14 décembre 2005
Tabouleh from Middle-Earth
I like this photo a lot. It's very simple and elegant.
The focus
is on the pita bread (thank you Barbara for the recipe), the tabouleh
is a bit blurred in the background. It's actually better that way, the
photo is more balanced.
Tabouleh is a North African dish, parsley based. There's no cooking required. All the ingredients: Parsley, red onions, tomatoes, bulgur and mint are tossed together with lemon juice and left in the fridge for a few hours. The lemon juice softens the grain. Drizzle olive oil and serve chilled.
For some curious reason, the French version wiped out the bulgur and parsley. It's prepared with semolina and a little mint. A very different experience. Taboulehs served in New-Zealand are closer to the original recipe.
I used the recipe from my Woman's weekly Cookbook as a guideline.
12 décembre 2005
Chocolate Macarons
Here are the chocolate macarons I made for our photo shoot marathon on
Sunday. The macarons themselves don't look as good as the blackcurrent
ones I made last time but they tasted better: I reduced the amount of
sugar, they tasted of almonds and chocolate. As expected, the outside
was crispy while the center was soft. The filling is a white chocolate
ganache, orange flavoured. A very Christmassy dessert.
This photo is so nice, thank you James.
08 décembre 2005
An Angel at My Table
More Macarons!!
Theses ones are Ribena (blackcurrent)
flavoured and filled in with whipped white chocolate ganache. I followed the
below recipe to achieve this result. Each attempt makes me quite
nervous, it is still not a process I master.
This time I ended up with an amazing result, I'm thrilled.
I had a quick look at Pierre Herme's surreal PH10 (Oh Excalibur!). He seems to use humongous amounts of eggs whites and sugar... you're more likely to end up with an industrial production of macarons. My recipe roughly uses the same proportion of ingredients in smaller quantities.
- 100 g almound ground
- 125 g icing sugar
- 10 g starch
- 15 g castor sugar
- 2/3 (80g) egg whites
- A pinch of salt
- flavour. Use 20g bitter unsweetened chocolate powder for Chocolate Macarons
Let the egg white at room temperature for 24 hours.
Sift almond powder, add icing sugar and starch, sift again.
The mix should be very light. If it seems to be too moist, place it
into the oven for a few minutes to dry it. Extra dryness is the key to
sucess!
Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until
foamy. Add a third of the castor sugar while beating and then,
gradually add the rest and increase the beating speed. Stop whipping
when the whites are firm and shiny.
Carefully add the almond
mix, little amounts at a time. Don't overmix, it will cause the batter
to be runny. And a runny batter means the macarons will not rise in the
oven, they'll just flatten and crack!!!
Be extremely careful, this is a crucial step: The batter should be dense. Picks should disolve slowly at the surface.
Tranfer part of the batter into a piping bag and form little
nut-like shapes on to a thick baking tray covered in baking paper. (If
the baking tray is too thin, the base will cook too fast, it'll be all
burnt and chewy).
Leave enough room between the macarons for them to expand.
Let them sit for at least 1 hour. Their surface will slightly dry out.
*From
what I read you could also put the macarons straight away in a very hot
oven and decrease the temperature:The outside is supposed to cook and
dry fast leaving the inside moist and soft. Well, let me tell you it
does not work in my little domestic, non-industrial oven. The macarons
flatten and look like large cookies. Not too mention that their pretty
crown base does not form.
Bake for 10/12min (140°C). Use the fan-bake option, if N/A, leave the over open using a wooden spoon and rotate the tray at half time.
When cooked slide some cold water under the baking paper, it'll help you taking the macarons off.
Pair macarons by size and sandwich with fruit coulis or chocolate ganache and refrigerate for 3 hours.