of Asian Cuisine and have adapted and posted it below. A few of the recipe’s ingredients will likely require a trip to your local Asian grocery store. These include wheat starch, tapioca starch and rice flour used for the dumpling’s wrapper, and Shaoxing wine, sesame oil and bamboo shoots (shown above) used for the filling.