French Fridays with Dorie: Gougeres

This week is the first French Fridays with Dorie challenge, and boy am I glad to be a part of this!  I've been practicing my poor neglected french skills for the past couple of weeks.  Mr. Boom and Chirp-chirp are just about at wits end listening to my conversations with myself, the cats, the fish, the bees, and any other creature caught in my evil french aura.

The look on Mr. Boom's face as I was leaning over the bridge the other night, counting spawning sockeye salmon in a sort of frenchy Count from Sesame Street voice...well it was just something.  That's all I'll say about that.

This is not sockeye salmon, rather it's wild Coho.  And that's the last of the broccoli from this year's garden.  The gougeres really stole the show, though.  And my friends, I'm not kidding when I say it's a real feat to top fresh Coho salmon.

The recipe called for any type of sharp cheese.  I used an applewood smoked natural cheddar.  The smokiness went really well with the salmon and held it's own against the almost peppery taste of the late season broccoli.  The recipe also called for five large eggs.  One of my young hens is laying cute little eggs now, so I used up seven of her eggs to equal the five the recipe required.  One large egg, without its shell, weighs 50 grams.  So, I just kept cracking the eggs into the bowl until I hit 250 grams.  The yolks are just a bit bigger than my thumbnail, to give you a sense of perspective that the photo is sorely lacking!

So, first challenge was a total success.  I can't wait for next week!

The beach (by Kat)

I wouldn't blame you if you thought I'd managed to fall into Puget Sound and drown, based on my lack of posting lately. Happily, I can report that I was the least injured of the family upon return from this vacation. That might very well be a first!

The house we rented with Mr. Boom's brother and his family sits on a bluff overlooking the Sound, has gorgeous views of Mt. Rainier, and has a kitchen that makes me feel very happy. The home is part of a private community that owns the northern part of Hartstene Island, so the kids were also able to enjoy the private swimming pool, hot tub, tennis courts, and of course the ping-pong table! Mr. Boom's brother and his wife are hardcore gamers, so we also enjoyed (or endured (shhh...)) several evenings of hardcore gaming.

We rented this same place last year, sharing with a third family (two families was better than three, I must admit), and knew before we left that we had to return this summer. And again as we left this year, I was already making plans in my head for next summer's trip out!

While the kids recreated away, I spent every minute I could on the beach, the veranda, or in the kitchen. Last year, I didn't really bring much in the way of cooking gear or supplies, and then kicked myself solidly and repeatedly when I discovered the house actually had a very nice kitchen to work in and that I had a crown of hungry people I could feed.

This year, and I'm only a little bit ashamed to admit it, I brought my rolling pin to make fresh pasta, I bought my espresso maker to have good coffee, I brought my three favroite chef knives, I brought a bundt cake pan to make a zucchini cake I'll tell you about later, and I bought my good thermometer to make sous-vide steaks which were finished up on the super uber fancy stainless steel propane barbecue that probably cost as much for the owners to purchase as our new car! I'm not a barbecuing kind of gal, but that monster and I became friends. Very, very close friends! Too bad I was there with people who didn't give a crap about food. Oh well. More geoduck and salmon in freshly rolled pasta in a bechamel sauce with Parmesan and mozzarella for me, right?

So, "what's a geoduck" you ask? First let's get the prononcuitation down. Gooey-duck. No joke!

Repeat after me: Goooooey-duck!

The geoduck is a bivalve on steroids that lives about three feet under the sand. The clam sends up a "neck" to the surface of the land and filters water down the tube to it's body, the water shoots back up the other side of the tube and squirts a few feet into the air. Like other filter feeders, the geoduck takes the worst fragments of rot and decay out of the water and turns them into sweet sweet goodness for me to eat. Crab, lobster, mussels--all of 'em eat the nasty and make it tasty.

Retrieving a geoduck from it's den in the down deep requires a lot of digging. The problem, of course, is that the further down you try do dig on the shoreline, the faster it fills in with water. The sides continually slough down into the center as well. I think our holes ended up nearly as wide as they were deep. But we were successful, and came home with three geoducks and a small bag of mussels and steamer clams to boot.

Cleaning a geoduck requires a sharp knife, lots of towels, boiling water, ice water, and an asthma inhaler if you have any sense of humor whatsoever. After those requirements are in place, take the sharp knife and run it around the shell, separating the meat from the shell. LOTS of water will squirt in every direction at this point.

Now cut off the neck. There isn't much left to cut on this poor little guy, since I accidentally be-necked him during the dig.

When you pry open the shell, you'll get to see the insides of the geoduck.

Then do a vivisection on the neck....way cool! See the tiny little holes to either side of the circular white center? Those actually relax out to be as big a round as my thumb. That's where the geoduck filters water down on one side and up on the other. Everything else in there is muscle.

Are you laughing yet?
Now you're ready to plunge all the body parts into the pot of simmering water. Ten seconds is all it takes to make sure the geoduck is dead and to loosen the gnarly membrane around the neck.
Scoop them out of the hot water and put them in a sink of cold water.

See that thick membrane on the surface of the neck? Yeah, we're gonna have to get rid of that.

Grab at one end and start pulling back.

Repeat for each neck.

My sister-in-law had to finish this up. I was puffing away on my inhaler upstairs. She saved the membranes by hanging them over the edge of the deck. They dried like little used....

balloons.

Homemade ginger ale--part 2 (by Kat)

Well, here it is. My first attempt at homemade ginger ale!

Here's the scorecard:

Taste: Very good. Sweeter than I'd confess (in public) to liking; lemon is strong but not at all bitter; ginger is perfect--not so strong that it burns, but definitely announces it's presence. I was concerned that the yeast flavor would come through, but it's only just barely there.

Carbonation: Okay. The shot above is after two days on the counter in a cool kitchen and two nights in the fridge. I'd like more carbonation, so I'll play with leaving it out a little longer. I don't think I'd add more yeast, as I really don't want a yeasty flavor. I'm still eyeballing Mr.Boom's home-brew yeasts....

Color: Pretty! I filtered this through a coarse sieve to take out the big chunks of ginger. There's still a bit of cloudiness from the lemon, but it's not an icky cloudy. You could run it through a coffee filter to clear it up further, if clarity is important to you. I'm okay with some turbidity.

Easiness: Super easy! I looked at many recipes, but the following three are representative of the entire batch. I might try Aran's and Alton's slightly fussier preparations if I ever make this for fancy company. I didn't use filtered water as suggested by Frankhauser and Alton, just regular ol' city tap water.

I'm satisfied enough with what I made to do it the same next time. I'm also a bit curious, so I'll likely be playing with recipe a bit more.

Just think of the other fruits you could add....

Instead of ginger, what about cloves?

Instead of lemon, what about green grape?

Hmmmm....

1:30 PM updated to add that we've drunk this all up, and are making more. Lots more. New addiction!

Aran Goyoaga from Canelle et Vanille, posted at Design*Sponge

Homemade Ginger Ale:
2 Tbs grated fresh ginger
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
Juice of 1 lemon
1/8 tsp active dry yeast
7 cups wate
In a small pot, add the grated ginger, sugar and ½ cup water. Bring to a boil and let sugar dissolve. Remove pan from heat and let the syrup steep and cool for about 30 minutes.
Strain the syrup through a fine sieve. Mix with the lemon juice, yeast and 2 qts of water. Whisk together and using a funnel, pour into a plastic bottle. Screw the cap on the bottle. Make sure it is a plastic bottle and not glass as the gases from the fermentation can crack the glass jar.
Let it ferment at room temperature for about 2 days until carbonation forms. Make sure to refrigerate after it starts to carbonate.

David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D.

cane (table) sugar [sucrose] (1 cup)
Freshly grated ginger root (1 1/2-2 tablespoons)
Juice of one lemon
fresh granular baker's yeast (1/4 teaspoon)
cold fresh pure water

Combine first four ingredients in a 2 liter bottle, top off with the water, and let rest at room temperature 24-48 hours.


Alton Brown

1 1/2 ounces finely grated fresh ginger
6 ounces sugar
7 1/2 cups filtered water
1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Place the ginger, sugar, and 1/2 cup of the water into a 2-quart saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to steep for 1 hour.

Pour the syrup through a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl, pressing down to get all of the juice out of the mixture. Chill quickly by placing over and ice bath and stirring or set in the refrigerator, uncovered, until at least room temperature, 68 to 72 degrees F.

Using a funnel, pour the syrup into a clean 2-liter plastic bottle and add the yeast, lemon juice and remaining 7 cups of water. Place the cap on the bottle, gently shake to combine and leave the bottle at room temperature for 48 hours. Open and check for desired amount of carbonation. It is important that once you achieve your desired amount of carbonation that you refrigerate the ginger ale. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, opening the bottle at least once a day to let out excess carbonation.

Kitchen Litter (by Kat)

Reduce.

Reuse.

Recycle.

Recycling is easy--rinse off and toss in the proper bin.

Reusing is near and dear to my heart. Every rubber band from the newspaper or the heads of broccoli we buy at the store goes into the drawer. Plastic liners from our cereal boxes are shaken free of crumbs and used again, allowing us to forgo using a new Ziploc bag. Plastic sour cream containers are our freezer containers, glass jars become vessels for popcorn kernels. Bits of string left over from crochet projects get tied into fluffs for the cats to play with.

Reducing waste, though, can be hard. We don't buy a lot of stuff, and our normal purchases are not the type that come with lots of plastic packaging (mainly because I can never get it open!). I don't buy new clothes with anything close to frequency. The sweats I'm wearing right now pre-date my daughter's birth nearly 13 years ago and my socks have holes. And (oh dear am I really admitting this???) the pony tail holder holding back my hair is one I found on the sidewalk a few weeks ago. Gross, huh? But it looked new, and I washed it, and...yeah. Moving on.

Reducing waste in most of the house seems dependent upon not buying extra. That I can do! But reducing waste in the kitchen is really hard. I take my own bags to the store, re-use vegetable sacks, and consciously choose products with the least packaging. I actually pay 10 cents more to buy the two gallons of milk without the accompanying cardboard box than I would have to pay if I bought the two gallons in the cardboard box. Only in America, I think, do you have to pay more to get less.

Looking in the kitchen trashcan, I'm perplexed about how to make less waste. Plastic wrappers from our blocks of cheese can't be recycled. The empty lye container can't be recycled. The styrofoam and plastic wrap from the chicken can't be recycled. Tissues, cracker wrappers, junk. Meat, dairy, chemicals. These seem to be the big contributors.

But the kitchen waste from tonight's dinner was a little bit different. Let me show you.

Here's how we get our lambchops from the butcher:

Open the box and...

a plastic bag.
Open the plastic bag and...

Pull out as many chops as you need...

and seal the bag back up.

This box holds about 24 chops, so that's twelve meals from one plastic bag (non-recyclable) and one cardboard box. I can feel okay about that, I guess.

But, combine that with mashed potatoes (maybe another 12 meals from one non-recyclable plastic bag?) and roasted carrots from our garden (no plastic, hooray!), and not only do you get a good meal, but there's minimal waste.

The peels from the carrots and potatoes went to the chickens, the newspaper was shredded and tossed into the compost.

So, this meal wasn't too bad as far as taste and waste, but tomorrow's meal involves ricotta cheese and several other packaged items that are going to keep me awake tonight.

How do you guys reduce kitchen waste? Is there something I'm missing?