Slow-Cooker Beef Biryani

Worked pretty well, but we need to work on the timing - when do you add the cauliflower?
Ingredients

• 2½ lb beef chuck, cut into 1" to 1½" cubes
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4tbsp fennel seeds
• 1tsp cumin
• 1tsp cardamom
• 3tsp coriander
• ½tsp turmeric
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1" lobe of ginger, minced
• 1c yogurt
• 1c water
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• ½c raisins (golden, preferably)
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped roughly
• 1 head cauliflower, broken into florets
• basmati rice (about 2.4c), washed

To a sauté pan, add onion, beef, fennel, cumin, cardamom, coriander, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and some oil.  Cook over medium heat until the beef is browned - about 10 minutes.  Add everything to a slow cooker along with the cinnamon stick, yogurt, and water.  Stir well to coat, then turn on low.  In one hour, add the carrots.  In another two hours from the addition of the carrots, add the cauliflower.  In 3-5 more hours from the addition of the cauliflower, fish everything out with a slotted spoon and toss with the raisins.  Measure the amount of liquid you have left in the slow cooker.  We had 3 cups.  To a rice cooker, add 1 cup of rice and 2tsp salt for every 1.25c liquid.  Add the liquid and cook until the rice is done.  Toss with beef and vegetables.  Serve.

Thoughts: The cauliflower was actually way overdone, so don't do it quite like we say above.  Probably the beef should cook about 8 hours total, the carrots about 6 hours, the cauliflower about 3.  Also, we should have salted the beef & vegetable mixture (maybe 1.5tsp salt) and added LESS salt to the rice (about 1tsp per cup of rice).  Claire disagrees about the rice.  I would have added a few more raisins, too.

Overall, I think this wasn't our best Biryani ever, but the beef was very tender, so that was good.  Cooking with a slow cooker is fun, but we're still really new to it.  We liked taking the drippings from the slow-cooker and doing the rice with that.  I also wouldn't add the yogurt next time, probably.  Claire suggests doing the yogurt but not the water.

We might toast the spices in oil first the next time, too.

This was easy, though, so we'll probably work with it a little.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but we'll try it again

Noodle Kugel

I don't know when the last time I had kugel was, but it was a LONG time ago.  This is a little... interesting?
Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1½c cottage cheese
• 1c sour cream
• ¾c sugar
• 2¼c whole milk
• ¾c raisins
• 6tbsp butter, melted
• 1tsp lemon zest
• ½tsp orange extract
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1tbsp salt
• 18oz egg noodles
• 1c coarsely crushed corn flakes
• 2tbsp butter, melted
• 2tbsp cinnamon

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, milk, raisins, butter, zest, extracts, and salt.  Set a pot of water to boil, and cook the egg noodles until quite al dente - about 7 minutes.  Drain the noodles thoroughly, then add them to the custard mixture.  Cover and let sit for at least an hour, checking on them and stirring after about a half hour.  Preheat the oven to 350.  When the oven is hot, pour the mixture into a 9x13" casserole dish.  In a separate bowl, combine the corn flakes, butter, and cinnamon.  Sprinkle liberally over the kugel.  Bake about 40 minutes.  Then take it out, let cool about 5 to 10 minutes, and serve.

Thoughts: We weren't really sure what to expect.  Kugel is a little unusual as dishes go, since it's like a sweet pasta casserole.  We liked it, though I'm not sure we added enough salt (I think we did 1tsp instead of 1 tbsp).  I'm not sure I'd make it again in this quantity.  Still, this tasted quite authentic, and I went back for seconds.  I call this a win.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Hong Shao Dofu

I don't know - this recipe seems to be missing a lot.

Ingredients

• 1 pack extra firm tofu, drained (i.e. press some of the water out) and chopped.
• 2tbsp peanut oil
• 2" of ginger, sliced
• 10 scallions, chopped
• 1/4c rice wine vinegar
• 5tbsp soy sauce
• 1c mushrooms, chopped (I'm guessing here)
• 2c tatsoi, chopped
• 1tsp salt
• 2c water
• 3tbsp sugar

Heat peanut oil in a large pot and add the ginger and scallions.  Stir fry for a few seconds, then add the tofu, mushrooms, and tatsoi.  Stir fry for another minute, then add the rice wine.  Stir fry a little longer, then add soy sauce until it's cooked down.  Then add the salt and water.  Bring to a boil, then until the liquid is reduced completely.  It'll take about an hour, depending on the pot.  Then add the sugar (or SOME sugar, anyway - maybe not 3tbsp?).

Thoughts: This was missing a lot of good flavors.  The original recipe was for Hong Shao Rou (specifically, pork belly), which would have been really flavorful.  So I wonder if the recipe doesn't kind of depend on there being pork belly.  The tatsoi was our own addition, and I'm not sure I would recommend that, either.  Mushrooms were our idea, too, but I think that probably improved the recipe.  Either way, this was definitely one of our less successful dishes.

Disaster Index: 4/10

Rosh Hashana Challah

We noticed we didn't have even ONE challah recipe up.  If you leave out the raisins (and just braid it like normal) this is practically the same as my father's recipe for the best challah ever, I think.

Ingredients

• 1c warm water
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg white
• 3tbsp oil
• 1/3c honey
• 4 to 4.5c flour
• 1.5tsp salt
• about 1/2c raisins, plumped in boiling water
• poppy seeds

In a mixing bowl (or, in our case, in the bowl of your kitchenaid) add the water, yeast, and sugar and stir.  Let that sit for 10 minutes or so to proof and make sure the yeast isn't dead.  Now add the yolks, oil, honey, and salt and about 2c of flour.  Using the dough hook (or your hands or whatever) mix to combine, then add flour by the half cup until the dough pulls away from the sides after kneading for a few minutes.  We wound up using about 4c of flour total.  You'll have to scrape the sides of the bowl down with a spatula a few times.

Now set the dough aside to rise in a warm and humid environment until doubled, about 2 hours.  Make sure you give it the full rise.  When it's done, either braid as usual or, for Rosh Hashana, divide the dough in half.  Working with one half at a time, roll the dough out (on a well floured surface) into a long strip - about 24" long by 6-8" wide.  Lay half the raisins along the middle of the strip.  Working on a long side of the strip, roll the dough up into a single long snake with the raisins trapped in the middle.  Pinch the ends of the dough shut and fold the long strip into a U shape, then twist the two dangling arms together.  It will look kind of like a cruller, I guess?  Do the same with the other piece of dough and the rest of the raisins.  Now place the two twists in a pie pan.  You want to arrange them like two interlocking C's - the idea is to have the bulky fold in the center and the tails twisting around in the same direction.  Like a yin-yang, if that makes more sense.

Set the dough back in a humid environment to rise for another hour.  Just before the hour is up, preheat the oven to 350.  Mix the egg white with some water (about 1:1) and whisk together.  When the hour is up and the oven preheated, brush the challah with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with poppy seeds.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until it's done (and sounds slightly hollow when tapped, etc).

Thoughts: the dough was very easy to work with.  Despite using the kitchenaid and kneading the hell out of the dough, the gluten really relaxed.  I think this may have to do with two things: 1) we mixed all the wet ingredients before adding the flour.  This meant that the fat was allowed to coat the flour particles when it was mixed together, so less gluten was allowed to develop.  2) we let it rise for a full 2 hours rather than just an hour or whatever, so that probably helped.  Arranging the dough was actually pretty easy.  The final texture was perfectly cakey, and the flavor was fantastic.  This was wildly successful.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Baked Doughnuts

Cribbed from 101 Recipes Blog, but don't let that fool you.  As doughnuts, these were terrible.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3c warm milk
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 2tbsp butter
• 2/3c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4.5c flour
• 1tsp salt
• nutmeg

In bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, nutmeg, sugar, and yeast.  Add the eggs, melted butter, and some of the milk without stirring.  Begin to bring the dough together, stirring, adding more milk as needed to get a soft dough.  You want it to be just a little more hydrated than you'd think - it's easier to add more flour later than to add more liquid if you didn't start with enough, in my experience.  Knead the dough for 5 minutes or so.

Cover the dough and let it rise for an hour.  Preheat oven to 475.  Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, punch down, and roll out to about 1/2" thick.  With a doughnut cutter, cut out doughnuts and place them on baking sheets.  Or cut out circles with a cookie cutter and punch a hole in them with your fingers.  But once you're done, cover and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

When they're done, toss the doughnuts into the oven for 8-10 minutes.  Take them out when they're a little underdone?

Thoughts: These were just like bread.  There wasn't any cakeyness, and I guess that's to be expected from a recipe that is basically a bread dough.  These did not make good doughnuts at all, though they made excellent bread pudding later.

Disaster Index: 5/10

Cream of Red Bell Pepper Soup

Maybe we can get back into the swing of things here.

Ingredients

• 2.5 lbs red bell peppers
• 2tbsp shallot or red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1tsp dried thyme
• 3c chicken stock
• 1/2c half and half
• 1tsp red wine vinegar
• 1tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/8tsp cayenne
• Parmesan, salt, pepper to serve

Over a gas stove (or under a broiler), char the skin off of the red bell peppers until they're really blackened.  Put them in a paper bag as you finish them and close the paper bag - let them sit in the humid environment for about 10 minutes to sweat.  Then take them out and rinse them in the sink under cool water - the skin should come off pretty easily.  Use a butter knife to scrape off any extra that doesn't just flake off.

In a pot, add the shallot and onion and saute in olive oil until the onion is translucent.  Add the garlic and thyme and sautee another 30 seconds, then add the peppers and the chicken stock.  Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer for 20 minutes.  Then blend everything together until smooth (we used an immersion blender).

Return the soup to the heat and add the half-and-half, vinegar, and cayenne.  Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with parmesan.

Thoughts: We didn't have the recipe for red pepper soup we ate at Sally's because we forgot it.  So we did this, and it was actually pretty good.  We both liked it, though there wasn't as much going on here in terms of different textures and flavors - it was a little one note.  But it was a good note.  I can see making this again, particularly because it's so easy.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cranberry Curd Bars with Shortbread Crust

OH BOY IT'S BEEN FOREVER SINCE WE'VE DONE ANYTHING. HERE'S SOME CURD FOR YOU.

Ingredients

For the crust: Use the crust from the blueberry-cranberry bars recipe, but with 1.5 sticks of butter, not 2.
For the curd:

• 12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries (one standard bag)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (or 2 tsp of the stuff in the little lemon-shaped squeeze bottle -- that shit's powerful)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup softened butter, cut into tablespoons

Line a glass baking pan with parchment paper. Make the shortbread crust, bake it in a 375 oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven.
In the meantime, make the curd.
Place cranberries and 1/2 cup water in a small/medium saucepan and boil for five minutes, until the cranberries lyse and get mushy. Stir occasionally.
Pour them through a fine mesh sieve and press the puree through the sieve with a spatula. This might take a while. Don't be daunted, and be sure to get all the puree you can.
Allow puree to cool. Throw away the skins. You will not need them.
To the cool-ish puree, add the sugar, eggs, yolks, salt, and lemon juice. Stir completely. You might want to use a whisk.
Make a double-boiler and whisk the curd furiously until it thickens (it'll already be pretty thick, but it needs to thicken more) and gets lighter in color. It should read 150 on your candy thermometer. 10-12 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in all the butter all at once. Because you've used a double-boiler and hence haven't scrambled the eggs, you won't need to strain the curd again.
Pour it into the shortbread crust that's waiting.
Bake at 350 for something like 15 minutes, or until the curd is mostly set but jiggles SLIGHTLY in the center.
Refrigerate before serving. Nom nom.

Thoughts: The original recipe calls for a different sort of crust -- one that has walnuts in it. Since neither Dan nor I like walnuts, we decided to use a similar (we thought) sort of crust that we've used in cobbler-type bars, etc. The flavor of the crust was really good, but I personally thought it was a little too tough -- it didn't taste at all like it does when it's beneath cranberry-blueberry bars. Maybe the curd did something to it, or we baked it for too long before putting the curd on top. Maybe reduce baking time to 20 rather than 30 minutes? But the flavor was really good. The curd was also good -- you have to be sure to keep it refrigerated, or else it will sort of melt. Not too tart, but tart enough? We would probably have used a little more lemon.

Disaster Index: 1.5/10 (Dan says 1, I say 2)