Daily Archives: March 1, 2010

Boxed Foods Company

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We had lunch this afternoon at Boxed Foods Company. For some reason I was craving a salad and this is one of the places that came up in our area when I searched on Yelp.

Ron ordered the honey-lime chicken and avocado sandwich ($8). It’s served with a small side salad and some oranges. I only had a little bite and everything tasted really fresh and light.

I ordered the grilled steak salad ($9) which has grilled flank steak (cold), cherry tomatoes, shaved red onions, cucumber, feta cheese, fresh mint with caper and lemon vinaigrette. The steak was a bit tough because it was cold and was a bit bland. Otherwise it was refreshing and satisfied my craving.

I can understand how this would be a popular lunch spot with all their fresh ingredients and they brew Blue Bottle Coffee. It does seem a bit pricey but when you want something of higher quality, you have to pay for it…

Boxed Foods Company
245 Kearny Street

Paper Wrapped Cake

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_wrapped_cake

One of my favorite Chinese pastries is the “paper wrapped cake” (zhǐ bāo dàn gāo) so I searched for a recipe online and decided to try this one out. You can find the full
recipe here. Since I only had 3 eggs, I had to alter it a bit, basically cut most ingredients by half since the recipe calls for 5 eggs.

INGREDIENTS

30 g all purpose flour
8 g cornstarch
45 g sugar
3 eggs, separated and at room temperature
Pinch of cream of tartar
30 g butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line standard 12-cup muffin tin with parchment paper. Squares 5×5 inches seem to work well.
2. Sift flour and cornstarch together.
3. In separate bowl, beat egg yolks with 15 g sugar until fluffy until lemony colored. Beat in melted butter. Sift in flour mixture and beat until smooth. (I did this step by hand).
4. In another bowl, whip egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar. When you can see trails from your beaters, beat in the remaining 30 g sugar. Whip to firm peaks. (I did this step with my stand mixer with wire whisk).
5. Stir in spatula-full of egg whites into the yolk mixture. Gently fold in the rest of the whites.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan, about 2/3 full.
7. Bake at 400 F for 5 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350 F and bake for another 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

I was able to make 10 cakes.

Smelled delicious while baking and tasted just like they are supposed to. Of course these are much shorter than the ones you buy at the bakery but a good little snack (and probably just the right size for my carbohydrate portion allowance).

The only thing I find inconvenient is having to weigh out ingredients. I know this is probably the most accurate way to make a delicious cake but I’m so used to using cups and teaspoons and tablespoons. But I would definitely make this again if I can’t find a Chinese bakery to buy them.

I still want to attempt to make my own egg tarts (dan tat) but most recipes use lard for the tart which is a bit daunting.

Hmm… so yummy, thinking of having another one… but must resist until my next snack time.