Almost Forgot

I intended to include the caramel recipe(s) with the last post but, well, I did forget - no almost about it.  Since all of my caramels thus far are adapted from the same recipe, I'll give you the recipe for basic caramels and tell you what I've done differently.

So here's the recipe:

Basic Caramels

Recipe adapted from Charlotte Albright

Yield:  depends on how big you cut your caramels

1 Tbs butter

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup water

2 cups light corn syrup

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 oz (one stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Lightly spray a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray and line bottom and sides of the pan with parchment.  Rub the parchment with the one tablespoon of butter, paying particular attention to the corners.  You can also melt the butter and brush it on the parchment.

 In a small heavy saucepan, combine the evaporated milk, heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk.  

Pour the water and corn syrup into a large, heavy saucepan.  Pour the sugar into the center, avoiding contact with the sides of the pan.  Add the salt.  Let sit for 15 – 20 minutes, then bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook and stir until the sugar is dissolved, about 6 to 8 minutes. Brush down the sides of pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to remove any sugar crystals.  Stop stirring, insert a candy thermometer, reduce heat to medium and let come to a boil.  Cook, without stirring, until temperature reaches 260°F (hard-ball stage).  This may take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your pan, stove and altitude.

Meanwhile, place milk mixture over low heat and stir until warm.  Do not boil.

When the sugar mixture reaches 260°F, stir in the warm cream and the pieces of butter.   Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until the thermometer reaches 244°F (firm ball stage), 30 to 60 minutes.  Stir in the vanilla.  Immediately pour the caramel into the prepared pan without scraping the pot.  Allow to rest, uncovered, at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours without disturbing.  

Unmold caramel by lifting the parchment paper out of the pan.  Place the caramel slab on a cutting board and cut into pieces with a very sharp, heavy knife.  If necessary, rub the knife with butter or spray with cooking spray.  Wrap the caramels with waxed paper squares, twisting ends to seal, or with foil candy wrappers.  The caramels will stick together if not individually wrapped.

And here are the variations:

For the red wine caramels, I reduced two cups of red wine (in this case, Merlot) down to half of a cup.  Keep a heat-proof measuring cup nearby to check your progress.  If you go too far, just add a little water to make it half of a cup.  The red wine reduction replaces the half cup of water in the recipe.  Everything else is the same.


For the bourbon-vanilla bean caramels, I reduced one cup of bourbon down to a quarter of a cup and decreased the water in the recipe to a quarter of a cup.  (You could also just reduce the bourbon to half a cup, but I got a little carried away with my reduction.)  This takes the place of the half cup of water in the recipe.  I split one vanilla bean lengthwise, scraped the seeds out and tossed the pod in with the milk mixture.  The seeds were reserved and added with two teaspoons of bourbon (instead of two teaspoons vanilla) at the end.

There you go.  And there will be more variations to come.

Practice Makes Caramels



Finished - finally!



I could have said perfect, but caramel doesn't have to be perfect to be good, as evidenced by some of my previous shortcomings.  There have been some ideas for caramels rumbling around in my head for awhile now, kept in place by the time and attention necessary for finishing the wedding cake flowers.  The flowers I actually need for the cake are done (but I still need to finish one or two for the back ups).  So today, I released one of the caramel ideas from its imprisonment inside my head.  Today I made red wine caramels.

Given that the original caramel recipe only called for half of a cup of water, I chose to reduce two cups of red wine (Merlot) down to one-half cup.  I didn't think half of a cup of wine would give me the flavor I was looking for.  But then again, I'm not sure the two cups reduced did either. 

The wine reduction, corn syrup and sugar was so beautiful while it was cooking. 



So pretty . . .



Then the cream, evaporated and sweetened condensed milks were added.  It turned mauve:  a color I find neither appealing nor appetizing. 



so not.



Fortunately the caramelization of the sugars helped the color a bit, and it still has a slight pink tint to it. 



And now we wait.



From what I chewed off of the spatula though, I'm not tasting much of anything that resembles wine.  We'll see what they taste like tomorrow when they're ready to cut.  If I can wait that long.



The reason I have all of these caramel ideas floating around is that I am donating caramels to a food-blogger bake sale for Share our Strength to be held in St. Louis on May 14.  This particular sale is being organized in part by Stef at the Cupcake Project.  I'm donating goat milk caramels with sea salt for sure.  Others are still awaiting testing/results.  The jury is still out on this one.  I really want to get to one of the other recipes today, but I absolutely must get myself to the grocery store.  It can be a bit irritating when the "need to do's" trump the "want to do's". 

Maybe there's a different w(h)ine about these caramels.

Ugly Good

Anyone who has ever watched The Food Network has heard at least 20 times, "you eat with your eyes first."  There is truth to that.  Several years ago the hubs and I went to dinner at the home of one of his fellow grad students.  I'd not met James' wife before that evening.  When we sat down at the table I looked at what was in the bowl in front of me and said a silent prayer that I would be able to eat it without making faces that would upset Stacy.  "It" turned out to be a hearty and delicious sausage and lentil soup.  So delicious that I asked Stacy for the recipe and have made it several times since.

The concept of "ugly good" was in my head while making dinner last night.  I had taken some steak out of the freezer yesterday morning with absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it at the time.  Later in the afternoon it occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to try a risotto recipe that's been lurking around in my head for a couple of years.  If I had everything I needed.

Being a fan of all things carbohydrate, I love risotto.  I've made it in several different manners and have yet to encounter one I don't like.  At some point I had run across a recipe from Williams-Sonoma for Risotto with Red Wine and Beef that I had saved.  That was my starting point.

The WS recipe called for beef sirloin.  I had our inexpensive flat steaks from WalMart.  It called for yellow onion.  I had red.  It called for cardoon.  (Truly I have little idea what that is besides a vegetable as I've never seen cardoon in Carbondale.)  I had carrots.  It called for Chianti or some other full-bodied, dry red wine even suggesting the pricey Barolo.  I had Chambourcin from Owl Creek (courtesy of Norm and Alicia).  It didn't call for cheese.  In my opinion, risotto must have cheese.  I had Grana Padano.

This is what I ended up with:

 

Version 1:  Risotto without cheese

 



Version 2:  Risotto with cheese.
The winner.

The hubs liked it enough to declare he would eat it again although we both agreed on a couple of things:  1) the beef needed to be browned more, which I corrected in my version of the recipe; 2) the addition of some cremini mushrooms would probably be nice.  And while the Chambourcin from Owl Creek worked out very well (also for drinking), it is more medium bodied so I would be interested in trying this again with a full-bodied red.  Overall, ugly, but good.  Even as left-overs for lunch today.



Red Wine Risotto with Beef 

4 to 5 cups low-sodium chicken stock

2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 pound boneless beef sirloin (or cut of your choice), cut into 1-inch cubes

1/4 cup chopped red onion

3/4 cup sliced carrots

3 Tbs unsalted butter, divided

1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli rice

1/2 cup dry red wine at room temperature

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Freshly grated cheese, such as Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano

In a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat, bring the stock to a gentle simmer and maintain over low heat.  Heat the oil in a large, heavy sauté pan over medium heat.  Add the beef and cook until browned on all sides, 5 to 7 minutes.  Add the onion and carrots and sauté another 5 to 7 minutes or until softened.  Transfer the beef mixture to a bowl and set aside.  Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the same pan.  Add the rice and stir until each grain is well coated and translucent with a white dot in the center, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the wine, scraping any brown bits from the bottom of the pan, and stir until it is completely absorbed.

Add the simmering stock a ladleful at a time, stirring frequently after each addition.  Wait until the stock is almost completely absorbed (but the rice is never dry on top) before adding the next ladleful.  Reserve 1/4 cup stock to add at the end.

When the rice is tender to the bite but slightly firm in the center and looks creamy, after about 20 minutes, stir in the beef mixture.  Cook, stirring occasionally, to heat through, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining butter and reserved 1/4 cup stock.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve with freshly grated cheese.

Serves 4 nicely.

Adapted from "The Williams-Sonoma Cookbook" (Free Press, 2008)