Month: September 2013

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The magic of hype

Dominique Ansel's Magic Souffle

Dominique Ansel’s Magic Souffle

The moment I read that Dominique Ansel, the evil genius behind the now infamous Cronut, had come up with something new called the Magic Soufflé, I immediately got to plotting when and how I’d get my hands on one.

When Cronuts first came out, I didn’t want to believe all the hype, but as soon as I had one I fell under their spell just as fast and hard as all the other Cronut zombies out there. (And let me tell you, New York is crawling with these pastry loving fiends. They will shank you if they think you have a Cronut, so watch yourself.) Suspecting we might have another pastry craze on our hands with the Magic Soufflé I wanted to cast my vote early, before things got crazy.

Earlier this week, I moseyed over to Dominique Ansel Bakery, making sure to get there before noon (because they’re apparently already gone by then), and ordered a Magic Soufflé. Inside a cute little red and white striped open box, reminiscent of an old school popcorn box, was the rectangular Magic Soufflé, golden brown with a white star of powdered sugar on top. But even better than the pretty packaging was the fresh-out-of-the-oven smell of warm pastry dough, sugar and chocolate wafting out.

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Mmmmmm warm chocolate souffle.

The Magic Soufflé’s outer layer is a buttery, golden, orange blossom brioche, brushed with Grand Marnier caramel, but the real magic, the chocolate soufflé part, is inside, warm and soft and almost melty at its core.

So what do I think? It was pretty good, but not magical good, and certainly not $7 good. Even the Cronut doesn’t cost that much and it’s waaay better.  I guess I’ve just never been one for magic.

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Tasty and healthy and I made it myself!

Anyone who knows me also knows good and well that while I definitely love food (duh, this blog), I’m way more about eating it than I am about cooking it. (Growing up I always just assumed that by the time I was as old as I am now, I would be so filthy loaded that I would have a personal chef to cook all my meals and therefore, would never have to actually learn how to cook. Needless to say, things did not pan out the way I’d hoped as a child.)

However, every once in a while, the spirit moves me, and I decide to put what few kitchen skills I have to use. Tonight, for example, was one of those times.  Following a recipe from one of my favorite blogs, The Londoner (about a London girl who has my dream life), I made a guilt free egg fried “rice.”

And whaddaya know, it came out pretty damn good! Tasty and healthy? A double win! So here’s how things went down:

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Everybody’s here for the party.

First, I gathered my ingredient and styled them for your viewing pleasure: coconut oil, sesame oil, cauliflower, garlic, scallions, peppers, eggs, cilantro, peanuts and soy sauce (not pictured above.)

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Note to self: invest in a food processor. Grating sucks.

The magic trick to making this dish healthy is that instead of rice, you use cauliflower. Now, on The Londoner she just popped all of her cauliflower into a food processor to break down into crumbly bits, but I don’t have one of those so I took a cheese grater to my cauliflower and grated it all down to teeny tiny bits manually. This, first of all, takes way longer, and second, is a hell of an arm workout. You laugh, but I’m sore.

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Fizzing, foaming and smelling my kitchen with tasty smells.

In a pan (which should’ve been a wok, but again, didn’t have one of those), I poured the coconut and sesame oils along with some garlic. Everything kinda fizzed up into a beigey foam and the smell filled my kitchen (whole apartment really) with awesomeness. At this point, The Londoner added shrimp, but I wasn’t feeling them so I proceeded without.

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Adding a little color and flavor with some soy sauce.

Once that got going, I dumped all of the grated cauliflower inside, stirred it around, then added the chopped scallions and fresh peppers. A little pour of soy sauce (low sodium of course, cause why not cut calories when it tastes the same?)  turned everything a nice golden brown.

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Fact: adding an egg to anything will always increase the deliciousness factor.

Then, I made a little hole in the middle of the cauliflower mix and cracked an egg right into it, letting it simmer and cook up for a bit, before scrambling it all in with everything else. I did that again with a second egg, let everything cook and get nice and toasty, and then finally turned off the stove.

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Behold! Egg fried rice with not a single grain of rice in sight!

I sprinkled some crushed peanuts on top, garnished with fresh cilantro and added a couple squirts of Sriracha sauce, and BAM! A delicious meal I hoovered down with not the tiniest bit of guilt. Now, that’s the kinda cooking I can get into!