Homemade pizza for your next pizza party!

I can't believe that it's already December! I was so determined to catch up with my posts earlier in November, but I guess it's just like another overly ambitious New Year's resolution that didn't last long. My overall yield of blog post in November is 1. According to Wikipedia, "A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning." Okay, enough excuse searching, my goal for December is to pump out a few more party-friendly recipes before the hectic holiday season starts! 

I have tried to make pizza at home before with different recipes. So far, this is the best pizza dough recipe that I found and it works really well to give you the nice, slightly crunchy pizzas.  

Ingredients
500 g of all purpose flour
300-350 ml of warm water
25 g fresh yeast or 8 g of instant dry yeast (the weight of fresh yeast is 3 times of the dried ones)
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (you could add more oil to get a crispier dough)
1 tsp salt

Methods
1. Get a large bowl, add yeast and sugar to the warm water, let it stand for 10 min (to re-hydrate and recover)
2. Add olive oil to the liquid
3. Add salt to the flour, slowly add the flour mix to the liquid, mix well. 
4. Move the dough to a floured surface. Knead the dough for about 5-10min until it's no longer sticky and if you poke the dough, it would bounce back. 
5. Put dough in a big bowl, cover up the bowl with saran wrap, and let it rise until it doubles its size. Usually it takes about an hour or so, depending on the temperature in your kitchen
6. Beat the dough down, and roll it to the shape of a pizza. 
7. And then the fun part starts!  You can put whatever toppings you desire,just let your creativity take over! 
8. Leave the pizza sitting on your counter for another 30-40min until the dough doubles its size again. This is the second rising step which is quite important. If you skip this step, the pizza will taste very dense. 

I prepared a traditional Margherita pizza with fresh basil leaves (put the leaves only AFTER the pizza is baked, or the herbs will turn black), and a second pizza with pesto sauce and thin-sliced potatoes. 

It's been a slice,
PP

Fish - Week 2: Arctic char cooked in a parchment paper bag!

Hi, blog! Long time no see! Sorry about my absence, I got distracted by school, travelling, and running errands here and there. But really, put all my excuses aside,  I have just been procrastinating. It's been decided, the resolution of November is to catch up with my blog posts! 

In the second week of the Fish class, we learned how to cook round fish. We steamed a pickerel and cooked arctic char in a parchment paper bag. Personally, I don't really like steamed fish. Steaming fish is a very Asian way to prepare fish, usually a whole fish is used. I find that it's hard to get flavours into the fish by just steaming it. As a result, the fish sometimes has a strong "fishy" taste. On the other hand, the Italian dish "fish en papillote", a.k.a., fish cooked in a parchment paper bag, is one of my favourite cooking techniques. It's a light, healthy dish that only requires a small amount a butter, and short cooking time. Since you can add vegetables of your choice to the same parchment bag, it's really a "one-pot" reaction that you get your main and side dishes at the same time. 

Arctic char en Papillote

Ingredients

4 pieces of Arctic char fillets

4 green onions, chopped

2 shallots, brunoise (very small dice)

half fennel, julienned

half carrot, julienned

half celery stalk, julienned

half leek, julienned

3 sprigs of parsley

125 mL dry white wine

25 mL lemon juice

salt/pepper

butter

Methods

1. pre-heat the oven to 400F

2. take a piece of parchment paper, brush the paper with some butter and vegetable oil

3. season the fish with salt and pepper on both sides, put the fish on one side of the paper

4. put chopped vegetables on top of the fish

5. add a splash of white wine to the fish/vegetables

6. use the other side of the parchment paper to wrap everything inside 

7. bake at 400F for 20min

Northern Italian-Week 3: Polenta con Gorgonzola, salsa funghi

Polenta at Osteria Giulietta e Romeo

Also in Week 2's class, we learned how to make polenta with gorgonzola cheese and mushroom sauce as a side dish for the breaded lamb rack.  I find that this polenta loaded with cheese is too heavy to company the lamb, so that I made it separately and served it like a main course. The first time that I tried an authentic polenta dish was in Verona, last summer when I visited my two dear Italian friends. They took me to Osteria Giulietta e Romeo for lunch. If you ever find your way to Verona, I highly recommend this awesome restaurant where you can get a nice tasting menu of Northern Italian food. Being lactose-intolerant and having grown up with Chinese food, I have only been  learning in recent years to appreciate the beauty of cheese in small quantities. The Gorgonzola is definitely one of the stronger tasting cheeses that I still need to get used to. But for the sake of this traditional Italian dish, I kept this cheese in the recipe regardless. 

Ingredients

Polenta flour, 250 g

1 L water to get firm polenta, or 1.2 L water to get softer polenta

gorgonzola cheese, 400 g

4 portobello mushrooms

1/2 onion

beef stock, 1.5 cups

1 garlic clove

salt/pepper, olive oil

Methods

To make the mushroom sauce:

1. add oil in a pan, sweat the onion and garlic

2. add mushrooms, and a pinch of salt to further sweat the mushrooms

3. deglaze the pan with the beef stock

4. simmer the stock and reduce the volume until it thickens up

To cook the polenta:

1. in a pot, boil the water, season it with salt generously

2. pour in polenta while stirring fast

3. when polenta starts to thicken, change to low heat

4. keep stirring for another 1 min 

5. take a tray, splash the surface with some cold water,  spread a layer of polenta, then add a layer of cheese chunks, then a layer of mushroom sauce, repeat the layers for one more time 

6. garnish with parmesan cheese and parsley

Northern Italian-Week 2: breaded lamb rack!

In this week's class, I learned a new way to prepare lamb racks, the "Modena" style. Basically, the lamb rack was first breaded, then pan-seared, and finally baked to complete the cooking. To be honest, this is not my favourite way of making lamb racks. I find the breaded surface  a bit weird. I prefer the French way (http://ppcao.blogspot.ca/2013/02/french-week-6-mmm-lamb.html)  to cook the rack a lot better, which gives you a lovely crispy skin on the lamb from the browning process. 

Ingredients

1 rack of lamb, Frenched
1 egg beaten 
white breadcrumbs, dried
1 clove garlic
1 sprig sage
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig mint
flour, salt/pepper, olive oil






Methods
1. French the lamb rack to expose the bones
2. take some flour, add salt and pepper, mix well
3. beat the egg, add a splash of cold water
4. prepare the breadcrumbs: chop up the herbs and garlic,  mix them into the breadcrumbs as well as a pinch of salt and pepper and 1 tbsp olive oil 
5. roll the rack first into the flour (make sure you shake off the excess flour), then dip the rack into the beaten egg, then cover the rack with breadcrumbs and herbs. 
6. add oil into a pan, heat it up, and brown the breaded rack at all sides
7. transfer the rack to a baking tray, bake at 400F for 15 min (medium rare) to 20 min (medium)

*always rest the meat before you cut it, so that you wouldn't lose too much of the juice

8. balsamic vinegar goes really well with lamb. To make a balsamic sauce, you can add the vinegar into a small pot, heat it to simmering, and reduce the volume to half, then whisk in a bit of olive oil to thicken up the sauce. Or if you feel lazy like I did, use a thick, aged balsamic directly works well too.  

Northern Italian-Week 1: Gnocchi!!!

Ever since my trip to Italy last summer, I have always wanted to relive the incredible gastronomic experience at home. Here I am, taking both the Northern and Southern Italian cooking classes. Each class lasts for 6 weeks, with the first class being demo-only. 

In Week 1-Northern Italian, our chef showed us 4 things, gnocchi di patate, sugo di pomodoro (basic tomato sauce), finissima di branzino marinata (marinated sea bass with Italian salad), and panna cotta (creamy dessert). Gnocchi was definitely my favourite by a large margin! One of the most memorable meals that I had in Italy was a gnocchi dish with smoked salmon in a creamy tomato sauce in Murano, a small island near Venice. To recreate that dish, I tried once, using the gnocchi that you can find in a groceries store and it usually comes in an air-tight bag. It turned out to be a bad, BAD idea. I think because of the packaging, preservatives were added and they make the gnocchi taste "off". You could almost taste the assembly line! I guess gnocchi could look a bit intimidating to make, but really, it's a lot easier than I anticipated. This is my first time to make those lovely potato dumplings, and they are way beyond my expectations! 

Ingredients

1000g baking potatoes

300g all purpose flour

3 eggs

60g Parmesan cheese, grated

salt/pepper/nutmeg to taste

Methods

1. boil a large pot of water

2. put potatoes (with skin on) into the boiling water, cook until done

3. peel the skins off the potatoes, press them through a potato ricer

4. add eggs, flour, cheese and salt/pepper/nutmeg, combine everything to make a dough

5. kneed the dough for 5min or so (when you pinch, the dough should spring back slowly)

6. take a small piece of the dough and throw it into the water as a tester. If the dough holds together for 3-4min, the dough is good. If the piece falls apart, you need more "binding" agents in the dough. Add an egg and try again.)

7. don't rest the dough and work fast with it. Roll it out to small logs and cut it into bite size. Lay them out on a floured tray. (you can freeze them at this point)

8. throw the gnocchi into heavily salted boiling water. They are done as soon as they float to the surface of the water. Then take them out. 

9. heat a pan, add olive oil, saute smoked salmon quickly. Then add tomato sauce, and gnocchi, toss them up until they are coated with the sauce. 

10. grate parmesan cheese on top when you serve it, garnish with parsley

Until next time, my friends, buona sera!