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Priscilla Tsai
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Chocolate Armagnac Cake
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 8:10 AM
Ar-men-yak.
... In case you were wondering how to pronounce "Armagnac," like I was. Think along the lines of cognac. According to Wikipedia, Armagnac is the oldest brandy distilled in France.
This rich, sophisticated Chocolate Armagnac Cake comes from my favorite baker Dorie Greenspan. The cake contains 10 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, cognac, and surprisingly, prunes. It is so good – perhaps the best chocolate cake I've ever made.
The texture of the cake is like a hybrid of a flourless chocolate cake and a fudgy brownie. The chocolate and dried fruit flavor combination reminds me of those Cadbury Fruit & Nut chocolate bars that come wrapped in purple packaging. Tart fruit enrobed in creamy bittersweet chocolate. Ground pecans aren't a prominently featured ingredient in the cake, but its presence adds to the complex flavors of the cake.
At one point in the recipe, you'll need to set the cognac-soaked prunes aflame. Don't be scared. It's really easy, so don't let that stop you from making this cake. Since chocolate is the star ingredient, make sure you use high-quality bittersweet chocolate (I used Scharffen Berger).
I can't wait to serve this cake at my next dinner party.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dinner Sweet & Spicy Sticky Chicken
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 8:02 AM
I've been making this recipe for Sweet & Spicy Sticky Chicken since it was published in the November 2001 issue of Fine Cooking. That's almost 10 years. I don't think I have many recipes that stand the test of time. I usually cook recipes once, toss, and then look for the next best recipe.
This recipe has stuck around because I really like the flavors here. It's sweet from the brown sugar, spicy from red pepper flakes, and it's pretty salty from soy sauce and fish sauce. Some people don't like fish sauce, but I love it. I'm not really sure how it's made (and I don't think I want to know), but it has a distinct, pungent flavor. You can find it at any Asian grocery store.
The dish is pretty healthy as it calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs and only requires 1 tablespoon of oil for cooking. Serve it with rice to mellow out the salty sauce.
I've made my own Bento box here ... a little rice, a few chicken thighs, and a side of pickled mustard greens:
Sweet & Spicy Sticky Chicken
Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili pepper flakes
1 tablespoon peanut oil or 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 scallions, thinly sliced
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs, excess fat removed
fresh cilantro stem (optional)
Directions:
In a bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, fish sauce, water, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, black pepper and crushed red chile flakes.
Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the scallions and cook until soft, about 3 minutes.
Add the thighs and the brown sugar mixture. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, turning the thighs occasionally for about 20 minutes.
Then turn the heat back up to high and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until sauce thickens and slightly browns chicken. Garnish with cilantro.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Bacon and pretzel toffee
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:00 AM
Ok, as promised, we will now return to our normal programming of ... unhealthy sweets.
A few weeks ago I shared a recipe for healthy granola. This week it's back to my usual cavity-causing, calorie-laden baked goods.
You're welcome.
I found a recipe for pretzel toffee on Serious Eats, and kicked it up a few notches by adding bits of crisp bacon. The bacon and pretzel toffee combined with a layer chocolate and a dusting of fleur de sel (sea salt) will satisfy that sweet/savory craving. It's crisp, creamy, crunchy, and so delicious.
The bacon gives the candy a slight smoky flavor and another layer of saltiness. Two meat lovers have sampled this stuff so far and both gave it a big thumbs up.
Be careful when boiling the butter and sugar mixture. Once it reaches 200 degrees, it will cook fast. Be sure to stand by and keep an eye on it. I'll admit I burned my first batch. Kitchen fail...
Friday, January 21, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Breakfast Extreme Makeover: Muffin edition
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:49 AM
I love muffins because they're like cupcakes, but you can eat them for breakfast. Both are small, cute, and tasty.
While I like my cupcakes fluffy, sweet, and tender, I like my muffins almost the exact opposite – hearty, dense, and with just a hint of sweetness. I can't stand those cake-like muffin impostors that are greasy and full of fat and sugar. That's no way to start your day.
Baking queen Dorie Greenspan has a fabulous recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins, which was widely blogged about recently as it was the chosen recipe for the virtual baking club "Tuesdays with Dorie." Photos of her luscious lemon poppy seed muffins popped up on blogs everywhere, tempting me with their cute little black and yellow polka-dot look.
I took those suckers and gave them an extreme makeover. The original recipe called for 1 stick of butter, 2/3 cups of sugar, and a good dose of sour cream. It sounds like a recipe for a mid-morning sugar crash. I re-did the recipe using some whole wheat flour, half the sugar, 2 tablespoons less butter, and Greek yogurt.
The recipe makeover resulted in muffins with a strong lemon flavor, light sweetness, crunchy poppy seeds, and a texture that was a mix between a muffin and a biscuit. The tangy lemon glaze on top added some sweetness too. Just my type of muffin.
Below is the original recipe with my makeover modifications in parenthesis.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Priscilla Tsai Chicken Taco Soup
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 9:00 AM
Bust out that slow cooker and fire it up for this warm and cozy Chicken Taco Soup.
The only tools you'll need today, along with your slow cooker, are a can opener and a knife.
This Chicken Taco Soup has some heat, lots of veggies, and tons of flavor. It's pretty much like chicken tortilla soup, except it doesn't have avocado or tortilla strips.
One batch makes enough for dinner ... and tomorrow's lunch and dinner, too. For little effort, you'll get lots of reward. To make it, just crank open a few cans of veggies, add a diced onion, and drop in a few chicken breasts. It's that simple.
Serve it with dollop of sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese on top.
The flavors deepen over time, so get excited about leftovers.
Chicken Taco Soup
From AllRecipes.com
Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans
1 (15 ounce) can black beans
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer (*I used a can of chicken broth instead)
2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
sour cream (optional)
crushed tortilla chips (optional)
Directions:
Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.
Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Breakfast Easy Homemade Granola
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 12:57 PM
Here's a little something for all you people who made New Year's resolutions to lose weight and to be healthier this year – a recipe for granola.
Yep, I'm jumping on that healthy band wagon ... for now. (Next week, we'll be back to cupcakes and meat.)
Seeing as I can't get within a 1-mile radius of a gym without getting stampeded by newbie gym-goers eager to start their New Year's resolutions to lose weight, I'm going to aim to eat healthier instead of working out. Good reasoning not to go to the gym, right?
This granola is as healthy as they come – it's full of oats, fruit and nuts. The recipe hails from the cookbook Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, written by the owners of Baked, a big-time bakery in NYC and Charleston, SC.
This was my first time making granola, and it probably won't be my last. This is good stuff ... bordering on addictive. Tart cherries, golden raisins, almonds, oats, and a touch of cinnamon and honey. The original recipe calls for hazelnuts too, but I didn't have any on hand. It still tasted delicious though. The granola can be purchased on their website for $6.50, but why buy when you can make it yourself?
Eat it by itself or on top of thick Greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey ... or on top of ice cream.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Mouthful / Priscilla Tsai The new Chick-fil-A Spicy Chicken Biscuit
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 5:07 PM
Following the roll out of their Spicy Chicken Sandwich last year, Chick-fil-A now presents us with the Spicy Chicken Biscuit. The new menu item features a buttermilk biscuit with a spicy boneless breast of chicken sandwiched inside. It officially hits menus Monday, Jan. 10.
The Chick-fil-A team stopped by Creative Loafing this morning and dropped off some biscuits for us to sample.
I thought the biscuit was pretty good. I appreciate the hearty amount of spice they added. Sure, some claimed their mouths were on fire, and some bites were spicier than others, but I loved every flaming bite. The biscuit was tad mushy, but I'm sure it was due to the fact that we had 20 biscuits piled in a bag and hand-delivered to us.
I've never tried the Bojangle's spicy chicken biscuit (gasp!), so I can't compare.
Here's what others thought:
"I never thought I'd never love a spicy chicken biscuit more than the one at Bojangles. It wasn't so spicy at first but now i'm like 'yowch'ah' yahooooo. I ? chickfila." - Heather Desmond, operations manager
"I like spicy food, so I like it better than the regular chicken biscuit." - Carlton Hargro, editor-in-chief
"The chicken was good spicy and tender. But the biscuit was too soft ... smushed up." - Kim Lawson, operations editor
Want to try a Spicy Chicken Biscuit for yourself? Charlotte-area restaurants will give away a free Spicy Chicken Biscuit to any customer during breakfast hours on Friday, Jan. 14, 21 and 28.
I'm also giving away a few coupons for free SCBs too. Just email me at priscilla.tsai@cln.com with the following info:
1. Name
2. Mailing address (so I can mail you the coupon)
3. Your New Year's resolution
Winners will be picked randomly on Jan. 10, and will be notified by email.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Priscilla Tsai / Dessert A fancy cake for fun
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 4:35 PM
A simple white cake can be transformed into something fun with a few drops of extract and some decorative dots of frosting.
For a child's birthday cake, I'd say it's OK to use food colorings and whimsical decorations. But for a "grown-up" cake, I try to keep it elegant, but still fun. I think it's best to stay away from artificial colors and cheesy decorations.
Here I've done a white on white cake – the white piped frosting decorations are done on a canvas of white frosting. The cake itself is a three-layered almond white cake, layered with raspberry jam and lemon buttercream.
It sounds more complicated than it really is.
Just take any white cake recipe and flavor it with a teaspoon or so of almond extract. Make a plain vanilla buttercream and kick it up a notch with a pinch of fresh lemon zest. Once the cake layers are cool, spread on some warm raspberry jam, then pile on a layer of the buttercream. Repeat for each layer, and then cover the entire cake with buttercream. For the little frosting dots, I used two different sized round Wilton decorating tips.
Using one color of frosting makes life so much easier. Frosting is the bane of my existence. In the process of whipping up batches of frosting, I always end up getting powdered sugar in every single crevice of my kitchen and all over the floor (which the dog has a field day with). The buttery frosting then somehow ends up on every sink knob, drawer pull, and refrigerator door which makes it a beast to clean up. Needing to make only one color and prepping one bag of frosting minimizes the mess.
Though monotone, the cake is still impressive due to its tall stature and the multi-layered fillings are a fun surprise when the cake is cut.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Priscilla Tsai / Dessert The Ultimate Cupcake and Cookie Challenge
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 3:22 PM
Charlotte bakers gathered at the Ballantyne Hotel & Lodge to compete in the 3rd Annual Ultimate Cupcake and Cookie Challenge on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 19.
Open to both amateur and professional bakers, contestants brought their best cupcakes and/or cookies to the competition in hopes of impressing the judging panel, which consisted of the culinary and hospitality team at Ballantyne Hotel & Lodge.
Entries were to be completely homemade (no boxed or pre-packaged products allowed), baked at home, and then presented with care at the competition. Items were judged on taste and presentation. The grand prize for each category was an overnight stay in a Parlor Suite with breakfast in bed.
I entered the cupcake portion of the competition, making this my first baking competition. Whoa. I had no idea what I was in for.
Competition was fierce. My fellow bakers are extremely talented and creative - just check out some of my photos below. As I set up my display, I was a little intimidated by others' elaborate table displays with holiday lights, cupcake trees, props, ornaments, tinsel, sparkley table cloths and pretty display plates.
Teams of judges walked around and sampled each item. Contestants had to explain what their entry was and how it was made. Using plastic spoons, judges silently sampled a bite from each and kept a straight face, not giving away any inklings whether they liked the cupcake or not. After roughly two hours of tasting and deliberation, the judges were ready to announce the winners.
Congratulations to first place winner, Wendy Rickard and second place winner, Mariza Zeibert!
Who took third place?
I'm proud to say it was me. I was able to bring home the 3rd place ribbon with my cupcake concoction: An intense dark chocolate cupcake with a chocolate peppermint ganache filling, vanilla buttercream with crushed candy canes, and a white chocolate snowflake.
Ah... the sweet taste of victory. Ecstatic about my first competition win, I'm already thinking about my entry for next year's contest.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Mocha Fudge Pie
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 8:50 AM
I love this pie.
LOVE it.
My family has been making this mocha fudge pie each holiday for years now.
Um, let's just overlook the fact that it contains alcohol and I have been making since I was in high school. La-di-da...
Moving on...
The recipe comes from Cooking Light and it isn't exactly light, but it's not calorie-laden like a cheesecake either. Each serving has 297 calories. The pie consists of three layers: a brownie crust, a creamy chocolate pudding mocha layer, and then a coffee whipped cream layer.
It's delicious. It really is. You'll be tempted to eat the filling layers as you go. Go ahead and lick the spatulas and bowls when you're done.
Mocha Fudge Pie
Ingredients:
1/3 cup hot water
4 teaspoons instant coffee granules, divided
1/2 (20.5-ounce) box light fudge brownie mix (about 2 cups)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
2 large egg whites
Cooking spray
3/4 cup 1% low-fat milk
3 tablespoons Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur, divided
1 (3.9-ounce) package chocolate-flavored instant pudding mix or 1 (1.4-ounce) package sugar-free chocolate-flavored instant pudding mix
3 cups frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed and divided
Chocolate curls or cocoa powder (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°.
Combine hot water and 2 teaspoons coffee granules in a bowl; stir well. Add 2 cups brownie mix, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and egg whites; stir until well-blended. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 325° for 22 minutes (brownie will be fudgy when tested with a wooden pick). Let cool completely on a wire rack.
Combine milk, 2 tablespoons Kahlúa, 1 teaspoon coffee granules, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and pudding mix in a bowl; beat at medium speed of a mixer 30 seconds. Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping. Spoon pudding mixture into brownie crust; spread evenly.
Combine 1 tablespoon Kahlúa and 1 teaspoon coffee granules in a bowl; stir well. Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping. Spread whipped topping mixture evenly over pudding mixture. Garnish with chocolate curls or cocoa powder, if desired. Serve immediately or store loosely covered in refrigerator.
Nutritional Information:
Calories: 297 (20% from fat)
Fat: 6.5g (sat 3g,mono 0.1g,poly 1.6g)
Protein: 4.9g
Carbohydrate: 51.6g
Fiber: 1.2g
Cholesterol: 1mg
Iron: 1.4mg
Sodium: 399mg
Calcium: 50mg
