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Chocolate Soufflé with Passionfruit-White Chocolate Filling

chocolate souffle passionfruit fillingRICH, SWEET, AND FLUFFY CHOCOLATE DESSERT WITH A WARM WHITE CHOCOLATE AND A PASSIONFRUIT CENTER.

And now to finish off the Valentine’s tangy series, the dessert course. I thought we could combine chocolate and passionfruit, and we decided to make a soufflé with a passionfruit filling. We ended up posting this a little later because Boo wanted to make some changes to the recipe to make it a little more chocolaty with a dash of coffee and cocoa powder. Hope you enjoy! – Pea

Servings: 2 (9-oz ramekins) or 4 (5-oz ramekins)
Difficulty: 2 star

Oven: 375 F, 22 minutes

Preparation:

  • Coat inside of ramekins with melted butter, then with sugar. Place prepared ramekins in freezer until use.

Passionfruit white chocolate filling:

  • 3 tb white chocolate chips
  • 0.75 tb passionfruit concentrate
  • 0.5 tb heavy cream
  • pinch salt
  1. In a small bowl, microwave and stir together ingredients in 5-10 second increments until homogenized.
  2. Refrigerate to set while preparing souffle.

Chocolate souffle:

  • Chocolate mixture
    3.5 oz dark chocolate
    4 tb butter
  • Yolk mixture
    2 egg yolks
    0.5 tb instant espresso powder
    0.5 tb  cocoa powder
    1 ts vanilla
    0.25 ts salt
  • Meringue
    3 egg whites
    0.25 ts cream of tartar
    3 tb sugar
  • powdered sugar
  1. Over a bain-marie, melt chocolate with butter. Set aside to cool slightly.
  2. Beat yolk mixture ingredients until homogenized, and whisk into chocolate mixture.
  3. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar to soft peaks. Gradually add sugar while beating to stiff peaks (tips of peaks should gently curl when whisk is lifted), 4-6 minutes.
  4. Fold meringue into chocolate mixture by thirds.
  5. Fill prepared ramekins halfway with batter. Spoon the passionfruit white chocolate filling into the center of each ramekin. Top off with remaining batter.
  6. Level off with a knife, and use a fingertip to trace around the inside of the top edge, which helps the souffle to rise.
  7. Bake until maximally risen and cooked through, 21-23 minutes.
  8. Dust with powdered sugar, and serve.

Duck Breast with Orange-Blueberry Sauce

duck breast orange and blueberry sauceSEARED DUCK BREAST WITH A SWEET, TANGY BLUEBERRY AND ORANGE SAUCE. OVER CARAMELIZED MUSHROOMS AND FENNEL.

For the second course of our Valentine’s Day dinner, we stuck with the sweet, tangy theme and decided to include some blueberries we had sitting in our fridge. We rendered down the fat on the duck breast before turning up the heat to crisp it up in an infused butter, then served it with some slowly caramelized mushrooms and fennel for some earthy contrast to the otherwise sharp and sweet dish. – Boo

Servings: 2 (main portions)
Difficulty: 2 star

Oven: 350 F, 4-6 minutes

Orange-blueberry sauce:

  • 2 navel oranges, juiced
  • 4 oz blueberries
  • 2 tb honey
  • Seasoning
    0.25 ts salt
    2 pinches ginger powder
  • 1 sprig rosemary
  • 1 sprig thyme
  1. In a small saucepan, bring all ingredients to a simmer. Discard rosemary and thyme sprigs after simmering for 2 minutes.
  2. Stir and reduce by 25-33% to a thin syrupy or desired consistency.
  3. Keep warm while preparing duck breast.

Duck breast:

  • 2 duck breasts
  • sea salt and black pepper, coarse
  • Herb-garlic oil
    1 tb butter
    0.5 tb olive oil
    1 sprig rosemary
    1 sprig tarragon
    1 clove garlic
  1. Score each duck with 6-8 shallow diagonal cuts on skin side. Season duck on all sides with salt and pepper.
  2. In an oven-safe skillet, simmer herb-garlic oil ingredients until fragrant, 2-3 minutes. Discard rosemary, tarragon, and garlic.
  3. Over medium heat, saute duck on skin side in infused oil until rendered, 2 minutes.
  4. Increase heat to medium-high, and sear until crisp, 4-5 minutes.
  5. Flip duck breasts skin-side up, and transfer to middle rack of oven to finish cooking, ~5 minutes for medium-rare.
  6. Remove to a plate to rest, 5 minutes.
  7. Serve with orange-blueberry sauce.

Sea Scallops with Tarragon Pea Purée

sea scallops pea pureeSEA SCALLOPS SEARED IN HERB-INFUSED BUTTER. PEAS PURÉED WITH BUTTER AND TARRAGON. PARMESAN CRISPS AND SALMON ROE.

Sometimes – in this case, when you’re swamped with exams and try to make a reservation for Valentine’s day a little too late – it’s nice to stay in and cook with your special someone. I wanted to make a dessert with some of my Boo’s favorites: chocolate and passionfruit. Boo complemented the rest of the “menu” with tangy flavors – seared scallops with pea puree, and duck breast with a orange-blueberry sauce. Over the next few days we are going to post the recipes of our home cooked three-course Valentine’s day meal, starting off with the appetizer. – Pea

sea scallops pea puree 2

Servings: 2 (appetizer portions)
Difficulty: 1 star

Oven: 350 F, 4-6 minutes

Parmesan crisps:

  • 3 tb grated parmesan (or parmigiano-reggiano)
  1. Onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, divide cheese into six oblong mounds.
  2. Bake until browned, 4-6 minutes, while preparing scallops and pea puree.

Seared scallops:

  • 6 sea scallops
  • Seasoning
    sea salt, coarse
    black pepper
    garlic powder
  • Seasoned butter
    2 tb butter
    0.5 tb olive oil
    1 sprig thyme
    1 sprig tarragon
  • 0.5 lemon
  1. Pat scallops dry.
  2. Sprinkle and press seasoning into both sides of scallops.
  3. In a pan, heat butter and olive oil with thyme and tarragon over medium heat until fragrant, 3-4 minutes. Discard thyme and tarragon.
  4. Sear scallops in hot butter until browned on both sides, ~1-2 minutes per side.
  5. Remove to a warm plate, and sprinkle lemon juice over scallops. Rest, 2 minutes, while preparing pea puree.

Pea puree:

  • 0.5 tb butter
  • 0.5 tb olive oil
  • 0.25 c peas
  • Seasoning
    4 leaves tarragon
    0.25 ts salt
    pinch black pepper
  1. Saute peas in butter and olive oil until just cooked through, 1 minute.
  2. Blend peas with seasoning and any accumulated juices from resting scallops.
  3. Serve scallops over pea puree.

sea scallops pea puree 3

Eight-Spice Leg of Lamb

eight spice leg of lamb

LEG OF LAMB ROASTED MEDIUM-RARE WITH A FRAGRANT LEMON AND SPICE RUB. PAIRED WITH LUXURIOUS, BODIED RED WINE REDUCTION. SIDES OF SAFFRON BROWN RICE PILAF, SAUTÉED BABY BELLAS, AND ROASTED GRAPE TOMATOES.

Easily a centerpiece holiday roast, leg of lamb can also be a pretty low maintenance treat of a dinner that looks and tastes like a whole day’s work. It has such a great natural flavor that even just salt and pepper turns out a delicious roast. We decided to mix together an earthy spice rub for a little extra kick and made a red wine sauce from the spicy onions that soaked in the pan drippings that rendered as the lamb roasted. While you could cut up a leg into two or three pieces to make it more manageable, we decided to roast it whole and enlist the help of some friends and their tummies! – Boo

eight spice leg of lamb 3

Servings: 8-10 (main portions)
Difficulty: 2 star

Oven: 400 F, 35 minutes; 350 F, 40 minutes

Lamb roast:

  • 5 lb boneless leg of lamb, room temperature and rolled
  • 4 tb olive oil
  • 1 tb lemon juice
  • Spices
    1 tb rosemary, minced
    2 ts paprika
    1.5 ts salt
    1.5 ts turmeric
    1.5 ts cumin
    1 ts cayenne pepper
    1 ts cinnamon
    1 ts black pepper
  • Aromatics
    1 onion, sliced
    3 cloves garlic, minced
  1. Pat meat dry. In a baking pan, drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over lamb.
  2. Combine and rub spices over lamb. Spread aromatics around baking pan.
  3. Roast on middle rack at 400 F for 35 minutes. Lower to 350 F, and roast to desired doneness, ~40 minutes for medium-rare (internal temperature 130 F).
  4. Set aside lamb to rest for 10-15 minutes before serving. Optionally, remove onions and 1-2 tb rendered fat to a pan to prepare red wine reduction.

Red wine reduction:

  • reserved onions and rendered fat
  • Herbs and vegetables
    2 cloves garlic, sliced
    2 sprigs rosemary
    2 sprigs thyme
  • Liquids
    1 c chicken or beef stock
    1.5 c red wine
  • Seasoning
    0.5 tb sugar
    0.5 ts salt
    0.25 ts black pepper
  • 3 tb butter
  1. In a wide pan, saute reserved onions in rendered fat with herbs and vegetables over medium heat until fragrant, ~1 minute.
  2. Add stock and red wine. Stir and simmer over medium-high heat until reduced by half.
  3. Sieve sauce into a bowl, and return liquid to the saucepan. Discard sieved solids.
  4. Stir and simmer until reduced by 33-50%.
  5. Remove from heat, and stir in seasoning and butter.
  6. Serve over lamb.

eight spice leg of lamb 2

Meat Internal Temperatures – A Guide to Juicy, Flavorful Meat, Every Time

If you’ve watched some TV cooking shows, you’re bound to have heard how cooking a steak to a pitch-perfect pink medium-rare, or keeping a roast chicken or turkey juicy, takes professional skill. Or at the very least, a laundry list of preparation steps like brining in a tub of 20 ingredients or salting no more or less than five-and-a-half seconds before the meat hits the pan.

Yes, some of these tricks have their merits, but I would say 95% of the moistness and natural flavor of your favorite steak of roast comes down to temperature. So once you go out and buy a sturdy, reliable meat thermometer, here’s a table of temperatures to look for if you want that juicy goodness:

meat temperatures guide

These are RESTED temperatures!

One important note is that these are rested temperatures taken after the meat is removed from your oven or stove and allowed to sit for about 5-15 minutes, depending on the size of the steak or roast! Because the temperature of the outer parts of the meat is much higher than on the inside as you just finish cooking, the heat redistributes and transfers towards the inside as the meat rests. You should aim to rest the meat after the thickest part of the meat reaches about 5-10 F under the target temperature. The larger the meat and the higher the cooking temperature, the earlier you should rest it, towards the side of 10 F under.

Using a New York Strip steak as an example…

Remove it from the pan or oven onto a resting plate when it hits about 126-130 F for medium-rare, since it will cook through to the middle and rise a few degrees as it rests.

On cooking chicken:

Don’t eat raw or undercooked pink, fleshy chicken. As if you needed a reminder. Though some of the USDA’s 165 F guideline is rightly simplified for mass public safety, some of the juiciest, most tender chicken can be served safely around 145-150 F using proper techniques and times. At BooPeaKitchen, we like our white meat (the breast) around 155-160 F and dark meat (the rest) around 165 F, so we take our roast chickens out around 150 F when the juices that run off the chicken just start turning clear. Just so that no one accidentally gets sick thanks to us, our official recommendation will be a little higher!

On cooking pork:

While rare pork is still questionable because of the risk of the Trichinella spiralis parasite, the USDA fairly recently lowered the safe temperature to 145 F. It turns out that a few minutes around 136 F is sufficient stave off this parasite, so we give temperatures down to medium-rare. We would still recommend pork be cooked medium for the best taste and texture!

On ground meats:

These temperature do not apply for ground meats, simply because there is a lot more surface area for possible bacteria to survive. Cook any ground meat to at least 157-160 F!

*The images used the chart are credited to Google emojis.

Pork Tenderloin à la Diable

pork tenderloin a la diableSIMPLY-SEASONED AND ROASTED PORK TENDERLOIN OVER A BED OF SHREDDED PURPLE CABBAGE. WITH A BUTTERY, SPICY DIJON SAUCE. GARLIC-SAUTÉED VEGETABLES.

There are probably a hundred (if not many, many more) ways to prepare a pork tenderloin, one of the most versatile cuts of pork or red meat anywhere. As its name implies, it’s so tender that you can cut it with a fork – try it for yourself! Of the ways Pea and I have tried, this has to be one of the easiest and most flavorful. Literally just seared with salt and pepper, and roasted just long enough to prepare a side of veggies,  this can be a quick and easy weekday dinner. It goes so well with the sauce, which is smooth and creamy, yet tangy and smokey from the Dijon mustard and paprika and adds a comforting warmth, even eaten a little cold like we did after taking our pictures. But as I said before, pork tenderloin tends to go well with a lot of different things, so hopefully this recipe helps make it one of your staple proteins, too! – Boo

Servings: 3-4 (main portions)
Difficulty: 1 star

Oven: 375 F, 23 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 pork tenderloin
  • salt and black pepper
  • Sauce
    0.5 c chicken stock
    0.33 c white wine
    1 tb heavy cream
    1 tb Dijon mustard
    1 ts smoked paprika
    0.25 ts cayenne pepper
    2 tb butter, cold

Directions:

  1. Salt and pepper the tenderloin on all sides.
  2. In an oven-safe pan, sear tenderloin in olive oil on one side, ~4 minutes.
  3. Flip seared-side up, and transfer to oven to roast, ~23 minutes for medium-well (internal temperature 150 F).
  4. Remove from oven, and set tenderloin aside to rest.
  5. In the same pan, bring chicken stock and wine to a simmer over medium-high heat.
  6. Add Dijon, paprika, and heavy cream. Stir and reduce by half or until slightly thickened.
  7. Remove from heat, and stir in butter until melted.
  8. Slice tenderloin, and serve with sauce.

pork tenderloin a la diable 2