Never one to jump on the latest baking trend, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself unable to shake the concept of engineering a croquembouche.  Let’s start by answering the question, what is a croquembouche.  It’s essentially a tower of profiteroles glued together with caramel, often drizzled in chocolate, spun sugar, or all manner of fancy schmancy décor.  Not my type of thing. I like contemporary solid lines, bold colors, no frills.  So why can’t I get the damn thing out of my head? I’ve been making pate au choux with which to turn into profiteroles all summer, so I suppose architecting the croquembouche was the next inevitable step.  The problem is that I didn’t fully execute my vision since I only baked a measly 21 pate au choux, and what kind of tower can you really construct with only 21 building blocks?  So what that means is that this project is incomplete and must be revisited soon, at a time when I can whip up at least twice that many and construct my dream Barbie mansion from tiny pastry balls.

Knowing myself and my proclivity to take a perfectly good, classic thing and turn it all akimbo, I figured a classic croquembouche just wouldn’t do.  This is when I remembered seeing a method for turning foie gras into Chantilly crème recently.  Why not do semi-savory choux and fill them with goosey-oozy liver-y goodness then drizzle the whole thing in maple-balsamic reduction made to look like chocolate syrup? Yes, genius. Pure, diabolical, evil genius.  I considered not telling my lucky-number-13 guests that they would in fact be masticating goose livers rather than benign cream, but a vegetarian in our midst guilted me into full-disclosure.  I needn’t have bothered warning people, it seems. They well and truly were little bites of The Rapture. People popped them like it was 1974 and they were disco queens slamming back ‘ludes, so I’m pretty sure they needed no introduction after all.

To put the whole thing together I started with a good, sturdy batch of pate au choux.  Whilst my piped lovelies were puffing up in the oven, I contemplated the Foie Chantilly.  I did a bunch of internet research on how to fluff up the foie, and settled on mixing it with heated cream in a food processor for a few moments to sufficiently blend it. Then I passed it through a sieve into a mixing bowl over ice and proceeded to hand whisk it to stiff peaks.  In terms of quantity, for five ounces of foie, I used ¾ c heavy cream, a pinch of salt, and two tablespoons of superfine or caster sugar.  I heated the cream, sugar, and salt together in a heavy saucepan whilst I chopped the foie into ½” cubes and set reserved them in the food processor. Working quickly, once the cream was just nearing the boiling point, I added it to the foie and whirred it for ten seconds. I immediately passed it through the sieve and into the waiting chilled mixing bowl. It’s important to get it cool quickly so that it will whip properly.  I bet a pacojet would have been a really cool toy to employ for the whipping process, but I’ve got an official moratorium on kitchen gadgets here in the Salty Seattle household thanks to my evil husbandJ Once I whipped and chilled my cream and the pate au choux were cool, I piped each pastry full of a sufficient amount of choux using a star tip.  At this point I had savory profiteroles awaiting their drizzled fate.

For the sauce, I simply reduced equal parts balsamic and maple syrup in a small saucepan until it reached the consistency of thick molasses.  I then cooled it and dipped the butt ends of the profiteroles in the syrup to use as a binding agent.  I stacked a meager tower, though mark my words, this is only the beginning. My experimenting is far from finito.  In the meantime, enjoy this mini-tower knowing that I’ve created a monster in myself and I likely won’t stop until I construct a croquembouche the size of Frankenstein. And they make a movie about it.

I’m applying for a patent on this one. It is going to be very difficult to describe the extraordinary nature of this dish without employing the use of exuberant expletives, but I will try.  It all started with a strawberry picking and tasting adventure a mere one hour from Seattle and yet worlds away.  As my city-slicking Mercedes rolled through the gentle flats of the Skagit Valley, signs encouraged drivers to “slow down and follow your nose” which I did with aplomb.  The fertile flats of Skagit produce some of the finest grown goods in Washington, and stellar strawberries are no exception. Our small group had the great pleasure to tour and visit Skagit Sun berries as well as listen to the insightful musings of Farmer Don on the history of his berries and cucumbers (that sentence was not meant to sound dirty, but upon rereading it, I suppose it could be misconstrued).

Photo courtesy of Luuvu Hoang

We participated in a blind tasting of eight varieties of strawberries; I had no idea there would be such a vast difference in flavor.  In the end, I preferred two varieties: Shuksan and Hood. Shuksan berries are sweet and red throughout, with uniform flesh, a short shelf-life and unbeatable versatility in terms of complementing sweet and savory dishes as well as being great fresh or cooked.  The Hoods were piquant and almost candy-like in flavor with a thorough, intense sweetness that lingered on the palate for ages.  It is the height of Shuksan season right now, so get them while you can. Farmer Don was kind enough to let us pick our own flats of Shuksans so my mental wheels got to turning whilst we were out there under the haze-laced sun plucking away.  I love jams and jellies as much as anyone, but I was not about to preserve these precious plumpies for posterity.  I decided on both a sweet and a savory application, and somehow the divine inspiration of the strawberry gods put the idea of chocolate pasta into my head (well that and a conversation with my friend Luuvu).

When I got home, I promptly made a custard of Shuksans and lavender that would become ice cream the next day.  I also whipped up a crema pasticcera (pastry cream) infused with lavender with which to fill the chocolate pasta sheets.  The next day, the real work began.  {INSERT TERRIBLE CONFESSION HERE} Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a primadonna pasta purist. I do not crank out sheets of pasta, I gently roll them with an old wooden pin, then cut whatever pasta I’m forming using a pastry cutter.  As far as tools go, I’ve always been happy (to make pasta 3+ times a week) with my pin, cutter and a glass of wine.  Well, the universe conspired and produced a gift certificate and a HUGE sale I couldn’t refuse, so long story short, I’m now the proud recipient of a pasta attachment for the Kitchenaid.  This chocolate pasta is the second I’ve made with it, and the most unfortunate part is that I no longer seem to need the glass of wine while pasta-making. You see, the wine acts as a thirst-quencher between rolls, but when a machine takes all the work away, you no longer require parch-abatement.  I suppose the pasta machine will help cure my excessive wino-ism, but it has also taken a little piece of my soul along with it.  I’m vowing to hand-roll at least once a week- we will see how it goes.

For the pasta, I made a typical dough of flour and eggs, to which I added Dutched cocoa and a touch of sugar.  I was worried about the consistency, but it rolled out beautifully and crimped together perfectly to form round discs filled with pastry cream.  I made the pasta around noon and did not boil them until 9pm, so they sat on a parchment-lined sheetpan for many hours with no refrigeration. There were no ill-effects of this, as they boiled up nicely and the texture was perfect.  Since my pasta would not be complete without a sauce, I boiled down Shuksans into a compote with butter, sugar and Grand Marnier.  I put it through a sieve to remove the seeds, then drizzled the sauce over intermittent rounds of ravioli and scoops of ice cream.  This is the part where I would use some holy s3*TTTT expletives to describe the wow-factor of all the complementary flavors and textures in this dish, but I promised not to, so I’m going to have to go stuff my gullet full of sweet sweet bliss aka chocolate ravioli and bid my adieu to you. Until next time, keep it super real out there in the spectacular sunshine.

For several years I have had the desire to host a salt-tasting party, I simply lacked the impetus. Until now.  You see, I’ve always felt the salty soiree should have serendipitous timing all around, and that wasn’t possible in days gone by.  For me, everything had to be essential, perfect, balanced.  The food, the guests, the salts, the level of engagement- the whole shebang.  When I finally decided a few months ago that the signs were looking auspicious to host the party, it was a right nice feeling. Right nice indeed, because I’ve been stewing over the concept for so long, there really wasn’t much to settle on.  Except for incorporating some new obsessions in terms of food (can you say sous vide?) and making sure the guest list didn’t go entirely jabberwocky with too many tasters and not enough salt, all the pre-planning was a cinch.

I planned a from-scratch menu deliberately devoid of salt to encourage tasting and pairing. Notables included sous vide custard duck eggs, sliced heirloom tomatoes, no-knead baguettes by Patrick aka best breadbaker in the world, homemade cottage cheese, homemade burrata, a slew of Italian cheeses including a three-milk Robiola and Bra Tenero, jicama, fava beans and honey, sous vide potatoes and beets, and edamame.  Whew, if that wasn’t a salt-less mouthful I don’t know what would be.  I did not forget the dessert category, which consisted of maple caramels, chocolate pavé and triple chocolate truffle tart by Patrick, and four types of ice cream: rhubarb crème fraiche, coffee hazelnut, quadruple chocolate and goat yoghurt maple.

Since many members of the Seattle fooderati scene showed for the 70+ person party, there were countless other notable culinary creations from the likes of Michael Natkin, the man behind Herbivoracious, Jenny Richards of Purplehousedirt, Lorna Yee from The Cookbook Chronicles,  Marc Schermerhorn of the infamous @marcseattle twitter feed, Keren Brown aka Frantic Foodie, and many more.  The lovely and talented Jeanne Sauvage of Fourchickens, brought me a carton of homegrown eggs that I’ve been coddling as though they were babies; I want chickens and ducks so badly I can taste them, but that’s a story for another time.

For the tasting itself, I lined my dining table with over 60 empty vessels and assigned each one a corresponding number.  We created a master list on the Ipad that contained each number, then, when attendees brought salt, they simply chose a vessel, told us the number, and we catalogued each salt into the secret master list.  This way the tasting was truly blind.  I raided my own global collection of salt and filled roughly twenty of the vessels, and once all the guests had proffered their hand-selected salts, we had 63 samples.  I established four categories for the tasting: Best Overall Tasting Salt, Best Blended Salt, Best Pairing-Savory, and Best Pairing-Sweet.  My graphic designer neighbor Cyndy created ballots so folks could cast their votes, and I’ve just tallied the results, which are molto interessante indeed.

Repurposed Aarnio Bubble Chair as Wine Chiller

Before I get to that I want to mention some of the notable salts on display that evening, representing six continents.  Janna Wemmer from Secret Stash Salts brought a dizzying array of her expertly-blended salts, including bloody mary salt, smoked chipotle, and lavender rosemary to name a few.  She is a locally-focused artisan producer of the finest blended salt available in the Pacific Northwest, and her salts should be included in any representational goodie bag of local products.  Local foodie-about-town Traca Savadogo was able to get Mark and Marjorie Fuller of famed restaurant Spring Hill to donate some of Mark’s ancestral Hawaiian red clay sea salt, aged 25 years,  which was one I made sure to sneak a reserve of for later use.  Apparently the aging process sweetens the deal, and I mean that in a literal sense.  The kind folks over at Marx Foods heard about the tasting and donated some perfectly structured Portugese Flor de Sal for our tasting pleasure. I’ve been finishing with this one for a few weeks and am very happy with the crystal structure and depth of character.

Every party is bound to have one jester, and this soiree was not immune.  Our non-food-obsessed neighbor thought it would be quite funny to cart in a salt-lick, which he did with much pride to much snickering.  We had to give it a fair tasting, so we chipped some off the old block and put it in a vessel, much to the chagrin of the poor folks who tasted it.  Oddly, it did receive one vote; some kind soul nominated it in the savory pairing category for its complementary taste with radishes.  Many of the salts travelled here from around the globe, but only a few did so expressly to be tasted at the party.  One such salt was a Waddenzout brought all the way from Amsterdam by Robert and Patrick. I sure hope that one didn’t have any extra Amsterdam-additives in it, if you know what I mean.  Another well-travelled salt came from my amazing friend Emily (Happy Birthday, Baby) who sent over some Korean Bamboo salt from Ulsan, where she is teaching for the year.  Lily and Rodney brought forth a slew of salts from Vancouver BC made by Edible Canada.  Of the twenty or so salts I personally contributed, besides my homemade salt, many of them came from the Portland-based salt boutique The Meadow.  If you think of the most esoteric salt in all the lands and are scratching your head as to where to find it, chances are you’ll find it at The Meadow, which is my go-to salt destination, both online and in the flesh.

Alright, enough of me waxing lyrical about one of the greatest substances on earth- let’s see the results.  The winner in the best overall finishing salt category is the timeless classic, Maldon Sea Salt. It’s crystal structure alone is a thing of marvel; I really believe this salt should be one of the wonders of the world because it comes in the form of little dissolving pyramids. I love other salts equally for different things, but I am not surprised that Maldon unanimously won the grand prize.  There were four salts tied for second place in this category: Trapani Sea Salt, my own sea salt, Secret Stash Salt’s Lavendar Rosemary, and Pangasinan Star.

The winner of best blended salt goes to Black Truffle Sea Salt.  A very close second goes to Secret Stash Salt’s Lavender Rosemary Salt.  Tied for third place here are Evergreen Edible Salt and Wreck Beach Edible Salt.  Best Pairing-Sweet has three salts tied for first place. They are: Murray River Pink Salt, Maldon Sea Salt, and Tahitian Vanilla Salt, all being paired with caramels. In fact, caramels were the favored vehicle with which to sweetly taste salt.  The trickiest category was Best Pairing-Savory.  I think it’s because there was so much food it was difficult to get consistency.  Five salts tied for first place in this category. They are: The Drive Edible on heirloom tomatoes, Tahitian Vanilla on Eggs (maybe these voters had a few glasses of wine?), Sale alle Erbe delle Mar Lunghe (salt with herbs from the long sea) on Patrick’s bread, Haleakala Ruby on heirloom tomatoes, and Murray River on mozzarella and edamame.

these glasses did not stay empty for long

Alright, this was a bloody long-winded post, so I’m going to wrap it up.  It is my goal to showcase the winners in all categories and do some refined tasting with them in a more controlled environment. I’d like to perfect some pairings and suss out which qualities about each of the winning salts made it memorable for tasters.  Expect to see more salt in this space soon, but then, you probably already knew that.  Have a salt-sational day!

all the salts- the morning after

PS- special thanks to Lisa Page Ramey for providing some of the mid-party action shots; there was a lot going on and our camera languished in the corner for much of the evening.

chocolate chili with homemade polenta crisps

Consider yourself warned: my inner foodie snoot may rear her ugly head in this post; I’ll try and keep her at bay but she’s a fierce bitch when she wants to be unleashed so just ignore her puzza sotto il naso banter. 

I don’t typically participate in hyper-American activities such as super bowl parties.  What’s so super about it besides the billion-dollar commercials advertising products you’ll rarely find in my kitchen, anyway? I know, I know, there are countless hundreds of you who will argue with me ‘til you’re blue in the face about the merits of the game diminutively referred to by the rest of the planet as “American football.”  I prefer proper football myself, and have been justly rewarded by the fact that Seattle now proudly boasts a football franchise known as the Seattle Sounders Football Club.  The games are not quite up to the snuff of Juventus games back in the motherland, but give us trailblazing pioneers a few years and we’ll elevate the Americas to global standards. 

piloncillo cane sugar boiling down for chili

That being said, as most of you know this super bowl is historic for good reason. The New Orleans Saints have not been to the super bowl, and this is a success story most of our country wants to get behind, football or no football.  It’s as if the Saints embody the phoenix rising from the ashes of Katrina and for the first time since the disaster the city is rallying with the fervor of its original spirit.  It’s an infectious spirit, since the rest of the country seems to have caught it as well.  I couldn’t just blatantly ignore it and attend super bowl deep discount shopping events all day, so I decided to buck up, rsvp to a super bowl party and make something worthy of the occasion: chocolate chili over polenta crisps.  Not sure what that means? In layman’s terms, frito pie.  If you’re still not sure what that is you’re probably a Northerner or from outside the boundaries of our fair country, so let me break it down.  You put some fritos in a bowl, smother them in chili and top the whole shebang with a generous lot of shredded cheese. 

Read more

I was pretty nervous to serve my guests garlic chocolate gelato last night.  That’s why I made three flavors, so that if they didn’t like the garlic chocolate they could delight in the obvious goodness of gianduja chocolate chip, for example.  Or take global comfort in the spicy delicacy of cardamom pistachio, from India and Italy with love.  The good news is that I had plied all 5 of them with enough wine throughout dinner to loosen their lips, so I’m pretty sure I got candid comments between creamy bites.  Curious what they thought?  Well first let’s talk about the “safe” flavors. 

Read more