Daniel meets the Habanero

My name is Wha? My name is Wha?

Spicy should be a flavor. I'm just saying. The whole trigeminal nerve thing is just weird and not right to me, but what do I know? I just cook. I love spicy foods: hot cheetos are to die for and are my go-to junk food (but why do they not exist in New York?), spicy Mexican food, Thai food, buffalo wings, love it. It was the first time I noticed that "pairings" were important in food. For example, sodas+spicy foods make the spicy worse...I still always eat spicy food with sodas, but its pretty much good. Ranch, sour cream, etc help cool things the fuck down. Do I resort to these? Nope. But I noticed it, and that's what matters in the long run.

So I made Poblano rellenos, poblano peppers stuffed with quinoa, black beans, cheeses (where the problem begins), nicely seasoned onions, all kinds of good stuff. The month before I went on my school's required Externship I made this dish for my mom and used Pepperjack cheese as well as some others. This time my brother had bought some habanero cheese and left a lot left, so I decided to use it. Y'know, use what you have? I added maybe 2 tablespoons to about 2.5 cups of filling...I tried it and all was well.

When we began eating this delicious dish that I LOVE, my mom made a heat comment but I brushed it off...actually, I grunted and pushed the sour cream towards her, never letting my eyes leave the TV. As we ate and ate, I felt the same nose running, sweat-inducing trigeminal nerve searing pain my mother was experiencing. I downed my soda and began dipping every bite in a dollop of sour cream, thinned with heavy cream - more dairy, damn it! I scraped my plate quickly and grabbed a bottle of water.

That was 5 hrs ago from writing this. My fingers are burning like they do after you burn yourself on molten stock (see recent blog entry) that...after-burn. My lips are numb even with the chap stick (which I will now burn with my newly purchased blow-torch, unless I want it to burn me later), and as I showered my face and body began taking on the burning sensation my hands feel as the capsaicin burned my body.

I've always hated the little bastards because I thought the flavor would be too intense and its more of a "Ooo look I added a whole, unchopped, unpierced habanero to my barbeque sauce." Yeah nice job douchebag, so you mean you added pesticides to it? How's that taste? Now I know its just painful and stupid...I'll stick to the disgusting pickled jalapenos in my mom's 'fridge before returning to this shit. The small bit that was left ended up in the garbage before I even baked the things off...good thing...

Triple Chocolate Cake, V.1.0

So after I posted the blog last night about needing to go run out and grab eggs...I didn't. My friend brought me eggs this morning and I remade it in no time flat, came out better this time I think.

When I went to Culinary school my mom never asked me to make anything in particular until my second year when I returned for Christmas, when she had a long list of things she had seen or eaten that she wanted me to recreate.

Among these was a chocolate cake with "that delicious chocolate ganache frosting." Luckily, at the school I go to we have a small 3-week crash course in Baking and Pastry techniques at the beginning of sophomore year. I pulled out my recipe for a simple genoise, French sponge cake, and began the break down from there.

I wouldn't just do a cake with chocolate ganache, bit boring to me (though my baking skills have suffered recently). Chocolate genoise soaked in Kahlua simple syrup, layered with chocolate Italian buttercream and then, and only then, covered in chocolate ganache. Sounds like a better idea to me…and who doesn't love a bit of Kahlua and Chocolate? Chef Carla Hall, from Top Chef and now The Chew fame, says she prefers to eat her alcohol, I agree.

So I started the cake portion and kahlua syrup on Monday and refrigerated it, thinking I would make the rest of its components Tuesday. Woke up Tuesday and got the recipe for buttercream and realized eggs had mysteriously left the house again. So I threw the cake in the freezer. Wednesday came around and I was determined to make it. So I pulled the cake from the freezer and set it on the counter. 14 hrs later, no eggs and I put the cake in the refrigerator. Thursday morning the cake was hard, dense, and disgusting...so once I got eggs from my hand-dandy BFFL I remade the cake, this time it came out much better. The syrup was still good, albeit weaker than I may have liked.

My friend and I busted out the buttercream in no time and I had assembled the four layer cake and gotten the ganache together. Would've liked the ganache to be a bit thicker, which I remedied in the recipes below. My mom tasted it and like the good mother she is looked at the cake, then back at me, smacked her lips obnoxiously and said "It's not very sweet". And then like the good friend I have is, mimicked saying, "No...it needs...some raspberry jam or something!". Four days of hard work and my selfish family and friends have nothing good to say. Contrarily, I enjoyed the cake for someone who's not a big chocolate fan and my mother later ate a small piece after our delicious Papa John's, a piece served underneath a scoop of ice cream which she claimed added needed sweetness. Go figure. Why am I spending $120k on my education?

This picture makes this cake look beautiful, I just wanna say.

Recipes after the break

Insert Foot

Ever had one of those weeks where you have too much to do and so little time?

On returning home I had plans to do a lot...a lot of different cooking. Including a variety of Asian dim sum dumplings to do and freeze for my mom's later use. Raviolis, cake, dinner every night, homework (hardest class at school is in 6 days, eeeek), scholarships, organization, going through junk in room, hanging out with old friends, shopping, breaking down Christmas decorations, and various other things to do to help my mom out around her house. Needless to say, I have 4 full days left and I think a lot of that will not be happening.

Homework is ALMOST done, thank god. Gonna be late night tonight trying to read another chapter and write notes, I think. Meeting up with my old culinary arts teacher for lunch tomorrow and watching a movie with my friend, which I may pawn off in favor of remaking the cake-cake part again (as I made it 3 days ago thinking I'd do it soon but time lost me again).

Need less time wasting and more time doing! Like getting my ass off this pitiful little blog and reading...or going through my room...or hell, running to Wal-Mart to buy more eggs and make that damned cake tonight!

The Day Stock Betrayed Me

I love stock. I love making it. I love seasoning it. I love it. Vegetable. Chicken. Beef. Fish. LOVE it! Love fabricating the flavorings (chicken, fish, cutting and peeling veg). Its fun, its enjoyable. Making your own is the only way to go, forgive those parents and ill informed who think the needed ingredients is simply "wasting" them. Ever had polenta cooked in boxed stock? Or just water? Homemade stock will win out every time. Try to create a sauce from a boxed stock, not happening. I love stock.

What I don't enjoy is dropping the tiniest drop of molten hot stock onto my sock-covered foot, seeping into the fabric and burning my pinky toe. Now it feels sticky and hot all the time...oh stock, I treated you so well and this is how you treat me...

This is not my stock, but if it was I would be very happy with that all-too-dehydrated-golden-pee color.

And Here We Go...

I've always wanted to do a food blog. I love the stuff. Fancy ingredients, products, food, recipes, cooking. Its fun to write and talk about my experiences and if other people are willing to listen and read, why not?