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I’ve done several ICSAs cooking Vietnamese food and the sesame theme called to me to cook (mostly) Vietnamese food again. I guess in the style of original Iron Chef Japan, my persona is Iron Chef Vietnamese. If I was an Iron Chef.  On the panel today are my husband, Greg, and three of our friends, Aaron, Emily, and Amar. After I invited them over and explained the Iron Chef aspect of the meal, they were excited to make silly commentary and watched some Iron Chef Japan to get in the mood and we had a good time with people playing a bit of Iron Chef music from their phones as I plated different dishes. They showed up early to help me with some of the prep and dishwashing too so my kitchen was not as much of a disaster as it ends up when I take on big cooking projects! This ICSA was also the first one I cooked for a group instead of just for my husband and me and it was really nice to get feedback from a number of people, and I really appreciate my friends taking the “Iron Chef” judging to heart. This first post will be the menu overview and tasting notes, and then I’ll do a follow-up post or two with more detailed cooking process. Let the battle begin!  Amuse bouche: Salmon avocado salad on sesame cracker  The meal started with a small bite to introduce our theme ingredient. I made sesame crackers that I topped with a raw salmon and avocado salad that was maybe something in between a tartare and a poke. I love pairing the creaminess and richness of avocado with seafood, and the salad was kind of like a chunky guacamole seasoned with soy sauce, green onion, lime, and cilantro. Topping the salad to add some additional crunch and savoriness were crispy shallots. Everyone enjoyed this dish and thought there was a good balance of creamy and crispy. There was not a huge sesame flavor, I perhaps should have put a bit of sesame oil in the salad, but there was plenty more sesame to come. This dish was Greg’s favorite dish of the meal: “It had a nice flavor palette that presented foods with mushier textures (salmon and avocado) with some backbone using the cracker and the crispy shallots.” Emily: “The sesame crackers were so crisp and tasty but light- I loved those.” Appetizer: Sesame tofu rice paper rolls with sesame hoisin dipping sauce  One of the first components that came to mind when I put together the menu was that I wanted to make tofu with sesame seeds mixed in with the tofu curds. Whenever I visit a city with a tofu shop, one of the foods I most look forward to eating is fresh tofu with lemongrass and chiles mixed in, and I wanted to replicate that tofu but with sesame. I made soy milk and mixed in toasted sesame seeds before adding the coagulant to separate out the curds before pressing them to form the tofu block. The tofu was further encrusted in white and black sesame seeds before frying. The fried tofu was then used in rice paper rolls with rice noodles, lettuce, cucumber, carrot, mint, and Vietnamese basil. Pictured is one roll cut into pieces, we had one roll each. This dish was my least favorite even though I was so looking forward to the tofu. I pressed the curds a little too tightly so the fried tofu was denser than I prefer for fried tofu. While there were a lot of flavors in the dipping sauce with sesame paste, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, green onion, ginger, garlic, vinegar, and chile paste, the roll itself was bland. It is standard for these types of rolls to be unseasoned, but the dipping sauce was a little too thick to coat the contents of the rolls well, so the seasoning was not evenly distributed in each bite. Also, while there was a lot of sesame flavor in the dish, I felt it needed some balancing of flavors. Pickling the carrot in the filling would have added some needed acidity. Brushing the tofu itself with a bit of the sauce after frying would have also been a good idea. When I later mentioned to Greg I thought the rolls were a bit too bland as is, he agreed with my assessment, but it was still a nice dish, just needs some tweaks. Emily: “I was really impressed with the way the tofu came out as a little nugget of sesame flavor within the rolls.” Salad: Banana blossom salad with sesame lemongrass beef and puffed sesame rice paper  This dish had everything I love so much about Vietnamese food, pairing fresh, bright, herbal flavors with pungent fermented ones, and served communally. The banana blossom salad is composed of shredded banana blossom, mung bean sprouts, basil, lime, peanuts, sesame salt, and dried shrimp. The beef was marinated in a fairly standard Vietnamese marinade with shallot, lemongrass, and fish sauce, but I toned down the lemongrass and added toasted sesame seeds and some sesame oil, along with some fermented shrimp paste to add a bit of funk. The salad was eaten scooped into pieces of the puffed sesame rice paper that you break off as you eat.  It was my favorite dish of the meal, along with Emily and Amar. Amar particularly loved how the lime brought out all the flavors in the dish. I enjoyed the challenge of making the rice papers from ground rice and steaming the batter, but it was way time consuming and was not ready in time for the meal, which I’ll explain further in the next post! Drink: Sesame Ginger Daiquiri  My drink employed the technique of fat-washing alcohol, which infuses the booze with the flavor of a fat and then removing the fat itself, often by freezing the mixture so that the fat solidifies for ease in removal. Greg had suggested that rum might be a good liquor to fat-wash with sesame oil when I was first mulling over my menu, and after I was inevitably drawn to Vietnamese food, I thought that a sesame drink with lime and ginger would fit very well into the meal. This daiquiri was essentially a classic daiquiri with sesame oil-washed rum and with ginger cayenne syrup instead of simple syrup. Me: Does anyone not want a sesame daiquiri? (Making sure people were cool moving from beer to hard liquor). Aaron: I’m trying to stay as silent as possible. I worried about how overpowering the flavor of sesame oil can be but with the bold lime and ginger flavors, this drink turned out so well, and everyone was a fan. Just the tiny bit of residual sesame oil in the rum added a tiny oil droplet sheen to the top of each cocktail that everyone also loved and inspired plenty of silly/flowery Iron Chef style commentary when considering the meal as a whole afterward. Amar: “The drink recapitulated and blended all the flavors of the meal but wasn't heavy on the palate, everything blended well. It felt like capturing the essence of sesame oil without the oily mouthfeel. The aroma of sesame in the cocktail wasn't overpowering and didn't overshadow.” Greg: “The cocktail reflected the meal in a miniature like capturing the reflection of a beautiful woman across the room in the mirror of her compact.” Aaron: “I also have to mention the cocktail, which looked sparkly, and had this great flavor/aroma of sesame without being cloying. Again, completely unique and incredible.” Emily: “I was also shocked and amazed by that cocktail- the sesame flavor was so strong, but it was perfectly balanced with the sweetness and the acidity- the sheen of oil was not only beautiful but a great way to meld the flavors.” Basically... my god, it’s full of stars!  Main: Pork belly, rice with sesame salt, green onion salad, and pea sprouts  This dish was relatively simple because I wanted to highlight the flavor of sesame by not adding too much. The inspiration here was not so much Vietnamese as Korean. I instantly fell in love with bulgogi and galbi when I first ate Korean barbecue so it took me awhile to discover the joy of the unmarinated meats of Korean barbecue, and how much more you can taste the meat. I seasoned the pork belly fairly lightly with salt, sugar, and black pepper and cooked in a water bath at 170 F for 10 hours, then chilled. As people enjoyed their cocktails, I sliced the cold pork belly and then crisped up the slices at the table in Korean barbecue spirit. The pork was served with white rice topped with sesame salt, a green onion salad, and pea sprouts. Sesame oil with sesame seeds and sea salt was the very simple dipping sauce to finish seasoning the pork. The crispy pork with sesame hit all the right notes I was looking for with this dish, and Aaron commented to agree that the sesame was indeed highlighted. While Emily first voiced the banana blossom salad as her favorite, she also had to add. “No wait, it was the pork belly, and watching you blowtorch it. Dinner and a show!”  Emily continued: “Around that time Amar was holding his stomach and complaining about how full he was, and then we would both go back for more. How could it be helped? I think that was also the point when Aaron called something "mercurial" although I think he had lost his mind and was out of adjectives to describe how delicious everything was.” Dessert: Mung bean sesame balls with lemon mascarpone, ginger ice cream, and sesame tea crunch  Textural variety was a large component in this meal that everyone enjoyed and it was a large factor in how I put together the dessert. I was most happy that this dish came together so well because I did not go too outside the box with the savory courses, but really thought through the elements of dessert. Bánh cam are the Vietnamese version of these fried sesame balls filled with mung beans, and I added black sesame seeds to the mung bean filling in my version. I love eating mung bean desserts with tea, so I incorporated the flavors of tea as well as lemon and ginger which you might find paired with tea. I think most every Vietnamese child loves when they get to eat a sesame ball treat. When fresh they are perfectly crispy and once you bite into it, there is a slightly sweet and delightfully chewy dough. The “crunch” was inspired by my love of the crispy textures found in desserts by pastry chefs such as Christina Tosi, and added that needed variety of textures for the lemon mascarpone and ginger ice cream to hold up in the dish. The crunch was made with toasted almonds, sesame seeds, black sesame "umbrella cookies", sesame paste, tea leaves, and powdered sugar. Everyone loved this dish too, and it was Aaron’s favorite.  Emily: “The dessert also blew my mind, the crunchy sesame-tea crumble and those balls (so crisp on the outside! So chewy on the inside! Such a great sesame flavor! HOW IS IT POSSIBLE)” Aaron: “Overall, the best dish for me was the dessert, and probably because it was so unique. I've never tasted anything quite like it, but I wanted to keep eating it. The texture of the seeds with the crisp outside of the sesame ball, and the soft middle, with the creamy ice cream; it was so good. Everything went together incredibly well.”  I was overall very happy with how the meal turned out and that everyone enjoyed the food and drink. Thank you again to my friends for being wonderful guests and dining companions and to my husband who found crumpled pieces of paper towels everywhere from a hundred moments of “somewhat clean stuff along the way so it doesn’t all pile up but not completely.” Aaron: “Every dish brought out something different with the sesame. Some were nutty, others were toastier, but each dish highlighted sesame so well.” mich fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 07:40
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Apologies for the gigantic picture dump, my regular computer is in for repair and I didn’t have time to figure out what I might download to edit the process pictures into some mosaics to cut down on pictures. Here is more detail on how the dishes were cooked, I apologize for drifting between mass and volume measurements and sometimes not really having measurements as that’s how I sometimes operate in the kitchen. The Sesame The meal featured sesame in the forms of white sesame seeds, roasted white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, sesame oil, and Chinese sesame paste. Amuse bouche: Salmon avocado salad on sesame cracker First up is making the cracker. Ingredients 32 g AP flour 5 g sugar 1/2 tsp kosher salt 1 egg white 52 g unsalted butter, softened 1/4 tsp sesame oil roasted white sesame seeds and black sesame seeds Mix together the dry ingredients, then mix in the egg white, and then the butter and sesame oil. Spread the batter somewhere between 1/8” and 1/4” thick on a sheet pan on some parchment paper or a silpat. Sprinkle with roasted white and black sesame seeds and some coarse salt.  Bake at 375°F / 190°C for 8-10 minutes (or less if you spread it very thin) until the edges are starting to brown. Pop the cracker out of the oven and working carefully with the hot pan, use a small cookie cutter to cut out rounds, then pop the rounds back in the oven for a couple minutes to lightly brown. Alternatively you could spread the batter as little rounds originally and just bake all in one step but this method was faster for me as I rushed through prep! The little crackers were tasty just eaten on their own.  I didn’t get a picture of the other ingredients except for this lovely piece of salmon, which I cut into small cubes and kept chilled until ready.  The avocado was diced and tossed with a little bit of lime juice, and then just enough mashed to form a chunky avocado salad. There was about equal parts avocado and salmon. Salt, black pepper, soy sauce, and chopped green onion and cilantro were mixed in to season. A shallot was thinned slicely and then fried in about an inch of oil until browned and crispy. Right before serving, the salmon was mixed in with the avocado and a small scoop was placed on each rice cracker, then topped with the crispy shallots. Appetizer: Sesame tofu rice paper rolls with sesame hoisin dipping sauce The biggest project for this dish was making the tofu, which I made following Andrea Nguyen’s instructions in Asian Tofu. I highly recommend the book and reading the details of the process if you want to make your own tofu too. 7 ounces of soybeans were soaked in water overnight. An unsoaked soybean is pictured to show how much it expands. Gypsum is the coagulant I used.  The soaked beans were drained and then blended at highest speed for a minute or two with 2 cups of water and poured into a large pot with 5 cups of water heating. A half cup was added back into the blender to blend another 15 seconds to more easily pour out all of the soybean goodness.  The soybean mixture was cooked at medium high heat for 5-6 minutes to bring to a gentle simmer, stirring to keep it from scorching. The mixture gets very foamy on the surface.  The soybean mixture was then strained through a cotton cloth, squeezing to get as much soymilk yield as possible. Another half cup of water was mixed into the lees in the cloth in order to squeeze out more.  The result was soymilk. The soymilk was then cooked at medium high heat (can use a new smaller pot or wash out the first pot) until steaming and just simmering, and then simmered for five minutes. This step is important to denature certain soybean proteins that are toxic.  A half tablespoon of gypsum was mixed into a half cup of cool water. After the soymilk finished cooking and cooled down to 170°F / 77°C, a few tablespoons of roasted sesame seeds were added and the soymilk was given a few stirs and a third of the coagulant mixture was added. Once the soymilk stopped agitating from the stirring, the next third of the coagulant was sprinkled on the surface of the soymilk and the pot covered. After three minutes, the top 1/2 inch of the soymilk was stirred gently (at that point, you could feel the curds forming) and the last of the coagulant was sprinkled on top. The pot was covered for another six minutes. Then you should see the whey separated from the curds. I made a more rich soymilk than Andrea called for so the soymilk still looked a bit milky at this point so I turned the heat back on low for a minute and covered again to wait just a bit longer, and that did the trick.  The whey was strained from the curds and then the curds packed into a tofu press lined with cotton cloth. If you don’t have a tofu press you can improvise, you just need any container where you can contain the curds to press out more whey.  The problem with this tofu press is that it presses the tofu very tightly. I think I might have a less strong spring but I forgot to look for it, and if I can’t find it, just manually using a small weight to press the tofu might have been better. After 15 minutes, I had a fairly dense block of tofu. It was cut into rectangles, dredged in white and black sesame seeds and deep fried at 350°F / 177°C until golden brown.  The ingredients for the dipping sauce were 3 tablespoons sesame paste, 1 Tb hoisin sauce, 1/2 Tb minced ginger, 1 Tb chopped green onion, 1/2 Tb minced garlic, 1 Tb chili paste, and then salt, vinegar, sesame oil, and honey added to taste. Oil was mixed in to thin the sauce a little, but it could have used a bit more thinning out with a bit more vinegar, some water, and then more salt to adjust seasoning. Topping the sauce with crushed peanuts and sesame seeds would also have been good but I forgot. Argh.  To prep for the rice paper rolls, cucumber was sliced, carrots shredded, Vietnamese basil and mint washed, and rice noodles cooked. The pictured squares of tofu were cut in half lengthwise to use one strip for each roll.  Here was everything ready to roll.  The rolls can be served as whole rolls or sliced as I did here. Salad: Banana blossom salad with sesame lemongrass beef and puffed sesame rice paper Marinate the beef for at least one hour or up to 24 hours. For about a pound of flank steak I used 2-3 Tb chopped shallot, 1 tsp demerara sugar, 1/8 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp shrimp sauce, 2 tsp fish sauce, 2 tb oil, 2 Tb lemon grass, 3 Tb toasted sesame seeds.  I soaked a cup of rinsed long grain rice in water for 12 hours. It got slightly opaque, at which point it was rinsed again and then blended at highest speed in a blender with 1.5 cups water for a couple minutes until smooth. The batter rested overnight.  To steam the rice papers, I pulled a cotton cloth as taut as I could over a round steamer basket and tied it with twine. It was not as taut as ideal but it worked. Water was brought to a simmer and a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup of black sesame seeds were stirred into the rice batter. A lot of the ground rice settles overnight so be sure to stir well.  The steamer set-up was placed in the pot on a trivet to get hot, then a very thin layer of batter (2 tablespoons?) was spread on the cloth. Because my cloth was not taut enough, the batter tended to settle in the middle so I had to keep spreading the batter until it partially set before putting the lid back on and steaming for a minute until the batter went from opaque to translucent and puffed a bit. Another thin layer was then added and steamed because these rice papers need to be a bit thicker for the puffs. Once the rice paper is finished steaming I used a spatula to lift up the edges.  Then I used round chopsticks, one to slide under the rice paper and the other to support the raised section to keep it from folding over and sticking to the other side to lift the paper off the cloth.  The rice papers were placed on wire racks to dry out. They need to completely dehydrate and typically they are placed in the sun for a few hours but it was a dreary gray day so these took a long time to dry out.  I also prepped some sesame salt which would be the main seasoning in this course and the next. 1/4 cup of white sesame seeds were toasted until golden and then lightly crushed in a mortar and pestle with 5/8 tsp coarse sea salt. The seeds were crushed just enough to bring out the flavor.  Here is a banana blossom with the outermost petal removed to show what it looks like inside. The banana blossom was sliced lengthwise in half, and then sliced thinly (like slicing a cabbage).  The sliced banana blossom was soaked in a bowl of water with 2 Tb of white vinegar for at least 10 minutes. Then it was drained and rinsed.  For a 1 pound banana blossom, I rinsed about 1/2 pound of mung bean sprouts, soaked 2-4 Tb of dried shrimp in warm water for 5 minutes, drained, and finely chopped, and crushed about 1/2 cup of roasted peanuts in a mortar and pestle. Everything was mixed together and about 2 tablespoons of sesame salt, an additional 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, and a 1/4 cup of lime juice was added. Vietnamese basil was then added (kinh gioi / perilla would have been preferable but the store didn’t have any and I didn’t have time to go to a second store). After a taste I adjusted the seasoning by adding a bit of honey and a splash of fish sauce. Adjusting with more salt and sugar would work too.  To puff up the rice papers, microwave for 2-3 minutes. My homemade rice papers were not dried out enough but luckily I generally have a package in the pantry.  The beef was grilled and sliced and the salad served in a puffed rice paper to break off pieces for eating. I wanted to make sure my homemade rice papers were done “right” because I had never made them before so this picture is actually from the next day when I mixed together some leftovers and puffed up my homemade rice paper. It worked! That was way more work than I ever feel I will need to do again though because the packaged stuff is just as good and more consistent (due to my not taut enough cloth, the middle of my rice papers were all a little more thick). mich fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 07:41
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Okay bear with me, second half! With a bonus funny story at the end. Drink: Sesame Ginger Daiquiri The ingredients for the drink were: Sesame-oil washed rum Mix 70 g sesame oil and 375 mL dark rum in a jar and shake. Let sit at room temp for 1-2 hours and shake periodically and then let sit for 30 minutes without any agitation. Place in the freezer until the sesame oil solidifies and scoop off as much as you can and then strain the rest. Lime Use fresh lime juice that has been juiced that same day. Ginger cayenne pepper syrup Chop up ginger and blend in a blender, then squeeze through cotton cloth or cheesecloth. Combine the ginger juice with equal parts sugar and add cayenne pepper to taste, just enough to give the syrup some extra bite and let sit for the sugar to dissolve. Strain. For the purposes of this meal however, my husband had already made some ginger cayenne syrup recently so I used the batch he made. It turned out he mixed equal parts water and sugar, blended the ginger and then simmered for a little bit with cayenne pepper before straining, and I don’t know the exact amounts of everything he used, so once this batch of ginger syrup is done I would have to experiment a bit to re-find the balance for this drink, and you would need to as well if you try this.  The drink is essentially a daiquiri formula. Shake 2 fluid oz sesame-washed rum, 1 oz lime juice, 3/4 oz ginger pepper syrup, and a pinch of salt with ice and strain into a coupe. However before adding ice and shaking I gave the drink a taste and found it too tart so I added another 1/4 oz syrup, probably because as I mentioned due to how my husband made this syrup, it was not the same level of sweet as regular simple syrup but less sweet. The rum had a bit of residual sesame oil which made the drink quite lovely. Main: Pork belly, rice with sesame salt, green onion salad, and pea sprouts As I wrote for the tasting notes, this dish is relatively simple. I took a piece of pork belly and seasoned it with 1% salt by weight, 0.5% sugar, and some black pepper. I bagged the pork and then cooked sous vide at 170°F / 77°C for 10 hours. Then the pork was chilled until meal time.  I used my rice cooker to cook some short grain rice but if you do not have one, I recommend Andrea Nguyen’s instructions. The green onions were cut into quarters and then sliced thinly lengthwise for about 2 cups of sliced onions and soaked in cold water for at least 5 minutes. After being drained well the green onions were then mixed with 2 Tb soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 1 Tb sesame seeds, and 1/2 Tb sesame oil. The pea sprouts were dressed very lightly with a bit of sesame oil, vinegar, and salt.  Right before serving, the pork was sliced into strips and seared in a pan with a blow torch with Searzall attachment working from above. Some black sesame seeds were added to the sesame salt and sprinkled over the rice and the pork was served with the rice, green onion salad, and pea sprouts. On the side was a dish with sesame oil, sesame salt, and a bit more salt for dipping.  Dessert: Mung bean sesame balls with, lemon mascarpone, ginger ice cream, and sesame tea crunch Finally we have dessert which had quite a few components to prepare. First, the split dry mung beans were soaked for at least an hour, I soaked them overnight. I then steamed them until soft enough to mash a bean between my fingers, about 20 minutes, and then I let cool.  I mashed the mung beans with enough sugar to slightly sweeten and enough buttermilk so that it was a dry mashed potato consistency. Water is usually used but I have buttermilk I want to use up so I used it. Black sesame seeds were then stirred in.  I used the basic Jeni Britton Bauer home process for making ice cream, which involves a starch thickened ice cream base and no egg yolks. I really love how the flavors of her ice creams come through without the egg yolk. Ice cream ingredients 1/4 pound ginger root 2 cups whole milk 1 1/4 cups heavy cream 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt 2/3 cup sugar 2 tablespoons tapioca syrup (can use corn syrup or golden syrup or honey) 4 tsp tapioca starch (can use cornstarch) 1 oz cream cheese (Jeni’s base ice cream uses 3 tablespoons of cream cheese but I have little 1 oz cubes of frozen cream cheese in my freezer so I went with that, which is about 2 Tb)  The ginger was cut into strips (for stronger ginger flavor you could run it through a food processor) and added to a 2-4 qt saucepan with 1 3/4 cups of the milk, cream, sugar, syrup, and salt over medium high heat. The starch was mixed with the remaining 1/4 cup of milk. Let the mixture in the pot come to a rolling boil and boil for exactly 4 minutes, stirring and making sure the heat is adjusted so the dairy does not scorch. Jeni’s ice cream process involves converting sugars in the milk from this boiling step. Turn off the heat and whisk in the starch slurry. Turn the heat back on and bring back to a boil, stirring until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Cool down the ice cream base (Jeni recommends putting the base in a ziptop bag and putting in an ice bath to quickly cool it) and let steep at least overnight. Strain and churn the ice cream, then transfer to the freezer to further harden. Next, we have the crunch which is based on one of Christina Tosi’s crunch recipes to which I added sesame seed and used sesame paste instead of peanut butter. She uses a pastry ingredient called feuilletine which are little crunchy toasty flakes. Without enough time to order the ingredient, I considered making it but when I was shopping I came across some cookies with black sesame seeds. The package was labeled "gateau feuilletes" and I thought “Wait feuillete? isn’t that the ingredient I need for my crunch?” Then I realized it was feuilletine not feuillete that I needed but it was a crunchy little cookie and it had sesame seeds in it, it must be fate, so that is what I used. So my crunch was composed of 8 g almonds toasted at 325 F for 15 min, 1 Tb roasted sesame seeds, 4 g tea leaves, scant pinch citric acid, 28 g sesame paste, 20 g gateau feuillete, 15 g powdered sugar, 1/4 t kosher salt.  The almonds and cookies were crushed in a mortar and pestle until mostly crumbly and then everything was mixed with the paddle attachment of my mixer until mostly homogenous.  The lemon mascarpone was 3 parts lemon curd mixed with 1 part mascarpone. I actually already had some lemon curd that I had just made for my anniversary cake so I just had to make the mascarpone. Lemon curd Heat 1/4 cup lemon juice until hot but not boiling over medium heat. Whisk 40-50 g sugar (adjust to taste depending on tartness of lemons) with 1 egg yolk and 1 egg. Temper lemon juice into eggs, then pour whole mixture into pot and heat over medium heat stirring constantly until 170°F / 77°C. Turn off heat and stir in 2 Tb/1 oz butter, pinch of salt, and a bit of vanilla. Press plastic wrap onto surface of curd to prevent a skin and cool. Mascarpone Heat 1 cup of heavy cream to 180°F / 83°C and keep at that temperature for about 3 minutes. Add 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice and keep at 180°F for another 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature, then pour the heated cream into a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth, a cotton cloth, or a coffee filter (which is what I used). Let sit in the fridge at least overnight, until the whey drains out and the cheese is thickened. Here is the mixture, the mascarpone doing a good job to tone down the tartness of the lemon curd and add some depth to the flavor.  When it was time for dessert, I made the dough for the sesame balls and rolled eight 1 teaspoon sized balls of the mung bean filling. The dough was made mixing 1 Tb of glutinous rice flour with about half Tb or a little more of water until a soft dough could be formed and cooking this little ball of dough in boiling water for 3 minutes. The dough ball was then placed in cold water to cool. The texture of the fried dough is improved when it contains some already cooked starches which is the purpose of this somewhat odd boiling step. Some recipes call for using mashed potatoes or instant potato flakes to the dough which also works. The boiled dough ball was then mixed into 100 grams glutinous rice flour, 40 g sugar, 1/4 tsp baking powder as well as possible. Then enough water was added to make a soft dough that is just on the edge of going from tacky to sticky. It should be soft and malleable but not too soft. It will depend how dry your flour is, I needed about 70-75 mL of water in my dough.  Roll the dough into a log and cut into eight pieces and then flatten to fill. The size of these balls could have taken a slightly larger amount of filling or next time I might have made this batch into 10 balls. Once filled, spray the balls with water or dip quickly in a bowl of water and roll in sesame seeds. I used the roasted sesame seeds with just a few black sesame seeds mixed in.  Deep fry at 350°F / 177°C initially and then lower the heat to keep it at 325°F / 163°C or even a little lower to fry fairly slowly so that the dough cooks all the way through without burning the sesame seeds. Keep the balls turning to brown evenly but sometimes if you get the balance of the dough just right, the balls turn themselves in a somewhat mesmerizing way.  Then to serve dessert, I dolloped a bit of the lemon mascarpone on the plate and then placed the fried sesame ball on top. I nestled the crunch around the lemon mascarpone and then scooped the ginger ice cream on top. The sesame balls should be super crispy and crunchy and yield to a very chewy interior, with a just slightly sweetened filling. Bonus Story of how I Derped The next day I had a lot of mung bean filling leftover. I always steam way too many mung beans because I forget you don’t use as much as you think. I have both leftover mung bean filling and regular steamed mung beans because I at least knew I shouldn’t make filling with everything that I steamed (the regular steamed mung beans will be super tasty with some steamed glutinous rice, sugar, salt, and the crispy shallots). But with the leftover sweetened mung bean filling, I figured I would just make more sesame balls. I mixed up a batch of dough, filled, started frying, and then... POP! And then another *pop!* I immediately thought of this video. Oh no, my oil was too hot I thought! I got the oil temp down and the popping continued. I took the pot off the heat and put the lid on to mope on my failure briefly and then I mixed a 1 ball dough batch because I wanted to eat a sesame ball drat it. I fished out the deformed balls and added my 1 ball to the oil and broke off a piece of the popped blister and popped it into my mouth. Uhhh I forgot the sugar! And not too soon afterward, my lone ball popped too. So to fry sesame balls for longer and hotter temps, don’t forget the sugar. There are savory sesame balls too which are fried cooler and for not as long. I still had some mung bean filling left so I wanted to confirm the lack of sugar does indeed result in explosion and made yet another little batch of dough, with the sugar this time. They fried up just as expected, which is what the gif in the write-up is from, as I didn’t think to video during the meal. So NEVER FRY SESAME BALLS HOT IF YOU FORGOT THE SUGAR. Greg said the exploded ones still tasted not too bad, just more bland.  mich fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 15:32
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And finally, for those curious, here was my to do list that I used to try to not forget stuff. Roughly did everything in this order except I didn't end up marinating the beef until Saturday morning, and my friends jumped in to help with a few things so that I could get other stuff done simultaneously. Friday morning Soak rice Friday evening Fat wash rum Make rice paper batter Soak soybeans for tofu Sous vide pork belly Make mascarpone Steep ginger ice cream base Marinate beef Soak mung beans To Do/Schedule Saturday Make rice papers Steam mung beans Make tofu Make sesame tea crunch Churn ice cream (11am) and when done stick in freezer Cook rice noodles Cook rice Make dipping sauce for rolls Mix mung bean filling Sesame cracker Prep banana blossom and sprouts for salad, wash pea shoots Prep veg for rolls Prep salmon and put on ice Make sesame salt Fry shallots Avocado salad Mix lemon mascarpone Fry tofu Prep green onions for green onion salad and soak in water Wrap rolls Green onion salad Chill pork (2pm) Mix salmon into avocado salad and plate amuse bouche Cut and plate rolls Grill beef and puff rice papers Mix banana blossom salad while beef grills Plate salad with beef Mix drink Slice and sear pork, plate Make and fry sesame balls, take ice cream out of freezer if super hard to soften a tad Plate dessert Thank you Chairman DnF for a wonderful theme ingredient! My friends thank you too!
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Oct 26, 2015 17:36
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mich posted:
This. I want this.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:56
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Holy poo poo 
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Oct 27, 2015 00:05
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Jesus christ.
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Oct 27, 2015 03:51
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Before reading the post: "Oh, another bunch of Asian-cuisine sesame dishes." After reading the post: 
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Oct 28, 2015 21:15
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Wow, your to-do list is totally insane. This is amazing!
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Oct 29, 2015 13:31
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 gif buddyAwesome stuff!
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Oct 29, 2015 14:50
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The Midniter posted:Before reading the post: "Oh, another bunch of Asian-cuisine sesame dishes."
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Nov 3, 2015 00:13
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Whoa. This is all so impressive! At every post, I was like "What, you cane MAKE that?!" Bravo.
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Nov 3, 2015 16:50
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