Ad Hoc's Banana Bread Pudding

Just quickly: if you want to learn the basics of adjustment layers (which is how I created the selective coloring effect in the image below), just head on over to Special Effects for my lesson on adjustment layers. It's applicable in both Photoshop and Elements.
Well, so much for rushing to post as many pending recipes I have in my cache before I start my first day as a resident. For a brief period after a brief holiday, my internet pretty much exploded (again). But I'm glad to be back and can't wait to read what everyone's been up to (asking that question on Twitter doesn't seem to generate any response!). Today I'm going to be talking about a major turning point in the entire 3-year history of my learning how to bake: the day I decided to buy a digital scale.

I've always thought it was silly that anyone would suggest that some people are not open to using scales because it involves "math". Granted I've never been afraid of maths (in fact I aced it), but dealing with the fractions of cups and spoons involves more math, especially if you have to scale a recipe up or down. The only part that would be prohibitive would be the price, but these are going down all the time even for good models and the time it saves and the joy of reproducing a recipe faithfully is more than worth it.

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Big Sur Bakery's Doughnuts

When I was in college, I recall that a friend had told me once that I was just like Ally McBeal (apparently this was before the show went into the dumpster): I liked being sad. I also recall being a little offended by it and I would have been more indignant had I not been so shocked. No one wants to be sad, though you'd think so, given the way I behaved as a silly little teen (er, I was 16 when I entered college), which in my defense isn't so different from how most other silly little teens behave when they're all angsty and emotion-y. I mean, it's no accident that I've loved the song Rainy Days and Mondays since I first heard it. (Someday when I'm a little more confident in my voice, we may see a video of me performing it on the piano..)

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Ruins Longanisang Hubad

Ruins Naked Filipino Sausage

It's my first time to participate in Marc and Susan's event, Dinner and a Movie (see the announce), this month for Breakfast at Tiffany's. I thought it would be a good one to participate in, because it is such an iconic movie and I'd never seen it before. It would be really easy for me to talk about being afraid to fall in love or being a slut (er, not really), but as I tweeted while watching it, I just couldn't get over particular scenes involving Mr. Yunioshi, and how he 1) acted like no Japanese person I know, and 2) could ever stoop so low as to play such a stupid and misinformed stereotype. It turns out, he wasn't Japanese at all, and was played by Mickey Rooney in yellowface (well duh, Manggy).

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Pull-Apart Lemon-Scented Coffee Cake

I would make a terrible, terrible spy. And no, it's not because of the stealth issues involved, because I actually think I'd be good at it (hence, my enjoyment of the game Tenchu Z, despite what all the reviews say). But in real life when I think I have to do something that requires stealth, I get jittery and weird. Such as reading books in a bookstore. You see, for some books in some stores here, the staff wraps them in plastic. WHAAAT? Yeah, they do. The thing is, it is actually a pretty good deterrent against careless browsers. And you are free to rip them apart if you really want to know if a book is worth buying. But I don't, usually. I don't know why: maybe I feel like I'm making trash, or making the staff's efforts futile especially with books I know I can't afford.

So, to paint a picture:
Me: (eyeing Tessa Kiros's Venezia, drooling at the cover and promise of beautiful pics of a fantastic city inside)
Staff: (walks to cashier for a little chat)
Me: (rips plastic apart, heart about to explode) Aaaah.
Staff: ... whatevs.
Me: Huh, George Kamper's pictures are much prettier.

But knowing what's inside a book is really important. I recall one other time when a mother and daughter from the country/provinces were browsing local cookbooks, which for some reason were wrapped (though they aren't usually).
Mom: Gosh, why is this wrapped? I wonder if it's good.
Me (butting in when he wasn't asked): It's okay. Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it. Open it.
... Just kidding. I only said it once (Dwight Schrute says to say it seven times to hypnotize them into actually doing it). But I couldn't bear the thought of the two not finding the book they want, or worse, buying a book that turns out to be a dud because they bought the one with the best cover. Maybe I need someone like me (one of you guys?) to tell me to cut out the imagined moral dilemma and just open it, open it, open it.

I knew already from previous experience that Flo Braker's new book Baking for All Occasions would be good, but till I opened it I had no idea it would be incredible. The book is quite heavy, but barely has any photographs-- it's jam-packed with all-American recipes ready for any occasion, even if you have to make one up yourself. The recipes are detailed and imaginative, yet accessible to any home baker. And because it's from Flo Braker, you just know they will be delicious and work every single time. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

By the way, I didn't rip a plastic wrapper apart to peek at the book-- I eventually lucked upon a bookstore that had an unwrapped copy. Pathetic, I know.

I'm also using this post to respond to Deeba's tagging me for the Worldwide Blogger Bake-Off Campaign, which I first learned of from Jeanne. I can't share this particular recipe because it's Braker's and not mine, but if you do bake some bread (or even if you don't), please do consider participating. Admittedly donations have been slow due in no small part to the global financial crisis, but I hope it will turn around soon.

Pull-Apart Lemon-Scented Coffee Cake from Baking for All Occasions
This recipe is simple enough, even for someone who constantly flops at bread like me. And it is also very addictive-- have friends over for tea so you can finish it in one go and don't have to keep picking at it by yourself till you've eaten the whole thing. After you've baked it, the butter may seep out of the dough and appear to flood it-- don't be alarmed and let it be as it cools. The dough will reabsorb the butter and be that much deadlier.

Sweet Yeast Dough

• about 350g (2-1/4 cups) all-purpose flour


• 50g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar


• 2-1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) instant yeast


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 75g (5 tablespoons) whole milk


• 55g (1/4 cup or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter


• 60g (1/4 cup) water


• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla


• 2 large eggs, at room temperature

In the large bowl of a stand mixer (though you can also do this by hand as I did), stir together 255g (2 cups) of the flour, the sugar, and the yeast. In a small saucepan or microwaveable container, heat the milk with the butter on low heat/power until the butter is just melted. Set aside until warm (about 130°F/55°C or 1 minute), then add the vanilla. Pour this over the flour mixture and using a strong spatula or wooden spoon, stir together until the flour is evenly moistened. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or continue to use the spatula), and mix on low speed while adding the eggs one at a time, just until each is incorporated. Add 65g (1/2 cup) of the remaining flour and mix on low speed until smooth (about 45 seconds). Add 2 more tablespoons flour and mix at medium speed until smooth and slightly sticky, about another 45 seconds. If doing this by hand, you might prefer to knead it gently and squeeze the dough till it comes together.

Sprinkle a work surface with 1 tablespoon flour and place the dough on top. Knead gently until smooth and no longer sticky, about 1 minute, adding an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons flour only if necessary to lessen the stickiness. Place the dough in a large bowl, cover with cling film, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 45-60 minutes. The indentation of a fingertip on the dough should remain.

Lemon Paste Filling

• 100g (1/2 cup) sugar


• 3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (3 lemons)


• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest


• 55g (1/4 cup or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and the citrus zests together, rubbing them between your fingers until it resembles wet sand. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and spray a 9x5" loaf pan with baking spray.

Gently deflate the dough. Referring to the nifty step-by-step I drew:
1. Happy dough on a lightly floured surface.
2. Roll out to a 20x12" rectangle.
3. Brush the surface with the melted butter.
4. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut the dough crosswise into 5 strips (each about 12x4").
5. Sprinkle one of the rectangles with 1-1/2 tablespoon of the zest-sugar filling.
6. Place a second rectangle of dough on top and sprinkle with 1-1/2 tablespoons of the filling. Repeat using the rest of the dough rectangles, ending with a sprinkling of the filling.
7. Stack of 5 dough rectangles.
8. Cut the stack crosswise into 6 smaller stacks, each about 4x2".
9. Fit the layered strips into the loaf pan, cut edges (the 4" side) up. You'll end up with something like the photo above. Loosely cover with cling film and let it rise in a warm place until puffy and almost doubled in size, 30-50 minutes-- the indentation of a fingertip should remain. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30-35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes.

Tangy Cream Cheese Icing

• 85g (3 oz or 6 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened


• 35g (1/4 cup) powdered sugar


• 15g (1 tablespoon) whole milk


• 15g (1 tablespoon) fresh lemon juice

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. Beat in the milk and lemon juice until the well-combined.

Unmold the coffee cake (all the butter will allow it to release quite easily) and place on a wire rack or serving platter. Using a pastry brush, coat the top with icing. Serve the coffee cake warm or at room temperature.

Dan's Garlic Bread

I wish I had known far in advance that just blabbering on like I usually do takes much less time than doing screen captures of television shows and arranging them neatly in Photoshop (yes, even with the grid tool). Actually, anybody with common sense and an ability to blabber would have been able to say, "duh," but today I wanted to try something different. Because it's Fall/ Autumn in the US, baybee! And that means the return of many television shows I love and love to hate, and even the start of some shows in the UK.

There's this new show I stumbled upon from the UK, "Masterchef: The Professionals." It's basically a super-simple Top Chef where the weekly winners (young professional chefs) fight each other tournament-style. The first half is devoted to making two dishes out of a theme ingredient and a few other givens, and the second half is for making a classic dish and dessert using master recipes and their own unique twist. The captures I've posted up there are from the first episode, with the theme ingredient: Scallops. The dishes are (left to right): Seared scallops infused with ginger and mango and avocado salsa (Chris), Ceviche of scallop with dressed herb salad and pancetta crisp (Chris), Roasted scallops with rocket, crushed peas and potatoes (Richard), Pan-seared scallops with cauliflower puree, roasted parsnips and pancetta crisps (Richard), Grilled scallops with pancetta in a beurre blanc (Adrian), Pan-seared scallops with carrot and ginger puree and black pudding (Adrian). If the last dish sounds disgusting, that's because it is. Two-Michelin-starred judge Michel Roux, Jr. said of it: "Never again do I want to see ginger and blood pudding on the same plate. That was, for me, a disaster." Clearly, Chris was the winner of this round. His scallop dishes look and sound amazing.

During the second round, they were supposed to make their own versions of Duck A L'Orange and Chocolate Mousse. Chris crashed and burned on this one, presenting an unrested duck the size of sabots which bled all over the plate. His chocolate mousse was flavored with Kirsch. Richard's strange plate arrangement garnered him an "are you a chef or an architect?" from Roux. They also didn't enjoy that the chocolate mousse, good as it was, was filled to the brim (above it, actually) and hidden under a pile of rubble. Adrian's traditional presentation of duck won the day, and the judges enjoyed his modern presentation of chocolate mousse, which had a layer of orange curd under it. Actually the curd looked really runny to me-- it might have worked better if he had emulsified cold butter into it or if he'd cooked or chilled it more.

However, the real reason I wanted to show you Masterchef was to have an excuse to capture Michel Roux, Jr.'s face throughout the show. Admit it: if you all were 16 year-old girls with corkboards in your room, you'd SO print this out already. I saved his 6 best looks for the bottom row (bottom-left corner: cracking his neck, getting ready to rip on the guy's technique later). Frankly, if I were a contestant, I'd be freaked out by his constant hovering and the threat of his eyes ejecting themselves into my plate. But he is a great judge, and his deadpan comments are dead-on. Come on! His name is ROUX! He's like your crazy grandpa who'd only love you if you ate his cooking, which consists of snails and wren forcemeat.

By the way, Adrian won that week.

But the scary faces are not limited to your French grand-peres; they also apply to overtanned Hollywood denizens, like Rob Estes from above. Those two captures were taken 2 seconds apart. If you're wondering what I'm doing watching 90210, then that makes two of us. Maybe I'm just waiting for the damn catfight already. Your ratings won't go up until someone slaps a bitch, CW! Thankfully, I can always rely on the idiotic bigotry and useless modeling tips of America's Next Top Model to tide me over until non-guilty pleasure shows like The Office, 30 Rock, Heroes, and Pushing Daisies return over the next few weeks.

Finally, while I wasn't specifically asked to answer this meme from Kittymama, it looked like a lot of fun. The idea is to answer the following questions by entering your answers into Google Image Search and posting an image from the first page of the results with as little explanation as possible. The questions are:
1. The age you’ll be on your next birthday: (the answer is 27, and I had some pretty boring ones to choose from: the other interesting one is a lamprey, and an image of a turtle that's been run over on Highway 27, which may have been too disturbing for many.)
2. Place you want to travel to: (I had to cheat and put the TWO places I wanted to go, since Kittymama already answered Paris)
3. Your favourite place: (Home)
4. Your favourite food: (Kung Pao chicken-- No Special Effects on the first page! W00t!)
5. Your favourite pet: (Dog, for lack of anything else-- isn't he the cutest?)
6. Favorite color combination: (Blue and white)
7. Favorite piece of clothing: (Pinstripe suit. Sue me, I feel sexy in one. Mine is not in three pieces like Mr. Bond, though.)
8. Your all time favorite song: (Learning to Breathe)
9. Favorite TV show: (The Office)
10. First name of your significant other: (Nobody)
11. Which town do you live in: (Quezon City-- there were results for my barangay but I didn't want to give out that information.)
12. Your screen name/nickname: (Manggy-- a pic from No Special Effects again.)
13. Your first job: (Medical intern)
14. Your dream job: (Doctor. Rockstar seemed like a stupid answer.)
15. One bad habit that you have: (Procrastinating)
16. Worst fear: (Hell)
17: Things you’d like to do before you die: (Travel)
18. The 1st thing you’ll buy if you get $1,000,000: (Trip to Europe. I thought of a grand piano and a house, but those won't be the FIRST. A Playstation 3 sounded lame.)
19. Your husband/wife: (No one)
20. What present would you like for your next birthday? (Ticket to Europe-- but of course I'm not expecting this. I wanted to make it appropriately ungiveable. In truth I don't want specific material things for my birthday, I'm happy to receive anything.)

Dan's Garlic Bread
This is artisan baker, teacher, and food writer Dan Lepard's eponymous bread: a tender yeasted dough with sweet, syrupy cloves of garlic swirled into it. I dare you not to eat one of the garlic cloves as they come out of the balsamic syrup. I only wish that I'd used a better flour to make it: mine was old. Great served with pasta, or simply toasted and eaten for breakfast. Lepard has his own picture story on how to make it here.

By the way, I found out that a great way to make sure dough slips off your peel easily is by using a mixture of flour and dry, flavorless bread crumbs.

Mango-Pineapple Jam

Some of you might have noticed that I have a bit of anti-Martha Stewart sentiment. It usually surfaces when I read a blog post that used her recipe. It all stemmed from an unfortunate microwave minestrone recipe I got from Everyday Food. I know, I know, the title alone should have signaled disaster, but I was hard of head so I tried it and as a result got to taste the blandest-ass soup ever. The only other recipe I've made of hers (and her rumored not-so-thoroughly-tested kitchen) was a peanut butter swirled brownie, which was okay (on the bitter and cakey side). So since then, I've just enjoyed looking at the pictures in her magazines, even if I've stopped buying them. But I don't hate her: in fact I quite enjoy the undercurrent of bitchitude she has on her talk show and the creepy, crazy, robotic obsessive-compulsiveness. You just know, if you weren't a celebrity and your stencil or whatever didn't line up, she'd shiv you.

I haven't seen one of these things in a while, so it was pretty cool.
The thing is, I was not the neatest kid in school. I recall dumping all my notebooks (we had 13 of them, one for each subject) in my bag in grade school. One day, I found remnants of a dead rat inside (Hello! Welcome to a man's blog). Even in high school, I just piled my books haphazardly inside my locker while my classmates had theirs vertically arranged according to height and subject. In college, my friend Marga constantly criticized me for having the messiest bag ever: sometimes I'd just throw receipts inside, and if a box of staples spilled, my books would be littered with tiny metal confetti. I'm sure Martha Stewart would approve. There were times when I'd fix my locker (even go so far as to add knick-knacks to make it look good) or bag, and I've found that neatness inspires even more obsessiveness. Suddenly, there's a little space in your brain devoted to keeping things in order, because you've already established the order. I think, in the past, keeping my things a mess was my way of not using up valuable head space. I know, I'm making excuses. I've since reformed my ways. Except on my bed. I share it with Claire Clark, Pichet Ong, Pierre Hermé, Flo Braker, Jamie Oliver, and Jason Atherton (and the editors of New Zealand magazine Dish). Quite an orgy I have each night! I wake up with paper cuts all over. Just kidding.

How do you like the picture? The brilliant stylists at the Martha Stewart institute were my inspiration. It took me a while after I'd made the jam to take it, because of the rain. Then when the sun came out, it came out too strong and I had to wait for that 10-minute window of time when it just hides behind the horizon but there's still daylight. It helps to scramble for the props early in the day, and to just wait. I'd also just bought several napkins of varying hues at Shoemart (about 67¢ to $1 each), so I'm really happy!

When I started the blog's food trajectory I told myself I would tackle on a new skill each time, but lately I've been rehashing basic skills (like cake mixing). Making preserves was altogether frightening for me. But, I thought, hundreds of Americans do this, so why can't I? Anne and Allen make wonderful preserves (Anne's I've even tasted!), so it inspired me to make my own-- I used the Ball home canning jar that Anne gave me, mangoes that were gifted to us, and pineapple leftover from another dish. I squealed with delight when I heard that reassuring pop as I took it out of processing. Vacuum-sealed, baby! Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the other tools, like a jar lifter and magnetic lid lifter, but I just used a pasta pot with removable colander, and a large spoon to fish out lids. And asbestos fingers.

I didn't just use these fruits because they were what I had-- Mango-Pineapple Jam is widely commercially available in the Philippines and is my favorite flavor hands-down (I may have to gift some, with all my raving...). As for the taste and texture? Absolutely perfect. Since my mangoes were really ripe, I didn't have to add as much sugar and as a result, they were less artificially sweet. Serve on warm rolls or lightly toasted bread (it goes well with soft, buttery bread). You can also use it to fill pastry and make turnovers. Would I do it again, though? Probably only if I have a lot of fruit that needs preserving (as in, the quantities listed below). I only made one and a half jars and it was plenty of effort, handling scalding jars.

Mango-Pineapple Jam
There are so many different recipes for making mango jam that I've come to the conclusion that it rarely can be messed up. Some call for 5 parts sugar to 6 parts fruit (!). Some more reasonable recipes call for 1 part sugar to 4 parts fruit, or 1 part sugar to 7 parts fruit. Take note that the recipes that call for smaller amounts of sugar were formulated in the Philippines, where mangoes are far superior to the ones in Europe or the US. Philippine mangoes are smaller and more elongated in shape, softer, and are yellow when ripe-- do search for them if you can. I use a very conservative 1 part sugar to 8 parts fruit, but that has to be the absolute minimum amount of sugar to use. Because both mangoes and pineapples are low in pectin, some recipes call for subbing 1/3 of the amount of ripe mangoes with green mangoes. I find this unnecessary (potential for tastelessness) and used citric acid instead.

• 450g (1 pound or 2¼ cups) ripe mango chunks (about 5 small mangoes; you can use overripe ones)


• 450g (1 pound or 2¼ cups) ripe pineapple chunks (about 1 large pineapple)


• 200g (1 cup) granulated sugar (average amount; I used only 110g)


• 1 tablespoon kalamansi or lemon juice

Prepare around 5 or 6 250mL (8oz) jars suitable for home canning. Sterilize and prepare them as directed here. Chop the pineapple finely (the mangoes as well if they are not very soft). In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, combine the fruit and the sugar and set over high heat to bring to a rapid boil. Once it does, decrease the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until it reaches a setting consistency, or 105°C (220°F), about 20-30 minutes. Drain the sterilized jars and make sure they are dry. Pack the jam into the jars, leaving 7mm (¼ inch) headspace. Use a clean rubber spatula to release any air bubbles. Center the lids on top and screw on the bands until fingertip-tight. Process in boiling water for 25 minutes. Check if it has properly sealed by making sure the central button is depressed; if not, you will have to refrigerate the jam or reprocess it.

Hispanis

Spanish Bread

I had a little time to burn on Facebook a few months ago which led me to answering a "Likeness" quiz. The point is, you rank a bunch of things in a certain category and it'll calculate how closely your answers are with your friends'. One such quiz I answered was a "Seven Deadly Sins" one. After a little deliberation about what should come up on top (hmmm), I clicked on "Gluttony." It made sense. And it's not just a matter of liking food and flavor.

You see, for some reason, we had this giant bag of 150 Candy Bars, which contained an assortment of all the flavors you see above. It was finished in a matter of a few weeks, which really shouldn't have been the case. It was just me and my dad eating it! Out of the blue you decide you're in the mood for something sweet, and you snatch one (my personal favorites are Reese's, plain milk chocolate, M&M's, and Snickers), and before you know it you're eating 3-4 candy bars a day. Not good. It's for this reason that I implore everyone I know to not give me candy bars, so at least the temptation's not there.

During the time we had to go to the province to develop community health programs, our well-meaning adviser would buy around 30 pieces of mini "Spanish Bread" for everyone to eat. I don't know what I was thinking, but once the brown paper bag got passed to me, it stopped moving and I was eating around 10 or so of them. Another instance: it was somebody's birthday and one of her friends got a 9" chocolate mousse cake and a set of plastic forks for everyone to eat during class (there were 160 of us-- no one would notice). Again, the cake stopped at my seat and before you know it, I ate a whole third of the cake. Same goes for a big bag of Kettle Popcorn, a box of custard-filled rolls, etc. Obviously I had (have?) some sort of sick addiction, and worst of all, gluttony deprives others. I'm working on it. Coincidentally, I just had a visit to the dentist today and there were no cavities, thank heavens (oi, can you beat that? 26 years, not a single cavity!), but I ought to watch it before George Harrison's warning comes true.

This is the object of my obsession, "Spanish Bread." There's really nothing to it-- it's a chewy butter-and-milk bread filled with butter and brown sugar, and is a staple of any panaderia. But it really is addictive. I've changed the recipe from the original for optimum sweetness. (I really wanted to include pictures of a trip to a local panaderia, but there was none nearby that really reminded me of my childhood-- so that's pending for now.)

Spanish Bread
I made a rookie mistake and placed the dough overnight in the fridge for rising. Naturally, since the dough has butter, it solidified. So I had to thaw it until room temperature, but I think in the end the pores suffered. The original recipe also had bread crumbs in the filling-- an unnecessary extender for home bakers, since all it accomplished was blunting the taste of the filling.

• 1 tbsp active dry yeast


• 60mL (1/4 cup) warm water


• 120g (1/2 cup) whole milk


• 112g (1 stick or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted


• 67g (1/3 cup) sugar


• 2 large eggs


• 1 tsp salt


• 420g (3 cups) all purpose flour (reserve an additional 70g or 1/2 cup)


• 55g (1/2 stick or 4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted


• 100g (1/2 cup packed) brown sugar


• 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour


• 1/4 tsp baking powder


• Dry bread crumbs for sprinkling (about 35g or 1/4 cup at the most)

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine the milk, the 112g melted butter, sugar, eggs, and salt. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the flour and mix with a strong spoon until it forms a stiff dough. Dump into a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth. It will still be a bit sticky. You can use some of the reserved flour if the dough is still too wet-- just dust your hands with a little of the flour and throw some on the surface you're kneading on, you don't want to add too much flour (don't feel pressured to use up the 70g). Alternatively, all the kneading can be done on a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, but I don't have one. Place into a greased bowl and cover with a damp cloth until doubled in bulk.

In the meantime, prepare the filling by combining the brown sugar, 1/2 tbsp flour, and baking powder in a small bowl. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Lightly grease a sheet pan. Gently punch down the dough and divide into 16 portions. Roll out each into a thin circle about as big as your palm. Brush the top of each with some of the 1/2 stick melted butter and sprinkle liberally with the filling. Roll each up and place it seam-side down on the prepared sheet pan. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs and leave to proof for one hour. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes and serve warm.

Fried Crispy Polenta with Rosemary and Salt

Polenta Fritta Croccante con Rosmarino e Sale

Most of my food blogging friends are female. In fact, I don't need to whip up any statistics to say that majority of food bloggers (or bloggers for that matter) are female. Occasionally I will come across the requisite "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Blogging Sisterhood" post and will feel like chopped liver. Not that anyone has ever felt the need to form a "Manly Men of Food Blogging" ring, which is gag-inducing in its own right and a sophisticated dork like me probably still won't fit in. So while I enjoy reading and love all sorts of food blogs (see: the right column), I'm thankful for male bloggers who are unable to speak/understand the divine secret language of sisterhood of the travelling pants. However, I do consider Blood Sugar to be my "brother blog" for many reasons, not the least of which we both speak the language of, well, foul. Haha. So when Graeme wrote a post about lemon and rosemary polenta, I was both amused and freaked out because I'd been staring at the picture in Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy for a long time that day, thinking of making it. Psychic vibes, maybe. So after postponing it for a while, I bring you my first attempt at polenta. (Recipe follows)

• 8-9 oz (about 250g) fine polenta, plus more for dusting


• 3 pints (750mL) water


• a handful (about 80g or more) of freshly grated Parmesan cheese


• salt and pepper


• sprigs of fresh rosemary

In a large pot, bring the water to a boil over medium heat then add a good pinch of salt. Add the polenta and whisk to combine. When it starts to boil, it will sputter a bit, so put on the lid partially. When it's thickened more, it will quiet down, so turn the heat to low and stir occasionally until it reaches the consistency of fluffy mashed potatoes. It took only 20 minutes for my polenta, but it can take as long as 45 minutes. If you go too far and the polenta starts looking chunky again, stir in some water (125mL or so) and be careful this time! Stir in the Parmesan and correct the seasoning with salt and pepper (don't be shy, give it a taste). Turn the polenta out into an oiled baking sheet and spread it to a thickness of about 1 inch and leave to cool. Cut or tear into bite-size pieces.

Preheat oil in a deep fryer to 350°F (175°C). Fill a medium bowl with some more polenta and toss the pieces of cooked polenta to coat. Fry the pieces for 4 minutes, adding sprigs of fresh rosemary during the last 20 seconds of cooking. Drain over paper towels and sprinkle with sea salt.

I served mine on the abstract of an old research titled "Effects of Equisetum arvense extracts on the rate of healing of excised wounds among albino mice." For some reason I had photocopied too many of them for a presentation and they're sitting in a scrap paper pile, waiting to be used as grocery lists and such.

"Better Than Pita" Grill Bread (with how-to)

I have this strange fascination with flatbread. Maybe it comes from not having enough in my life. There was a time when I would have a piadina (Italian flatbread sandwich) almost every week; now I miss it. Sometimes I even think of the Roti Canai at Banana Leaf and my mouth waters. I just discovered that it's incredibly difficult to make, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to attempt it in the not-too-distant future. I can sense my future now... There's always delicious, flaky bread and it smells of curry. In the meantime, I have to satisfy myself with much simpler recipes, and I thought I'd stumbled upon hidden treasure when I saw this recipe for "Better Than Pita" Grill Bread from Gourmet Magazine. I don't think it was as flaky and airy as the one made in George's Downtown Cade and Diner in Indiana where the recipe originated, but I think that's the fault of our climate, again, developing the bread too quickly. (Instructions follow)

Click on the link above for the recipe. You start out with all your dry ingredients and wet ingredients:

You'll come up with this dry, shaggy dough:

Knead it for 2 minutes, when it will come together slightly:

Let stand for 10 minutes then separate into balls and roll out.


Grill until it puffs a little and blisters. The recommended time is 2 minutes but I grilled them for longer because the charred bits add a lot of flavor. The bread doesn't burn easily, don't worry.

The verdict? There's not enough liquid in the recipe, so it tasted slightly doughy/ floury. Some commenter on the epicurious site added a whole egg instead of just 1 tablespoon, which I believe would help. The flat texture notwithstanding, it still made a great accompaniment to the chicken curry.

Foccacia (with how-to)

Undaunted by my whole one-hour kneading experience before, I rushed headlong into my next bread-making experience, this time with Foccacia, which means "focus," referring to the hearth in which the bread is baked. It's a relatively flat Italian bread, and always the one I scoop out of the bread basket in Italianni's instead of the Ciabatta, and perfect with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but also for other uses like Paninis and such. I used Dan Lepard's recipe and his method... But I still don't have a heavy-duty mixer. By the way, I got the bread flour, which is not available in any of the major groceries, from the neighborhood (sari-sari)store. They don't bake their own bread, but I struck a deal with them and they asked their supplier to give them a few kilos of bread flour, which I got for PhP40 ($1) a kilo. I'm pretty sure they've already stacked on their profit, but that's still a good deal for me. (Instructions follow)

The recipe is, without breaking copyright law again, 1kg of strong white flour, with 68% bottled spring water (I used Viva), 2% salt, 0.7% dry yeast, 1 tbsp olive oil, and 1 tsp sugar. Make the starter by combining the yeast, water (I no longer warmed it as it is 33°C here today), and half the flour. Wait until it rises by about one-third and is clearly active (has a lot of bubbles). I realized that the recommended times for rising and such vary tremendously between here and the United Kingdom where the book was published, so from today's experience I now use 1/4 the recommended time. So when they say about 2 hours for the starter to become active, I only waited 30 minutes.

Make a well in the remaining flour and add the starter and the rest of the ingredients, then mix with a strong wooden spoon.

Here's where I digress from the original recipe due to my lack of a mixer: dump the dough onto your working surface and knead until it becomes elastic and a finger's identation will spring back. This time, it took me about ten minutes.


Form into a ball, place in an olive-oiled bowl, and brush the surface with olive oil. Cover with a towel and leave to proof for 30 more minutes in our hot weather (so that's 2 hours in non-equatorial weather), until a finger's indentation will slowly spring back.

Form into a rough rectangle, then fold into thirds and then into half in the other direction.


Cut in half and shape each into a 20x30cm rectangle and fit into a floured sheet pan. Cover with a towel and leave to proof again for 15 minutes in hot weather. Dimple the surface 1cm deep with your fingers and drizzle the top with olive oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt.

Bake in a preheated 250°C (482°F) oven for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 200°C (398°F) and bake for 20 minutes more.

Lesson learned:
The dough is supposed to be a little sticky. Don't be afraid to add water (by moistening your hands if needed).

Parker House Rolls (with how-I)

Being on an international forum like the eGullet forums can really mess you up. You get all sorts of ideas in your head about things you've never done before, and things you've never eaten, and how actually making them can satisfy both hungers-- for experience and for taste. The problem is, my skill set is limited. So I thought before I venture into the land of bread-baking, I might start with something not too equipment-intensive, and with a taste I actually crave for-- Dinner Rolls. As a kid I saw a recipe for Parker House Rolls in the Betty Crocker Encyclopedia of Cooking (ca. 1960), which is really a shape "invented" by the folks at the Parker House Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. (Recipe can be found here). Note I called this a "How-I", not a "How-to", because I'd recommend a heavy-duty mixer, not what I did here. Oh, and bread-making know-how. But I'm getting there.

Here's where it starts. All your ingredients and materials, ready for use.

Here's the initial mix: 2 1/4 cup of flour, a stick of unsalted butter, 4 1/2 tsp instant yeast, 2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup sugar. I blended it with my hands, because it's very dry and my hand mixer won't be able to handle it.


Add in 2 cups of hot tap water (60°C) gradually. In retrospect, since humidity is high in this country, I should have added much less. It'll turn into a runny batter, so the whisk is okay for use after a while.

Stir in the rest of the 6 cups of flour (minus 1/2 cup) with a strong spoon.

Plop it onto a lightly floured surface and start kneading, incorporating 1/2 cup of flour in the process. The prescribed time is 10 minutes, but due to the excess water, softness of flour (all-purpose flour has less protein than bread flour, so gluten development leaves a lot to be desired), I KNEADED IT BY HAND FOR AN HOUR. Lesson: buy a heavy-duty mixer. I needed the exercise, so I think I'll keep doing this.



By the way, I didn't just use one hand. The other was taking a picture. But I was really mean to the dough, abusing it. After an hour, it kind of passed the "window test" (you should be able to stretch it thin), I said "fuck it, I'm so tired."

Turn it into a ball by stretching the surface towards the underside and place upside-down in an oiled bowl. Leave it alone to proof. After you've let it double, 2 fingers should leave a depression. This happened in half the prescribed time, but a slow rise is actually preferred, so minus points for our climate (despite the fact that yeast multiplies better here).

Deflate carefully by bringing the edges to the center while pushing it gently down, then knead it for a while till it comes to a smooth ball, then cover with the bowl and rest again for 15 minutes. It'll rise again.

Roll it out on the floured surface into half an inch thickness, then use a floured 2 3/4 inch cutter to cut out circles. Unfortunately, the dough was still rising even while I was cutting it, so it didn't stay half an inch for long. Not good if you want a nice, recognizable Parker House shape.

Dip it in the melted butter in the roasting pan and lay them out in rows, then bake in a preheated 205°C (400°F) oven for 17 minutes. I baked mine for a little longer (around 20 minutes) but they're still pale.

If you notice, the bottoms are still quite greasy. There was too much butter left over at the bottom of the pan. I'm not the type to slather butter over rolls, so I didn't appreciate this, not to mention it made them a little soggy at the bottom, which I'm not a fan of either.