Calzone - The Glorified Pizza Pocket

I have had a checkered past with homemade pizza dough.  Following Alice Waters' recipe, I would often find myself elbow deep in sticky stuff and swearing in the kitchen as the phone would ring at that precise moment.

One thing I came to realize was this - even if a recipe says that you may use all purpose flour, do not do it!!!  It is a lie.  In the world of pizza dough, AP Flour is, to quote Principal Edward Rooney, "a first class ticket to nowhere."  Bread flour is the answer.  Bread flour will prevent the sticky mess.  Bread flour will provide a dough that obediently rolls up and becomes a cute little ball from which one can craft pizzas or calzones.

So for pizza dough, I now enjoy using Lorraine Pascal's recipe:

• 250g/9oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp fast-action dried yeast
• 125–145ml/4½–5fl oz warm water
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for oiling and drizzling

1. Mix the flour, salt and yeast together in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. In a jug, mix the water and oil together, then pour the liquid into the well of the flour mixture and mix to make a soft but not sticky dough.
   
   
2. Knead for 10 minutes by hand on a lightly floured work surface or for five minutes in an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Bring the dough together to a smooth flat ball and place in a well-oiled bowl.  Cover loosely with a damp kitchen cloth or paper towel and store in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

You can put anything into a calzone, but last night I threw together a mixture of:

frozen spinach, thawed and drained
ricotta cheese
mozzarella cheese
1 egg
freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.

After rolling out the dough, I spooned a little leftover spaghetti sauce onto the disc and then put some of the mixture on top.  Then I folded the whole thing on a piece of parchment paper (very important, otherwise your dough will stick to the baking sheet).  Naturally it would be better if you used a pizza stone, but your movers might have misplaced this item and perhaps you haven't had a chance to visit the Crate & Barrel outlet yet.  Maybe you are waiting for school to start so that you can go to the store child-free.

Bake for 20 minutes, then check.  I like to put on little silicone mittens and flip the calzone over so that the other side gets nicely browned, too.  Bake for another 5-8 minutes if doing this, or until the other side is golden brown.

More Relocation and Chocolate - Whole Wheat Brownies

A fun aspect about moving is that one uncovers things that she didn't know she had.  I managed to find a few back issues of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food as I was organizing my cookbooks.  After thumbing through them, I came across this recipe for Whole Wheat Brownies.  "Hmmm...this looks like the perfect way to break into that enormous 500 gram chocolate bar I bought last week!"

The recipe offers many reasons to pause.  Whole wheat flour?  Applesauce?  Less than 1 stick of butter?  What kind of brownies are these going to be, anyway?  Well, it turns out that they're actually really yummy!  They're moist and fluffy.  Though they're not super fudgy in texture, the chocolate flavor really sings out.  I even skipped the chocolate chunks on top that the recipe includes because I do not particularly enjoy chocolate chips in brownies, and the delights were still chocolate-y enough!  Now I can serve them to my kids and enjoy the fact that there's some whole grain goodness in there.  Yes, that's right, I made them because of the kids.  Naturally I had to try them first to make sure that they passed muster...

Relocation...and Chocolate!

So Perficious Eats has relocated!  Yes, our tour in the United Kingdom was up, so now we're in San Diego.  Sorry I won't be able to provide you the scoop on as many European delights as before, but I am determined to uncover all of the delicious treats that San Diego has to offer.  As a Southern California native we naturally had to reacquaint ourselves with the usual spots like In N Out and Din Tai Fung, but surely there are other treasures to discover!

One such place is Chuao, a San Diego-based chocolate piece of heaven owned by Venezuelan-born brothers Michael and Richard Antonorsi.  This shop sells delicious chocolates (truffles, hot chocolate powders, potato chips, you name it) along with coffee and gelato.  You can even get affogato, that awesome combination of espresso and gelato together.  The coffee and gelato are both locally-sourced from San Diegan vendors.  The staff who work there are extremely friendly and eager to sell you their products.  Why do I have a feeling that I will be going there all the time?  They need to have some kind of Chocoholic Card for frequent shoppers like myself.

Springtime Treats - Macaroons!

 One of my favorite springtime treats is the macaroon.  These delights are not necessarily seasonal, but I have always found their pastel prettiness to coincide nicely with daffodils, chocolate bunnies and pink ribbons. 

    

    Now these are kind of tricky to make the first time out.  The good news is that even if they are a little deformed, few people will turn them down.  So a few tips to help you:  

1.  Do not use a tiny little oven where the heating element is only 2 inches away from the macaroons.  You may burn the darlings and cause your kitchen to fill with smoke.  And your smoke alarm might go off.  (I may have had some personal experience with this). 

2.  Try using an oven with a window so you can check your progress and hopefully avoid the debacle from #1. 

3.  You will probably have to break out the scale to measure the ingredients:

125g/4½oz confectioner's sugar 

125g/4½oz ground almonds (may have to hit up a gourmet store for this)

2 tbsp water

110g/4oz granulated sugar

your favorite ganache, buttercream, or whipped cream for filling

optional:  your favorite food coloring and decorations

 

1.    Preheat the oven to 170/C/325F/Gas 5 and line a large baking tray with baking paper.

2.    Put the icing sugar, ground almonds and 40g/1½oz egg whites together in a large bowl and mix to a paste.

3.    Put the water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, then turn up the heat and boil until the mixture starts to go syrupy and thickens - I don’t use a thermometer but if you prefer to use one, it should read 115C/239F at this stage.

4.    Whisk the remaining 50g/2oz egg whites in a small bowl until medium-stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl, then pour in the sugar syrup, whisking until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny. For coloured macaroons, add a few drops of food colouring. Tip this meringue mixture into the almond paste mixture and stir gently until the becomes stiff and shiny again.

5.    Spoon into the piping bag. Pipe a little mixture under each corner of the baking paper to stop it sliding around. With the bag held vertically, pipe 4cm/1½in flat circles onto the lined tray, about 2cm/¾in apart, twisting the bag after each one. The mixture should be quite loose to give a smooth finish. The piping will leave a small ‘tip’ on each circle so, when they’re all piped, give the tray 2–3 slams on a flat surface to flatten them. At this stage, sprinkle with desiccated coconut if you want.

6.   Leave to stand for 30 minutes to form a skin then bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes with the door slightly ajar until firm. Remove from the oven, lift the paper off the baking tray and leave the macaroons to cool on the paper. When cool, sandwich the macaroons together with filling.

recipe from Lorraine Pascal, BBC Good Food's Baking Made Easy 

The British Sweet Tooth - Bakery Treats in London

One of our favorite activities on vacations is exploring local bakeries.  London has many from which to choose, but the good news is that if you are in South Kensington and you have just eaten at Byron, you are only a couple of steps from Hummingbird Bakery and a couple more steps away from Ben's Cookies.  Now, you may ask yourself, who on earth shops at a bakery after eating an enormous hamburger (complete with cheese and bacon), fries, a large beer, a large chocolate malted, and courgette fries?  Why, Major Obvious, naturally.  And the offspring of Major Obvious.

So, what to get when you arrive?  How to choose?  Our favorites from Ben's Cookies are Coconut and Dark Chocolate Chunk.  My university Big Sister swears by Lemon.  At Hummingbird Bakery, the Red Velvet Cake is extremely attractive, but not particularly flavorful and tragically lacking pecans on the cream cheese frosting.  The Carrot Cake, on the other hand, is pretty tasty, if tooth-achingly sweet.

Byron - The Sequel at Old Brompton Road, London

It was very naive of me to think that I could partake in a euphoric Burger Experience all by myself without any consequences.  My family insisted on trying Byron out for themselves, so we skipped over to the Old Brompton Rd. one which is conveniently located to those great South Kensington museums like the Natural History Museum or the Victoria & Albert. 

Major Obvious had the Byron Burger complete with homemade special Byron sauce and bacon.  Little Man tried the Macaroni & Cheese while Sweet Pea had the Mini Cheeseburgers (both children's meals came with generous helpings of fries).  Everyone loved the Courgette Fries.  To cap everything off, we also ordered a chocolate milkshake with malt.  The shake came served in the tin canister, large and in charge.  Super chocolate-y, super decadent.  We had 2 servers and both were extremely friendly.  When they asked, "How is everything?" Sweet Pea responded (pointing to the shake canister), "This is YUMMY!"  Our server responded with eyes lit up, "I KNOW!  You know what's even better?  OREO."  Well, we had to leave something to look forward to next time! 

The Best Sushi I've Had In The UK - Atari Ya, London

I've FINALLY eaten sushi here in the UK that I find noteworthy!  To be fair, I haven't conducted an exhaustive search.  I tend to shy away when someone comes up to me, "There is a new sushi joint in X, we should try it out."  Rather, I'm more inclined to research and poll, asking questions such as, "Is it Japanese-operated?"  (Although I am Chinese, I do not trust my people to prepare raw fish for my consumption.  We are too inclined to cut corners).  "What are they known for?"  (If it's a place that does mostly rolls with imitation crab, I will run in the other direction).

I am pleased to report that Atari Ya is definitely Japanese.  On an early Saturday evening, my family and I attempted to eat here, only to realize that every table had a little "Reserved" sign on it.  One Japanese family after another came in and happily ordered lovely looking meals.  The waitstaff was particularly gracious to them and us, even though we had opted to just takeaway.

We ordered sashimi (yellowtail, tuna, salmon), nigiri (fattiest tuna), rolls (spider, spicy tuna, cucumber avocado), chirashi, chicken teriyaki, shrimp tempura, and edamame.  Ok, I will admit that I was really hungry when I was ordering.

Everything was delicious!  Everything was awesome!  I can't wait to go there and sit down to eat.