31 janvier 2006
4 x 8 meme
Barbara from winos and foodies just tagged me for the 4 x 8 meme (Woooohooo my first meme)
4 Jobs I've Had
Financial advisor
Free lance translator
Employee in a trick or treats shop
Human ressources assistant
4 Movies I could watch Over and Over (4??? that's a lot)
Hercules return
Alice
Any of the Miss Marple series
In the Mood for Love
4 Places I've Lived
Pont-Croix, France
Paris, France
Brixham, UK
Auckland, NZ
4 Websites I Visit Daily
Le Monde
My Bank
New Zealand Herald
Various food blogs
4 TV Shows I love To Watch
Cadfael (not on TV anymore)
Ready, steady, cook
Lost (I love watching it with people who have all sorts of theories on the plot)
The crocodile hunter
4 Of My Favourite Foods
Chocolate
Macarons
Pasta
Spinach
4 Places I'd Rather Be
I adore Auckland it's a
beautiful, human-friendly city. I cannot think of a best place to live
at the moment. I can se myself visiting:
-Bora Bora
-Aitutaki
-Helsinki
and right now, I'd rather be anywhere sunny and outdoor (such a shame to be at work when it's so bright and sunny outside :(
4 People I'm now Obliged to Pass This On To
4??????
4 people who do not blog,...... useless
I'm
going to make a French version of this meme and send it to 4 of my
French buddies. (I might have to rename it too as "Meme" means "same"
and "even" in French)
26 janvier 2006
Fresh basil is my new muse
Pesto cauliflower soup
I
remember writing an article about soups on my French blog last year;
more precisely about the perception of soups in France and New Zealand.
Young French people would tend to consider soups as some kind of food reserved
for old people. Indeed, in collective imagination soup sound like some kind of
tasteless broth where overboiled leaks and carrots are
floating.
I have been living in NZ for a while now and got to
understand the funkiness of soups. Even in summer, I am quite happy to
transform any combination of ingredients into velvety chowders.
Easy peasy recipe
-Fresh basil
-Fresh parmesan cheese
-Juice of a lemon
-Half a cauliflower, cooked
-2 medium potatoes
-Vegetable stock
-20cl of milk
Blend all ingredients and gradually add stock to desired consistency. Garnish with tasted pine nuts.
25 janvier 2006
SHF # 15 - Light as a cloud
Sugar Low Friday
White Sesame Mousse on pain d'épices and caramelised apricots.
My
first entry in a foodblog competition... I'm rather anxious. Reading
about sugar low Friday early January got me very excited, I had to be
part of it!
I had just came back from France then,
after two weeks of intense eating and drinking. Intense consumption of Foie Gras, chocolates
and wine had its impact on me... I was feeling like a diabetic
whale. This is why this challenge appealed so much to me.
Why sesame? well, I incresingly became a sesame fan over the past few months. Not savoury sesame, though. I think their biscuit-like flavour suits desserts better. I tried sesame panna cotta, sesame custard, sesame ice cream with nearly any combination of fresh fruit coulis. It has always been a winner.
Sesame adds a Japanese feel to the dessert. Japanese cuisine is always first in mind when dealing with low-fat,
low-sugar yet flavoursome and healthy desserts. It's also summertime
here in New Zealand and finding beautiful ripe fruits is a piece of cake, oops... watermelon.
I
like this mousse, it's very light and virtually fat free, which gives
it quite a melt-in-your-mouth, cloud-like texture. Delicious.
It's freely adapted from a custard recipe from Pierre Herme (Plaisirs Sucres). I swaped sugar for honey and cream for rice milk.
Basically the mousse is made of a sesame infused custard and whipped egg whites. (Sugar free).
I added a base of "Pain d'épices" (gingerbread) to the dessert. It is not necessary but it adds some texture to the mousse and its flavour works well with the sesame. It's free of "industrually engineered" sugar. Maple syrup gives a sweet note to the biscuit.
For a cup of custard you'll need:
-20cl of milk
-15cl of rice milk
-Sesame seeds
-2 teaspoons of honey
-2 eggs yolks
Toast sesame seeds until fragrant, add honey, leave for a minute or two, to caramelise. Then pour in milk and rice milk, bring to the boil and remove from heat. Let the flavours infuse for 1/2 hours.
Take the eggs yolks and whisk until thick.
Sift the liquid, discard sesame seeds and fold into eggs mixture. Place on very low heat and stir for 5/6 minutes or until the custard thickens. Remove from heat and stir slowly for another 5 minutes then pour into a bowl. (This bowl should be placed in a bigger bowl full of ice). Refrigerate overnight.
Mousse:
Beat eggs whites with a pinch of salt
untill peaks form on the surface. Take 1/3 and whisk vigourously into
custard. Add the rest a little bit at a time and fold gently. Place
mousse in fridge for at least 5 hours.
*Pierre Herme suggest the custard should warmed up before combining with the eggs whites.
Ginger Bread
-125g flour
-10cl milk
-Maple syrup
-Ground spices: Ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon
-1 teaspoon baking soda (Dissolved in a little water)
-Olive oil
On low heat, melt maple syrup and milk.
Off heat add flour, mix well.
Add baking soda and spices and oil.
Bake on medium heat, 150°C for 30/35mins
Serve chilled with fruit coulis and/or caramelised fruits.
Thanks to Becks and Posh for this inspirational idea.
23 janvier 2006
Kiwi winos
Read on Spitton
"Just been reading through last Tuesday's scribbled notes; some
stunningly good Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminers kick off the list. I
concentrated on whites for the simple reason that I ran out of time
before I got to try the reds. Had a welcome diversion from the 'best
of' tables with an introduction to Mike Just a winemaker who took the 25th Anniversary New Zealand Wine Tasting
as an opportunity to launch his own range (Clayridge Vineyards) to the
UK. He is also winemaker for Maven Wines and Auntsfield Estate which I
also had the pleasure of slurping, spitting and scribbling my way
through.
It was the Maven range that really stood out - the
packaging is superb, each wine in the range labeled with vibrant
photographs of local huts, barns or bridges in an over-saturated,
blurred style. Sadly the website is down otherwise I would direct you
to look before I write-up the notes; I will have to scan the images in.
The stuff inside the bottles wasn't bad either!
[...]"
Delicious rainbow
While at the beach yesterday, I suddenly came up with an original idea: Snapper, raspberries, cream on a cushion of braised leaks. I was peacefully reading my book (a novel, not a cookbook), lying in the sun, I had lunch not so long before and out of the blue, I visualed this dish. How bizarre!
Back
at home, I gathered the ingredients but figured out leaks and
raspberries would not work, so I replaced the leaks with Kumara. This
looks everything like a dessert, but it's savoury and mind you, the flavours really
work together. My raspberries were not too sweet, even on a bitter side and
they balanced very well the hearty sweetness of the kumaras. I did
not use any herb or spice, I was not sure what would match this unusual - yet delicious - combination of flavours.
.
After tasting my new creation I came up
to the conclusion that the dish does not need any extra flavouring.
It's a very well balanced dish. I very much regretted I had no one to
share it with.
Here is a rough recipe:
-1 big red kumara
-1 small potato
-1 snapper fillet
-5 raspberries+1 to garnish
-Half a lemon
-A spoon of milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Boil kumara and potato, when done mash roughly leaving big chunks of kumara. Add milk and stir with a spoon.
Steam fish
Puree raspberries and sieve.
Mould the lumpy mash in a small ramequin. Place fish on top, pour the equivalent of 2 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice on the fish and drizzle raspberry coulis.
Garmish with a slice of lemon and a raspberry.
20 janvier 2006
F O O D A R T C H A L L E N G E
One of my favourite Artist ever is Sophie Calle.
She appears, under the pseudonym of Maria in Paul Auster's novel:
Leviathan. In non-fictional parts, she is described cooking
monochromactic dinners. One colour per day of the week. I have always
been fascinated with this concept.
This week end, I will try to think of 7 sets of menus, let's go for 2 course meals - 3 would be too much hassle.
To summarise, I will have to work on:
-Green, the easiest
-Red
-Orange
-white
now I'm in trouble .... uh, blue? no, certainly not!
-yellow
-brown
-pink, I can only think of ham and ginger pickles... I'll have to find more nutrious than that. Any idea?
19 janvier 2006
Kitchen whizzes
From stuff.co.nz. I just read about this food challenge organised in Christchurch. This is very exciting, I wish I could go.
STACY SQUIRES/The Press
Professional cooks get plenty of merit. Now there's a contest for talented home cooks who love to entertain, writes Kate Fraser.
For five years Christchurch Casino executive chef and New Zealand Culinary Team manager Gary Miller has been selecting and training professional chefs to represent New Zealand at international culinary competitions.
To date his teams have won 23 gold medals, four silver medals, and three bronze medals.
Miller is now determined to find a winning amateur: the hero of domestic kitchens, the home cook. He says, "We keep hearing cooking at home is a dying art, but I'm not convinced. Many people are entertaining with gusto and confidence so I am on a mission to find the best home cook in Canterbury."
The main event of Miller's mission will be the central act of a revamped Canterbury wine and food festival. This has been renamed and rejigged and is now More FM Sunday in the Park – "a celebration of cuisine, wine, ales and music".
It will be held in Hagley Park on Sunday, February 26, and a major attraction is sure to be the Kitchen Masters marquee, scene of the Best Home Cooks Cook-Off.
Entrants in the best home cook quest are invited to begin their plan of attack forthwith. The first step is to enter a recipe.
Miller and fellow foodie event managers Andy Gibbs, executive chef at the Christchurch Convention Centre, and Neil MacInnes, chef tutor at CPIT School of Food and Hospitality, will assess all entries to find 15 semi-semi- finalists – possible stars of home and hearth – who will then cook their dishes at home, but in front of one of the assessment team.
Six people will go on to the semi-final elimination rounds at Sunday in the Park. Loose lips sink ships, says Miller, who is cautious about revealing how these semi- finalists will make the cut to the grand final. "Let's just say would-be winners should be cracking some eggs, tasting a few wines, exercising their taste buds and working on creating delicious dishes from leftovers."
Finalists will design, cook and serve a two- course meal of a cold entree and a hot main course for six people from ingredients available from festival vendors, with each dish matched to an appropriate beverage – also available on-site. A time limit applies.
It will all be worth it. The Best Home Cook in Canterbury wins about $5000 of prizes, including Bosch home appliances to the value of $2000 from Kitchen Things.
To
enter, entrants should send a copy of the recipe they most like to cook
at home, along with their name, address, telephone number/s and date of
birth (one prize is dinner for four at Christchurch Casino and diners
must be over 20 years of age) to:
KITCHEN MASTERS, Cooking Contest for Home Cooks, PO Box 3077, Christchurch. Entries close January 27.
Semi-semi-finalists should be available to cook their favourite recipe for assessment from February 1-12.
Entrants may not hold any professional cooking or cookery-related qualifications and may not be employed in the capacity of chef, cook, baker or pastry chef.
More information is available on www.canterburychefs.com.
18 janvier 2006
Pie on the cob
Here
is one of my favourite challenge: To combine random ingredients from my
pantry and transform them into something edible. This challenge dates
back from my poor Uni days.
This time I had a can of creamed corn,
eggs, courgettes, honey, mushrooms and a few boxes of spice. My first
idea was corn fritters but I was not happy with the idea of ending up
with little patties dripping with oil. I then decided to combine all
the ingredients and throw the whole thing in the oven.
Giving a recipe would be difficult. I generally do not bother weighing and spooning my ingredients, except when I try a "technical" recipe for the first time. (eg: macarons). I combined the above listed ingredients+milk+starch+flour+baking powder+cumin seeds+tumeric and oven-baked for 20min.
I was quite pleased with the result: A brown and moist cake. I poured a honey, apple and soy sauce dressing on top and had it with cheese and apple wedges!!
13 janvier 2006
Happiness lies in the lens
I finally got my very own didgital camera!!! It's maybe not the best period for that but I could not wait anymore. It's an entry-level type of camera, not a SLR (sic) but it has a manually adjustable zoom, a very cool feature. It takes really good pictures, a good buy.
From now on, I can shoot every single dish I cook. This is just a dream come true.
Stepping into this side of things made me more critical and more earger to learn about photographying techniques and food presentation, etc.. I have heaps of idea but I'm not too sure how to implement them for the moment. What an exciting way to start 2006.
10 janvier 2006
Back for good
White Chocolate and Praline Mousse
I got back from France a few days ago. I had a great time, it was so good catching with my family and friends.
On
Boxing day, the temperature dropped to -7 degrees c to later reach a
freezing -16!! I did not have much chance to go food shopping under
these circumstances and only managed to bring back 2 bottles of
Champagne. (My parents live in Champagne).
Fortunately, I got a box
of praline coated in white chocolates for Christmas, I used to be
addicted to them. Leaving in New Zealand must have caused my taste buds
to change because this time I could not appreciate their taste so much.
I found them too sweet.
Back home I took some and slowly melted
them in rice milk. I then whipped the white of an egg and carefully
folded it into the white chocolate mixture (once it was nice and cold).
I ended up with a nice foamy texture that I poured in two ramequins and
placed in the fridge overnight.
I had a mousse for breakfast the
following morning. I was so pleased with the result: A nice light
texture, nutty flavour tinted with hints of white chocolate. Mouthfuls
of heaven!