asian jewish deli

This past weekend I took some time to visit Due’s Berry Farm to take advantage of the short local strawberry season. Luckily the row I was picking in was planted with the Shuksan variety, possibly the most delicious strawberry I have ever eaten.

Shuksans have a very short shelf life, some even say that they need to be eaten by nightfall on the day they are picked. What to do with strawberries that need to be used the same day? Besides for a large bowl of strawberries and cream, I made 12 half-pints of beautiful jam.

I ate so much jam straight from the pan that my palette was completely overwhelmed and I couldn’t really evaluate the jam until this morning. The verdict? I’ll be going back to the berry farm on Friday for more!

These are the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, without doubt.

The recipe was written by Jacques Torres and published in the New York Times almost a year ago, and has been my de facto CCC recipe since. Click here for the recipe. They are great out of the oven, but this is one cookie I enjoy more after they cool. The chocolate disks melt and solidify into delicate strata of chocolate/cookie/chocolate/cookie. Perfect.

A few notes:

• Be sure to find disk shaped chocolate. My favorite so far has been El Rey, available at Whole Foods. I have tried the Valrhona fèves as recommended in the article, but found that they were too thick and did not melt into the layers that El Rey does.
• Don’t try and shortcut the 24-72 hours of aging the dough that the recipe calls for. It really does make a difference in flavor and texture. (I have aged the dough longer and you reach a point of diminishing returns.)
• The finishing salt on top is critical to round out the flavors and provide a piquant counterpoint to the traditional cookie sweetness.
• Don’t try to make them smaller than specified. The size allows for a noticeable change in texture, from the crispy edge, to the chewy middle, to the slightly underdone middle.

Everybody that has tried these cookies has proclaimed them the best ever, so give it a shot! If you do make them, go take a walk after, because they are 500+ calories each!

Although it sounds like a holiday made up by doughnut companies to further fatten Americans, National Doughnut Day has a history dating back to World War I. Officially held on the first Friday of June, National Doughnut Day celebrates the Salvation Army’s efforts serving doughnuts to soldiers during the war.

Despite already having a tasty glazed ring at work today, I decided it was necessary for more fried dough this evening.

I ended up making a combination of jam filled, chocolate filled, and plain rings, either sugared or glazed plain or maple (my favorite!). I also made the world’s biggest maple bar from the scraps after cutting the regular doughnuts. (The maple bar is pretty ugly, so no picture for you!)