Kyle has tried to recreate these bars at home by using a fairly straightforward method: take any cookie dough  recipe that yields around 2 dozen cookies and layer them with simple cheesecake filling. However,  things didn’t go as planned and the test batches never quite matched the irresistible bars from the Amish Market.

During the 2020 Covid-19 holiday season, Kyle found himself with A LOT of cookie dough on hand.  In fact, there were about 25 dozen portions of cookie dough stored in the freezer. With not many to share cookies with during social distancing, Kyle experimented with different flavor variations of the Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars. Sometimes recreating a recipe just doesn’t work out, no matter how hard you try. So, the chosen path for Kyle was to reinvent!

First there were Oatmeal White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies sandwiched with vanilla cheesecake filling. Then came Molasses Spice Cookies with a eggnog-flavored cheescake filling. Next, possibly the most creative grouping of the lot was the delicious medley of Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge Cookie dough with peanut butter cheesecake filling.

By the time Christmas actually rolled around, Kyle had been down the rabbit hole of cookie dough bars, creating a version with pumpkin cheesecake and butter pecan with our Brown Sugar Cookies. It was Cookie Dough Cheesecake mania!

The combination of pumpkin, toasted pecans and the brown butter created Kyle’s favorite flavor of all the cheesecake bars – besides the original from the Amish Market.

The 2020 holidays were almost a memory when this latest version was created. With New Year’s resolutions and healthy eating after the holidays, it just didn’t seem like the right time to introduce a new cookie bar. So, these delicious treats waited to be debuted for the 2021 holiday season.

The Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookie Dough Bars are delicious, decadent and they will last several days in the fridge, if they don’t disappear immediately. They might be too scrumptious to resist for very long!

This recipe also benefits from a bit of planning ahead. Get the dough nice and cold in the fridge before assembling and baking the bars. This way, by the time the cheesecake filling has set, the cookie dough layers are still slightly under-baked, giving them that gooey cookie texture.

This recipe will be great for the fall season right through December. They are versatile in flavor giving them an all around holiday vibe.

Whip up a batch for Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving, Christmas or just an ordinary Wednesday. These yummy bars will be a hit whenever they are served!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookie Dough Bars

 

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Ingredients

• For the Cookie Dough:
• 14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1¾ sticks)
• 350 grams (1 ¾ cups) packed dark brown sugar
• 300 grams (about 2 cups) gluten free cookie flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk powder
• ½ teaspoon table salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cups pecans, toasted and roughly chopped
• For the Cheesecake:
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• ¼ cup (53 g.) dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup pumpkin puree
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

Instructions

1. For the cookie dough, heat the butter in a pan over medium-high heat until melted. Continue to cook the butter until it is browned a dark golden color and smells nutty, about 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer the browned butter to a large bowl and let it rest for 15 min.
2. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, xanthan gum and milk powder in a bowl. Add brown sugar and salt to cooled butter and mix until there are no lumps. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla to butter mixture and mix well, then add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the pecans. Refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
4. For the cheesecake filling, beat together the cream cheese, dark brown sugar, egg, pumpkin, vanilla and spices using a stand or handheld mixer.
5. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper and place about half of the cookie dough (it doesn’t have to be exact!) in the bottom of the pan. Press the dough down into the pan to create a flat, even layer. Spread the cheesecake evenly over the cookie dough layer. Sprinkle the remaining cookie dough over the cheesecake layer.
6. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch. Cool 30 minutes. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until chilled. For bars, cut into 4 rows by 4 rows. Store in the refrigerator.

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The first idea for an autumn cocktail was an Apple Cider Old-Fashioned- we hoped the apple cider reduction would replace the sugar in the standard Old-Fashioned. The test batches, however, didn’t pass the ol’ taste tests. The proportions between bourbon and cider just were not right – there was something missing.

The addition of sweet vermouth to the cocktail shaker eventually perfected the drink! The cocktail was spirit-forward (thanks to the bourbon) and  had both sweet and tart notes from the Apple Cider Syrup. The touch of complexity from the aromatics in the sweet vermouth gives it that extra something.

The cocktail, in its final form, is less an Old-Fashioned and more of a Manhattan –  a loose Manhattan, if you will. We finally achieved our cocktail creation goal: a strong, slow-sipping drink that pairs well with firepits and sweater weather.

Adding the dash of orange bitters contributes a bit of citrus and a cocktail cherry is a nod to the traditional Manhattan. If you don’t have these on hand, it certainly isn’t a deal breaker;  it is still a delicious cocktail, without or without them. What is necessary is adding the cinnamon stick! The cinnamon  really infuses the Apple Cider Manhattan with its sweet, spiced flavor. In truth, when you are down to the last sips of the cocktail, the cinnamon stick makes it taste like a grownup apple pie!

If you enjoy warming, spirit-forward fall cocktails, you might enjoy some of our other seasonal favorites: Apple Cider French 75, The Martinez and an Allspice Old-Fashioned.

As the weather continues to grow colder, and you are looking for something to add to a warm and cozy evening in, any of these cocktails mentioned will hit the spot. To add an extra bonus, they scale up easily and are all able to be served in larger batches, making them great for those holiday get-togethers!

Apple Cider Manhattan

 

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Ingredients

• For the Cider Syrup:
• 4 cups Apple Cider
• For the Apple Cider Manhattan:
• 2 ounces bourbon or rye
• 1 ounce Cider Syrup
• ½ ounce sweet vermouth
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• Cinnamon sticks and cherries, for garnish

Instructions

1. To make the Cider Syrup: Bring the apple cider to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the cider is reduced to 1 cup, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow cider reduction to cool.
2. To make the Apple Cider Manhattan: add bourbon, cider syrup, sweet vermouth, and orange bitters to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir until well-chilled, about 30 to 60 seconds. Strain into a chilled glass and garnish with a cinnamon stick and cherry.

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When Allons-Ea!t began, we featured a recipe for Corn Milk, which takes the kernels, strips them from their cobs, blitzes them in a food processor and then strains and reduces them down to a rich and creamy liquid. This reduction allows you to incorporate the flavor of sweet summer corn into many recipes. We have made Corn and Ricotta Crostini, Dairy-Free Carbonara Sauce and even folded some into a Corn Milk Ice Cream, the possibilities are endless. Corn Milk is a great addition to anyone’s creative cooking agenda!

Flash-forward to last summer, when this Corn Butter recipe was featured as a part of Food52’s Genius Recipes. It is really the next step in the evolution of Corn Milk!

The preparation process is exactly the same until it is time to cook the corn juice. Instead of reducing the liquid for a couple minutes to yield a creamy “milk”, let the process continue for several minutes longer, while whisking constantly, until the starches in the corn thicken the liquid into a spreadable texture that is reminiscent of pumpkin or apple butter, except loaded with the essence of summer.

Food52 mentions that you shouldn’t use freshly picked corn for this recipe. It would be wise to let your ears of corn sit for a few days, allowing some of the sugars to convert to starch. This will greatly enhance the thickening power of the corn juice as you cook it down.

In its natural state, Corn Butter is technically a one ingredient wonder. We highly recommend that you try the Corn Butter without any additions, you will not regret the summery flavor! After that, feel free to add a few pinches of salt and a couple pats of butter to improve it just a tad. I mean, you can’t go wrong additional with salt and butter, right?

Kyle schmeared his first batch of  Corn Butter on some  Zucchini Bread,  creating the ultimate summer snack bread. Then it was used in place of butter on corn on the cob. This one may seem redundant, but the concentrated corn flavor of the Corn Butter really enhanced the on-the-cob corn.

The Food52 article recommends stirring some into risotto, spreading some on a hot dog to get a Corn Dog vibe, or folding it into some spinach to create a summertime, dairy-free version of creamed spinach. We think that Corn Butter would be a great base for corn pudding or corn creme brulee. We haven’t dabbled into dessert with the Corn Butter as of yet, so if you try it, let us know!

This recipe is such  a great addition to many summer dishes,  that you really can’t go wrong no matter how you choose to use it. So, make August your go-to corn month and whip up some tasty meals with a batch of Corn Butter!

Adapted from Food 52.

Corn Butter

 

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Ingredients

• 8 ears sweet corn, shucked
• Butter and salt, to taste (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut off kernels: Use a chef's knife to cut the kernels from each ear. To wrangle the kernels, arrange towels around the cutting board and cut the corn in the center of the circle. Or balance the ear in the center of a Bundt pan and cut. Or lay the ear on its side and slice the kernels off with a sturdy chef’s knife. 8 ears of corn will yield 4 to 5 cups of kernels.
2. Place the kernels in a blender or food processor, and blend them on the highest speed for about 2 minutes. Once the kernels are blended into a smooth puree, pass the puree through a strainer with a rubber spatula. This should yield about 2 cups of “corn juice,” but the exact measurement isn’t important.
3. Pour the juice into a medium saucepan. Heat the juice over medium heat, whisking constantly. Continue whisking until the mixture begins to thicken and the frothy bubbles begin to disappear - the original recipe stated 4 minutes, but mine took closer to 7-8, so you’re mileage may vary. . When the mixture is thick and bubbling, whisk and cook for about 30 seconds more. Remove from the heat.
4. Taste it—and look for sweet, smooth, earthy, and buttery. If you want, add a few pinches of salt and pats of butter. The corn butter will keep for about 3 to 5 days in the fridge.

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Our new French 75 variation includes rhubarb, a favorite springtime ingredient. We love to use it in jams, desserts and cocktails. In creating this cocktail, Kyle felt the tartness of the rhubarb would mesh nicely with the other flavors in a French 75 for a bright and bubbly, perfectly pink cocktail.

As luck would have it, rhubarb has a very narrow window of availability – it’s short season could be over before you were even aware of it! The solution to this was to cook up the rhubarb into a syrup that could be stored in the refrigerator for a few months. This way we can be sipping on rhubarb enhanced cocktails all the way through Labor Day!

We used a very similar rhubarb syrup to make Rhubarb Margaritas; however, this time Kyle swapped out the oranges for lemons to reflect the ingredients of a true French 75. The lemons coupled with the rhubarb in this syrup create a bit of a sour-on-sour taste flavor-wise, which balances out the added sugar and results in a very well-rounded drink.

It can be extremely easy to drink a batch of these refreshingly delicious cocktails in one sitting (we might be speaking from experience). Their bright and inspiriting effervescence belie the fact that this concoction is basically liquor (gin) mixed with more alcohol (sparkling wine), so they can really pack a punch if you are spending a relaxing afternoon either on the porch, by the pool or at the beach.

If you wish, there are a few ways to enjoy a round of these cocktails at a lower proof.  You could just omit the gin and mix the Rhubarb Syrup with some sparkling wine to create a Rhubarb Spritzer. You could also add a splash of the Rhubarb Syrup to a gin and tonic – in fact we highly recommend that you do! For a completely alcohol-free version, mix up the Rhubarb Syrup with some seltzer.

Rhubarb Syrup doesn’t have to be limited strictly to cocktails, just spoon some over a scoop of ice cream, such as Salted Creme Fraiche, for a delicious dessert – a great addition to a sweet treat!

Last year, Kyle made the Apple Cider French 75, and joked in that post that we would soon be able to have a “French 75 for all seasons”.  We now have one for autumn, TWO for summer including our Watermelon Basil French 75 AND the French 75 Slushie, and this lovely Rhubarb French 75 for late springtime.  A winter French 75 is the only one left on the checklist. Stay tuned! Winter-y French 75 ideas are brewing! Cheers!

Rhubarb French 75

 

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Ingredients

• For the Rhubarb Syrup:
• 1 ½ pounds rhubarb, diced, about 4 cups
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 lemons, juiced (about ⅔ cup juice), peels from one lemon reserved
• ⅓ cup water
• For theRhubarb French 75
• 1 ½ ounces gin
• 1 ½ ounces rhubarb syrup
• Dash of orange bitters
• 2 ounces very cold Sparkling wine
• Lemon peel for garnish

Instructions

1. For the Rhubarb Syrup, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bring rhubarb, sugar, lemon juice, lemon peels, and water to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let mixture cool.
3. Strain through fine-mesh sieve. Refrigerate in a covered container for up to one month.
4. For the Rhubarb French 75, in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake gin, rhubarb syrup, and orange bitters.
5. Strain into a chilled coupe or champagne glass, and fill with 2 ounces Sparkling Wine. Garnish with lemon peel.

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Time got away from him and the lentil dish was forgotten. While we were in quarantine, there was a lot of daydreaming about this rich lentil dish, so, it was time to set out and try to recreate the dish from all those many years ago. The basic gist of the recipe was easy enough to remember – saute some aromatics, cook the lentils, finish with a bit a cream and all the Parmesan, try not to eat the entire bowl at once. However, the exact proportions that were used at the restaurant were forever lost.

Kyle did a quick search on Google, but to no avail. So, it became a quest of trial and error, trying to work out a recipe that lived up to the original. The only major difference to the new recipe was bacon, because, well, bacon. Sauteing the onion, celery and garlic in the rendered bacon fat and garnishing the final dish of Creamed Lentils with some cripsy reserved bacon really put the flavor of the dish over the top.

Enter the Instant Pot. Kyle is a latecomer to the Instant Pot party. He was a pressure cooker guy since college. The pressure cooker really does have the same basic function of the Instant Pot, minus all of the fancy settings, so he never deemed it necessary to add one to his kitchen arsenal. Sadly, the pressure cooker recently went kaput, and it was finally time to purchase an Instant Pot. Since then one of his favorite things to cook in it are dried beans and legumes.

You can cook up a big batch and then use them throughout the week in various recipes. Cooking them in stock and infusing the beans provides them with more flavor and less salt than most canned beans. The recipe for Creamy Lentils with Parmesan was the perfect excuse to incorporate Instant Pot cooking into a legume dish that didn’t simply involve just cooking them in stock.

If you are worried about not owning an Instant Pot, don’t. The restaurant did not use one (or a pressure cooker) to prepare the Lentils with Parmesan so there is no need for you to cook them that way. The alternative is to cook your dried lentils in a separate pot according to the package directions, then add the garlic/onion/celery mixture and then finish them with the cream and Parmesan. You do not need to include stock in this version, it will end up with way too much liquid, you will instead end up with lentil soup. Instead, try doubling the amount of cream to get the right consistency.

This recipe would pair wonderfully with many different proteins especially Milk Braised Chicken and Halibut en Papillote. In reality, if you are not up to cooking up a full entree, a big bowl the lentils with Parmesan would be quite delicious on their own.

This is a great summer side dish and would compliment any meal. Now that we are slowly beginning to have opportunities to see more and more friends and family this summer, this would be a delicious way to add yumminess to any gathering!

Instant Pot Parmesan Lentils

 

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Ingredients

• 2 ounces pork belly, or thick-cut bacon, diced
• ½ medium onion, chopped ( about 1 cup)
• 1 cup chopped celery, from 1 large or 2 smaller stalks
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 ½ cups dried lentils
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• Cracked Black pepper
• 2 ounces shredded Parmesan Cheese (about ½ cup)
• ¼ cup Light Cream
• Parsley, for garnish

Instructions

1. Set Instant Pot to “Saute”, then add the pork belly (or bacon) and cook until crisp. Remove the pork from the Instant Pot, and reserve.
2. Add the onion, celery and garlic to the rendered pork fat. Season with ½ teaspoon kosher salt and a few grinds of freshly cracked pepper. Cook until soft and fragrant, stirring regularly, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the lentils and stock and stir, scraping up any browned bits that might have accumulated at the bottom of the pot.
4. Lock the lid of the Instant Pot, then adjust your Instant Pot to Manual Pressure. Cook on High Pressure for 10 minutes.
5. Quick Release the pressure, then add the Parmesan, light cream and reserved pork.
6. Garnish with parsley and serve

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Kyle settled on Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in Milk as a starting point. It was a great choice since it does come highly recommended by the likes of the NY Times, Food52 and The Kitchn.

Oliver’s recipe is in itself, simple. It has a minimal ingredient list and not many steps. The process consists of browning a whole chicken, adding milk, lemon, sage and cinnamon, then sending it into the oven. The ingredient list may make one confused, chicken, milk and cinnamon? A weird combo, right? However, the final result has incredible flavor and textures, chicken has never tasted so succulent and tasty. The reduced milk sauce, in all of its curdled glory, is a rich and delectable complement to the chicken.

The original recipe was tweaked a bit, of course. Instead of a whole chicken, Kyle used chicken leg quarters in an attempt to increase the crispy skin-to-meat ratio of each serving. His wish was to get the best of both worlds: the crispy skin of the roasted chicken and the tender meat of a braised dish.

The key to getting the best of both chicken worlds is to ensure that your chicken pieces are not fully submerged in the milk when braising. This means you might have to adjust  your amount of milk based on the size of your cooking vessel. Instead of using sage, (Kyle didn’t have any on hand), a couple of bay leaves were included. A bit of wine was added to the braising liquid, because, why not?

Another departure from the recipe was the decision to sear some halved onions and add them to the braising liquid. As we previously learned here, adding a few halved onions to a simmering sauce lends many extra dimensions to the flavor . It is a very simple addition, but well worth it. Due to the added moisture from the onions with the reduced cooking time from using the leg quarters, the braised-milk-and-curds sauce was not reducing as Kyle wanted. He returned the pan to the stove after removing the cooked chicken and onions, then  further reduced the sauce for another 15 minutes. If the thinner sauce doesn’t bother you, then this extra step won’t be needed.

The final step was pureeing the sauce in a blender before serving. Now, some followers out there may feel blending the curds is sacrilege; however, it does add to the aesthetic appeal of the final product. Totally up to you though!

This recipe is a one pot (or pan) recipe. You know what this means? That is correct. Prep and clean up are easy schmeasy. This is a no fuss meal! After searing the chicken and onions, the oven really does the rest of the work, making this delicious weeknight meal taste like an all encompassing Sunday or holiday meal. You can serve this meal with a simple green salad and some potatoes (suggestion –  Crispy, Salt & Vinegar Potatoes) for a low-key, yet scrumptious comfort food type of meal. Enjoy!

Adapted from Jamie Oliver

Milk Braised Chicken with Melted Onions

 

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Ingredients

• 2 to 3 pounds chicken leg quarters
• Kosher Salt and Freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 2 onions, peeled and sliced in half lengthwise
• ½ cup dry white wine
• 2 ½ cups Whole Milk
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Season the chicken aggressively with the salt and pepper. Place an oven-proof pot or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat on the stove. Add the butter and olive oil. When the butter has melted and is starting to foam, add the chicken to the pot. Cook until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes per side.
2. Once the chicken pieces are browned on both sides, remove from the pot and reserve. Add the onions, cut side down, and cook until browned, about 2 to 3 minutes
3. Flip the onions so the cut sides are facing up, then add the white wine and cook until it has reduced by half. Return the chicken to the pot, then add the milk, bay leaves and cinnamon stick. You don’t want the chicken to be fully submerged in the liquid, so depending on the size of your pot, you may need a little less milk.
4. Place the pot into the oven, and bake for approximately 30 to 40 minutes (until an instant-read thermometer reaches 165 degrees Farenheit), and the sauce has reduced into a thick, curdled sauce. If the chicken is fully cooked and the sauce seems thin, remove the chicken and onions, and place the pot over medium-high heat until the sauce has reduced to the thick and curdled texture.(This took me about 10 minutes of simmering to get the texture I was looking for).
5. Discard the cinnamon and bay leaves and serve. If you prefer a smoother sauce, puree it (without any of the chicken or onions) in a blender on high speed for 1 minute, then serve.

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Serious Eats has a great article summing up the science behind salt and vinegar chips. Most companies spray vinegar over maltodextrin, a starch derived powder that absorbs the vinegar and basically creates a vinegar powder, they use this powder to season the chips. This technique is an ancestor to a former method dating back to 1615 from The English Housewife. This method made dry vinegar by grinding wheat or rye in a mortar and pestle, forming it into a paste with the strongest vinegar available and letting it dry in the sun. Just a little food history for you….

Today, you can easily buy the powered vinegar online. However, Kyle was sure he could find a more accessible way to incorporate the vinegar flavor that doesn’t involve ordering a specialty ingredient or busting out the mortar and pestle and harnessing the power of the sun. There should be a way to use a common household item like Distilled White Vinegar to produce the flavor we wanted.

So, it was time to set out on our mission to create salt and vinegar potatoes at home. The goal was to make a salt & vinegar version of the spectacular Ridiculously Crispy Potatoes that we featured a few years ago. The potatoes, which are par-broiled, then smashed and roasted at a very high heat have creamy potato center enrobed by crispy, crunchy skins that somehow invoke both a twice-baked potato and fried potato skins to create a bit of potato nirvana.

To gild the lily, Kyle incorporated a bit of duck fat into the Crispy Potato recipe. This addition helped lend a savory flavor and crispy texture to the mix. Mixing a tablespoon of duck fat with the rest of your vegetable oil is really something you should try, it amps up the flavor and textural benefits. It is also how one can justify buying $10 jars of duck fat (hint: you can get a lot of mileage out of the jar by diluting it with a milder vegetable oil). A 16-ounce jar can go a long way over many months, and Kyle should know, he makes A LOT of roasted potatoes.

Bon Appetit featured a recipe for Crispy Salt and Vinegar Potatoes that used the familiar two-step process of boiling then roasting the potatoes; however, they Salt-and-Vinegar’d (making up words is fun) the potatoes by adding 1 cup of vinegar to the boiling water and splashing the finished potatoes with an extra shot of vinegar.

By drizzling the potatoes with vinegar, it seemed like a guarantee they would provide a acidic POP! of flavor. However, Kyle feared that the added liquid at the end would render all those deliciously crispy bits soggy. This fear led to the doubling of the vinegar to 2 cups in order to concentrate the vinegar flavor from within. The desire to have our roasted potatoes to have a strong tangy punch of vinegar AND still have the generously crispy texture was strong, so this was the course of action that was taken in order to preserve the integrity of our precious zing/crispy potato wonders.

The potatoes really pair well with any protein, even eggs at a breakfast/brunch. However, who needs a planned meal to enjoy these – one can just whip up a batch to snack on at will! Try the potatoes with a batch of our Fry Sauce from our Fish and Chips recipe and a spicy ketchup. The spicy ketchup can be whipped up by mixing 1 tablespoon of Sriracha per cup of ketchup. No matter how you decide to enjoy these potatoes, dinner party, holiday meal or snack, you can’t go wrong!

Crispy Salt & Vinegar Potatoes

 

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Ingredients

• 2 pounds baby yukon gold potatoes (or use regular sized Yukon Golds and cut them into quarters)
• 2 cups vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
• ¼ cup olive oil (or chicken or duck fat)
• Freshly ground black pepper and flaky sea salt
• Scallions and parsley, for garnish

Instructions

1. Place a rimmed baking sheet in the middle rack of your oven and preheat oven to 475°F. Poke each potato a few times over with the tines of a fork and place potatoes in a large saucepan. Add vinegar and kosher salt; then add enough water to cover the potatoes by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook about 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender but not completely cooked through. Potatoes should show slight resistance when poked with a paring knife or a cake tester. Drain potatoes and transfer to a large bowl.
2. Add your fat of choice (I like equal parts duck fat and olive oil!) Season with pepper and more salt to taste, then toss with a large spoon until exteriors are slightly bashed up and coated in a thin layer of potato/fat paste. Using oven mitts, carefully spread potatoes evenly onto the preheated baking sheet.
3. Roast potatoes until crispy and golden brown, 35–40 minutes, flipping them halfway through cooking.
4. Garnish potatoes with chopped scallions or parsley (if desired) and serve with your favorite dipping sauces.

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This season’s standout contestant -SPOILER ALERT- was Melissa King. She consistently impressed the judges throughout the season, but she especially wowed them during the final stretch of episodes (filmed in Italy, no less!) by weaving her Chinese heritage into classic Italian dishes. In fact, her Hong Kong Tea-Inspired Tiramisu actually brought one of the judges to tears. Making a grown man happy cry over our cooking is definitely way up there in our #CulinaryGoals.

While watching Melissa King seamlessly craft Chinese and Italian traditions together, Kyle’s creative gears started turning trying to create a dish that would reflect her masterful fusion. I’m sure plenty of you do this while watching competitive cooking or baking shows, right? It is fun to put yourself in a contestant’s position and try to conceptualize a dish that is inline to the weekly challenges they face. Well, it is fun, but not successful for all of us. Lucky for us, Kyle is good at it and that is how Congee Carbonara came to be –  a mashup of two of his favorite comfort foods.

There has been plenty of Congee love on the blog;  this is the 4th Congee recipe here after our Spicy Pork Congee, Chicken Liver Congee and Basic Chicken Congee. However, this is the first time we’ve shared anything Carbonara-related. Carbonara, a pasta dish served in a sauce made with whisked eggs, cured pork (usually guanciale or pancetta), hard cheese (typically Pecorino Romano or Parmesan) and cracked black pepper, is rich, comfort food heaven and is the perfect hearty meal needed after the endless barrage of snowstorms we had in February.

Carbonara is so delicious and satisfying; however, making homemade Carbonara can be quite daunting. The sauce is made by whisking some of the pasta water into the eggs, and the sauce can easily break or curdle if it is not tempered properly, therefore completely ruining the dish (and wasting expensive ingredients in the process). Congee, with its rich texture and stress free, set-it-and-forget-it preparation is the perfect solution!

Congee is a blank canvas. Making a big batch of it allows you to have several different meals from the same base, so it lends itself really well into being Carbonara’d. Kyle used sliced bacon instead of guanciale or pancetta (though both would be delicious in this recipe!) and cooked the aromatics for the congee in the rendered bacon fat to impart the smoky pork flavor throughout the entire batch of rice porridge.

Rice vinegar and soy sauce were also used to flavor the congee, to tie in the dish’s Asian roots (hopefully this would make Chef Melissa King proud!). Once the congee was finished cooking, the parmesan cheese and reserved bacon were folded into the dish.

The egg was the last component to add to complete the full Carbonara-ing of the Congee. Kyle loves garnishing each bowl of Congee with a soft-cooked egg. The runny yolk adds such a rich texture to the Congee. In addition, it serves as another nod to the Carbonara inspiration of the dish. For the Carbonara Congee, Kyle decided to forego the poached egg and to simply place an egg yolk on top of each bowl. This allows each person to finish the preparation of the Carbonara Congee by stirring the egg yolk into their bowls. It’s a fun hands-on aspect of this dish!

This comfort food dish is a simple, one-pot meal full of deliciousness and texture. It blends two seemingly disparate dishes into a hearty meal that will warm those winter blues away! Enjoy!

Congee Carbonara

 

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Ingredients

• 4 slices (about 6 ounces) thick cut bacon (if you can find it, guanciale works great too)
• 1 small yellow onion, or half of a large onion, diced
• 1 shallot, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup long-grain white rice or brown rice, rinsed
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 3 ounces (about 1 cup grated) shaved Parmesan Cheese, plus more for garnish
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 4 large egg yolks
• For garnish: sliced scallions, parsley, red pepper flakes, extra Parmesan and reserved bacon

Instructions

1. Cook bacon in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-low heat, until the fat has rendered out and bacon has crisped, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon on a paper towel and reserve.
2. Pour out the rendered fat, reserving about 2 tablespoons in the pot. Add the onion, shallot and garlic and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Add the rice and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the wine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the wine has mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the chicken broth, water, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook at a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice has broken down and the mixture is creamy, about 1 hour.
6. Coarsely chop the bacon, and stir most of it into the congee (reserve a couple tablespoons for garnish). Stir in the Parmesan cheese and a generous amount of cracked black pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
7. Ladle into bowls. Add 1 egg yolk to the center of each bowl, then top with sliced scallions, parsley, red pepper flakes and the reserved Parmesan cheese and crumble bacon.

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When Kyle when into the container that he stored both the Tahini Bark and the Crispy Treats in, a thought occurred to him. What if he could stack these two snacks on top of one another to see how they taste together? What were the results of this grand experiment you ask? Well, it was a deliciousness explosion. The nuttiness of the tahini in the bark and the brown butter in the crispy treats meshed well together, and the semi-sweet chocolate cut through the marshmallow sweetness of the crispy treats. In addition, the pop of sea salt on top added just the right salty touch, creating a treat that was simultaneously sweet and salty, nutty and chocolaty. It was crisp, chewy and crunchy – such a wide range of textures and flavors coming together for the most yummy treat possible.

This creation was way on top of Kyle’s to-do list for 2021. February seemed like the perfect time to introduce these Chocolate Sesame Crispy Treats to the world. These are perfect as a Valentine’s Day treat – a great way to share a homemade, chocolate snack with your special someone. Of course, if you are single or are just not that into Valentine’s Day, it is the perfect I-deserve-a treat type of snack. They are a snack that is good at any time and for anyone, delicious is always in season.

The goal was unifying the treats into a one recipe. Kyle decided to put the tahini in the crispy treats themselves, rather than in the bark layer (like in their original iteration). The nuttiness of both the tahini and the brown butter play so well together, it just made sense to include them in the same layer. In fact, they blended so well together, the the tahini wasn’t evident in the finished treats, the sesame, chocolate and brown butter primarily shine through. Kyle did consider doubling the amount of tahini in the second batch that he made.

Ultimately, he decided to leave the tahini alone because the tahini may not have been not super prominent because it married so beautifully with the other flavors. Why fix something that isn’t broken? If he increased the tahini in the recipe, it may have caused the other flavors to be off balance and end up having an overpowering taste.

The Crispy Treat layer gets a bonus bump of flavor from the addition of milk powder – Kyle’s favorite new flavor hack. In fact, Food 52’s Genius Dessert cookbook actually includes the milk powder hack in their recipe for Brown Butter Crispy Treats (where Kyle first learned about this incredible dessert addition), so, it would be somewhat of a dessert sacrilege not to include it in the recipe.

The chocolate bark layer very closely resembles our recipe for Milk Chocolate Sesame Bark, except that semisweet chocolate was used in place of the milk chocolate to better balance the added sweetness from the crispy treats. Kyle also cranked up the proportion of sesame oil to chocolate so that the sesame wouldn’t get drowned out by all the other flavors in the crispy treats. The same chocolate tempering trick was used when Kyle makes chocolate bark – melt about half of your chocolate in the bowl over a double boiler, then remove it from the heat and stir in the remaining chocolate until smooth.

This will yield perfectly tempered chocolate every time that won’t break (the dreaded fear of all chocolate temper-ers) and solidifies beautifully on top of the treats. This gives you a great Snap! when you bite into the dessert. With the combined Crackle! of the crispy treats and the Pop! of the flaky sea salt on top, all the original Rice Krispie mascots were properly represented in the Chocolate Crispy Treats.

Seriously, the hardest part of this recipe is waiting the hour or two for the chocolate to firm up before diving into the snacks. As hard as that may be, we highly recommend the wait. If you try to cut the crispy treats before the chocolate sets you will end up with a gooey, chocolaty mess.

Please don’t think we are speaking from experience when it comes to waiting for the treats to firm up, wink. Would we do that? Moving on, the flavors in these snacks are loaded with such complex flavors and textures you will want to make them for many a special occasion.

These treats are perfect for Valentine’s Day, or really, any day. They are packed with so many levels of flavor – so have a delicious time with these Chocolate Sesame Crispy Treats, I know I will!

Chocolate Sesame Crispy Treats

 

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Ingredients

• For the Crispy Treat Layer:
• 1 stick (1/2 cup or 115 grams) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons milk powder
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 1 10-ounce (285-gram) bag marshmallows
• 6 cups (160 grams) crispy rice cereal (about half a 12-ounce box)
• For the Chocolate Sesame Layer:
• 1 cup (about 200 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 tseaspoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
• Coarse sea salt, for garnish

Instructions

1. Line an 8-inch square cake pan with parchment paper
2. In a large pot, melt butter over medium-low heat. Stir frequently, as the butter melts, then foams, then finally start to turn brown and smell nutty, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do.
3. As soon as the butter takes on a nutty color, turn off the heat. Stir in the milk powder, tahini, and sea salt until the milk powder dissolves. Then, stir in the marshmallows. The residual heat from the melted butter should be enough to melt the marshmallows, but if it is not, turn the heat back on low until the marshmallows are mostly smooth (I like to leave several large blobs of marshmallow in there, because they create some nice gooey streaks in the finished crispy treats).
4. Remove the pot from the stove and stir in the cereal together. Quickly spread into prepared pan. Flatten the gooey mix evenly with a spatula or a buttered piece of parchment paper, pressing into the edges and corners. Let cool at room temperature.
5. While the crispy treats cool, prepare the chocolate topping. Melt about ¾ of the chocolate (it doesn’t have to be exact) in a medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in reserved chocolate chips and sesame oil until the mixture is completely melted and smooth. Spread evenly over the crispy treats, then sprinkle the top with the sesame seeds and some flaky sea salt.
6. Let cool until room temperature and chocolate has set, about 1 to 2 hours - you can speed up this process by popping the treats in the fridge for 30 - 45 minutes, but the finished treats are best served at room temperature. Cut into squares (I use a bench scraper to get cleaner, more even cuts) and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

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Now that 2020 is behind us, we can at least try to begin a new chapter in 2021. So, we will share this recipe from one of the few, well, the one  culinary highlight from our 2020. We can focus on the positive and the delicious and try, even it is for just a moment, to draw some light from the darkness.

The meal from Vianda was incredible from start to finish. The standout dish was the Bacalao Tom Kha, taking a traditional Thai dish (Tom Kha Kai) and giving it some Puerto Rican flair. Tom Kha Kai (in Thai this translates to “chicken galangal soup”) is a coconut soup that is infused with lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, chili, mushrooms, chicken, fish sauce and lime juice. The ingredients provide spicy, sour and savory notes yielding a complex and deeply flavored soup. At Vianda, the chefs bypassed the typical protein option (chicken) and went for Salt Cod. They served the dish with a heaping portion of crispy fried rice, whose nutty flavor and crunchy texture added a whole other level to the dish.

Kyle found a recipe on Bon Appetit that served as a good starting point for his creation; however, many of the ingredients listed prevented the dish from being a true Tom Kha. Most notably, the recipe called for using ginger in place of the galangal – an ingredient that is literally in the recipe name – so this was a huge no-no. He used this particular recipe as a guideline for how to proceed. It was a bit of a game, using a (nontraditional) recipe in an attempt to recreate another nontraditional (albeit for different reasons) version of the dish, and it became a culinary Whisper-Down-the-Lane, if you will. In order to respect the original dish and avoid offending any purists, we named our recipe “Cod in Coconut Curry Broth”.

We admit it, this recipe calls for some obscure ingredients that won’t be easily found in most supermarkets – mainly the galangal and the kaffir lime leaves. They can be purchased online, so really the hardest part is patiently waiting for them to arrive. Since those ingredients had to be ordered online, Kyle used dried galangal instead of fresh, but it is a wonderful addition to many soups and stocks (it has forever changed the way he makes Chicken Congee), so it is a welcome specialty ingredient in the pantry. Now, don’t fear, you will not be creating a culinary crime if you decide to replace the galangal and kaffir lime leaves with ginger root and lime zest – we aren’t making a true Tom Kha after all.

Once you have gathered all of your ingredients, you then toss almost everything in a pot and create a complex, deeply flavored broth that becomes enriched with a can of coconut milk. This yields a creamy, spicy, tart and umami-packed soup that is rich without feeling too heavy – the perfect comfort food. The recipe does call for 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, which may seem like overkill; however, it really enhances the overall funky, umami flavors of the broth.

When Kyle was served this dish at the restaurant, the fish sauce aroma was a bit overpowering. However, once he tasted the dish, he realized the actual flavor of the fish sauce blended so beautifully with everything else, providing an assertive and pungent punch that ties the flavors together. Once you are making this recipe at home you will be amazed at how you created such a deeply flavorful and complex broth with relatively little effort. A lot of that amazing flavor is thanks to the fish sauce.

As a substitute for the Bacalao (dried Salt Cod), Kyle used regular cod fillets that he poached in the broth right at the end of cooking. You can definitely sub out the cod for any firm white fish, such as haddock or halibut, or take inspiration from the dish’s Tom Kha roots and use some shrimp or diced chicken as your protein.

Since this recipe makes a decent amount of broth, you should have plenty left over for a second batch. This means you can have two evenings of restaurant-quality meals for the work of one. At the restaurant there was a bowl of fixings on the table, such as cilantro, lime and sliced chili peppers, this allowed for one to really customize their dish to suit their exact taste.

2020 was not a great year in the lives of so many. In many ways 2021 has not started out so great either. However, one thing that may be different for many of us – is how to really savor the small things, enjoy the unique moments that we may have taken for granted in the past. I think we all deserve some fun and delicious experiences this year. If we can share these experiences together in person, fantastic. If not, we can move on to create delicious moments together virtually, we can do it. Enjoy the dish!

Inspired by Vianda 
Recipe (loosely) adapted from Bon Appetit.

Cod with Coconut Curry Broth

 

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Ingredients

• For the Tom Kha
• 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6-8 scallions, thinly sliced (reserve a tablespoon or 2 of the green parts for garnish)
• 1 small red chili pepper, thinly sliced (again, reserve a few pieces for garnish)
• 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed, and smashed with the side of a knife
• ¼ cup galangal root, sliced into ⅛ thick disks, from about a 2-inch piece (I used dried galangal root, as that was all i could find), or use ginger root
• 2 teaspoons red Thai curry paste
• 10 kaffir lime leaves, or use 1 tablespoon lime zest and ¼ cup lime juice
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 pound cod
• Salt and pepper
• 1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• For garnish: cilantro leaves, lime wedges and reserved scallions and pepper
• For the crispy rice:
• 1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups cooked, leftover white rice

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add garlic, scallions, chili pepper, lemongrass, galangal and red curry paste and cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes.
2. Add lime leaves and vegetable broth and increase heat to high. Bring broth to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Strain broth into clean saucepan; discard solids.
3. Add mushrooms to the pot and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes.
4. Season the cod with salt and pepper. Add cod to the pot and continue to simmer over low heat until the cod is opaque throughout and beginning to flake, about 5 - 7 minutes (larger pieces of fish may take a couple minutes longer). Remove from heat and stir in the coconut milk, sugar, and fish sauce, and season to taste.
5. While the cod cooks, heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add oil and let it heat up for about a minute. Scatter the rice evenly over the oil, season lightly with salt, and let it sit undisturbed for 3 - 4 minutes, until rice is brown and crispy. (it’s important not to touch it at this point - letting the rice be will get it nice and crispy!). Flip the rice over in sections and let it cook, undisturbed again, for another minute or 2.
6. Ladle Tom Kha into bowls and garnish with cilantro, lime wedges, scallions and peppers. Serve with crispy rice.

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