At the beginning of this year, I shared my Culinary Wishlist for 2019 , basically things my boyfriend and I wanted to try together in the kitchen. I shared my Culinary Wishlist for 2019 Update – Part 1 back in July and today I am going to wrap things up and give you an update on the remaining wishlist. Out of 12 things on the wishlist, we tried everything except for “molecular gastronomy inspired dish” but we will tackle that sometime this year. The boyfriend and I set these wishlist very casually with no expectation and we definitely didn’t want to rush the process. Our culinary wishlist for 2019 went down that way (maybe more relaxed than we should have been) but overall I am pretty happy about it

I have a story highlight section on my instagram if you interested in little behind the scene but here’s a quick recap:

ELABORATE BREAD

I am not a bread maker by any means but I love playing with the dough. For the elaborate bread wishlist, I spent a day and a half learning all about sourdough bread from my friend Trent, at Icon Bread and also made 4-braid savory challah with scallions, cilantro, and cumin seeds.

If you are looking for a rich yet forgiving bread, give this challah recipe a try. I have been making this recipe for years now and savory version with 4 braid round challah was a delight. I shared a video tutorial on how to do the braiding here if you are interested.

SEASONAL ACHAR

Achar is essentially a catch-all term for South Asian pickle where vegetables and/or fruits are preserved in oil, acid, and a variety of spices. You can also think of it as kimchi but with South Asian flair and it’s a staple that brightens everything on your plate. The preparation of achar is regional and can widely vary from one person to another, and from family to family, For the seasonal achar, I made the following:

• Almost Perfect Tomato Achar

• Sweet Mango Pickle (I made a small batch using raw mangoes and loosely followed this recipe)

• Fig Chutney, which I ended up not liking at all.

• Preserved Lemons – looking forward to utilizing them in tagine; I used the pretty straightforward recipe from NY Times minus the bay leaves and peppercorns.

DOSA & SAMBAR

I will spare you the details on how my dosa making experience went but let’s say that the final result was more like pancakes with lots of holes. Homemade dosa is one of those things that I definitely need a bit more practice and patience with. I am going to revisit my friend Sapna’s tutorial on how to make dosa at some point in the future.

JULIA CHILD’S COQ AU VIN

Coq Au Vin, a classic Julia Child’s recipe where chicken is braised in red wine with pearl onions and mushroom was an absolute DELIGHT. The original recipe can be found on her cookbook  Mastering the Art of French Cooking but here are some great resources to refer to before attempting this recipe:

• We Made Julia Child’s Coq Au Vin. Here’s How It Turned Out.

• I Finally Tried Julia Child’s Coq au Vin. Here’s What Will Happen When You Do Too.

• Honor Julia Child with This Coq Au Vin Recipe

• Coq au Vin

The recipe may seem intimidating at first but channel your inner Julia while you braise the chicken and learn cooking techniques like beurre manie and flambe.

• beurre manie – an uncooked roux used for thickening sauces, stews and soups. Whereas a roux is cooked in the pan before any liquid is added, Beurre manié is added in the raw state allowing the butter to melt and the flour to distribute evenly to produce a smooth silky thickening agent just before serving

• flambe – a cooking procedure in which alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames. By partially burning off the alcohol (in this case cognac), flambéing reduces the alcoholic content of the dish while keeping the rich flavors of the liquor.

I adapted the recipe by using skinless chicken thigh, omitted the bacon, cognac, and added carrots. Served Coq au Vin with lentil pasta.

CHOCOLATE DOME DESSERT

Chocolate dome dessert made into our culinary wishlist purely as a result of watching too many episodes of “The Great British Bakeoff”. After multiple youtube videos and doing our research on the internets, the boyfriend and I attempted our chocolate dome dessert and here’s how it went down:

For the chocolate dome part, we tried ballon & bowl as our mold. We used a combination of dark and semi-sweet chocolate for the dome part and tried tempering the chocolate. However, we didn’t temper the chocolate correctly but here’s a great video in case you are interested :

On our first attempt, we didn’t pre-grease the ballon or bowl, which made it impossible to remove the chocolate dome without shattering into hundred pieces.

On our 2nd attempt, we made sure to grease the balloon and ta-da, it worked although I was super careful with it.

In our head, we were going build a delicious layered vanilla cake cut into circles and fill each layer with espresso cream then pour salted caramel sauce over the chocolate dome. I made vanilla sheet cake, which was dense and I didn’t feel like remaking another one at that time.

Both espresso cream and salted caramel sauce from Dessert for Two turned out great but I think we both were a bit exhausted at that point and wanted to call it a day. I did however pour the warm salted caramel sauce over the dome to reveal the cake but it not as dramatic as I was hoping for. We are definitely attempting this again very soon!

So that’s a wrap for Culinary Wishlist 2019! It was a great learning opportunity for both us and we cannot wait to give some of the things on our wishlist a try again, particularly the baking related ones.

Stay tuned for Culinary Wishlist for 2020.