Thai Cooking Class

Saturday I took a class on Thai Cooking at Orson Gygi's.  It was great fun!  There were about 12 of us in the test kitchen.  It had 5 professional stoves, granite countertops and about every kitchen gadget you could imagine.  Our instructor gave us a list of the recipes we were going to do and then went around and did a presentation on how to make them.  We then split up into small groups of 2 or 3 and started cooking.

My group made this shrimp salad with cilantro lime dressing.

These are the green curry puffs.  They were tasty (but isn't everything deep-fried tasty)?

This is the fresh basil beef.  The Thai basil in this dish is just wonderful. 

 For dessert we had coconut mango rice pudding.

We also had chicken satay with peanut sauce, but I forgot to take a picture.  After we were all done, we all sat down and ate our food together. Everyone was really friendly and it was satisfying to be in a group of strangers and create a temporary cohesive unit.

I did have a slight hesitation about eating the meat, but vegetarianism isn't my religion, so I ate it anyway, it seemed churlish not to.  Yes, it was delicious (especially the basil beef), but going veggie has been good for me, so I'll try not to defect to the dark side altogether.

Today I went to the the Southeast Asian Market on 9th South and got some supplies: Thai sticky rice, coconut milk, bean noodles, fish sauce, oyster sauce, green curry paste and massaman curry paste.  Melinda brought home some mangoes from Costco, so I think we'll have Thai sticky rice with mangoes tonight.  Yum.

Ebelskivers

Ebelskivers are a classic treat that is made in Denmark.  They are light, round pancakes that sometimes have a filling in them.  I remember my mom and my grandma making them when I was a kid.  I have a lot of Danish roots on my mom’s side of the family, and this was a tradition they passed down.

A couple of years ago Melinda and I saw an ebelskiver pan in Williams-Sonoma.  We’ve seen it a few times since then, but last week Melinda got it for me as an early father’s day gift.

Miles helped me make them, and they turned out great.  They are delicious with real maple syrup and sprinkled with powdered sugar.  We also tried a few with different fillings.  We tried Jarlsberg cheese, blueberries and strawberry jam. 

They take a while to make, but as a once-in-a-while treat they are definitely worth it.  They definitely brought back some sweet childhood memories.

Here’s the recipe (of course you’ll need a pan for it as well).

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Ebelskivers

A classic treat in Denmark, ebelskivers, are light round pancakes filled with jam, curd, fruit or cheese

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tbs. granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2 cups milk
• 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions:

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt.

In a small bowl, lightly whisk together the egg yolks, milk and melted butter. Whisk the yolk mixture into the flour mixture until well combined; the batter will be lumpy.

In another bowl, using an electric mixer beat the egg whites on high speed until stiff but not dry peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the whites into the batter in two additions.

Put 1/8 tsp. butter in each well of a filled-pancake pan. Place over medium heat and heat until the butter begins to bubble. Pour 1 Tbs. batter into each well and cook until the bottoms are golden brown and crispy, 3 to 5 minutes. Put filling in the center of each pancake and top with 1 Tbs. batter. Using 2 wooden skewers, flip the pancakes over and cook until golden and crispy, about 3 minutes more.

Dust the pancakes with confectioners' sugar and serve warm with maple syrup.

Wild berries

We came to Alaska before during springtime. It's nice to be here in the fall to pick all of the wild berries. Its great; they grow everywhere! You can go for a walk and have a snack on the way. The blueberries are very tasty and the red/orange/yellow berries called salmon berries. They have a very mild flavor, but they are good.


Melinda picked all of these berries in the wild area just behind my parent's house. We've put them to good culinary use. So far we've made (or I should say Melinda has made):

• Blueberry muffins
• Blueberry pancakes
• Blueberry pie
• Salmon berry/blueberry smoothies
• Blueberry corn muffins
• Mixed berry shortcake

Tasty!