Tag: sesame seeds

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding // Serious Crust
Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding // Serious Crust
Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding // Serious Crust
Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding // Serious CrustMiso Sticky Toffee Pudding // Serious Crust

Almost a year ago, there was a piece in the New York Times. I’m not sure where I found it – most likely someone posted it on Facebook – but it struck a chord. It’s called “When a Food Writer Can’t Taste,” by Marlena Spieler, a James Beard Award winning food writer. In the article, she writes about how a car accident, in which she broke both arms and sustained a concussion, completely demolished her ability to taste and smell.

Now, that sounds horrible no matter who you are. But when a food writer loses the senses that bring her the most joy and allow her to work, it’s devastating. Her descriptions of tasting what had once been some of her favorite foods are heartbreaking: “Cinnamon drops, a childhood favorite, were bitter, horrible.” “Bananas tasted like parsnips and smelled like nail polish remover.” “Gently sautéed mushrooms seemed like scorched bits of sponge.” Luckily, the nerves were only damaged, not severed, meaning that she would, in time, recover. She created her own rehabilitation plan, eating and tasting a huge range of foods, forcing herself to taste things like chocolate over and over again, starting with milk chocolate and slowly upping the cocoa content. Things she hadn’t particularly loved before – fish, especially – became a daily craving.

In the end, she recovered most of the way, and though her senses still occasionally go haywire, she can enjoy food to an incredible extent. But I’d like to focus on a specific part of this story: about halfway through the article, she tells us how, though she used to “lack a sweet tooth,” her sweet tooth now couldn’t be ignored. She lists a few things she baked, and they all sound delicious, but one jumped out at me: miso sticky toffee pudding.

When I studied abroad in London, I became a fan of sticky toffee pudding. It’s not pudding like we think of in the states. It’s a cake that is sweet but not too sweet, drenched in a warm toffee sauce that seeps into the cake, resulting in a moist, warm, absolutely fantastic dessert. Now I have looked for a recipe for Spieler’s mystical dish, and I am not the only one. The day after the article was published, someone tweeted at Spieler asking for the recipe. There’s a Chowhound thread asking if the recipe can be found anywhere (yes, I commented). But I couldn’t find it, and it seems, neither could anyone else. There are recipes for miso toffee, and for sticky toffee pudding with miso ice cream, but not this exact dessert. So, after talking with my baker friend Caitlyn, we decided to make one ourselves.

We decided to adapt David Lebovitz’s sticky toffee pudding recipe, and really, there were only a couple simple changes to be made. (In retrospect, I should’ve used Spieler’s sticky toffee pudding recipe, but I never happened upon it until I was sitting down to write this.) The resulting dessert is sweet, salty, caramelized, strong, and unique. Its flavors are perhaps a bit confusing at first, but I think the way they swirl around your tongue, combining to create a balance of sweet and savory is a fun adventure.

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding

Note: I have made this recipe now with both red and white miso paste. While I personally liked the white miso better, Caitlyn, Jonah, and Caitlyn’s boyfriend Dylan liked the red. On one hand, I think the deeper, more caramelized flavor of the red miso was nice, and on the other, the white provided a little more brightness, while bringing the same level of saltiness. Both are good, so it’s up to you which you use.

Ingredients

Toffee Sauce

2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup muscovado sugar (if you don’t have that, demerera or dark brown sugar will do)
2 1/2 Tbl molasses (we used Blackstrap)
2-3 tsp miso paste (start with two teaspoons, and add up to another teaspoon to taste)
1-2 Tbl toasted sesame seeds

Pudding

6 ounces pitted dates, snipped into small pieces
1 cup water
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup candied ginger, chopped
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt, preferably fine
4 Tbl unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
toasted sesame seeds, to serve

Instructions

Toffee Sauce

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, and butter an 8 1/2 inch porcelain soufflé dish, or something of a similar size.

In a medium sized saucepan, bring the cream, muscovado sugar (or other dark brown sugar), molasses, and miso to a boil, stirring often to melt the sugar, and keeping a close eye to make sure it doesn’t burn. Lower the heat and let simmer for about five minutes, stirring constantly, until the sauce has thickened and coats the spoon. Try your best to break up any chunks of miso. Pour roughly half the sauce into your buttered baking dish, sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the toffee sauce, and place the dish in the freezer. Set the pan with the rest of the sauce aside for serving.

Pudding

In another medium saucepan, bring the dates and water to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda and ginger. Set aside, but keep slightly warm – leaving it on low heat isn’t a terrible idea.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large mixing bowl (you can use an electric mixer), cream together the butter and granulated sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla, stirring to combine. Add half of the flour mixture, then the date mixture, and then add the rest of the flour mixture, stirring between each addition. Be careful not to over-mix the batter.

Remove the baking dish from the freezer and pour the batter in over the toffee and sesame seeds. Bake for 50 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test. Allow it to cool slightly before serving. To serve, warm the toffee sauce, spoon portions of the pudding onto plates or bowls, and top with the warm toffee sauce and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream will make a nice topping. I’ve also topped mine with some homemade anise-cardamom ice cream (based on the anise ice cream from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop).

According to Lebovitz, if you’re making the pudding in advance of serving, bake it without the toffee in the bottom of the dish. Close to serving time, poke the cake about 15 times with a chopstick or skewer, and distribute half the toffee sauce over the top. Cover with foil, warm in a 300 degree oven for about 30 minutes, and then follow the serving instructions above.

Weekend Finds 4:27:14

It has been a delicious week. I cooked some awesome food, some of which I’ve shared, and some of which will be coming up shortly. Spring is upon us, and I’m starting to see it creep into the grocery stores and some of my favorite recipe resources. Something I’m particularly looking forward to? Trying some new savory rhubarb recipes, and the weather slowly getting warm enough to crank out some ice cream again. In this weekend finds, I’ll show you what I’m talking about.

1. Toasted Sesame Seed Ice Cream

Toasted Sesame Ice Cream on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
I can’t wait to try this toasted sesame ice cream from Milk and Honey.

I feel like there were certainly a few recipes that I found this week that left me feeling like I wasn’t sure if it would be delicious or totally weird. This recipe from Milk and Honey may be one of them. The toasted sesame part sounds good, but then when I think about adding tahini, my brain and tastebuds get all confused. I guess I’ll just have to try it.

2. Rhubarb Baked Beans

Rhubarb Baked Beans on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Feeling uncertain about these rhubarb baked beans, but I’m going to give them a shot.

There are some great looking savory rhubarb recipes out there – specifically those that involve roasting meats or sauces. On the other hand, there are these rhubarb baked beans, which, I admit, sound weird. I have purchased the ingredients to make these curious (and, admittedly, unappetizing-looking) beans. I’ll let you know how it goes, I guess…

3. Thai Salad

Thai Salad from The Roasted Root on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
This bright, delicious salad made for a scrumptious lunch.

Today, after going climbing (for the first time in… over a year), my roommates and I were STARVING. So we made some Thai laarb and this salad from The Roasted Root. Both were a big hit, and I will definitely be using this salad again in the future. It’s beautifully colorful and I love the varied flavors, and it’s filling but also still healthy.

4. Mango, Yogurt, and Cardamom Ice Cream

Mango, Yogurt, Cardamom Ice Cream on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
I love the mango-lassi like color of this ice cream.

Sorry, I got distracted for a moment by things that aren’t ice cream. Back in the sweet lane, this ice cream from Yotam Ottolenghi (genius, duh) had three things I really truly love: mango. greek yogurt. cardamom. Can’t wait to make this. I am thinking I need to have an ice cream party in order to make all the bizarre flavors I’m itching to make. Pretty sure my friends would be into that.

5. Eating Alone

Dining Alone at Eenmaal in Amsterdam on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Maybe dining solo will be a new trend?

So there’s now a restaurant, Eenmall, where there are only 1 person tables. That’s it. No Wi-Fi either. Great? I think so. Do you ever eat out by yourself? While I always have to take a deep breath before I do it (yeah, sometimes it’s a little scary to just be with yourself for an hour without a computer or phone or book in front of you), I always feel like my mind has cleared after the fact. So while only having a table-for-one option is a little different, I think eating alone is something we could all benefit from every once in a while.

Korean Marinated Beef

Korean Marinated Beef

Korean Marinated Beef
Korean Marinated Beef

This Korean marinated beef was the second part of our asian dinner the other night. I found this recipe in our Gourmet Today cookbook, which is wonderful. This recipe was crazy good and super quick. The meat was nice and tender and perfectly cooked and the marinade caramelized nicely in the pan. You’re supposed to serve the beef in a lettuce cup with kimchi and rice, but we just served it over rice alongside the Japanese cucumber salad seen in the previous post. Here’s what you’ll need:

Korean Marinated Beef

Ingredients

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbl sugar
2 tsp Asian sesame oil
1 bunch of scallions, minced, with the white and green parts separated
1 Tbl minced garlic
1 Tbl minced peel fresh ginger
3 Tbl sesame seeds, toasted
1 lb flank steak (we did about 3/4 of a pound, just because the cut of meat is a little expensive and the recipe serves 4 people), cut across the grain into very thin slices (the recipe says no more than 1/8 inch thick, but I was like, hell no, so I just sliced it as thin as I could)
1 Tbl vegetable oil for cooking

Instructions

In a medium sized mixing bowl, stir together the soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, the whites of the scallions, the garlic, ginger, and 2 Tbl of the sesame seeds. Whisk this up until the sugar is dissolved. Now add the steak, toss it around to make sure it’s evenly coated, and let it marinate for 15 minutes.

After that 15 minute wait, heat the oil in a pan over high heat. You definitely want the oil to be shimmering, if not smoking. Now add the steak in one layer and cook (ours took 2 batches), turning halfway through. If your heat is high enough, it’ll only take about 4-5 minutes for your meat to be cooked through and even get a nice sear/caramelization from the marinade. When the meat is just cooked through – don’t cook it too long or it will lose some of it’s tenderness – transfer to a plate, sprinkle with the rest of the sesame seeds and the scallion greens. Serve with rice and Japanese cucumber salad (see previous post). Enjoy!

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Japanese Cucumber Salad
Japanese Cucumber Salad

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Last week, Jonah and I made a delicious dinner of this Japanese cucumber salad and Korean marinated beef (to be seen in an upcoming post). This salad was so incredibly simple and delicious. It would be perfect for a summer dinner. It’s very refreshing. But we had it in the winter and it was still so crazy good that I couldn’t stop eating it.

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

2 medium cucumbers (or 1 large English cucumber)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbl toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

We bought the sesame seeds in the bulk section at our grocery store (we needed a bunch for the beef too, so it made sense) and you can just toast them in a dry pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on them though, because they can burn quickly.

Peel the cucumbers leaving alternating green stripes of the peel. Slice them in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Now, using a food processor, sharp knife, or one of those mandolin things if you’re one of those people, slice your cucumbers into very thing slices. Think paper thin. Lay your cucumber slices out on a double layered paper towel or a dishtowel to absorb some moisture while you whip up the dressing.

Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt in a bowl, making sure to stir it up to dissolve the sugar. When you’re ready to serve, add the sesame seeds and cucumbers, and toss to coat. Serve!