Tag: Matcha

Weekend Finds 4:17:14: Recipes

It has been an awfully long time since I’ve written a weekend finds post, and I’d like to get back in the game. Mostly because I’ve been finding some recipes lately that are either a) really good or b) look really good and I haven’t made them yet but I plan on doing so soon, and I’d like to share these recipes with you.

1. Pasta Recipes from Bon Appetit

Pasta Recipes from Bon Appetit | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Photo credit: Bon Appetit

I have found two pasta recipes from Bon Appetit lately that I am itching to make, but we just don’t make a lot of pasta these days. One is a meaty Bolognese (with chicken livers – I mean come on) and the other is a rigatoni with lemon-chili pesto and grated egg. Doesn’t that sound interesting?

2. Caramelized Fennel and Farro Salad from Not Without Salt

Caramelized Fennel and Farro Salad Recipe from Not Without Salt | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Photo credit: Not Without Salt

This salad is cool, spicy, fruity, crunchy, sweet, and all around delicious. Jonah made it one night, and it has me hooked on farro. Next time I make it, I’d try going a little lighter on the harissa (depending on the desired spice level and how spicy your harissa is) and maybe substitute apricots for the dates.

3. Matcha Black Sesame Babka

Matcha Black Sesame Babka Recipe from Fix Feast Flair | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Photo credit: Fix Feast Flair

Ever since I found this recipe for matcha black sesame babka, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s mostly a matter of finding the time to make this bad boy, but holy smokes, does that look beautiful (and tasty) or what?

4. Most Recipes on Food52

Food52 Recipes | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Photo credit: Food52

You guys, I knew I liked Food52, but they are KILLING it lately. Things I want to make: pecorino romano cake with candied tomatoes, this fennel salad with burrata and mint, chicken salad with pickled grapes (but mostly those pickled grapes), and this chocolate mochi snack cake. Things I have made that are so good: miso and honey roasted chicken, many iterations of soba noodles including these, and this crazy good asparagus that I could eat for every meal. And I’ll be honest, I’ve yet to make something from Food52 that crashed and burned, so they’re pretty trustworthy.

5. It’s rhubarb season! All the rhubarb recipes!

Rhubarb Season! | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Photo credit: Bon Appetit

Things that will be happening in my near future: rhubarb simple syrup to put in all the cocktails (I highly recommend the mojito from Not Without Salt), and this beautiful rhubarb almond cake. I also like the savory rhubarb recipes like the ones that follow that have been popping up all over the place: skillet chicken with rhubarb, beetroot and rhubarb salad, roasted pork belly with rhubarb ginger compote, and shrimp fried rice topped with pickled rhubarb.

Mint Matcha Ice Cream

Mint Matcha Ice Cream // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Mint Matcha Ice Cream // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Mint Matcha Ice Cream // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Mint Matcha Ice Cream // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

When I made the anise ice cream that I posted about last week, it made me realize how truly simple it is to make your own ice cream. I mean, if you’ve got the ice cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid like my roommate does, or some other kind of ice cream churner. I found myself asking why I hadn’t been making my own crazily flavored ice cream for years. And you know what? I didn’t have a good answer.

So I thought I might as well start now. I’ve had some matcha sitting in my drawer since I made these madeleines, and I’d been wanting to try some matcha ice cream. But I didn’t want to make JUST matcha ice cream. After thinking about what flavor combinations might work with matcha – chocolate? lemon? – I decided to go with mint. I liked the idea of the herbaceous, refreshing mint with the earthy, almost savory matcha. So, mint matcha ice cream it is!

I also decided to make this ice cream this week because I thought it might be nice to start doing some holiday-oriented recipes. And while the flavors in this recipe have nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day, it is green. Definitely green. Especially if you make it the day before you’re planning on eating it.

After a little research, this recipe is adapted from and inspired by David Lebovitz, Kinfolk, and many other ice cream recipes all over the internet.

Mint Matcha Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream, divided
3/4 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 cup fresh mint leaves, rinsed
4 tsp matcha green tea
5 egg yolks

Instructions

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, 1 cup of cream, sugar, salt, and mint leaves. Stir until sugar is dissolved, and once the mixture is hot and steaming, remove the pan from heat, cover, and let it steep for one hour.

Fifteen minutes before your mint is done steeping, get out two mixing bowls. In one, combine the other 1 cup of cream and the matcha. Whisk together until thoroughly combined and no clumps remain. In the other mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks.

Once the mint is done steeping in the milk mixture, strain out the mint leaves, pressing them to extract all of the flavor. Re-warm the milk over low heat – you want it to be warm, not too hot – and slowly pour it into the egg yolks and whisk until combined. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a heat-proof spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spatula. Strain the custard into the bowl with the matcha cream, and whisk again to combine. Stir the mixture over an ice bath to cool. Once cooled thoroughly, churn in your ice cream maker according to your machine’s instructions.

Matcha Green Tea Madeleines

Matcha Green Tea Madeleines // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Matcha Green Tea Madeleines // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Matcha Green Tea Madeleines // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Everything is melting. Meeeeelllllting! It’s like I’m the wicked witch of the west. Or rather that Portland is, anyway. Which is seemingly appropriate given the hue of today’s baked goods recipe. (In case you missed it, we are officially on the tail end of a large snow storm, at least by Pacific North West proportions, where it snowed for days and no one could drive anywhere and we all got cabin fever.)

I have long been wanting to try some variation of Matcha green tea madeleines. I’m sure, at this point, I have a bunch of recipes on my Pinterest board, and really I was just waiting for the time to come when I actually remembered to purchase Matcha at Tea Chai Té. You’d think it wouldn’t be hard, since I usually visit one of their shops every other week. But remembering is harder than you think.

You know what else is harder than you think? Weighing all of your ingredients. See, every recipe I found for these madeleines had the amounts in weight, or it didn’t have quite enough of this or that for my taste. OR even worse, it had some of the ingredients measured in weight and some in teaspoons or cups. Which is fine, I have a scale. But when it came down to it, and I was finally making these little gems, I was not in the mood to weigh a million things and add a little bit more, a teaspoon at a time, until the weight was exactly right. So… I guestimated. If I was someone else, I would have made this recipe multiple times, adjusting the amounts of ingredients to make sure I was giving you the absolute best variation. But I’m not someone else. I’m me. And this recipe worked. So this recipe is what I’m giving you. I hope that’s ok. And hey, wouldn’t you rather I be me instead of someone else?

Matcha Green Tea Madeleines

Ingredients

2 Tbl Matcha green tea powder
1/2 cup flour (all-purpose)
1 tsp baking powder
8 Tbl butter (1 stick), melted and cooled
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Butter and lightly dust your madeleine pan with flour. Keep the pan in the freezer while you prepare the dough.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and Matcha powder and set it aside. In a bowl, beat the eggs for 1 minute (I used my electric mixer; a handheld mixer would work too), and then add the sugar and salt. Mix until the sugar/egg mixture is pale and a bit thick, about 5-6 minutes.  Add the vanilla, and mix for another minute. Now add in the flour and Matcha mixture, blending until it’s just combined. You’ll want to be gentle when adding the flour mixture, and may even want to use a spatula and gently fold it together – you don’t want to deflate the eggs. If you’re using an electric mixer, I recommend switching from the whisk to the paddle attachment. Once you’ve mixed in the flour mixture, slowly add the butter and beat until the dough is smooth with the mixer on a low speed, or with your spatula. Cover bowl and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and remove the pan from the freezer. In each little madeleine mold, drop about a teaspoon of batter. Bake for ~8 minutes, or until they have puffed up and are golden brown around the edges. Allow the madeleines to cool in the pan for a minute before removing them. I found it easier to remove them by placing the wire rack upside down over the pan and then flipping it over, then lifting the pan off.  These are best enjoyed the same day, preferably right out of the oven, with a nice cup of tea (and no, it doesn’t have to be green tea).