Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce

This has 3 ingredients. 3. Tomatoes. Butter. Onion. Add one, if you want to count the salt. I tried it once, without following any weights or proportions and using whole tomatoes that I pressure cooked and peeled. It was still quite ok. But I am curious to try it like it's written, considering the amount of stuff written about it.

28 oz/ 800gm whole, peeled tomatoes in can (preferably san marzano)
5 tbsp/ 70gm butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved
salt
Place all ingredients in medium sized pot and simmer gently till fat floats on top. Crush tomatoes as you stir. Discard onion, season with salt and serve.

Balsamic Meringue

I don't know how I came up with this but it's a thought. Miro did it for his beet tasting, components of which are beet cake, chocolate sorbet, beet sorbet and balsamic meringue. perhaps I am missing out on some candied fennel seeds that he may have used as well. He said the meringue was "banging"! 

"Snickers" Bars

Here's the link to the recipe: "Snickers" Bars: bonappetit.com

Just going to copy and paste the recipe from the website, just in case the link expires

Ingredients

Base

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

3 1/2 ounces high-quality milk chocolate (such as Valrhona, Scharffen Berger, or Lindt), chopped

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3/4 cup puffed rice cereal

Peanut Nougat

1 large egg white

1/8 teaspoon plus 3/4 cup sugar, divided

3 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1/2 cup toasted salted peanuts, chopped

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Milk Chocolate Bavarian Cream

4 tablespoons whole milk, diided

1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin

1 cup chilled heavy cream, divided

3 large egg yolks

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

9 ounces high-quality milk chocolate (see above), melted

Chocolate Coating

9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped

2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preparation

Base

Coat an 8x8x2" metal baking pan with nonstick spray; line with plastic wrap, pressing to smooth out any wrinkles. Place chocolate in a medium metal bowl. Set bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from saucepan. Stir in peanut butter, then cereal. Transfer to prepared pan; press over bottom in an even layer. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Peanut Nougat

Line a baking sheet with parchment; coat with nonstick spray. Place egg white in bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until frothy. Add 1/8 teaspoon sugar; beat until peaks begin to form. Bring honey to a boil in a small saucepan. With mixer running, gradually add honey to egg white. Set aside.

Stir 3/4 cup sugar, corn syrup, and 3 tablespoons water in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Attach a candy thermometer to side of pan. Increase heat; boil until mixture reaches 275°, 5–7 minutes.

Return mixer with egg white to medium speed. Gradually add syrup to egg white, allowing it to drip down sides of bowl. Beat until glossy and stiff, about 5 minutes. Fold in peanuts and salt. Spread nougat over prepared sheet into an 8" square (about 1/4" thick). Let cool for 1 hour.

Invert nougat over base in pan; peel off parchment. Spread over base in even layer.

Milk Chocolate Bavarian Cream

Place 2 tablespoons milk in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over; let stand to soften, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring remaining 2 tablespoons milk and 1/4 cup cream to a simmer in a small saucepan. Whisk yolks and sugar in a medium bowl; gradually whisk in hot cream mixture. Return to same pan. Stir over medium-low heat until thickened and a thermometer registers 175°, about 3 minutes. Add gelatin; whisk until dissolved.

Place melted chocolate in another medium bowl. Pour cream mixture through a strainer into chocolate; whisk until smooth.

Beat remaining 3/4 cup chilled cream in a small bowl until soft peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture in 2 additions, folding just to blend between additions. Pour Bavarian cream over nougat, spreading in an even layer. Freeze until firm, about 4 hours.

Chocolate Coating

Place chocolate and butter in a bowl set over a medium saucepan of simmering water. Stir until melted.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Invert 8" pan onto a work surface; remove pan and peel off plastic. Turn over. Cut into 6 slices, then halve each slice crosswise. Transfer pieces to prepared baking sheet, base side down. Using an offset spatula, spread chocolate over tops and sides of bars. Freeze to set, 30 minutes. DO AHEAD Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover with foil; freeze. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.

Chocolate pate choux

I don't know why this is not done more frequently. But judging from the availability of the images, maybe I just haven't looked hard enough, earlier. I know someone filled theirs with chestnut cream, which sounds kinda nice, like a mont blanc. 

Hazelnut Frangipane and Stone Fruit Galette

Pie crust, frangipane made with hazelnut instead of almonds and pitted, sliced stone fruit (perhaps apricot, peach, maybe plum? or how about pear?)

Brush with cream, sprinkle with coarse sugar and bake

         

Seasoned popcorn

                                                                        

How about seasoning popcorn like pori? with dried red chili, mustard seeds, whole garlic, hing, curry leaves and those urad dal (?) seeds. Perry used to make flavored popcorn for the bar with Oreville Redenbacher, minced rosemary and olive oil, so why not?

Baked Alaska

                                                    
Why am I obsessed with this idea? Maybe for Christmas season, because of the fruitcake. I think it should work.

Frozen Nougat Ice-cream (david lebovitz: Room for Dessert)
Chocolate Fruitcake ( David Lebovitz: Room for Dessert/ King Arthur Flour website: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/chocolate-cherry-berry-fruitcake-recipe)
Brown sugar Swiss meringue

French Fries

                                                                   

Not sure if we'll really go all out to making french fries at home, but this article is intense and it makes sense to me.
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-make-perfect-mcdonalds-style-french-fries.html

Pie Crust

                                                                      
You keep reading everywhere that pie crust must be handled gently and not over mixed or whatever. This is true but only after a point. When there is just flour and butter in the bowl, you can handle it however much you want because the gluten only gets activated in the presence of water. In fact, the more the butter is rubbed into the flour, the shorter the gluten strands become and the more tender the pastry will be. This is similar to Roses technique of making cake where she creams the flour and leaveners with the fat. Of course, if we rub in the butter too much, the pastry won't be flaky, it will just be tender. So how about a combination of both:

Let's use a 3:2:1 pie dough.(flour:butter:water. Measure out flour first, divide by third to get quantity of water. Then its easy to calculate butter needed.)
Melt 1/3 or 1/2 the butter and let it cool. Remaining butter, we can freeze it and then cut into small pieces, about medium dice. Cream the melted butter with the flour, adding salt or sugar at that stage. Let it rip. Perhaps all the flour wont be hydrated or greased because the butter quantity may not be enough? Then add the frozen butter cubes, stir in the water to bind. I like KA's idea of spraying any dry patches with water using a spray bottle.

With a pie dough made this way, I think the pastry will be tender because of the melted butter and flaky because of the cubed butter.

Onsen Tamago

                                                                        

Since the point of making onsen tamago is to keep the water temperature constant for a period of time, how about:

1. using a slow cooker to cook the eggs. However, not sure what temperature the slow cooker hold on warm or low function. Need to check
2. Heat water to a little above temperature needed and pour in thermos flask. Drop the egg in and hold it there. Need to gently swirl from time to time.

Momofuku says water temp needs to be 60C or 140F. He cooks it for 40 minutes. Can't recall temp we used in Perry St. I know the time was 26 minutes. 

The FCI blog has a nice chart. All the eggs were cooked at specified temps for 1 hour.

http://www.cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/The_Egg_Chart.jpg