BWJ - Hazelnut biscotti

It seems that the poor old hazelnut is a much unloved nut, having regard to the comments on this week's Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia forum.  I had never given it much thought, as hazelnuts are nuts like any other to me, and I rather like them.  But there you go - for this week's Baking with Julia recipe, Hazelnut Biscotti, hosted by  Jodi of Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina of Baking and Boys, you will see many variations and substitutions, so that non-filbert-o-philes can still make it.

This recipe taught me a new way of skinning hazelnuts - by boiling them with bicarbonate of soda for a few minutes then running them under cold water.  It is a pretty neat technique, and much easier and cleaner than roasting them off.

The skinned hazelnuts are then toasted in the oven, before being chopped and added to the easy peasy biscotti dough.  Alice Medrich's original recipe included Frangelico in the dough - I used Kahlua instead, because that is what I had to hand.

I was pleasantly surprised by these biscotti - normally I am not a fan, but this recipe made the nicest biscotti I have ever tasted.   Normally, I find eating biscotti rather like chewing on bits of old cardboard, but these were tasty.

To see what the other BWJ members thought of these biscotti, and for the variations they chose, visit the LYL section of the website.

San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace

While I have been told that San Francisco is often foggy and cold in summer due to the "June gloom", for the three days that I was there on vacation recently, the weather was sunny, and on two of those days, it was quite warm.  This allowed me to see San Francisco at its brightest and best, and I was seduced by its charms.

As a food blogger, I was lucky to visit the Ferry Building Marketplace.  That was not due to my tour director, who didn't mention it, but rather to Patty of Patty's Food.  I contacted Patty before I went on leave, and she kindly agreed to meet with me when I reached San Francisco - which thankfully was on a weekend, making it easy to arrange.  (I had also contacted Elaine of California Living, and we had a wonderful telephone conversation while I was in the States, but we could not meet because my bus was in her home town for a mere hour on a working day.) 

The Ferry Building contains a wonderful food marketplace, so is a food blogger's heaven:

There is also a famous farmers market there, but alas, I was not free on the Saturday morning to be able to visit:

I had fun wandering around the market finding lots of brand names that I had read about on other blogs.  For example, there was the Scharffenberger chocolate stall:

Nice chocolate, but rather pricey:

There was also the famed bakery, Miette:

Miette's stall is gorgeous and packed with all kinds of goodies to appeal to my girlie baker heart:

From their cupcake collection, I bought a gingerbread cupcake:

Patty also gave me a mini guided tour of the marketplace, and introduced me to Far West Fungi:

I have never seen so many different types of mushrooms:

She also showed me the Recchuiti Confections stall, which stocks many gorgeous and unique chocolate creations:

Wouldn't you like to try some?

There were many other stalls at the marketplace, including Acme Bread:

and the San Francisco Fish Company:

Patty took me to lunch at Ferry Plaza Seafood, which overlooks the San Francisco Bay:

I had expressed an interest in having seafood, as it would be crazy to be in the Bay area and not try some of its fabulous local produce.  Here is there menu - if you like seafood, you'll have a hard time choosing:

We started with a half dozen oysters, served with a variety of dipping sauces:

For my main course, I chose this Seared Ahi Tuna Salad: 

Isn't it gorgeous?  I have never had anything like it before, and it tasted as good as it looks.

Afterwards, Patty and I went on a shopping trip to the Ferry Building branch of my new favourite homewares store, Sur La Table. I bought some lovely things there, including some napkin rings in the shape of bicycles - adorable.

It was wonderful to meet Patty and to have her show me around the marketplace from a local's perspective.  Thanks to Patty for her hospitality - this day was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.  Also, thanks to Elaine for trying so hard to catch up with me it was much appreciated.  

If you are ever in San Francisco, I highly recommend dropping into the Ferry Building for some food shopping and a bite to eat - it's a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Queen's Gingerbread - belatedly for the Diamond Jubilee

I am a hoarder of recipes that I see online.  Some of them I print, some of them I email to myself.  I have so many of them that I will never make them all.  If I don't act quickly, I forget about them and never end up making them, and discover them years later in a heap of papers or in my email box.

When I saw Dan Lepard's recipe for Queen's Gingerbread in The Guardian online, I knew that I had to make it.  It intrigued me because Dan said that it was what the Elizabethans would have called a sweetbread.  I was also hooked because it contained crystallised ginger - one of my favourite things in all the world. To ensure that I didn't put the recipe in a drawer and forget about it, I printed it off and left it on my kitchen bench until I got around to it.  The first attempt at making it was aborted as I lacked a crucial ingredient - ground ginger. Not to be thwarted, I left my lined cake tin on the counter and bought the ground ginger the next night.

This gingerbread is not a cake or a cookie - it is more like a slice (or what Americans call a bar cookie).  It is very substantial, so a small piece goes a long way.  For this reason, I ended up chopping the pieces in the photograph in half again for serving purposes.

The gingerbread is quite dense, and contains sugar, honey and treacle (or in my case, golden syrup).  It is studded, not only with crystallised ginger, but dried apricots, and features almonds on top.  The spices in this gingerbread are ginger, cinnamon,  nutmeg and mace.  I left out the mace as I didn't have any.

I really enjoyed this gingerbread for a change. I won't say that I loved it so much I would hurry to make it again, but I think it would be a great edible Christmas gift.  Dan published the recipe as Diamond Jubilee baking, so that is the occasion that I dedicate mine to - congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II on a stellar achievement of 60 years on the throne of the United Kingdom.

Guhng, Melbourne

On a cold Friday night after work, what could be better than going out for a fabulous dinner somewhere warm.  That is exactly what Tim and I did last night.  The venue for our dinner was Guhng, a Korean barbecue restaurant just off Little Collins Street.  I was kind of excited about it, because we had tried to go to Guhng once before on spec and couldn't get in.  This time, I booked.  They have two sittings on Friday nights - 6pm and 8pm.  We chose the 6pm sitting as we were going straight after work.

On arrival at Guhng, I ordered a green tea, and Tim ordered a beer.  We decide to choose one of their set menu banquets, which are great value.  You can choose from set menus for 2, 4 or 6 people, and the prices vary from $30 per head, depending on the menu you choose.  We chose the 2A menu ($30 per head), comprising 3 courses. 

The table is set with metal chopsticks a metal spoon and condiments on arrival, and side dishes are served shortly thereafter.  The condiments are, left to right, spicy soy bean sauce, sesame oil with salt and teryaki sauce. The side dishes are pickled onions, pickled turnips (which are a gorgeous hot pink colour), kimchi and coleslaw with pasta.  There are also lettuce leaves provided to line your bowl.

For the first course, we had a choice of fish cakes or pan-fried Korean dumplings.  Tim chose the dumplings, which came with a soy and sesame dipping sauce: 

These were a nice starter, especially when dipped in the condiments, but did not have much of a flavour kick.

For mains, you are served with a bowl of black rice each, a selection of meats which are barbecued at your table, and your choice of a soybean hotpot or kimchi hotpot.  After hearing so much about kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage), I wanted the kimchi hotpot.  It didn't disappoint - it was just the right level of spicy, and contained an assortment of vegetables and meat:

Our beef was barbecued at our table by a very sweet Korean waitress with short hair, who was happy to answer my questions.  There is a funnel over the smoking wood barbecue so that you don't breathe in the smoke: 

Here is one of my plates of meat, sauce and condiments - it looks messy because I hadn't the faintest idea what I was doing, but it tasted delicious:

The sides are replenished as you want them - we had three top-ups in all.

For the third course, you can choose wine or dessert - sorry, no contest here, we chose dessert.  Both Tim and I ordered the blackberry cheesecake:

It was a frozen cheesecake, and tasted like icecream.  The icecreams themselves (which we didn't order) are served in a spectacular fashion on a rectangular plate encased in a chocolate swirling disc with a smear of chocolate on the plate.  I liked the cheesecake, but wish I'd opted for the icecream!

Tim and I loved this place - for the money, it was terrific value.  The food tasted fabulous, and the wait staff were attentive and friendly.  There are three levels of seating in Guhng, but I recommend booking due to its popularity.  I also noted that there were lots of Asian diners in Guhng - I think that is always a true indicator of whether an Asian restaurant is good.  Verdict - definitely going back!

Guhng

19 McKillop Street

Melbourne 3000

Ph: 03 9041 2192

FFwD - Corn Pancakes

For this week's French Fridays with Dorie, we were asked to make a dish which seemed all American rather than French - corn pancakes.  However, I will have to take Dorie's word for it that they are indeed of French origin.

These little pancakes consist of nothing but corn and flour and egg and salt - seriously. You blitz the ingredients in a food processor, and fry small spoonfuls of the thick batter in a skillet of hot oil.  Definitely not hard or time consuming.

I made a half batch and ate it for a weekend breakfast.  I simply spread my pancakes with honey.  The recipe said it serves six, but I gather this is when you serve the pancakes as a side with other things, so I don't think that eating a half batch myself was particularly gluttinous, bearing in mind that these pancakes are tiny. 

The verdict?  Pancakes are pancakes - these were neither better nor worse than any other pancakes I have ever had, but may be nutritionally better for you than the normal flour egg and milk version because of the corn.

 Here is a pancake breakfast that I had at Dennys in Scottsdale, AZ while I was on holidays:

Dennys became the eatery of choice for many on our bus tour because of the generous servings and afforable price.  Our tour director called it "Chez Denays". These pancakes stumped me - I got two whole-wheat pancakes, which came with sides of maple syrup, whipped butter, two pieces of bacon, two eggs (sunny side up in my case) and potatoes.  I became all flustered when ordering, as I could have also added add-ins to the pancakes (such as bacon bits or chocolate chips), and ordered another topping (strawberry syrup anyone?).  This was the standard serving - I did not ask for all of this with the pancakes.  Wow!  I think it cost $5.95 - you'd never get this for that price in Oz.

To see what the other FFwD people thought of the corn pancakes, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website. 

Have a great weekend folks.

Munchies from the West Coast

This post is devoted to the many sweet (and otherwise) munchies that I sampled during my recent trip to the West Coast of the US.  My US readers will instantly recognise many of these items, but they are novel to me and my Australian friends, and I think that they will find at least some of these things interesting.

Starting with my loot from Safeway in Scottsdale, Arizona: 

I really liked the corn nuts - they are not sold here, and I liked the crunch of the corn kernels- a nice change from potato chips.  I was also interested to see that Skinny Cow makes chocolates - in Australia, you can only get Skinny Cow icecream.

Next are Reeses Peanut Butter Pieces from Walmart in Kingman, Arizona and a selection of Ghirardelli chocolates from Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco:

My favourite out of these was the salted caramel filled chocolate - absolutely devine!

I bought this Charleston Chew at the LA Farmers Market:

The nougat centre was OK, but the chocolate covering it was compounded and plastic-tasting.

This is rum and raising Haagen-Dazs that I enjoyed for dessert from Safeway in Scottsdale, Arizona:

I would definitely buy this again - so creamy!

In Sonora, the lovely lady who owns Simply Delish Cupcakes allowed me to buy cupcakes after closing time.  I bought a strawberry cheesecake for my roommate:

and a banana-pineapple cupcake with cream cheese frosting for me:

They were really good!

In Sacramento, I discovered a new love - salt water taffy:

This stuff is addictive!  I loved it so much that I bought more of it in Monterey.

Also in Sacramento, I tried a chocolate coated cinnamon bear:

I am glad that I was given this as a sample, as I really didn't fancy the strong cinnamon flavour.

From Gloria Ferrer Winery in Sonoma, CA, I bought these Vosges gourmet chocolates:

The Black Pearl Bar contains ginger, wasabi and black sesame seeds, while the Cherry Rooibos Bar contains African rooibos tea and dried Michigan cherries.  I am yet to try the cherry chocolate, but the Black Pearl Bar was fairly tame - the distinctive flavours didn't really stand out from the chocolate.

In San Francisco, I was lucky enough to stumble on Miette in the Ferry Building, and couldn't resist buying this cute as a button gingerbread cupcake:

As an homage to The Big Bang Theory, I dropped into The Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco, and after making a hard decision from the 20 or so cheesecake flavours on offer, chose this Dutch caramel apple streusel cheesecake:

It was as good as it looks - although I ditched the cream.

Just for fun, I tried these chocolate covered cherries and apple pie fruit logs from the San Francisco Ferry Building Market:

The cherries were great, but again, I wasn't that enamoured of all the cinnamon in the apple pie logs.

I picked up this handful of treats from Trader Joes in Monterey: 

Trader Joes became my favourite US supermarket chain for their range and their prices.  I liked the Fiberful bar so much I picked up a couple more of them in Los Angeles.  The speculoos bar was not really my thing, but was fun to try.

A terrific find was this spreadable membrillo from Happy Girl Kitchen in San Francisco: 

 

This was a thick paste made from the whole quince.  It was brilliant spread on warm crumpets for breakfast.

There was the most luscious fudge at the Sonoma Cheese Factory:

I bought a piece of each of Tiger Butter (vanilla and chocolate fudge mixed with peanut butter), Red Velvet Cake and Salted Caramel Chocolate.  My favourite was the smooth and creamy Tiger Butter.

In Solvang, I tried this almond cookie - I am not sure if it was particularly Danish (Solvang is a town built to be Danish in character):

Back in LA, I bought this tiny opera slice for $2 at Normandie Bakery at the Farmers Market:

They had a terrific range of sweets there, so it was hard to choose just one. 

Also at the LA Farmers Market, I fulfilled my long-held hankering to try a turtle (in this case, a cashew turtle):

What's not to love about nuts and caramel and chocolate?

Finally, I laughed when I found King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread at Ralphs in downtown LA:

I didn't buy this; rather, I chuckled because this product features in a spoof of Chloe Sevigny on YouTube that my pilates instructor told me about.

There you go  - these are all of my West Coast munchies, many not so nutritious or waistline friendly, but they added to the colour and experience of my trip.  Hope you enjoyed sharing them!