Umami Mart

*Preface in 2 Posts- Yamahomo vs. Laduree
Macaron Battles Part 1 & 2
The Battle Continues

I must master this. I think I came pretty close to what macaron should be on trial 3, but I mixed the batter too much, hence it was too thin. Over the weekend, I made it three times.
Here is how it went.

Note: I found Laduree’s recipe, and followed the measurement below.

4 egg whites
1/4 cup of sugar (used for meringue)
275 gram powdered sugar
140 gram almond flour
20 gram cocoa powder (or green tea powder)

Trial #4 (Saturday morning)
I had a fried chicken party planned for the evening, and thought I would make macarons to contrast the very Americano dinner. I measured everything Friday night quite intoxicated, yet sober enough to be able to see numbers on the kitchen scale. I woke up not too late Saturday morning, and started making the batter. I might have been still drunk, but I tried to remember the process, not to mix too much, yet mix it enough. I thought I did it just the way I should, but something was off. While the macarons were resting after I piped them out onto a cookie sheet, a horrifying thing happened. Every one was connecting to each other! Did I mix too much? What the fuck is this ugly surface? I did rest this for 45 minutes so that the skin can form on top, but somehow, somewhere, I fucked it up.

Lesson learned: Make the entire process of macaron making SOBER.

Trial #5 (Saturday afternoon)
Show must go on. Despite my utter failure in the morning, I had to have dessert for the evening’s gathering, and I was determined to make another batch successfully. So I measured everything again, waited till the egg whites were room temp (some recipe says to leave egg whites in room temp over night, but I didn’t have the time. Also American eggs are not that fresh, so it is fine to wait until it gets room temp), then started all over again. This time, I used cocoa powder to make chocolate macarons. My determination won the battle. It wasn’t runny, it was thick enough to hold the shape of cookie, HUGE leg action happening as well. Some sticking to each other, but it’s ok…

I haven’t gotten into the cream making part yet, so I, again, made raspberry jam with whipped cream mixture, and sandwiched it. When making macarons, always rest it for 24 hours (or over night). It really changes the texture. When it’s assembled, it’s still chewy, but after resting a while, the whole thing becomes a ‘macaron’, not ‘macaroon’. I served this after fried chicken dinner, and everyone was amazed. One of my friends, Tonny used to live in Paris, and he said it was one of the best! Yamahomo finally achieved the Laduree level.

Trial # 6 (Sunday)
We ate them all Saturday night, and I had to prove that I can make successful macarons every time from this time on, so that I can get into the cream making business. In order to perfect everything, I went to kitchen supply store, and bought 1cm piping tips, sifter, then went to Williams-Sonoma and bought a $27 cookie sheet. Real macaron businesses starts from buying all the necessary equipments no matter how expensive it might be…

I am getting to the point where I can pipe out almost identical rounds, too! This one has matcha powder. Using round piping tip is definitely a good idea. I was just cutting a whole in zip-loc bag before, but this makes real rounds.

The legs are just so perfect, and I cried a little. 6 trials, and I came to perfect macaron making. Now I can move onto different flavors and different creams. Where can I buy these fancy boxes that Laduree’s macarons come in?

By the way, I have 12 egg yokes in the fridge. I need to come up with a recipe that requires many egg yolks.

Kalustyan’s is spice heaven. Around since 1944, it’s a mecca of Indian and Middle Eastern ingredients- a small space jammed tight with thousands of different spices, nuts, dried fruits, beans, rice, salts, blahblah. And for all you condiment freaks, they have a wall devoted to the weirdest sauces from all over the world. They don’t waste an inch of shelf space here.

There’s a really tiny cafe on the second floor (like 3 tables and 5 chairs tiny), serving pita sandwiches stuffed with anything from fresh baba gannoush, falafel, lentil salads, all the good stuff, for like $3.

But why not just take all this stuff home and have your own Kalustyan’s party? There’s a fridge section in the back where you can buy all these pre-made dishes for super cheap. Here’s what I had over at Troy and Kumiko’s recently- it was an easy, healthy meal, with a lot of variety. I don’t eat Middle Eastern food so much, but Kalustyan’s reminds me that I’m totally missing out.

I will be generic and start with their very delicious baba gannoush. Only 6 ingredients, super simple, so creamy, so good.

The Israeli couscous was very fresh-tasting, not overpacked with spices, very simple. Great textures, the beans and the couscous together.
The chickpea salad- spicy, curryish, flavorful.

Probably the most interesting dish was this shungklish. There’s cheese in it, but it’s very subtle. Spicy and really good.

Highlight of the Meal I: this dish called mujaddara, which is lentils, bulghar and fried onions. No joke, this is incredible. Fried onions and beans! Friggin delish.

Grape leaves- my mouth is watering just looking at this.

Plate of fried goodies.

Falafel.

Highlight of the Meal II: the samosa. Quite possibly the best samosa I’ve ever had. EVER. The potatoes, the whole peas, perfectly curried and spiced, wrapped in dough. It’s a beautiful thing, these samosas. Just look at it!
These really great fried onion cakes. They were bright orange- I couldn’t figure out from what, but don’t miss this.

Wrap all the above ingredients with a pita and make a sandwich, or just dip as you go. Don’t forget the hot sauce or the tahini.

Sweets.

These baklava sticks were buttery, flakey and sweet, but they aren’t sopping with honey like the Greek version, so it’s not a sugar overload.

I don’t know what these are called but they are pistachio and honey, wrapped in a single piece of filo dough (I think?). This was my favorite. Gooey, a sort of smoky flavor. A great way to end such a sweet feast. All in the comfort of your own home!
Kalustyan’s
123 Lexington Avenue
Between 28th & 29th Streets
NYC
T: 212.685.3451

Noteworthy readings and eatings (not pretending to be breaking news):

• Leonard Lopate discusses UMAMI with Ruth Reichl and Jonah Lehrer on The LL Show: Marmite is “Umami Speedball”. Awesome. (WNYC, via Dawn & Amy T.)

• NY Times Dining’s Peter Meehan gets canned/ resigned/ whatever, he’s gone. I hope to chronicle the ongoing downward spiral of the NYT Dining section- this is fucking horrible. (via Eater)

• Butter endangered in Japan? Please consume butter with a conscious, people. (Times Online, via Emily on Serious Eats)

• America’s top 100 grossing independent restaurants- a mixed bag of the expected (Tao in Vegas AND New York are in the top 5! Ridic), and surprising (Coffee Shop in Union Square is #56? Really? Didn’t the DOH shutter them last year?) (R&I, via Matt)

• This allergy season, build up your pollen immunity in NY by taking a teaspoon on NYC rooftop honey everyday (Apitheraphy, via Matt)

*Please send links to what you’re reading to umamimart@gmail.com

Here are the contents of my dirty, empty fridge. This report gave me the excuse to throw out several items including some really stinky fish and really old blue cheese. Notice, first and foremost, how SMALL Japanese fridges are (especially for people living in Tokyo, there is literally no space in our tiny apartments) compared to previous reports in Spain and the US. All lists go clockwise from top left item (unless otherwise noted).

OK, let’s start with the bottom of my fridge, the “produce.” Apples, bananas, an onion and I think there’s a potato in there somewhere. They wrap everything. They seem to like to pack things in bunches, so if you want one carrot, tough luck, if that day the carrots are bagged in pairs. In the front of the produce bin are a 3-pack of natto and a block of Hokkaido butter.

Here’s the door. Kewpie mayonnaise (small size 200 grams), moromiso in a ziplock bag, nama-wasabi, packs of seaweed I buy from Tsukiji, tare (general term in Japanese cuisine for dipping sauces), Mexican hot sauce (this is how you know I am from California), toubanjyan (Chinese chili bean paste), goma-shiso (sesame seed-perrila) salad dressing.

Here’s the bottom of the door: Brita water pitcher, gomadare (creamy sesame seed) dressing, soba tsuyu (for cold soba noodles), iwanori (seaweed rice condiment), umeboshi (sour plum condiment) and fukujinzuke (curry rice pickle condiment).

OK, we’ll go from left to right here, in the back with an orange label is OLD soba tsuyu (thrown out after I wrote this, the newer stuff is in the photo above this one), milk to make my yogurt, yogurt cultures in the tupperware, to the right of the milk is udon tsuyu, my dear mama sent me Parmesan cheese from Trader Joe’s (notice how colossal it looks in a Japanese fridge), goma (sesame seeds) I transferred into a Nescafe instant coffee glass container, and the tin thing has cut-up seaweed (from the door) in it for sprinkling on soba.

Again, clockwise from top left: yogurt in another Nescafe glass container (I eat my homemade yogurt everyday, can’t ever go back to store bought), kiwis, nukazuke (fermented vegetables in rice bran), left over sesame seeds that didn’t fit in the Nescafe glass container in the photo above), some root rice condiment my aunt gave me last week (dark brown stuff in tupperware, I don’t know the name of the vegetable) and some REALLY known-to-be stinky fish in a zip-lock bag in a tupperware called kusaya (so happy there’s actually a Wikipedia entry on it!) – it smells like horse shit, seriously).

Top two items on the left were shown in the photo above, so I will go from the silver packet containing ochazuke furikake. Again moving clockwise are two open tupperwares containing tsukudani from Tsukiji and above that is some really OLD blue cheese (promptly thrown away).

Here’s the rest of the top of the fridge. The second row was shot above when I moved it out all onto the floor, so let’s concern ourselves with the top row only. Left to right: pesto sauce, behind in the plastic bag is katsuobushi I buy in bulk from Tsukiji, Philidelphia cream cheese, under it are shibazuke pickles (tsukemono) in a tupperware, between the pesto and shibazuke is a kannten azuku bean dessert from my grandma that probably needs to be thrown out, the red can contains Wonda coffee, next to that is a glass bottle containing sundried tomatoes and to the very right is some Kewpie brand dijon mustard.

So there you go, there’s my janky life EXPOSED. Kayoko told me not to dare clean or throw out anything for this report.

*What’s in your fridge? Send pics to umamimart@gmail.com. Check out all the Fridgin’ Out posts here. Come back every Friday to see all the scary shit we find in these dungeons of moldy condiments.

Troy is a dear friend who lives and works in Brooklyn- he only comes out into the city on special occasions (good for him!). He recently went on a gourmet market splurge around Brooklyn, picked up a bunch of delightful foodstuffs, and stayed in and cooked with his lucky bf Corey. Considering how much we all go out to eat, having a nice, relaxing, fancy meal at home sounds like a real treat.

troy: I should blog about my saturday night dinner. though I didn’t take photos

T: 718.230.3180

Tuesday night, I got home, and baked ginger muffin. From my Fridgin’ Out, you saw ginger in sugar syrup, and I used it to bake muffins. My friend gave me these little cole slaw containers to use for baking. It’s kind of cute. Very country style, not sweet at all, simple recipe. Buttermilk made it very moist.

Wednesday night, I went home, and made choux. Choux=cabbage in french. Similar to Melon Pan, the shape looks like cabbage, hence the name. After I made it, I went out, and by the time I got home, I was not in any shape to make the filling, so I just went to bed.

This morning, I made whipped cream and mixed with melted chocolate, sort of an easy ganache. I brought it in a bag, and my colleagues will have the joy of having freshly assembled choux this afternoon. My obsession has to stop. I am physically hurting myself from all the turning, mixing, etc. Help me…

I am so happy to have a photo credit in one my favorite magazines, Gourmet. Check out the portrait I took of Pastry Chef Will Goldfarb in the May issue. Next time, it will be food!

I have been baking like a maniac. I can’t stop. It’s like girls PMSing, and craving chocolate. I am not PMSing, but I have this “need” to bake. As you can see from my battle of macaron, or other various baking business, I am pretty much baking every day recently. Maybe I am too angry at something and I am releasing my bad energy into baking? Do people taste it? Is that why all of my co-workers are angry all the time?

Kayoko takes a day off to go eat at Balthazar. I take a day off, and bake or cook all day. It was last Thursday, a high of 76 degrees outside, but I stayed indoors all day. What’s wrong with me?

Maybe I have some kind of a disease. Maybe I am dying, and want to bake as much as possible before I go. Who knows. I might get hit by a hideous looking Pope mobile.

Some of my colleagues have been requesting “melon-pan”. Melon-pan looks like a melon, that’s why it’s named as such in Japan. There are melon flavored kinds these days, but originally its shape resembled melon. It’s basically bread dough, covered with cookie dough. Simple.

I used the recipe for honey currant challah bread I made a couple of weeks ago, sans currant. Instead of braiding the dough, I made it into small ball. Then I made cookie dough (whatever simple cookie recipe will do), wrapped it with bread, made lines to look like a melon, let it rise, then baked it.

A little bit burned. Oven is temperamental.
This one especially turned out good. However, due to the fate of home baked bread (without any fake materials), it was so soft when it was right out of the oven, but by next day, it wasn’t as fluffy as the pic below.

Despite the springy weather, I might rush home tonight, and bake something else. What’s my next battle? (Not that Laduree is over yet). What’s other difficult thing to make? Please send your request to 1-800-YAMA-HOMO.

Strolling through Dean & Deluca last week, I stumbled across this in the fruit section:
No joke, possibly the ugliest fruit I’d ever seen, which piqued my interest- I picked it up. First of all, it’s HUGE. It’s surface is scaly and rough, bruised all over, with different shades of yellow, green and orange, all mixed together. To call it “blemished” would be an understatement– there’s no other word for it than ugly. It reminded me of the warty old hag in Snow White.

Imagine my delight when I saw that the name of this burly fruit creature is UGLI. Friggin awesome. At $3, I bought it (probably the cheapest thing at D&D). Here it is in my hand, to give you an idea of how big it is.

Turns out that this citrus is from Jamaica– according to Wiki, it was found growing in the wild and is a hybrid of the tangerine and grapefruit. In Jamaica, they pronounce it “hugli”, not “ugly”, so watch yourself.

It’s skin is thick yet soft and spongy, so this is much easier to peel than on orange or grapefruit.

I was surprised to find that the fruit sections are a beautiful honey-color. Not pink, not orange, just in between.

Not too tangy, but sweet. Bursting with juice. A really mild, smooth flavor- I really like it! The skin on the flesh is actually quite tough though, so better to peel that away too.

Moral of the story: don’t judge produce by the way it looks. What’s inside could be a delightful surprise. I mean, imagine the person who discovered the oyster for the first time ever– who would have thought to open up such an UGLY sea creature, then EAT IT???

PS- remind me sometime to tell you about when I accidentally smuggled blueberries into Jamaica. OOPS. No blueberries in existence in the history of Jamaica- until I showed up…

I learned my lesson. Mix the batter well till it falls off the spatula, and don’t take it out of the oven too soon. Other than the fact that I am super inpatient, all the necessary ingredients and mind set was there. I couldn’t let go of the defeat of my Sunday failure, so I tried it again last night.

Trial #3 (Monday)
I followed the way I made the green batch. The difference was that I didn’t process almond flour. Almond flour usually has particles of almond, and for the macaron recipe, it calls for grinding it even finer. I thought, maybe leaving bits of almond will make the texture interesting. Also i was too lazy to go through the processing… So I just mixed till very smooth.

I piped them onto the baking sheet. So far so good. A bit too runny and flattened too much…

Surface is shiny as it should be.

YES, there are legs, and I waited for 10 minutes this time, and made sure it’s cooked through.

With the excitement, I even kicked up the cream by mixing raspberry jam with whipped cream. Very spontaneous, Yamahomo-esque.

Laduree, I made it to this level with three trials. It looks just like the ones you sell at your snobby store.

Verdict: Laduree still wins. It looks a lot like real thing, but it’s a bit too thin. I probably mixed the batter too much, hence it became too flat when piped out. I should have turned my spatula twice less than I did. But this is the difference between professional and amature. The cookie-like, yet the too-airy-to-be-a-cookie texture is hard to achieve. For now, I feel I got to the stage where I am satisfied enough. However, my battle to make a perfect macaron continues…

*Editor’s note: I just realized that there is a difference in spelling between the French macarons, and macaroons. That extra “o” makes a HUGE differnce. Although the “macaroon” derives from the “macaron”, these delectible French delights should NOT be confused with the coconut-packed variety, popularly sold in the US.