Rabbit in a cage

This idea came to me after eating some Pocky. You know Pocky? These are cookies from Japan. I buy them at the Vietnamese market. They come in different flavors, strawberries, banana, coffee, chocolate and they even have Men’s Pocky, I guess that one is reserved for men, because it is flavored with dark chocolate, more virile a flavor!

To assemble this cake, just make your favorite chocolate cake recipe and bake in a square pan. Cool the cake and cut in squares.Each square will serve as the rabbit’s cage, so figure on as many rabbits as cages or squares.

Make some chocolate ganache, let it firm up a bit in the fridge (15 minutes should suffice) and spread it on the cake square. Plant the (store-bought) rabbit on the cake, insert the Pocky sticks all around and cover his cage with a cloud of cotton candy; drop a few candied sunflower seeds as eggs all around the rabbit.

NOTE: If you buy the Pocky at the regular American supermarkets you will find that they are marked up by at least 200% compared to the Asian markets (at least in Dallas)

If you are having a hard time finding cotton candy (I found it at a carnival and then at my local supermarket) you can make a poached meringue and use it as the cloud on top. The advantage there is it will last a couple of days, while the cotton candy goes limp very quickly. Check this post, follow the same recipe but add more sugar (up to a cup) to the meringue base. You can also bake the meringue in a 200F oven for a couple of hours or longer until dry.

I am submitting this to All through the year cheer.

To make the ganache:

  • 1 cup of whipping cream
  • 2 chocolate bars (like Lindt bittersweet or Ghirardelli 60%) 200 g or a bit less than 7 ounces

Method:

  1. Place the cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring to a simmer. Take off the heat and place the chocolate, broken in pieces in the cream. Let it melt, stirring a bit. Add a half tablespoon of liqueur or vanilla if you like.

To make the cake:

  • 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa (Dutch-pro)(63 g)
  • 1 cup of boiling water
  • 3 large eggs (150 g)
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla
  • 2 1/4 cups+2 tablespoons of sifted cake flour (235 g)
  • 1 1/2 cups of sugar (300 g)
  • 1 tablespoon of baking powder
  • a dash of salt
  • 12 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened at room temperature (225 g)
  1. Preheat the oven at 350F (180C). Whisk the cocoa and boiling water till smooth. Cool.
  2. In another bowl, mix the eggs, vanilla and 1/4 of the cocoa mixture.
  3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and mix for 30 seconds; Add the butter and remaining cocoa mixture and mix until all the ingredients are moistened. Beat at high speed for 90 seconds; add the egg mixture in three additions, mixing well for no more than 60 seconds.
  4. Pour the cake in a cake pan, previously lined with parchment paper and grease and floured on the sides. Bake about 30 minutes until the cake springs back when touched lightly and a tester comes out clean. Cool  and use. (Recipe is from The cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum)


Rabbit In A Cage on FoodistaRabbit In A Cage

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Fat in the Lebanese kitchen (corrected version)

OOps!!! I made a mistake!

After receiving a comment from Maria, I got besieged by doubts on my previous statement -namely that Lebanese cuisine was based on ghee, not olive oil-so I e-mailed Kamal Mouzawak!!!

Kamal is Lebanon’s foremost authority on culinary traditions. I interviewed him back in January and wrote about it.

Here is what he said: Lebanese cuisine used olive oil in cooking because it was the only oil available!!!

(I should have checked with him first!)

My apologies!!!

So, to recap correctly this time! Lebanese cuisine uses:

A. Olive oil, first and foremost, since olive trees are our second national tree after the cedar (source: Chef Ramzi, The culinary Heritage of Lebanon)

B. Samneh or ghee

C. Sheep tail fat, but more as a condiment.

Some people like to make their own samneh, by clarifying butter at home; for detailed instructions, check Arlette’s post. In Lebanon, the Bedouins of the Bekaa Valley are skilled at making the clarified butter; their clarified butter is so pure and so potent that you only need a teaspoon of it to flavor an entire dish (according to Chef Ramzi’s in his Culinary Heritage of Lebanon).

There is yet another type of fat used a lot in Lebanese cuisine, namely sheep tail fat, aka leeyeh; I remember one day seeing a whole mutton in the kitchen and noticing the fat, round tail of the animal. Needless to say, this type of fat is not available in the US. In Lebanese cooking, this fat is sold at every butcher shop; it is used a lot as a way to add  flavor to a dish without adding any meat! Some so-called vegetarian kibbeh are stuffed with this sheep tail fat or leeyeh and some onions and sumac spice. It is delicious but I know you are thinking, “Hmmm…we will have to see about that!” For a nice photo of a sheep with the fat tail and a post detailing sheep-tail fat, check Pomegranate and Zaatar’s blog.

What type of fat do you use? (I am curious!)

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Spaghetti with yogurt and cilantro pesto sauce (Ma’acaroni bel-laban)

This is a homestyle dish combining  a little pasta and the dairy always  on hand, yogurt! Not the kind of dish likely to figure on the menu of a Lebanese restaurant in Sydney or Washington or Paris, but ours nevertheless and highly ingrained in our culinary habits.

To liven up the yogurt sauce a bit of garlic and (or) cilantro or parsley pesto is added. Garnish is usually fried pine nuts.

Speedy, taking less than 15 minutes to prepare, delicious, healthy, what more can one ask for?

INGREDIENTS:

  • 8 ounces of spaghetti (can substitute any other pasta)
  • 4 cloves of garlic (more or less depending on taste-I tend to add more), mashed in a mortar with salt
  • 1/2 bunch of cilantro, stems discarded and leaves chopped fine (can substitute parsley)
  • olive oil, as needed
  • 1/4 cup of pine nuts fried in a pat of butter or oil
  • 12 to 16  ounces of yogurt (depending on whether you like yours on the dry side or smothered in sauce)

METHOD:

  1. To speed things up, mash the garlic with salt, heat some olive oil in a small skillet and fry the garlic and cilantro for thirty seconds, until the fragrance is noticeable. Set aside.
  2. Boil the spaghetti till done. Add a bit of olive oil to it to keep it shiny and smooth.
  3. Mix the cilantro pesto with the yogurt and add to the spaghetti. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Serve.

I am submitting an entry to the Presto Pasta nights #155.


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