Quick Update!

Here is what's been happening in my kitchen the past couple of days!


Friday night (really late - I was up until 2am)
I randomly had the urge to make a lemon meringue pie! Which I did and failed. I was so tired and couldn't admit it and totally forgot to bake the pie crust (I know right?!) before pouring the fillings in. So the pie (which was squared, because well, I still need to buy a new pie pan), looked beautiful but tasted nasty. Completely undercooked. UGH.

Saturday

Meg came over again for another cooking escapade. She made sugar cookies and I made my first successful batch of super-awesome-baked goods a.k.a. Blondieeees! Phew. I've made Blondies a gazillion times before but it's just never the way I want them. Finally...FINALLY I tell you. Since they were so good (would have been better if I had some ice-cream...May?) the entire batch of 9x9 square was gone before I even had a change to snap some pics. Not that I wasn't a possible culprit. Going to make another batch some time before the weekend!

Sunday
I bought a $300+ new toy yesterday: a KitchenAid Stand Mixer! I have yet to test it out but it does look very pretty sitting on my kitchen counter. Then, I attended the free cooking class at William-Sonoma which was really disappointing. It was more like a demo. We didn't even get to touch any food. I guess that's why it was free. The two ladies just kept trying to sell us the W-S products! When I got home, I made little lemon tarts for the office. I gotta work on the pastry tarts...not flaky enough.

Tonight
I just made a quick, comfort meal: home fries. We ate so much of this in Rome I could make it with my eyes closed. I added some spring onions and leftover bits of Chinese BBQ pork I found in the fridge. It tasted pretty good to me.

Poached Eggs

Tasty? Yes. Terrified to make one? Uh-huh. I could never get my poached eggs to look like the perfect smooth ones they serve at Cora's. Buy an egg poacher? That doesn't satisfy me. I'm curious - people poached eggs for centuries before the "egg poacher-scooper-hanging-thingy" was manufactured. How did they do  it?


Julia Childs suggests to poke a small hole in the shell with a pin and boil the egg for 10 seconds before cracking it into simmering water. Too risque. Another wise woman suggested vinegar and making a vortex out of the water. Been there, failed that. Now here's an idea I found, wrap your egg in microwavable plastic wrap forming a pouch and boil in water. No mess - apparently. Hmm... Finally, pour your egg in a ladle then pour hot water over it. Perhaps?


I tried the last two methods. Plastic wrap is perfect if you don't mind the wrinkles. 100% mess free. Egg does not stick to the wrap. Isn't that something nice to know? But the wrinkles would bother me if I have to serve this at a brunch with guests. Method two gave me the perfect round poached egg. Although I think it would be wise to add a drop of oil in the ladle before pouring the egg in. This method takes more patience. You can't submerge the ladel into the water until the egg has entirely set...unless the whole thing turns ugly. 


I had this for dinner last night: topped it with cheese, paprika and dill weed. I didn't have English muffins but the whole wheat bread wasn't bad. Now I can enjoy poached eggs whenever I want - poached to perfection every time. 

Challenge: Butter Chicken (Part 2)

Due to time restraints, I definitely made some questionable choices that affected the end result.


#1: I cooked the chicken in the sauce on the stove. They were supposed to be baked first. The meat got pretty tough. Letting it simmer in the sauce in a pan made it overcooked; all the juices ran out into the sauce instead of sealed in when baked. So having marinating the chicken in the yogurt (which makes the meat tender) was a waste of time.


#2: For this dish, pureeing tomatoes with your own blender is not the same as a can of tomato sauce. Fresh tomatoes were watery, sour and not concentrated enough. The dish did not have the bright reddish colour that I love about butter chicken. More importantly, I had to add extra sugar to get rid of the sourness. Plus, when I mixed it with the yogurt mixture, the water and the pureed fibre separated in the pan, making the butter chicken appear kind of nasty and grainy...instead of thick and smooth.


Considering it as my first attempt at Indian cooking, it turned out pretty well. It was quite flavourful. I'd probably make it again but not too soon, especially knowing how much butter and whipping cream was used!