This year for Easter I decided to experiment with natural egg dyes. I did a little research and found that there are many foods that were once commonly used as dyes. Some of these include beets, coffee, onions, cabbage, blueberries, turmeric, and cranberries. Nowadays, most people use food coloring or the infamous PAAS egg dyeing kits. I made some natural dyes as well as some food coloring dyes. The results were very different, but both yielded beautiful Easter eggs that will be a wonderful addition to our decorations this weekend. Let’s start with the natural dyes.
To make a natural dye, you first combine the dyeing ingredient with water and white vinegar and bring them to a boil. I used 2 Tbsp of vinegar per quart of water to make my dyes. Then, I added my eggs to the boiling dyes, for about 20 minutes. Removing the eggs, I then strained the liquid, and returned the eggs to the dyes. I left them to soak overnight, since the color was still very faint after only an hour or so. Here are some of the natural ingredients I used.
Beets, for a rosy, pinkish red.
Golden beets, for a soft, pale yellow.
Red cabbage for a lovely blue. I was surprised that the cabbage made a blue dye since it looks purple/red when raw.
Turmeric made a very bright yellow dye that colored the eggs nicely after only 1 hour, much quicker than the others.
Onion skins made a reddish, bronze dye, which also worked fairly quickly.
Blueberries made a pale lavender dye and coffee made a wonderful chocolate brown dye. I couldn’t find whole cranberries in the grocery store so I attempted to make a dye with pure cranberry juice instead. Unfortunately, instead of pink, it yielded a speckled brown color. The result was interesting, but not what I was expecting. I made two shades of green eggs by soaking dried turmeric and golden beet eggs in the blue dye from the red cabbage for 6-8 hours. I was really pleased by the results.
To contrast, I also made some traditional food coloring dyes.
The food coloring dyes yielded much brighter, more saturated colors on the eggs.
I played around with some marbling techniques by rolling colored eggs in a darker color dye with some added vegetable oil.
I love the abstract look of these eggs. :)
In the end, I love the natural eggs the most despite the extra effort and long soaking time. The colors are muted and soft, and they have an organic aesthetic that is calming to behold.
Happy Easter everyone. :)
In the last year I have developed a taste for foods that I previously had very little knowledge of. Fennel is one of those foods. Until last year fennel was, to me, a plant that grew in my mother’s garden and attracted butterflies. I knew it by the sight of its tall stalks with delicate feathery leaves which changed from bright green to dark purple over the course of the summer. I also knew it by its heavy licorice fragrance. But I never knew it as an edible plant. Thankfully, I have since discovered why the butterflies and caterpillars love fennel so much; because it is DELICIOUS!
Fennel soup has become one of my all time favorite things to eat. It is affordable, simple to make, and packed with flavor. As with most aromatic soups, start with onion and garlic.
Next, rinse and clean 3 large fennel bulbs. You can find them in the produce section of most grocery stores.
Depending on where you buy them, fennel bulbs sometimes still have the green fronds attached. If so, trim the green ends of the fennel stalks and save the fronds for later.
Roughly chop the fennel bulbs along with one large yellow onion and four cloves of garlic.
In a heavy bottomed soup pot, gently sweat the onion, garlic and fennel in olive oil over medium heat until soft and translucent. It is important not to let them get brown, since caramelizing the onions will change the flavor profile of the soup. Season with a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.
This is how they should look after they have cooked for about 15 minutes.
Next add hot chicken stock to cover, about 4-6 cups…
…and 1/4 cup of rice, which acts as a thickening agent.
Bring the soup to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, let’s go back to our lovely green fennel fronds. The fronds are perfect for making a herbaceous pesto-like sauce to use as a garnish for the soup. Start by roughly chopping about 1 cup of fennel fronds…
along with 1/2 cup of basil leaves,
1/4 cup of roughly chopped scallions,
and 1/4 cup of roughly chopped parsley.
Combine the herbs and fennel fronds in a blender or food processor with a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.
While the blender is running, add 1/2 cup of olive oil in a slow steady stream to form a thick paste.
Adjust the seasoning and continue to puree the herbs until they have a smooth consistency. Set the mixture aside.
Once the soup has simmered for 20 minutes, puree it in batches, making sure there are equal parts liquid and solid in each batch. It is especially important to start the blender at a slow speed when pureeing hot food because the sudden force of high speed can cause the contents of the blender to spill over and potentially burn your hands. Strain the pureed soup through a fine mesh strainer back into the pot.
Warm the soup over medium heat, adjusting the seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. If the consistency is too thick, add a little more chicken stock to thin it out.
Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a tablespoon of the herb pesto, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a slice of toasted baguette.
I hope you enjoy this soup as much as I do! Dig in!
Fennel Soup
Adapted from Heart of the Artichoke by David Tanis.
1 large yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
3 medium-large fennel bulbs, trimmed (fronds reserved)
4-6 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup rice
Salt and pepper to taste
For the garnish:
1 cup coarsely chopped fennel fronds
1/2 cup basil leaves
1/4 cup coarsely chopped scallions
1/4 cup coarsely chopped parsley
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
Salt and pepper to taste
Toasted baguette slices
Roughly chop onion, garlic and fennel bulbs and sweat in olive oil over medium heat until soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with hot chicken stock and add rice. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Puree soup in batches until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh strainer back into the pot. Warm soup over medium heat, adjusting the seasoning and consistency.
Combine fennel fronds and herbs with salt and pepper in a blender or food processor. While blender is running, add olive oil in a steady stream until a smooth paste is formed. Adjust seasoning and set aside.
Serve hot soup with 1 tablespoon of herb mixture, a drizzle of olive oil, and a toasted baguette slice.
Nine months ago I began a journey I had only dreamed of. Culinary School. I never imagined these dreams would be realized in such an amazing way. I’ve learned more than just professional cooking skills. I’ve gotten a glimpse of the restaurant world from the inside. I’ve learned how recipes are born. I’ve learned how magazines are made. I’ve made incredible friendships. Most importantly though, I’ve learned a little more of who I am. I realize now that I was always meant to cook. This is what I was made to do. It just took me a while to put myself out there and make it happen.
So thank you to everyone who supported me on this journey. My family, friends, classmates, chef-instructors and advocates at FCI. Most importantly, thank you to my wonderful husband, Brannon. I could never have made it this far in my life without you. And thank you to my faithful readers, who, despite my negligence in blogging for the last months, are still encouraging me to write and move forward with my dreams. Thank you for reading. You are my inspiration.
So, without further ado, I’ll move on with what this post is really about! I have so much to share in the way of photos and stories from my time at FCI. Unfortunately, it is way to much to fit into one blog post. I complied a short slideshow of photos to give you all a quick recap of the last nine months of my life. Almost all of the photos were taken with my iPhone, so forgive the less than perfect photography! It has been an incredible ride, and I have only the highest expectations for the future! Enjoy!
P.S. There are new recipes/posts in the works so stay tuned for my newly revived blog!
Well hello there. It has been awhile, hasn’t it? Sorry about that…
But, I have been cooking up a storm day and night even though I haven’t had a chance to post anything lately. The first six weeks of classes at FCI flew by for me in a whirlwind. After a comprehensive written exam and a practical cooking exam, I made it successfully through Level 1. Whew! I’ve learned so many new techniques and recipes that are just now starting to become second nature to me.
Level 2 introduces many completely new topics such as cooking game, organ meat, and pastry, as well as menu design and nutrition. So far we’ve covered game meats including venison (deer) and rabbit. I was able to take home some of the venison tenderloin leftover from class, so I decided to share it with you all in blogland. And, as an added bonus, my chef gave me some very yummy spiced poaching liquid to make a delicious poached fruit dessert which I’ll save for another post. Are you ready for this? :) Here we go.
The deer. Any of us who’ve ever driven down a country road at night know this fellow all too well. They can be very destructive to motor vehicles. But, I’ve now learned that they can be extremely delicious when cooked for dinner. Heh heh heh.
Don’t worry, it looks just like steak, only redder and leaner and tastes similar too, only stronger and more robust in flavor.
There we go. Doesn’t that look TASTY? So, these are medallion fillets cut from a venison tenderloin. They don’t have much fat at all so they cook relatively quickly. I brought them out of the fridge to let them come to room temperature and seasoned them with salt and pepper. While they rested, I got to work on my rice pilaf and my bordelaise sauce.
Rice pilaf is a fairly simple side item that I really enjoy with just about anything. Start by sauteeing some chopped shallots in butter until they are just opaque but not brown. Then add in your rice and let it toast for a minute or two. Then add in the required amount of liquid for your rice, some salt and pepper, bring to a simmer and then cover and put in a 350 degree oven. Let it cook about 12-14 minutes or until the rice is tender.
I also wanted something green on my plate so I heated up some frozen peas in a little butter too.
Then I added my peas to my rice and mixed it all together. This is a sneaky way of getting kiddos to eat their veggies because once you mix it in they can’t eat the rice without the peas. And the rice is just too dang good to pass up. This mixture of peas and rice is actually very popular dish. According to my chef, it is called Risi Bisi. Who knew my peas and rice actually had a fancy name? :)
Top your peas and rice with a few blobs of butter, put the lid on and set it aside until it is ready to serve.
OK, that’s done.
Now, normally we wouldn’t start our sauce until our meat started cooking, but since venison cooks so quickly, I found it helpful to have the sauce base prepared ahead of time. Bordelaise sauce is a basic French sauce that pairs wonderfully with red meat. The primary ingredients are shallots, red wine, brown stock (usually veal or beef), and bone marrow to finish. I normally do not have bone marrow on hand, so I finished the sauce with butter, which works just as well for home cooking purposes.
First, sweat some shallots in a little butter over medium heat. Sweating a vegetable means to gently saute it without browning. So the shallots should be opaque, but essentially colorless when they are successfully sweated. My shallots got a little too much color on them, probably because my butter was too hot when I added the shallots, effectively searing them. So don’t follow my example in this case.
Add a little red wine and allow it to reduce until the pan is almost dry. This allows all of the alcohol to cook out of the sauce, while concentrating the flavors of the wine. I added a little fresh thyme to flavor the reduction further, although I probably could have waited to add the thyme when I added my stock. But whatever…. I’m learning too.
See how almost all of liquid is gone? It makes a very syrupy consistency over the shallots. Ok, after reducing the wine, add your stock. I used a little demi-glace that I had leftover from one of my classes. Demi-glace is basically a veal stock that has already been reduced to a syrupy consistency. When it cools, it becomes like jello, but it melts into the sauce quickly and beautifully.
See?
Now reduce the sauce again by about half.
Once the sauce is reduced to the desired consistency, strain it to remove the shallots and herbs.
You should taste the sauce now and season it with salt and pepper as needed. At this point, I would normally finish the sauce with some cold butter. But I wanted to add another layer of flavors by including some of that delicious spiced poaching liquid. So I quickly reduced a little bit of the poaching liquid and then added it to my bordelaise sauce.
Then I finished the sauce with cold butter.
See how syrupy the sauce is? The added butter helps to give it a gorgeous shine and that delicious smooth flavor that every sauce should have.
Now all that’s left to do is cook the venison. I actually started the venison while my sauce was reducing so that they would be finished at about the same time. Here is our lovely meat again. Make sure to pat the fillets dry with paper towels so that they will brown properly.
Get the pan good and hot with a little oil and a tad bit of butter before adding the meat. Having a hot pan is also very important in having properly seared meat.
Cook on one side for a couple of minutes to get a good brown color, then flip them over and repeat.
Then turn the fillets on their sides to get the edges brown and baste the meat with the fat in the pan. It is a good idea to add some more cold butter to the pan at this point so that you have more tasty fat to baste the meat with. Basting is a good way to help keep moisture in the meat since it is very lean and the butter also enhances the flavor.
Depending on how well done you like your meat to be you could finish cooking them in the pan or in the oven. If you like your meat rare to medium rare, you could simply leave them in the pan after searing over a little lower heat. If you want them to be more well done, slide your pan into the oven at 350 degrees for a few minutes to finish the cooking. Since my dinner guests wanted their meet cooked medium-well, I opted for the oven. But the venison only stayed in the oven for about 5 minutes. Remember, it cooks extremely quickly since it is so lean.
Now everything should be ready to serve – venison fillet, lovely bordelaise sauce, and rice pilaf/peas.
Bon Appetit!
You heard me right – quail eggs.
One thing I love about being in culinary school is that I get to taste interesting and exotic foods. And sometimes, when there are leftovers of said foods, I get to bring them home.
This weekend I had the opportunity to work in the school’s restaurant, L’Ecole, during the Sunday brunch shift. I’d never worked in a professional kitchen before so there is another entire post waiting in the wings with details of that experience. But for now, let’s get back to the quail eggs.
One of the brunch dishes served at L’Ecole is a little something called Steak Tartare. If you’re not familiar with this dish, it is basically a spread composed of extremely high quality, rare steak that is ground and combined with raw egg yolks, herbs, spices and other secret ingredients. It is served with toasted baguette slices and a raw quail egg yolk (still in the shell) as a garnish.
Now, I personally do not eat raw proteins. It is just not my cup of tea. I’m more of a medium-well kind of girl. That’s just the way I roll. But, if you’re a fan of rare meat and raw protein, Steak Tartar is somewhat of a specialty item. I’ve heard that it is quite delicious and delicate, if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Anyway… the point is, there were lots of leftover quail eggs after brunch. When Chef Joe asked me if I’d like to take them home I said, “Well, what am I going to do with quail eggs?”
“The same thing you do with regular eggs,” he said.
“Oh, ok then. I’ll take them.” Duh, right?
That’s how I ended up with quail eggs. This morning I decided to make cute little quail eggs for breakfast, sunny side up the way Brannon likes them. I was so curious to see how they tasted compared to regular eggs.
Guess what? They tasted AMAZING! The quail eggs had a much more concentrated egg flavor than regular eggs and were extremely rich. The yolks were extra creamy and bursting with yummyness.
These took no time to cook since they are so small. I just melted some butter in a skillet, cracked the eggs and cooked them for about 3 minutes or so until the whites were set and seasoned with salt and pepper. So easy! However, I found the membranes under the shells to be much thicker than those of regular chicken eggs. Even when the shell was cracked, the membrane still stayed in tact, making it harder to get the egg out without including lots of tiny pieces of the shell. I ended up using my sharp kitchen shears to cut off the bottom (flat) end of the eggshell, making a clean hole through the shell and membrane so I could just pour out the egg into the pan.
Three quail eggs on a piece of buttered toast made for a perfect Tuesday morning breakfast. Yum!
Note: I have no idea where to actually buy quail eggs or how much they cost since I got these from the restaurant. If anyone finds them somewhere in NYC, please let me know.
Another Note: Please excuse the blurry-ish iPhone photography, as my Nikon camera battery was dead this morning.
