Cooking Class

Last night, Michael and I attended the ND Cooking Class: Great Desserts. The class is taught by the executive chef Donald Miller from Notre Dame Food Services in their test kitchen. The desserts taught were New Orleans bread pudding with Whiskey sauce, chocolate mousse, and Salzburger Nockerl. The class involved Chef Miller demonstrating how to make the dish and then each team would go back to their station and make it. The first dessert was the bread pudding.

Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

Milk - 11 oz.

Cubed day old bread - 2 oz.

Beaten Egg - 1

Granulated Sugar - 1 oz.

Lite Brown Sugar - 2oz.

Vanilla Extract - 1.5 tsp

Ground Cinnamon - 1 tsp

Ground Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp

Unsalted Butter - 1.5 oz

Raisins or any other dried fruit - 1 oz.

1) Preheat oven to 350 F.

2) Bring milk to a simmer.

3) Mix egg and vanilla in bowl.

4) Combine sugar and spices in a second bowl.

5) Mix sugar and spice into egg mixture.

6) Slowly add milk.

7) Add raisins or dried fruit and bread to liquid mixture.

8) Pour into pan and bake for an hour.

Unsalted Butter - 2 oz.

Confectioners Sugar - 2 oz.

Egg - 1

Bourbon - 2 oz.

1) Melt Butter over low heat.

2) Whisk in sugar until thick.

3) Beat egg is separate bowl and slowly add egg sugar mixture.

4) Whisk in bourbon slowly.

5) Serve over warm bread pudding.

Next we made the chocolate mousse. This is the real stuff, not the chocolate pudding mix added to whipped cream.

Chocolate Mousse

Bittersweet chocolate (64% cocoa) - 9 oz.

Unsalted butter - 2 oz.

Heavy Cream - 12 oz.

Whole Eggs - 3

Egg Yolk - 1

Water - 1 fl. oz.

Granulated sugar - 4 oz.

1) Melt chocolate. Do not heat over 125 F.

2) Whip heavy cream and set aside.

3) Whip eggs, egg yolk, water, sugar over double boiler until mixture reaches 165 F. If no thermometer is available the mixture will become thick and whisk will start to track.

Bombe mixture from step 3.

4) Transfer mixture to mixer and whip until cooled.

5) Rewarm chocolate mixture and add butter.

6) Fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into chocolate mixture.

7) Add cooled egg mixture to the chocolate.

8) Fold in remainder of the whipped cream.

9) Divide into serving dishes and chill before serving.

Finally, we ended by making Salzburger Nockerl, an Austrian dish, named because it is served so that it looks like the mountains surrounding the city of Salzburger.

Salzburger Nockerl

Softened Butter - 1/4 c.

Eggs, separated - 5

Granulated Sugar - 5 Tbsp

Milk - 2 Tbsp

All-Purpose Flour - 1/2 c.

1) Preheat oven to 450 F.

2) Cream butter and sugar until the mix turns white.

3) Add egg yolks until light and fluffy.

4) Fold in flour.

5) Whip egg whites until stiff and then fold into butter mix.

6) Warm milk and add to mix.

7) Pipe onto baking sheet or spoon into muffin tins. Reduce oven to 400 F and bake for 6 to 8 minutes until golden.

7) Dust with powdered sugar. Additional garnish of raspberry sauce is also recommended.

Overall, it was a long but filling evening, leaving me with three new recipes. I will probably make all of them again but with some slight changes. First, I would add more bread to the bread pudding since I like it more firm and not so soggy. I also would play around with the type of liquor in the sauce. The chocolate mousse is heavenly, but I am a big fan of mint so I would probably add that into the recipe. I also would possibly use the bombe mixture (that foamy egg and sugar mixture) to make another flavor mousse that could taste good layered with chocolate. Finally, for the Salzburger dish, I would add some vanilla and possibly some other spices to the recipe so it does not taste so plain and eggy.

Yum!

Adventures in Pasta Making: Part 1

Earlier this summer, I spent the day making some really awesome pasta sauce from a family recipe of Nick DeLucca. It was so good that I really wanted some special pasta to go with it. I am always hearing about how tasty homemade pasta is, so I decided to try it. I didn't have any fancy equipment, so I made it the old fashioned way: rolling it out by hand. Of course I don't have the patience or stamina to make my dough really thin. And since I cut the pasta by hand it was a bit irregular in shape. Despite the fact that it was a bit large it was very good. So the next thing I knew, Michael had purchased the Pasta Excellence Set for my Kitchen Aid. The first time using it was for our monthly grad student get together where I made chicken and dumplings. It was so easy to roll out the dough to the perfect thickness. In fact, this was the first time I was able to make the recipe so that I enjoyed it as much as when my dad makes it.

Before my next attempt at making pasta, I decided that I needed a real pasta drying rack. I purchased a wood base and some dowels from Lowes. With Michael's help, I drilled holes through the largest dowel and slid the smaller ones through. The holes were tight enough that I did not need to do anything to secure the through rods. Then I stained it and finished it off with a coat of polyurethane.

To test my new rack, I made spinach pasta. I used the angel hair cutter from the set to make the pasta. It did not work as well as I would have liked, and a lot of the pasta stuck together or fell apart. I don't think the problem was with the pasta roller or cutter, but with the recipe. I also need some more practice with dough I am confident about with the pasta set before I start playing with the recipe. However, it still turned out pretty tasty. My next adventure will be with a simple dough, but I will be trying out the ravioli stuffer.