food contest

summer47:

I am looking for anyone who has already developed criteria for judging cheesecakes in a bake-off.  I would like to know how you based your decision for a winner in such a contest.

I looked back at my notes on the cheesecake contest I judged (with two other people). We based our decisions on the following criteria:

1) Appearance: was there any effort to make the cake look appealing? Was the effort overdone? Were there cracks/decorative extras (such as chocolate curls)/flowers, etc. Did the cook put the cake onto or into something unique (such as a basket). Was there something unique about the appearance? Was the cake attractive? Was the color right?

2) Texture: did it cut smoothly or crumble? Was it appropriately smooth and creamy? Was it too light and fluffy, too dense and heavy, too firm, too dry? Were extra texture ingredients appropriate (e.g. chocolate chips, blueberries, fruit toppings, chocolate frosting)? Did it feel good on the tongue?

3) Flavor: did it taste like cheesecake or were the other ingredients too dominant? Was it sweet enough? Too sweet? Were the seasonings/enhancers (such as vanilla extract) subtle or overwhelming? Were any extra flavors appropriate (chili powder for a savory cheesecake; fruit, nuts, etc.)? Was there an aftertaste? Did the cake have a pleasant aroma?

4) Style and Creativity: were there unique flavors, texture additions or decorative touches?

We gave each cake a number from 1 to 10 in each category. The ones with the highest points were the winners. We had one cake that was gorgeous and got high marks for appearance, but it was both too sweet and overwhelmed with white chocolate and also too dry, so it got low points for flavor and texture. The winning entry (first place) looked beautiful (though not as gorgeous as the other I mentioned), it also cut well: smooth, creamy and tender-firm, with sufficient moisture. The cheese melted on the tongue; the chocolate and vanilla were evenly balanced, as was the tangy-sweet quality of the cheese. There was a unique quality in the sour-cream topping. So this cake got high marks in every category.

Hope this helps. If you are holding a contest, I’d love to know how it works.

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September Fresh Tomato Sauce

Anyone else feel that yesterday it was summer but the word September changes everything?

It’s hot and muggy. The hottest summer on record around here. And yet all of a sudden turning the page in the calendar makes me feel as if the season is over.

When I hear “September” I think back-to-school. I remember being a kid and buying new black and white notebooks and loving the feeling of writing on the thick right hand side. I hope I liked my teacher. I got new shoes. Thick sweaters that I wouldn’t wear for months.

When I hear “September” I know the food is about to change too. Purple prune plums for pie and poaching rather than the hard, sour red ones that refresh so well on a hot day. Tomatoes past their prime for eating, but perfect for sauce. The last of summer’s green tomatoes firm and bright and ready for frying. Huge zucchini, the last remnants of someone’s garden. My basil and mint are starting to decline. The dill has withered. The rosemary has seen better days.

September means it’s time to get the best of late summer produce and use up what’s left of my herbs. I just got back from our local Farmer’s Market with a load of stuff. After I finish this note the first thing I’m going to cook is tomato sauce, eat some with dinner and pack the rest into the freezer to keep summer alive later.

September Fresh Tomato Sauce

2 pounds tomatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, peeled and chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the tomatoes, cook for 20 seconds, then drain the tomatoes under cold water. Pierce the tomatoes near the stem end with the tip of a small, sharp knife, then peel back to remove the skin. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise and squeeze each half to remove the seeds. Chop the tomatoes and set them aside. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until slightly softened. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the tomatoes and basil and sprinkle the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 15-30 minutes or until it reaches the desired texture. Makes enough for one pound of pasta.

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Food Digest: Honeymoon, Day 3 -- Chinese food for dinner

8:30 p.m. Aug. 13, 2010 — Chinese restaurant, Venice, Italy.

After a romantic gondola ride, and on our last night in Venice, we ate at — where else — a Chinese restaurant. (Last year, when the Missus and I were in Ireland, we tried a local Chinese place, just for fun. Now it’s turning into a…

My husband and I also used to eat Chinese food wherever we traveled. Ordered Chinese take-out up to our hotel in Sydney once. It was fabulous.

Unfortunately, once we went to a recommended Chinese restaurant in Copenhagen. Unfortunately the Spring Rolls had been fried in bacon fat. Think about that one.

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Tomato Sandwiches

The tomato sandwich is great on a roll also!  When we were kids, our Moms made us tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise.  It was the economical version of a BLT.  Only we didn’t realize that at the time.  We just thought it was another variety of sandwich.  I remember them being delicious, and I would think that’s because we mostly had them during the summer (lunch at the beach) when the tomatoes were at their peak.  These days, when I go to the diner and order a tomato, lettuce and mayo sandwich (on a roll), the waitperson looks at me like I have a screw loose.  “Don’t you want any bacon?” they ask.  So I usually say something like “I’m watching my cholesterol”.  But really, it’s one of my favorite childhood food memories, and that’s why I order it. 

Submitted by Leslie Sussman (leslie@sussmail.com)

What a lovely bit for the memory bank. I never thought of a tomato sandwich as an economical BLT, but I know what you’re saying. Maybe your Mom was just ahead of her time, and knew the glories of a good tomato!

Somehow, for me, any addition pushes this simple sandwich into a whole new category. In a BLT, the bacon taste dominates. I have also made tomato sandwich adding sliced avocado, and there, too, the avocado seems to become the overriding flavor, as it also does when I combine tomato and sliced hard cooked egg or tomato and cheddar cheese. Lettuce does not seem to take over, even so, I love just a plain tomato sandwich. No fuss, no frill, nothing else. When the season’s right I just want tomato and more tomato.

But I am going to try it on a roll, as you suggest! At the beach might even be better.

Maybe next time you order a tomato sandwich and the waitperson asks if you want bacon, you can pull a “Harry Met Sally” and order the bacon on the side.

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Summer Tomatoes!

I was doing all right on my low carb diet until today and then I saw the tomatoes.

I can be disciplined and forgo bagels, doughnuts, chocolate and even movie popcorn (well, that one’s awfully tempting too).

But when I’m at the farmer’s market and see a fat, red, ripe summer beefsteak I think: white bread and mayo!!

There is no summer meal better than a tomato sandwich. I won’t fancy it up. No super splendiferous olive oil. No fresh basil. No ciabatta or multigrain or Portuguese roll allowed.

White bread, Hellman’s mayo and a sliced tomato.

Goodbye low-carb diet. I’m having at least two of these today.

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Rice Pudding Photo

Someone asked for a good recipe for Creamy Rice Pudding, which I posted last week. I hadn’t made the dish for a while, so over the weekend I decided to try it again. It was as good as I remembered.

Because I am always on a diet and trying not to eat foods that are extremely rich and fattening, I took one taste and quickly packed up the remainder in a plastic container to bring over to my brother, the one who eats the thick, gummy Deli rice pudding.

He declared it awesome.

You can find the recipe here at the blog, but I also took this photo, so I can remember how good my one spoonful was.

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Dinner from Jean-Louis Gerin

It’s usually a fruit sorbet that separates the first few courses from the main dish. A refreshing palate cleanser after, say, goat-cheese and fig crostini followed by crispy snapper topped sauteed watercress and before the braised shortribs with Shiraz reduction.

But the other night at Restaurant Jean-Louis in Greenwich, CT. the palate cleanser separated the professional eaters from the more faint-of-heart.

Dinner began simply enough with a few amuses bouche: caviar-topped puff pastries, asparagus soup shots, bites of tuna-mussel terrine and a tiny lump of velvety foie gras pate. A lovely start.

We anticipated the degustation to come with total abandon and complete trust in chef Jean-Louis Gerin, who has been cooking dinner for us since 1984. After all these years, he and his wife Linda, who welcomes and dotes on diners as if they were guests in her home, know what we like, know we will taste whatever they serve and know they can experiment on us with any new food ideas Jean-Louis might come up with. You can rely on a chef who has won all sorts of culinary awards, including the coveted La Toque D’Argent des Maitres Cuisiniers de France, James Beard best chef and so on, so on, so on.

After the next plate, roasted lentil soup studded with morsels of fat, tender escargots, any normal person would begin to feel full. Let’s just say that Jean-Louis is as generous in his servings as my Jewish grandmother.

But it was on to the Striped Bass with a spoonful of tender risotto and a delicate tomato coulis.

We should have said “enough!” But we didn’t. Bring it on!

The plates would keep coming until we cried uncle.

And then, to whet our appetites for more, there came the inevitable intermezzo.

It wasn’t lemon sorbet. Nor champagne sorbet or anything like that.

Intermezzo was Squab legs, poached in red wine sauce and lacquered with an orange-sherry glaze.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Rather than cleanse our palate, it made us giddy and yearn even more for some of the rich, intense flavors Jean-Louis concocts in the tiny kitchen at the back of the restaurant. We hadn’t been to his place in a while — this kind of dinner is not something you have often unless you know the end of the earth is coming and you don’t know what you’ll get to eat in the next life. We had missed some swell food over the months and in our hunger to fill the void, we’d try to get it all in during one meal.

There was more after the squab leg intermezzo. Rich Boeuf Bourguignon. Dessert. Coffee.

Did I eat those? Some of it?

Memories of squab legs drown out everything else. I will never regard a lemon sorbet intermezzo quite the same way, ever again.

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sprinklefingers: wait until you see this...

in high school i opted out of any sort of difficult math classes by taking something (very interesting) called banking, credit & travel. how that was a high school class that fulfilled a math requirement, i’ll never know. but i can use a bank, a credit card AND i can travel - so i obviously…

This conversion chart is terrific and an easy way to change ounces to grams of flour, butter, honey and all sorts of other measurements.

Whenever I cook with my grandchildren — and when I used to cook with my children or their friends — I made it a point to explain measurements and fractions. Using fractions and measurements in “real life” was a fun and practical way to learn this stuff. It was the kind of thing I learned in grade school but I’m not sure those things are in the curriculum today.

Get out those measuring cups and spoons everyone. The kids will reinforce their math skills and you’ll also get something delicious to eat at the end!

Recipe for Easy, Creamy, Rich Rice Pudding

Question submitted by Bubby (ljsussman@earthlink.net):

I love rice pudding.  Almost any kind makes me happy - except the gummy kind from the supermarket that you mentioned your brother eats.  Yuck!

I always like the rice pudding they serve in diners.  It’s creamy and not too sweet.  I can’t imagine that the diner cooks bother with separating eggs like your mother did in her recipe. 

Do you have an easy rice pudding recipe to share?

Yes I do!

Rice Pudding is also one of my favorites. I have about a dozen recipes, a few for the creamy, sensuous kind you can get at a good diner. Try this one (you can ask for another whenever …). The rice is slightly al dente — you can tell it’s rice, which I like better than the puddings in which the rice is ultra soft.

Be careful not to let the mixture come to a boil after you put the egg mixture back into the saucepan, because that can cause curdling.

Creamy Rice Pudding

• 4 cups whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup long grain rice (not instant or parboiled)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup cream (can be heavy, whipping or light)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (not imitation)

Combine the milk, salt and rice in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the raisins and cook for another 5-6 minutes or until the rice is tender. Stir in 1/4 cup of the cream. While the rice is cooking, combine the eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat (use a hand mixer) for 3-5 minutes or until the mixture is thick and pale. Pour in the remaining 3/4 cup cream and stir to blend the ingredients. Gradually add some (up to one cup) of the hot rice mixture to the eggs (this helps prevent the eggs from curdling), stir and spoon the egg mixture into the saucepan. Stir to blend ingredients and cook over medium heat for about 4-5 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly. Pour into a large bowl and stir in the vanilla extract. Let cool. Serve warm or chilled.

Makes 8 servings

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