Food Without Borders

When­ever we have a guest over for din­ner, I always find myself strug­gling to come up with at least one new dish inspired by that per­son. For me cre­at­ing a sig­na­ture dish for that per­son becomes my gift to them. Recently we had a friend from Thai­land come for din­ner, and as usual I was rack­ing my brain for an idea. Then it came to me; in Thai­land the flavours of coconut and pan­dan abound in sweet and savoury dishes. Pan­dan, ‘bai dteuy’ in Thai or ‘screw pine’ in Eng­lish is a fra­grant leaf with some­what of a sweet grassy smell. It is usu­ally paired with coconut in desserts and in savoury rice dishes.
By now, you may be ask­ing your­self “Isn’t your blog called “Bukopan­dan?”. Buko is the young green coconut in the Philip­pines. The answer to that ques­tion is yes., but I have yet to cre­ate any dish that is made from coconut and pan­dan; this is the first. So, for a friend, my chal­lenge was to cre­ate a some­thing famil­iar to her taste buds, but not too eas­ily rec­og­niz­able.
Notes:

• The recipe below for coconut pan­dan ice cream fol­lows the tra­di­tional cus­tard method of mak­ing ice cream, using eggs. It will yield 1 quart of ice cream
• I used farm fresh eggs, since they have a lit­tle more stiff­ness in the yolks which is what I want in an ice cream base
• I used a kitchen-aid stand mixer, with the ice cream maker bowl.
• I also used pan­dan extract to boost the flavour of the pan­dan. This is not required, as we will cook pan­dan leaves in the coconut milk. Pan­dan leaves and pan­dan extract is avail­able in Thai Gro­cers or at larger Asian Food Grocers
• Con­sider adding a drop of green food colour­ing . This is very com­mon in  Thai­land and the Philip­pines — to colour dishes made using pan­dan.-  — - As with most ice cream make your base the night before.

Yosita’s Coconut Pan­dan Ice Cream

•    Ice cream machine, 3 quart sauce pan, and a wooden spoon, a strainer such as a chi­nois.
•    8 oz heavy cream
•    8 oz coconut milk
•    6 pan­dan leaves
•    1/2 cup sugar
•    1 table­spoon light corn syrup
•    a pinch of kosher salt
•    10 eggs yolks.
For the base:

In a medium saucepan heat the heavy cream, coconut milk, pan­dan leaves, 1/4 cup sugar, a pinch of salt, and syrup on medium until the liq­uid sim­mers. Turn the heat off on the mix­ture and allow to sit for 30 min­utes so the pan­dan flavour can infuse. Now we will get started on crack­ing eggs.

In a large bowl, sep­a­rate the yolks from the whites. You can dis­card the egg whites (or reserve them to be used in other recipes). Com­bine the yolks with the sec­ond half of the sugar until they are well mixed and thick­ened.
Remove the pan­dan leaves from the base. Tem­per 1/3 of the saucepan mix­ture into the bowl con­tain­ing the egg yolks and sugar. I like to add 1 table­spoon of liq­uid at a time and whisk until the yolks have warmed.

After tem­per­ing, add the tem­pered mix­ture to the base in the saucepan. Then cook on medium heat until sim­mer­ing. Turn off imme­di­ately. Add a drop of pan­dan extract for extra fla­vor or a drop of green food col­or­ing for more green color, and blend. Strain the base through a chi­nois into a medium sized bowl.

Pour 1 cup of the base into a cup. Cover the cup with plas­tic wrap and place in the freezer.  Cover the medium bowl with plas­tic wrap and place in the refrig­er­a­tor for at least 12 hours, but no more than a day.

The next day, remove the frozen cup from the freezer and add to the medium bowl. Let the bowl sit out at room tem­per­a­ture for 5 min­utes, then chop up the frozen base enough to allow it to go into the ice cream maker. Add the base to a kitchen-aid stand mixer for 20 min­utes, or fol­low the direc­tions on your manufacturer’s ice cream machine.

Zuc­chini is one my favourite plants to grow in the gar­den. It doesn’t require the best of soil and can take in the heat of the Texas sum­mer . One of my zuc­chini plants grew about 4 feet wide this spring and was pro­duc­ing some great and sweet fruit. We only grow organic at home so the fruits are a lit­tle sweeter and have a creamier tex­ture than store bought. With all this deli­cious zuc­chini we have been look­ing for a way to incor­po­rate it into more daily meals. We added Smit­ten Kitchen’s lemon zuc­chini pasta to our menu and also started grilling zuc­chini with olive oil and salt more often.

Since zuc­chini can be both sweet and savory, we had been look­ing for way to use it beyond zuc­chini bread in a dessert. I recently came across a recipe tucked in the back of Cooks Coun­try mag­a­zine for choco­late zuc­chini cake. We adapted a lit­tle to make muffins. We pre­fer all our desserts less sweet so that they can be served with tea, cof­fee, and to a 3 year old. Thanks for Tamara Ander­son of Road Island for the inspiration:

This recipe makes 8 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour.
1/4 cup non-sweet dark cocoa pow­der.
1/2 tsp. bak­ing soda
1/4 tsp bak­ing power
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground cin­na­mon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
4 tbsp. soft­ened unsalted but­ter (1/2 stick)
1/4 cup veg­etable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup but­ter milk or (1/4 cup whole milk + 1 tbsp while vine­gar)
1 medium zuc­chini shred­ded.
1/2 cup semi-sweet choco­late chips
1/4 cup wal­nut pieces (optional)

Pre­heat oven to 325 degrees. Add cup­cake paper to the muf­fin tins — no need to grease. Com­bine flour, cocoa, bak­ing soda, bak­ing pow­der, salt, cin­na­mon, and cloves in a bowl. In a stain­less steel bowl using a wooden spoon or using an elec­tric mixer com­bine the but­ter, oil, and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, and but­ter milk and mix until blended. Stir in dry ingre­di­ents, stir in shred­ded zuc­chini. Pour mix­ture into pre­pared tins.

Top bat­ter with choco­late chips and wal­nuts if desired. Bake for 22–24 min­utes. Use a tooth­pick as your indi­ca­tor (poke and see if the tooth­pick comes out clean).

There’s not a per­son in the south who hasn’t had pecan pie. Pecan pie is an inte­gral part of the cul­ture of south­ern US and Texas . Pecan pies are made through­out in the south. They are espe­cially made and served at Easter, Thanks­giv­ing, and Christ­mas. Grow­ing up, every­one knew my mother for her pecan pies, as well as for her cakes. They were deli­ciously sweet with a vel­vety tex­ture inside. Dur­ing the height of the pecan sea­son, the pecans on top were sweet and juicy on their own. I had to be care­ful not to eat too many of them so that the pie would have enough to go on top.

It is pos­si­ble that pecan pie orig­i­nated with the Aca­dian set­tlers who were migrated from French Canada to south-west Louisiana . In French Canada, there is a very sim­i­lar pie called “tarte de sucre” or sugar pie. It is like pecan pie made with maple syrup, rather than sugar and corn syrup, and with­out pecans on top.

Pecan pie remains one of those foods that in usu­ally bet­ter if home­made. Being from Texas , I would never, ever eat a store bought pecan pie. One sure sign of a qual­ity pecan pie is the pecans on top. Great pecan pies should have a mix­ture of of whole and cut up pecan pieces. Gen­er­ally frozen com­mer­cial pies and mass pro­duced ones have only whole pieces on top.

Recipe for Pecan Pie

This is for a 9″ deep dish pie

3 eggs
1 cup cane sugar
1 cup light Karo corn syrup. Use cane syrup if can­not find corn syrup.
2 tbsp but­ter melted and cooled.
1 tsp. qual­ity vanilla extract
2 cups pecans (mix­ture of whole and cut up pieces.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F
Blend all ingre­di­ents, except for pecans.
After all ingre­di­ents , blend in pecans.

Place mix­ture into a uncooked 9″ deep dish pie shell.
Bake on flat sheet or cookie sheet for 50 to 55 min­utes until a knife can
be stuck into the mix and come out clean.

Let cool before serving.

Enjoy!

Hol­i­day Fruitcake

Fruit­cake has to be one of the best fruit and nut cakes. It has an unde­served rep­u­ta­tion of being hard and too sweet; this comes from cer­tain com­mer­cial fruit­cakes which use super sug­ared pieces are fruits. This recipe is guar­an­teed to inau­gu­rate you as a new fruit­cake fan!

1 Week Before Bak­ing Day

Can­died Fruits
Add 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier, Brandy or Cal­va­dos to
1/4 cup raisins
zest of 1 small orange
4 snipped mej­dool dates, pit­ted
1/4 cup dried cher­ries
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Bak­ing Day

Dry
1 1/2 cups of all pur­pose flour
1 tsp. cin­na­mon
1/2 tsp. bak­ing soda
1/4 tsp. bak­ing pow­der
1/4 tsp freshly ground cloves
1/2 tsp. freshly ground all­spice
1/4 tsp nut­meg (prefer­ably freshly ground)
1/2 cup walnuts

Wet
2 eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup no salt but­ter
2 tbsp. molasses
1/4 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. liqueur (Grand Marnier, Brandy or Calvados)

2 days prior to bak­ing the cake cre­ate the can­died fruit mix­ture and keep in the refrigerator

Pre-heat oven to 300 F. But­ter an 8X4X2-inch bread pan

Dry Ingre­di­ents
In a large bowl, add flour, cin­na­mon, nut­meg, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, ground cloves, ground all­spice, and wal­nuts, then mix well.

Wet Ingre­di­ents
In a medium bowl, add beaten eggs, brown sugar, apple juice, orange juice, but­ter, and molasses and mix. Add can­died fruit mix­ture and mix.

Add wet ingre­di­ents to dry and mix until com­bined. Do not over-mix. Pour mix­ture into bak­ing pans. Bake on 300F for 55 min­utes. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack.

Cut some cheese­cloth to a size big enough to wrap cake in. Wet the cheese­cloth with a liqueur of your choice and wrap around fruitcake.

Tip: Add liqueur to a small spray bot­tle and spray cheese­cloth daily for 2 week, then cut fruit­cake and eat.