This recipe method was adapted from Food Network Magazine. I cut out the coffee, cut back a little on the sugar, and added more chocolate, rounded some things. This was my latest spin on this recipe. This is a recipe that is not to skip. It’s one of the biggest crowd pleasers ever.
In case you didn’t know….Pots de Creme is the ultimate chocolate pudding. If you like chocolate pudding then you will LOVE chocolate pots de creme. I tried this dessert for the first time at a small French Bistro Restaurant that used to be in business called Amuse Bouche. As soon as I tasted it I had to learn how to make this dessert. Most methods require a hot water bath in your oven that can be dangerous. The Food Network method is brilliant. On the stovetop you thicken your milk, cream and yolk mixture and then add your chocolate and blend till smooth. This is best done with a stick blender. You pour into cups. Chill over night and you have incredibly rich, smooth, chocolaty, FORKING AMAZING pots de creme. You can top with a little whipped cream if you desire. I do very small servings for this because it is very rich and satisfying……but you might want larger servings. For me this made 20 small servings. For you this might make 10 servings if you do them in coffee cups like they are normally done…..so I will round the servings to 15. This freezes perfect. When you thaw from frozen it still seems fresh made.
Ingredients for around 15 servings
12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
12 oz 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
4 oz milk chocolate chips
3 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
12 egg yolks – beaten
10 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Directions
In a sauce pot on medium-ish heat (just slightly more than medium) add the milk, cream, beaten yolks, sugar, and sea salt. Whisk or blend. Occasionally whisk until thickened and then take off the heat and add the chocolate. Blend till smooth and pour in cups. When they cool down to room temperature refrigerate over night.
You might want to serve with a dab of whipped cream. (1/2 cup heavy cream blended with 1 Tablespoon 10x sugar is very good for whipped cream but I find that for a crowd people enjoy playing with the canned stuff more)
It’s so rich and so smooth and so CHOCOLATEY!
A Special THANKS!! to Food Network Magazine so I could come up with what I got here.
Our local supermarket often has specials on ground turkey. I also happen to have lots of turkey stock in my freezer. I was reading a Vietnamese watercress soup recipe………Then I got the idea to do something Vietnamese Inspired…… So then I read a few Vietnamese meatball recipes. This came out to be a mishmash of my thoughts and what I read. it’s different from the way I’d normally make a meatball. I do note that the meatball raw meat mixture comes out very loose and is impossible to roll into balls. I used my small scooper and didn’t even worry about rolling them. This recipe makes 4 servings.
Ingredient for around 4 servings
1 lb 93% lean ground turkey – meatballs
1/2 cup scallions – sliced thin – meatballs
1 egg beaten – meatballs
1 Tablespoon fish sauce (preferably Red Boat Brand) – meatballs
2 teaspoons ginger – grated – meatballs
1 Tablespoon sugar – meatballs
1 garlic – ground to paste – meatballs
1 Tablespoon lemongrass powder (fresh is better but it’s always rotten at the stores near me. Powdered lemongrass is easy to buy on-line) – meatballs
3/4 teaspoon sea salt – meatballs
1 teaspoon ground white pepper – meatballs
neutral non-stick spray
2 Tablespoons canola oil – soup
1 onion – chopped – soup
4 garlic cloves – ground to paste – soup
6 1/2 cups stock (I used home made turkey but you can use what you want or have) – soup
1/2 small cabbage – chopped – soup
1 Tablespoon sugar – soup
1 Tablespoon rice vinegar – soup
1 teaspoon lemongrass powder – soup
2 teaspoon ginger – grated – soup
1 teaspoon fish sauce – soup
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (or to taste) – soup
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or to taste) – soup
Lime wedges for serving (1/2-one lime)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Directions
Set oven to 350 F degrees.
Spray a sheet pan with non stick spray and set to the side.
Put a sauce pot on medium high heat and add the canola oil. When the oil is hot add the onions and cabbage. Lightly cover with foil. Stir occasionally. Cook till vegetables are moist. Add the garlic. Cook till you smell it (around a minute). Then you can add the stock, sugar, vinegar, lemongrass, ginger, fish sauce, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and then reduce to simmer.
Make the meatballs. In a large mixing bowl combine the ground turkey, scallions, egg, fish sauce, ginger, sugar, garlic, lemongrass, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Scoop out 16 balls. This goes on your middle rack of a 360 F preheated oven for 15 minutes or until done.
Serve 4 meatballs per person with soup. Add a lime wedge or two. Top with some fresh cilantro.
Recently Robin Miller’s recipe for crispy parmesan garlic potatoes was in our local newspaper and I thought it looked good and sounded really tasty. Safeway had some really great sales on russet potatoes so I have a bunch of them to cook with. I had to make some changes to Robin Miller’s recipe in a few different ways. One I’m using russet potatoes instead of small red skin potatoes because that is what I have. I also added the seasonings and the cheese to the tops of the potatoes instead of all the seasoning and cheese on one side because that little Emeril Lagasse quote just kept rolling threw my head…….”I dunno where you get your (insert ingredient) ……”Where I get mine it don’t come seasoned on both sides.” So I thought that the potatoes might be a little better if I seasoned them the same on both sides. I also have a fully packed spice cabinet and I make up my own blends of spices so I had to change up the spices since I used my Italian spice blend. In the end this did come out delicious and it is a variation of Robin Miller’s recipe so I have to give her credit. My Italian spice blend makes around twice the amount of seasoning that you need for the recipe. But it is amazing in sauces and on chicken.
Ingredients for around 6 servings
1 Tablespoon sea salt – Italian seasoning
1/2 Tablespoon granulated garlic – Italian seasoning
1/2 Tablespoon granulated onion – Italian seasoning
1 Tablespoon dried basil – Italian seasoning
1 Tablespoon dried oregano – Italian seasoning
1 Tablespoon fennel seeds – Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons ground black pepper – Italian seasoning
1 small Calabrian chili – crushed – Italian seasoning
4 oz unsalted butter
2 pounds potatoes – If using russets Cut Diagonal in thirds and score one side 1/8-1/4 inch deep like a hash mark.
3/4 cup parmesan cheese – grated or shredded (divided in 1/2 cup + 1/4 cup) (it will stick better if grated fine)
2 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup scallions – sliced thin
Directions
Set oven to 400 degrees F.
Make the Italian seasoning. In a small bowl combine the sea salt, garlic, onion, basil, oregano, fennel seeds, black pepper, and Calabrian chili. Mix well and set to the side.
The 4oz of butter goes on a baking dish or pan with sides. This goes in the preheated oven until it’s melted and bubbling then take it out.
In a small bowl mix together the parmesan cheese with a heaping Tablespoon of the Italian seasoning. Put at least half on the pan.
Potatoes go on pan score side down. Spray or brush the tops of the potatoes with oil. Add the rest of the seasoned parmesan on top.
This goes on the middle rack for around 40 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked and soft.
Someone thinks they smell very good.
You should let them cool a little before you scrap them off.
A special THANKS!!!! To Robin Miller for her scrumptious recipe so I could make what I got here!
I had a cauliflower that I had to use and I wanted to do something new with it. I just typed into my computer BEST CAULIFLOWER RECIPE. I saw a few list of cauliflower recipes and one of them was chef Scott Hallsworth’s Scortched Cauliflower Recipe. It’s a very easy recipe with very few ingredients….When I got done roasting the cauliflower I still had a lot of DELICIOUS sake butter on my sheet tray.
So I got the idea in my head to USE THE FORKING GREAT BUTTER SAUCE and add yuzu marmalade and a little bit of soy sauce.
Chef Scott Hallsworth uses just 40ml dark soy sauce mixed with 20ml yuzu salted juice over the cauliflower. You do what you want.
Ingredients for around two servings
1/2 a large cauliflower – cut into florets
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons sake
1 pinch sea salt
4 oz unsalted butter – melted
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
2 Tablespoons yuzu marmalade
1/4 cup scallions – sliced thin or use chives
Directions
Set oven to 500 degrees F.
In a medium mixing bowl toss the cauliflower with the butter, oil, sake, and salt. Spread out the cauliflower florets in an even layer on a sheet pan (one with sides). Leave in till golden and charred. (in my oven this took 30 minutes)
Pour the extra sake butter from your sheet pan with the cauliflowers into a small mixing bowl and add the yuzu marmalade and the soy sauce. Serve the sauce either over or under the cauliflowers and top with thin cut scallions or chives.
ENJOY!!!!!
A Special THANKS!!!!!! To Chef Scott Hallsworth for sharing his FORKING GREAT Recipe so I could come up with what I got here.
We were dining at our favorite Moroccan Restaurant in Phoenix Arizona called Alzohour Market. I picked up dried fava beans there.
The owner and chef Zhor told me that fava beans are a popular breakfast dish in Morocco. Latter I read that the fava bean dish called Ful Medames is the national breakfast dish of Egypt but is very popular across North Africa and the whole Mid East.
There is a recipe on the back of the bag that I was going to try until I came across Chef Helen Graham’s recipe. I picked her recipe because it also involved making a pesto topping for the fava beans and even included a recipe for a Yemenite type flatbread called malawach so it seemed like a much more special recipe…….To be honest I did have a slight issue with the recipe. When I went to make the malawach (flat bread) I had a feeling that my dough was too dry. But I resisted changing the recipe because for this one I really didn’t know what I was doing….and I measured and weighed everything to the exact. I’m also making a dough that I am not familiar with. The recipe also states that you might not need all of the water……..So I thought that I shouldn’t add extra water?………The problem I had was that I couldn’t fold the dough as much as it should have been folded. So I folded as much as I could.
You are suppose to roll the dough as flat as you can. Brush it with butter. Sprinkle with nigella seeds and Maidon salt.
Then roll it up.
Coil the dough.
Roll it flat again. Butter it and nigella seeds and salt……Then you repeat two more times …By rolling it up and coiling again but I couldn’t……My dough was too dry…….Maybe my flour was ground different?……Sometimes that is an issue in recipes……..so I folded it less. Still came out FORKING GREAT!!!!!!. Maybe I just need to be stronger to make this dough to fold it more?
Malawach is supposed to be a fried bread but I knew my dough was off and thought that it might fall apart in the fry pan so I baked it instead……and the flat bread came out crispy and really different. It’s kinda like a cross between a cracker and a croissant.
I think that it is really great anyway……… Don’t know..I never had or heard of malawach before. This was my only real issue with the recipe but it all came out delicious!
This makes around 4 servings
280g dried fava beans – soaked over night in cold water in the refrigerator – ful medames
1/2 teaspoon baking soda – ful medames
splash olive oil – ful medames
1 large onion finely chopped – ful medames
5 cloves garlic finely chopped – ful medames
2 teaspoons ground cumin – ful medames
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon – ful medames
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper – ful medames
2 teaspoons sweet paprika – ful medames
1/2 a large lemon – the zest and the juice – ful medames
2 tomatoes – fine chopped – ful medames
4 Tablespoons yogurt (for serving)
200g AP flour + more for dusting – malawach
10g sugar – malawach
1/2 teaspoon sea salt – malawach
100ml water – malawach
1 Tablespoon nigella seeds – malawach
Maldon salt – to taste – malawach
125ml clarified butter – melted to brush and fry malawach
5 cloves garlic – rough chopped – pesto
45g parsley leaves – rough chopped – pesto
20g basil – rough chopped – pesto
10g preserved lemon – blended – pesto
1 teaspoon lemon juice – pesto
150g olive oil – pesto
Maldon salt to taste – pesto
neutral non stick spray.
Directions
Drain the fava beans and add them to a sauce pot with the baking soda. Cover at least with over an inch of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer….You will need to add more water every so often. Drain the beans when they turn tender (usually 2 hours set to the side when done)
Make the Malawach. Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl. gradually add the water and knead it for 5 minutes. Then cover it and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
Divide the dough into 4 balls. Dust your surface with a little flour. Start with one dough ball. Roll it out as thin as you can. Brush it with butter and sprinkle it lightly with nigella seeds and Maldon salt. Roll it like I described in the beginning if you can…….If not just fold in half and roll as thin as you can. Then butter it again and add another sprinkle of nigella seeds and Maldon salt. If you can repeat again. Roll as thin as you can. Butter again, spring again with nigella seeds and Maldon salt. Fold one more time and roll as thin as you can. If you can fry yours in butter that is what you are suppose to do but I thought mine would fall apart so I baked mine at a pre-heated 350 F oven on a non stick sprayed sheet pan. I also gave the flat breads a brushing of melted butter. They went in for 15 minutes and then I flipped them over for another 10 minutes. I thought they came out nice.
Make the pesto. Garlic, parsley, basil, preserved lemon, lemon juice all get bended. Slowly add the olive oil and blend that in too. Add Maldon salt to taste.
The Ful Medames (fava beans) go in each bowl with a Malawach (flat bread) cut in half, topped with pesto and a tablespoon of yogurt.
A SPECIAL THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! To Chef Helen Graham for sharing her FORKING FANTABULOUS Recipe so we all can enjoy it!!!!!!
I was sort of gifted with a lot of yellow squash and I wanted to do something interesting and different with them. Often I use my spiral cutter and make spaghetti strings with the yellow squash that kind of cook its self from being marinated. Then I heat it up and it isn’t so squashy and it is stringy instead. Today I thought that I would try shaving the squash instead. But what flavors should I do today?…..For inspiration I was searching the internet for Top Chef recipes, a few other chefs, and award winning chef, restauranteur and cook book author Yotam Ottolenghi recipes. I do Ottolenghi recipes a lot because he is one of the most gifted vegetable chefs in the world. Yotam Ottolenghi does a COLD marinated yellow squash salad with kiwi salsa. I changed it up a little and I thought a spicy apple salsa just when real nice with squash this time of year. I used 3 pounds of yellow squash. So that makes 6-8 servings depending on how big you make the servings. This takes a few hours for the squash to marinate or just do the squash the day before.
Ingredients for around 7 portions
3 lbs yellow squash – ends cut off and sliced very thin like a shave
1 teaspoon fennel seeds – toasted – ground
1/2 teaspoon dark brown sugar
1/2 lemon – juice and zest
6 cloves garlic – ground to paste
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese – grated
2 apples – coarsely grated
3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 red chile – fine chop (I used a Fresno that was spicy)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro – chopped
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley leaves – chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground dry mint (if you have fresh mint use about 2 Tablespoons)
2 Tablespoons fresh basil – chopped or torn
optional 1/2 cup of either dried corn kernels or 1/2 cup toasted salted pepitas
Directions
Put the shaved yellow squash in a gallon ziplock bag. Keep in the refrigerator or set to the side.
Put a small fry pan on medium high heat and add the oil, sugar, garlic, and the toasted and ground fennel seeds. Cook only a minute or two till the garlic is cooked and take off heat. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix well. When this is room temperature add it to the bag of shaved squash. Squish it around to distribute. This needs to marinate at least 1/2 a day or overnight.
Make the apple salsa. In a medium bowl mix together the apples, vinegar, ginger, chile, cilantro, mint, parsley, and basil.
To serve – you can serve either cool as a salad or heated up as a side dish. The original recipe adds toasted hazelnuts….For the salad version (cold)……If I had those dried corn kernels I would have added them to this recipe for a little crunch.
This recipe is GREAT cold or hot……I think I actually like it better hot with added pepitas. Below is warmed up with pepitas.
A SPECIAL THANKS!!!! To Yotam Ottolenghi for sharing his amazing recipe so I could come up with what I got here!
This is just an easy marinated chicken thigh recipe. I was inspired by restaurant that I go to in Carefree AZ called Confluence. They make delicious fried chicken and serve it with a Chiltepin Mustard Sauce that really makes it POP! Chiltepin pepper is hard to find if you don’t go to Mexican Markets. It’s an extra delicious but very HOT heat. The chiltepin are around the size of black peppercorns and should be a reddish pink. You can find them on-line but I haven’t seen reasonable pricing for them on-line. Try a Mexican market first. This recipe makes around 6 servings.
3 lbs chicken thighs (I used boneless skinless but it really doesn’t matter)
1/2 cup honey – marinade
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – marinade
1/4 cup dijon mustard – marinade
2 Tablespoons whole grain mustard – marinade
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice – marinade
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt – marinade
4 Tablespoons dijon mustard – sauce
2 Tablespoons whole grain mustard – sauce
2 Tablespoons honey or date syrup – sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice – sauce
5 chiltepin – or to taste (you might want less or more hot….start with three and taste) crushed with fingers – sauce
non stick spray
optional splash chicken stock – heated – sauce
Directions
In a medium mixing bowl mix together the honey, olive oil, mustards, allspice, and salt. Pour it into a gallon ziplock bag and add the chicken *****NOTE if you are doing chicken with bones you might want to split the sauce and chicken into TWO bags. Give the chicken a good massage in the bag with the sauce and be sure to spread the sauce all around the chicken. Squeeze out all the air and then ziplock the bag(s) shut. refrigerate over night.
The next day it doesn’t really matter how you cook the chicken as long as you bring the thigh meat to at least 165F degrees. I did mine on the oven because I felt that this might make a great mess on the grill. I did mine on non stick sprayed grill pan in the oven preheated at 400F degrees. My chicken was done in around 25-30 minutes. I browned one in the pan for the picture because mine didn’t brown much.
The sauce mixes up fast in a bowl. Just add the mustards, honey or date syrup, allspice, and do the chiltepin to taste….Start by trying three of them…I did 5. Add a splash of heated chicken broth if you happen to have any around.