Chicken Katsu

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People don’t understand that you can’t just “cook” something. Its actually kind of ridiculously hard for me to cook on whim. You see, I’m the kind of cook that has to do research before I can even cut into an onion.

But of course, I could never turn down a entree request 2 hours before a movie night, especially when I had nothing planned whatsoever. My friend Jocelyn demanded me to make chicken katsu. Secretly happy because I was having an unorganized moment, I obliged. About three seconds later, I realized I had no idea what I just got myself into.


At first I was worried about not having a deep fryer. Then I remembered that its easy to just substitute with a heavy pan, or if they have one, a cast iron skillet. If you don’t have a cast iron skilled, this may be a good time to purchase one – every good kitchen should have one!

After purchasing chicken and some other ingredients for side dishes I headed home, only to realize that I didn’t have the right bread crumbs. Improvisation! I went with italian herbed bread crumbs… and it turned out ok. The overall process was really simple and straightforward. Just make sure to watch the chicken – don’t burn it.

On another note, when I first made this katsu, I had no thermometer to test the oil temperature. So, I resorted to the same way my grandmother taught me many years ago – when the oil is heating up, stick a chopstick into it. If it bubbles rapidly the oil is ready. If it slowly bubbles or it bubbles vigorously, the oil is too cold or too hot.

This was one of the first times I deep fried something on my own. Don’t worry it wasn’t that bad. I found the easiest way to get everything done was to have an assembly line set up. Wear something long sleeved, and remember that cast iron skillets get hot. I keep a wet towel on the handle to remind me that theres hot oil.

Chicken Katsu

Ingredients

  • 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – pounded to 1/2 inch thickness
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 egg, beaten (I ended up needing 2)
  • 1 cup panko bread crumbs
  • 1 cup oil for frying, or as needed

Directions

  1. Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Place the flour, egg and panko crumbs into separate shallow dishes. Coat the chicken breasts in flour, shaking off any excess. Dip them into the egg, and then press into the panko crumbs until well coated on both sides.
  2. Heat 1/4 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Place chicken, one or two at a time in the hot oil, and cook 3 or 4 minutes per side, or until golden brown and the inside registers 165F on the inside of the chicken.
  3. Let the chicken rest on a plate while you fry the remaining pieces of chicken.

don’t burn the chicken like me!

an all new boomie’s kitchen

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Today is July 15th, the half way point to NaBloPoMo. Throughout the past two weeks, I’ve been constantly challenging myself to cook different things and to share what I’m fond of with my fellow readers. But today,  I am pleased to announce the plans I have for boomie’s kitchen – the future of this blog.

Although its been over a year since I first started boomie’s kitchen, it wasn’t until this summer that I really felt the passion that I had for food as when I started this blog. I’ve learned from a year’s worth of trail and error, what my style is, and what I hope to share with you all.

First and foremost, I will be be giving this blog a brand. A coworker, and good friend of mine, has kindly offered to design a logo for this blog, details on this to come soon–I promise! The logo will be watermarked on all my pictures as I hope to expand my portfolio in photography. In addition to a logo, this blog will be transitioning from the boomieskitchen.wordpress.com to a standard website boomieskitchen.com.

In addition, my philosophy from the start has been providing recipes that may or may not seem complicated, and turn that into broken down versions to home cooks/bakers. To follow through and better serve my readers, I plan on implementing a recipe request feature and a Q&A recipe request feature.

Finally, I can’t undergo revamps without mentioning my top most viewed recipes – macarons. I will soon be creating a Q&A section for macarons that will outline all my techniques, tips as well as flavors that I’ve tried in the past.

To wrap this post up, I wanted to explain the random pictures in this post. These are recipes that I’ll be posting within the next few days… stayed tuned because I’ve got plenty to share with all of you!

Want vs. Need: Stand Mixers

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Instead of posting a recipe like I have been for the past few days, I wanted to stray away from my norm and take some time to talk about my most trusted kitchen companion – the stand mixer. More specifically, I wanted to help my readers decide if a stand mixer is “worth it” for them.

The obvious benefit of having a stand mixer is the “up right” stand construction. In other words, a stand mixer allows you to work hands free while the attachment works at whatever you have in the mixing bowl. This is useful when you need to, say, add in boiling hot sugar syrup to beating egg whites to make an italian merengue for macarons.

Another obvious benefit of the stand mixer is the power it provides. The KitchenAid stand mixer all are powered with motors that have a throughput of over 400W, in other words – a power house. When it comes to kneading dough for French Baguettes, whipping heavy cream, or even creaming butter from the fridge, a stand mixer can handle all three one after the other and still be OK. A hand mixer might be able to cream butter, but whipping and kneading? Forget it. And of course we do have our own hands… but know I’d be worn out after kneading a dough for a baguette.

What made me start looking into the kitchen aid was my new found interest in macarons and bread baking. Although I could have whipped egg whites with my hand mixer, my hand mixer would get dangerously warm each time before I could get stiff peaks. Kneading dough by hand took way too long and it was too difficult especially since i was interested in working with wetter doughs.

Most stand mixers come with three attachments, the paddle, the whisk and the dough hook. Many also come with features such as timers and rotating bowls. In my experience, I haven’t needed any features than the speed adjustment. I do, however, use all 3 attachments equally.

Now, I’d like to take moment and leave a word of caution of “cheaper” stand mixers. Many times, these stand mixers have a plastic construction. I’ve also seen “stand mixers” that are really just hand beaters fixed onto a mount. Although these alternatives do add the convenience of working hands free to the traditional hand mixer, they do not provide the power real stand mixers do.

Like I’ve said, I use my stand mixer – a lot – and I haven’t had a problem with it. A good stand mixer is a good investment, like a good phone or a good (as ridiculous some may find this as it is) car. It’s not uncommon to hear stories of stand mixers to outlast other kitchen appliances. And although I personally prefer the Kitchenaid, there are other brands out there such as Breville and Cuisinart. All three companies make excellent machines with minor differences. I highly suggest checking out the different machines and making a judgement based off of your own needs.

What kind of mixer do you use in your kitchen? Has this post changed your mind about stand mixers? Let me know in the comment section below!

Lemon Scones

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I never really understood the point of a scone. In many ways scones are like the sweet counterpart to biscuits or Irish soda bread. When a reader first requested scones, I was hesitant. I wasn’t sure if I was willing to make “sweet biscuits”, especially since I was never really fond of them.

I can honestly say that these lemon scones changed everything. Scones are made by combining the fats with the dry ingredients and then bringing everything together using a liquid. The little bits of butter create flaky tender crumbs that lasts till the last bite. Imagine that with the enticing aroma of freshly grated lemon zest. This recipe produces scones that aren’t overly sweet, which made a lot of my friends happy. I wouldn’t have minded dunking these in some lemon flavored glaze.

Although I’m sure that these scones aren’t the best recipe out there, they were definitely a tasty treat. These scones have inspired me to make more scones in the future, and yes fellow readers, that means more scones to come!

Lemon Scones

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Cut butter into tablespoon slices and then cut into small cubes.
  3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  4. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. I prefer to rub the butter in gently using my fingertips.
  5. Add buttermilk and lemon juice, and lemon zest, stirring just until mixed.
  6. Turn onto a floured surface; knead gently six times. Shape into a ball.
  7. On a greased baking sheet, pat dough into a circle about 1/2 in thick and 8-1/2 in. in diameter. Using a sharp knife, cut wedges in the dough, being careful not to cut all the way through. Sprinkle with sugar.
  8. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

Photo Guide: 30 minute chocolate chip cookies

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Chocolate chip cookies, start to finish, 30 minutes. It was about a year ago when I first posted the chocolate chip cookies that my friends talk about. Big, fat, chewy, chocolate chip cookies is what they’re called in Allrecipes.com. But of course, the ingredients are only a sliver of a recipe–the execution makes up the majority.

Over 4 years after my initial discovery of these cookies, I’ve come up with a method that lets me use these cookies as a “fallback” for almost any given situation. The techniques used in this photo guide might be slightly controversial in terms of what is “taught” or what is “standard baking”.  Throughout the years however, I’ve grown to learn that specifically for this recipe, everything I’ve done has worked… time after time.

Start by preheating your oven to 325 F. In bowl of your stand mixer, add the butter straight from the fridge. Using the paddle attachment, beat on low to break the butter up and then medium until it is smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and cream together. Add the eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla extract and continue beating until combined. Add in the baking soda, baking powder and salt at this time too.

Here’s the second secret to speeding things up. Lower the bowl of the stand mixer and add the flour. Start the stand mixer on the lowest speed possible and slowly raise the bowl up. You’ll have to take your time doing this but using the stand mixer increases the efficiency of this process while preventing a flour cloud.

When the dough is almost mixed in but you can still see the flour, stop the mixer, lower the bowl and add in the chocolate. Repeat the process with the flour – start the stand mixer and raise the bowl slowly. You might feel a bit resistance but don’t worry its completely normal! When the chocolate chips are mixed in the flour should be perfectly mixed in as well.

Start making approximately 1/4 cup balls of dough on a baking sheet with parchment paper.

I tried fitting in 16 but they started touching, if you have smaller baking sheets I’d fit 12 on a sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 17 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. When these cookies first come out of the oven, the middle will be soft! Don’t worry because they continue to cook as they cool down – this is the secret to super soft cookies. If you let them cook until they are done while they are still in the oven, they will over cook as they cool down. Transfer to a wired wrack to cook. Store the cookies in a plastic bag with a slice of bread to keep them moist!

It’s been years that I’ve been baking and cooking. From jello mix to French Macarons, these cookies have followed me every step of the way; they are considered one of my few prized collections. If you get a chance I highly encourage you to try them out sometime!

Link to the original post with the recipe: https://boomieskitchen.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/chocolate-chip-cookies/

Pierre Hermé’s Lemon Macaron

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After making what was the best lemon dessert I’ve ever had, I didn’t want to just settle with a boring old tart.  I wanted to make macarons. Remember when I was trying to find the ultimate macaron recipe? Well I can’t say that I’ve found the recipe yet, but I can say that Pierre Hermé’s recipe comes pretty close. I didn’t come across Pierre Herme’s Lemon macaron when I was first making the comparison recipe. If I had made these macarons, I think my decision-making skills would have been severely impaired.

Here’s a secret to Pierre Hermé’s macarons: the shells aren’t flavored. After years of “research”, Pierre believes that the easiest way to infuse flavor into a macaron is by letting the entire cookie age and letting the flavor take over the shell. I don’t think he’s wrong – it’s worked for me so far.

Like his other macaron recipes, this utilizes an italian merengue. In fact, other than the food coloring, these macarons are indistinguishable from the pistachio macarons (as far as the shell is concerned). The filling is essentially the lemon cream, thickened with some extra almond flour. After aging in the fridge for 24 hours, these macarons seemed to be heaven sent.

As you can see from the pictures, I used the Trader Joe’s almond flour. If you’re interested in the difference compared to the typical Bob’s Red Mill almond flour I use, check out my recent post here. My friend/co-worker Melissa (shout out!!!)  mentioned that she would have preferred not seeing the brown specks throughout the cookie. As a designer and crafter that I regard highly, I can’t say I disagree.

Pierre Herme’s Lemon Macaron

Ingredients

Macaron Shells:

  • 300g Ground almonds
  • 300g Icing sugar
  • 110g Aged egg whites
  • yellow food coloring
  •  300g Granulated sugar
  • 75g Mineral water
  • 110g Aged egg whites

Lemon Filling:

Method

Macaron Shell

Pulse the the icing sugar and ground almonds and sift twice. Stir the coloring into the first portion of the egg whites. Pour them over the mixture of icing sugar and ground almonds but do not stir.

Bring the water and sugar to boil at 118C (244F). Start whisking on low when the water boils. When the syrup reaches 115C (239F), simultaneously start whisking the second portion of liquefied egg whites to soft peaks on a medium speed.

When the sugar reaches 118C, pour it over the egg whites. Whisk and allow the meringue to cool down to 50C. Fold meringue into the almond-sugar mixture. Spoon the batter into a piping bag and pipe rounds of batter about 3.5cm in diameter, spacing them 2cm apart on baking trays lined with baking parchment.

Rap the tray on the work surface covered with a kitchen cloth. Leave to stand for at least 30 minutes, until a skin forms on the shells.

Preheat the fan oven to 180C (356F), then put the trays in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes, quickly opening and shutting the oven door twice during cooking time. After 12 minutes, remove the macarons and slide the shells on to the work surface.

Filling

Fold almond flour into the lemon cream. Pipe onto a macaron shell and place another macaron shell on top, squeezing gently.

Mushroom Lasagna

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So if you followed along to my NaBloPoMo posts, you can probably figure out that I was hinting at some pasta dish with mushrooms with my post from yesterday. I don’t know about you but I’m really excited for this mushroom lasagna.

When I first started collecting recipes, this caught my attention. First of all, I love lasagna. I love the idea of combining pasta, sides and throwing copious amounts of cheese between each layer. I love the soft tender bite bursting with multiple flavors. I love the excuse to squeeze food into an entree, so I can make more sides.


With this recipe, not only do I get all the perks of lasagna, it incorporates two of my favorite italian inspirations in cooking, mushrooms and white sauce. The best part – making everything from scratch (well, not the pasta) . I thought it would be a great way to show the world that its really not that hard to make your own sauce. The recipe uses a familiar technique of a flour roux, which is used for gravies and sauces.

I used to have lots of trouble making good roux-based sauces. Past tense used to. My secret to a good roux is as followed. Heat up your liquid, make sure its at least warm and let it sit in a separate container that you can poor from easily, I used a pitcher. Make the actual roux using a one to one ratio of butter and flour. Melt the butter, add all the flour, and whisk away. Let the roux cook for a least a minute to cook out the flour flavor.

The secret to a smooth luxurious sauce, is to add the liquid in every so slightly in the beginning. I poured in a few tablespoons at first. After whisking a bit it’ll seem like lumpy mashed potatoes. Don’t worry! keep adding liquid 1/4-1/2 cup at a time using the pitcher and whisk CONSTANTLY. Soon you’ll get a thick smooth sauce on the top right. At that point it’s usually pretty safe to add all the liquid. I like to add my spices at this time and let it cook with the sauce to thicken. My favorite spice profile in this lasagna – nutmeg.

Always ground fresh if you can, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

The rest is pretty simple. Pasta, sauce. cheese. mushrooms, repeat. The best way to do this? A mini assembly line! I was a bit thirsty so I had a cup of freshly blended smoothie pulling me through the night.

Mushroom Lasagna

Originally adapted from Serious Eats, with notes

Ingredients

  • 3/4 pound dried lasagna noodles
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 4 cups whole milk
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), divided
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 1/2 pounds portobello mushrooms, stems removed, sliced 1/4-inch thick
  • 1 cup grated Parmesan

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F and bring a large pot of salted water to boil. When water is boiling, add the noodles and cook according to the directions on the packaging. Drain in a colander, and then toss with the olive oil to prevent the noodles from sticking together.
  2. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and add the minced garlic. Turn heat to medium and bring to a simmer. In a second saucepan, melt 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter over medium heat, and then whisk in the flour. Turn heat to low, and cook, whisking constantly, for one minute. While continuing to whisk, add 1/4 to 1/2 cups of milk and whisk until combined. Repeat until you have a thick and smooth sauce. Add the remaining milk slowly while whisking constantly. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, the black pepper, and the nutmeg. Turn heat up to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick, three to five minutes. Turn off the heat.
  3. In a large skillet set over medium heat, add two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter. Toss in about half of the mushrooms, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have released some liquid and are starting to brown. Remove these mushrooms and set aside. If more fat is needed, add another tablespoon of olive and butter, and cook the remaining mushrooms.
  4.  Using a large spoon, spread some of the sauce in the bottom of an 8 by 12-inch baking dish. Add one layer of the lasagna noodles, a few spoonfuls of the sauce, 1/3 of the mushrooms, and 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan. Repeat process two more times. Finally, add a layer of sauce on and top with a 1/4 cup grated Parmesan.
  5. Place baking dish in the oven and cook until the top is browned and the sauce is bubbling. Let rest for a few minutes before digging in. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Almond Flour Showdown: Trader Joe’s VS Bob’s Red Mill

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Almond flour is the one distinctive ingredient used in french macarons. As a budding baker one year ago, I attempted to address some questions regarding the almond flour used in macarons. Over one year later, one of the top viewed posts on this blog is my post on almond flour for French macarons.

Today I want to revisit the reoccurring question that many emerging bakers have – does the type of almond flour used in macaron batter matter? To address this question, I decided to run a little experiment of my own, I made Pierre Hermé’s Pistachio macarons from another post using almond flour purchased from Trader Joe’s and Bob’s Red Mill.

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Lemon-Lemon Lemon Cream

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I love lemon curd. It’s sweet tangy and so refreshing, I always look forward to licking the spoon after making a batch. I thought it was my favorite lemon dessert, until I came across this lemon cream. This lemon cream, ladies and gentlemen, I can eat with a spoon. The light, smooth texture is what hits you first. Then the intense notes of lemon, citrus and a refreshing burst of sweet and tartness comes through. In closing, a creamy flavor mellows the overall flavor out creating a delicious dessert.

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Friendly Pumpkin Bread

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Half way through fall quarter of freshman year, I met a girl named Aurora. One day, Aurora was particularly craving a pumpkin dessert. Specifically, she was dying to have an “out-of-this-world, super-moist, and unbelievably dense” pumpkin bar that her friend once brought for her. Determined to please my new friend, I googled a few recipes and decided to try something out.

Two years later, I’ve added a few adaptations from the original recipe. Some call it a pumpkin pie in bar. Others say its the best pumpkin bread they’ve ever had. Originally, the recipe was intended to be prepared in a jelly roll pan as a pumpkin bar with cream cheese frosting but this version makes it a lot more healthy. I used more spices than the original recipe to increase the familiar thanksgiving flavors. To be honest, cinnamon is the only “crucial” flavor but I like having a variety. If you have a pumpkin spice you’re particularly fond of, feel free to substitute that in!

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