Spring!! And Pork Belly Buns

By the time spring arrives, I've been feeling cooped up and in need of fresh air and growing things.  Summer has always been my favorite season, a time for vacations, beaches, and barbeque.  But living through New England's dark, cold winters has given me a real appreciation and love of spring.  Everything finally bursts into bloom.  I can't wait to see tulips, peonies, and alliums, and I've already had some daffodil sightings.  Tree blossoms are also my favorite, and I always get a little sad when they fade and get carried off by the wind.

I knew I was probably too early, but the day was warm and bright so I went for a stroll at the Public Garden in Boston this week.  About 3 percent of the place was in bloom, but I was so excited to see these magnolias.

I don't know the names of the ducklings, but this one and its siblings were dolled up for spring.

While the swan boats weren't out for the season yet, these ducks had plenty of watchers.

And since it was such a lovely day, I walked over to the Prudential Center for some lunch.  I got these steamed buns filled with pork belly at the food truck Fugu.  It was a tough call between these and the kimchee bulgogi panini, but the buns were really good.  Great way to cap off a spring walk.

Boston Globe review: The Bloomy Rind

Shirley Goh/Globe Staff

Check out my review of The Bloomy Rind in Hingham, Massachusetts.  It's a cheese and gourmet foods shop with a chef who used to cook for Todd English.  This is a cheese slate at the shop with manchego cheese (on the left), camembert (on the right), spicy plum chutney, Picholine olives, dried apricots, Medjool dates, and fresh figs.

Even if you're nowhere near the south of Boston, you might be interested in all the cheeses and gourmet items I tasted.  There were so many, I couldn't fit them all in the review.

Read the review here.  If you run into the subscriber pay wall, the review is also available here (but with only one photo).  Again, I'm open to suggestions of South Shore restaurants and food places to cover!

Boston Globe Review: Sher-A-Punjab

Photos by Shirley Goh/Globe Staff

My dining review of Sher-A-Punjab is in today's Globe.  If you're in the Boston area, pick up a copy and flip over to the Globe South section.  It's the first of my occasional reviews of restaurants and other food places south of Boston.  And if you know about a place on the South Shore that should be reviewed, I want to hear about it!

I haven't really discussed my job on this blog, but I work at The Boston Globe as a copy editor on the news desk.  Some people ask me what that entails -- I edit metro, nation, foreign, and business stories, along with writing headlines and doing some page design.  In my down time I've written this food blog for fun, and now I'm enjoying this Globe South writing gig.

Sher-A-Punjab is an Indian restaurant in Quincy, Massachusetts.  You can also read my review online at http://tinyurl.com/7laohzl.

Update: If you hit the subscriber-only pay wall at that first URL, you can try viewing it instead at http://www.boston.com/yourtown/quincy/articles/2012/05/20/modern_indian_cuisine_at_sher_a_punjab_in_quincy/.

Cafe G at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has reopened with a new wing and updated restaurant.  Cafe G is in a great space with three glass walls that let you look out onto the city, and there are a bunch of small dishes to choose from, or heartier fare like this grilled comté sandwich with roasted grapes and frisée.

It was the perfect venue for our Jane Austen book club get-together because we were reading Laurie Horowitz's The Family Fortune, a modern retelling of Persuasion in which the protagonist's fictional ancestor was a rival of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Boston patroness of art.  Gardner served Champagne and doughnuts at the museum opening in 1903, and this impossibly tasty dessert I ordered -- warm doughnuts served with a Champagne crème anglaise -- was a tribute to that history.

For more on the small and elegant dishes my table sampled, head to my post at Boston Tea Party.

Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

My buddy Nicole is moving back out West! So when we covertly planned her farewell at work, I decided to do a Red Velvet Cake with a Milk Chocolate Mousse and Dark Chocolate Mousse for my fellow chocolate lover. Unconventional, but she said it was "lethally good!" And check out this T-shirt we got her to remember us by.

I halved the recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes and baked the batter as a single layer in an 8-inch springform pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (test for doneness by inserting a skewer or knife). Then I sawed it in half and put it aside for layering.

I used the mousses from a Francois Payard recipe on Epicurious:

3 1/2 cups (812 grams) heavy cream
5 ounces (142 grams) milk chocolate, finely chopped
5 ounces (142 grams) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat 2 1/2 cups (580 grams) of the heavy cream to soft peaks. Scrape half of the whipped cream into a medium bowl. Cover both bowls and refrigerate.

Put the milk and dark chocolate in two separate medium bowls. Bring the remaining 1 cup (232 grams) cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour 1/2 cup (116 grams) of the hot cream over the milk chocolate and the remaining 1/2 cup (116 grams) over the bittersweet chocolate. Gently whisk the milk chocolate until it is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Whisk the dark chocolate until smooth.

Let the chocolate mixtures cool for 10 minutes. Fold the milk chocolate mixture into one bowl of whipped cream. Fold the dark chocolate into the remaining whipped cream.

For assembly, I put a cardboard round in the bottom of the springform pan, followed by the bottom half of the cake, cut side up. Spread the dark chocolate mousse in as even a layer as possible, then top it with the other half of the cake, cut side down. Spread the milk chocolate mousse on top of that. Cover tightly with plastic wrap to prevent refrigerator odors from sinking in, and chill for two to four hours.

When ready to serve, carefully remove the springform ring and take out the cake. Sift cocoa powder all over the top. Cut desired designs into a piece of parchment paper, then place paper on top of cake. Sift confectioners sugar over the paper so it falls only over the cutouts.