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Beignet, done that. An easy beignet recipe

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Zoli in breakfast, dessert, french, kids, party bites, snacks

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

cafe du monde beignets, cooking, easy beignet recipe, food, french beignets, kids, mardi gras food, snacks, treats

beignets with powdered sugar

Beignets started as an amazing treat for the kids and has deteriorated in status to something they ask for on school mornings like it’s on par with preparing toast or cereal. I believe this has resulted in my making beignets several times this winter and their adoration of all things fried and dusted with sugar. But I want to keep them as a treat. And well they should be, as they require a lot of rising time.

Then we had a fantastic snowfall. Saturday morning was white and fluffy below; crisp and blue skied above. There was a bounty of snow everywhere! I wanted some strong coffee, some cool records to cook to and I wanted to make the kids beignets.

But what would happen if I didn’t let them rise for 24 hours in the fridge as my recipe said they should? Would they be good if they only rose for under two hours?

Yes, they would be pretty good.

beignet recipe pic

I have been making them from this recipe on allrecipes.com, posted by ginampls and I am going to stick with it. Why fiddle with something that causes so much joy? I must say though that I use butter instead of shortening. I am a butter and olive oil gal.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast or instant yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F
/45 degrees C)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup evaporated milk or 1/2 and 1/2
7 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup shortening  or butter
1 quart vegetable oil for frying (or less if you are only frying half the batch)
powdered sugar

Boil some water and mix it with purified water to be warm but not too hot to kill the yeast. Spoon your dried active yeast in and leave for 5 or 10 minutes. (If using instant yeast just add it into the flour and add the water in with the wet ingredients.) Add the sugar, salt, eggs, evaporated milk or 1/2 and 1/2 and whisk gently. Mix in 4 cups of flour (at this point use your trusty wooden spoon) and beat till smooth. Add the butter (or shortening) which should be very soft or even melted. Add the last of the flour and mix.

On this occasion I skipped the overnight rising time and once the batter was fairly combined, I dumped everything on my clean counter and got stuck in the sloppy mess with my hands. (Knead with a kitchen aid if you like). I kneaded it together gently till it was a smooth dough, covered with a tea towel and put it into my warm-ish oven to rise for about an hour. It was already 9am and by kid time, that’s late!

I have made this recipe properly (24 hours) and the beignets were brilliantly light and fluffy, but I must say, and as the pic doth show, rising an hour and a half in the oven seemed to make this batter pretty happy.

rising beignet pastry dough

I divided the dough as this just makes so so so many. Divide the dough with a wooden spoon. Roll it out to 1/8 of an inch thick, then cut into squares or diamonds. I have no idea what an 1/8th of an inch is but this looked good to me.

roll out the beignet dough

I left the little diamond pastries under a tea towel to rise a teeny bit more and then heated up my oil in a deep pot. The recipe says heat the oil to 360F, 180C. I don’t have a thermometer so I tossed in a little spare bit of dough to see if it starts dancing. If there’s not much action and it takes ages to turn golden, the oil isn’t hot enough. Likewise, if the beignets turn a dark brown too quickly, the oil is too hot. Have your paper towels all set and get ready to do some assembly line frying.

frying the beignets

easy beignet frying

The other half of the dough I put in a baggie which I then threw in the freezer for the next blizzard. But you can wrap it in cling film and put in the fridge for the proper rising time of 24 hours and try them again the next morning. Meanwhile, this batch of beignets was polished off by my children and their friends in half an hour. I may have dipped a couple into my gorgeous hot coffee and enjoyed the treat myself. Tres Bien! Not a bad morning’s work.

beignet cafe du monde style recipe

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Your basic basmati

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Zoli in basmati, indian, rice, the basics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

basic rice, basmati, cooking, easy rice, food, indian, rice, vegetarian, white rice

fluffy basmati rice

Who doesn’t like rice? My husband. Oh well.

I once made indian food on a camping trip, thinking rice would be quite easy on a propane gas stove (it was). My teenaged niece and nephew surprised me by gobbling up plates of the stuff–just plain as can be, none of my hard-won aromatic curries atop it. They said it was because they’d never had rice while camping before.

As this is my first post, I thought what is the most boring basic first cooking blog post that I could possibly create?

Rice! WHITE rice!

Well, white basmati rice. But give it a chance. Rice can go on and on and on–brown rice, fragrant jasmine, wild rice, sticky rice, pulau rice, lemon rice, biryani, risotto, jollof rice, paella, jambalaya, congee…

Anyone can make basmati. Just follow the directions on the packet. But I have noticed in my travels that there are those who fumble it. My Armenian auntie gave me the surefire, no fail method about ten years ago and I faithfully abide to this day.

Basmati should be light and fluffy, each grain individual and tender. It’s not the kind of rice you easily eat with chopsticks. But my husband does anyway. He likes chopsticks.

how to cook basmati rice

fluffy fluffy rice

1. How much rice are you making? I don’t measure any more. But however much you need, basmati follows a simple ratio, which is 1 to 1 1/2. So if you are making one cup, which is plenty for two or three or even four people depending on side dishes, then you will add one and a half cups of cold water.

2. Rinse the rice. This will help it be less starchy and sticky. Plus it is fun. Pour your rice into a pot, add cold water and swirl it a few times. Drain the water. Do this till the water is clear. Or not if you are easily bored, which I am.

rinsing the basmati rice

The rice will be cloudy at first. Keep rinsing.

3. Add the cold water to cook. You’ve either measured your water out already or you do as I do and fill the rice pot up with water so that when you lightly touch the rice, the water level reaches your first knuckle. Yep. That’s the way I measure. *If you need to add a bit of water later you can. But it’s a bit harder to deal with adding too much water. After you make rice a gazillion times then you just figure it out. Ah, the joy of cooking.

measure the water for the rice

Measure from the top of the rice to your first knuckle. We are quite scientific around here.

4. Cover pot and bring to boil. Then turn down to simmer for about 10 or 15 minutes. When most of the water has been absorbed and the rice is nearly tender, turn the heat off and leave the lid on for another 15 or 20 minutes. When ready to eat, take a fork and fluff the rice. Leave the lid on while you’re setting the table, pouring a drink, etc. The rice will stay nice and warm.

easy and perfect basmati rice

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