Seoul Searching

Mo' Butter, Mo' Better

I. love. butter.

While I could stop there, I guess it wouldn't make too interesting of a post.

A little bit about butter...

• It takes 21 pounds of whole milk to make a single pound of butter.
• Butter is graded by letter code: AA, A, or B. Most butter sold in the US is AA.
• The world record for butter eating is 7 quarter pound sticks of salted butter in 5 minutes by Donald Lerman.
• When my brother was a toddler, he would get into the fridge and I'd find him sitting on the kitchen floor eating butter with his fingers.

Alright then.

I decided to make croissants. That's right, croissants. Everyone was aghast when I told them I was going to attempt croissants. Chur said, "you have to be French to make croissants!" -- What am I supposed to do? Everyone is reading this blog. The world is counting on me!

I did a lot of research:

Google searches:
"how to pick a rolling pin" (Juh told me to use a wine bottle - she's such a lush)
image search "dough hook" (got it, Captain Hook's hand)

I even watched videos on YouTube, including one in Cantonese.

I decided to use Plugra butter. "Plugra" is actually "plus gras," which means "more fat, bitches" in French. What more could I ask for?




Day One (yes, it takes more than a day)

I followed a recipe on Epicurious and gathered my ingredients.

I was a little nervous about activating the yeast because I only had enough for one try.


(It's alive! Mmm... smells like beer and bread.)


The recipe called for use of a mixer. Guess what? I have one! I've owned it for over 4 years and have never turned it on. Good thing I'm smart and I figured out how to use it.




After mixing the dough, I kneaded it by hand and then wrapped it in plastic wrap to let it chill for an hour.



I then watched some Man vs. Food on TV. In a world where people are starving to death, I find it ironic that Americans have shows about overeating and obesity is our country's No. 1 health problem. For another day... (wait, did I mention I'm using a pound of butter?)

After an hour... oh how it had grown!




I rolled it out and folded in the butter like how I saw the Chinese man do it.





I then let it chill overnight.


Day Two

Good morning!




I cut triangles and rolled mes petit croissants!




Before...




and after.







Can you smell them?


*UPDATE
Now that I've eaten about 14 over the weekend. I have some lessons learned:

• I would not use a mixer again - I think it overkneaded the dough making it denser that preferred.
• The recipe called for unsalted butter and since I used salted butter, I only put a pinch or two in the dough mix. The croissants weren't quite salty enough so I sprinkled salt on top. I would add the full salt amount even though I used salted butter.
• Finally, the recipe only called for 3 sticks of butter, but I used about a pound (I guess that means I consumed 1/2 pound of butter over the weekend).
  

Flipping Over Pancakes

So my plan is go to through some basic ingredients... but 6 days ago I watched "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on FoodNetwork and they featured these blueberry ricotta pancakes at BLD in LA that looked so delicious. I have been in torture everyday since then, scheming on how to get down to LAX ASAP. Without any concrete plans to go to LA in the next few days, I had a crazy idea: what if I made them myself? I did some research and found the BLD recipe on the LA Times. Game on.

So I went to Whole Foods unaccompanied and unsupervised. I bought all the ingredients; usually picking the most expensive of each, thinking it must be better.



I was armed with measuring cups, mixing bowls, whisks...

Disaster.

The recipe says to whip egg whites to medium-stff, shiny peaks (about 4 minutes). Ten minutes later, I was overheating and my shoulder was suffering permanent joint damage from whisking the shit out of the egg whites. I could not get any peaks for the life in me.



After following the directions and mixing the ingredients I was ready to make the pancakes themselves. Again, using the stove is not my strongpoint. I bought coconut oil spray - I read somewhere that coconut oil is healthier. Unfortunately, it has a low smoke point meaning that when I tried to cook the pancakes the oil was smoking everywhere. I was scared I was going to start a fire. So I decided "I don't need oil, I'm using a nonstick pan." I thought about wiping off the hot oil with a papertowel, but I was scared of burning myself. So instead, I thought it was a good idea to take the hot oily pan and rinse it under cold water. BAD IDEA. Oil was splattering everywhere and the pan was sizzling out of control.

After surviving the oil fiasco, I forged on. I wanted the pancakes to be perfectly circular (like at McDonald's), so I tried pouring the batter slowly, but the batter was so watery.



It took me forever to make the pancakes - my legs were aching by the end. Worst of all, the pancakes came out flat. Patrick came home and said he liked the "crepe-like" pancakes. (Sigh.)




Take 2.

Today, over manis and pedis, I was explaining my pancake recipe to some girlfriends. They were so not encouraging. Skim said "you're not meant for this." Tha said, "you need to master basic pancakes before you do fancy pancakes." I could also see another lady in the salon who was getting a pedi, laughing at me. But failure is not an option.

I did some research, made some adjustments in the recipe proportions, and did not mix the batter as much. I used butter to fry the pancakes rather than that damn coconut oil spray. I also made 2 major improvements.

1) Added horsepower.

2) Made a double boiler style ice bath. I read that keeping the batter cold helped keep them fluffy.

The handmixer was KEY. Saved my life. I kept the batter super lumpy and barely folded in the whipped egg whites.

I was much happier with the results!