Ginger & Green Apple Macaron for the New Year

Ozhan — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:08:28 +0000

Yes, it’s time again; a brand new year is about to come and your eyes are looking for a special recipe on this blog at that time of the year. I know that very well and believe me I did my best to catch up. However last week was a complete mess thanks to well known astrologer Susan Miller who visited Istanbul recently. What she said was quite off-putting.

Something very big, a sort of phenomenal event would take place in Turkey on last Tuesday and this would affect lives of all people nationwide. This event might be a natural disaster, a serious bomb attack or a major scandal. My goodness, choose lesser of the three evils. She also warned us that Mercury was coming back (explanation for astrology virgins: this is something bad, very bad) and we should be very careful while taking decisions, better not to take any decisions even.

Thanks to this prophecy I had one of my worst Tuesdays ever, expecting vicious things to come out from everyday life scenes like construction workers on the street corner to drill natural gas pipeline by mistake and cause a huge blast and so on. Of course I could not take the decision for what kind of New Year recipe to work on under these circumstances, could I? Thanks lord, nothing serious happened on that day and I went back to my kitchen after a hard day of work.

Making Almond Flour for the Macaron

As a new year’s tradition I stick to spicy recipes but the things I tried were not better than my dear deer cookies of last year so I decided to go for some change (or should I say challenge?) and developed a new macaron flavor combination to celebrate the new year. I knew that it was not an easy task but when I read my own words from last New Year’s post saying “We all can do anything, no matter how fancy or how difficult it is. It’s all about trying and retrying just like all other things in our lives.” I gave it a go.

It was a bit more difficult than I thought and you would pity on me if you had known how many undercooked or overcooked, under folded or over folded macaron shells I ate to test the recipe. It took me preparing several batches of batter again and again with different amount of ingredients, consuming a great number of eggs a chicken can lay in two weeks’ time and lots of almonds.

When it comes to macarons everyone has his/her own way of doing things. Some achieved success by folding dry ingredients very slowly, some prefer folding rapidly as they would beat the shit out of it at first then slowing down, some recommend lower oven temperatures some others apply high temperature at first then lower it at the halfway of baking, some recommend a convection oven, some using a conventional one. Even, I read about using two different ovens set at different temperatures for each half of the baking time and then I stopped reading any more. Imagine, the question of “how long you should wait for macarons to get dried before baking?” has many answers ranging from “What the hell, I don’t have enough patience to wait even for a minute after piping them!” to “You have to to wait for a day to harden their shells”. As you see it is so easy to go insane.

In short, this would be your own experience with your kitchen tools and oven which would significantly affect the end product. Particularly you need to know the characteristics of your oven very well, if you do not know yet, this will be the chance to deepen your relationship. Good to keep in mind that it takes some trials to realize what works and what does not for the given conditions you are in; even the humidity of your kitchen might change the fate of your little macarons according to some opinion.

Accepting the fact that they are not a simple cake to bake, gather all your courage and be determined to accomplish what you aim: sweet and crispy outer shells without any cracks on the surface and a moist interior to leave a deep almond flavor on your taste buds.

After all your efforts if they do not come out perfect, please don’t get down. Anything with that much almond will taste nice regardless of its shape. Try to look from the bright side; you may not have the picture perfect macarons but will definitely have delicious almond cookies beside your tea. It’s just a matter of finding the courage to challenge yourselves and that’s what all we need to have for the coming year.

I wish you a New Year full of courage and determination to take a step further and realize all the things you wish for no matter how difficult they are.

Ingredients (makes around 24 macarons depending on size)
For macaron shells

120 g (3,8 oz) blanched or slivered almonds
200 g (7 oz) confectioner’s sugar
90 g (3,1 oz) egg whites (aged 1 day at room temperature)
30 g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
A pinch of salt
Cinnamon to sprinkle on top

For filling

160 g (5,6 oz) mascarpone cheese
2 ½ tablespoons green apple syrup
50 ml (1,7 fl. oz) heavy cream

Instructions

1.	First make sure that your egg whites are aged enough (24 to 48 hours) so that some of their water content evaporates (this will help your macarons to have harder shells). Aging process is to keep them in the room temperature without covering on top. Do not worry about the hygiene issue, there won’t be any bacteria left after cooking them. If you are not convinced at all, just microwave your egg whites for 10 seconds at medium heat (I also tried this method once and it worked well)
2.	Using a food processor, finely grind your almonds and confectioner’s sugar together at highest speed. Sift it at least twice and discard any parts and pieces of almonds. You’ll end up with smooth flour like almond-sugar combination. Add ground ginger and nutmeg, mix well.
3.	With a stand mixer with whisk attachment beat the aged egg whites with a pinch of salt at medium speed and when they start to get foamy add caster sugar gradually and increase speed to high and whisk until you end up with a firm, glossy meringue forming stiff peaks (should take two minutes).
4.	Sprinkle half of the dry ingredients over the meringue and fold in with a silicon spatula with circular motions around the bowl. After some of the dry mixture is incorporated, add the rest and keep on folding gently. This part is the most important part, believe me. You should not over work the batter, and stop folding when everything is roughly combined. Final batter should be smooth and thick, not runny. Drop a ribbon of batter from a spoon onto the remaining batter and watch, it should take 15 seconds to disappear the ribbon. Even one or two more folds may ruin the whole thing and if you did so,you do not need to spend time on cooking them since you will end up with flat almond cookies cracked on the surface (I know it very well since I did it twice).
5.	Dab a very small amount of batter on each corner of the baking sheet and place a properly cut baking paper (batter on the corners will glue your paper on the baking sheet so that it won’t slip). If you do not trust your piping skills you may try to draw circles on another baking sheet with around 4cm diameter and around 3 cm distance between circles and keep it underneath the baking paper you will use to take advantage of it as a guide.
6.	Using a piping bag with a 8-10 mm nozzle, pipe 4cm rounds of batter roughly. There might be a soft peaks on each macaron but they will disappear soon if not you may tap the baking sheet on kitchen counter and they will be gone. Let macaron shells dry for an hour at room temperature. If they are not dried enough, you will end up with some wrinkles on the surface and your macarons won’t be able to develop their feet underneath.
7.	Preheat your oven to 140°C (280°F).(I use a convection oven –with a fan-, if you are using a conventional oven –no fan- you may need to increase the temperature to 150°C (300°F).This is the feeling I got from all the things I read about making macarons but let me emphasize it once more, this depends on your oven characteristics and you need to try a few times to decide on the correct temperature setting).
8.	After your macarons are dried out, place the baking sheet on middle rack. In my case 15 minutes of total baking time was perfectly all right but you need to watch closely to decide on your timing. After 6 minutes shells should have lifted and around 8 minutes they should form their feet. Right after, their outer skin would start to colour slightly and get harden. They should not get browned if so, either your oven temperature is too high or you kept them in the oven longer than necessary.
9.	Remove the baking sheet from the oven and leave macarons to cool down thoroughly. If you try to lift them before, lower parts might stick on the sheet and break into pieces. If they won’t come out easily after completely cooled, sprinkle a few drops of water under baking sheet this should solve the problem.
10.	Whisk heavy cream well. Add mascarpone cheese and green apple syrup and keep on whisking till you end up with a smooth whipped cream texture (should not be runny).
11.	Match each macaron with a similar sized one (this is quite strange but each and every macaron finds its mate no matter how uneven you piped them, no one would be left alone in macaron world I guess)
12.	Pipe some filling on one of the paired macarons and cover with the other one like a sandwich. Dust upper shells with cinnamaon.
13.	Keep them in the refrigerator at least one day so that flavors will deepen. Serve at room temperature and consume in 2-3 days.

Asparagus Frittata

Ozhan — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:37:03 +0000

Another hectic week is over and please forgive me for not making a new post due to lack of energy and motivation since the last one. I can honestly blame it all to the complicated situations taking place in the office environment and it is really difficult to keep your head up when one of your best friends at work is leaving for good. Is it enough? Of course not. Once the door of misfortune is opened, bad things will come after another like drizzling rain drops out of clear sky. Guess, where is the shelter? Did you say “Kitchen”? Absolutely right! Despite the fact that I could not write a new post, I was still working on new recipes and trying different combinations to share with you in the coming days.

One of these is asparagus frittata, a perfect stress-free recipe with a few ingredients and requiring a short time to prepare. A frittata is basically an unstirred and not-folded omelet cooked in the oven or in a skillet allowing you to flip both sides easily. Even though I preferred to use pickled green asparagus and pour it into silicon mold to give it a bit more sophisticated look, you may use your imagination to change the ingredients and use a mid-sized skillet. Personally I like the taste of asparagus in most of the dishes like a Cantonese style stir fried asparagus with beef or a French style steamed asparagus with hollandaise sauce or mayonnaise.

As opposed to popular belief white asparagus is not a variety, it is the same green asparagus grown in the absence of sunlight which is necessary to develop chlorophyll in the plant. White asparagus, being preferred in some parts of the Europe like Germany and Netherlands has a sweeter taste and less fiber than the green one. Only different version is the purple one but I had no chance to try it up till now since it is scarcely produced. Asparagus is high in folic acid, potassium and fiber, without containing any fat or cholesterol, and is low in sodium. All these features makes me like this odd shaped vegetable even more and keep a jar of asparagus in my refrigerator all the time.

Ingredients (makes 6 servings)

5 eggs
50 ml. milk
6-7 stalks of canned and drained green asparagus (you may use fresh ones after boiling till the stalks are tender, pay attention not to immerse the tip of the asparagus since these parts get soft very easily)
1 midsized potato
35-40 g. mozzarella cheese (half of one stick)
5-6 sprigs of chive
1 teaspoon mustard
2 tablespoon vegetable oil (for frying)
Freshly ground pepper
Sea salt

Instructions

1.	Peel the potato and finely dice.
2.	Fry the diced potato in a pan with the vegetable oil and set aside to cool down on a paper towel to take the excess oil.
3.	Cut the drained asparagus and mozzarella stick into pieces with similar size of diced potato.
4.	Chop the chive sprigs into small pieces.
5.	Add five eggs, milk, mustard, and a pinch of salt to a bowl and mix well with the help of a hand mixer.
6.	Combine the dry ingredients (potato, asparagus, mozzarella cheese and chive) with the egg mixture; add the fresh ground pepper and more salt according to your taste.
7.	Lightly oil a silicon mold (like the one used for baking muffins) and split the mixture equally to between pieces of the mold.
8.	Bake the frittatas in an oven preheated to 180C (356 F) for 20-25 minutes.
9.	Take the pieces out of the mold and serve with some garnish like cherry tomatoes or fresh green salad leaves.
10.	If you are going to use a heavy skillet (that can be used in the oven too) for cooking; put some oil in the skillet and heat it up first. Pour the combined mixture and cook on low heat until the lower part gains a golden color. Take the skillet into the oven and use the grilling function of your oven (or turn on the upper resistance only) to attain the same color on the upper side. Cut into triangular pieces and serve right away with some garnish.

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Ginger & Green Apple Macaron for the New Year

Asparagus Frittata