Make-ahead Whipped Cream Video

YouTube Link: Make-Ahead Whipped Cream
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

1/2 cup cold heavy cream (116 g)
2 Tbsp cold creme fraiche (29 g)
1 Tbsp confectioner's sugar (8 g)

Vanilla variation: For the yummiest vanilla whipped cream, steep some vanilla beans in the heavy cream overnight. For the recipe above, use 1/4 vanilla bean cut in half lengthwise with the seeds scraped out (add both the bean and the seeds). Before proceeding with the recipe, fish out the bean. Alternatively, you can add 1/4 tsp of real vanilla extract along with creme fraiche and confectioner's sugar.

Kohlrabi Latkes Video

YouTube Link: Kohlrabi Latkes
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel


Serves 4

Latkes
13 oz grated kohlrabi (2.5 tightly packed cups)
1/2 yellow onion, grated
Salt*
1 large egg
1.3 oz all-purpose flour (about 1/4 cup scooped and leveled)
Black pepper
Oil for frying

Labne Dip
1 cup labne or Greek yogurt or sour cream
1 garlic clove grated on a microplane zester
1 tsp zaatar** (optional)
Salt and lemon juice to taste

* In the video, I used 2 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt.  For table salt, you'll need only 1 tsp.  For Morton's Kosher 1.5 tsp.  All salts are different, so taste and use your best judgement.

** Zaatar is available at Middle Eastern Markets and I have seen it at several Whole Foods Markets too.

Ugly (but Yummy) Green Beans

YouTube Link: Ugly (but Yummy) Green Beans
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Holiday Gifts for Cooks and Bakers

There is a reason why professional chefs don't cook with Cutco knives and Pampered Chef gadgets. If you want to buy a gift for a cook or baker in your life this holiday season, why not make it good?

You can see all the kitchen equipment and cookbooks that I love in my Amazon Store.  Here are some fun packages you can put together for your culinarian.

Meat Lover's Package
Stainless steel skillet (All-Clad or Tramontina)
Thermometer (Thermapen or Thermopop)
Roasting Rack
What to do with all this:
Cooking Technique for Tender Cuts
How to Wash a Stainless Steel Skillet

Baker's Package
Pizza Stone (it's not just for pizza anymore :)
Digital Scale
Pastry Scraper
One of Rose Levy Beranbaum's books
What to do with all this:
Thin Crust Pizza
Pie Dough

Vegetarian (or Bean Lover's) Package
Pressure Cooker
Rancho Gordo Bean Sampler
Hip Pressure Cooker Book
What to do with all this:
How to Use a Pressure Cooker
How to Cook Beans

Knife Package 
(for normal people, not for Knife Geeks)
Chef's Knife
Paring Knife
Boning Knife
Accusharp Sharpener
What to do with all this:
Knife Skills Videos

Bostonian Package

If you are shopping for a cook located in the Boston area, there is no need to guess what cooking equipment they have and don’t have because you can give them a gift certificate to a cooking class with Helen.

Celery Root with Vanilla Bean (Video)

YouTube Link: Celery Root with Vanilla Bean
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

2 large celery roots, peeled, washed, dried, diced
1/4 olive oil
salt
1/2 vanilla bean (optional)
1-4 Tbsp heavy cream to add when pureeing (optional)
1-2 Tbsp butter to add when pureeing (optional)

Lingonberry or black currant jam for topping (optional)

What's in Helen's Kitchen (pots, pans, cutlery, and more)

Many of you have been asking me to set up a page with all the cooking equipment that I like to use. It's finally here! Instead of being scattered in 20 different blog posts, everything is in one place on amazon. Your purchases through my store will help me earn a small commission, which will turn into better video equipment and better videos for you guys.

Helen's Kitchen Cooking Equipment

Apple Galette (Video)

YouTube Link: Apple Galette
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Good apple varieties for baking: honey crisp, pink lady, granny smith, golden blushing, golden delicious, Northern spy, braeburn.  

Bad apple varieties for baking: cortland, macintosh, red delicious

For apple filling:

4 medium apples, peeled, cored, cut into wedges

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Squirt of lemon (2-3 tsp depending on how sour the apples are)

4 Tbsp sugar

Tiniest pinch of salt 

For shaping:

1/2 batch of pie dough (Dough by hand, Dough with a food processor, Rolling out pie dough)

2 Tbsp sugar to put on the bottom of the dough under the fruit

1 Tbsp butter to brush dough and apples

1-2 Tbsp sugar to sprinkle on top of shaped galette

For glazing the apples:

Juice released by the apples

1 Tbsp apricot preserve

All instructions are in the video.

Caramelized Pear Ginger Tart (Video)

YouTube Link: Caramelized Pear Ginger Tart
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Caramelized Pear Ginger Tart

Note about skillet: I use a 10 inch stainless steel all-clad or tramontina skillet. Non-stick pans also work. Cast iron might be a bit heavy to lift and flip. If you haven't done much weight lifting in the gym lately, this might not be the best pan for this tart.

In advance tip: You can cook the pears and roll out the dough earlier in the day, but start baking the tart no earlier than 1 hour before serving. The pears tend to wrinkle as the tart cools off and don't taste quite as good as when it's just baked.  The dough should be refrigerated after rolling out, but the pears should not be refrigerated after cooking (this can turn the caramel runny).

Burnt pears tip: If the pears burnt a little, don't panic. Take a paring knife and slice a sliver off the top after baking and inverting the tart. I prefer the pears and caramel to be more brown rather than less.

4 large Bosc pears (buy 5 just in case)
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tbsp minced ginger (optional)
Pâte Brisée (pie and tart dough) for one 10-inch tart (see the videos below)

Make the dough at least 1 day before baking
Dough video by hand
Dough video with a food processor
Rolling out pie dough video

Peel, halve, and core pears. In a 9- to 10-inch heavy skillet heat butter over moderate heat until foam subsides. Stir in sugar (sugar will not be dissolved). Arrange pears, cut sides up, in skillet, with the skinny end of pears pointing into the middle of the pan. If you have a half of pear left over, cut a circle out of it and place it in the middle of the skillet domed side down. The pears will make a sort of flower in the skillet. Cook without stirring until sugar mixture forms a deep golden caramel. (This can take as little as 10 minutes or as much as 25, depending on skillet and stove.) Cool pears completely in skillet. Sprinkle with cinnamon and ginger.

Preheat oven to 425°F and set a rack in the upper third of the oven. On a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin roll out dough into a 12-inch round (about 1/8 inch thick) and arrange over pears. Tuck edges into the skillet around pears. Bake tart in the upper third of the oven until pastry is deep brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest 5 minutes, but not longer. Have ready a rimmed serving plate slightly larger than skillet. Invert plate over skillet and, wearing oven mitts and keeping plate and skillet firmly pressed together, invert tart onto plate. Do this over the sink in case some juices spill. This is a bit scary, but it works! The trick is to do it in one very fast motion. Let cool until warm, 10-15 minutes. Serve tart warm with whipped cream or creme fraiche.

Braised Turkey Thighs

YouTube Link: Braised Turkey Thighs
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Inspired by Kenji Lopez-Alt's recipe on SeriousEats.com

Ingredients
4 turkey thighs
Salt
1 Tbsp oil (grapeseed, safflower, canola -- anything with high smoke point)
1 large carrot, large dice
1 celery sticks, large dice
1 large onion, large dice
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 rosemary sprigs
10 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
2 cups red wine (not too tannic)
2 cups salt-free or low-sodium chicken or turkey stock
3 Tbsp butter at room temperature
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp pomegranate molasses or to taste

If you can't get your hands on pomegranate molasses, try a splash or balsamic vinegar.  Another (probably most traditional) method of adding acidity to the braising liquid is to add 1-2 Tbsp of tomato paste along with your red wine.  If you do end up buying pomegranate molasses, you can keep it at room temperature indefinitely and I am sure you'll find plenty of uses for it.  So don't feel like you are buying a whole bottle just for this splash and wasting the rest.

Braising time and temperature:
This dish takes 1 h 45 min and up to 3 hours in 275F oven.  Why such a big difference in timing?  At low temperatures, a 25 degree difference makes a big difference.  When you set your oven to 275F, it might really be 300F or 250F, so the timing will vary depending on the oven, the size and shape of your pan, and the size of the thighs.  Start it assuming it might take 3 hours.  If it's done quickly, you can always rewarm it.

If we were to cover the skillet, the timing would be more predictable.  When braises are cooked covered, the pressure builds up in the pot and eventually the liquid boils, so whether you set your oven to 250F or to 300F, you are eventually cooking in 212F liquid.  When the pot is left uncovered, the temperature of the oven starts playing a bigger difference.  But a covered pot will result in flabby skin, that's why we cook this braise uncovered.

Rewarming
If your turkey cooled off, it's easy to rewarm by setting it back in the strained and degreased braising liquid and simmering it gently to warm back up.  Just make sure to keep it skin side up.

Re-crisping the skin
You'll notice that the skin will lose its crispness very quickly.  Right before serving, I like to brush the top of each thigh lightly with neutral tasting oil (grapeseed, safflower, or canola) and pop under the broiler.  You want to be very far from the broiling element, and give it good 3-6 minutes.  In my oven, I set it in the bottom third of the oven while my broiling element is on top of the oven.  Watch it very closely.  I suggest you do this on one thigh to get an idea of a good setting for you.  Even if you don't manage to re-crisp the skin, the turkey will still be delicious

Scaling the recipe to feed more people
4 thighs should serve 8-10 people.  They should fit nicely into a 12 inch skillet or a large dutch oven.  If you want to cook more thighs, you can brown them in batches in a skillet, and set aside.  Then make your sauce in the same skillet and pour it into a large oven safe baking dish or two (like a turkey roasting pan).  Put your thighs on top and put in the oven.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Brussels Sprouts Video (oven and stovetop methods)

YouTube Link: Roasted Brussels Sprouts
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Ingredients:
1 Lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
salt and pepper
3 Tbsp olive oil (or as needed)

Optional glaze:
1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 and 1/2 tsp Maple syrup

In the video, I double the glaze since I am making the recipe twice (once in the oven and once on the stove top).

Toppings:
I love cruciferous veggies (anything from the cabbage family) with thick Greek yogurt or sour cream. Pomegranate molasses is another favorite ingredient. Barberries are nice, but not essential.  You can get pomegranate molasses in most Whole Foods markets and any Middle Eastern Store.  Both of these products will be a lot cheaper in a brick and mortar store, so I don't suggest you buy them on Amazon unless you have no other option.

Other fun topping ideas are roasted grapes and pine nuts.  The possibilities are endless so feel free to experiment.

The story of the Boston Globe picture

"Oh no! They want pictures and they want them by Sunday night!" I said to Jason in a panic. It was Saturday and we were spending the weekend in the Berkshires with my in-laws. Somewhere between hiking and cooking, I decided to check my e-mail and found the request for pictures from the Globe correspondent who interviewed me for a story about chefs and YouTube over a month ago. I have very limited media experience, but one thing I know about media is that they don't give you much notice.

I had no access to my pictures from the Berkshires. Even if I did, I didn't have what they wanted -- a picture that includes my face and a demonstration of some cooking technique. In desperation, I googled to see what food celebrities do for their PR pictures. If you have a cool rustic kitchen to show off, you can do from the waist up shot posing by a cutting board with some big hunk of meat, colorful and plump produce, and a knife (my favorite is when they hone a knife while looking at the camera). My kitchen is very functional, but not photogenic, which left the option number two -- lift up the food to your face and fuzz out the background.

After the drive back to Boston, we stopped by Whole Foods and got a bunch of "whole" food, no pun intended. Wholeness seems to be big in food PR these days. Chefs pose with whole pigs, whole cows, 300 Lb tunas. I settled on a whole chicken, whole fish, beets, and chard. We got to work. Getting the food and the face in the picture felt ridiculous. We couldn't stop laughing and started making up funny captions for the pictures as we went along. "Look -- I am Julia! Do I get brownie points if I drop the chicken on the floor?" By 8pm, the pictures were in the e-mail. I told them to choose which one they liked the most. Here are all of them. I like our captions better than the Globe's.

A huge thank you to Jason for the pictures and his endless patience.

Julia Child and Rosie the Riveter in one.
Don't ask what your chicken can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your chicken.

Local, organic produce makes me so happy!

Fishmonger:  "You want me to clean it?"
Helen: "No, I need it to look pretty for a picture." 

Aw -- it's a Swiss Chard wedding.  

Can you believe this egg has a yolk?

Kneeling down by the cutting board is so comfy.
I should chop like that all the time.

Don't mess with me.  I am a tough Russian woman
who does biceps curls with beets.

Now I am a friendly chef who grows beets in her back yard.

Roasted Butternut Squash (Video)

YouTube Link: Roasted Butternut Squash
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Pimenton (Spanish Smoked Paprika) is available at Whole Foods.  They often have both sweet and bitter-sweet options.  I prefer the bitter-sweet.

For the Squash:
1 medium squash
Salt to taste
Pimenton or black pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil or as needed

For Berry Topping:
1/3 cup dry cranberries or cherries
1/3 cup water
1 and 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp maple syrup or honey

What if you hate to cook?

An article caught my eye in the New York times written by Virginia Heffernan --  a Mom who hates to cook. She was lamenting today's obsession with feeding your children "real" food, the importance of family dinners, making your own yogurt, only buying organic ingredients, and other culinary antics promoted by the latest avalanche of family-oriented cookbooks.

I feel her pain.  Surprised?  Sure, I love to cook, but not everyone does.  The guilt trip parents are put through these days for all their shortcomings -- this includes their culinary inadequacy -- drives me nuts.  Here is a quote from Ruth Reichl “I don’t think there is ONE THING MORE IMPORTANT you can do FOR YOUR KIDS THAN HAVE FAMILY DINNER,” the caps are Reichl's, not Heffernan's.  If that's the case, my kids are in serious trouble.  I am a culinary instructor and our family sits down to a family meal only 3 times a week.  I wonder how many times Reichl sat down to a family meal while she was a restaurant critic.

Here is what happens most of the nights in our house.  My husband works late three nights a week, so the kids have dinner in the kitchen with me while I am doing some cooking project or tidying up the kitchen.  I am teaching a cooking class the other two nights a week, and the kids have dinner with my husband downstairs in the playroom.  The remaining two nights, we have dinner together.  We eat, we talk, life goes on.   Sometimes, Jason and I will eat dinner in front of the TV while watching Seinfeld after putting the kids to bed.  Dinner is not the only time to have a "how was your day" discussion.  Sometimes, we'll talk late into the night, but sometimes we just need a good laugh with our dinner instead of a discussion on current events.

I'll tell you another dirty little secret.  I don't pack my daughter a healthy, nutritious lunch.  She eats whatever they serve in public school.  Why?  Because I hate packing lunches.  Simple as that.  I am probably starting to scare many people right now.  No family cookbook publishing deal is coming my way after this blog post.  You have to choose your battles and packing lunches is not one of mine.

I've noticed that in the US people are very motivated by it's-good-for-you value of an activity while in European countries whose joie de vivre we admire, people are motivated by pleasure.  Even the idea of pleasure strikes fear into the hearts of most conscientious Americans.  People imagine that pleasure is all about gobbling up cake for breakfast, potato chips for lunch, and ice-cream for dinner.  If we gave in to pleasure wouldn't the world dissolve into hedonistic anarchy?  The first question I get when I pull out a celery root in class is "Why would I eat it?  What's its nutritional value?"  When I explain that I am cooking celery root because it tastes good, some of my students look surprised.  The idea of eating vegetables for pleasure seems foreign to many people.

I don't cook to optimize my nutrients, to feed my children a healthy diet, to help my local farmer, or to save the environment.  Those I serendipitous side effects.  I cook because I love it.  If chopping onions after a day of work is not your idea of love, there are other options.  In France, they have a chain of stores that sells fabulous frozen meals.  In Japan, the prepared meals in 7/11 are better than most American home cooked meals both in taste and nutritional value.  Of course, we have our Whole Foods take out, but it tastes like crap.  Could we make delicious, nutritionally dense take out food in the US?  If consumers demanded it, we could.  But we care more about the food being low-salt, low-fat, low-carb, and low-fad-of-the-day, than about it tasting good.

Before we give up on cooking, let's consider a hypothetical scenario.  What if we got rid of the pressure to feed the family and stopped worrying about vitamins and nutrients. What if we just focused on the fun of cooking a particular dish.  Heffernan's antipathy to cooking is not unlike the antipathy I felt towards exercising while growing up.  My parents go so tired of writing notes to excuse me from gym class that they gave me a carte blanche to write my own notes and sign for them.  They didn't feel that physical activity was more than a nuisance either, so we were on the same page.  It wasn't until I tried ballroom dancing in college that I realized an enjoyable form of movement existed.  One thing led to another and over the course of 15 years, I've become addicted to zumba, running, and even weights.  Group setting definitely helps, and so does a good personal trainer.  What would have been impossibly boring to do alone, is not so bad with other people.

A similar transformation can happen with cooking.  Being alone in the kitchen while trying to figure out dinner might be painful, but cooking with a friend might not be so bad.  Feeding your children a balanced diet might give you a headache, but learning to make one dish (maybe something simple like frittata) might not be so intimidating.  The beautiful thing about cooking the same thing over and over again is that eventually you don't need a recipe.  There is nothing worse after a day of work than having to follow directions, but if you stick to just one dish in the beginning, you won't need those food writers to tell you what to do.

Nothing gives encouragement as much as success.  When I could finally run 2 miles, I wanted to see if I could run 3.  Turns out I could.  You might be cooking that frittata for a month, but don't be surprised if by the end of the year, you'll be able to roast a chicken, cook a fish fillet, and make a salad.  When you get rid of pressure and guilt, you just might discover your inner cook.

Broccoli Makeover

YouTube Link: Broccoli Makeover
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Here are the ingredients.  You can watch the video for the steps.

Must have:
1 large head broccoli
Splash of water
Salt (taste and adjust)
2 Tbsp olive oil (or as needed)
1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice (taste and adjust)

Optional:
1 garlic clove, minced
pinch of chili flakes
2 Tbsp toasted pinenuts
2 Tbsp golden raisins, plumped in hot water for 5 min, drained, dried
Pomegranate molasses (just a drizzle -- it's very sweet and tart)

I love cooking in vacation home kitchens.  Don't get me wrong -- it's a painful experience.  The reason I find it so educational is that it reminds me what it's like to cook on an electric stove with old style coils that never seam to get hot enough and don't heat evenly.

I finished making this broccoli video right before going to the Berkshires for the weekend.  Since the large cooking area of the skillet was very helpful for this dish, I was going to tell you to buy a pan with a huge cooking area.  It didn't need to be expensive.  The one I used in the video was from a Christmas Tree Shop and it cost me $17.

That pan is a poor choice fore searing a steak, but I find it invaluable in pan roasting vegetables.  Since I don't need to deglaze the pan after browning my vegetables, I don't mind the teflon coating.  It provides a huge cooking area because the sides are not sloped, yet is light enough that I don't dread washing it.  On my large gas burners it heats up like a charm and cooks very evenly, but on that dinky vacation home stove, it was a challenge.  The burner was too small to heat up the periphery of the pan and I had to play musical chairs with my broccoli to make sure every piece had its chance to brown.

When I got back, I edited the part about the huge pan recommendation out of the video.  You know your stove best.  If you don't think it will handle a 12 inch pan, do this dish in batches in a smaller pan.  Keep in mind that every cooking advice should be taken with a grain of salt.  I find that many cooks (including professionals) concentrate a lot on dos and don'ts instead of on why.  If you understand why the recipe is asking you to do something, you can make it work in your kitchen.  

Why doesn't mean we need to get into molecules, enzymes, or other food science gibberish.  For example, if your chicken stuck to the pan, you don't need to know why that happened on the molecular level.  You simply need to make an observation that damp proteins stick to stainless steel skillets.  Once you know that, when to salt becomes obvious too.  If you start paying attention to your ingredients, you'll notice that proteins get damp within 5-10 minutes after you sprinkle salt on them.  This should lead you to a conclusion that it's probably best to sear that protein quickly before the salt makes it damp.  When I explain the salting procedure in class, everyone is concentrating very hard on memorizing the following:

• Salt the day before, refrigerate, dry, cook
• OR
• Dry, salt, cook immediately

Instead, it would be helpful if people memorized the goals instead of procedure.

• Protein needs to be salted (this gives it flavor and helps retain moisture)
• Protein needs to be dry (this helps it brown)

You can derive the procedure if you understand the goal and adopt that procedure to your constraints.  

Sorry for this little philosophical diversion.  So, how did that broccoli taste on vacation?  Awesome!  I simply had to move it around until every piece was brown.  I know, I know.  In the video I explicitly say, "Don't move the broccoli."  But instead of thinking about it as a step in the procedure, let's think about it as a goal.  The goal is to brown the broccoli.  Once it browns, you can move it around all you want.  So I simply had to wait for some pieces to brown and then move them out of the way to free up hot spots for other pieces.

The inquisitive readers among you are probably thinking, "So Helen, why does browning makes broccoli taste good?"  Oh, I am sure there are molecules doing all sorts of crazy things and creating flavor compounds.  Is this Maillard reaction or caramelization -- I am not sure, and I really don't care.  I have just noticed that browning = yum on most of the ingredients, and that's good enough for me.

Sunny Side Up Eggs with Soy Reduction (Video)

YouTube Link: Sunny Side Up Eggs with Soy Reduction
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Soy Reduction (Video)

YouTube Link: Japanese Soy Reduction
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Soy Concentrate
(adopted from Washoku Cookbook by Elizabeth Andoh)

5 g kombu (20 square inches)
8 g dry shiitake mushrooms (1/2 cup)
340 g soy sauce (1 and 1/3 cup - that's one 10 oz bottle)
157 g sake (2/3 cup -- buy the real stuff, don’t use “sake for cooking”)
65 g mirin (1/4 cup)
80 g water (1/3 cup)
75 g granulated sugar (1/3 cup, plus 2 tsp)
10 g thin bonito flakes (1 cup lightly packed) (or 25g thick bonito flakes, atsu kezuri)

1. In a small saucepan, combine everything together except for katsuo-bushi (unless you are using atsu kezuri, in which case, add it right in). Let sit for 1 to 12 hours at room temperature. 
2. Bring to a boil on the stove top and regulate heat so that the mixture bubbles, but doesn’t bubble out of the pot (watch out, this sauce gets foamy, so don’t leave it unattended). Simmer until syrupy. Take off heat.
3. If using thin bonito flakes, stir them into the sauce and let sit for 3 minutes.
4. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer forcing it through with the back of a ladle. 
5. Cool until barely warm and move to a jar or squeeze bottle. When the sauce cools completely, cover tightly and store in the fridge. This sauce doesn’t spoil, but is best if used within 3 months.

Brown Chicken Stock Video

YouTube Link: Brown Chicken Stock
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

For 4-5 quarts stock

2 salt-free rotisserie chickens (Whole Foods carries them)
1 carrot in large chunks
1 onion in large chunks
1 celery stick in large chunks
10 sprigs of thyme (optional)
1-2 bay leaves
1 tsp whole black peppercorns

1. Break up the chickens into legs, wings, backs and breasts.  Put everything except for breasts in to an 8 quart pot.  Breasts are not really necessary, but if you don't have another use for them, you can add them in.  Cover with water by 2-3 inches and bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat to low.
2. Skim off any foam that rises. Add the vegetables and aromatics and simmer gently for 3-5 hours.  
3. Cool slightly.  Strain through a colander into a large bowl and let sit for 15 minutes to let impurities settle.  Thyme leaves will float, but the strainer will catch them.
4. Strain into a 4 quart pot through a fine mesh strainer pouring slowly not to disturb the impurities on the bottom.
5. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate overnight.
6. Skim off the fat and it's ready to use.  Can be stored in the fridge for a week or frozen.  I prefer to reduce it 4 times for more compact storage.  

Scallion Oil Video

YouTube Link: Scallion Oil
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Other dish components in this video:

• Seared Fish
• Quinoa Cakes
• Sliced Raw Fish (make sure you understand how to serve raw fish safely)

Removing Skin from Fish Fillet (video)

YouTube Link: Removing Skin from Fish Fillet
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Does the fish skin keep you up at night? Here are answers to all your fish skin questions and a video on how to remove it.

Where can I buy a good boning knife?


In which cases should I remove the skin from a raw fillet?

• When serving the fish raw
• On fish with very tough skin (swordfish, tuna, mahi-mahi, etc)
• For recipes that don't crisp up the skin (steaming, poaching, baking) -- in many of those cases, the skin can be removed after cooking, but if the fish is cooked with other ingredients (potatoes, vegetables, sauces, etc), it might be less messy to remove the skin before cooking.

In which cases should I *not* remove the skin from a raw fillet?

• When cooking smaller fish (under 20 Lb or so) with direct heat it's best to keep the skin on.  The skin will turn crispy and delicious and will prevent the fish from falling apart on the grill.  Examples of fish in this category are: salmon, trout, arctic char, striped bass, black bass, red snapper, bluefish, branzino, sardines, mackerel.  Examples of direct heat cooking methods are: pan searing, grilling, pan frying, broiling.
• When poaching fish or roasting it slowly in a very low oven (250F), it's best to keep the skin on and remove it after cooking.  It will insulate the fish from direct heat on the bottom of the pan and make it cook gently and evenly.  In both of those cases, the skin can be easily peeled off after cooking.
• When cooking halibut steaks, it's best to keep the skin on.  It won't be as tasty as a skin on a salmon steak, but it will prevent your halibut from drying out and/or falling apart.  You can easily peel it off after cooking.

Does fairness = bad cake for all ?

If you are a parent, “That’s not fair,” is a familiar phrase.  “Why does she get to stay up and I don’t?”   “Why do I have to do homework if he doesn’t?”  As adults, we know deep inside that life is indeed not fair, but that is something we often feel uncomfortable telling our kids.  

Recently, I had an interesting dilemma.  We were having a joined birthday party for our 2 kids, ages 4 and 7.  The younger one is allergic to eggs, which rules the cakes out for him.  Usually I bake a tart for his birthday, which he loves.  But for many practical considerations, it would have been good to have a cake as well.  A cake can be decorated, a cake can feed lots of people (it was a large party), a cake is recognized and understood by normal kids.  While my kids love what I make for their parties, their friends turn up their noses at anything that doesn’t look like a normal sugar loaded cake.  My daughter was surprise that none of her friends last year were willing to try the plum cake I made for her.  “There is no icing,” they declared.  “We don’t want it.”  I’ve learned my lesson.  

This year, we decided to have a normal cake.  Well, almost normal.  I get my cakes from a Cordon Bleu instructor who can make these kiddie cakes taste as good as possible.  She told me she could make a vegan cake so that my younger one wouldn’t feel left out.  I’ve had my share of vegan cakes, and quite frankly, they suck.  Most likely the other kids wouldn’t notice.  If it looks cute and tastes sweet, I am convinced that most kids would eat a cake made out of play dough.  But my kids might notice.  Especially the allergic kid.  I’d tried to bake egg-free muffins for him before and his reception was lukewarm at best. I decided against the vegan cake.  If my older one gets one cake a year, why shouldn’t it be a good cake?   

Does this kid look devastated about missing out on the cake?  Who knows, he might have to work it out in therapy when he is 30, but for now he seems ok.  

I think that vegan sausage, veggie burgers, and gluten free pasta are futile ways to achieve fairness.  I don’t understand why every cookout needs to include veggie burgers.  Some good vegetarian food would be wonderful, but bad vegetarian food shaped into a hockey puck seems ridiculous to me.  Does the hockey puck shape make vegetarians feel included?  We just attended a family event for my husband’s work held at a baseball stadium.  The food was hot dogs, mac and cheese, etc.  All pastas and buns had eggs, but they dug up some egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free roll for my younger one.  It was their kill-all-birds-with-one-stone allergy food, and it was inedible.  Boy, how we would appreciate some veggies.  Allergy friendly food doesn't need to be shaped like a hot dog bun to make us feel included.  

Fairness doesn't mean sameness.  There is an enormous and very natural human desire to fit in, to be just like everyone else, and not be the one person left out.  But that is not what life is like.  We all have different needs, different limitations, and different abilities.  Learning to make the best of your situation is one of the most important life skills.  I wonder if we sometimes deprive the kids of that in our pursuit for fairness.  

Grilled Chicken Thighs

YouTube Link: Grilled Chicken Thighs
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Here are the recipes for two marinades to use with this technique.  Both are for 2 Lb of chicken thighs.

Yogurt Marinade (shown in the video)
4 oz plain yogurt (1/2 cup)
11 g salt (4 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher or 2 tsp table salt)
1 garlic clove grated on a microplane zester (or turned into a paste using some other way)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
a few grinds of black pepper

Mix everything together in a large bowl and add the chicken.

Pomegranate Soy Marinade

Don't let the exotic ingredients in this marinade fool you.  The final result is deeply savory and not really exotic tasting.  Any American 5 year old would eat it without questioning what's on this thicken.  Pomegranate molasses is simply very concentrated pomegranate juice.  Zaatar is a blend of dry mint, thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds.  It's slightly tart but not spicy at all, so don't be afraid to use a good bit.  You can buy both pomegranate molasses and zaatar at Middle Easter stores and most Whole Foods Markets.  

1 tsp soy sauce (ideally Japanese style)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove grated on a microplane zester (or turned into a paste using some other way)
1 tsp pomegranate molasses (sold at most Whole Foods)
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Zaatar spice blend (optional)

1. Whisk the soy sauce, mustard, garlic, and pomegranate molasses together in a bowl until well blended.  Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking constantly.  Stir in zaatar if using.  
2. Salt and pepper the chicken on all sides, then add to the marinade.

Both marinades need at least 4 hours, but can be applied up to 2 days ahead.  The ideal time is 8 hours, but do what's most convenient.  Wipe off completely before grilling the chicken.   Zaatar can be left on, but all the moisture needs to be dried off.

The recipes you crave with personalities you love

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YouTube Link: YouTube Personalities
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Eclairs

I have advice for your first attempt at eclairs or any other component based French dessert.  Don't try to do all the components in 1 day.  Bake the shells and freeze them.  They are just as good if you pop them in the oven to re-crisp for 5 minutes.  Make pastry cream some other day.  It will be happy in the fridge for a couple of days.  The day you are ready to assemble your eclairs, make sure you are equipped with at least twice as much heavy cream as diplomat cream calls for.  In case you over-whip your first batch of cream, you'll have a back up.  Now all you have left is ganache, and even I won't tell you that it's hard.  Ganache is indeed easy-peasy.

In case you are wondering what corn syrup is doing in ganache, let me explain.  We are using ganache as a glaze and although we want it to solidify in the fridge, we want it to stay soft and maintain a light sheen.  If ganache is left to its own devices it will become hard and the texture balance of the eclair will be off.

Makes about 16 eclairs, 5" long

1 recipe pate a choux baked into eclair shapes
1 recipe diplomat cream
1 recipe ganache (see below)

Ganache

Note: you can buy the chocolate in chip form to save the time chopping it.

4 oz bittersweet chocolate (55%-65%), chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp light corn syrup

In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream just to a simmer or microwave it in a bowl.  Take of heat.  Add the chocolate and syrup and let sit for 5 minutes.  Whisk until smooth.  Make this right before using since it's not easy to reheat.  If you do have leftover ganache, warm it up over a bowl of hot water whisking constantly.

Assembly
With a sharp paring knife, poke a 1/2 inch hole in each end of eclairs.  Cover one hole with your finger and pipe diplomat cream into the other hole using a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch tip (or smaller).  The exact size doesn't matter.  As long as the tip fits the hole, you are fine.  You'll know you put in enough cream when the finger covering the other hole can feel the cream.  Dunk each eclair into ganache and refrigerate for about an hour to let ganache set.  Keep refrigerated before serving.  Ideally, serve in less than 6 hours to prevent the pastry shell from softening too much, but they should hold for up to 24 hours.

Medium-rare Burgers (Video)

YouTube Link: Medium-rare Burgers (grilled or seared)
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

Burgers in the oven?  Don't knock it till you try it.  I wish I could take credit for this brilliant method, but it was inspired by Kenji Alt's slow roasted steak method that was published in Cook's Illustrated in 2007.  It became a master technique for how I cook all meat to medium-rare.

How does this weird method work?
For even doneness, we want to do most of our cooking with air and not with metal or flame.  Metal is a great conductor of energy and air is not.  By transferring the energy to the burgers slowly using air, we ensure perfectly even cooking.  If we put the burgers directly on a baking dish, they'll be in touch with a metal object which will cook the bottom faster than the top.  It will also make the bottom surface damp since the moisture won't have a chance to evaporate and this will inhibit browning during the grilling or searing stage.  Since the burgers are thinner than the steak Kenji's recipe was optimized for (1 inch vs. 1.5 inches), I drop the oven temperature from 275F to 200F to ensure even cooking.

What's the fat percentage of the ground beef?
In the video, I am working with 85/15 from Whole Foods.  Ideally, it would be 80/20, but my health obsessed Whole Foods in MA doesn't carry it.  I've seen in at Whole Foods in other states.  Of course, I can stop by a regular supermarket and pick up 80/20 beef, but for medium-rare burgers, I choose my source of beef very carefully.  To tell you the truth, I think I got cheated out of some fat by Whole Foods this time.  85/15 means that it's at most 15% fat, so the actual percentage will vary batch to batch.  I could barely feel any fat on my hands as I was shaping.  Not a good sign.  But this method is so forgiving, even lean ground beef will taste good.

July 22 update on safety
Ever since this post, I've been getting a lot of e-mail about the terrible danger of my burgers, so here is the scoop on safety.

There is a difference between a med-rare burger and a med-rare steak. Bacteria is only found on the outside of the muscle and when a steak is seared, they die instantly. So if you like your meat cold inside, you are not taking any risk eating it that way. However, after you grind the meat, some of that bacteria ends on the inside, so an under-cooked burger is a tad risky. The question is how big is this "tad." You take plenty of risks every day. Driving is probably one of the biggest for an average civilian. How many people do you know who were injured in a car accident? How many people do you know that were injured with a med-rare burger? Of course, you could argue that you drive more often than you eat a burger. But let's look at some numbers. An average annual death toll from E. Coli is in the low 20s. An average annual death toll from automobile related accidents is more than 30,000. So in the grand scheme of things, that burger is unlikely to significantly change your risk of getting hurt.

To reduce the risk further, you could grind your own meat. This way, the grinder touches only a few pounds instead of a few hundred pounds of meat, which will reduce the risk of cross-contamination. You could take it even further and briefly sear the meat on the outside before grinding thus killing most of the bacteria.

Besides e coli, there are other, not so dangerous bacteria that grow on meat when it decomposes. My conclusion is to buy meat at a reputable place, keep everything (meat, grinder, bowls) extremely cold, and stop worrying.

Diplomat Cream

Fold whipped cream into pastry cream and you get diplomat cream.  I don't know how this pastry filling got its name, but I can tell you that if you arm yourself with some diplomat cream all conflicts would melt away because everyone would be too busy swooning and licking their fingers.  It's one of those fabulous kitchen marriages where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Use it to fill cream puffs, eclairs, fresh fruit tarts, brioche style cakes, or just layer if with fresh fruit and leftover cake for a beautiful trifle.

Diplomat Cream

1 recipe pastry cream

1 recipe whipped cream stabilized with creme fraiche

Important: Don't reuse the bowl or whisk after whipping cream to whip your pastry cream!  I once made that mistake and the remaining whipped cream that was clinging to the bowl and whisk turned to butter and made the pastry cream grainy.  

Fold about one third of the whipped cream into the pastry cream to lighten it.  Then fold the rest of the whipped cream in.  The proportions are not set in stone.  You can adjust the ratio of whipped cream to pastry cream to your liking and application.  Use immediately or store in the fridge.  Best if used the day it's made.  It will start to thin out after sitting in the fridge for more than 24 hours.

The Easiest Stabilized Whipped Cream

Whipped cream is as easy to make as it is to ruin. What could possibly go wrong with a recipe that has 1 ingredient and take about 1 minutes of work? If you over-beat it by as much as 5 seconds, it can become grainy and there is no going back. If you let it sit in the fridge longer than a couple of hours, it will become runny. 

The remedy for over-whipped cream is yet to be found, but there is a solution for the gradual thinning out.  For years I've been stabilizing whipped cream with gelatin when using it for icing, but it's a finicky procedure and a pain if you just need a bit of whipped cream as a topping. Gelatin poses another little issue. Gelatin is a meat product, and as I was testing diplomat cream recipes for my upcoming Pate a Choux class, I wanted to find a way to do without gelatin so that my vegetarian students wouldn't miss out. I've tried all sorts of tricks with variable level of success. But none were as tasty or as easy as Nancy Silverton's technique of adding a small dollop of creme fraiche.

The first benefit of this little addition is that cream became easier to thicken without over-whipping.  Most professionals use extra heavy cream.  The higher fat content helps the cream thicken before it over-whips giving you a larger margin of error.  Unfortunately, I can't find extra heavy cream in stores.  I read an explanation of this technique saying that creme fraiche helps because of its higher fat content.  This might be true, but I couldn't find a way to verify that since the differences are slight and nutritional information on the packages is rounded.  I did however notice that my cream wasn't over-whipping in a split second, which made me happy.  The added tang from creme fraiche is delightful.  It's actually a tastier whipped cream!  And after 24 hours in the fridge, it didn't thin out one bit.  It might have lasted longer, but we ate it all.

For icing a cake, I would still use the gelatin or Rose Levy Beranbaum's corn starch technique, to ensure your icing won't start running at room temperature.  But for most other purposes, this whipped cream is my go to recipe.

Creme-Fraiche-Stabilized Whipped Cream

1 cup cold heavy cream
1/4 cup cold creme fraiche

Chill the bowl and whisk style beater in the fridge for at least 15 min.  Everything needs to be very cold. Warm cream doesn't whip.

For 1 cup or less, I prefer to use the whisk attachment of my immersion blender or some other hand mixer since the KitchenAid stand mixer is not great with small quantities of whipped cream.

Combine heavy cream and creme fraiche in a cold bowl and beat on low speed until small bubbles form on the surface.  Gradually increase speed to high and beat until the cream thickens and the whisk leaves trails in it.  Err on the side of softer rather than firmer cream.  Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula to redistributed the cream and make sure the bottom of the bowl is not runny.  If the cream is too runny, finish beating it on medium-low speed.

ThermoPop -- great thermometer for $25

I am not a type of cook who spends her disposable income right and left at William and Sonoma. Most students are pleasantly surprised when they find out how much my pots, pans, and knives cost. But I always get a bit embarrassed when they ask me about meat thermometers. I used to use flimsy little digital thermometers from Taylor and Maverick that cost $15. They were functional, but infuriating. The electronics were flimsy and the display would sometimes flicker. They took as long as 15 seconds to come up to temperature once you stick them into something. They have a thick probe that is hard to stick into meat.

One day, Jason surprised me with a Thermopen for my birthday. It's $100. "What an extravagance for a thermometer," I thought. But I am addicted and can't go back. The temperature stabilizes 3 seconds after you are in the meat. The probe has a slender tip that goes into meat like it was butter. The body is water resistant. Using this thermometer is pure joy.

You can imagine my excitement when Thermoworks put out a $25 version called ThermoPop. With all the features of Thermopen, but slightly toned down precision and response time. It should stabilize in 5-6 seconds and the reading should be within 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The range is still huge -58 to 572°F.  I ordered one right away.  I tested it in a glass of water against my expensive Thermopen at 40F, 100F, 120F, and 160F.  I got the same reading on both the $100 and $25 thermometers.  The difference in response time was negligible.  Thermopop was a couple of seconds behind.

Don't be surprised if the readings you get when you turn both of your thermometers on is quite different.  They are not designed to measure air temperature.  The cheapy ThermoPop stabilizes very slowly in air and was 5 degrees higher than Thermopen.  Not that I would trust Themopen with air either.

At this point, I don't know how well Thermopop will hold up.  I'll try to give you an update in a year (or earlier if it breaks ;)

12 inch Winco Stainless Steel Skillet

It took me a long time to buy a 12 inch stainless steel skills -- 5 years to be precise.  It wasn't for lack of trying.  When we moved from our little condo into our current house 5 years ago, I thought that I'll finally have space for a few large pans.  But after trying a number of 12 inch skillets, I realized that large pans came with a few unexpected problems.

Problem 1: They are not as large as they look.
Pans are sold by the size of the diameter from rim to rim.  The cooking surface depends on how sloped the sides are.  I found that many brands like to slope the sides so much that the cooking area of a 12 inch pan is barely larger than that of a 10 inch pan.

Problem 2: The bottom warps causing the oil to go to the sides.
Many large pans tend to warp a bit as they heat up forming a slight bump in the center of the pan.  This causes the oil to flow towards the sides and the food doesn't cook evenly.

I gave up on the idea of finding a 12 inch skillet and was happy with a few 10 inch skillets instead until I walked into China Fair in Newton.  I saw a large, thick, and heavy Winco pan with an oven-safe handle and it had my name all over it.  For $60 it was too good not to try.  Turns out I didn't need to spend $60.  It's available on Amazon for $40!  So before I tell you about the virtues of this pan, I want to remind you to do as I say, not as I do -- buy your cooking equipment on-line.  Why didn't I take it back even though I haven't even unpacked it?  Because China Fair doesn't take anything back even in its packaging.  The whole reason I was going to this store was to see what the hype was all about.  Everyone in Boston loves China fair and it's hard to get a good feel for the store without buying something.  Considering their prices, I think the return policy is unacceptable and customer service and knowledge about equipment was non-existent.

Enough about China Fair, let's talk about the pan.

Pros:

• Large cooking area that's almost twice as large as a 10 inch pan.
• Even heat distribution.
• Excellent browning.  By the way, don't listen to a few people on Amazon who say that food sticks.  They don't know how to cook.  The pan and oil need to be hot, the protein needs to be thoroughly dried, and it should't be disturbed until it browns.  It behaves like any other stainless steel pan
• The handle is oven safe up to 450F.
• Affordable price

Cons:

• The pan is heavy.  It doesn't bother me, but if you don't like heavy pans, this one is not a good option.
• The silicon handle stops pretty far from the pan.  My guess is that it's to protect it from heat on restaurant burners.  It's not a biggie.  I just use a towel or mitt to help myself lift it when it's full and hot.

Pastry Cream

Pastry Cream is the mirepoix of desserts.  Just like the sweated mixture of carrots, celery, and onions is more functional than delicious in and of itself, so is pastry cream.  Pastry cream might not taste like much, unless you think vanilla pudding is exciting, but it's one step away from becoming a fabulous filling with the addition of chocolate, praline, whipped cream, or butter.  I have a soft spot for diplomat cream: pastry cream with folded in whipped cream.  Add a little ganache to that and it's a wicked chocolate mousse.  The possibilities are endless and can be whipped up in minutes once you get your pastry cream right.

Last week, I made batch after batch of pastry cream until I got the answer to the persistent pastry cream questions that were bothering me for years.

Flour or Cornstarch?

Cornstarch!  The pastry cream made with all flour had a starchy taste after chilling even though I cooked it for 8 minutes to help get rid of that unpleasant taste.  The only downside to cornstarch is that you can't freeze the cream, but pastry cream takes 10 minutes and can be made 2 days ahead, so I don't see a reason to freeze it unless you run a wholesale pastry business.  A mixture of cornstarch and cake flour works well too, but not everyone has cake flour on hand.

Is it ok to cut down on sugar?

Messing with amounts of ingredients is a recipe for disaster when it comes to pastry, but in this case the amount of sugar is flexible.  I cut it down a bit and nothing terrible happened.  You can even skip it completely if folding in a very sweet flavoring, like dulce de leche.  

Why does my pastry cream thin out after sitting in the fridge?

This is a classic beginner mistake.  Intuitively, overcooking a custard seems wrong, so I always waited just until my cream thickened and took it off the heat.  Turned out that was a big mistake.  Amylase enzyme present in eggs gradually breaks down the starch and thins out the pastry cream.  But this enzyme can be destroyed if the pastry cream is allowed to simmer for a few minutes.  How can you let a custard simmer without curdling it?  That's where the starch comes in.  It interferes with cross-linking of egg proteins and doesn't allow them to coagulate.  How lucky is that?

Vanilla Bean or Extract?

I know some people obsess over the little specs of real vanilla, but I don't feel that it's a deal breaker to use vanilla extract in pastry cream if it is one of many components of a dessert.  When I was doing my tests, I certainly wasn't going to sacrifice $50 worth of vanilla beans, so I used extract.  When I finally got a perfect batch of diplomat cream (pastry cream with whipped cream), I filled some eclair shells with it, dunked them into ganache and my husband proclaimed them the best eclairs even without the real vanilla bean.  I suggest you don't waste real vanilla beans on your first try, but once you get the hang of pastry cream, go for the bean.

Do you need to strain the pastry cream?

Most recipes instruct you to strain the custard before heating it up.  The reason for that is the presence of chalazae in the egg yolks.  They are white cordlike strands of egg white protein attached to the yolk that can't completely dissolve.  Straining is always the safest way to go, but unless you are making a huge batch, you can easily fish them out with a little fine mesh skimmer before cooking the sauce. 

Egg Yolks or Whole Eggs?

I've tried pastry creams with all yolks, all whole eggs, and a mixture of the two.  All yolks didn't make it much tastier, but required more work to separate all those yolks.

How careful do I need to be when tempering the eggs?
Most pastry cream recipes starts by scaring you into thinking that the eggs can scramble if you look at the them crooked.  And most recommend to pour the hot dairy in slowly.  The conscientious person that I am, I drizzled all of my milk/cream mixture in a tiny little stream thinking better safe than sorry.  Turns out this was creating a problem.  The dairy cooled off so much during my drizzling that it took 10 minutes to return it back to a boil.  No matter how carefully I was to stir the cream, it would often start to ooze out fat and look like broken mayo.  The reality is that unless you dump the entire pot of boiling dairy into fridge cold eggs without stirring, they won't scramble -- the cornstarch won't let them.  You should warm the eggs up with a splash of hot diary, but from then on, proceed without fear.  Dump the eggs into the boiling dairy all at once and you'll be 1 minute away from nice thick cream.  

Pastry Cream
This is the most foolproof recipe for pastry cream that I found.
Adopted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible.

2 large eggs (100 grams weighed without the shell)

4 Tbsp corn starch (32 grams)
242 g whole milk (1 cup)
242 g cream (1 cup)
1/2 cup sugar (100 grams)
1/2 Vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract added in the end)
Pinch of salt
3 Tbsp unsalted butter (42 grams), cut into 3 pieces

1. Line a small baking sheet (roughly 13"x9") with plastic wrap.  Have a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl ready near the stove.
2. Whisk the eggs and cornstarch in a small bowl until completely smooth. 
3. Place the milk and cream in a heavy 2-quart saucepan. It's best to either use a pan with rounded sides or get a French whisk (also known as Piano whisk) -- it's more narrow and gets into the corners of the pot better.
4. Whisk ¼ cup or the milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture until smooth and the cornstarch is dissolved. 
5. Add the sugar, vanilla bean if using, and salt to the saucepan with cream/milk. Bring the mixture to a full boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. 
6. Whisk 3 tbsp. of the hot milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture. Strain this mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. 
7. Remove the vanilla bean and return the milk/cream to a boil over medium heat.
8. Quickly add the egg mixture to the milk/cream mixture and whisk rapidly. The sauce should thicken. Bring to a boil while whisking. Once in a while pause for a couple of seconds to see if you got a boil. Then cook whisking vigorously for 30 seconds. 
9. Remove from the heat. Whisk in vanilla extract if using instead of vanilla beans and the butter 1 piece at a time until completely incorporated.
10. Immediately pour the pastry cream into a plastic lined baking sheet and lay a piece of plastic wrap on the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Allow the pastry cream to cool to room temperature, about 1 hour, then refrigerate overnight. 
11. Before using, beat with a whisk to smooth out, but don't over-do this step as the cream can thin out.

Troubleshooting

My pastry cream is grainy
This doesn't happen with this recipe, since we are tempering the eggs.

My pastry cream is greasy and looks like broken hollandaise
This is usually due to the cream overcooking in places.  The usual culprits are: 1) the heat is too high 2) not enough sauce in the pan -- choose a pan that will result in a thick layer of cream 3) not bringing the sauce to the boil quickly enough -- once you tempered the eggs, don't be afraid to dump them into the boiling milk/cream mixture all at once

My pastry cream thins out after sitting in the fridge
You didn't cook it long enough.  After the bubbles start breaking the surface, it needs at least 30 seconds of cooking (a bit more is always safer).  Otherwise the eggs break down the starch.

My pastry cream is very stiff and not creamy after it sits in the fridge
This is perfectly normal.  Remember that it needs whipping before use.

Pâte à choux

Few French pastry techniques are more versatile or more overlooked by American cooks than pâte à choux.  To begin with, no one bothered translating the term pate au choux into English.  We have terms for pâte brisée (pie dough), pâte feuilletée (puff pastry), but the only English translation of pâte à choux that I've seen is "choux pastry."  Even if you know that choux means "cabbage," it still doesn't help you much unless you are familiar with classic French pastry repertoire.  But as soon as I mention eclairs or cream puffs, people's eyes light up and they immediately recognize which dough I am talking about.

The rewards of learning to make pate a choux are numerous:

• fancy savory hors d'oeuvres
• eclairs, Paris-Brest, cream puffs, and a huge number of desserts
• container for brunch dishes (poached, sous-vide, or scrambled eggs)
• do ahead versatility -- the shells can be baked and frozen and it only takes a few minutes in the oven to defrost and crisp them back up.

The basic process is laughably simple.  Pate a choux can be made, shaped, and be ready to bake in 15 minutes.  Are there pitfalls?  Yes, lots.  This is a classic French technique, not cake out of a box.  If you can weigh your ingredients and follow directions, you will produce decent results.  But you know me -- "decent" has never been my ambition.  Pastries are something I allow myself very rarely.  If it's not the best, why even bother?  When I set out to perfect my pate a choux, I combed through as many recipes and videos as I could dig up.  There was no shortage of advise.  The trouble was that besides the basics, no one agreed on anything.  Should you use milk or water?  Should you cook the panade for 1 minute or 10?  Should you beat in the eggs with a spoon, food processor, or mixer?  Should you pipe and bake immediately or is it ok to wait?  Should you pipe straight down or at an angle?  Should you egg wash or not?  Should you smooth with a fork or not?  The only way to answer these questions was to spend 2 days baking batch after batch of pate a choux.  

By Hand vs. Mixer vs. Food Processor

When dealing with a finicky technique, it helps when you pay attention to the dough and not to the excruciating pain in your biceps.  If you think beating egg whites by hand is hard, wait till you try pate a choux.  No beginner should do this with a spoon in my opinion.  The machines make incorporating eggs extremely easy and reliable.  Hand mixer, Stand Mixer, Food Processor -- they all work equally well.

Milk Vs. Water

Milk makes the puffs more brown and tender.  Water makes the puffs more crisp as it can withstand a high temperature longer without burning.  Milk gives you better flavor.  So where does that leave us?  Using all milk for pate a choux is very uncommon for a good reason -- you are unlikely to get a crispy shell before burning the puffs.  The two real contenders were 100% water or 50% water and 50% milk.  I've tried both.  50/50 had better color and slightly better flavor without sacrificing the crispness.  But if you don't have milk on hand, using all water is perfectly fine.

Egg Wash, Water Spray, or Both

Most of the recipes I found used an egg wash.  I am not sure why.  Pate a choux is naturally shiny, so it doesn't need much help.  It might keep the top of the dough wet preventing it from setting prematurely in the oven and giving it a good expansion, but so would water.  Julia Usher used both a spray of water and an egg wash in her video.  Joe Pastry used just a spray of water with no egg wash.  I tried both and found that the egg wash was completely optional, so I stopped using it.  The water is very helpful in creating a huge lift.  If an egg wash is used, you have to be careful not to let it drip down the sides.  There is enough to worry about with this dough, so I am skipping the egg wash from now on.

Pipe at an angle or straight down

Piping is the most difficult part of working with pate a choux.  No matter how much you read about it, until you pipe 100 cream puffs, it's hard to get good at it.  Most professionals pipe at an angle and swipe the tail up.  You can watch Jacques Pepin doing this.  I am guessing on my 300th puff, I'll start to get good at this, but in the meantime, my puffs easily turn into eclairs when I pipe that way.  I've had the most success with Julia Usher's piping technique where she pipes straight down.

Smooth out with a fork or just tap down the tails

No matter how you pipe there'll be tails to smooth out.  Do you just dunk your finger in water and pat them down or do you take the extra step of smoothing the top with a fork?  You can see the fork technique in the end of Pepin's video.  I tried both and here are the results.  Using a fork produces slightly less puffed, but more even final result.  When left to their own devices, some puffs come out in an organic but beautiful shape and some look like they have 2 heads.  

Oven temp

Let's start with the fact that it's hard to tell what temperature your oven really is.  Even if you have an oven thermometer, the oven temperature fluctuates and is almost never the same throughout your oven.  From what I've seen from my experiments, higher is safer.  This dough doesn't burn easily, especially if you splashed it with water.  For large shells and eclairs, I bake at 400F for 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350F for another 10, then poke holes in the sides and let them dry out in turned off oven.  If you don't get good color and lift after 30 minutes, bake your next batch at 425F.  But remember, you can't check up on them!  If you open the oven door before they full puff, set, and crisp, they'll collapse.  I only risk opening the door after the initial 30 minutes for large puffs and 20 minutes for small.  Another crucial variable is how much stuff you put into your oven.  I find that a half sheet (18x13) is the biggest sheet my oven can deal with.  I made a mistake of putting a bigger sheet into my oven and the results were not as good.

How long to dry

Everyone agrees that you should poke holes in the sides and return the choux shells into the turned off oven to dry out.  The question is for how long.  Recipes suggest anywhere from 10 minutes to overnight.  I found that if you are planning to cut the shells in half and scoop out the leftover wet dough, 10 minutes is sufficient (that's the ones in the picture).  If you want to stuff without cutting in half (this is sometimes done for eclairs through a hole), 45 min to an hour will completely dry the inside out for large eclairs (will probably only need 30 minutes for miniature eclairs).  Of course, my "large" might be different than your "large" eclair, so the only way to be certain is to break one and take a look.  

Now that I've answered all the question you never knew you had about pate a choux, here is the recipe

Pâte à choux

1/2 cup water (118g)

1/2 cup whole milk (121g)

1/2 tsp table salt or 1 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher (2.8g)

1 stick butter at room temp (113g), cut into 8 pieces

142g unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted (1 cup scooped and leveled, then sifted)

4 large eggs (200g), beaten with a fork in a liquid measuring cup with a spout 

Preheating the oven and preparing equipment

1. Preheat the oven to 400F with the rack in the middle of the oven.
2. Fit a pastry bag with a coupler (that's the plastic thing onto which other attachment are added) or a 1/2 inch round tip.  If no pastry bag is available, you can use a large zip lock bag (only cut the corner off after you fill the bag with dough).
3. Invert a half sheet (baking sheet that's roughly 18"x13") and grease with butter or line with parchment paper (I prefer using parchment paper).  Baking on the back of the sheet makes it easier to pipe and easier for the heat to circulate evenly.

Cooking Panade (flour butter paste)

Put water, milk, butter, and salt into a small saucepan and heat on medium heat until butter melts and the liquid comes to a full boil.  Take off heat.  Immediately, add all the flour at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated.  Put back over medium heat and cook stirring constantly for 5 minutes.  This helps evaporate excess moisture.  The bottom of the pan will become covered in a film of flour.  This is normal.  Make sure no part of dough sits on the bottom of the pot for long so that it doesn't scorch.  If a little fat oozes out, that's normal too.  In the end, you should have a shiny ball.

Option 1: Incorporating Eggs with a Stand mixer

Fit mixer with a paddle attachment.  Place the dough in a mixer and cool for 5 minutes, turning the mixer briefly on low speed for a few seconds couple of times to release the steam.  Turn the mixer on medium-low speed (4 for KitchenAid), pour in roughly a third of the eggs.  The dough will break and gradually become creamy again.  Pour in the second third.  Wait for it to become creamy and pour in the last third.  Beat until consistency slightly thinner than creamy peanut butter at room temperature.  If at any time during the addition of the eggs the dough on the bottom of the bowl is not being mixed evenly, stop the mixer and scrape up the bowl with a rubber spatula.  

Option 2: Incorporating Eggs with a Food Processor

Place the dough in the food processor and run it for 10 seconds with an open tube to release the steam.  Keep the processor running and pour the eggs through a feeding tube.  Run the processor for 10 seconds and stop.  Scrape up the sides of the processor with a rubber spatula and run it for 30 seconds to incorporate the eggs.  

Piping the Dough

Move the dough into a prepared pastry bag or zip lock bag.  If using parchment paper, dab the baking sheet with dough in the corners and then put the parchment paper on it.  This will hold the parchment in place and make it easier to pipe.  I find it extremely helpful to weigh out a puff or two.  Line the scale with a piece of plastic wrap and pipe a puff onto it.  Miniature puffs should be 14 grams, large puffs should be 22 grams.  Don't sweat 1 or 2 grams, but this will give you a rough idea of the size.  When you pipe the real puffs onto your baking sheet, periodically stop and compare them to the sample on the scale to make sure you are consistent.

Pipe the dough into desired shapes.  This is easier said than done.  Watch Pepin's video for eclairs and Julia Usher's for puffs.  Dab up the tails with a wet finger.  Spray the whole sheet with water.  If you don't have a spray bottle, wet your hands and shake them all over the baking sheet.  Run a wet fork through each piece if desired.  You will only be able to bake half of the dough at one time, but it keeps beautifully at room temperature for hours.  Just put plastic wrap over the tip of the pastry bag.  Don't pipe more until you are ready to bake more.

Baking

Place in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes (20 minutes for miniature shapes).  Don't open the oven door during this first stage of baking or the puffs will collapse.  Check for color.  At this point, the puffs should be risen and golden.  If not, continue at 400F.  Otherwise, turn down the oven to 350F and bake another 10 minutes.  At this point the puffs should be firm and brown.  Remove them from the oven and turn the oven off.  Prop the door open with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes.  Poke 2 holes in the sides of each puff or eclair to release steam (I like doing it with a meat thermometer) and return to the turned off oven for 10 minutes to dry (you don't need to prop the door at this point).  This will yield puffs with a bit of wet dough inside that you'll need to scoop out when serving, but I find the shell consistency to be most pleasant. If you want no wet dough at all.  Dry the puffs and eclairs for 30-60 min depending on the size.  This will produce slightly tough shell.  Not a problem if filling with soft filling (like eclairs) and letting it sit in the fridge for a few hours to soften.

Storage

Cool completely on a wire rack and use that day or freeze in a zip lock bag.  Defrost frozen puffs for 30 minutes and re-crisp in a 350F oven for 5 min.