22 janvier 2007
Rich and colourful
First of all, sorry for not posting more often.
I finally managed to make a salmon roulade this week end, a recipe I was meant to try ages ago. Layers of creamy salmon and fluffy spinach "sponge cake". A combination made in heaven
Layered salmon and spinach
Ingredients:
-200 fresh salmon, steamed and flaked (Skinned and boned)
-250 fresh spinach, blanched, chopped and drained
-4 egg whites - 1 yolk
-200 gr low fat cream cheese
-Milk
-A bunch of fresh dill
Preheat oven at 190 degrees C.
Combine egg yolk to the finely chopped spinach. Whisk the egg white untill stiff and fold in spinach mixture. Pour in a greave oven proof dish and bake for 11 minutes. Allow to cool
Soften cream cheese with a fork and add a little bit of milk. Add chopped fresh dill and salmon flakes.
There are 2 methods to assemble the roulade
1-When the sipnach sponge is cool, spread the salmon mixture evenly on top and roll. Cover and chill until ready to serve
2-Cut rounds in the sponge with a cookie cutter. In a ramequin, assemble layers of sponge and layers of salmon spread. Keep in the fridge to set and unmold before serving
12 décembre 2006
One thing leading to another
Buttermilk is not an ingredient I am familiar with. I actually never used it in my cooking before. Some people say there is nothing like it to keep chicken moist but when I found myself with some leftover after making quark I didn't feel too adventurous and used very conventionally to make pancakes.
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
10g brown sugar
1 pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients. I used cookies cutters to make sure they would have a round shape and served with raspberry coulis. Delicious!
13 juin 2006
One Pot Cooking
Veal Marengo
Veal Marengo
Much to my disappointment, I found out this dish does not include olives while researching a proper recipe. Nevermind I ditched the recipes and used my home cured olives.
Cooking like my grand mother has something to do with witchcraft: Add a pinch of this and drizzle a bit of that as you go. No need for scales and measuring jugs.
All in all, it is impossible to go wrong with Marengo. The
result always comes in form of a rich, bright red gravy and glistening with
olive oil. It tastes typically Mediterranean and the meat is really tender and bursting with flavours.
Here is a guideline, more than a proper formal recipe. Chicken or pork can also be used.
500 grams veal (stew meat)
150 grams button mushrooms
1 can tomatoes in juice
1 onion
2 shallots
A little bottle of dry white wine. (35cl, I think)
1 cup of beef stock
A handful of green olives.
Parsley
Bay leaf
Thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat a little olive oil, add thyme, chopped onion and shallot. Saute in olive oil until soft, add veal and brown. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour, stir and quickly add white wine. Let boil for a few minutes and add bayleaf and beef stock.
Simmer for 1 ½ hours and add tomatoes, olives and mushrooms. Simmer for a further 30 minutes.
24 mai 2006
Mind blowing
New Zealand
My camera
has been malfunctioning for a few weeks and I was waiting to have the problem
fixed to start posting again. But today I really need to tell about my yesterday's mind blowing
experience.
My boss gave
me a lamb rack yesterday. - Some companies reward their employees with stock
options and sport cars…. I got a whole rack of lamb - . I was both delighted
and puzzled. Lamb racks are quite in fashion here in New Zealandbut I never had a
chance to cook one myself. So, how to cook it?
From what I
read, crusts seem to be the way to go: blend nuts and herbs, coat the meat and
oven bake it. It sounds easy enough, however, crusts do not flavour the meat. They
just sit on top and add texture.
I came up
with an experimental plan: create a marinade that would be thick enough to coat
the meat and stick to it in the over.
Back in my
kitchen, I blended fresh rosemary (thank you so much Barbara), fresh mint, a
pinch of salt, olive oil, a few cloves of garlic and toasted pine nuts to
texturise. The paste was thick and delightfully fragrant. I knew I was on the
right track.
The meat was
slightly pink and tender. The marinade tasted just as heavenly as I smelt. It
was delightful. Every single mouthful was a fireworks of flavour, the meat was
soft and melting. I even woke up in the middle of the night thinking about lamb
racks. A new food obsession is born.
16 février 2006
Cooking up a storm
Hummus
Quite often, recipes on food blogs are accompanied with a nice story. The highlighted dish brings back childhood memories, travel experiences, cultural enlightments... That's great reads, as readers we travel time and space, we experience, we are part of a culinary journey.
I feel bad. My approach to food is only moved by my cravings and various experimentations. Most of the time recipes just "happen" to me. I love to eat and I find cooking quite exciting, even soothing in some occasions. Writing about food is a very new experience for me. My old approach to cooking used to be: "Me cook that because yum".
I need to go beyond my spontaneous approach, explain my techniques (if any), the reasons why I chose to cook this particular dish and tell about it... A very tricky exercise.
Let's take the above hummus, for instance. I felt like making my own. I quite liked the ones I buy from supermarkets but somehow felt there could be more to it. I found a recipe in a book I borrowed from the library: it seemed to be easy enough, just a few ingredients and no special iron chef type of skills were required.
I do not know where I went wrong but I definitely did something un-right at some stage. I could not stop olala-ing (screaming olala, as the French do when upset). The chickpeas soaked in water overnight, after that I intented to cook them but olala, it took HOURS. I stopped counting after 4. (I know it is just mad). I started to lose my temper, swearing I would NEVER cook hummus again, when you could buy decent one for NZ$5.
Eventually they tenderised and accepted to be mashed. Then came the tahini, home-made too and WOW I take back my promises of never making some again. Heaven! So much more flavoursome than the supermarket ones.
After hours of intense cooking I tasted hummus for the first time in my life and it was superb.
Hummus:
200g dry chickpeas - I also read it is possible to use
canned chickpeas and skip phase 1 and 2 (Soaking and cooking). I am convinced
the dry ones are better on the job because you need the actual chickpea taste
for hummus. Their flavour will not absorb others, like in couscous, for example)
Juice of a lemon
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with salt
Olive oil
Tahini
3 tbsp sesame seeds
1 ½ tbsp Sesame oil
¼ cup tepid water
Cook the chickpea in the same water you used to soak the chickpea. Set aside to
cool to room temperature.
Drain the chickpeas, keeping aside the cooking liquid, and blend in a food
processor with a little cooking liquid to help the chickpeas, add liquid if
necessary. When smooth, add the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and tahini (see
recipe below) blend and add some more liquid if necessary.
Tahini:
Blend sesame seeds in a blender and grind until
smooth. Add sesame oil, salt, and then slowly add water while blending. Blend
until completely smooth. Do not prepare in advance as its flavour decomposes
pretty quickly.
14 février 2006
Ripe and bright
"We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink" Epicurus
Mango curry snapper
Some time ago, I took part in a "food group" to taste a new range of sauces. My mission was to cook their mango curry in every single way I could think of. I was handed a tall bottle containing a beautiful bright orange sauce. My hopes were high but the poor industrially processed sauce fell short of expectations: it was a plain dull and sour kind of ketchupy magma. What a disappointment!
Following the kiwi saying "do it yourself", I decided to make my own Mango curry. It includes an extra dose of grated ginger because hey, it's Valentine's day.
Ingredients - for 2
2 ripe mangoes
2 snapper fillets
1 tsp grated ginger ( may be ++)
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cumin
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 red chili
1/2 red onion
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp yogurt
Chopped coriander or spring onions to garnish
Steam fish.
Combine all spices and chili and saute in a frying pan until fragrant, then add onion and garlic and cook until soft. In the meantime, blend mango dice with a little water.
Add to coconut milk to spice mixture when onion is soft, simmer for a few minutes to allow the flavours to combine and reduce the heat. Gently add mango coulis and stir for 1 minute, turn off the heat and add the yogurt, stir well and pour on top of fish.
Not cooking the mango is the way to go, if cooked for too long, it will lose its delicate aroma.
10 février 2006
The Lamb Veni Vedi, not so Vinci code
Lamb Saag Wala
O SAD COOK TRIES
O LAME NUT WAGS ME*
Here is another of my culinary quest. I seem to have overcome the difficulties of making macarons but Saag Wala (or Sagwala) still hold its mystery. The only widely available Indian recipe of lamb + spinach is Saag Gosht, not quite I want. Not being able to find a decent recipe, I had to sharpen my taste buds to find out what the recipe was in restaurants. Well, I'm not there yet.
Basic ingredients include spinach, lamb - or chicken or beef- and a combination of mysterious spices. It is quite an ugly dish, a brownish green stew, ewww but yum! Very delicious. I blurred it on the photo and focused on my pretty poppadoms and their frolicking cumin seeds.
The Quest continues....
*MUTTON SAGWALA
COOK DESIRE SOME
08 février 2006
τρόφιμα - A tale of feta and Aubergine
When I was at Uni, I studied with a group a Greek girls. They taught
me a little Greek and revealed a few secrets of the wonderful Greek
cuisine. I quite nourish the fantasy of going there one day. In the
meantime, I invite Greece in my kitchen every now and then.
Yesterday was Moussaka
day. The real recipe includes layers of mash potato to help keep the
shape together but I kept mine simple and quick: Layers of lamb and
aubergine. (I must be into some kind on layered food period at the
moment). A rich feta white sauce surmounts the gratin colouring into a
golden crust into the oven.
Very tasty and guess what: It's low carb!
A finished-in-no-time recipe: (2 people)
-A nice, shiny and firm Aubergine/eggplant
-Approx 250grs of trimmed lamb mince (or beef)
-1 onion chopped
-4 medium size tomatoes
-150gr feta
-10cl cream
-5cl milk
-A teaspoon of cumin seeds
-A teaspoon of ground cinnamon
-Oregano
-Thyme
-2/3 cloves of garlic
-2 table spoon breadcrumbs
Slice eggplants lengthwise (approx 0.50cm thick slices, less than
1cm). Sprinkle with salt and place in a sieve to allow the bitter
juices dissolve for 30 min. Pat dry and brush slices with olive oil and
place into medium oven untill soft.
-You
could pan fry them but Aubergine is somewhat spongy and it would absorb
to much oil. A no-go unless you have a non stick frying pan-
Heat olive oil and cumin seeds untill fragrant, then add onion, crushed garlic, cinnamon and herbs. When onion is soft add mince and cook thouroughly, add tomatoes, stir in and cook for 5 minutes. Add breadcrumbs stir and turn off heat.
White Sauce:
Heat milk and cream, bring to a boil and lower heat
and add shredded feta cheese. Whip until thick. (I know it is largely
un-dietetic)
In a medium size dish, place a layer of meat, and a layer of aubergine and so on untill you run out of ingredients. Top the moussaka with the white sauce and place the dish in the oven for approx 30 on medium heat. You can increase the temperature 10min before the end if you want the sauce to turn golden brown.
03 février 2006
Pasta alla salsa di noci
Being a food fiend is like being Mary Poppins sometimes.
The same way Mary left her print on Mr Dawes and his kid, the food
fiend leaves a trail of newly converted cooks wherever he/she goes.
Yesterday,
I was invited at a friend's place. She is normally quite reluctant to
spend more than 2 minutes in the kitchen but yesterday we found a
recipe that sounded sublime: Pasta alla salsa di noci (Pasta in a walnut sauce).
I
did not have my camera with me to capture the beautiful swirls of shiny
pasta and walnut sauce, though. I'll take one later when I'll cook this
recipe at home.
I will just add breadcrumbs to thicken the sauce a little.
Recipe for 4 people:
-500 gr pasta
-200 gr walnuts
-50gr pine nuts
-100gr parmesan cheese (freshly ground or shaved)
-2 cloves of garlic
-30 leaves of basil
Olive oil
Ground walnut and pine nuts in a food processor. Cook on medium heat for 2/3minutes with crushed garlic.
Off
heat add cheese and stir well. Place pan back on the stove add water, a
little bit at a time to get a sauce consistency. Add basil. Toss into
pasta immediately and garnish with shaved parmesan.
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.