The Musical Innertube - Volume 2, Number 161 - Joy Stocke's Halloween Party
Planning a Halloween get-together? Chef Joy Stocke says you can knock 'em dead by burying them with birria, slaying them with souffles, and bloodying them with brownies! All the recipes are right here! Bone appetit!
Judy Castro’s Birria
Birria is a traditional Mexican stew from the state of Jalisco made from slow-cooked fall-apart juicy and tender goat, lamb, or beef in a rich and flavorful red chile broth. In other words it’s pot roast and Grandma’s brisket. It’s as old as tough meat has required stewing. And it’s easy to make. This recipe call for the meat to be shredded, but you an slice the roast if you prefer.
Serve with toppings like cilantro, onions, and freshly squeezed lime juice and turn leftovers into tacos with melted queso. Muy delicioso!
Birria Ingredients
Dried Chiles: You need guajillo chiles, ancho chiles, and arbol chiles, or any combination of above. Sometimes you can find a mixture of the three. I can find chiles at my local ShopRite here in New Jersey in the spice aisle. NOTE: Birria is traditionally somewhere between a medium to hot spice level, depending on the chiles you use.
- For a mild spice, don’t use any arbol chiles.
- For a medium spice, use 3 arbol chiles.
- For a hot spice level, use anywhere from 7 to 10 arbol chiles.
Spices and aromatics: I used a combination of garlic, ground cumin, ground clove, black peppercorns, and bay leaves.
Mexican oregano: Mexican oregano can be found in most Hispanic grocery stores. It’s very fragrant with grassy citrus notes. If you can’t find, theMediterranean or Italian oregano will do just fine.
Mexican cinnamon: This cinnamon is also known as Ceylon cinnamon. It’s brittle, can be easily broken into small pieces, and is actually blended into the sauce. You can use any cinnamon you have and I prefer using ground cinnamon.
Beef: Chuck roast. It has a good fat-to-meat ratio, gets super tender when braised and slow-cooked, and melts in your mouth.
Broth: Using beef broth enhances the beef flavor, but you can opt for vegetable broth or just water in a pinch.
Vinegar: Adds a delicious tangy element that complements the red chiles.
Tomato, garlic, and onion: Staple ingredients that add more depth of flavor.
Birria is traditionally made with goat or lamb meat, but the most popular type of meat to use in the United States is beef, or birria de res.
I used beef chuck roast, but you could also use short ribs, beef shanks, oxtail for added flavor, or packaged beef stew meat.
How to Make Birria
Season and sear: Season your meat on both sides with salt and pepper. Then set a Dutch oven or pot over medium-high heat with olive oil. Add the meat and sear on all sides until browned. You might need to work in two batches depending on how big your pot is. Once all meat is seared, set aside
Soak the chiles: In a medium pot, add all of the dried chiles, tomatoes, onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and peppercorns, covering everything completely with water. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.
Blend: Once the chiles are softened, transfer everything to a blender and add 1 cup of chile-soaked water. Add in the broth, vinegar, and the remaining spices. Blend until smooth, about 5 minutes
Cook: Strain the blended sauce into the pot with the seared meat (if necessary, depending on the power of your blender), gently stir, and bring to a boil. Bring heat to low, cover, and cook for 3-3 ½ hours, until meat is fall-apart tender.
Shred: Take the meat out to shred, and add shredded meat back to consomé.
Serving Birria
Birria can be served in so many ways. As a stew, in tacos, on nachos, or even in noodles for birria ramen! Whichever way you choose to enjoy it, make sure to serve it with plenty of the consomé for dipping and slurping.
- As a stew: Serve birria as a stew in bowls with lots of diced white onion, chopped cilantro, and freshly squeezed lime juice.
- As tacos: Birria tacos (aka quesabirria) are one of the most delicious things you can make. Dip a corn tortilla in the top of the sauce, then lightly fry it in a hot skillet. The top of the sauce will be mostly fat that has risen to the top from the beef, so it will fry beautifully without having to add additional oil. Add in some shredded beef, plenty of Oaxaca (quesillo) or Chihuahua cheese, and cook until the cheese is melted and the taco is crispy. Serve with a side of the sauce and a lot of cilantro, diced onions, and lime juice.
Storing and Reheating
Birria is a great make-ahead dish for a party. It can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
To reheat, let the birria thaw in the refrigerator overnight if frozen, then heat in the microwave or in a pot over medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes until heated.
Mexican Birria
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 4 hours or until tender
Ingredients
- 4 to 5 pounds chuck roast, cut into large 4-inch chunks, or leave whole if you prefer to slice and serve.
- ½ tablespoon kosher salt
- ½ tablespoon black pepper
- 1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
- 12 guajillo chiles, rinsed, stemmed, and seeded (about 2.5 oz)
- 5 ancho chiles, rinsed, stemmed, and seeded (about 2 oz)
- 5 árbol chiles, rinsed and stemmed (about 0.1 oz) (These are the hot ones. Leave out if you don’t like too much spice.
- 2 large Roma tomatoes, fresh or canned and rinsed.
- ½ medium yellow onion
- 1 4-inch Mexican cinnamon stick, or two teaspoons ground cinnamon. (I prefer less cinnamon in my birria.)
- 3 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- 2 cups beef broth, vegetable broth, or water
- ¼ cup distilled white vinegar
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
Generously season the meat with salt and pepper on all sides, and heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
- Working in 2 batches, add the meat and sear on all sides until browned. Remove the pot from the heat, add the seared meat back into the pot, and set aside. Or, choose a large enough pot to sear a whole chuck roast on each side.
- While the meat is searing, add the guajillo chiles, ancho chiles, arbol chiles, tomatoes, onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and peppercorns to a medium pot. Cover completely with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the softened chiles and all the other ingredients to a large blender.
- Add 1 cup of the chile-soaked cooking water, the beef broth, white vinegar, garlic, cumin, oregano, and cloves. Blend on high for a few minutes until completely smooth. (You may have to do this in 2 batches if your blender isn’t big enough.)
- Strain the blended sauce through a fine mesh strainer into the pot with the seared meat. Discard any solids left behind.
- Stir the meat and chile sauce together to combine and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 3 to 3 ½ hours until the meat is fall-apart tender.
Transfer the meat to a large bowl and shred it with 2 forks. Or, leave whole and slice. Add the meat back into the consomé and serve as a stew in bowls with diced onion and chopped cilantro or as tacos in corn tortillas with shredded Oaxaca cheese, cilantro, and diced onions.
-------
SAVORY PUMPKIN SOUFLÉES
This makes a low-carb and (I think?) gluten-free souflée. It won’t rise super-high, but it will make a sweet little dome. It’s a nice accompaniment to meat or poultry dishes. It’s so tasty you wonder why you don’t see it served more often.
Oven: 375 degrees
Plating: I like buttered ramekins for individual servings, but you can use a casserole dish.
PUMPKIN MIXTURE:
1 cup (or 275 grams) canned, unsweetened pumpkin purée
8 ounces/half a cup of shredded cheese – the most common are Cheddar, Jarlsberg or Gruyère … I’d shred two of them together to make up the 8 ounces.
3 tablespoons of butter
Olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely diced – I love shallots! They make a sweet substitute for onions, and they cook quickly and easily.
½ teaspoon each of sage and thyme
½ cup fresh parsley (I love me the zing of fresh parsley … use only a teaspoon of parsley if it’s dried parsley) … you might also add a ¼ cup fresh chives.
pepper
1 teaspoon chicken or vegetable bouillon
1 teaspoon cream of tartar – this is the agent that will make this thing rise a little. You may substitute baking soda if you wish … but, if you want to stay non-gluten, check to be sure the brand you’re using is not based on wheat.
EGG MIXTURE:
3 eggs
¼ cup heavy cream
Optional garnishes (choose only two … I think this dish is tasty as is, so we don’t want to overpower the main flavors with lots of additives): crumbled bacon or feta, toasted pumpkin seeds.
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees!
- Grease your ramekins or casserole dishes!
- Slide the eggs and cream over to one side.
- Now jam all the rest of the ingredients into a blender and voom or bip bip bip until it’s nice and smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whip eggs and cream either manually or with a mixer on high until the mixture is fluffy.
- OK, be gentle now. Gently, gently fold – do not mix or stir – the whipped egg mixture into the lovely pumpkin mixture. Don’t take a long time doing this: you’re folding in, so the resulting mixture is nice and fluffy.
- Pour this gorgeous mix into your ramekins (I still prefer them) or casserole dish (it’ll work OK) and get them into the oven. You do not need a water bath with this recipe.
- If using a casserole dish despite what I told you, cook for 35-40 minutes until set, slightly puffed, and lightly browned.
- If using ramekins, bake for 25-35 minutes until slightly puffed, set, and nicely golden.
- Take out your souflées! Be gentle …
- Top with any toppings, but really, who needs ’em?
- Best when served immediately, but it will keep for a few days (few = four) in the fridge (it will lose its rise but still be tasty and do well when warmed). Do NOT try to freeze. It’s sad what happens.
-------
BROWNIE BONANZA
FULL BATCH
IN A SAUCEPAN ON LOW HEAT PUT
4 STICKS BUTTER
1 BAKING BAR
3 TABLESPOONS COCOA POWDER
1 TABLESPOON VEGETABLE OIL
16 OUNCES OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS
ALLOW EVERYTHING TO MELT BUT DO NOT BOIL OR COOK THE CHOCOLATE. STIR UNTIL THERE ARE NO LUMPS.
IN A LARGE MIXING BOWL PUT
6 EGGS
2 1/4 CUPS SUGAR (18oz)
2 TABLESPOONS VANILLA
1 TEASPOON SALT
WHISK THIS MIXTURE TOGETHER. WHEN BLENDED AND FROTHY, ADD A LITTLE OF THE CHOCOLATE MIXTURE AT A TIME, SO YOU DON’T COOK THE EGGS. WHEN YOU’VE ADDED ALL THE CHOCOLATE, WHISK UNTIL IT’S SHINY AND STARTING TO PULL AWAY FROM THE SIDE OF THE BOWL. LET IT COOL UNTIL THE BOWL IS COOL TO THE TOUCH.
AFTER THE MIXTURE COOLS
SIFT 1 & 1/4 CUPS (7oz) FLOUR WITH ONE TABLESPOON OF BAKING POWDER
THEN ADD 6 OUNCES OF WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIPS (THESE WILL MELT IF MIXTURE IS TOO WARM)
6 OUNCES OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS
8 OUNCES OF CHOPPED WALNUTS
PREPARE THE BAKING PAN
USE A HALF BAKING SHEET
PUT BUTTER ON THE CORNERS AND A SMALL AMOUNT ALONG THE SIDE
CUT PARCHMENT PAPER TO FIT THE PAN AND LEAVE ABOUT 1/4 INCH STICKING UP ALL THE WAY AROUND
POUR THE BATTER INTO THE PAN AND, USING A BAKING SPATULA, PRESS AND PUSH THE BATTER MAKING SURE TO BUILD UP THE CORNERS. DON’T SPREAD LIKE YOU ARE BUTTERING A PIECE OF BREAD. BY PRESSING AND PUSHING THE BATTER THE BROWNIES GET A NICE, SHINY FINISH. RUN A BUTTER KNIFE AROUND THE EDGE OF THE BROWNIES BETWEEN THE BATTER AND SIDE OF THE PAN, THIS GIVES THEM A NICE “EDGE.”
BAKE IN CONVECTION OVEN AT 325 DEGREES FOR 12 MINUTES.
********IF BAKING IN CONVENTIONAL OVEN, BAKE AT 350 DEGREES FOR 12 MINUTES.
TAKE PAN OUT AND “DROP” IT ON A COOLING RACK TO REMOVE AIR. ROTATE THE PAN AND PUT IT ON THE BOTTOM RACK.
BAKE FOR AN ADDITIONAL 6 MINUTES.
TO TEST DONENESS WITH A TOOTHPICK - SHOULD COME OUT CLEAN. IF THEY ARE NOT DONE, COOK AT 2 MINUTE INTERVALS UNTIL DONE.
COOL ON COOLING RACKS BEFORE REFRIGERATING. IT IS ALWAYS BEST TO WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT DAY TO CUT THE BROWNIES.
JOHN
We welcome to the Musical Innertube today, Joy Stocke, a great friend of the podcast and a poet, fiction writer, essayist, consultant, publisher, and so many other things. Among her books are travel memoir, Anatolian Days And Nights, and a splendid, delicious cookbook, Tree Of Life, Turkish Home Cooking. That's right. Joy is also a world class chef. And today we'll be mixing and matching holiday recipes. Welcome again to the Musical Innertube, Joy Stocke.
JOY
Thank you. Happy to be back with you guys.
DON
Yeah, it's great that you're here! Now, heading into the holidays, we thought we'd have you back to help people who are going to be entertaining for the holidays. Have some lovely and wonderful food to put out. And the first holiday we're encountering as we go through the calendar is Halloween, and people do entertain at Halloween and usually they make. Pretty gory stuff. You know, little sandwiches that look like fingers, and, you know, other things that look like eyeballs. We thought we might class it up a little bit with some offerings that you might suggest.
JOY
Well, I can say all of this goes with the Halloween eyeballs, which I loved as a kid. The peeled grapes, guys. Anybody remember those? Yeah. To be blindfolded, then you dig your hand in the bowl, right?
JOHN
Ohhh!
JOY
That's along with the spaghetti for the intestines.
DON
That's right. And the cauliflower for the brain.
JOY
Oh, yeah, having fun now! So, I thought I would share something that could be made ahead for either those of us who are handing out candy, or those of us who are trick or treating, or those of us who have a bunch of little kids who are running around and we're starving. So, my thought was, we all know this particular food, pot roast, and the cut of meat for a pot roast is just a brisket, which is a relatively inexpensive cut of meat. But I thought we would really make it since this is also The Day of the Dead for many people, which is a holiday I hold near and dear, since I spend a lot of time in Mexico. And so, I am suggesting we do something called birria. And this is my friend Judy Castro's recipe, and Judy is a chef in a place called Cabo Pomo Baja Sur, in Baja Sur, California, north of Cabo San Lucas, and it's down a dirt road, so there is no nightlife here, guys, except the splendid stars. So birria, what is that? Anybody who's made a brisket, it's slow cooked meat, and it could be stewed all afternoon. You can make it the day before. It's a traditional Mexican Stew, and it's from the state of Jalisco, which is in the mainland. And it's made from the slow cooked meat. And originally this is a very old recipe. I mean it comes, basically, from the Columbian Exchange and throughout any part of the world where people had meat that they needed to cook during the day or leave slow cooked - old goat, lamb, beef, mainly lamb and goat, were the original meats for this, and they're delicious if you like that sort of thing. But that was what people had, and so what you did is you would possibly dig a hole in the ground, you would put charcoals and maybe you had a fire overnight. You'd put the coals in, you'd put a pot with seasoned meat. And when you came back at the end of the day you would have tender meat that you could eat. So that's kind of the concept of this. In Jalisco they braise the meat. Braising is when you cook over a long, slow heat, they braise the meat in a chili broth. And what I like about this recipe, you can make it spicy or you can make it mild, so basically it's grandma's pot roast, Jalisco style. And what Judy likes to do with it, and what I think is really fun, is you shred it. And you have this flavorful shredded meat and this lovely tomato pepper sauce that's been stewed, and you serve it with tortillas and you shred it, put it on a tortilla, and you could do flour or corn, depending on your preference. And then you could have all kinds of side dishes with it, whatever you like. Guacamole, sour cream, cilantro, limes, limes for sure, queso. And you know, in Mexico you would have queso fresco. Or you could just really make it simple and just do cheddar cheese and grate it on top and make it super simple. Onions, chopped onions, sauteed onions so you can have a lot of fun with this dish and kids love it. So, the main thing with that you want with this are chiles. So, where the heck do you get these chiles? The three that we use are guajillo, ancho, and arbol. Guajillo, which are one of my favorites, they're sort of sweet and smoky. And anchos are smoky, and arbols are hot. So, this is a recipe you could leave out the arbol chilies if you wanted. So there are three dried chilies, and basically you would put them in a blender with tomatoes, onions, aromatics. And you put them in a blender, and then you pour that on top of the meat, and you braise the meat in your oven at a low temperature, 250, 300, you could do it in a slow cooker if you like to use a slow cooker. I'm old school. I do it in my oven. And you can make it the day before, you can make it 2 days before, you could even make it 3 days before. And so, you know, you've gone to work all day. You're hosting a party, not even hosting a party. Your kids are going out trick or treating. Or your friends have nothing to do, and they're like, hey, let's hand out candy together. And you’re like, sure I made birria. So, there you go. That would be my suggestion and it's delicious. And it freezes well. So, you could even make it weeks ahead.
DON
Now, let me ask you a question real quick. Birria, how's that spelled?
JOY
B-I-R-R-I-A.
DON
Very close to burial, which is exactly what we're looking for. So, I like that.
JOY
Hey, whoa. I didn't even think of that one, so.
JOHN
A question here. Alright, so. I find I love, I like corn tortillas more than the flour kind, but I find the flour tortillas stand up better when you put hot food in them. What's your sense?
JOY
Well, you know what they do in Mexico, they use 2 tortillas, 2 corn tortillas. Because you're right, it doesn't have the gluten in it. So, it breaks, and it absorbs. So, what you do is, you layer one on top of the other. And who doesn't like that?
JOHN
Why didn't I think of that? Yes. And, you know, birria, on the West Coast and in the Southwest, it's this huge exploding thing. I mean, everybody's talking about it. Yeah, I haven't seen it so much on this coast yet - we're talking from the East Coast, listeners - but birria is on everyone's lips, and so is beer. But it just seems like there's so many ways you could take this and you could make so many different things. You could make it a big sort of, as you said, it could be like mom's pot roast, where you've got potatoes on the side and salad and even things like green beans. It really is up to you I.
JOY
You know one thing I want to add – you don't have to shred it. You could slice it like grandma's pot roast so you could do it that way.
DON
You want to be thin slices to fit in the, you know, I mean, to make a nice bed in the tortillas, wouldn't it?
JOY
But say you wanted to do it with fried potatoes or something. You could just serve it like grandma's pot roast. Just mix it up with beans, and I'm always good for a good green bean casserole. Maybe I'll figure out how to kinda spice up a green bean casserole as long as we have the fried onion thingies.
DON
Ah.
JOHN
Alright, so that's Joyce’s birria, and you will be able to find the entire recipe on our web page, and please have at it and let us know how it works. I am so hungry, having listened to Joy, I could hardly get to this next bit. I'm supposed to talk about something that I made for friends this spring, which it's savory pumpkin souffle. My mouth is just watering over these. These are really good. It's really just souffle with canned packed pumpkin added. You can make it so there's very little sugar in it if you don't want sugar. This is meant to be a savory dish. The one I'm going to describe - and again, we'll put the recipe on our website - my recipes are wildly approximate, but I think this is right here. Here are the ingredients. I think most of my listeners will know how to make a souffle, but we'll start out with the basics. First of all, you're going to need some butter and maybe a little olive oil. I like to combine the two. You probably should have at least one medium shallot. Shallots are really interesting. More and more people are turning to them instead of onions in the belief that the shallot has somewhat a sweeter, not overwhelming flavor, and they cook really readily. They don't really take much time, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to dice the shallot, put it into the mix, and it's going to give structure and a little savory overtone to it. So far, we have butter, oil, shallot. Now, I'm gonna give you a recipe using flour, but you could also use something else. There are other things that could be used to make this rise, and use your own recipe and just throw in some pumpkin, but basically what we have here for the roux, which is the basis of the rising part, is we're going to have only three tablespoons of flour. We're going to have about 3/4 of a cup of milk, 7 large eggs. And if that's too much, you could do it with just egg whites.
DON
Wow!
JOHN
Well, eggs are sort of the heart and soul of the souffle.
DON
I would guess.
JOHN
Yeah, yeah. You want a seven of them.
DON
Maybe heart, soul and several other organs.
JOHN
Now you can do this a couple of different ways. You can do a quarter of a teaspoon of cream of tartar. You could also do about the same amount of cornstarch. It's up to you. So, we have so far, we have butter, shallot, flour, milk. And we've had the cream of tartar and the eggs. OK. Now the next part of it is, you will also have on hand about a cup and a third to a cup and a half of cheese. And it's up to you what kind you want. It could be cheddar. It could be gouda, it could be gruyere. All of those are traditional cheeses to use in souffles. You could use another kind. “Wensleydale. No, it's a little a little runny, but it's all we have right now.” This is from the Monty Python cheese sketch.
DON
And another joke that I told once is “gouda cheese is any kind of cheese you like-a.”
JOHN
You want to shred that. You want to use a grater, to just get it in nice shreds. It seems to work. You know, I don't like to really powder the cheese, and I also don't - your mileage may differ - but I don't think that you wanna just dice the cheese up. I feel better about shredding. It seems to work better for me anyway. 2/3 of a cup of solid packed pumpkin. Now what? What makes this savory? Well, we've already mentioned the main spices will be salt, pepper and sage, and there's going to be about a teaspoon of sage, so that's going to get a good shot of sage. Now those of you who've made souffle know what the drill is. I recommend having mixed the souffle up that you serve this in ramekins, the little ceramic dishes, instead of serving a big old souffle. But I think this would work well in a in a big souffle pan. It will not rise real high, but it will rise enough, and it looks great. So basically, you cook the shallots, that takes about 5 minutes until they look soft and a little translucent. Then then we get to work, folks. We make our roux, that's going to be with a little bit more butter and the three tablespoons of flour. And you mix that up until it's kind of a paste, and you can cook it a little longer than you might cook a roux - I like to get a kind of a toasty roux going. Then we add the milk little by little, stirring all the time. Add the egg mixture little by little until we got it going, and you throw that cream of tartar in and then the piece de resistance is the shredded cheese, last but not least. And then you stir all this up until it's a really nice colloidal mixture, and then you pour it into your - how did you like that? Did you like that? That was good!
JOY
That was great.
JOHN
Hey man, colloidal. We do not hear that word enough on our show!
DON
And there are reasons for that.
JOY
I have to look it up.
JOHN
Yes, there are. It's just a ridiculous word and no one ever uses it. A colloid is a liquid in which...
JOY
I'm looking it up right now, I really am.
JOHN
All of the solids in the liquid are evenly dispersed. So, for example, mud is a kind of colloid.
JOY
It's a great word. It's a really great word. Thank you.
DON
It sounds disgusting, John, but thank you.
JOHN
You betcha.
JOY
I’m kind of mixing it up with colitis, but that's. OK.
JOHN
Colitis is not, that's not good!
JOY
I know.
JOHN
So, OK, as we were saying - the thing I forgot to mention is that you split the eggs between the yolks and the whites, and then you put the yolks in there and then you beat the whites up until they are fluffy but not dry, you know? So, it’s forming stiff peaks and not dry. And then you fold them in. Don't stir them in. Fold in the peaks and this will increase the size of the colloid by, you know, maybe about half, really. So, when you got it all done you have your ramekins or your large souffle pan, which of course you know, liberally buttered. Put them in there, I would say 18 to 20 minutes maybe.
JOY
What temperature, John? 350?
JOHN
- 350. Yeah, you know the world is 350.
JOY
Yeah, kind of.
JOHN
What you're looking for is for it to start browning, because they'll rise a little bit, and just when they really look appetizing, and they look almost like if you've had pumpkin biscuits, they start to separate a little bit and rise. The main thing is to gently fold them egg whites in, which is the step that I mentioned, or did not mention first, and it's delicious. It's a great first course. It's not really a dessert because it's savory and not sweet. But the pumpkin does impart a lovely unexpected pumpkin flavor, and I must say savory pumpkin is a good thing. Think pumpkin pie without the sweetness, but with the added texture of, you know, those beautiful shallots and the cheese. Good stuff. So, I wish you luck. Try it now.
DON
If it's a souffle, John, when you put them in the oven and close it, should you then, like, leave the house so you don't make any loud noises to cause the souffle to crash?
JOHN
What you want to do is wear moccasins, or something very soft. You know, I'm not a quiet guy, and I don't think I've ever made any of my concoctions fall, but how would I know? I just take them out and eat them. And now that I think about it, I think really the temperature should be 375 not 350.
JOY
Did you put them on a pan? Do you put any water on the pan? Is it a water bath, or just how do you - the little ramekins, do they just go on a tray in the oven and is there any water in that at all?
JOHN
You can do either one. I don't use the water, but I know lots of people who do, and there's good reasons for it. Yeah, I think I would use water if I was making a souffle that had bits in it. Like, you know, vegetable like, you know, broccoli souffle or something. You know, I would. The water seems to be called for. Here, I'm just bakin’. So, you know, 18 to 22 minutes. Watch to see when the tops are puffed and golden brown, and Bob's your uncle! Be careful. Slip them out carefully and transfer them into the mouths of your guests. Or let them do that themselves.
DON
Yeah, that's probably better, right?
JOY
It sounds absolutely delicious, and I'm going to try it. I'm really going to try this, and I wanted to say if people are gluten intolerant, you can use cornstarch, and you can use arrowroot, and they could look up how to use it. It's a little bit of a different system but there are ways to do that to make a roux.
JOHN
Right, those are thickening agents, and it doesn't have to be flour. That's quite good. And I did once make these for a gluten intolerant person, and she tolerated it. So...
JOY
And did she love it?
JOHN
She really did love it. It's something different, and people will eat it the first couple of spoonfuls, and they're thinking, what is this? What has John wrought? And then they realize, oh, wait a minute, this is a thing, this is adult food.
JOY
What is your favorite cheese to use with it? Do you have a favorite?
JOHN
So, I love cheddar, of course. But if cheddar's the only one you're going to use, there's kind of a vulgar edge to cheddar that I'd like to sweeten with gruyere. Like half and half cheddar and gruyere. I like that combination.
JOY
JOHN
It's just a little, I don't know, a little smoother, and gruyere tastes better.
JOY
Gruyere is delicious.
JOHN
All right, I'm outta here!
DON
Yum. OK, so there's your pumpkin-based stuff! So, take that, pumpkin lattes and all the other pumpkin stuff. John has come up with pumpkin souffle. Very good, John.
JOHN
Thank you.
JOY
I'm liking this one. This is going to be a try one on for me. I'll report back, of course.
JOHN
Good luck to you.
DON
To finish off your party, you may want a fun dessert. My wife and I made brownies for a local burrito chain in the Central Pennsylvania area, and it's kind of a complicated reason why. But basically, my son worked for them, and he volunteered my wife to make desserts that these guys could sell. And so, she came up with the idea to make brownies. What we did was we took the half sheets, the baking half sheets that you usually use to make cookies, line it with parchment paper, made this brownie batter and put it in the whole half sheet and smoothed it out a little bit so that when you take it out and let it cool, you can cut the brownies out of it. And because we were doing it for several different restaurants, we were coming up with about. 300 of these a week.
JOY
Wow.
DON
We would make 3 or 4 batches at a time. I remember, for the first part of it, you start in a saucepan and then you worked the bowls. We have 4 burners on our stove. We had four saucepans going. Eight bowls, because you do the dry and the and the wet separately. This is the huge batch that we made to come up with huge batches of brownies. So, if you want to make a normal batch for a normal group of people, then you probably should cut it in half or maybe even quarter it if you're looking at a small group of people. This has got, by the way, a lot of butter, a lot of sugar, a lot of chocolate. So. If you're in any way trying to lose weight, or not gain weight, or diabetic or anything like that, or gluten intolerant, you're probably going to want to have to do a lot of substitutions in this.
In one saucepan, to make this big batch. We put in four sticks of butter. That's a whole box.
JOY
Yum.
DON
We put in a baking bar. Now you can get these at the store. Bakers is the kind we use, but they're in the baking section, and it's unsweetened chocolate. You can get it in variations. They have sweetened and they have some others. You get the unsweetened ones because, believe me, the sweetness comes later. You put in a tablespoon of vegetable oil. And on top of all of that, 16 ounces of chocolate chips, just your regular chocolate chips. That all melts together, but you don't boil it. You have to leave it on a medium to low heat and let it all melt together. But you don't want to get it boiling because that's going to destroy the chocolate. Then you have your mixing bowl with your eggs. John, I chided you about putting a lot of eggs in your souffle. We put six eggs in this. Two and a quarter cups of sugar, that's about 18 ounces.
JOY
Oh wow, that's a lot of sugar.
DON
Yeah. Two tablespoons of vanilla and a teaspoon of salt. And so, you whisk that egg mixture together. Then you put in the chocolate mixture after you whisk the eggs together, and you might want to put in a little bit of the chocolate mixture and swirl it around with the eggs so that you don't make the eggs curdle, so you don't get scrambled eggs. Then you add the rest of the pot of chocolate until it starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, and then you let it cool. Then you have the dry ingredients in another bowl. You have 1 1/4 cups of flour. You put in one tablespoon of baking powder. You can add these to the flour if you want to really kind of jazz it up, but you can add white chocolate chips, some more chocolate chips if you want them in there or you could put in some walnuts. And then you put the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture, and you mix that together until there are no lumps In the flour. And then you cut parchment paper to match the size of this pan, whatever you're using. You can put the parchment paper down on either spray vegetable oil, or you put a little butter on the bottom or whatever, but you want the parchment paper to eventually peel off that pan. Pour the batter, then use a spatula or a knife or something to level it out. Bake in the oven at 325 for 12 minutes. We were using a convection oven, so I don't know, Joy, if that would change for a regular oven.
JOY
It does change, you want to put the regular oven to 350.
DON
- But still 12 minutes?
JOY
You'd have to test it. You know, convection has air circulating, so...
DON
Convection probably does a little quicker.
JOY
Well, that's why you put it at 350. It cooks it more evenly in a convection oven cause it's the heat circulating. If it were me and I didn't have convection, I'd do 350 for 12 minutes and then I test it. So, the testing lets us know when they're done.
DON
- Right. And what we would do is at that point, after the 12-minute point, we bring it out. And you bang the pan a little bit to get the air bubbles out so that everything settles, and then you would put it back in for about another 6 minutes. And then if they're done, you take them out and you cool on a rack for as long as you possibly can. When the brownies are warm, if you go to cut them, they're going to crumble. They're going to fall apart. So what you want to do is let them cool entirely. It would take at least 30 minutes, but probably better if you let it go for like 45 minutes to cool off totally. Because again, we're talking about a big batch. So, if you're doing a smaller pan, you would let them cool off for maybe 30 minutes.
JOY
Can I interrupt with a question here? I have a question. Are these fudgie or chewy? Do you let them cool because it's got to set a little bit more, and so they're more fudgy brownies?
DON
Yeah, you do. Because they are gonna be fudgy. They're not gonna be cakey. They're gonna be fudgy. And you have to bake them all the way through. because if you don't bake them all the way through - put a toothpick in and when it comes out clean, right? Then you know that they're done – if you don't, then it's gonna get soggy in the middle and it's going to collapse. And you're going to have goo.
JOY
Goo kind of like that goo, but...
DON
Well, they're going to be fudgy, and they're going to chew. They're gonna chew. They're not going to be cakey. They're going to chew a little bit.
JOY
Got it. Yeah, yeah.
JOHN
Can you freeze brownies? I don't even know.
DON
Yes, you can. You can freeze these. And they will stay in the freezer for maybe about a week.
JOY
That’s it? You can't freeze them for longer?
DON
You know, we never did, really. I mean, we did make big batches, and sometimes we made them ahead of time, ahead of delivery, and we did freeze them, but we were sending them out pretty quickly. So, I we never really let them sit in the freezer for that much longer. But maybe yeah, maybe up to a month or something, I don't know.
JOY
Do you guys ever freeze something like a brownie or cookies? This is my thing. I freeze them, and then I'm reaching in, they're in the freezer. They're supposed to be for something else, but then you just want to - maybe I'll take one out and taste it. Am I the only one who does this?
JOHN
No, no, no, you're not. We, like many people, froze our wedding cake, and this was a very freezable cake. And it's well known that carrot cake freezes well because it's extraordinarily moist, and it keeps its character fairly well. So, we were told that you freeze your cake for a year and a day. And then we did that. We we ate it, and it was actually wonderful.
JOY
Yeah. A year?
JOHN
And we cried because it reminded us of getting married. Isn't that sweet?
JOY
Oh, I like that story.
DON
Yeah, and Christi looked at you and said, oh God, I'm still married to this guy!
JOHN
And I said I know I never thought it would last this long or be this hard!
JOY
And now we ate the cake, and it's gonna last longer!
JOHN
I’ve often frozen things and just forgot I put them there.
JOY
Yeah. Yeah, we all do that.
JOHN
And then, you know, when you're cleaning out the freezer, you discover frozen lamb tort a la frizpluh. And it’s frozen, and that's not gonna work. Right now, we have frozen quite a bit of tomato sauce from the summer. As you know, there's quite a few tomatoes. And it was great. But there's some things like eggplant dishes? Well, eggplant parm freezes OK. Eggplants themselves? Not so OK.
JOY
No, they don't. Freeze. They don't freeze well at all. The brownie recipe sounds truly delicious. And you know the idea of the sugar. that's a lot of sugar in in the brownies. But I look at it this way the bittersweet chocolate, or the just - don't you get Bakers chocolate with no sugar in it, right? Straight up chocolate.
DON
That's right, right.
JOY
Right. Yeah. So, there's a reason there's that much sugar. You know, we don't realize that when we make something with chocolate chips and all this kind of stuff, there's sugar in the things that we add along the way. So, I'm giving a shout out for the sugar. And besides, you're dividing it over many, many brownies.
DON
If you’re sugar adverse, or if you're gluten adverse, you might want to think about, you know, replacing some of those things with adequate substitutes, because, yeah, there's a lot of sugar in it. There's a lot of flour, there are eggs, and they’re whole eggs. They're not just egg whites. So yeah, you're going to run into that. But on the other hand, you only live once.
JOY
Yeah. And after that, you really only live once! And a day! But, you know, I always think about something like Stevia. What would happen if I tried it with Stevia and it might not work. But I'm willing. Audience, we said to Don, John and I have been together many, many Decembers for the Higga holiday, when we bake things because it's the holidays. And I have a little wine with that, perhaps a little champagne, a little music. But we're going to try Don's recipe this this year. And so what I think I might do, Don, is to try your regular recipe, cutting it in half. Or maybe we'll make the whole thing, because we share this. And then I might try a small amount, or we - I'm putting the royal “we” on you, John, here - with Stevia, and just see what happens. I'm curious now.
JOHN
Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you used Stevia or something else like that in cooking before? Cause I've been afraid to do it.
JOY
I've used it in cookies, and it's worked out. You know, the flavor of sugar adds a certain something. It worked OK in cookies, but in brownies, the sugar's going to melt and so I don't know what the texture would be. And I just thought we would try it and if it's a failure, it's a delicious chocolate failure. We probably would still like it somehow.
DON
You might. I don't know if Stevia also would add a little bit - I know some of the artificial sweeteners add, I want to say, a tang to it. So, I don't know if the Stevia would do that. I know Stevia is less chemical than some of the other sweeteners.
JOY
Chemical taste. Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. I just want to try it and see. I really don't even care if it's a noble failure. Just be fun, right?
JOHN
Absolutely. And you know, I think we've just described one of the great holiday noshes. We're gonna have fun. Yeah. On our Higga holiday.
JOY
I think we're really going to have fun and I'm very excited to try the pumpkin souffles as well. That sounds really delicious to me. I love pumpkin, I love squash and I did think one more thing with the souffle. You're talking about dried sage, not fresh sage. I have tons of fresh sage. Could I chop that fine and add it?
JOHN
Of course, of course you could. I was gonna say, people put in other things as well. Other things like, well, parsley. You know, chop that fine. But you know, sort of say that if you're going to use X parsley, you'll take X away from the sage. Also, everybody likes to put in red pepper, you know, for heat.
JOY
Yeah.
JOHN
And I would leave that up to the audience, because I try to go easy so that we don't blow guests out of the house. You never know who can take it and who can't. The heat, I mean. But yeah, you can experiment.
JOY
Sounds great to me. And before we sign off, are you guys dressing up for Halloween?
DON
John has a face that you don't need to dress up right?
JOY
It's true. He's John.
JOHN
Well, I'm gonna be in a plane. So, no, I'm not.
JOY
OK, you'll be embodying the Day of the Dead when you get off that flight.
JOHN
You have been marked for death.
DON
All right. And for anybody who is going to dress up for Halloween and have a little bash, there you go. You've got your tacos, and then you've got your souffle, and then you've got some brownies for dessert. And all of those recipes are on the website, musicalinnertube.com.
JOY
I am on that website! Because I am cooking with gas! As my grandpa used to say.
JOHN
We love you, Joy Stocke. Thank you for joining us once again.
DON
Thanks, Joy.
JOY
Thank you, guys, for having me back. It's a real pleasure.
Listen On
