Category: Post with recipe on independent page

Brussel sprouts : what are they? How to use them?

Brussel sprouts are in season in Australia and right now the volume of production is quite big.  You can not really miss them in stores or on markets.  So read on and maybe you will add them to your next grocery list.

Let me ask you, do you know anything about the production of Brussel Sprouts?

Many of the people I know do not like Brussel Sprouts, maybe because of terrible tin version used in school canteens when they grew up or just because the taste can be quite strong. I will give you a few ways with Brussels Sprouts which work quite well!

Just in passing….check the nutritious qualities of Brussel sprouts: high in vitamins A, B1, B7, very high in vitamins B9), you will find plenty information by googling around.   Surprising it has not yet been marketed as a superfood!

Where do Brussel’s Sprouts come from?

Brussel sprouts as their name suggests are associated with Brussel (Bruxelles) in Belgium, where they originate from.  The Brussel sprout belongs to the cabbage family and as such its structure is quite similar to it big brother the large green cabbage.

Pieds de choux de B
Brussel Sprout plant seen from top (Photo: Jerome d’Hautefeuille)

In Europe, the areas of productions of Brussel sprouts are primarily the UK, Belgium, Holland and northern France.  Australia has a few small areas of production.

Brussel Sprouts grow along the stem of the plant in a helicoid distribution (it turns around the stem).  The stem can be quite high and reach over a metre height, this means quite a lot of sprouts per plant!

The photos below are courtesy of my brother who farms them in Northern France.

tiges choux de B
Brussel Sprouts Plant Stems, in a field before harvest (Photo: Jerome d’Hautefeuille)

The production is labour intensive throughout the crop development.  At the start, seedlings are grown in nurseries, then have to be transplanted to full fields.  During growth, interventions are rather mechanical.  At the time of harvest, each plant is handled manually.  Each stem is cut by the harvester then inserted manually into a part of the harvester which cuts off each Brussel sprout from the stem.  The sprouts are collected by a conveyor belt, sorted (manually) in the upper section of the harvester.  They can then start their journey to the consumer.

Brussel Sprout Harvest Machinery (Photo: Jerome d'Hautefeuille)
Brussel Sprout Harvest Machinery (Photo: Jerome d’Hautefeuille)

A few ways with Brussel Sprouts

There are quite a few ways to use Brussel Sprouts, from raw whole in lunch boxes to cooked a number of way.

Raw use:
  • As such in lunch boxes

    20160427_070110
    Only one Brussel sprouts in the box today, sometimes it is 2! Sometimes, I am to late, some little hands (or bigger ones) have emptied the bag of sprouts in the fridge
  • Add a couple thinly sliced Brussel sprouts to your green salad, it will provide some crunch and a little tasty bite.
Cooked:

Brussel sprouts taste better when associated with other ingredients, they are especially good at absorbing the good flavours of fats such as butter and bacon but also some sharp flavours like balsamic vinegar.

A common use in Australia is the use in Asian dishes such as stir fry dishes or curry.  For those, it is nice when there is still a bit of crunch to the Brussel sprouts.  I would advice the bigger sprouts be cut in half.

The most common way cooked by my mother when I grew up, was steamed and then slowly, but really slowly, reduced with a nut of butter and some bacon dices (lardons) for quite a while, you want the bacon to be crisp and the sprouts slightly coloured.  The sprouts become very soft and melty and quite tasty.  I tried with my children, our au-pair and my husband, it was a success. Unfortunately, I forgot about the photo! As a result, the one below photo is from another blogger.

Brussel Sprouts and Bacon, photo from Morsels and Musings
Brussel Sprouts and Bacon, photo from Morsels and Musings

Another way, which was a random find while looking at ways to use ricotta in savoury dishes is in a mushroom and Brussel sprouts lasagna.  The sprouts are thinly sliced, then reduced in oil (but I should try in butter), seasoned with salt and pepper.  A dash of balsamic vinegar is added to the pan towards the end of the cooking.  I could have eaten the lot straight out of the pan!

lasagne champ chx Brux (2)
The Brussel sprouts precooked overlying a layer of mushrooms in the Brussel sprouts and mushroom lasagna

 

 

Kitchen taken over by my children!

My kitchen is being taken over by my children! It started with a menu written by Ambrine a few weeks ago, then a tentative to make a chocolate dip Nutella like which saw the stock of chocolate seriously reduced (I wasn’t home), a tentative to make caramel in the micro-wave (with chocolate, I wasn’t home either), a double serie of strawberry & white chocolate cookies, because the first ones were eaten sooooo quickly.  This weekend, we were treated by a full breakfast with coddled eggs.  And now a massive bunch of chocolate hazelnut friands for a school assignment.

friands choco noisette

The latest item was not to be so significant until a few kids at school came together with the idea to bring in their goods to the class.  The assignment reads “Masterchef: your masterchef challenge…Bake some cookies for your family. Use photos or a drawing to show how you shared them equally.”  It seems like the brief has been adapted to fit the fun of sharing!

You are in for a treat, the strawberry and white chocolate cookies

So lets share today the strawberry and white chocolate cookies.  Children love them (tested for you on a few different families).  Personally, I really like them warm, when not completely cooled yet, simply because I am not a big fan of white chocolate.  Small warning, it is also quite sweet. What I really like is that the recipe shared the fats between cream cheese and butter, it brings in a really nice taste which works perfectly with strawberries and white chocolate.

cookies aux fraises et chocolat blanc

Recipe from the blog omgchocolatedesserts adapted for units and technical preferences (more practical, less washing up too!).

Ingredients
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt (remove if using salted butter)
  • 1/4 cup  butter-softened
  • 120 g cream cheese
  • 3/4 cup caster sugar (1/2 cup is probably enough, I find them a bit sweet)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup chopped fresh strawberries
  • 2 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 150 g white chocolate-chopped
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
  2. Pour fresh lemon juice over chopped strawberries, drain them after a few minutes. Chop in pieces as convenient (not less than one centimetre)
  3. Beat butter with sugar and cream cheese until it’s light and fluffy.  Cokies aux fraises et chocolat blanc
  4. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
  5. Toss together 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, salt, chopped white chocolate, chopped stawberries and baking powder.
  6. Add flour mixture to the wet mixture and fold in gently.  Either use a large scoop or your hand.
  7. Drop heaping tablespoon of batter onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Make sure to leave a couple centimetres space in between.
  8. Set the cookies in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes before baking.
  9. You can choose to bake them for 13-15 minutes until the edges become golden brown, they will be very chewy and quite friable, I baked my second round with spots of golden brown over the top, it was a bit easier to handled and when cold they are more tasty (more cooked).
  10. Transfer the baking paper to the cooling rack (slide it).  Let the cookies cool a few minutes and them remove from the baking paper.

Autumn cooking

Has autumn finally arrived in Sydney? At our place, the deciduous trees are dropping their leaves and the evenings and early morning are rather fresh.   I already hinted at it last week with my post on chestnuts.  Today is about autumn cooking, illustrated by a few dishes made at home in the last week or so.

On another matter, the subscription link is back running, check the side of the blog on a laptop or the bottom of the page on a mobile phone.

Let’s start by a breakfast treat…

I decided to give another do to the croissants dough recipe and make viennoiseries a bit different to croissants and pains au chocolat.  Because the batches are quite big, I freeze the pieces directly after shaping them on a tray (then pack away).  The night before I want them, I put them out of the freezer on a baking sheet and let them unfreeze and rise.  My problem was that I had very inconsistent risings and end results, but this time I think I worked it out!  The best is that the kids and I made that together, or rather they laid the custard, sultanas, rolled the dough in a log, wrapped it, I only did the cutting of the log.

viennoiserie
Pains aux raisins

And you know what? Today is not all about sweet dishes!

The below was a quick cook, 60 minutes to dinner, a bit like a Masterchef challenge.  I am quite ahppy with the end result!

I prepared a mushroom and fresh salmon tart (pastry included) served with a roasted pumpkin, beans and baby spinach salad.  And dessert with that? This is where a 7 y.o. child comes handy, this was a rapid apple cake, a recipe known in my family as a (hold on!) “Rombidi Rondidi Radada) but more generally in the wider northern part of France countryside as a 5,4,3,2,1 . For the salmon tart and salad, I had my 4 y.o. as kitchen hand (cutting ends of the beans), mixing, placing the mushrooms and salmon in the tart.

tarte au saumon frais
Fresh Salmon Tart
salade citrouille, haricot et epinards
Mixed green and roasted pumpkin salad

Another night, another dish, a soup!

Soupe aux marrons
Chestnut Soup

Doing a chestnut soup had been in my mind for a while, but I did not want to add cream and make it too heavy.  I quickly browsed recipes, again I did not feel like adding pumpkin or many vegetables.  I was after something where chestnut was the hero with a little something to ensure balance in flavours.

Now, chestnuts are nutritious, regardless what you do with them.  A bowl of that soup can make your dinner!  In south-eastern France and in Corsica, where they grow plentiful on rocky slopes,  they helped the populations go through hard times.

This chestnut soup recipe contains one small onion, one parsnip, one potato (probably not that necessary), two pears and plenty chestnuts! And the peeling of the chestnuts did not take so much time and was easy (place the incised chestnuts in cold water and brink to the boil!).

Quails season is also now, or at least the natural hunting season

When I was a child, my grandfather would install nets in trees and bushes to catch quails in autumn.  I have never been with him, I remember the stories and numerous return home empty handed! This week, I got a tray of quails from Vic Meats at the Sydney Fish Market (I went there to get some mussels), it was a little treat.  Since I was again cooking at the last minute, I did not spend too much time in books or websites looking at recipes.  I do not cook quails very often.  For those I mixed together some turmeric, paprika, a little sumac, some ground vanilla beans, made a paste by adding olive oil and rubbed the mix around the birds,  Inside I placed some fresh garden herbs and crushed garlic.  The rest is easy: brown the quails on both sides, then add one cut of dry white wine, salt, about one cup of red-currents, 2 large shallots sliced, salt and pepper.  I had to balance the acidity by adding one teaspoon of sugar.  Just before serving I rounded the sauce with a piece of butter.  I served them with grilled potatoes and parboiled broccoli.

Cailles aux groseilles
Quails in red-current sauce

Was it a good dish, yes definitely, but it is probably difficult to have a disaster with quails.  My younger one refused to eat a little bird, she asked to check the image online, no way she was going to eat it (she tried on her own will) !

A few autumn colour desserts…

A chocolate mousse is a crowd pleaser, always! It takes ten minutes to prepare, it needs to be done a few hours ahead of the meal (4 minimum, 6 or more is best). It contains only eggs and cooking chocolate: no sugar, no cream.  As my children would say :”got it?”….the recipe is HERE.

Mousse au chocolat degustation
Chocolate mousse

This other dessert is for all seasons really but the colours work so well with autumn!  This lemon and lime tart is a recipe from Julie Goodwin, an early contestant and winner of the Australian Masterchef.  The recipe is available on Julie’s website or on my blog HERE.  The edges of my crust got a bit hot (but not burnt). I would advise the blind cooking by picking holes with a fork instead of using blind baking stones may be the solution to avoid the issue.

tarte citron et citron vert
Lemon and Lime Tart

Any questions? Just ask!

Sydney Bakeries – Part 2

Sydney bakeries part 2 (of 2 for now) is ready for you! Last week, I posted on recipes tried from Bourke St Bakery, essentially from one of their book. This week, it is about another bakery I have discovered at the Orange Grove Market . I am speaking about Flour and Stone. What I like about this bakery is the home feeling, the products look beautiful and somehow rustic at the same time.  The other reason I like them, is that I have been making some of the same products at home, same same!

The recipes I am providing are mine.  I have not consulted the Flour and Stone’s recipes (yet), only googled quickly to check if some were online.  If you are after some of their recipes, there are a few on the web (google Flour and Stone or Nadine Ingram).

The recipe I am not giving, I would have to work it out to do so, is the one for this yummy lemon curd doughnut pictured above.  Really nice!

Tarte fine aux pommes (apple tarte fine)

This is a traditional French tarte, most often found in bakeries.  The tarte consists of puff pastry, apples, butter and sugar.  My full recipe is HERE.

apple tarte fine

 

 

 

The next recipe is a bit of a mouthful, hang on:

Raspberry and buttermilk flourless chocolate cake

The name says it all, it is a moist chocolate cake (addictive actually!), it uses buttermilk and almond meals and with the raspberries, it is simply irresistible!

You can make it as a large cake or in individual portions (which is great to!).  I made that cake up (and wrote the proportions down) about 8 years ago! I remember because it became the favourite after diner snack of a Swedish flatmate at the time, when she left, she specifically asked for the recipe (which I gave her). The recipe is HERE.

raspberry and chocolate flourless

 

 

 

Making your own pâté is pretty simple

Making your own chicken liver pate is simple!

If you like pâté, you may want to make your own.  In Australia, finding good pâté is quite a mission, and when you find it, the cost is quite high. Making your own pâté is actually quite simple.  All you need apart from the ingredients is a food processor and a fry pan!  You will find chicken livers at any butcher’s.  It is worth going to a good butcher, chicken livers are cheap and at a good butcher you can be sure they will be very fresh and big. I also add pork mince to my pate to soften the taste. The rest of the ingredients can be sourced from any supermarket and you probably already have them at home .

The recipe I am giving here is the one for the pâté I make again and again, it is the chicken liver pâté.  I make it for picnics, for parties and for no special reasons.  I make a batch and freeze it, it keep really well in the freezer for two months, when you need it, just allow to thaw in the fridge for a day before use.

Last time I made it, the butcher only had duck livers left, the taste was different, delicious too! (it is always a good indicator when there are no left overs).

Chicken liver pate
Chicken liver pate

Other pâtés I sometimes make

I make other types of pates too, not as often, they are definitely for larger crowds than my little family circle and I do not have endless storage space either.  Mum used to make “country terrines” by batches of 20 or more jars, cook them in a steriliser and keep them in the cellar. We would have them for lunch as entrees or for picnics during summer.

Pork Rillettes

making your own pâté
Pork rillettes, a Rick Stein recipe

Rillettes are a type of pate, typically french.  Most people (and even my butcher) don’t know about them down here.  Pok rillettes are pork belly and pork shoulder cooked in stock for a long time and  mixed with pork fat.  The recipe I used is from Rick Stein and was published in Delicious magazine. Rillettes are also often found made with duck.

Ham Hock Terrines

Another nice onein the pate family are ham hock terrines.  Ham hock terrines contains blocks of meat and are essentially ham hocks that have been cooked for a long time in a stock and put together as a terrine with a binder.  There are different ways to combine the meat, I tried the following two terrines, unfortunately I did not take any photos:

  • Ham hock terrine with jellified cooking stock.  This is another recipe from the Delicious magazine. You can find it online.
  • Ham hock terrine with mustard.  This is an early Masterchef recipe.

Personally I prefer the second one,  one friend loved the first one and she was so over the moon with it, I ended up giving the whole left overs to her, she loved it!

Milk

Milk is a weekly staple in my grocery basket.  To be honest, when I think milk, I think cow’s milk.  We also some soy milk in some drinks and as an emergency breakfast staple : mix soy milk and plain flour to a pancake consistency and this is it, you have a quite reasonable pancake mix much better than the powder stuff from the shops but, and this will be no surprise, not as soft and voluminous as a ricotta pancake.  For those, I recommend the Donna Hay recipe pancake recipe!

I have never tried goats milk as such, but I love it in goat cheese! Who wouldn’t? Same for sheep milk, my favourite is the old mountain cheese! I was given fresh camel milk while once working in the Sahara Desert.  It tastes very different to cows milk, feels very rich and  cures all tummy bug you may have (this is why the local driver in charge of bringing me to site got it – local medicine!).  It was a great experience.

Milk and derivatives

For cows milk, the list seem endless: butter, creams in different forms, yogurt, ricotta, mascarpone, cheese of many types…My cooking being essentially based on European cuisine, I use many of those products. In my fridge today, you would find some light cows milk, a 2 L bottle of full cream cows milk cream on top (so nice!), a number of butter blocks (I freeze them if too many), a tub of thickened cream, a small container of mascarpone and a number of cheeses: plenty to last at least the week.

The main dairy consumers are the children, especially with the butter.  A lot of it is used around breakfast, the rest goes in cooking.

Plant derived milk

Plant derived milk are only so called because of their colour.  Each come with its own usage and properties.   We use soy milk in drinks at times, I like to use soy milk mixed with my bisher muesli (1 cup cow’s milk, 1 cup natural yogurt and 2 cups rolled oats prepared the evening for the next morning and served with a drizzle of honey, a bit of soy milk and nuts and fruits if desired – serves 4).

I tried a recipe from George Calombaris with almond meal recently, an oat and cherry pudding desert likened to a french clafouti. It was not bad but I was not thrilled, it is very close to porridge and definitely not a clafouti.

oat, cherries and almond milk pudding

I am not going into the details of coconut milk here.  Have you had the fresh one when just prepared?

My weekend milk challenge

You will now wonder why I am speaking so much about milk.  Here is why.  I like to do my groceries at markets.  Living in Sydney, this means for us Paddy’s Market.  The food there is fresh, good market (at least half of the supermarket cost) and of good quality(we do not go just before 5pm on Sunday).  There is no “deli” section at the market, so on Friday, I quickly went to the local supermarket and bought my 2 bottles of 2 L of milk for the week and a few other items. Sunday at breakfast, I realised my two 2L  milk bottles were both with best used dates in 2-3 days time!  Milk turns to bad very quickly, I was not going to waste this nice milk (especially since I had bought a good brand).  What to do?

The first thoughts were creme caramel and a pile of crepes.  The story goes otherwise.  I decided to use 1 L doing some “confiture de lait” (milk jam).  It takes for ever but definitely tastes good.  One litre of milk only yields 2 small jars! In one of them, I added some cocoa (I have not yet done the labels).

confiture de lait
Confiture de lait (plain, right) and confiture de lait with chocolat (left)

Now that I have a KitchenAid (thank you Qantas frequent flyer points and store!), I can go for sponge cakes easily.  I tried a hazelnut and raspberry sponge cake, a recipe found in Gourmet Magazine.  Great cakes, perfect, same as on the magazine picture! But to have two cakes similar and cook them simultaneously (I did not want to do 2 batches to avoid loosing some of these bubbles), I used 2 tins (one silicone, one spring tin) of identical diameter.  It ended up in a quite tall cake to the delight of the children! They helped with the filling and the ganache process, somehow I lost them as soon as there was equipment they could remove the remaining chocolate off. 🙂

Raspberry and hazelnut cake
Raspberry and hazelnut cake, afternoon tea today

The story does not stop here. While I was doing the sponge cake, by mistake, I added with the eggs and sugar, the melted butter, before beating.  Silly thing to do! So, I transferred the eggs, sugar, butter mix in a bowl and started again for my sponge cake.  I was wondering what to do with that mix, and with the rest of my milk! I decided to add 1 L of milk and some vanilla seeds and make a custard, the proportions were perfect for this.  I had  8 eggs, 1 L milk, about 200 g of  sugar.  I was not so sure about the added butter.  As you may know, butter is added in some creme patissieres used for filling cakes and pastries, so it did not seem to far fetched, why not try?  Note that I did not add flour at this stage.  What came out was a thick custard.  Once cool down, I decided half will go in ice cream and half in a flan dessert (basically a baked custard).  It was more like one third/2 thirds.

For the flan, I soaked some raisins in chai tea and fruit spirit (plum brandy).  I then buttered and floured a tart tin, mixed the drained raisins with the remaining custard and 1 spoon of flour (2 would have been better) and poured the mix in the tart tin and baked until slightly golden (it could have been a bit more cooked, my husband was on oven duty and was afraid to overcook it).  It was delicious.  And the ice cream also tasted delicious!

flan
Flan patissier aux raisins

 

 

 

 

Busy in the kitchen

Today, and yesterday to some extent, has been a busy day in the kitchen. I don’t mind, I like it and the weekend is when I find the time to cook. 🙂  There has been the cooking of meals including desserts (of course) but also a few extras.  Here is the list if you want to check out some of the recipes I have added to this site:

  • A batch of puff pastry to cut in portions and freeze for later use.
  • Some raspberry jam.  So good on fresh bread! There are a few places where you can get frozen berries at a reasonable price, I made raspberry jam using 2 kg of fruits.My jam stores were running a bit low, a bit of apricot left, some strawberry jam, some red-current jam and  maybe some apple jelly. You will notice the labels, love them! That even deserves its own photo:
jam label
Fabienne’s homemade jam
  • 2 batches of bread.  If you were already reading this blog when I published the bread post, you will know that I make sourdough bread.  I prepare two breads at the time.  I baked a serie on Saturday morning, that was the delicious walnut, pepitas and cranberries one! I gave one away, which means we should be running out of bread tomorrow. So I have two breads freshly shaped doing their last rise in the fridge overnight.
  • A peach crostata.  I used a recipe found on the internet for the pastry, something was really wrong with that recipe (butter ratio about same as flour). I worked it out of course but I do not have the quantities, so will be doing more of those and posting something later.
  • A salmon tail bake
  • A pear and chocolate flan (or pudding if you are irresistibly English). By the way, did you notice?  The first pears of the new season have arrived.

The last two on this list were tonight’s diner, the fish was served with streamed broccoli and a side salad (lettuce).

The empty fridge challenge

As it happens sometimes, there are days when you open the fridge to realise that all is left is a couple of odd vegetables.  This is what I call an empty fridge challenge.  This week I had a couple red onions (actually in a bowl on the kitchen bench), a large capsicum and a few spring onions.   I also had some chicken breast filet and a couple carrots. The rest of the ingredients are from the pantry.

What came out is a pissalardiere and a lentils, carrots an chicken dish.

The pissalardiere

I made it in a long tart  tin.  The traditional recipe calls for brown onions, mine used red onions.

pissalardiere

 

The lentils, chicken and carrot dish

This is pretty simple, boiled black lentils until cooked (but not mushy) as you can see on the photo below.

IMG_3685

Then add sliced carrots and chicken which were cooked together.  The chicken was previously marinated with soy sauce and honey.  Add spring onion to garnish.

 

 

 

Brioche, puff pastry and viennoiseries

Brioche, puff pastry and viennoiseries

This weekend was my third and last session (unfortunately) of a baking class on brioche, puff pastry and viennoiseries I took out at  The Essential Ingredient.  The class was taught by Jessica Pedemont, pastry chef and chocolate master.  I was not going to write much about this, but my sister, who got forwarded the above photo of my brioche by my Mum, insisted on having the recipe. I may as well share it with you all.  The recipe is from the class I took, you can use it for many applications, one of my next use will certainly be small brioches parisiennes (the ones with the little head on top). If you want to put chocolate, it is better to used Nutella (as in the recipe) as the dark cooking chocolate tends to “burn” a bit.

Best if you have a stand mixer for those recipes, especially for the brioche as the dough will be very sticky and needs a fair bit of work.

Here are some photos of my puff pastry (at home) production and viennoiseries products (at the class).  I am yet to use some of my puff pastry for a millefeuille (vanilla slice), at the moment there is a batch of chocolate chip cookies (for lunch boxes treats) and a left over lemon tart to go through, plus some amazing strawberries from the market.

Puff pastry sheeting and rolls with cheese and tapenade – home

IMG_2859  20160130_082845

A range of small size viennoiseries on the day of the class

20160130_135824

Lemon and lime tart and choc chip cookies

The lemon tart is from Julie Goodwin, I like the mixed lime and lemon flavors in it. I served it with homemade vanilla ice cream.  For the tart process, it is a bit like a quiche, i.e. you do a “tarte aux cailloux” / “stone pie” as we call it in my family, which is a blind bake, then bake it with the filling.    There was not much left by the time I manage to secure a photo . Also, it is a bit darker on the edge than I would like (not burnt though) my mistake for leaving it a few minutes too many while blind-baking.  As opposed to the recipe instructions, I find that if you roll the pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper you can actually manage to put it in your tray at once.

Lemon tart

These cookies I am speaking about are a real treat, so good and so easy. I will type in the recipe as soon as I can. I am now at my daughter’s gym class and running out of battery.

IMG_2922

Sourdough Bread Making Class

Last weekend, we were busy having a sourdough bread making class! I organised a cooking class, I had nine students all eager to make their sourdough loaf.  To ensure we were not spending the whole day at it, I  had prepared “ready to bake” loaves and some dough which had reached the shaping stage to be able to teach those later stages of the process which they eventually did at home later or the next day.

IMG_2412 IMG_2386 bread class group IMG_2417

It was a successful day.  Everybody got to do each phase of the process and go home with a loaf to bake and sometimes a baked loaf too, plus a sourdough starter in a jar.  Many thanks to my students for making this first class so easy (and for bringing a couple of nice bottles of wine).

Sourdough bread making is easier than it seems and the process is very forgiving.  If you need some advise, send me an email.  I have been doing my bread this way for 15 months now starting by doing my own culture.  I used a couple text book to get started and some You-tube video, especially for shaping, and this was it.  I am not saying that there was no disasters in the beginning (and still from time to times now when I push the boundaries), however generally it is bakery quality bread at home.

IMG_2433 IMG_2408

Light lamb roast dinner & Chocolate ganache tart

It is summer and cooking a big piece of meat does not have to mean having a heavy diner.  Look at what I cooked this week, it was a light lamb roast and the surrounding dishes made it a treat! Excellent!

We had it for dinner, it would also be great for a lunch.  The dish was put together quite at the last minute, I had these beetroot in the fridge I wanted to do something with and an open cucumber given by a friend the same morning (from his garden!).

IMG_2283

The piece of lamb is prepared very simply, it is covered in olive oil, salt and pepper and rosemary for a few hours before cooking.   The roasted lamb is served with a beetroot puree, cucumber salad, butter french beans just cooked to tender, yogurt seasoned with chive herb,salt and pepper and couscous semolina.

And a dessert test was a chocolate tart found .  Most of the chocolate tarts in Australia are “uncooked”, by this I mean the filling is a ganache.  I find them better the next day, it still went down , the recipe was from Drizzle and Dips by Sam Linsell.  I would advise a 2-3 mm crust.

IMG_8919

 

The Kings’Galette (La Galette des Rois)

Early January (the 6th to be exact) is the celebration of the Epiphany.  In the Christian tradition, the epiphany represent the visit of the three kings to baby Jesus and the presentation of gifts.  In France, this is a very social occasion and celebrated by all with a spacial cake called “la Galette des Rois”.

The galette contains a small piece of ceramics, if you end up with it in your piece, you become the king or queen and get to wear a crown! Then you may choose a queen or king and even a buffoon.  To avoid cheating when distributing cake slices, the younger person (often a child) gets under the table and cites people at random as someone serves the cake.

IMG_2278

The cake is made of puff pastry and fragipane custard cream.  In France, you will find many at bakeries and in supermarkets that week, but in Australia, this is much harder to find.  Below is the recipe.

Galette des rois – Kings’ Galette

Ingredients

The filling cream consist of a small custard mixed with a small frangipane cream.

  • 2 sheets of puff pastries. Mine came as frozen squares, but the cake is more often of round shape
  • 1  ceramic piece (they come in all shapes) or a small coin (washed) or small shell (washed), this piece is called the “fève” in French.
  • frangipane cream: 125 g of almond meal, 100 g of softened butter, 80 g of caster sugar, 2 tablespoon of rum (optional)
  • Creme patissiere: 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 10 cl of milk, a few drops of good quality vanilla essence
  • 1 egg yolk dissolved with 2 tablespoons of water to seal the cake and glaze

Preparation – 20 min

Method

  1. Preheat oven at 180 ºC
  2. For the creme patissiere, mix the egg yolk, corn flour, vanilla, sugar  and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat up while mixing (with a whisk), as soon as the mix is about to boil remove from the heat and mix until thick and glossy. Add rum is desired. Cool down in a different recipient.
  3. For the frangipane cream, work the butter until soft and smooth with a spatulla.  If your butter is hard (was in the fridge), you may use the microwave on very low heat setting (max 30%) for 20 sec bursts until just soft.  Add sugar and almond meal and mix well. Then mix with the creme patissiere and place in the fridge until needed for use.
  4. On a baking tray, place a sheet of baking paper, place the first sheet of puff pastry on it. Using a pointy knife, score all around the edge first centimetre and brush with the egg yolk- water mix.
  5. Add the frangipane custard that was in the fridge making sure not to cover the scored area.  This is where you must put the ceramic piece.  Now try not to put it where the knife will go through where cutting. For example, if cutting in triangular pieces, not in the middle; if cutting in squares (works only for the square shape cake and if you need to share it among quite a few people), try to place in a middle of a square.
    IMG_2201
  6. Cover with the second sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together.

IMG_2203           IMG_2251

  1. Using your sharp knife, draw a floral pattern on top or even simpler geometric intersecting lines. Brush with the egg yolk and water mix.  Put in the oven and bake until the top is well golden. Remove and transfer to a cooling rack, then on a serving dish.