Making Crystalized Ginger II

I have decided to make crystallized ginger again. This time, I am going more for the syrup than the ginger. I am making bread pudding for Thanksgiving and I think that a ginger syrup glaze will really put it over the top. Thanks to Minstrel Boy at Harp and Sword for the original recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds fresh, peeled ginger, cut into medallions (should be about a quart by volume)
3 cups sugar
1 lemon, sliced thin and seeded
1 cup light Karo® syrup (usually when I use a brand name it is because I've tried another label and not have had good results. Go ahead and use an off brand if you want, but there's something about the Karo® that works in this one)
large granule sugar for dusting


It takes four or five days to make this and I will do it in three this time by doing a step every morning and every evening.

Tres Sopas

My great uncle used to say that he was fixin' to put the little pot in the big one and make soup out of the dishrag. I feel like that is what I have been doing today.

One of my closest friends had an emergency(is there any other kind?) appendectomy day before yesterday. I have not gone to the hospital or called because I remember what abdominal surgery feels like and from what I hear, she has had plenty of people stopping by when she would most likely prefer to be left alone to navigate her morphine dreams as they come and go.

She will be coming home late today or sometime tomorrow. She is fortunate that her mother can come and stay with her. Just the same, I doubt that they will feel a lot like cooking and she needs some healing foods that will go down easy and not tax her digestive system. Therefore, I spent the day making soup.

The soup on the right is a mushroom/barley concoction loosely based on a recipe I got from an issue of Eating Well magazine. I loaded it up with portabellas, shitaki, porcini and white button mushrooms along with onion, sage, and celery. I saved the water that I used to rehydrate the shitakis and porcinis in and, after straining it through a coffee filter, used it for stock. It has a half cup of sherry in it to cut the earthy taste of the 'shrooms. The barley is cooked seperately (small jar on the left) and added to the soup when you heat it up.


The middle jar is tomato soup, the easiest to make. I used canned tomatoes, diced and crushed, that I added to the pot after I had sweated the onions and added dried basil, a tiny bit of turmeric, a kiss of cinnamon, four scrapes of nutmeg, and a hint of cumin along with salt and pepper. Then I added a fresh bay leaf and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes. After that, I took out the bay leaf and blended it with the stick blender until it was just a little bit chunky.


The soup on the left is traditional chicken and veggie. Carrots, celery ,onion and garlic were sweated in a little olive oil then chicken stock was added along with salt, pepper, lots of thyme and sage. This simmered until the veggies were tender and the chicken that had be cooked to make the stock was chopped and added back in along with some left over ginger tea with some small pieces of the ginger still in it. Lemon juice will be squeezed into the bowls when the soup is served.

These soups were specifically chosen and put together with ingredients that have specific healing properties. The begonias are going with the soup.

There is plenty of soup left for us. Some of it will surely be frozen for a time when we don't feel like cooking.

You Asked For It, You Got It

I expereinced a small disaster when my spring form pan sprung a major leak. I probably lost an half to two thirds of a cup of this ambrosia all over the oven. Luckily, most of it got on the cookie sheet that I had placed under the pan and on my baking stone which came from Lowe's and can be cheaply replaced if need be. The cookie sheet and the spring form pan will be replaced today.

I have tasted some of the overflow and it is delicious and worthy of the home made cream cheese.

Update on the Science Experiements

The cream cheese turned out better than I had thought it might. In fact, it is wonderful...sweet and creamy, almost too rich to eat but I think we will manage somehow, just in small amounts. maybe I'll make a cheesecake. That is what someone who lives with me is hoping.

The beans? A total disaster. They not only smelled awful even after rinsing more times than I counted, but after 5 hours of cooking, they were not getting the least bit soft. We put them outside to cool and Stephen threw them over the back fence into the woods.

More on Meyers

At this rate, I may have to rename this blog The Meyer Blog. I received a little bit of cash for Christmas and used part of of it to buy the meyer lemon tree that I had been wanting for some time. The tree has a very large fruit on it that is ripening nicely as well as several blooms and buds. I am not getting meyers at the farmers market right now but the upscale grocery store near me still has them.

I wanted to make a pie without using sweetened condensed milk so I did some research online and found a recipe that I modified. It was really, really good so I thought I'd share it.


Of course, you will need a prebaked pie crust. You can use your own recipe for it. Mine has vinegar and egg in it. I'll post it if anyone wants it.


Ingredients:

2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup water
1/3 to 1/2 cup meyer lemon juice. (The meyers I have been getting are huge so I used the juice of one and it was at least this much.)
Zest from one lemon
3 eggs, separated

Beat the egg yolks and set them aside.

In a sauce pan, combine sugar, flour and salt, Make sure to mix them thoroughly before adding 1/4 cup water. Mix until the sugar is pretty much dissolved and make sure there are no lumps in the flour. Add the 3/4 cup of water and bring the mixture to a boil stirring constantly. Continue to cook and stir for about 5 minutes at which time the mixture will be thick and slightly brown indicating that the flour has been cooked. I used a whisk to do the stirring and kept it moving pretty fast.

Temper the eggs by adding some of the hot mixture in the pan to them. I do this by dipping out what my whisk will hold and whisking it into the eggs. Doing this twice should bring the eggs up to temp. Then, add the eggs to the hot mixture in the pan and cook it another two to three minutes.

Remove the pan from the burner and add the lemon juice and zest while continuing to whisk it vigorously until it is all combined and smooth. Let the filling cool a little before pouring it into the pie shell.

After it has completely cooled, beat the whites until stiff, add 1 or 2 tbsp sugar. Beat very well at very high speed. You can use cream of tarter if you want. Spread the egg whites onto the cooled pie being sure to bring them all the way to the edge and touch the crust all the way around. Bake at 300 degrees until the white is brown. I saved a little bit of the zest to sprinkle on top of the meringue.

The most difficult part of this process is letting the pie cool completely before you cut into it.


Sound track for this post: Peter, Paul and Mary's Lemon Tree.
(also recorded by Bobby Bare, Trini Lopez, the Brothers Four... but not Fool's Garden.)

Meyer Lemons

Several people have asked about meyer lemons so here is a little information about them from Wikipedia:



The Meyer lemon (Citrus × meyeri) is a citrus fruit, native to China, thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange or sweet orange. The Meyer lemon was introduced to the United States in 1908 as S.P.I. #23028, by the agricultural explorer Frank Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China. It is commonly grown in China potted as an ornamental plant. It became popular as a food item in the United States after being rediscovered by chefs, such as Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, during the California Cuisine revolution. The Meyer lemon is also known as the Valley lemon in southern Texas due to its popularity in the Rio Grande Valley region.


Here are the ones we bought this morning at the farmer's market. It seems that this is the prime time for them here in Texas and that they are a some what freeze resistant variety of citrus. These are grown in a near by town by a man who has only one tree. I have been buying from him for several weeks now. I plan to buy my own tree and keep in in a large pot.

How to Get ARTZ Ribhouse Garlic Soup When...

it isn't Friday night or it is Friday night and you aren't in South Austin.

ARTZ Ribhouse is one of my favorite hangs. There is always live music and a good time is had by all. I usually go on Monday nights when it is kinda like Cheers and everybody knows my name. However, I occasionally go on Friday nights just to get me some garlic soup, since that is the only time Art makes it. (On Mondays we have to make do with the best baby backs it town.)

A couple of years a go, I got a craving for the garlic soup on a Tuesday. I decided to do a web search for some recipes and to my surprise, found the ARTZ recipe posted on several sites. I had me some soup that very night. As a service to all of you who aren't in South Austin on Friday nights, I thought I'd post this version. It tastes authentic but I have never had it served with lemon slices at ARTZ.

Recipe By : ARTZ RIB HOUSE, AUSTIN, TEXAS

Serving Size : 6

Ingredients

1/2 C Butter

2 heads garlic -- peeled & crushed

1 lg onion -- chopped

1/2 c flour

1 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp white pepper

1/2 tsp thyme

6 c chicken broth

1 lemon, 1/2 juiced, 1/2 sliced

1/8 c fresh parsley -- chopped

Croutons

Melt butter over medium heat in 3 qt saucepan. Add garlic and saute` until barely browned, about 3 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Add onion to pan and saute` until tender, about 3 minutes. Add flour, paprika, cayenne, white pepper and thyme and cook stirring constantly, 3 minutes. Add chicken broth and bring to boil over medium-high heat stirring often. Reduce heat to low. Remove 1/2 c broth from pan and process in blender with reserved garlic until smooth, 2 to 3 seconds. Return to pan. Add lemon juice and parsley and stir well. Simmer 10 minutes. Serve with croutons and sliced lemon.

I used a meyer lemon since I had one. Oh my, Mamma!

Soundtrack for this post: Guy Clark's Texas Cookin'

(I tried to post a viedo from YouTube and just could not figure it out.)

Photo from:http://static.flickr.com/1/1099126_a8802eb181_m.jpg

Happy Thanskgiving

I haven't made a Thanksgiving meal in years. I used to make huge meals every year for people who, quite frankly, did not appreciate my efforts. I would slave for a day and a half only to have at least one person complain loudly that this or that dish was not made the way grandma used to make it. One of the things I am most thankful for today is that I no longer have any those people in my life. I eventually retired from making holiday dinners and have had some varied and fun experiences since. Thanksgiving dinner at Threadgill's is something everyone should try at least once. A couple of years ago, we went to San Antonio and walked around the river walk on Thanksgiving day. The weather was warm and most of the businesses were closed so we got to walk and look at everything without having to deal with a crowd. It was Stephen's first trip down there and we has a blast. Happening upon a hotel that had only been open for two weeks and had very few reservations for their Thanksgiving meal, we got to eat from a gourmet buffet with no planning what so ever.



This year is a little different. I have a chicken roasting in the oven and will roast or saute some of the vegetables from last Saturday's trip to the farmer's market. Since I made mozzarella a few days ago, I had whey with which I made bread yesterday. I have been doing this on a regular basis because store bought bread has way to many things in it that I can't pronounce and the last loaf we bought stayed in the cabinet for a month without going bad. That scared me!



I found meyer lemons at the farmer's market and Mistrel Boy reminded me of this recipe that I had been wanting to try whenever I was fortunate enough to find meyers. I had tried making a Shaker pie years ago with a recipe that I had come across somewhere. It tasted like citronella and left me thinking that I would never make another one. I have to agree with MB. It Rocks. Out. Loud.


I cheated on the crust but the rest of the recipe is exactly what is on his site. Next time, I may put some candied ginger in it or substitute some ginger syrup for part of the sugar.








soundtrack: Joel Raphael's Lemon Grove or anything from his Woodyboye or Woodeye cds 'cause it is good to remember that not everyone is fortunate enough to eat like this.

Easy Cheesy

Starting new things in the fall seems to be a pattern in my life. I took my first belly dancing class last week and I just finished making cheese for the first time. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. I used a recipe called '30 Minute Mozzarella' that I found the Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I had ordered a cheese making kit last year and because it was on back order and took a long time to get to me, I was out of the mood to try it by the time it arrived. All the recipes in it look pretty complicated anyway. Because I had purchased the kit, I already had the rennet and a cheese thermometer. I had citric acid because I make soap and got some to give lotions a try which I have yet to do.

The recipe really did take only 3o minutes. I now have just over 17 ounces of yummy mozzarella made from regional organic milk. This is despite the fact that I screwed up one step of the recipe and added the citric acid directly to the milk before it started to get warm. I then added a fourth cup of water just to get the liquid level right. Also, I have rennet tablets rather than liquid rennet and had to look up the conversion online.

I also have a large amount of whey left in the pot on my stove. Tomorrow I will try making ricotta with it.

I think I will have to get my sour dough going again so that I can make a great pizza dough. If the ricotta turns out, cheesecake or lasagna may be in my future.

If anyone is interested, I got the kit from The Cheese People. As I said, it took a long time to get to me. You might want to try else where.

The citric acid and other soap supplies, including the best quality and lowest priced essential oils ever, usually come from Texas Natural Supply.

Soundtrack for this post: Anything by String Cheese Incident since most of their songs are about 30 minutes long.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 5, The Finished Product

I had to be at work early this morning so last night, I strained the syrup through a coffee filter.

As I was pulling my massage table across the mezzanine at the Driskill, my phone rang. It was the delivery man from the appliance store telling me that he would like to deliver the new stove between 11:00am and 2:00pm today. Since Stephen was at home, I told him that that time would be fine. We have the world's best landlord!

When I got home, I put the syrup through the coffe filter again. Then I put it in a pan on the beautiful new stove and set it to medium heat. While it was getting up to a boil, I got out a plastic shaker container with a screw on lid. I put a small amount of ginger in it, added a heaping table spoon of sugar and shook it up and rolled it around. Then I poured the contents back onto the rack. I repeated this process until all the ginger had been coated with sugar.

I let the syrup reduce to between a third and a half of the volume I started with. I may have used more water than necessary when I started this process. This was due to the size of my pot. It took a lot of water to cover the ginger and have an inch and a half or so on top.

I will put some of the ginger in a white paper bag and make a cutesy label for it as part of the gift basket I am putting together for my friends in Santa Fe. They will also get the nice bottle of syrup. There is still plenty for us. It is in a small jar. The syrup has quite a bite so I think it may be a good idea to mix it with maple or cane sugar syrup to use on pancakes or waffles. It may be a little bit too hot by itself. The ginger has the perfect texture and a nice bite as well.

Thanks for all your help, Mistrel Boy.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 4

I had to get started early again today because my afternoon was booked with a corporate massage gig and Lani has to have her walk as soon after Stephen leaves for work as possible. If her leash were kept where she could get to it, she would probably try to put it on herself and drag me out the door.

I took the lid off the pot and brought it to a slow boil. Then I turned the burner down to 5 again and pretty much followed the same procedure as yesterday. I think this took about 45 to 50 minutes. I then extracted the ginger and placed it on the rack. I strained the syrup through 2 different strainers but it still looked a little cloudy. When I returned home this afternoon, a lot of sediment had settled to the bottom. I am going to strain it through a coffee filter tomorrow. I may heat it up and boil it a few more minutes. I think it could be a little bit thicker. This is actually a 5 day process anyway. Tomorrow I will put the ginger pieces in a bag with some course sugar and give it a good shake.

In the meantime, here is what it looks like.

In case you noticed that I have not been adding a sound track to these posts, there is a reason. I refer you to Harp & Sword's Friday Random Ten.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 3

I got an early start on this project today because my landlord was scheduled to come by at 9:30 to look at the stove. He is getting me a new one. Yeah!!!!

Here are the instructions from Harp & Sword:

Day 3 - Uncover and bring to a boil again. Stirring often, add in 1 cup sugar and reduce heat to a simmer and stirring often, simmer 30 minutes. Bring heat back to a boil slowly, add in the last cup of sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Remove from heat, store covered at room temperature overnight.

This is pretty much what I did. I managed the simmering the best I could by setting the control on the burner on 5. This usually gets me a slow boil but more than a simmer. I stood over it and every time I saw a bubble start to form, I stirred.

If you have been reading the comments on this series, you know that MB has been mentoring me through this process. I did consider his suggestion to use the crock pot. However, there is no way that my crock pot will hold a pound and a half of ginger pllus the water and other ingredients.

I was sure I had seen what I thought was Lyon's Golden Syrup at World Market so I stopped by and picked some up. When I got home, I realized that I have Lyle's Golden Syrup. It has a lion on the label. I bet it is close to the same thing. I also bought a large cooling rack, something I needed anyway.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 2

Yesterday I began the four day process of making crystalized ginger. I made a trip to Fiesta to get fresh ginger. I thought I had plenty since I had some at home as well. However, I had not read through the recipe that day before I went shopping. The recipe calls for a pound and a half. I had to make a quick run to the HEB to get more. As I said, you will need about 25% more ginger than the recipe calls for because you will lose about that much when you peel it. I have a very precise scale that I use for soapmaking and I used it to weigh the ginger before and after I peeled it so I'll know how much to buy next time. I don't think you have to be that precise with this recipe.

Using my trusty Wufstof Classic 3 inch paring knife, I took the hard outer 'bark' off the ginger. This should have been the most time consuming part of the whole project. (More later on time consumption.) Then I used my Wufstof 7 inch santoku knife to slice it into medallions about a quarter inch thick. I love these knives. They are perfectly weighted and stay sharp with little effort on my part. It is important to use good, sharp knives for jobs like this. They make things a lot easier and you are much less likely to cut yourself with a knife that goes through things easily and efficiently.

I put the ginger in a heavy stainless steel stock pot and covered it with purified water. You might be able to use tap water where you live but I have well water with a lot of minerals in it. Even if it worked OK for the recipe, I would not want to boil anything in it multiple times and then try to clean the pot. I was supposed to bring this to a boil, no problem there, add a cup of sugar, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes. At this point, the burner on my stove went into business for itself. I reduced the heat and thought I had a good simmer going so I set the timer and left the room. When the timer sounded, I checked on the pot. It was not simmering. It was warm, but no simmer. I tried this on anther burner twice before I got it to simmer for about 10 minutes. It had been hot all that time so I had to guess at how much time it needed. It did not exactly simmer. It boiled a little more than I wanted it to so I just gave it my best shot.

Today, I brought the concoction to a boil again before adding the thinly sliced lemon and a cup of Karo syrup. Then it was supposed to simmer for 15 minutes. I did the best I could. I think it was more of a light boil.

( I used Karo because MB thinks is works better than other brands of corn syrup but I will look for an organic corn syrup before I do this again. When I read the label, I discovered that this ain't my grandmother's Karo. You know, the stuff she used to make those pecan pies. The stuff I loved as a child when she put it on the corn griddle cakes she made for my breakfast. No, it is not that Karo. This new version has high fructose corn syrup in it. I don't have to have everything organic but I try to avoid high fructose corn syrup because it is highly processed and most likely made from genetically altered corn. It seems that a strand of corn has been developed that 'blows up' in the stomach of any caterpillar or other bug that eats it. I don't see how that could be good for humans. It also has vanilla in it which may be what MB thinks makes the ginger better.)

My house smells fantastic.


Since it is National Talk Like a Pirate Day, the soundtrack for this post is Pirate Looks at Forty, one of two or three Jimmy Buffet songs that I will admit to loving.

Making Crystalized Ginger

I love just about anything with ginger in it so when Mistrel Boy over at Harp & Sword posted a recipe for crystalized ginger, I just had to try it. I have a simple recipe but this one takes four days and I figure that my house will smell wonderful for that length of time.

The by product of making your own crystalized ginger is ginger syrup. I am going to Santa Fe next week. I have a friend there who is kind enough to let me sleep on a futon on the floor of his recording studio for 3 or 4 nights. One of the things he just has to have when he comes here is gingerbread pancakes from Kerbey Lane Cafe. I'll be taking him a package of the mix for the pancakes and some of this syrup to go on them as a thank you gift. His sweetie, whom I have never met, will recieve some of my handmade soap.

After I get back from Santa Fe, I'll make a ganache of some Scharffen Burger dark chocolate thd dipping some of the ginger pieces in it. Yummmmmm!!! If all this turns out well, I'll be making more for Christmas gifts.

If you try this recipe, you will need a couple of very sharp knives, one for peeling the ginger and one for slicing it. I used my kitchen scales that I bought for soap making to weight the ginger. I don't think I would have ever figured out how much a pound and a half is by volume. You will lose about a quarter of the fresh ginger you start with when you peel the stuff. You will also need a heavy, non-reactive stock pot.


If you haven't read Harp and Sword, you are really missing some good reading. I have to warn you, though, you might gain weight if you try the recipes he posts.