Sasha's Kitchen: Miso Glazed Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots

I really find cooking, and especially baking to be cathartic. When there are other things that are really giving me trouble or that I am struggling with in my life, it provides such a good release, and distraction. Sometimes the more I bake, the more it helps relax me from some of the other things going on. People wonder why I cook so much even during the week, and really that's the explanation. Anyhow, recently I tried this new salmon dish - it sounds complicated - miso glazed salmon with passion-fruit-ginger glazed carrots and creamed mashed potatoes, but it's really not that difficult. It makes a lovely, full dinner with side dishes, and is do-able on a busy week night. The ginger glazed carrots came out really well for my first time making them, as I was quite pleased. I may try to fine tune this recipe in the future to see if I can make ginger glazed carrots without any butter at all - but they were oh, so good.

Sasha's Sockeye Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots and Creamed Potatoes


1/3 cup white miso paste
1 T sesame oil
1 T canola oil
1 T honey
3 T rice vinegar
3 T soy sauce
sesame seeds
1 lb mini carrots
1 cup passion fruit juice (you could also use orange juice)
3 T butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 T sugar
2 T grated ginger
2 lb bag new potatoes or small red potatoes
1 /2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
 4 T creme fraiche or fat free sour cream

To prepare the  miso glazed salmon, combine the miso, sesame oil, canola oil, honey, rice vinegar and soy sauce with a whisk. Using a brush, coat the salmon, sprinkle with the sesame seeds, and bake/broil the salmon as desired.

To prepare the carrots, in a saucepan, add the carrots, fruit juice, sugar, cinnamon and ginger. Bring to a boil. Then simmer until reduced and the carrots have a nice glaze to them. The liquid should be mostly gone at this point and the carrots should be cooked al dente - this process takes about 20 to 25 minutes.

To make the potatoes, cook the potatoes by adding to a large pot and covering with water, adding a pinch of kosher salt. Bring to a boil and boil for about 10-15 minutes. Then mash the potatoes with a fork or (as I did ) in the KitchenAid stand mixer. Mix in the fat free sour cream or creme fraiche, garlic and chopped parsley.

Sasha's Kitchen: Miso Glazed Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

OK, so I don't have any pictures of the making of this, and I apologize -- I'm so scared of bread and baking that I wasn't at all sure if it would actually work.
But it did!
Oh hurray happy day, it did!

Of course, I can't really take any credit. The recipe is from a recent issue of Bon Appetit's e-mail newsletter, and I followed it pretty faithfully. I didn't even make any adjustments for high altitude (which actually I should have; the dough ended up being too liquid and would have resulted in an easier-to-use ingredient and cleaner look if I'd added more flour).
I also didn't have any black sesame seeds, so I just added a few extra regular sesame seeds...but I didn't need to; the final product has a nice sesame flavor but could have used maybe a few fewer seeds. I also added salt and pepper to the filling, but that salt ended up being a bit too much when added to the salt in the dough. The pepper was good, though.

I've eaten entirely too many of these appetizer-ready rolls for dinner tonight, and have realized how versatile they'd be. I'm anticipating making this recipe again quite often, substituting in for the filling hot pepper flakes, feta cheese, chopped pine nuts, pressed garlic, sundried tomatoes and any number of other tasty things.

If you didn't click the link above, here is the recipe from Bon Appetit:

Ingredients
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons Kosher salt, divided
2 teaspoons sugar, divided
1 3/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped scallions
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil plus more for bowl and brushing

ingredient info:
Black sesame seeds can be found at better supermarkets and at Asian and Indian markets.

Preparation
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour 1/2 cup warm water (105°-115°) into a small bowl. Sprinkle yeast, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar over; let stand until mixture bubbles, about 10 minutes.
Place flour, butter, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attached. Rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat in egg, yolk, and yeast mixture, scraping down sides.
Knead on medium speed until dough is soft and smooth, about 5 minutes. Form dough into a ball; transfer to a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, combine scallions and cilantro in a food processor and pulse to finely chop. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl; stir in all sesame seeds and 3 tablespoons oil and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350°. Roll dough into a 18x9" rectangle. Spoon scallion mixture evenly onto center and spread mixture to corners of dough. Working from one short edge, roll dough rectangle into a cylinder. Cut cylinder into 3/4" dough swirls. Transfer dough swirls to prepared baking sheet; brush with oil. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

Sasha's Kitchen: Split Pea and Mint Croquettes

Finally something without blueberries, huh? Is that what you were saying? Yes, I have been making plenty of other food, but the blueberries are hard to resist this time of year. My mom and I made these delicious split pea croquettes with a mint yogurt sauce during one of her visits recently. I used English pea pods from the farmer's market and removed the peas for use in this recipe - another great recipe from one of my new favorite cookbooks for cooking through the seasons - Sarah's Raven's Fresh From the Garden. Of course, this one is perfect for spring and summer. My mom did most of the work on this one, but we made it together, for some mother-daughter team cooking, and it was enjoyed by my husband, Brad as well. They're just perfect for party fritters or an appetizer to a summer meal, or at a BBQ as the fireflies buzz by on a summer night.

Sasha's Raven's Split Pea Croquettes with Minted Yogurt Sauce (makes about 15-20)
2 cups split peas or English peas
3 cloves harlic
2 onions, 1 quartered and one finely chopped
olive oil
1 T ground cumin, toasted
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
3 oz manchego cheese, grated
1 egg
1 red chile, chopped (optional) - I added a pinch of Cayenne pepper instead for a bit of flavor
salt and pepper to taste
flour for dusting

Sauce:
1 cup plain yogurt
large bunch of fresh mint, roughly chopped
2 cloves diced garlic

Put the peas in a pot with the garlic, quartered onion, splash of olive oil, three cups of water and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peas smush-up a bit, into a puree with a bit of texture, about 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool in the fridge. Mix the cold puree with the chopped onion, toasted cumin, breadcrumbs, grated manchego, egg, chile/cayenne, salt and pepper. Mix well and shape into croquettes. Dust in flour and fry in canola oil until golden brown on all sides. Drain on paper towels to absorb the excess canola oil. I always fry in Canola because its much, much healthier than vegetable oil - I don't care what any recipe says to do about that! Blend the ingredients for the sauce in a food processor with a bit of water to get the consistency you want, between 1/3 and 1/2 of a cup.

Sasha's Kitchen: Split Pea and Mint Croquettes

Sasha's Kitchen: Visit to 'Smogasburg'

Red Hook Lobster Co's Lobster Roll

Brooklyn is known for its famous year round flea market, the Brooklyn Flea. In the summer months, it's outdoors and splits its time between the Williamsburg waterfront and Fort Greene. But this is a food blog, I really don't write about outdoor flea markets, as fun as they might be in the summer, right? Well actually, this year they added Smogasburg to the list of markets. Smogasburg is a huge, outdoor all food market that showcases many of Brooklyn's great food businesses, restaurants, and other fabulous foods made in that great Brooklyn locally grown tradition. They have everything from Brooklyn Salsa Company to Red Hook Lobster Pound to Blue Marble Ice Cream to Dough's delicious doughnuts, and more great food venders likely coming soon. In my view, the lobster rolls from Red Hook Lobster Pound, Thirstea Cafe's bubble tea and Dough stole the show . . . this time.

Here's some of the delicious foods we tried.

Dumont Burger

Mimi & Coco Japanese Teriyaki balls

Kumquat Cupcakery mini red velvet cupcakes

Kumquat's root beer float mini cupcakes - or check out MINE!

Delicious doughnuts from Dough - my favorite or the blood orange glazed ones which they didn't have at the market on Saturday.

Bubble Tea (yeah, yeah so its sideways)

Best. Korean. Sesame. Noodles. Ever

McClure's Pickles

Sasha's Kitchen: Visit to 'Smogasburg'

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Crumbles

Happy independence America! Fourth of July usually means blueberry time in my house. Usually that's a blueberry pie, but this year I actually made a three layer giant chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and lovely floral decorations, which will be the subject of a future post. I was pretty much all butter-ed out after that, so I made a much healthier dessert for our Sunday night dinner - a blueberry crumble. This dessert has much less butter than a pie crust, but the same delicious fresh local blueberries in that filling and just a little but of crumble on the top. So perfect. I made four individual sized desserts from the recipe below, which worked out really well. So well, that I certainly will try it with some other fruits soon. Happy red, white and blue today - but especially blue(berry). Perfect way to cheer yourself up a bit.

Sasha's Blueberry Crumble
4 cups fresh blueberries, squeezed by hand
1/4 cup plus 1 T sugar
3 T plus 1 tsp flour
3 T lemon juice
3 T unsalted butter, cold, chopped into small pieces
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
10 nilla cookies
1/4 cups rolled Quaker oats

Preheat the oven to 375. Combine the blueberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 T of flour, and lemon juice in a bowl. In a second bowl, combine the chopped butter, cinnamon, salt, and remaining sugar and flour. Work with your hands gently until it forms a coarse, crumb/crumble like mixture - a bit like wet sand.

Spray four five ounce ramekins with Pam and divide the blueberry mixture. Top with the crumble topping. Bake for about 25 minutes until you have bubbling little caldrons (maybe all the witches from last night's True Blood are influencing my writing here?), and then they are done. Allow to cool enough to eat. Delicious!

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Crumbles

Sasha's Chile Rubbed Tacos with Peach Salsa and Pico De Gallo

Peaches are one of the best fruits of the summer - that I simply can't live without. A juicy, fresh, local farmers' market peach is just about almost always too good to pass up. And they are not just for pies either. You can make some delicious savory creations with peaches, like my peach salsa, which was a perfect pairing for these simple chile rubbed flank steak tacos. I had received some of ShopRite's salsas for free to try out as part of the ShopRite Potluck Blog Panel, so I added the pico de gallo style salsa. Yum! This recipe is perfect for a busy week night when you still want to eat well. Neither ancho chile or pasilla chile are spicy - but they make the steak plenty smoky and flavorful.

Sasha's Chile Rubbed Tacos with Peach Salsa
1.5 lb (approximate) lean flank steak
1.5 T ancho chile powder
1.5 T pasilla chile powder
salt and pepper to taste
4 white peaches, chopped into chunky bits
4 T red onion, diced
2 T lemon juice
1 T diced cilantro
1/3 diced jalapeno pepper (or less or more to taste)

To prepare the steak, cover with the chile powder mixture and add some pepper and salt to season. The steak should be really well covered with the chile powders. Grill outside or in a grill pan as desired - I like it about medium well. Slice thin using an electric meat knife. To prepare the salsa, combine the sliced peaches, red onion, lemon juice, jalapeno and cilanto and allow to chill for 30 minutes before using to absorb the flavors. Serve the tacos in a corn or flour tortilla, with ShopRite's pico de gallo style salsa, fat free sour cream, lowfat cheddar cheese and a bit of lettuce flavored with lemon juice.

Sasha's Chile Rubbed Tacos with Peach Salsa and Pico De Gallo

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Muffins

Blueberries are one of my favorite summer fruits. Lately , I have been getting some pretty fantastic blueberries from the farmers market here in Park Slope. Some went into that blueberry peach pie I posted recently, and there were just too many delicious blueberries not to make some blueberry muffins.  I never make my muffins with butter. Many people do and I am sure they are good, it's just that if I wanted to load them up with butter, I'd just make some cupcakes. Hence, my banana pecan muffins are also butter free. These blueberry muffins were delicious and the recipe I came up with wound up making about one and a half dozen. Use the best blueberries you can find - freshly picked ones from that summer farmers' market are idea. This is a great way to brighten up a sunday morning!

Sasha's Blueberry Muffins
3 cups flour
7 T canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs'
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375. Combine the baking powder, salt and flour in a bowl with the sugar. Mix in the other ingredients (eggs, canola oil, vanilla, milk and blueberries) and combine well in a bowl. Divide in muffin tins and bake for about 30 minutes until just golden and toothpick clean. Allow to cool and unmold. Eat right away!

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Muffins

Sasha's Kitchen: Riesling Chicken

I was looking for a new chicken dish and came across this recipe from an old issue of Gourmet that combined chicken with a Riesling sauce. I love Riesling - as I am a fan of slightly sweet white wines from the Finger Lakes and of course Alsace. So, I used one of my favorite reasonably priced Rieslings to prepare this dish - Dr Konstantin Frank's Salmon Run Riesling, one of the Finger Lakes' best Rieslings. The flavor it lent to this dish was delicious - not too sweet but just delicious. The carrots were also especially lovely as part of the dish. I mashed the potatoes, but they were perfect as well. Such a winning dish that certainly doesn't say "boring chicken" but spells out a wonderful, homecooked French countryside dinner!

Chicken In Riesling (based on this recipe)
1 whole chicken, cut up (about 3/2 to 4 lbs)
1 T canola oil
3 T butter
2 T shallots, finely chopped
4 medium leeks (green parts only), finely chopped
4 medium carrots, halved
1 cup Riesling
1 1/2 lb small red potatoes
2 T finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 creme fraiche
fresh lemon juice to taste

Preheat the oven to 350. Wash the chicken and pat dry, before seasoning with Kosher salt and fresh pepper. Heat 1-2 T of butter in a dutch oven and brown the chicken on all sides over medium high heat, about 10 minutes total per batch. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Cook the shallots, leeks, 1/4 tsp salt and 2 T of butter in the dutch oven until the leeks are pale golden, about five to seven minutes. Add the chicken, carrots and Riesling and bring to a boil, reducing the Riesling by half, about 3-4 minutes. Cover the pot and place in the oven, and braise for 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

While the chicken is cooking, cover the potatoes in a pot of cold water. Add 1 1/2 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Then simmer about 20-25 minutes. Drain and mash the potatoes with the chopped parsley and a tablespoon or two of additional butter.

Take ut the dutch oven with the chicken and stir in the creme fraiche. Serve hot. Yum!

Sasha's Kitchen: Riesling Chicken

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Peach Pie

Another pie. Is that all I do in the summer, make pies? Well maybe. There's nothing better than a delicious fruit pie in the summer, made with fresh farmers' market fruits from the Brooklyn Greenmarket.  I swear, I've been making other things too - its not like we have pie for dinner every night, you know. And I promise I will be posting some of those soon as well. Peaches and blueberries are in high season. I didn't have enough peaches to make a peach pie, but I had some pretty amazing blueberries from the farmers' market so I threw them together. The result was pretty spectacular, and one of my best pies to date. 
To make this pie, I used the exact same crust for apple pie, with my own peach and blueberry filling.

Sasha's Peach Blueberry Pie
2 1/4 cups flour
big pinch of Kosher salt
pinch of sugar
2 sticks of cold butter
1/4 cup of ice water, plus a but more if needed (this time I used about 2 T additional ice water)

21/2 cups of fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
2 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries, squished with your hands
1/2 cup of sugar

1 T lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 T cornstarch
2 egg yolks

To make the pie crust, follow the detailed instructions that I gave in writing about apple pie.  Basically, combine the salt, sugar and flour in a bowl. Cut up the butter into small chunks and gently incorporate with your hands into the flour. Splash the ice water into the mixture, and mold until it *just* forms  a ball of dough, adding more water as needed so it just sticks together (be sure to add the water slowly so not to overdo it). The key to a good pie crust is not to overwork the dough, so it is best to do this by hand. There will still be clumps of butter in the dough - don't worry about that, as it will make the crust more rustic and also crisper. Divide the dough and bring into two balls. Plastic wrap and refrigerate for exactly twenty minutes to allow the dough to firm a bit.

Roll out one of the balls on a well floured surface, rotating after each roll or two so it does not stick to your surface. Roll to 1/4 of an inch thick and place in the pie dish, before trimming the edges with a pastry scissor. Using a pyrex pie dish is best.

Combine the ingredients for the fruit mixture. You should peel the peaches before slicing, and squish the blueberries a bit with your hands. Add most of this to the pie - about four and a half cups total. 

Roll out the second ball of dough the same way and cut to form a lattice. I glazed the top of the pie using two egg yolks and sprinkled some granulated sugar on top. Bake the pie at 425 covered with foil for 30 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to 350 and remove the foil baking for another 30-45 minutes (my oven required about 35). The pie is done when it is tender when poked with a knife.

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Peach Pie

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Yeah. I got laid off on June 13.

Not much to say about that, except I understand industry-wise why it happened, it totally sucked, and there might be a nice silver lining in that I was planning to get a freelancing career started anyway so this could be the kick in the pants I need to do it sooner rather than later.

Another possible silver lining? I've been thinking about learning how to bake bread for several years now, and even got an excellent cookbook/explanatory book about it a few years ago for Christmas that I haven't used as much as I'd hoped. So with time on my hands, a good instruction manual, a lot of fear and a vanishingly small amount of pastry self-confidence, I may move forward with this project soon. Never fear, I'll keep you posted if I do.

Today, though, I cooked what may be the cheapest fully realized dinner of my life (assuming meals of ramen and reheated chicken wings aren't a fully realized dinner, that is).
It started when I went to Atkinsons' in Bellevue, which has quite the section devoted to those whose appetites are of the Hispanic persuasion. Whole (cleaned, scaled) tilapia were on sale. I bought two...for $2.42. Yep, you read that right; I could have bought four and still spent less than a Subway sandwich. How could I resist that, especially after having seen some excellent depictions of the cooking of whole fish on Top Chef and other such shows?

I pulled one out of the freezer two days ago, and have been researching recipes ever since -- although I have a small amount of whole-fish experience that primarily consists of catching, gutting and grilling little lake trout, these tilapia were slightly frightening. They did have clear eyeballs though, which I've heard is a good indication that the fish is fresh (or freshly frozen). And it didn't smell "fishy" even two days after defrosting (though I did cut the fish open farther than the way it came to me, because the open space wasn't big enough to hold much of the filling I had chosen for this first experiment -- I recommend a sharp fillet knife for this).

So this is the recipe I decided to start with. Because if I'm ever in a kitchen without butter, garlic and onions, shoot me. And I'm growing flatleaf parsley out back (it survived the frost that killed my tomatoes and peppers). I made a few substitutions, like the "tuscan-style" herbed butter+olive oil mixture I bought accidentally a few weeks ago, and oh, twice or three times the garlic. I was suspicious the garlic would be too much when I smelled it cooking, but actually the raw Vidalia onions I used were more prominent in the final product's flavor profile than the garlic. And can you really ever have too much garlic?
I will say that, for aesthetics, the broiling is pretty important. Though the fish was fully cooked when it came out of the 400-degree oven, it still looked like it did when it went in -- broiling gave it the lovely browned bubbliness you expect from some properly cooked fish.

As a side, I cooked some jasmine rice in our rice cooker, and some black rice on the stove, with a bit of S&P and butter. Topped the cooked fish with a little fresh chopped cilantro and a final light sprinkling of salt, and...

...it was *really* good. I like tilapia's ability to take on the flavor of whatever you cook it with -- and I'm already plotting what I'll do with the other fish waiting in the freezer -- but seriously? Onion, garlic, butter, lemon and parsley on fish? How could that NOT be good? You do have to watch out for the bones, including both ribs and backbone, but they're pretty big so unless you eat super-fast or unregarding for unsavory bits they shouldn't be a problem.

I think there are more $1.21 whole tilapia in my future.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Nectarine Salad

I love peaches, apricots and nectarines in the summer - especially ones from a farmers' market that are fresh, juicy and delicious. Nothing captures the flavors of summer better. I've now made this simple nectarine salad a couple of times, and it's an easy, satisfying and rewarding combination of flavors. I love Boston lettuce - it goes so nicely with almost any salad, and has such a lovely buttery flavor.

Sasha's Summer Nectarine Salad
head of Boston butter lettuce
3 nectarines, sliced
bocconcini mozzarella
hazelnuts
balsamic vinaigrette (oil, balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of lemon juice)

Assemble the salad ingredients. If you wish, you can saute the nectarines before using them, but they taste better fresh and juicy in my opinion.

Sorry such a short post, but stay tuned for some new and delicious updates from my kitchen. This is just a simple recipe for a monday night.

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Nectarine Salad

Sasha's Kitchen: Mini Dark Chocolate Lava Cakes

This was my first attempt at making a molten chocolate lava cake. The recipe came from the cookbook Rose's Heavenly Cakes, the bible on cake baking. The result was delicious but the lava didn't flow quite as much as I had hoped. The recipe calls for a souffle cake, with a molten dark chocolate ganache center. I think the key to getting the chocolate in the center to flow is using 60-62% cacao dark chocolate for the center. However, I had some fabulous 72% dark chocolate from my visit to the Mast Brothers' chocolate factory in Williamsburg, so I went with that. The result was delicious, but I'd like it to flow a bit more next time.


Rose's Molten Chocolate Souffle and Lava Cakes
Ganache Center
2 oz dark chocolate (60-62% cacao)
1/4 cup plus 2T (3oz) heavy cream

Batter
1.5 oz dark chocolate (60-62%)
1/4 cup plus 1/2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
3T unsalted butter
3 large eggs, separated, plus one large egg white
3 T creme fraiche or heavy cream
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3 1/2 T granulated sugar

First, make the ganache centers. Melt the chocolate using a double boiler, stirring frequently with a silicon spatula. Do this over simmering water and do not let the bottom of the container with the chocolate actually touch the water.

Heat the cream until warm and gradually stir the chocolate into the cream. Line an egg create with plastic wrap and press into the cavities of the egg create. Pour a spoonful of the ganache into nine cavities. Cover with a second piece of plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours until firm enough to mold into balls. Refrigerate balls until ready to bake the cakes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees before preparing the cake batter. Using a double boiler, melt the chocolate, cocoa and butter for the batter. Whisk together the yolks and creme fraiche. Lightly whisk 1/2 cup of the egg whites for easier pouring. Measure out 2 T of the egg whites an stir these into the chocolate mixture.

Beat the remaining egg whites in your mixer using a whisk attachment until foamy on medium speed. Add the cream of tartar and raise the speed to high. Continue beating until soft peaks form and gradually beat in the sugar, continuing beating until stiff peaks form. Using a wire whisk, stir in the chocolate mixture into the egg whites and fold in the remainder.

Using nine 3 oz silicon molds or 4 7 oz silicon cupcake containers, fill each three quarters fill with the chocolate souffle batter. Gently place the cold ganache balls in the center of each, but avoid pushing them down.  Bake the cakes for 10 minutes in the 3 oz containers or 14 minutes in the 4 oz containers.

Cool the cakes for 20-30 minutes until they have pulled away slightly from the edges. Carefully invert and gently un-mold each. When ready to serve, reheat each cake for 10-15 seconds on high power in the microwave.

Sasha's Kitchen: Mini Dark Chocolate Lava Cakes

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry Balsamic Pie

I was inspired to make a strawberry balsamic pie after tasting the delicious one at Four and Twenty Blackbirds, New York's best spot for delicious pies. I couldn't find their recipe, but I think I created a pretty good one myself, and am happy to share the recipe here. I love fresh, local strawberries this time of year, and this is certainly a good use for them.  You really don't need a lot of sugar for this one due to the natural sweetness of the fruit, but a half a cup seems to do the trick.

Sasha's Strawberry Balsamic Pie
Pie Crust (works for any fruit pie)
2 1/4 cups flour
hefty pinch of granulated kosher salt
pinch of sugar
1 cup (two sticks) of cold butter
1/4 cup ice water (can adjust slightly as needed - I added another 2T)

Strawberry balsamic filling
4 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 T cornstarch
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice

To make the crust, you can follow my instructions here for my apple pie or here for my strawberry rhubarb pie, because they are identical. Once you prepare the crust bottom, mix the ingredients for the filling, and fill the pie. Prepare a lattice top using the second ball of dough and glaze with an egg yolk. Bake at 425 for thirty minutes. Then reduce to 350 for 35-40 minutes. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry Balsamic Pie