*crispy waffle*

I've realized by the comments on my Perfect Waffle post that my actual go-to waffle recipe is hidden away in another post. Both involve yeast (of course-- don't make waffles without it!), but my first recipe involves separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites right before making the waffles. Eventually, I found this tiresome on a weekend morning when I haven't even had my coffee yet. So the recipe I actually use all the time involves combining all the ingredients and raising the batter in the refrigerator overnight. The waffles are still super crispy in the morning and you don't have to bust out a hand mixer! Perfect for a pre-coffee bleary-eyed Saturday morning.

The Easiest Crispiest Yeasted Waffles

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 stick melted butter (1/2 cup or 110 grams)
2 cups warm milk (heated to about 110 degrees)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

The night before:

Combine and whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl: flour, yeast, sugar and salt.
Combine the melted butter and milk. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients.
Whisk eggs and vanilla together in a separate small bowl. Add the egg-vanilla mixture to the other mixture, and whisk until well-combined.
Cover with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge until tomorrow morning. (The batter can rise for 10 to 24 hours.)

The next morning:

Prepare waffle iron as usual. Stir the batter to deflate it (it should be puffy and frothy).
Add to waffle iron the same way you would other batter, keeping in mind that this batter will rise more than batters that use baking powder instead of yeast.

Labels: recipes, the sweet, waffles

posted by sheryl | 7:44 AM | comments (3)

The other day I was filling in some profile information on Chowhound, such as location, website, blah blah blah, but because it's a foodie message board, it had some interesting ones like "The best meal you ever had." I had to think for a second on the one labeled, "Favorite comfort food." What is my favorite comfort food? I guess for me, what it ultimately means is not just what gives me comfort to eat, but what dish am I happy to cook, and what does my family like to eat over and over again.

My friends Melinda and Mark just moved to Hawaii recently. After the envy subsided, I started--of course--thinking about lunch. Hawaiian plate lunch, specifically. Oh, you don't know what plate lunch is? Let me tell you-- it is basically the ultimate comfort food for an Asian. It's typically some sort of meat (you choose) served with heaps of rice and a huge scoop of mac salad. Double starching it-- oh yeah! (I love the double starch. At home whenever I make mashed potatoes, we end up eating it with rice.) The Filipino version of the ABC motto should be "Always Be Carb-loading".

I realized then that actually my favorite home-cooked comfort food is something that definitely falls into plate lunch world: Katsu chicken. This is totally my kids' favorite dish and about the easiest thing in the world to make. Basically it's chicken cutlet, but with panko breadcrumbs and served with rice and tonkatsu sauce. It's like, Asian chicken fingers or something. And it is delish. We eat so much katsu at home that when we moved to Holland, I was really worried about something that seems relatively minor to most anyone else: Where would I get tonkatsu sauce? My four-year-old basically needs to drown his rice in the sauce when we eat katsu, so you can't underestimate the importance of the sauce. (Otherwise, it's just fried chicken and rice, right?) I had an elaborate plan of asking all visitors from the States to bring us a bottle each time they visited, and then we would build up a stockpile. But no need, in the end I randomly found the famous Bulldog label glowering at me from the shelf at a Chinese grocery in the Hague. Yes, it was like 5 euros for a small bottle. But who cares at that point?

So pour on the Bulldog, and maybe even make some macaroni salad. Put on some Iz and at least you can pretend you're in the islands. And Mark and Melinda: eat some malasadas for me-- those donuts beat Crispy Creme any day!

Katsu Chicken
serves 4
Don't bother if you don't have panko breadcrumbs; it absolutely will not be the same. If you can, try honey panko. It has a very subtle sweetness to it (and smells lovely when you pour it into the bowl.)

Ingredients
1-1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 large eggs
1 cup Japanese panko breadcrumbs
2 cups canola oil (or any other light-colored oil, such as sunflower oil, which is what I prefer)

With a sharp chef's knife, split the chicken breasts lengthwise so you have two equal pieces. (this will make the chicken flatter so it cooks faster when you deep fry it.) Pound (but not too thin) to equal thickness all over. Pat dry with a paper towel.

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in one bowl. Beat the eggs lightly in a second bowl. Place the panko in a large, shallow bowl or pie plate.

Bread the chicken in the typical assembly line: flour first, then eggs, then panko. Shake off excess after each step. Place the breaded pieces on a plate.

Heat the oil in a heavy 3 or 4-quart saucepan to 325 degrees (I always use a candy thermometer.)

Fry the chicken in batches, 1-2 minutes on each side. Place the finished pieces on a cooling rack to stay crispy (I noticed that they get a bit soggier if you put them on paper towels, so a cooling rack does a better job.)

Serve with tonkatsu sauce and heaps and heaps of steaming white rice.

Don't forget the Bulldog!

Labels: recipes, the savory and salty, travel

posted by sheryl | 7:44 PM | comments (10)