Steamy Kitchen» Photography/Blog Tips

Chanterelle, Bacon and Plum Salad with Blue Cheese

SteamyKitchen — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:30:02 +0000

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Click through slideshow to see how I got my money shot (this photo)

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Click through slideshow to see how I got my money shot (this photo)

It’s week 2 of the Summer Fest! Last week we played around with herbs and this week it’s time for fruit from trees. If you haven’t yet heard about Summer Fest, it’s a four-week celebration of fresh-from-the-garden food: recipes, growing tips, even tricks for storing and preserving summer’s best with my co-hosts White on Rice, Away to Garden and Matt Bites. Of course, It’s not a party without your participation! And I’ll tell you how in just a bit.

My contribution to this week’s “fruit from trees” is a warm salad made with juicy, sweet caramelized plums… barely sauteed fresh chanterelles, crumbly blue cheese and crisp savory bacon. This was a recipe that I made two nights in a row…it was such a hit.

Chanterelles may be hard to find, but any type of mushroom would do…from sliced, meaty portabello to velvety white button mushrooms.

And of course any type of stone fruit would work in this recipe. Please don’t limit this to just plums but experiment with peaches and nectarines.

The bacon? Oh honey, there’s no substitute for the bacon. Do 10 push-ups tomorrow.

My Friends at Earthy.com surprised me with a pound of beautiful trumpet-shaped Michigan chanterelles.

After trimming the ends, the smaller ones get halved…and the larger chantrelles are quartered.

Chanterelles are so beautiful that I’d hate to drown them in any type of sauce. Michael Ruhlman suggested that I keep them pretty simple with minimal ingredients so that I would enjoy the full flavor of the wild mushrooms. Simple? Sure, I could do that. Sauteed ‘em in bacon drippings. Can life be any simpler than warm bacon drippings?

Okay I’m going to teach you how to cut stone fruit into nice, even wedges. The problem with stone fruit is that there is a pit in the middle. And sometimes it’s a bitch to get out without tearing up the flesh. So here’s how I do it. Listen good, because it involves a highly technical term called plum asscrack. Find the plum’s crack – STOP LAUGHING – and hold your knife parallel to the crack, about a little more than 1/4-inch to the SIDE of the asscrack. See the crack? It’s just to the left of my knife.

Now cut. The The seat of the plum is oval-ish and cutting it this way is the most efficient method.

Now turn the plum around to the other side and 1/4-inch to side of the plum asscrack, cut again. Now you’ve got two nice, big, plum asscheeks.

Cut these babies into wedges.

Oh but we’re not done yet! That middle section with the seed? Angle your knife and cut around the seed for two more wedges.

Can you imagine me trying to explain this process without photos? You think I was nuts!

Chanterelle, Bacon and Plum Salad with Blue Cheese Recipe

Adapted from The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann

serves 4

1/2 pound bacon, cubed
1/2 pound fresh chanterelle mushrooms, brushed clean and halved or quartered
salt and pepper
2 ripe plums, pitted and cut into wedges
4 cups mixed lettuce leaves (I prefer arugula)
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

Dressing:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Whisk the dressing ingredients together and set aside. Put the bacon cubes in a large frying pan or saute pan, and turn the heat to medium-high. When the bacon starts cooking and crisping up, turn the heat to medium and continue cooking and stirring until crisp on both sides. Remove the bacon, reserving 1 tablespoon of the bacon drippings in the pan (discard the rest of the bacon drippings). Let bacon drain on a paper towel.

2. In the same pan on medium-high heat, saute the mushrooms for 4 minutes. Push the mushrooms to one side of the frying pan. On the other side, lay the plum wedges and cook 1 minute each side. By this time, the mushrooms will have cooked through. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper.

3. Assemble salad by combining the bacon, blue cheese, chanterelles, plums and lettuce. Be light and gentle. Drizzle with the dressing. Serve immediately.

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How you can join Summer Fest

Summer Fest 2009 is a four-week, cross-blog celebration co-created (alphabetically listed) by A Way to Garden, Matt Armendariz of Mattbites, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple, with guest appearances from Shauna and Daniel Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, Simmer Till Done’s Marilyn Pollack Naron, and Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project. And from you that’s critical. Your contributions are desired, and needed.

Will you play along? Have a recipe or tip that fits any of our weekly themes? Starting today, with the subject of herbs, you can contribute in various ways, big or small. Contribute a whole post, or a comment-whatever you wish. It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious. The possibilities:

Simply leave your tip or recipe or favorite links in the comments below a Summer Fest post on my blog, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same.

The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits, and some pretty great dialog starts simmering.

Or think bigger: Publish entire entire posts of your own, if you wish, and grab the juicy Summer Fest 2009 tomato badge (illustrated by Matt of Mattbites).

Summer Fest 2009 Schedule:

Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all.

Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise).

Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice).

Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples?

What did my co-hosts make for the Summer Fest Party?

Margaret Roach of Away to Garden ditched the flour and made a super simple Peach Clafoutis, that old friend Martha Stewart taught her.

Marilyn of Simmer Til Done shows us her gorgeous Ginger Peach Pandowdy…what’s a pandowdy? Go find out!

Paige of Hey Little Sister tells us a tale about The Perils of Pie…oh the pie crisis!

Only Matt of Matt Bites can pull off an Apricot Ice Cream while RAPPING to Supersonic.

Peach Cooler! Look at those perfect peaches from White On Rice’s garden! It’s even kid friendly (sshhh…I’m adding a bit of rum to that drink!)

While Shauna is on vacation, Margaret snuck into her blog and pulled out a Gluten Free Fruit Crumble from 2007!

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The Ultimate Breakfast Pancake

SteamyKitchen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:47:17 +0000

Looking at this photo, you can only come to two conclusions. Either I had way too much to drink the night before, and this was my hangover cure… or I must be pregnant. Sadly, neither are true. I was just hungry. They say never to go grocery shopping with an empty stomach, and I’d like to add to that rule. Never go blog surfing with an empty stomach.

I was looking around for some inspiration, a dish to cook for live television segment shot at my home. I asked my Twitter friends for some ideas and promised to make one of their dishes. The moment I saw Alice’s Breakfast Pancake, I knew instantly that I had to make it. How can you not resist layers upon layers of fluffy pancake, stuffed with ALL of my favorite breakfast foods?

If you can’t decide what to make for breakfast, why not just make all? I say it solves many problems, as I’m sure each of your family members like different things. Plus, this is a show-stoppin’ breakfast for realz.

The Fox 13 television crew arrived at my home at 6:00am. That early in the morning, I’m not pretty nor am I completely functional. But one thing I knew for sure – I’d be the gossip topic of the block. I love stumping my neighbors.

We were broadcasting live, so they brought out the big news van with a 60 foot tall satellite thingy. So my neighbors either thought something scandalous happened at the Steamy household or I finally got arrested for posing as Rachel Ray.

The Ultimate Breakfast Pancake Segment

How to make the Ultimate Breakfast Pancake

It’s best to make all the layers fillings ahead of time. In fact, you can make EVERYTHING ahead of time, use the microwave or oven to warm up and assemble all at once.

The first layer is the roasted potatoes – it’s a nice solid base.

Because I’m a dork and I paid attention during underwater basket weaving class in high school, I weaved my bacon when I made the cake for the photoshoot. Totally unnecessary, because only YOU will know that the a bacon has a beautiful basket weave. To make straight bacon, lay the bacon slices on a rack, then on a baking sheet. You’ll cook them 10-15 minutes in the oven and they stay pretty flat. Plus much of the grease drips down into the pan (the rest just blot off) which makes it easier to pour the grease out into a little bowl.

Not for health reasons.

I save my bacon grease.

To dip pretzels in.

You know you’re totally going to try it.

Then use a pair of kitchen shears to cut the bacon nice and neat if you’re anal like me. But watch out for little hands who come swooping by and stealing the little bacon pieces. Andrew likes bacon too.

Then after the bacon, is the egg layer:

Then whipped cream, and an assortment of fresh fruits:

The Photography

This was a hard one. I wanted to take the photo outside to get the beautiful natural light hitting the fruit. But I was using fresh whipped cream, so I only had 5 minutes to quickly shoot. Here are more photos of the final product, with some photo commentary…which is your favorite?

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Floating pancake. Hmm..I like to have some of the plate showing so it doesn't look like pancake floating in the clouds

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Floating pancake. Hmm..I like to have some of the plate showing so it doesn't look like pancake floating in the clouds

The Ultimate Breakfast Pancake Recipe

recipe adapted from Savory Sweet Life

4 – 8? pancakes
1.5 cups of roasted potatoes
3 eggs, scrambled
1 lb. of cooked bacon
1 cup of whipped cream
1 cup of sliced strawberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
2 kiwi fruit, sliced
1 bunch fresh mint leaves
maple syrup, for serving

Instructions:
Lay the first pancake down on a plate or serving platter. Add a layer of roasted potatoes all the way to the edge. Add another pancake and add the scrambled eggs. Add the third pancake and add your bacon. Add the final pancake. At this point if everything is cold, you will want to microwave everything for 3 minutes right before serving. Spread a layer of whipped cream, arrange strawberries, kiwi, blueberries and mint. Serve with maple syrup on the side.

To make the pancakes:
recipe from Mark Bittman, NY Times

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar, optional
2 eggs
1 1/2 to 2 cups milk
2 tablespoons melted and cooled butter (optional), plus unmelted butter for cooking, or use neutral oil
Preparation
1. Heat an 8-inch frying pan over medium-low heat. In a bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Beat eggs into 1 1/2 cups milk, then stir in 2 tablespoons melted cooled butter, if using it. Gently stir this mixture into dry ingredients, mixing only enough to moisten flour; don’t worry about a few lumps. If batter seems thick, add a little more milk.
2. Place a teaspoon of butter or oil on griddle or skillet. When butter foam subsides or oil shimmers, ladle batter onto griddle or skillet, making 8-inch pancakes. For this Breakfast Pan”cake” recipe, we’ll be making 4 pancakes) Adjust heat as necessary; usually, first batch will require higher heat than subsequent batches. Flip pancakes after bubbles rise to surface and bottoms brown, after 2 to 4 minutes.
3. Cook until second side is lightly browned. Serve, or hold on an ovenproof plate in a 200-degree oven for up to 15 minutes.

To make the roasted potatoes:
1 pound of small red potatoes, cut in 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 teaspoons freshly minced parsley
generous pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425F. Scatter the potatoes onto a baking sheet. With your hands, toss with the olive oil, garlic and parsley. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Spread out the potatoes so that they are in a single, even layer. Roast for 35-40 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through and browned.

To make the scrambled eggs:
3 extra-large eggs
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter

Beat the eggs in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat with the butter. When the butter is bubbling, swirl to coat the pan. Add the eggs and using a spatula, gently stir to scramble. Once the eggs are set, immediately remove from the heat.

To make the bacon:
1 pound uncooked bacon

Preheat your oven to 400F. Lay a baking rack on top of a baking sheet. Lay the bacon slices on top of the rack and cook for 10-15 minutes until crispy.

***

A big thanks to Miss Attitude for making this whole thing happen and to Alice of Savory Sweet Life for the inspiration!

Nobu’s Lobster Carpaccio

SteamyKitchen — Sun, 24 May 2009 23:05:04 +0000

Below is a slideshow of how I got my “money shot” for the Nobu’s Lobster Carpaccio dish. The first shot is the money shot – are you interested on all the other shots that led up to my favorite photo? Which one is your favorite photo?

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This recipe is from chef Nobu Matsuhisa, a man whom I respect so much but damn, I can’t afford to eat at his restaurant in Los Angeles! When I was in college at UCLA, I had to drop out for a semester just to afford a meal there. And to think…all the learning that I could have had that extra semester in school I could have probably gone to graduate school, earned a piece of paper that says “MBA,” then gotten a fancy job somewhere in a big tall building with $3,000 expresso machines. THEN after 25 years of climbing the stupid ladder working 80 hour weeks, I’d retire with a ‘do of grey hair, stressed to the hilt and finally have time to stay home and pursue my passions….

which is cook, eat and blog.

Lobster Carpaccio Cooking Tip

What I love about this recipe is that the lobster is actually flash-cooked in a mixture of super-hot olive oil and sesame oil. Instead of putting the lobster into a hot pan…hot oil is POURED on top of the lobster.

This ensures that the delicate lobster slices gets just a barely-there sear. More importantly, the chive/ginger topping gets flash-fried, releasing its flavors. This is the same technique that I use for my Chinese Steamed Fish Recipe

Oh but wait….I think I need to explain something else…..

If you’re vegan or a member of PETA, just stop reading.

I bought a live lobster…and in order to kill it and to make it easier to extract the meat, I froze the lobster for 20 minutes to make it go nighty-night. Then I boiled the lobster for just 30 seconds and immediately plunged it into ice water. This will help you get the meat out without cooking the lobster.

The sizzling hot oil is a technique that Nobu loves to use – it really does release the flavors of the herbs and the lobster. Plus for all the sushi/sashimi scaredy cats, this is a great way to introduce raw fish!

Nobu’s Lobster Carpaccio

Adapted from Nobu West Cookbook

2 pound live lobster
1 tablespoon finely shredded ginger
1 tablespoon Yuzu Dressing (see below)
1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1. Put the lobster in the freezer for 20 minutes, so it goes into a deep sleep and won’t be aware of the next stage.

2. Bring a pot of salted water large enough to cover the lobster to boil in. Plunge the lobster headfirst into the water for 30 seconds, remove and plunge into a bowl of ice water to cool.

3. Remove the tail and claws from body and use kitchen shears to cut open the shell of the body. Gently extract the tail and claw meat. Slice the tail meat into medallions about 1/4 inch thick or less. Cut the claw met into 1/4 inch thick slices.

4. Place the lobster meat onto a serving plate. Drizzle the Yuzu Dressing on top. Garnish with the ginger and the chives.

5. Heat a small pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add the olive oil and the sesame oil. When the oil just begins to smoke, pour the oil all over the lobster to sear the top.

For the Yuzu Dressing
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon yuzu juice (substitute with combination of orange and lime juice)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 clove garlic, grated (or very finely minced)
6 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or other neutral flavored oil)

To make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together.

Steamy Kitchen on Daytime TV!

SteamyKitchen — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:30:23 +0000

I’ve been so excited all weekend that I just couldn’t focus or concentrate on anything other than making the pile of chocolates and wine in my home disappear as quickly as possible, leftover from this segment last week on CBS:

A week before, I got an email from the producer of Daytime television show, a program that’s syndicated in many major markets across the U.S, asking if I’d like to come in a shoot a segment.

They shoot in Tampa, actually in the same building as The Tampa Tribune, the newspaper that I write a weekly column for. In fact, they are OWNED by the same company, Media General.

Anyways, apprently I did a fantastic job, because a couple hours after I left the studio, I got an email from the producer asking if I’d come back as a regular on the show.

HELL YA!

My stomach just flipped again as I typed that.

Hosts Cyndi and Dave:

The Daytime studio kitchen:

The show is taped a day or two in advance, so we taped on Friday and it will air in different markets either Tuesday or Wednesday. I made Chinese Sausage Fried Rice for a 4 minute segment.

Does the show air in your town?

And you can see me if you’re in San Francisco, Tampa Bay, Las Vegas, Atlanta, St. Louis, Austin….well the list is long, here’s the whole list of markets. My cooking segment will be on 2-3 times a month, and it’s totally perfect. I LOVE doing short segments where I get to interact with the show hosts – it’s so much more fun than just me by myself in the kitchen. I gotta tell you, this journey is so much fun. Who knew that a little food blog I created 2 years ago would blossom into a massive career?

Another highlight – I got to meet this wonderful person – can you guess how old she is?

Jackie Silver of Aging Backwards is 50 frickin’ years old!!!! REALLY. I have more wrinkles on my forehead than she does on her body. Jackie and I connected via Twitter (which by the way you MUST get on, because I’ll tell ya that 80% of the amazing career opportunities have come from meeting people on Twitter.) Anyways, Jackie has been a regular on Daytime for the past 3 years and she met up with me in the studio to give me support and hang out. Love her.

***

I’d love to know if the show airs in your town!

Food Styling and Photography: Gettin’ That Money Shot

SteamyKitchen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:38:13 +0000

Today I spent a half hour at one of my kids’ favorite Italian restaurants called Gio’s. It’s run by four of the hottest brothers in town. Like SERIOUSLY HOT. All of them. But that’s not the reason why we went there. I write a monthly column for a small community paper and listed some of my favorite eateries in town. Gio’s was one of them, because my kids’ like their pizza. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the hotness factor of four brothers.

Anyways, it took about 10 minutes of click-click-click to get the perfect food photography shot.

Wait. It was more like click-repositiontomato-click-drizzleoliveoil-click-morecheese-click – food photography interspersed with food styling. By the way, I scheduled the photoshoot appointment with the Gio brothers when the restaurant was empty. Don’t ever be rude and try to do this in midst of your dinner and every one else’s dinner.

I’ve created a nifty slideshow with commentary on the food styling and photography. See how I got from this:

Continue reading GETTIN’ THAT MONEY SHOT

Food Photo #1

to the money shot in 10 minutes. <– clicky right there for slideshow
If that link to the Food Styling and Food Photography Slideshow didn’t work – let me know? I’m using Lightroom and it’s a new program for me.

Food Styling Notes

Yes, so this was a 10 minute photoshoot. I didn’t have to make the pizza, nor did I have to slice any of the ingredients, but just a few adjustments to ingredients and placement …well the RIGHT ingredients totally transformed this photo. Just quick food styling.

It needed texture, contrast, and sheen. It needed spices (black pepper) and herbs (basil) so that YOU could look at the photo and instantly imagine how it tastes. The texture came from overlapping the tomato and the mozz. More texture came from the basil – both whole leaves and julienned. See how the basil drapes over the ingredients? In a photo that close (macro) the black pepper and grated parm added nubs of texture too. Olive oil added the sheen and moist factor. I took away distracting elements (pizza pan and the pedestal stand)

My food photography lighting? Free. Came from the big window. I just chose a table right next to the window. Can you tell where the window is?

Well, I hope you enjoy the food styling and food photography notes that I take – I know I get lots of emails from readers asking for more information on food styling and photography! What do you think…is this helpful?

Steamy Kitchen New Web Design

Oh, do you like the new design? Long story short – traffic too high for current shared hosting server. Had to move asap. Wordpress theme didn’t work on new server. Needed to customize new theme in 24 hours.

Whew.

I still have a lot of work to do – but at least it’s functional. And yeah, I know my thumbnails are not there….it has to do with my photos being hosted at Flickr and not on my hosting server. If I had one advice to give to beginner bloggers – DO NOT LET FLICKR HOST YOUR PHOTOS. I swear, it’s a pain in the ass.

p.s. Flickr, I’m sorry. I love you. Please don’t be mad. You still have all my food and family photos stored there at your house, so don’t be pissed off and do something stupid like throw my photos out the window. I didn’t mean what I wrote.

Shit.

***

Food Styling and Photography Gear

I’ll probably write an entire post about my gear…my ghetto gear and my not-so-ghetto-gear. You interested?

Here’s what I used today:

Canon 40D + 24-70mm f/2.8L lens

Ouch. I know…..pricey! You can get the EXACT same photo with this setup:

Rebel XT + 50mm 1.8mm lens

Don’t go for gucci pricey stuff unless you’re A) filthy rich B) have a sugar daddy or C) insane like me