Welcome Year of the Tiger!

I was going to make two dumplings to celebrate Chinese New Years. These delicious and umami-packed sustainable sardine puffs I saw on Pat Tanumihardja's Asian Grandmother's site (and she submitted for Teach a Man to Fish): see Sardines Wrapped in a Sustainable (and Baby-friendly) Package. I was also going to make these lamb curry puffs from Andrea Nguyen, too. Really, I was.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the kitchen...we got lured into Chinatown by gently swaying red lanterns hung for the holiday and the promise of good food. So we wandered out...

Festive red lanterns strung all along Beach Street.

Here's our whole fish with ginger and scallion, gailan on the side.

Then we were surprised with an invitation to friends' get-together which included lots of great food and fun.

We gorged ourselves on dim sum this morning and then planned to clean - having post-poned it from yesterday. (One should not sweep or clean on Chinese New Year as you might "sweep out the luck.")

As we've been liquidating, consolidating, and freecycling the remnants of my storage unit, we kind of didn't get to the vacuuming today, either. What we did do was find a home for 400 CDs, three boxes of household items are boxed for a friend of a friend setting up her first place. We also cleared out a closet, re-organized and re-packed. Feels good to start getting the place back in order after our little leakage problem.

One thing I thought I could still muster tonight? A celebration cocktail!

This is the Blood Orange-Lychee Martini.

Red is the color for Chinese celebrations. I thought the Lychee would evoke the Lunar New Year and the glass is rimmed with Li Hing Mui powder. For the uninitiated, Li Hing Mui or Wa Mui is the Chinese snack of salted dried plums. The salt is flavored with licorice and often has a bit of orange peel. So I rimmed the glass with Li Hing Mui and salt mixture. I blended the drink as follows:

• 2 ounces Bols Genever
• 1/2 ounce Blood Orange juice
• 1/2 ounce lychee syrup
• one lychee for garnish

Place all ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake vigorously and pour into prepared glass. Garnish with lychee.

The li hing mui salt and blood orange juice off-set the floral notes of the Bols Genever, the lychee adds a wonderful deep floral flavor. I'm enjoying Adam Leith Gollner's The Fruit Hunters which describes the lychee as "fabulously fragrant and expensive..like the Imperial Concubine's laugh." Ah..so.

Well this drink is really a fine way to start the new year concubine or not.

Gung Hay Fat Choi!

Margarita Olive Oil Bundt Cake

I used to have a job at a wine shop/liquor store in college. The owner was known, when offered grapes to say "I don't take my wine in pill form." He was a character who delighted in chomping on old cigars, I swear, just to irritate his wife. They had a daily routine: Nick would stroll casually up and down the aisles chomping and puffing. He'd take just as long as it took for Pearl to notice. Out would come the Glade, Pearl would be exasperated (as if she'd never seen him do this and had no way to expect it).There goes Pearl, spraying furiously, armed with air freshener flailing, trying to eliminate the odor chasing Nick to the back. "You're stinking up the store!" Nick would crack the smallest of grins. Just like the day before, she took the bait.

This cake might be seen as a "Margarita in cake form." Wonder how Nick would like it.

I had some Pasolivo Lime Oil that I’ve enjoyed different ways, try it in guacamole or drizzled on fish en papillote. I also had some Tequila bought for Superbowl Sunday (yes, I left some in the bottle) which reminded me that lime and tequila might be a nice combination in this cake. I give you:

Margarita Olive Oil Bundt Cake

(adopted Food & Wine Magazine) The original recipe used Pasolivo's Citrus olive oil.

• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar (combination of raw sugar and about 1-2 TBSP lemon-lime simple syrup)
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
• 1 cup Pasolivo Citrus olive oil (subbed 1/4 C Pasolivo lime olive oil, 1/4 bergamot olive oil; 1/2 C first cold-pressed organic olive oil)
• 2 cups cake flour (out of cake flour, oops. I used substitution of 2 cups All Purpose flour. Replace 6 TBSP flour with 6 TBSP cornstarch)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Preheat the oven to 325° and butter and flour a 10-cup bundt pan. In a bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar and orange zest at medium-high speed until smooth.
(If you sub AP flour/cornstarch for cake flour, separate the eggs and beat the whites to lighten the batter. Keep the frothy egg whites separate and incorporate after the olive oil has been incorporated.)
Gradually beat in the olive oil until creamy, about 2 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk the cake flour with the baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating on medium speed between additions. ??Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the center of the oven for about 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then invert onto a rack.

Let the cake cool completely before cutting into slices and serving.?? The olive oil cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Tequila Simple Syrup
Mixed simple syrup, Herradura Tequila, agave syrup. Warmed to combine.
As cake is cooling in pan, poke all over with a skewer and drizzle Tequila syrup. Then when you flip cake onto cake plate, poke again on the top and drizzle remaining Tequila syrup.

Dust with confectioners sugar.

Can you see the places where I poked this with a skewer?

Remember the Jello Cakes that were all the rage in the 70's? I remember these large sheet cakes with neon jello streaks...you?

Baking again

For baking especially, scales are really said to be invaluable. Sadly, I would be able to tell you...

When I wrote Weighing In on Kitchen Scales I was just gearing up for another dive into the world of baking. Just today I saw this post on Ruhlman today: Your Kitchen Needs a Scale. Yes, Michael, Yes it does.

Learned about Open Sky on Michael's blog. I have entered the contest to get the scale he uses and recommends for $1.99! Because I really want to win and am a little cranky, I'm not giving a link to that contest here. You'll just have to follow the breadrcrumbs...

What do you have to say about Open Sky?

Anyone have an experience with Open Sky they'd care to share? I like the concept and have applied to be a shopkeeper. Curious to know about what I think is a fairly new thing, I like their values and they really aim for transparency and authenticity it seems.

No-Knead Sourdough on the rise. This is going to go into the oven in a couple of hours, a cold oven set to 450 degrees. If it fails, I'm going to blame it on the lack of a proper scale.

So I just finished this post, New and Improved Perfect Pie Crust, and Rebekah Denn of Seattle a Twitter pal, shared a couple of links with me. One is just so beautifully written from Art of the Pie, Changes, just made my heart swell.

Swelling and Kvelling: Kvelling is that feeling of extraordinary pride, perfect Yiddish word. It's what I was doing when I saw this Vimeo clip teaser for Kim O'Donnel's upcoming Licking Your Chops.

Licking Your Chops / Teaser from LuuvuH on Vimeo.

Read, bake, love.