Deep-Fried Ice Cream

I've made deep-fried ice cream a couple times before, so I tried to be a little more creative this time. The basic recipe is simple:

Ingredients

• Vanilla ice cream
• Loaf of white bread
• Copious amounts of vegetable oil
• Cinnamon powder
• Brown sugar

Prep

• Remove the crusts from a two slices of plain white bread
• Take scoop of ice cream and from it into a ball with your hands
• Place the ice ball on the bread a smush two slices of bread around it.
• Re-freeze the bread-covered ice cream and repeat.

Serving

• Heat a small pot or frying pan with vegetable oil. Make sure it's hot, otherwise the bread will turn a weak yellow colour, rather than a golden-brown.
• Place a the ice cream ball in the oil, move it around so that the bread all browns evenly.
• Remove from oil and place on a napkin to wipe off excess oil (be careful, it's still hot).
• Roll in cinnamon/sugar mixture and serve immediately

This time I felt a little more creative, so I diverged from the recipe

I added a cherry in the middle (which turned out to be more work that it's worth. The cherry is good, but not good enough to warrant the extra effort it takes to shape the ice cream around the cherry. I wish there was someway to have a liquid middle - having liquid chocolate or caramel in the middle would be phenomenal!).

And I added almond slivers around the outside (before the bread). This was actually pretty good! It added some texture, and was very easy to do (just roll the ice cream over them).

Ready to go.

While I was at it, I finished making the whole loaf of bread's worth. I'm guessing the ones we didn't eat will keep for a quite a while.

And here's the end product - I forgot to take a picture of it after adding the sugar, or once the crust was broken - oops!

Beef Wellington, Take Two

Gordon Ramsay's beef wellington turned out really well last time, I made it with Laura, so I thought I'd make it again for my friends for Easter. The real selling point of Beef Wellington is that almost all of the prep can be done well in advance. My the time everyone arrived, all I needed to do was pop it into the oven and let it cook.

The last time I made beef wellington, I got my fillet from Schwab's at the Stanford Shopping Center. It was good - but not the ideal cut for a wellington (it's a cross-section of the tenderloin, rather than a cylindrical section). I went to Schwab's again this time, but they didn't have any go pieces of fillet - only 4 very small pieces. I gave up on them and went to Whole Foods instead. They didn't have much fillet on display, but the they took out an brand new whole tenderloin, cleaned it off, and let me select the piece I wanted - it was awesome. I'm definitely going to be shopping at Whole Foods for meats more often! Here's what I got:

What a perfect piece of meat for a beef wellington! It's a bit bigger that you'd normally aim for, but I was trying to get one make one beef wellington for the five of us.

I got my Portabellos from Sigona's again. Six portabellos seems like a huge amount, but they shrink a lot once they're cut and and the water is removed.

My sorry excuse for a food processor barely chops one at a time. Woe is me.

Removing the excess water from the mushrooms.

I kept left the mushrooms in the pan for even longer than last time, to try to reduce the sogginess - I think it worked out quite well this way.

Seared tenderloin. I can't wait until I get a good skillet - I find that I can't really get our current pans as hot as I'd like to, in order to give the meat a really good sear.

Brushed with English mustard.

Pancetta again, since I don't know where to find "Parma Ham". I was talking to a colleague today about Wellington and he told me that "Parma Ham" == prosciutto. Why didn't Ramsay just say that! I'll have to use the correct thing next time, although I don't think the Pancetta has been hurting the recipe very much.

Added the mushrooms to the pancetta

And the meat goes on top

All wrapped up and into the fridge it goes.

This monster of a Wellington took a double helping of puff pastry to wrap. Attaching the two pieces of puff pastry was surprisingly easy, and wasn't noticeable at all after it cooked. I of course trimmed large pieces off.

Ready to wrap in the pastry.

Almost ready for the oven - egg washed the pastry. Two more things after this - score the pastry, and add a sprinkle of salt along the top. I scored the pastry a little too deep, and cut all the way through - oops! It looked good in the end though.

Out of the oven. I removed it at 125°F, which is supposed to be the bottom of the medium rare range. I knew it was supposed to keep increasing in temperature, but it increased all the way up to 140°F!! Next time I'll take it out even earlier.

Doesn't look too bad, does it?

Drunken Leeks

A long time ago, Laura asked me how to prepare leeks, and I found this recipe online. I'd never tried, it but Laura said it was pretty good. I decided to make leeks for Easter, even though I've rarely eaten them, let alone prepared them.

Raw leeks - the recipe called for 6-8 leeks. Leeks very in size by a lot. I only had 4 leeks for five people and it was more than enough.

While reading about how to prepare leeks, many sites cautioned that leeks are really dirty and need to be washed thoroughly. It's true! Check out all that grime!

I decided to cut my leeks into rings. Normally when preparing leeks you cut down the stem in order to open it up to clean. The way I did it was to cut the leeks into rings first, then wash.

There's lots of waste - only the bottom light green/white section is eaten, the rest is discarded or used in stocks (I considered making vegetable stock, but thought that was bit ambitious).

Cleaned and separated leeks.

Drunken leeks, just about ready to serve.

Recipe

As I mentioned before I found the recipe here: http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv272.htm

Just in case that link goes away, the abridged recipe is:

Add leeks + a few cloves of crushed garlic + 2 tablespoons of butter to a skillet at medium high. After a few minutes, add a good dose of red wine - I added about a cup. Add a splash of red wine vinegar (I used sherry vinegar). Season. Cook covered, until leeks are tender.

This recipe was decent, but I don't think I'd rush to cook it again. I think I'm just not the hugest of leek fans.