design*sponge, Istanbul, and chocolate hazelnut baklava

A week before I left on my trip to Istanbul, Turkey, I got a surprise email from the lovely Kristina Gill of design*sponge’s in the kitchen with series, asking if I would be interested in submitting a recipe. Of course my answer was a resounding “heck yeah!”. I thought about what I could make, and bounced a few ideas back and forth with Kristina. I fell back on an old standby and told her I would shoot and submit the recipe when I returned from my trip.

After an incredible week in exotic Istanbul, I was completely enamored with everything Turkish; the city, the people, and especially the food. On one of our last days in this wonderful city, we sampled some amazing baklava from the famous Baklavacı Güllüoğlu. They had seemingly dozens of different varieties, but the one I was drawn to the most (and a customer favorite from what I hear), was their chocolate baklava. Thin sheets of chocolate phyllo, layered with nuts and chocolate. Crisp, chewy, sticky, decadent. I was smitten. It dawned on me what I should really make for my post: a twist on that baklava, a chocolate hazelnut version drizzled with cardamom honey!

Check out the full post with more photos and recipe on design*sponge… thanks Kristina and Grace!

special delivery

warmed up, with a scoop of vanilla, oh so good!

If you love to eat, one of the hardest questions to answer is “what is your favorite restaurant?” I often stumble when asked this, but it only takes a quick jogging of the brain to conclude that the place you return to time and time again, will most likely score very high on that list. One such restaurant is Ikko in Costa Mesa, CA. Of the countless times that we have dined at Ikko, very seldom did we leave any less than fully sated, with happy stomachs and content smiles on our faces. Amidst the various orders of sushi, appetizers and small plates, one dish we ask for almost every visit is their radish salad. It’s a very unassuming dish, comprised of batons of crisp, crunchy daikon, herbaceous rounds of red radishes, and bright, grassy radish sprouts. The vegetables are dressed in a lighter-than-air vinaigrette, with a delightful bouquet of floral yuzu juice. The dressing is neither cloying or over seasoned, but serves to perfectly accentuate the mild, cucumber-flavor of the radishes. And to top off, a mound of fried sweet potato ‘noodles’ adds nice color and texture.

When I’m craving a little Japanese at home, I like to make this salad to pair up with bites of sushi. It’s a great accompaniment and contrast to rich and decadent negi toro maki (tuna belly roll) and uni nigiri (sea urchin sushi), both which are also absolutely sublime at Ikko. It’s a fairly simple salad to make, if you can find the ingredients at your local Japanese market. The only semi time-consuming part is making the basil oil (and the fried sweet potato noodles, which I omit), but I do find that it’s just as good without it. So if you’re in a rush, feel free to totally skip this step.

slow drip basil oil... isn't that green just amazing?

I really thought I could make it. The dish seemed so simple; a plate of creamy polenta,  layered with soft, savory taleggio and parmesan, the rich yolk oozed like a golden lava flow as I punctured the egg with my fork. It was sublime, and of course I kept thinking to myself, I could totally do this at home, nothing to it. Piece of cake.

Um yeah. In capable hands, maybe. My attempt at recreating the dish I had at the wonderful Tasting Kitchen in Venice weeks earlier was a total flop. To be honest, I’m not really sure where I went wrong. All I can remember was sitting down with a bowl of this stuff after wasted hours in the kitchen cooking and shooting and not even being able to finish even half of it. It was just blah. So bad, that the previous fond memories of the original were muddled and tainted by the failed copy. I had basically written off the idea until a few days later, while shopping for another dish, I had a light bulb moment. What if I replaced the polenta with risotto? And while I’m at it, add some bacon, because who doesn’t love bacon and eggs. And ditch the taleggio because the wet sock thing wasn’t doing it for me.

Ok, so I ended up with a completely different dish. Every bit as good as the inspiration, if not better. The poached egg goes so well with the cheesy risotto, and the texture of the rice is more comforting than polenta. It is a little more breakfast-themed, which is totally doable on a weekend morning, but if we can have breakfast 24 hours a day at Denny’s, why not this risotto for dinner? Just skip the coffee if you plan on sleeping after.

Mmm… farmers’ market eggs. Get the best ones you can, because it’s all about the eggs!

For cheese, I went with a Comté, or French Gruyere. Melts nicely and partners up well with Parmesan.

There’s that lava flow I was talking about.