All I Want for Christmas

It is hard to remember how to cook in a three-dimensional kitchen! I was so busy there was just no time to take pictures either.  I had to do most of the preparations myself since it was a workday for Andy.  I started  at eleven for 6:30 sit-down dinner but we didn't eat until 7:45 that evening. It's a sure sign I'm slowing down!

I'm usually rather strict about adhering to Mom's turkey dinner as I remembered it from my childhood. However, this year I broke a tradition and added a new one.  For the first time I did not stuff the bird and instead, made the stuffing into a casserole. Not only did the bird roast quicker but I thought the stuffing tasted fine baked as a casserole. But Andy, ever the purist, says that next year I must stuff the bird because the stuffing tastes better when it's infused with turkey juices.

We decided to have our dinner on Christmas Eve instead, so we ordered a 7 kg turkey and a 6 kg. Virginia ham from Foodland.  There were 13 of us, an unlucky number, but to my mind, when it's Christmas you just make room at the table for one more. It was just the family plus our friends, Robert and Anne, Chart, Margie and their son Kris.  Mimi brought her young friend from Japan.

 We had the usual accompaniments: potstickers, giblet gravy, bread-potato stuffing casserole, jellied cranberry sauce, potato salad, and pan roasted asparagus with bacon, tomatoes, and black olives. In addition, I made a no-alcohol sangria, and for dessert, a haupia cake, both of which went down quite well. Mimi brought a chocolate cake and an orange cake both from Baby's new bakery. Lek brought  fried cashew nuts with fresh chilies and scallions. I asked Boong to help set up the tables and wash dishes, pots and pans. Without her we'd have been cleaning up until 2 a.m. Christmas day.

On Christmas day we went to Lek's house for paw pia which is a Chinese taco, a rice pancake filled with slivers of meat and vegetables. When my mother-in-law was well, it was her New Year's Eve signature dish to ensure that we all would never go hungry in the new year! This is AJ's masterpiece:

For dessert, I tried a new ginger cookie recipe from the Food Network. They were a huge success! That makes the ginger cookie a new Christmas tradition.

Mimi bought a coconut cake from T-Det, the Thai restaurant at Paradise Park. This is what a whole cake looks like!

And here is a delicious slice of sponge cake layered with whipped cream and fresh young coconut. Aroy maak-maak!

On Sunday, the RIS alumni had their annual Christmas get-together, which was pot-luck. So, with Andy's help with the mincing, dicing, and grating,  I made a diced turkey and leek shepherd's pie (and threw in a cupful of chopped ham that wasn't in the recipe) and, I made a second batch of ginger cookies, for which I used brown sugar instead of white to make a darker cookie. I made a third batch for Nan, Andy's secretary, who gave me a box of my favorite mochi. This is a Thai version of the Japanese rice cake. The pink ones are filled with red bean paste (tastes like chocolate) and the green ones have mung bean paste.

So that took care of a weekend of eating. There's more to come before we head off to Vietnam on Thursday for the New Year! It's time to make some New Year's resolutions or buy an entirely new wardrobe...

Chewy Ginger Cookies

Baking is always a challenge, especially in Bangkok. Finding the ingredients here is like embarking on a treasure hunt! A simple Christmas staple like Ginger Cookies takes some ingenuity and resourcefulness. I like to try out a new recipe as it is written, but I was forced to make two substitutions at the outset. Molasses, for one,  is difficult to find and it's expensive. Preserved ginger, for another, should have been available since it is an ingredient in Asian cooking, but as it is with most foods here, it's a mystery. So, instead of molasses I used maple syrup, which I happened to have in my pantry,  and I used fresh grated ginger instead of ginger preserves. And once in a while, an ingredient will have a different name. I recognized demerara sugar in the packet though it goes by the name namtaan thammachart or natural sugar here.  I made these cookies in the afternoon and brought them over to Lek's house, where we ate them for dessert. We all agreed: this recipe from foodnetwork.com is a keeper!

Clockwise from left: ginger root, vanilla, maple syrup, and a Japanese ginger grater

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
5 cracks black pepper (I took this to mean 5 twists of the pepper grinder)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks or 12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar (use brown sugar if you are not using molasses)
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses or maple syrup or honey
2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar (original recipe: 2 tablespoons ginger preserves, minced)
1/2 cup namtaan thammachart or demerara sugar for rolling

Namtaan Thammachart (Natural or Demerara Sugar)

Grate the ginger. I discovered this unassuming little tool, the ginger grater, in a Japanese section of a department store. I saw from the picture on the package what it was for so I bought it. It was definitely cheaper than a microplane grater but not as easy to use. I had to press hard. I grated two tablespoons of ginger, put it in a small bowl, and added two tablespoons of sugar.

Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, ground ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, mustard, salt, and black pepper.

Cream the butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides. Add the egg yolk and vanilla, beating until just combined. Add the molasses or maple syrup or honey and the ginger-sugar mixture. Beat until the batter turns a light brown color all over.

Add the dry ingredients. All at once, add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until all the dry ingredients are moistened. Scrape and turn with a rubber spatula to make sure all ingredients are moistened. Cover the bowl with plastic and refrigerate for 25 minutes.

Cookie Balls Rolled in Demerara Sugar

Scoop and roll. Spray two baking sheets with cooking oil or cover with silicone baking mats.  Pour a 1/2 cup demerara sugar into a small bowl.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and scoop out a tablespoon of dough. Roll into a ball in your hands and dip one side in the sugar. Put sugared side up on a baking sheet. Continue scooping and rolling. Refrigerate 25 minutes. Chilling will make the cookies chewy on the inside and crackly and crisp on top. Preheat oven 375˚F.

Lightly Golden Chewy Ginger Cookies

Bake cookies. Pop the trays in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. Cool the cookies in the pan for about two minutes, then remove to wire cooling racks until completely cooled. The cookies came out light brown because I did not use unsulphured molasses. It didn't affect the taste at all! In fact, they were deliciously chewy and moist, spicy, and crunchy on top.

A Plate of Ginger Cookies from My Kitchen

Heavenly Angel Food Cake

The last time I made an angel food cake it was for AJ's first birthday in Lake Zurich, Illinois. I don't remember that recipe but this one is from Betty Crocker. It's lightly sweet and moist and quite spongy in texture. It uses 12 egg whites, which leaves me with the problem of what to do with a dozen egg yolks. I've frozen them--yes, they do freeze well but are the hardest thing to get out of the ice cube tray. Serve this angel food cake plain, without powdered sugar or frosting. It only has 130 calories per slice!

Ingredients
Have at room temperature~
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cake flour
12 large egg whites (1 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

Move the oven rack to the lowest position and preheat the oven 375˚F. Use a two-piece 10 inch tube cake pan, preferably with "feet" for keeping the cake off the counter as it cools upside-down.

Prepare the flour-sugar mixture. In a large bowl, whisk the powdered sugar and cake flour together. Set aside.

Separate the eggs. Eggs are easier to separate at room temperature. Be careful not to get any yolk in the egg whites or they will not whip. If you aren't going to use the egg yolks immediately, freeze them in an ice cube tray, one egg yolk per cube. [Tip: they'll be easier to remove from the tray if they defrost a few minutes. Store the frozen egg yolks in a zip-lock plastic bag. Defrost in the refrigerator 8-10 hours before using.]

Whip the egg whites. In a large bowl  put the egg whites and cream of tartar. Whip on medium speed until foamy. Beat on high speed, adding the granulated sugar 2 tablespoons at a time, until soft peaks form. Slowly raise the beaters. If the peaks fall over, that is soft. Add the vanilla, almond extract, and salt with the last addition of sugar. Continue whipping until stiff peaks form. Slowly raise the beaters. If the peaks stand up tall, that is stiff.

Add the flour-sugar mixture. Dip and sweep a 1/4 cup measure into the mixture and sprinkle it over the whipped egg whites. Gently fold into the meringue.  Scrape into a tube cake pan. Using a thin blade, cut the batter to release air pockets. Here's a video at Allrecipes.com that shows how to fold the flour into the meringue.

Bake. Place the pan in the oven and bake 30-40 minutes or until the cake, when pressed lightly, springs back. Remove from oven and immediately invert over a wine bottle. If you have a pan with feet, let it hang upside down. Cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours. Using a thin blade, loosen the sides and invert onto a cake plate. Then carefully slide the blade between the cake and the pan bottom and  remove it.

Meringue at soft peak stage