Ibarra Chocolate Cookies

Finally a post to match the title of the blog...a "recovering pastry chef" recipe. This is my own recipe - a double chocolate cookie that we used to make in the bake shop at the Sheraton. It has Ibarra chocolate in it which is actually a Mexican hot drinking chocolate that you can find in most grocery stores. You will just need a good food processor - Cuisanart etc, - to help you pulverize it into dust.

Yield: about 5 dozen

4 1/3 cups All purpose flour

1 cup sifted cocoa powder

2 tsp. Baking powder

2 tsp. Baking soda

2 tsp. salt

2 cups softenend butter

2 cups sugar

2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

3 tbs. vanilla

3 cups semi sweet choc chips

2 cups Ibarra chocolate, pulsed in a processor

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Sift together the dry ingredients - flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer cream the butter and both sugars together at medium speed until combined (about 3 minutes). Crack the eggs into a small pitcher and whisk them quickly to break up the yolks to this add the 3 Tbs. vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the eggs onto the butter waiting for the two substances to combine before continuing to add the eggs. Halfway through the addition of your eggs it is a good idea to thoroughly scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl for even mixing. Next you will add your dry ingredients. If your bowl is smallish (most likely the case if you are using a stand mixer) turn the mixer off and add 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Quickly turn the beater of the mixer on and off three or four times to work in the flour then make your next addition. You simply don't want to throw the mixer on high and get covered in flour. You also don't want to let the mixer run with the flour in the batter and build the gluten - this will toughen your cookies. So mix the flour only enough to thoroughly combine it with the butter. Lastly, fold the the Ibarra dust and then the chocolate chips into the batter by hand. Form the cookies into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place them on the sheetpan evenly spaced and press down on them lightly to flatten them just a little. Bake for about 20 minutes turning your pan halfway through the baking time.

Mushroom Risotto

I was speaking to Nina last night and she was somehow dubious that dried mushrooms and rice could approximate anything close to Italian food. So I told her I would send her the recipe. Before I post it a few words on risotto. Risotto is actually short grain Italian rice that is cooked by slowly adding liquid rather than the common drown and boil of most rices. There are three kinds of risotto - arborio, carnaroli, and vialone nano. If you are shopping at a regular grocery store you will most likely only encounter arborio rice which is fine. But if you really get into cooking and eating risottos like I have you will want to seek out the other grains at specialty food shops they differ from arborio and each other in firmness and creaminess.

Nigella Lawson's Mushroom Risotto

4 tbs. unsalted butter

2 Tbs. evoo

1/2 an onion, small dice

15 g dried porcini mushrooms (about 3/4 cup)

3/4 cup hot water for soaking mushrooms

1 cup arborio rice

3 cups chicken stock

2 to 3 Tbs. grated parmesan

a handful of Italian parsley rough chopped for garnishing

black pepper

Soak the mushrooms in water for 20 minutes or so. I have never actually sprung for porcinis because they are so expensive (and I am so cheap). I use dried shiitakes that I buy from the Asian grocer for a song. Make your stock and keep it warm on a neighboring burner to this add your leftover mushroom soaking water. Melt 2 Tbs. butter in a large skillet. Add the evoo and the onions and on medium heat saute until translucent. Add the rough chopped mushrooms and the uncooked rice. Stir the rice in the fat until the grains are glistening and become translucent at the tips. To this add a ladel or two of stock and allow the rice to absorb it before adding more. This is how the rice is cooked, slowly, adding moisture a bit at time. The whole process takes about twenty minutes. Be sure to occasionally stir the risotto so that it cooks evenly. When the stock is almost gone taste the risotto for doneness. It should be firm like al dente pasta. You will finish the risotto with the remaining 2 Tbs. of butter and the grated parmesan cheese. Add black pepper as needed for flavour and garnish with fresh Italian parsley.

This portion only serves Tyler and I, but we tend to eat A LOT of risotto and nothing else as a side dish.