Showing posts with label alton brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alton brown. Show all posts

AB Marinated Olives

These turned out tasting quite nice after a few days. I was initially concerned because of how salty the olives were after I drained them and let the olives sit in filtered water for a half hour. AB recommends up to 5 hours in water, but I didn't really have the time nor patience. I used a Cambro quart container for this because unlike the quart-size yogurt containers, Cambro containers are see-through and you can always tell how things are going without having to open the container. Except for the tarragon, everything else comes from Trader Joe's.

Recipe source: Citrus Marinated Olives

Ingredients

1 lb green olives with pits (2 jars Picholine Olives from Trader Joe's), drained and rinsed
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil (a good quality olive oil for eating)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp dried tarragon leaves
1/4 tsp curry powder

Directions

0. Soak the olives in clean water for up to 5 hours. This may reduce the saltiness of the olives; but after a half hour, the olives were just as salty as when it came out of the jar.

1. Combine all the ingredients in a quart container. Shake or stir the olives to make sure all the olives get covered by the marinade.

2. Let the olives sit, covered, for a day in a cool dark place. Refrigerate 1-2 days before serving. (The coldest "dark" place is my refrigerator; then at the house for T-day, the coldest place was the garage).

AB Lavash Crackers

After having consumed many boxes of soda crackers, I thought I might try my hand again at making flat bread crackers. Although, these crackers are neither flat nor very hard cracker-like. This has turned out to be more of a soft flat bread than anything. On a humid, rainy day like today, it needs at least 12 minutes in the oven. I also reduced the amount of salt by half and it doesn't seem to have affected the taste since I am eating it with some baba ganoush.
Freshly made lavash crackers

Ingredients

2 1/2 c unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp organic granulated sugar
2/3 c warm water
1 egg
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1-2 tbsp melted butter for brushing

Directions

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Gently knead into a ball. Divide dough into thirds or quarters. Cover with a tea towel or the same bowl that the dough was mixed in. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

On a silicon mat that is large/small enough to fit on top of a standard sized baking tray, lightly dust with flour and roll out the dough to as thin as it will go without spilling over the sides of the mat.

Lightly brush the melted butter on top of the dough. If you don't own a baking sheet (rimless) Place silicone mat on an inverted rimmed baking tray (simply flip the tray over so you are baking on its flat side). Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges are light golden brown.

This recipe is from Alton Brown. And my crackers look nothing like his. Hmm. 


Float me

The original recipe comes from Alton Brown. I didn't have peach preserves so I might just have to make another batch to see what it tastes like. I'd imagine it'd be slightly sweeter. Last weekend it was pretty warm. I think southern California pretty much skipped spring and hopped along into early summer. I thought I'd make a rootbeer float, except I didn't have any ice cream.. ooh, but I did have the ingredients (half and half, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla bean) and an ice cream maker. 

It's a rather easy recipe: 

2 cups half and half 
1 cup heavy cream 
1 cup sugar, minus 2 tbsp 
1 vanilla bean, halved with seeds scooped out 

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine all ingredients and cook to simmer (do not boil). 

I don't have a cooking thermometer to tell me when the mixture has reached 170 degrees F, so another way to tell that it's done cooking is to see if it coats the back of a spoon like a thick creamed soup. When it does, turn the heat off. 

Strain it into a container and refrigerate for at least 10-12 hours. Alton says that the mixture won't set in an ice cream maker, and that part is pretty much true. There aren't any coagulants like cornstarch in the mixture to help it set or thicken. Anyhow. 

Once the ice cream gets to the soft serve stage, scoop it all out to a clean container that can hold 1 qt of liquid and freeze it until firm. It seems like a rather long process just to make a rootbeer float, but it's well worth it and very tasty. I'm not sure I would have liked the peach preserves flavor in my rootbeer float. 

Hehe. That's an experiment for another day.
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