Recipe of the Week #4: Spritz Cookies

My Mom's butter cookies are Christmas to many in our family. That's why it was one of the first things I learned to bake on my own. I either sprinkle them with colored sugars before baking or, more recently, dip them in chocolate.

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients:
1 Cup Butter (Soft)
1/2 Cup Margarine
1 Cup White Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Tsp Almond extract
1/8 Tsp Baking Soda
3 1/2 Cups Flour (All Purpose)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cream together the butter, margarine, and sugar.
Then mix in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla and almond.
In another largish bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda.
Add the flour mixture about a third at a time.
Load into spritz gun and press shapes onto parchment paper on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with colored sugars, if desired.
Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes until lightly browned.
Cool for a couple minutes on the parchment/cookie sheet, then move to a rack to cool completely.
When cooled completely, you can dip them in chocolate if you want.

Wife's rating:  *** (out of 5).  Seriously?
My rating:  ****1/2.  I love them dipped in chocolate.

Recipe of the Week #3: Steak Diane

The in-laws came over to celebrate Christmas tonight and we served Steak Diane.  I love this recipe, which I adapted from here.  It serves two and I scaled it up to six, which is about the limit.  That is, some additional steps would likely be required beyond that.

Steak Diane

Ingredients:
2 4-6 oz beef tenderloin steak
4 Tbsp Flour
1/2 ts Salt
1/4 ts Black pepper
4 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1-1/2 cup Mushrooms, sliced
2 Tbsp Minced shallots
1/4 cup Madeira wine
2/3 cup Beef boullion

Instructions:
In a small cup, mix 2 Tbsp each of flour and butter to a paste (beurre manié).
Roll steaks btween 2 pieces of parchment paper until about 1/4 inch thick.
Dredge in flour mixed with salt and pepper.
In large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium-high.
Add steaks and brown about 1 minute on each side.
Remove steaks to a platter and reduce heat to medium.
Spread the steaks with mustard and sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce.  Set aside.
In same skillet, sauté mushrooms and shallots in the remaining butter for about 2 minutes.
Stir in bouillon, Madeira, and remaining Worcestershire sauce.
Cook and stir until hot.  Add beurre manié as needed to thicken, but don't over-thicken.  A little thin at this point is probably not a problem.
Return steaks to skillet and heat through.

Notes:  Be careful not to overbook the steaks.  A little red is good.  Tenderloins tend to be a little thick, so I cut them to half thickness before rolling.  It takes a little time to prepare, but so worth it.

Wife's rating: ****1/2 (out of 5).  Her parents loved it, too.
My rating: *****.  It may be my favorite recipe.

Christmas Baking

Clockwise from top:  Chocolate Chip (right off the back of the chips), Toffee (my mom's recipe), Butter Spritz Cookies (also Mom), some dipped in chocolate, Chocolate Peppermint Cookies (my wife's recipe), and fudge (from the jar of fluff) in the middle.

Recipes to follow as time permits but first, chocolate.  Learned a little about dipping cookies in chocolate this year.  Don't use chocolate chips.  Don't use the expensive chocolate from the shop downtown.  Just use Baker's chocolate squares.  Simple.

Dipping Chocolate

Ingredients:
4 squares Baker's semi-sweet chocolate
2 squares Baker's unsweetened chocolate
1 Tbsp margarine

Instructions:
Line a cookie sheet (or cutting board, or something else that's flat and can go in the refrigerator) with wax paper.
Melt chocolate and margarine in a double-boiler.
Dip the cookies (or whatever you are dipping) and place on wax paper.
Put the cookie sheet in the refrigerator until chocolate sets, then quickly transfer them to an airtight container until they warm to room temperature.  If they're cold and uncovered, humidity may condense on them.

Notes:
You can tweak the sweetness by using more or less of the unsweetened chocolate.  These cookies are sweet enough that they need some unsweetened.

Recipe of the Week #2: Pollo a la Criolla

In Palm Bay, there's a Colombian restaurant called La Estancia de Luisa, that's so great.  The staff are always friendly and the food is delicious.  My favorite thing to get there is called Pollo a la Criolla - it's just insanely great and there's nothing like it in Brevard County.
But I wanted to be able to make it at home, so I tried this.  It's not the same as theirs, I've included tomatoes (part of the hogao recipe) and less saffron (I think).  Nevertheless, it came out wonderful.  It really makes a lot for two people, so over-eating took place.

Pollo a la Criolla (sort of)

Ingredients:
Hogao (recipe below)
3 whole chicken breasts
1 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1/2 cup (ish) Italian dressing

Instructions:
In a small cup, mix the flour and butter to a paste.
Pound the chicken to 1/4 inch thick.
Put the dressing in a gallon ziplock bag and add chicken, mashing up the bag so the chicken gets coated. Set aside.
Make the hogao as below, but 4-5 cloves garlic.
Add the broth and return to boil - let simmer, covered, while the chicken gets grilled.
Grill the chicken on a non-stick-sprayed, pre-heated, grill on medium heat, about 1 min/side.
Cut chicken into roughly 1" pieces and add to sauce.
Add butter paste (beurre manié) as needed to thicken and simmer, uncovered, until sauce is reduced by about half.
Serve over rice. Start the rice right after you start cooking the hogao.

Hogao - from here.
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 green pepper (about 1/3 cup finely chopped)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 package Sazón Goya con azafran (saffron) (about 2 teaspoons)
1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
Place the chopped onions, tomatoes, green onions, green pepper, garlic, olive oil, cumin, and sazón goya in a large skillet.
Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until vegetables are soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes.
Add the cilantro and continue to cook for about 5 more minutes, until the mixture is very soft and well mixed.

Notes:  Should probably have thickened it with corn starch, but you gotta go with what you're comfortable using.

Wife's rating:  ***1/2 (out of 5)  "That was really good."
My rating:  ****.  I loved it.  As good as, though a little different from, what you can get at La Estancia.

Surprise Treat: Poached Apples

The other night my lovely wife said, "I wish we had something special for dessert."  Perfect timing, as usual, since I'd been thinking about something with apples for a while and had found this recipe.  I modified it a little to come up with this:

Poached Apples:

Ingredients:
1 apple, peeled and cut into 16ths.
2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 cup sugar
1/2 lemon

Instructions:
Put the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and apple pieces in a saucepan and add just enough water to float all of the apple pieces.
Cook on high heat until it just starts to simmer, then reduce heat and simmer until apple pieces are tender, 10-15 minutes.
Remove apple pieces and continue to simmer, on slightly higher heat until the liquid is reduced to about 1/3 original volume.
Squeeze the lemon through a strainer into the pan and return the apple pieces.
Heat through and serve over vanilla ice cream.

Notes:  Brown sugar next time?  It's almost like an "Apples Foster."  The original recipe called for it becoming a "light syrup."  I never got there, but the hot liquid mixes with the melted ice cream so very nicely that I really don't think it matters.

Wife's rating:  **** (out of 5)  "Oh, Honey!"
My rating:  ***1/2.  Brown sugar.

Recipe of the Week #1: Escargot Vol au Vent

Ingredients:

2 oz Cream
1/4 c Butter
2 oz Finely chopped parsley
5 Garlic cloves, minced
1/2 med onion, chopped finely
1 med tomato, diced
1/2 c Dry white wine
1 1/2 ts Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 ts Fresh lemon juice
2 or 3 oz sliced mushrooms
3 or 4 strips cooked bacon, chopped finely
18 Snails, washed
1 Puff pastry dough sheet - thawed
1 Egg

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400.
On a sheet of parchment, cut four 3.3"x6" rectangles out of the puff pastry.
Cut a smaller rectangle out of two of the pieces, about 3/4" inside the edges. Cut PARTLY through the other two in the same shape.
Brush the top of these pieces with egg white, then gently press the outer part of the completely cut pieces on top of these.
Brush the top of all of the pieces with egg (not just whites).
Slide the parchment onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes until well risen and golden.
On removing the pastry from the oven, take out the middle part where they were partly cut through, those are the lids.
Set aside and turn oven off.
Gently sauté the bacon, onion, and garlic in the butter until soft and just starting to brown.
Add the mushrooms, Worcestershire, and wine. Reduce a little, then add tomato, tomato paste, lemon juice, snails, and parsley.
Return pastry shell to oven at this point so it will be warm.
When reduced by about half overall, stir in the cream. Heat through and fill pastry cases, reserving a little sauce to pour over the covered cases.

Notes: There's a whoops in the ingredient group photo. Very forgiving recipe, just get close on most ingredients and it'll be fine. Pastry picture from a smaller (test) batch than described here. I leave all of the cut-out pastry pieces on the parchment/cookie sheet - someone will want them.

We had something like this at the Lake House in St. Catherine and this is my attempt to recreate it. I'm pretty sure they used prosciutto, where I've used bacon.
Very tasty and somewhat showy appetizer.

Wife's rating: ****1/2 (out of 5). Taking spare puff pastry pieces to the pan to get remaining sauce.
My rating: ****1/2. Who am I to argue?