Scaloppini Chicken with Chardonnay Sweet and Sour Spicy Sauce

Scaloppini chicken - my first attempt at home turned out a new addition to my food adventure -  fairly thinly sliced chicken pounded further and coated barely with flour sauted butter.  Swirls of chardonnay into the pan to deglaze the food bits at the bottom of the pan.  The aroma of heated Chardonnay tingled my nostril.  That's when I got the idea of making the Chardonnay sweet and sour sauce.   I thought it is perfect.  It has the perfect acidity and mellowness that the ordinary mixture of vinegar and sugar can't bring out.  Addition of chili pepper flakes brought the flavor really together when tossed with mangoes.  The smaller pieces of chicken were served over steaming hot Jasmine rice.

Hotdog in Home Baked Buns, French Fries and Onion Rings

I tried the recipe from http://angelcookbakelove.blogspot.com's Christmas Tree Custard Bread (Super Soft).  The extra dough Angelbakelove used to make the hotdog buns looked attractively interesting  to make hotdog dinner that I wanted.  To make hotdog buns or hamburger buns.  I used 160 g AP unbromeated, unbleached Flour.  Pre-Mix 28g flour 28g  with 15 g Sugar, 8 g  Milk powder, 2 g  Salt with 109 g warm Water with 2.5 g Yeast.  Once the pre-mix bubbles up, add 15 g beaten eggs, and 15 g melted butter. Proceed to make the dough, rise, portion and bake in 180'C oven for 15 minutes.

For dinner, I also prepared French Fries from Chef Thomas Keller's Bouchon Recipe book.  I learned about blanching the french fries at 325'F and then fried at 375'F.  Wow... time consuming.  I also made some onion rings ... woops... didn't have Panko in my pantry.  Soooo.... onion rings dipped in seasoned flour, buttermilk, and tested with  white corn meal dip also.... that was not very tasty.... so I changed the last coating with Tempura powder.  That's much better.  Keeping the peanut oil between 350'F and 375'F is challenging indeed.  This is when the electric skillet with temp controller would work well... I think.

Canneles de Bordeaux 2011

This is my 3rd batch for 2011.  I think it's time to re-tin my canneles copper molds.

Valentine Chocolate Mini-Cupcake

Late posting, absolutely and timely, but want to let you all know that it was fun making this mini-cupcakes for my grandkids.

Beef Stew

In attempting to practice cutting potato and carrot tourne, I made this beef stew.  Tourne is quite challenging - gives me the finger cramps.