Kitchen Note: Crackers

This post is part of a series of cracker recipes gone horribly wrong. I've been trying to replicate a style of flatbread crackers that Trader Joe's carries, the multi-seed flatbread crackers, which are very tasty and get eaten too quickly. The ingredients are pretty simple, just flour, water, and salt. Since all my cracker endeavors had been turning out inedible, I thought I'd try this particular recipe which is known to be hardly edible. The flour-water ratio in it is 2:1, unlike matzo dough that is 3:1 and prepared in 18 minutes or less.



2 c. unbleached white flour

1 c. water (with 1-2 tsp salt added to the water)

1. Mix the flour with the salted water until the flour just comes together. You might not even need the entire cup of water.



2. Knead it into a random shape and roll it out to 1/2" thick on parchment paper.



3. Cut into squares, rectangles, dodecahedrons or whatever shape you prefer your crackers to be in. You could probably use cookie cutters too.

4. Use fork tines to prick holes (but don't pierce the dough) across all the crackers. This is to keep the dough from rising.



5. Transfer the parchment paper (with the crackers on top) to a baking sheet.

6. Bake for 40 minutes or until the tops/edges are golden brown. Let cool in oven. The drier the cracker, the more cracker-like it will be.

 

In retrospect, using a pasta machine or rolling the crackers out to a much thinner thickness would be better. Once these crackers really dry out, they are brick-like hard. This is probably why matzo crackers are rolled out to a 1/8" to 1/4" thickness.

Hearty Tomato Bean Soup

This recipe is not that bad now that tomato sauce has been added to it. The tomato adds another layer of depth to this dish and helps to balance out the flavors. This recipe was formerly known as the baked beans recipe on this blog and revised the directions to include crockpot instructions.
Ingredients

1 c. white beans, soaked overnight and drained
1/4 c. red azuki beans
1/3 c. green mung beans
1/4 c. brown basmati rice
2 bacon slices, diced
3 tbsp honey
4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
15 oz organic tomato sauce
1 qt low sodium chicken broth
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground thyme
salt (optional)

Directions

1. In a bowl large enough to accommodate the beans, cover beans with enough water so that there is about 1/2" of water above the beans. Let soak for a few hours or overnight. Drain beans and add to a crockpot.

2. In a small skillet, cook diced bacon until browned and add bacon to crockpot.

3. Add honey, dry mustard, salt (optional), pepper, oregano, thyme and garlic.

4. Add chicken broth. Soup can be thinned out with water if necessary.

5. Depending on what meal of the day this is for, set crockpot on high-6hrs or low-8hrs. The beans should be fork-tender in a couple hours.

6. Blend cooked ingredients together in a blender or with an immersion blender.

Serves many.

Kitchen Note: Chocolate

Chocolate, as we know it today, is being faced by two equally disturbing debates. The first, like crude oil, is the rise in the price of raw cacao because one man is bidding up commodity futures of chocolate. So far he owns more than $1 billion worth of cocoa futures on the open market with the intent on dominating the market.. as in hoarding all the future supply.


The second regards the proposed change in the FDA's definition of the identity of milk chocolate. Basically the recipe includes ingredients like sugar, cocoa powder, chocolate liquor, milk, cocoa butter, vanilla, etc. US dominates with the gold standard of chocolate with production, consumers, and distribution. It is why chocolatiers like See's Candies (who uses Guittard) can sell chocolate confections at a premium. But, some greedy, penny pinching bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers who say they can't compete against Europe's deviation from the gold standard who want to reduce or eliminate the cocoa butter manufacturing requirement and replace it with say.. up to 95% of non-cocoa butter oils. The primary instigator in this lawsuit is Hersheys, who would benefit more hand-over-fist profit if the gold standard of chocolate were say muckied up this with vegetable fats. I wouldn't be surprised if Mars has also lobbied with Hersheys. Though, companies like E. Guittard and Scharffen Berger less likely to stray from how they make chocolate. What is unfortunate about chocolate manufacturing is when a company that started from a family-run business like Scharffen Berger ends up getting bought by a large conglomerate. Lately all the acquisitions in this market have been done by Kraft Foods (acquired Cadbury) and Hersheys (acquired Sharffen Berger, makes the chocolate for Cadbury, also makes the chocolate for Rolo). It's so sad because Sharffen Berger is really, really good eating and baking chocolate. Don't get me started on how inferior the Baker's Square chocolate is.

In comparison, European chocolate manufacturers only allow up to 5% non-cocoa butter fats in their chocolate confections.

Artificial shortages are possible, but an actual crop shortage would be diluted because it isn't just grown in Central and South America, but also in Malaysia and South Africa. The cacao bean harvest in Hawaii is insignifiant, but the climate is right. Then it depends on what people want to eat. Single origin or blended chocolates (E. Guittard uses single origin to make blended chocolates). On the whole, cocoa prices aren't a lot less than what they were at the same time last year, and manufactured chocolate doesn't have a very long shelf life.

Read more?

Cocoa commodity charts

Mystery Ingredient: Moonfish

There are a few peculiar things I like to do when I visit an asian grocery store. Number one is always have a shopping list. This tells you what the pantry is out of and keeps you on track. Because I had been paying more attention to what I bought, I added two new rules to shopping this year. The first is, if the shopping list has been adhered to, a luxury good is allowed. Today's luxury good were persimmons, the crunchy-when-ripe kind. The second is, if feeling adventurous, then choose a mystery ingredient to make a new dish out of. The mystery is the discovery and creativity of how to cook an unknown. This is a great skill in case you were traveling with Jules Verne in 20,000 leagues under the sea or to the center of the earth and had to cook up a dinosaur. It could happen...

I've cooked a few types of fish and they are all the "normal" ones you can get at a regular supermarket: salmon, trout, tilapia, cod, mahi mahi, Chilean sea bass, etc. I saw shad in the freezer aisle at Fubonn today, but if the fishing gods would shine upon my pole one day, I could fish a shad out of the Columbia River. I've never had shad or shad roe, but seeing how it is plentiful in the Pacific NW, I passed this by. Also, for a mystery ingredient, because it is a trial 'n' error process, it's an ingredient that is also inexpensive to procure.

I settled upon something called Moonfish. It is quite small and much smaller than a blue gill. This is definitely not of the Hawaiian variety, and is probably more like some freakish thing a fisherman would haul up in the net with other fish and didn't want to throw it away. And for a mere $2 for 1 lb, there are two of these in the package:

Roasted Duck Wings

When I go to a city park and see ducks quacking happily by a pond or being fed stale bread by little kids, the first thought that comes to mind is not how cute the scene is, but rather how tasty those ducks would be roasted, braised, baked, or as the main ingredient in a soup. Suffice to say I have only hunted ducks at a supermarket's freezer aisle.

This is the third time I've made this particular appetizer. The ingredient ratio is decently palatable and not too salty. After the wings have baked, they can be served warm or chilled. Compared to the rest of the duck parts available at Fubonn, wings are inexpensive and if you hack them at the joints, each wing can be split into 3 sections.

A duck wing, separated

The marinade

4 tsp cooking mirin
3 slices fresh peeled ginger, minced
3 green onions, chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp five spice powder

1 package of duck wings, about 2 lbs

Duck wings marinating in a ziploc bag

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

1. Separate each wing into three parts by slicing through the tendon and skin at the joints.

2. Place wing parts in a large bowl (or large ziploc bag) and let sit in marinade for at least an hour.

3. Spread wings onto a glass (or ceramic) 9x13 baking pan. I have found that baking these wings on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil doesn't include easy removal of the wings from the foil. Spread the marinade on top of the wings.

4. Add some water to the baking pan, otherwise the thinnest part of the wings will burn and dry out.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, allow for about 15 minutes on each side. Yes, this means you should probably flip the wings mid-way through.

6. Remove from oven and eat.

Finished duck wings ready to eat