Strawberry Shortcake and Strawberry Balsamic Pie

It's summer and I love strawberries. So I made two strawberry desserts: a favorite, strawberry shortcake; and a new one, strawberry balsamic pie.

Strawberry shortcake is pretty easy and always wonderful. I use a yellow cake from Rose Levy Berenbaum's Cake Bible. I used to use a more scone-like biscuit recipe but I switched to the yellow cake at some point. I top it with sliced strawberries and whipped cream. Real whipped cream is one of those things that is easy to do but gets your guests' attention. Just put some whipping cream, a little sugar, and perhaps a teaspoon of vanilla in a bowl and turn on the mixer.

I heard about strawberry balsamic pie in a review of a Brooklyn pie restaurant, Four & Twenty Blackbirds. Rather than fly to Brooklyn, I decided to make one. Trying to create a dish without ever having tasted it is an interesting challenge, but what the heck. The filling is strawberries and corn starch that have been cooked together in a sauce pan. You then add some balsamic vinegar. I added it slowly and stopped when I had a good hint but not an overwhelming taste. Strawberries already have a bit of zing but the balsamic gives both a different flavor note and a different kind of zing. I think it would be especially interesting to try this with a very high-end balsamic vinegar. A friend let me try some of his 12-year-old balsamic some time; it was thick, surprisingly sweet, and very subtle. Perhaps some day I'll make it to Brooklyn and buy some fancy balsamic...

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Eating Around Georgia Tech: Ecco

Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course) ...

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Pressure Cooker Candied Ginger

I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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