Killer Chocolate Sauce

Here’s a simple yet killer Chocolate Sauce you’ll want to have up your culinary sleeve whenever you want to dress up a dessert. Whether you’re spooning it over your favorite ice cream, serving a small puddle of it alongside a sliver of a decadent torte, or drizzling it over a champagne semifreddo (recipe for THAT coming soon!), I’m convinced that this is likely to become your go-to chocolate sauce. This sauce is like that perfect accessory that pulls an outfit together, adding a classy distinctive touch without overwhelming the rest of the ensemble.

Most chocolate sauce recipes I’ve found involve butter and/or cream, but this ridiculously easy one from David Lebovitz involves neither. The richness comes from both unsweetened cocoa and bittersweet chocolate, and it doesn’t leave you feeling heavy afterwards since it doesn’t contain any dairy. It’s practically diet food. Okay, I realize that’s a bit of a stretch, but perhaps I’m trying to justify the fact that I’ve already made this chocolate sauce twice this week. Whoops…

I am having intense chocolate cravings these days that are most definitely emotionally-triggered. It’s not surprising, considering that the Broadway show for which I played in the orchestra these past months just closed on Sunday. It was a real blow, for though we knew it would be a limited run, it wasn’t supposed to be quite this limited. Our quirky musical didn’t enchant all the edgy New York critics, but every night we saw countless audience members welling up with emotion and enthusiastically singing along with the title song at the end, and people loved it. I was genuinely thrilled to work there each night, playing that gorgeous musical score with hilarious and lovely colleagues in the pit, not to mention a fabulous cast that included two leads who gave me serious goosebumps every single time I heard them sing. (Click here to hear what I’m talking about it.)

Crispy Kale Chips With Smoked Paprika

Okay, let’s get back on a healthy eating track. After last week’s Butterscotch Pots de Crème incident, I think I’d better give you something to offset that craziness. Check out these Kale Chips. They may not be the most photographic chips, but what they lack in visual pizzazz, they certainly make up for it with a big nutritional punch. They also happen to be very tasty, and they have become my new favorite guilt-free snack while watching television late at night.

I’ve gotten hooked on “Downton Abbey” lately, as many of you probably are as well. I’m a little late coming to this party having never seen it until recently, but I got totally swept up in the Upstairs/Downstairs intrigue of it all two weekends ago, bingeing on the complete first season over a 48-hour period. I had a total Pavlovian reaction when I first started watching, for as I drooled over the characters’ gorgeous period costumes and their grand English manor, I immediately began craving tea and scones with clotted cream and jam. After one night of indulging that craving with a little bowl of whipped cream dotted with big dollops of raspberry jam (who even needs the scones and the tea?!), I knew I needed to figure out a healthier alternative quickly. Since it is January and I’m still doing post-holiday damage control, I began making roasted kale chips to go along with my Season 2 “Downton” episodes.

It couldn’t be easier. The kale, when roasted with olive oil and sea salt till crisp, takes on a texture similar to Lay’s potato chips. I’m not kidding. The papery roasted kale shatters when you bite into it, just like a mouthful of extra-thin crunchy chips. I’m finding that it’s the ideal salty snack for my late-night movie watching these days. While I’m perfectly capable of inhaling an entire large bag of Lay’s potato chips in a single sitting, I feel much better in every way after eating a equally large bunch of kale.

Butterscotch Pots de Crème

Hello there. I’ve missed you all these past few months, I really have. Let me make it up to you by sharing a divine recipe for Butterscotch Pots De Crème, which was definitely one of my best culinary discoveries in 2011.

If December is typically a season of much merriment and revelry, January is traditionally the time to jumpstart my commitment to becoming a healthier and more vibrant person. Most January magazine issues are filled with empowering articles with titles such as “Two-Week Detox For Foodies!” or “Ten Steps To A Newer Healthier You!” Don't get me wrong,  I have no problem with committing to regular exercise and all of those other good things that I know I should do.  I do love eating vitamin-rich greens and nutritionally dense whole grains, and in January I usually try to post recipes here that help facilitate the post-holiday-party-season detox process.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve been here on Kitchen Fiddler for a whole variety of reasons: cranking out thousands of truffles for CocoaRoar, being locked-in to a new show, still trying to navigate many of the things I wrote about here, etc. I’m confident that you will find enough inspiring healthful recipes elsewhere to permit me to share this totally decadent dessert with you today. I know you won’t be sorry once you try it for yourself.

A pots de crème is essentially a rich custard. The ingredients for this particular recipe are simple enough: two kinds of brown sugar, cream, egg yolks, and a bit of vanilla for flavor. (Next time I’m going to substitute bourbon for the vanilla, just to see what happens.) The custards are gently baked in a water bath at a low temperature, which guarantees that their texture will be impossibly silky and smooth. After they’ve baked and cooled, these little butterscotch pots are topped with a generous dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream and a pinch of flaky sea salt. We’re talking heaven in a ramekin.

Browned Butter Brownies

No slumber party with my nephew is complete without a baking adventure in my kitchen. The Little Chef came over the other night while his parents went out for their anniversary dinner, and when I presented him with a few different scrumptious-looking goodies on my To Bake list, he naturally chose the most decadent option. (Is this kid related to me or what?) I’d had my eye on these Browned Butter Brownies for quite some time, and I was really happy for an excuse to make them with my little buddy.

These brownies were the cover recipe in the February 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. They are the creation of Alice Medrich, whose masterful book Bittersweet continues to give me great insight and understanding when it comes to working with chocolate. This recipe is similar to her Best Cocoa Brownies in Bittersweet, as both recipes produce a brownie with the most incredible soft texture and a crisp candylike crust on top. In this sublime version, the butter is cooked to a speckled brown before being blended with the cocoa and the rest of the ingredients. This simple-yet-ingenius step imparts a layer of fabulous nuttiness that dances perfectly in tandem with the richness of the cocoa.

As the Little Chef and I measured out dry ingredients and got to work browning the butter, I told him a story about my first year in New York when I cooked for a family in exchange for room and board. During my interview with them, I informed them that I had years of cooking experience, having trailed my mom in the kitchen since I was six years old. I made a point of telling them I had been occasionally hired to make cakes when I was in college and had actually catered post-concert receptions for friends. I was elated when I got the job.

Now I’m not sure what kind of cooks they’d had before I moved in because it took them a while to trust me in the kitchen. Eventually I won them over, but it was a long process that began with what I refer to as the Brownie Mix Incident.

Esalen Kale Salad Cravings

I’m home! I’ve had a whirlwind three weeks in the Southeast region of the U.S. while touring with HCJ and his big band, and it’s been a genuine thrill to be part of it all. There’s still more to come with concerts in New Jersey and Connecticut next week plus a whole week in Boston in late April, but I’m grateful for a week at home to catch up with friends and family. I'm also having some much needed time in my kitchen, and upon arriving home after three weeks away, I immediately headed to my local health food store to buy a humongous bunch of kale. I’d been craving bitter greens for weeks, and I couldn’t wait to make this Esalen Kale Salad.

My friend Marjorie had first told me about this particular recipe from the Esalen Cookbook around the time I’d posted my take on the City Bakery kale salad last fall. My raw kale bowl—with its Italian flavor profile featuring a lemony olive oil dressing while punched up with toasted breadcrumbs and grated pecorino cheese—was something I made countless times last fall. But I was intrigued by Marjorie’s salad that combined kale ribbons and marinated red onion slivers with thin mushroom slices and avocado cubes, all bound together by a lemon-soy dressing and a liberal sprinkling of toasted crunchy pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. This recipe came up again in a recent conversation and I asked Marjorie to send it to me, which she did on the first day of the HCJ tour when I arrived in Thackerville, Oklahoma.

Now to give you a little context for why I’ve been totally obsessed with making this recipe, allow me to set the scene for you. In a place like Las Vegas, there are many location-themed grand casinos such as The Paris, The Venetian, and The New York New York, all standing proudly along the main strip. However, at the Winstar Casino in Thackerville, all of these international locales were combined under one roof to rather incongruous effect. As you entered the casino from the hotel, the signs and décor screamed LONDON as you walked past replicas of Big Ben and London Bridge. After walking past 50 feet of slot machines, you could pass under a big archway and suddenly find yourself in “Paris” with a mock Eiffel Tower. Another 50 feet of slot machines and an archway later, the Coliseum in “Rome” loomed large, and so on and so forth.

Memorable Meals On The Road

One of the most fun things about going on tour is finding culinary inspiration from new sources. Though I don't have kitchen access while on the road, I am definitely taking notes and gathering ideas for when I can play in my own kitchen again. Our touring schedule has been rather compressed as we’re traveling a lot and performing in new towns practically every day, but I have made a concerted effort to carve out a little time for myself, if only to find a fun place for lunch. My solo dining experiences are more enjoyable knowing that I can at least share some of these meals with appreciative friends in photo form, if nothing else.

It was not a promising start as the Winstar Casino in Thackerville, OK left a lot to be desired in the culinary department, as I mentioned in the previous post. However, the next day I had a few hours in Austin which more than made up for it. This roasted poblano and cheese tamale at La Condessa was one of the best tamales I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. It was steamed to tender perfection and enhanced only by the avocado crema and kicky salsa, and I savored every bite.

I was tempted to order a second tamale, but I’m happy that I saved room for dessert instead. I’ve never tasted anything quite like this goat cheesecake with roasted pineapple cubes and graham cracker shortbread crumbles, and it was accompanied by a saffron crème anglaise that truly made my head spin.

I had the good fortune to be steered in the direction of Cochon in New Orleans, a delightful restaurant in the Warehouse District recommended by friends who live in town as well as by HCJ himself. Lunch began with a fricassee of roasted wild mushrooms served over a cheese grits cake and topped with a perfectly poached egg. I’m a total sucker for anything with a poached egg on it.

Asparagus Soup Daydreams

Greetings from a tour bus somewhere in the middle of northern Texas! I’ve just begun a 3-week concert tour of the Southeast with Harry Connick Jr. and his big band, and I’m thrilled to be the “string boss” on the road with these guys. I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories by the end of the tour, musically or otherwise, and there are some great food cities on our itinerary, including Austin and New Orleans. However, I think it’s fair to say that our first stop in Thackerville, Oklahoma falls into the Culinary Wasteland category more than anything. In fact, the food options there were so abysmal that I made a dinner out of Airborne tablets dissolved in water and a ginger chocolate bar as my mind wandered back to the Asparagus Soup I’d made on Wednesday before I left town. Sometimes a daydream has to be enough to sustain you.

This recipe comes from Carla Hall, one of my all-time favorite contestants on Top Chef. You have to love someone who cooks from the heart the way she clearly does, and in watching her compete in both Season 5 and now Top Chef All-Stars, I’ve often wished that I could eat Carla’s food. I was delighted to find her asparagus soup recipe in the March issue of Food&Wine magazine.

Unlike the slow-simmering soups associated with cold winter months, this bright verdant soup comes together in a snap. After doing a quick sauté of onion and asparagus pieces, the veggies are simmered in broth until they lose their bite and then pureed in a blender till silky smooth. A glug of cream turns the soup even more velvety, and fresh tarragon adds a beguiling note.