Author Archives: saltandserenity

Asparagus with Pistachio and Egg Vinaigrette

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I have some very strong opinions when it comes to asparagus. I never rush to buy the early skinny asparagus. It is very weak in flavour. I’m patient and wait until the thicker stalks start appearing at the stores. These spears are sweeter and I find that the flesh is more tender.

If I’m not using the asparagus on the day I buy it, I place the bunch in a jar filled with about an inch or two of cold water, so that the ends do not dry out in the fridge. I cover the bunch loosely with a plastic bag.

There are some sources out there that will tell you that the best way to trim asparagus is the “bend and snap” technique, where you hold a piece horizontally and bend it, and it will just break off where it needs to. The problem with this method is that it depends on where and how much force you put into the bending. The results are wildly inconsistent and you end up wasting a lot of good asparagus.

I like to line up the asparagus on a cutting board and just cut off the bottom inch or so, where the green colour begins to fade to white, and the texture is a bit tougher. Then, I like to take my favourite vegetable peeler and gently peel the skin from the bottom half of each spear, to expose the lighter green and white flesh under the peel. It makes for a more aesthetically pleasing presentation (all about pretty food here) and, it is more tender to eat.

For an asparagus salad, I like to simply boil or steam the asparagus for about 2-3 minutes. Then I plunge them into ice water to set the green colour and stop the cooking.

Eggs and asparagus are a beautiful flavour pairing. Watch as the salad comes together. in this video.

This dressing would also be very delicious on broccoli, green beans or on my newest obsession, little gem lettuce. I love the texture of the grated hard boiled eggs, mixed right into the dressing. Cornichon pickles and capers really punch up the flavour and chopped pistachios add salt and crunch. It’s a perfect lunch salad.

Click here to print recipe for Asparagus with Pistachio and Egg Vinaigrette.

Pistachio, Freeze Dried Raspberry and Dried Cherry Matzoh Crunch

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Another flavour of matzoh crunch coming at you today. We were gifted a box of round matzoh, and I wanted to create something special with them.

After the caramel coating, I topped these with a layer of bittersweet chocolate and a swirl of white chocolate.

I topped that with these gorgeous slivered green pistachios, crumbled freeze dried raspberries and tart dried cherries. A sprinkling of flaky sea salt balanced out all the flavours. This is a beautiful and sophisticated flavour profile sure to please.

Click here to print recipe for Pistachio, Freeze Dried Raspberry, Dried Cherry Matzoh Crunch.

Sweet & Salty Matzoh Crunch

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This sweet & salty matzoh crunch is delicious and utterly addictive, as my husband and chief recipe taster discovered this week.

Montreal baker and cookbook author Marcy Goldman is the originator of Matzoh Crunch. The recipe is published in her first cookbook, “A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking”. Matzoh crunch is essentially a layer of matzoh covered in brown sugar-butter caramel and topped with a blanket of melted dark chocolate.

This is my adaptation of her recipe. I have elevated matzoh crunch to the next level, by sprinkling on salted toasted almonds, Passover pretzel thins and toasted coconut flakes. I used a total of 4 different kinds of chocolate for this over the top confection. A base of milk chocolate, and then decorative swirls of white, blonde and bittersweet chocolate. It’s fancy AF.

Watch the video to see how it all comes together.

As with anything you bake, if you start with top quality ingredients, you will yield a better outcome. Most recipes I have seen for matzoh crunch call for melted chocolate chips as the top layer. The problem is that chocolate chips are not formulated to melt smoothly. They contain less cocoa butter so that they hold their shape. This is great for chocolate chip cookies, but not so great when you want a velvety smooth coating. So start with a good quality chocolate that is meant for melting. I love Valrhona. I order it online from Vanilla Food Company.

Blonde chocolate, is a more recent addition to the chocolate family. It is essentially caramelized white chocolate. You could make your own, or buy Valrhona’s which is marketed under “Dulcey“. This is not a Valrhona sponsored post, I just really love their chocolate!

Click here to print recipe for Sweet & Salty Matzoh Crunch.

Black & White Chocolate Marble Pound Cake

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I have amassed quite a collection of Bundt pans. My cake decorating skills are rudimentary at best, but with a Bundt pan, the pretty work is all done for you. Just finish with a dusting of icing sugar or drizzle of glaze and you have a gorgeous cake.

This recipe is from The Bundt Collection by Brian Hart Hoffman, creator of The Bake From Scratch Empire. Black cocoa gives this cake a dark richness while white chocolate in the vanilla batter offsets the bitter cocoa with sweetness. Black cocoa powder is becoming more readily available. I bought mine at Bulk Barn. You could use substitute regular cocoa powder, but the colour contrast won’t be quite as dramatic.

This cake employs the cold-oven method. Placing the cake into a cold oven gives the batter extra time to rise, producing an extra smooth tender crumb. The texture off this cake is plush! It’s a great technique for cakes like this that do not contain any baking soda or powder.

This cake gets treated with a double glaze. Start with the black cocoa glaze, give it about 15 minutes to set and then channel your inner Jason Pollock and follow up with the vanilla bean glaze. You could skip the glaze and just dust this cake with some powdered sugar, but why would you?

This cake is special enough to stand in for a birthday celebration. I found these elegant candles on Etsy. They really elevate the occasion.

Click here to print recipe for Black & White Chocolate Marble Pound Cake.

Rebel Within Savoury Breakfast Muffins

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Check out how these surprising muffins come together.

I dislike the whole idea of a gender reveal celebration. There are lots of surprises thrown at us, many are kind of scary and not a lot of fun. Finding out the sex of your baby at the moment of birth is one of the few good surprises we have left to experience. I know it’s a polarizing topic, and I’m sure a few of you are nodding in agreement with me, and the rest of you are rolling your eyes at me. It’s ok, I can take it!

With advances in technology, it’s almost impossible not to find out in advance these days. Parents say they want to know so they can get ready. Truthfully, you don’t need much to get ready to bring a baby home from the hospital. Those first few months are just a blur of eating, not sleeping and changing diapers. The best thing you can do to get ready is to fill your freezer with food that can be prepared and eaten with one hand!

When I was born, back in the dark ages, my parents were living at my grandfather’s house with my mom’s sister and brother. I had an older sister (18 months) who was sleeping in a crib in my parent’s bedroom. My mom emptied out a dresser drawer and lined it with pillows for me to sleep in. in her defence, she did remove the drawer from the dresser. It’s not like she put me in there and shut the drawer. These days, she would be reported to Children’s Aid for putting me in unsafe sleeping conditions. Newborns should never sleep with pillows, as it can put them at risk for SIDS.

There was no room in their bedroom for my makeshift crib, so I was put out in the hall to sleep every night. My uncle was a taxi driver, working the late shift, and every night he would come home at 2:00 am, trip on my drawer in the hall as he came up the stairs, cursing my parents. Eventually, my parents took the hint and bought a house of their own before my next sister was born.

While I dislike a gender reveal, the reveal of a jammy egg yolk in the centre of this Savoury Breakfast Muffin, is one I can get behind! They were dubbed “Rebel Within Breakfast Muffins” by their creator, Chef William Werner of San Francisco’s Craftsman & Wolves.

How the heck does that yolk stay runny in the middle of a perfectly cooked fluffy muffin? It’s culinary alchemy and just plain delicious. You start with a 6 minute egg, which must be plunged into ice water to rapidly chill it.

The muffin batter is enhanced with a generous amount of cheese (Asiago and Parmesan), green onions and spicy Italian sausage (I used plant based Beyond Sausage).

Once the chilled egg is peeled, it gets rolled in some flour to coat the surface. The flour coating helps to insulate the egg and allow the batter to stick to it when baking. Piping the batter is the easiest way to cover it.

The amber colour of these yolks of these eggs is not photoshopped! They really are this gorgeous hue. My family and friends are sick of hearing me wax poetic about these amazing eggs, but it’s the small things that make me so happy.

Click here to print recipe for Rebel Within Breakfast Muffins.

Malted Milk Chocolate Hamentashen

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The Jewish holiday of Purim begins next week at sundown on Monday March 6. The traditional Purim treat are triangular shaped filled cookies known as Hamentashen. For those not familiar with this Jewish holiday, I present to you a basic primer, my version of Purim 101. Essentially, the Festival of Purim commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in ancient Persia were saved from extermination. As in every good story, you have your heroes and your villans.

The heroes of the story are Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman living in Persia, and her cousin Mordecai, who raised her as if she were his daughter. Esther was taken to the house of Achashveirosh, King of Persia, to become part of his harem. King Achashveirosh loved Esther more than his other concubines, and made Esther his queen. Like all intelligent wives, she kept a thing or two about herself hidden from her husband. Upon advice from her cousin Mordecai, she kept her Jewish identity a secret from the King.

Our story’s villan is Haman, a rather arrogant, egotistical advisor to the King. The King appointed Haman as his Prime Minister. Haman despised Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman every time he passed by.  Rather than seeking to destroy Mordecai alone for this slight, Haman decided to take revenge on the entire Jewish population living in the Persian empire. The King gave Haman permission to do as he pleased. Haman’s plan was to exterminate all of the Jews. 

Nothing got past Queen Esther. She had her finger on the pulse on the kingdom. Somehow she overheard this plot to annihilate all the Jews. She consulted her cousin Mordecai and he persuaded Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jewish people. She told her husband, the king, of Haman’s plot against her people and somehow convinced him to save the Jewish people. We’re never told exactly how she convinced him, but there are rumours! The Jewish people were saved, and Haman and his ten sons were hung.

The holiday of Purim focuses on the pleasures of food and drink, more than any other Jewish holiday. It is a time for celebrating and letting go. The shape of hamentashen symbolically represent Haman’s three-cornered hat. Typically, hamentashen are filled with jam or a poppyseed filling.

I’m bucking tradition here and flavouring my hamentashen with Malted Milk Chocolate. Check out the video to see how they come together.

If you are not baking with malted milk powder, you’re missing out on a ton of flavour. Stella Parks called malted milk powder the umami bomb of the baking world. It adds a toasted creamy richness to your baked goods. Ovaltine is one brand readily available at the supermarket. It contains the addition of chocolate. For a more concentrated hit of malted flavour, without the chocolate, I love Hoosier Hills Farms malted milk powder.

These Malted Milk Chocolate hamentashen have a triple hit of malted milk. There is malted milk powder in both the dough and the filling and then I chopped up some malted milk balls to coat the dipped hamentashen in.

Milk chocolate really allows the malted flavour to shine through. Jesse Szewczyk inspired the filling for these hamentashen with her Malted Milk Chocolate Rugelach.

If you’re a Hamentashen novice, here are a few tips for success:

  • Roll dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and chill before cutting into circles
  • Don’t overfill. You will regret it when they burst open in the oven.
  • Brush edges of dough with beaten egg white. it acts as an effective glue to hold them together.
  • Pinch edges and corners really well when shaping.
  • Freeze formed hamentashen for about 10 minutes before baking. They will hold their shape better.
  • Brush unbaked hamentashen with beaten egg white for some shine.

Click here to print recipe for Malted Milk Chocolate Hamentashen.

Mile High Lime Meringue Pie

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I had so many limes in my fridge from a citrus photo shoot I did a few weeks ago and needed to use them up before they dried out. I decided to make a lime meringue pie. My inspiration was a key lime pie, but instead of whipped cream on top, I made a meringue topping. I adapted Anna Olson’s recipe on food network.ca to create this mile high version.

Sweetened shredded coconut was added to the graham wafer crust for a tropical vibe. I baked my pie in a 9.5 inch deep dish tart pan with a removable bottom. I really love the drama of a tart pan. You could certainly use a 9 inch spring form pan.

Key limes were not available so I just used regular limes and added a 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar to the filling to create a more tart flavour.

Watch the video to see how the pie comes together.

I used an Italian meringue to top the pie as it is very stable and is not prone to weeping. Essentially there are three types of meringue, French, Swiss and Italian.

  • French meringue is the simplest of the three. It’s made by beating egg whites until frothy and then gradually adding sugar until it dissolves. Once all the sugar has been added, it is whipped to stiff peaks. It is the least stable meringue and it will start to weep after sitting on the pie for a few hours.
  • A Swiss meringue is a gently cooked meringue. The egg whites and sugar are placed in a bowl over simmering water and whisked until they reach a temperature of 145°F on a candy thermometer. Once it reaches temperature it is taken off the heat and whipped in a stand mixer until stiff glossy peaks are achieved. This is my favourite meringue for turning into buttercream. Swiss meringue is more stable than French meringue, but can’t hold a candle to Italian meringue, in terms of stability.
  • In an Italian meringue the egg whites are whipped in a stand mixer until foamy. Next, sugar and water are cooked to the soft-ball stage (238°F) and then slowly, with the mixer running, the sugar syrup is poured into the whipped egg whites until stiff, glossy peaks form and the meringue reaches room temperature. Italian meringue is the most stable. It is perfect for putting in a piping bag as the piped designs really hold their shape. We nibbled away at the pie for several days and the meringue on top of the pie held its shape and was still firm after 4 days in the fridge.

The combination of flavours and textures in this pie is perfection. Sweet crunchy crust, lip puckering creamy lime filling and marshmallowy soft and sweet meringue topping. I added a hefty pinch of salt to my meringue and it really balanced out the sweetness.

Click here to print recipe for Mile High Lime Meringue Pie.

Coffee Toffee Shortbread Cookies

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Cookies are my love language. It’s how I show my nearest and dearest that I care about them. I urge you to bake these for your loved ones. They are a decidedly adult cookie, with a very strong coffee flavour, thanks to the addition of instant coffee crystals to the dough. I used Folgers instant coffee because the coffee crystals do not dissolve in the dough and you get beautiful coffee flecks. I love to see flavour cues in my food.

I also added some chopped Skor bars to the dough. Chocolate and toffee provide a nice balance to the bitter taste of coffee. These are a simple slice and bake cookie with a very sophisticated flavour profile.

The base Shortbread recipe comes from Erin Clarkson over at Cloudy Kitchen. If you are a baker, you must follow her. Her recipes are delicious and always turn out perfectly. She is a huge proponent of baking by weight rather than volume. I would love it if this became the standard for home bakers. This is the only way to ensure consistent results. The coffee and toffee additions are my brainchild.

The addition of cornstarch to the dough contributes to these cookie’s melt in the mouth texture.

Because I’m not a minimalist, I dipped the baked cookies in bittersweet chocolate and then sprinkled the wet chocolate with some Skor bits. Fancy is how we roll around here at salt and serenity.

Click here to print recipe for Coffee Toffee Shortbread.

Blood Orange Poppyseed Coconut Bundt Cake

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I love a good Bundt cake. The pan does all the work for you. They look gorgeous right out of the pan and there is very little decorating work to do. There’s a big wow factor with little effort.

The trouble many people run into with Bundt cakes is getting the baked cake out of the pan in one piece. I’ve been there! It’s heartbreaking. Here are a few tips to ensure success:

  • Do not grease pan with butter. The milk solids in butter cause the cake to stick when it bakes. I recently read about this recipe from @bakerstreetsociety that ensures a Bundt that releases perfectly every time. Combine 1/2 cup each of vegetable oil, vegetable shortening and all-purpose flour. Mix until very smooth. Using a pastry brush, generously coat the inside of the Bundt pan, paying special attention to all the crevices and the centre post. The leftover mixture keeps in the fridge for a very long time.
  • When the cake comes out of the oven, set it on a wire rack and wait 10 minutes before trying to turn it out of the pan. If it does not release instantly, don’t panic. Set a towel on the counter, under the cake and give the top of the pan a gentle bang. If it still doesn’t release, leave the cake turned upside down, on the wire cooling rack and wait for 15 minutes. Give gravity a chance to work. Try banging after 15 minutes. It should release.
  • If you do want to glaze the cake or give it a dusting of icing sugar, wait until the cake is totally cool before glazing.

I’m celebrating blood oranges with this cake, but any orange variety, or even clementines would be delicious.

You will need both orange zest and orange juice for this recipe. Zest before juicing. It’s much easier that way. I used a microplane grater for the zest that goes into the cake batter, as you want a fine zest for that. If you want some zest for decorating the top of the cake, use this tool to get some nice long curly strands.

This Bundt cake calls for sour cream which helps create a very rich and moist cake. I decided to add some poppyseeds to this cake for the crunch and the visual appeal. I also added some coconut. It really works well with orange, but if you are coconut averse, omit it.

In addition to a glaze on the cake, I treated this cake to a simple syrup bath (equal parts blood orange juice and sugar). This gets spooned onto the cake when the cake is still warm and it soaks into the cake contributing extra flavour and moisture.

You could certainly leave the cake plain or just sprinkle on a dusting of icing sugar, but I love to provide flavour cues with my cakes. I made a pretty pink glaze with icing sugar and blood orange juice and finished with a sprinkle of poppyseeds and some shreds of orange zest.

Click here to print recipe for Blood Orange Poppyseed Coconut Bundt Cake.

Tuna Niçoise Sandwich

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Today’s recipe is for my cousin Mark. We were recently exchanging text messages and he told me how much he was enjoying my blog posts, but he wasn’t really cooking many of the recipes. He suggested that perhaps I post some recipes geared toward novices, sort of like what Duplo is to Lego! He has a young son, so I can appreciate the context. He always makes me laugh.

He is correct. Most of my recipes are multi-ingredient, multi-step recipes. Truthfully, I started this blog, in 2009, as a way of chronicling my cooking and photography adventures, sort of like an online journal. I was doing it for my own amusement, mainly as a way to track my progress. The fact that so many people signed up to follow along was totally shocking to me.

These days, I will admit I am way more focused on the food styling and food photography aspect and less on recipe development. It is what brings me the most creative pleasure. Of course, everything I post must still taste delicious and the recipes must be reliable. But they are more complicated because I am so focused on capturing all the little details and I set more advanced challenges for myself.

All that to say, today’s recipe is a sandwich. Not much cooking is involved. It’s all about gathering good quality ingredients and assembling them. My inspiration was a Salad Niçoise. Tuna, olives, hard boiled eggs, and pickled onions are the “building blocks”. (A little Lego reference for you Mark!)

Here’s how it all comes together.

For the olive component, I made an olive tapenade. Pitted green olives, garlic, parsley, capers, lemon juice and olive oil get blitzed in the food processor. If you don’t feel like making it, store-bought is fine. There are many great options on the supermarket shelves.

For the tuna, I’m going to get bossy here and insist that you not use water packed tuna. I stopped buying water packed tuna several years ago. If you have never tried tuna packed in olive oil, you are missing out on something very delicious. Two brands I really love are Rio Mare (more affordable) and Tonnino (a bit of a splurge).

If you are not an onion fan, you can certainly leave them out, but I urge you to try it. This is a sandwich rich in fat (tuna, olives, eggs) and the pickled onions cut through that fat and balance the sandwich perfectly. Pickling onions is not a difficult thing to do and it tames the bite of onions, making them mellow and delicious.

Perfect hard boiled eggs (and by that, I mean without the grey/green ring around the yolk) are not difficult to achieve. Bring a pot of water up to a boil. As you gently lower in the eggs, yell to Alexa to set the timer for 9 minutes. (That’s all I ever use my Alexa for!) While the eggs are boiling, fill a bowl with cold water and ice cubes. When the timer goes, plunge eggs into ice water bath. When eggs are cool, transfer to an airtight container and keep in the fridge for up to a week. Peel just before using.

A little note regarding eggs: I have recently become obsessed with eggs that have a super golden, almost orange yolk. The first time I had this, I was in London, England. It was the most beautiful and delicious egg I had ever eaten. Through much research, I have discovered that those eggs come from chickens that are fed a diet high in Marigold. Sourcing those eggs reliably, was a bit of a hit and miss, but I found a brand at Farm Boy (Vita Eggs) that carries them regularly. Make sure you buy the ones marked Free Run. The organic ones are not as golden.

The best bread for this sandwich is either a baguette or a ciabatta loaf. If you live in Canada, Ace Bakery makes excellent versions of both. I used the Ace Bakery olive ciabatta in the video. Make sure you toast the bread first. Otherwise the sandwich will become too soggy.

Click here to print recipe for Tuna Niçoise Sandwich.