Test 4 the Best

Tarte bourdaloue: classique & a choco-framboise test version

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:16:00 +0000

Tarte bourdaloue, created by the french pâtissier Coquelin in la Pâtisserie Bourdaloue, which he bought in 1909 (still open in Paris in the street after which it was named) is probably one of the most beautiful tarts of all times! The moment I saw it, I fell in love with it and wanted to give it a try!To my surprise, it is not just about the looks, this tart is delicious too! A buttery toasted “pâte sucrée” (although some recipes suggest just pâte brisée, unsweetened pastry, I prefer the sweeter version) with a moist cooked almond cream center blended in between vanilla poached pears. Definately a must try, if you haven’t yet tasted this delicacy!

After a few tries, I have found that the texture and amount of the frangipane (almond cream) is one of the key point to get a nice star shape design. Also, a blind baking of the tart base, to ensure it is toasted to perfection after the filling is added! So, beware of recipes that do not precook the pastry, since as far as I’ve tried it doesn’t come out just right!

Anyway, here I introduce you a variation: raspberry chocolate version. I read on chef Eddy Van Damme’s excellent pastry blog a cassis poached pear version of this tart, though with the plain tart base and almond cream. I still had some frozen raspberries, so I wanted to try if the pears would take up their flavour…which I thought would match beautifully with chocolate! So, this version uses a chocolate pastry base and a cocoa almond cream. I was impressed with the results! The raspberry syrup poached pears not only do they look amazing, but they taste like raspberries! Next time I’ll make a full tart version!

Hope you let me know if you try them!

Tarte bourdaloue

(for a 22cm in diameter round mould)

For the poached pears:

3 pears (here in Spain: conference or “Blanquilla” are good)

800g of water

400g of sugar

juice of half a lemon

rind of half a lemon

1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out

For the pâte sucrée:

150g flour

75g butter

30g sugar

pinch of salt

about 30g iced water (I never measure it)

For the frangipane/almond cream:

75g icing sugar

75g butter, room temperature

75g almond powder

1 large egg, room temperature

10g flour

10ml of brandy

1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out

If possible poach the pears one day ahead, to allow them to cool down and work with them more comfortably. Also, if possible prefer riper pears (not overipe) over green ones, as they poach in less time and take up the flavours better.

Simply boil the water, the aromatics and the sugar to dissolve, peel and cut the pears in half and add to the boiling liquid. Poach until fork tender, 30-40 minutes, depending mainly on how ripe they were. Leave to cool in the poaching syrup.

Prepare the pâte sucrée, I am always inclined to use the “sablage” method rather than the “creaming” method, but you can do either to your preference. For the sablage, in a bowl mix the flour with the butter cut up in small dices and mix in completely until it resembles breadcrumbs (you can put it all together in a food processor to make life easier…or quicker!)

Then, add the sugar and pinch of salt and add the iced water little by little to get a rough dough that barely comes together. Dump all into a work surface and without kneading bring the dough together. There’s a technique called “fraisage”, which is a means of mixing the dough to make it homogeneous without developing the gluten in the flour. This is done by smearing it on a working surface, a small piece at a time, using the heel of your palm. This surrounds the butter around the flour and ensures that you don't overwork the dough, keeping the resulting dough tender and not elastic. I found this video of pastry chef Joanne Chang a fairly good explanation of how it’s done, though she does it for a flaky pastry in order to layer the butter (watch starting minute 3:17, before it’s a bit of her pastry shop/cafeteria advertising :) ). If still in doubt, check this video (in french) out (minute 1:10).

Once it all comes together, shape into a flattened disc, so it cools sooner and it is easier to stretch later. Rest wrapped in film or a ziplock bag in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (if longer, better, you could do this the day before, as well).

As for the almond cream, you may have noticed, it is equal amounts of sugar, powdered almond and butter, easy to remember! Beat the room temperature butter with the powdered sugar, a pinch of salt and the vanilla seeds. Add the beaten, room temperature eggs slowly or it will split! (adding cold liquids to a solid fat, such as butter, is not a good idea! )Then, add the bit of liqueur and the powdered almond. Last, add the sifted flour. If you have one, place into a pastry bag, as it’s better to distribute it over the pastry.

Time to put it all together, like I said, some people stretch the dough to line the mould, add the almond cream, the pears and off it goes into the oven, but if you can take the extra minutes to blind bake the dough, the result will be significantly better.

So, stretch the dough to about 3mm thickness and line the greased tart mould. With a bit of the extra dough that overhangs the sides, press into the sides of the base well. Prick the base and rest it in the fridge for about 30 minutes or longer (this extra rest is to ensure it won’t shrink as it bakes after stretching).

Cut off the overhanging dough with a knife or rolling a rolling pin (and in that case, press in a bit to lift up the thickened top and prick holes around the whole base

Cover the tart with a large enough piece of parchment wrinkled up and top with ceramic pie weights or some legume (chickpeas or larger beans work well!).

Place in a 175ºC preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, until the sides begin to colour. Remove, turn the oven up to 180ºC and lift up the paper with the beans and leave to cool for a few minutes so you don’t get burned as you work on it piping the cream, which would also quickly melt in.

Pipe the almond cream, if you are using a piping bag in a circular motion, starting from the center, spreading out. If you don’t have a piping bag, simple smear a 1 cm layer of cream through the base as consistently in thickness as possible.

Strain the pears, and remove the tips and hard bits surrounding the seeds and cut along it’s width in fine slices.

Arrange over the almond cream in a star pattern (if you make a larger tart, simply arrange more pear halves). I like to add some sliced almonds around too, but that’s optional.

Place back into the oven for 30-40 minutes (if will depend on how thick your frangipane layer is and on your oven too).

And there it is, the beautiful tarte bourdaloue, simple sprinkle some icing sugar around the sides or over the frangipane. Some people like to give it shine with some gelatin base or with lightly warmed apricot jam, adding a bit of water. But I prefer it this way.

Here’s the cut:

As for the choco raspberry version, simply add some raspberries to the poaching syrup (I added about 75g to 250g of water) and cook together. Leave to cool in that liquid overnight so the colour intensifies…and so does the flavour!

Remove hard bits and cut…isn’t it lovely

Prepare a chocolate sugar dough, just substituting some of the flour for cocoa (about 20g or more to taste) and do the same for the almond cream, I just added cocoa to taste, instead of the flour.

Put together the same way, by blind baking the dough, piping the cream and placing the pear on top. I dind’t have pastry rings, so I used a plating one…much, much higher (horrible to work with!) of 9cm in diameter.

Bake for 20-30 minutes and ready to enjoy!

And here’s the cut from the choco raspberry version:

Choose one, but I suggest you do try them, you won’t regret it!!It’s worth the work!

The day after…still eating Roscón de Reyes

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:05:00 +0000

First of all, happy “late” New Year! I hope this year brings you all what you desire, but above all health to enjoy it with your loved ones! I’ve been meaning to write, but somehow I’ve just managed to accumulate photos for posts that I haven’t had time to put together, but hope that will sometime see the light. This roscón was meant to come earlier, way before the “día de Reyes”, that is, yesterday! But, though I’ve been making roscón a few times for about a month or so, I’m glad I’ve been forced to delay publishing as the last trial was my best version yet, so very close to my “ideal” roscón. A little more orange blossom, a touch of glucose to keep it moister as long as it lasts! and less yeast for a slower and longer fermentation for that better keeping quality made this latter one very special indeed.

Still, every time I make roscón at this time of the year, I wonder why I do not make it more often all year around, even if in a more practical individual bun version like “suizos” here in spain, or in the shape of Gregoire Michaud’s cuchaulles, which I’ve fallen in love with! Whichever shape, the tender and aromatic dough is a delicacy I don’t get tired of…I could have slice after slice of a whole 500g roscón! So, if you haven’t tried it yet, and you like the subtle aroma of orange blossom (when used with caution!) along with citrus rinds…give it a try for any time of the year! as a roscón shape to share with family or friends or in a more covenient bun shape to eat at home or take to work!

I know there are hundreds of great recipes out there, this is just my favourite recipe so far! If you get to try it, I hope you like it as much as we do!

Roscón de Reyes

(enough for a 500g medium roscón..I’d make double, enough for 2!!)

For the preferment:

50g strong flour

25g water

0,5g dry yeast (or 1,5g of fresh)

For the dough:

210g of strong flour*

5g of dry yeast (or 15g fresh)

1 L egg (60g shelled**)

15g dark rhum

25g orange blossom water

25g milk

grated rind of half an orange

grated rind of half a lemon

60g granulated white sugar

10g glucose (if you haven’t got, substitute for 5g more of sugar or 10g of a very mild flavoured honey)

pinch of salt

60g unsalted butter

For decoration:

1 beaten egg, for egg wash

5-6 confit orange half slices

15g of raw sliced almonds (I use whole ones I laminate)

20g granulated sugar

a few drops of lemon juice

*This last time I substituted 50g of strong flour for an AP flour

**If you use a small egg, you may just need to add a bit more milk for the same texture or leave it for a more manageable, less hydrated, dough.

Before begining, just a note to say that though there are various orange blossom waters out there, those that are natural, not with flavouring are significantly better, a much more delicate aroma. Here in Spain, this is the one I have found to be best, so far:

First of all, for the decoration, if you plan to make the orange slices yourself, you can confit half an orange, cut into very thin slices as explained here.

When ready, just remove excess syrup and place on parchment paper until ready to use, or keep in the fridge in a sealed bag or tupper until that time.

For the preferment, mix the flour, the yeast and room temperature water and knead lightly into a homogeneous mass. If it feels dry, add a bit more water. Then, leave to rise covered for about 1 hour until almost doubled in size.

When risen, weigh the rest of the flour into a bowl and distribute the preferment cut up into smaller pieces along with the yeast, the sugar, the orange and lemon rind (or add them to the liquids if you prefer), the glucose and the pinch of salt.

Then, add the wet ingredients, the egg and the mix or rhum, milk and orange blossom water and mix to get a rough dough with no dry lumps of flour.

Rest for 5-10 minutes and begin kneading. It is a fairly wet dough, so take a look at this technique for kneading hydrated dought by Bertinet, or this other video. After some kneading it will come together into a smooth dough as the gluten develops.

When it does, begin to add the cool butter cut into small dices or chunks. It will look as if the dough separates completely as the butter begins to integrate but it will eventually come together leaving a silky smooth barely sticky dough.

Place in a lightly greased bowl (plastic works best as the dough sticks less to it than to glass or metal) cover and leave to rise until almost doubled. Mine took over 2 hours (I question the reliability of the dry yeast I bought last, also it is fairly cool in my kitchen, around 18ºC! so check after 1hour).

Press out all air, shape into a smooth ball again and rest for a few minutes, so the dough relaxes a bit before shaping.

Press into the center of the ball to make a hole, lift the dough and turn around to make the hole larger by the effect of gravity of by lightly stretching a little. You should make the hole large enough so that it doesn’t close up after fermentation.

There are two ways to do that, one is to stretch it out a lot, so that as it doubles it still stays fairly large, even if it may not be perfectly round. The other is to stretch it a bit more that a large metal presentation ring (about 15cm for this roscón size), place the greased ring (on the outer side) so that as the dough ferments and grows, it doesn’t stick. Still then, aim to make the initial hole fairly large or else as it still grows in the oven, it will end up too small (some people bake it with the metal ring, but I prefer not as the center stays very pale).

Press the skin around the entire roscón, as if sliding it underneath, to give it some tension and make the surface really smooth.

I like to brush it lightly with the egg wash before fermenting it, to give it a second layer after fermentation, which gives a shinier coating after baking

I left it to ferment for about 4 hours (again, at around 18ºC!) just watch that it does not overferment, by pressing lightly into it (if it sticks, wet your finger a bit) it should not leave an indentation, but very slowly come back to half way its original position.

Brush again with some egg wash and we’re ready to decorate.

I like to laminate the almonds, either raw or peeled with a mandoline. But obviously it may be more practical to buy them laminated.

To prepare the sugar “escarchado” simply wet it VERY lightly with a few drops of lemon or water to give it some texture. You may add it before baking or after, if your oven tends to caramelise it, as it will stick anyway as it dries up.

Decorate as you like and bake in a 180ºC (if fan assisted) or 200ºC (if not) preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes, until evenly golden brown.

Place on a cooling rack, and enjoy when it has cooled down! It’s best with some how thick chocolate, my favourite recipe here (it was my first recipe too!)!

Nothing like bought chocolate! up to the last drop!

Here’s the cut!

One of them has kept soft and moist for the two days it lasted! The other didn’t make it that far!

A tuna “empanada gallega” and a thank you!

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:13:00 +0000

One of the reasons for writing this blog was to somehow “pay back” for all the valuable information I’ve learnt (and learn day after day) from so many fantastic food bloggers out there, by sharing recipes that work (for me) in as a reliable way as possible.

This simple and traditional spanish dish is an example of the many little details I’ve learnt from others that put together after various testings made me reach my “ideal” recipe. It’s not only the measures of the ingredients, but rather the little tricks & techniques that make it rise from good to outstanding. Also, it is knowing those basic guidelines what gives you the freedom to play around a recipe to adapt it to your preference in textures, flavour or availability of ingredients still getting it right.

I learnt to make “empanada” dough at school, but there was too much information lost in translation…maybe the teachers didn’t even know, or they weren’t motivated to teach us all those details. I knew it wasn’t my “ideal” but I didn’t have any reliable source on how to make the real deal. Internet has changed that, it has made all the information readily available (with a lot of junk to fill the spaces too, though) when before I could only rely on other chefs I knew or on the books that I kept adding to my library. So as I began to question recipes and read those from fellow bloggers and most importantly tried them to test the outcome I began to modify the bland basic dough recipe I had once been taught, the dry or tomato loaded filling to finally get to the level of the best “empanadas” my memory had held on to.

So, I’d like to take this chance to thank all those people that have and continue to share so much through their recipes, many passed on from generation to generation and now available to us. In this particular recipe I’d like to mention and thank Pilar from “La Cocina de Lechuza” and Carmen from “Madrid Tiene Miga”, both from Galicia, who have shared their family’s recipes and been so kind to put up with all my doubts and questions over time!This simple yet satisfying recipe is a result of their advice.

“Empanada gallega” filled with tuna

(enough for 1 large oven tray or a 40cm in diameter “paella”)

For the dough:

500g flour*

aprox. 250g tepid water

aprox. 60g paprika olive oil** or oil/juices from the filling sofrito

8g salt

5g instant dry baker’s yeast or 15g fresh yeast

optional: substitute some of the water with an egg to enrich the dough

For the filling:

aprox. 25g of olive oil***

around 500g of peeled onions (3-4)

1/2 of an italian green pepper (50g)

1/3 of a red pepper (50g)

1 small tomato (aprox. 150g)

pinch of “pimentón dulce” (I used a smoky hot one from León!:))

300g of canned tuna, strained

*I used to make “empanada dough” with all-purpose flour, but since Carmen suggested I try the difference with strong bread flour, I always substitute some (in this case 150g) of the AP flour for strong flour (depending on it’s protein content)for a better texture and a more sturdy dough.

**If you use the oil from the “sofrito” to enrich & flavour the dough (recommended) remember to add that much oil to strain and cool beforehand. If not prepare as follows a “paprika” infused oil to add some flavour and colour. If you forget to prepare either, you can simply use olive oil, though it won’t be as tasty!

***As mentioned on the above note, if you plan on using the “sofrito” oil to enrich the dough, increase the amount of oil to about 85-90g.

If you can get organised and prepare the filling ahead to strain excess oil & juices to use in the dough recipe, then obviously begin with the filling. Remember, as noted, to add extra olive oil to then have enough to strain, but not completely to keep the filling lightly lubricated and juicy.

Otherwise, as I did for this post (I know I know, I ought to have planned ahead to preach with the example) you can prepare a “pimentón” oil as Pilar suggests on her blog to make up for it :)

To make the paprika oil, simply warm up lightly some olive oil, do not heat too much or the paprika will burn and turn bitter, and add a pinch of paprika. I suggest you make slightly more than needed, as you’ll lose some as the oil is decanted from the sedimented paprika and it’s also nice to use it to brush onto the empanada before and/or after baking to give it more flavour and colour. I prepared around 150g of oil and added about a teaspoon of paprika, but adjust to your liking. I prefer keeping it light in flavour and colour.

Leave to cool and once the paprika sediments, decant onto another bowl or flask.

If you decided to prepare the paprika oil, then go ahead and prepare the dough. Place the flours in a bowl, add the salt, the instant dried yeast (not right over the salt) and then add the water (the temperature together with the amount of yeast will determine the fermentation rate, so if you want a quicker fermentation you can warm it a little, though I still would suggest to avoid warming over 26ºC),the room temperature egg if you are using it) and the cooled strained oil and mix until all the flour gets wet. Rest for about 10 minutes to allow for the flour to hydrate and absorb excess moisture and begin to knead the dough until you get a smooth and soft dough. If you find it’s too dry, add some more water, if it completely sticks to you (this depends on the flour you are using) add flour by flour little by little.

Shape into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl,well covered, to ferment (if it is cold in your kitchen, try placing it in a warmish place, like inside the oven (turned off) and placing a bowl of hot water in the bottom. It will take around 1,5-2 hours depending on the temperature.

Try to avoid overfermentation, which will affect the gluten, thus the texture of the dough. You are aiming to almost double in size, about 80% increase in volume, though in this particular case, unlike bread, if you fall short it’s ok, as the yeast is mainly used to avoid getting a raw dough. To know how it’s going, lightly poke it with a finger, if the indentation stays there, you’ve gone too far, ideally when pressed, the dough should somewhat come back slowly halfway to it’s original position.

While the dough is fermenting prepare the filling. The tuna one is probably the simplest filling, though as I’ve mentioned in the introduction, it seems difficult to find right, as often, there is not enough onion “sofrito” which is what gives it it’s mellow juiciness, rather than a bulk of dry tuna or you may find some with a generous amount of tomato sauce added to make up for that lack of onion.

So, whichever filling you choose to do, be it octopus, bacalao (salted cod), mussels, chicken, etc. be generous with the onions!

Chop them up in brunoise, as the red and green peppers and slowly cook with the oil. If it begins browning, lower the heat, you want them to get translucent and slightly softer. No need to have them completely done as they’ll continue to cook in the oven inside the dough, but don’t leave the “al dente” either

When they are softer, add a pinch of paprika to taste and then the tomato (cut in half horizontally and use a coarse grater to grate both halves). Cook until the tomato pulp is reduced/evaporated, season with salt and pepper to taste and leave to cool.

Then, add the tuna and mix in.

When the dough is ready, divide in two halves, one slightly bigger than the other as the bottom is always a bit thicker to suck up the juices and avoid breaking.

Dust the working surface lightly with flour and stretch the dough to the shape you want. That is, to either cover the oven tray or the “paella”. It should be about 4mm thick or so. Place on a parchment paper or an oiled tray/paella and trim off excess.

Add the cool filling and stretch the top half to 2-3mm and cover.Fold the sides to close the empanada and make a small hole in the center to allow steam to escape so it doesn’t rise.

You may decorate it with the left over dough, but I like to keep it plain and simple.

Before going into the oven, you can either brush it with egg wash (beaten egg) for a shiny finish or with some of paprika oil or olive oil, which I prefer.

Bake in a preheated oven 180ºC convection or slightly higher (200ºC) if not fan-assisted for about 40-45 minutes or until golden brown.

Check the bottom to make sure it is cooked through. If the top is golden but the bottom needs a bit more cooking, cover with some aluminum paper and leave a bit longer. This time I tried a trick Pilar’s (Lechuza’s) mother in law uses for her empanadas, typical from Noia, which is to turn the empanada over, like a spanish tortilla, so the juices from the filling soak the top too and you get an even cooking on both sides…I loved it!!

Another great idea I learnt from here, is to use scallop shells as moulds for individual empanadas! It is fantastic! Just oil the shell, roll the dough fairly thin and be generous with the filling, cover with the top dough and press down to trim off the excess with the scallop shell itself.

Bake similarly until golden brown and unmold for a perfect individual empanada!

Here it is!

Powdery orange and cardamom "polvorones"

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:44:00 +0000

I’m not a big fan of christmas sweets, rarely do I buy “turrones” as I find them overly sweet. But, I’ve always had a special fondness for polvorones”. Since I was a kid, I loved to crash them in between my hands to then slowly enjoy the powdery and cinnamon-spiced mixture…also to try to speak with my mouth full with one! So, when I was in cooking school and they taught us how to make it, I was thrilled that I’d learnt to make it myself (very easy, in fact!)! Since,I haven’t tweaked the recipe much, just adjusted the amount of toasted almond powder (it’s gone to double now) and slightly lowered the sugar.

This treat is from the family of “mantecados”, sweets prepared with flour, “manteca” (that is, pork fat), powdered sugar and flavourings of choice (cinnamon, lemon rind, coconut). What differs the “polvorones”, which were developed in La Estepa (Sevilla) is that they include almond (almond meal and sometimes also chopped up almonds..I prefer it just plain powdery!).

One of the key aspects of their preparation is that the flour used must be slightly toasted. This is done for two reasons, first, to dry up the flour, but most importantly to break up the gluten proteins. I think I read it in my food science book of reference “McGee’s On Food and Cooking” who recommends it for sweet pastry for crumbly tart bases. Well, also the lightly toasted flour brings out a very particular flavour…so, make it 3 reasons!

Although polvorones are often sold just around christmas time, I like to prepare them any time of the year as a “petit four”, that is, just as a small sweet treat after dessert or to go with a coffee etc. So I play around with the flavours used, the traditional include cinnamon and toasted sesame seeds, sometimes lemon rind. So, I use different citrus peels as flavouring, add some coffee powder, cocoa (substituting some of the flour) or other spices, like in this case, cardamom. Feel free to add your favourite spices and even substitute the almond powder for some toasted hazelnut powder. Just note that in that case a little less “manteca” is used, since hazelnuts have more fat content as compared to almonds.

Orange and cardamom polvorones

aprox 240g all purpose flour* (once toasted only 200g will be used)

100g of toasted almond powder

75g of icing sugar (or prepare your own, processing with a spice mill)

100g of pork manteca (I like to use iberian pork fat, from El Pozo)

pinch of salt

grated rind of 1 medium orange (or 1 small lemon if you prefer)

about 1 1/2 tsp of powdered cardamom (or substitute for 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder

*As the flour toasts, it will lose some weight, so make sure to always account for that loss toasting more than the amount you really need.

Preheat your oven to around 160ºC (best without the fan or some of the flour will blow around!)

Place 2 trays, one with the almond powder, the other with the flour and turn around once in a while so they toast homogeneously. Otherwise they will burn on the sides and be pale in the center!

You are aiming to get the almond powder like this, to bring out it’s beautiful flavour!

And though I forgot to take one of the flour on it’s own, here are both almond and flour toasted. I hope you can see the lightly toasted colour of the flour as compared to the white bowl. Just do not toast too much or it will get bitter!:

I like to sift the almond powder a bit, to remove any bigger pieces first and then mix with in a bowl sifting in the flour (remember to weight the right amount) and sugar. Add the spices and rind and the pork fat into chunks.

Begin mixing, at the begining it will seem like it’s never going to come together, just go on a bit and in no time you’ll magically see how it all forms a dough. That’s when to stop! Don’t keep on going or it will get greasier…The right texture is that it comes together, so if you shape a ball and press it down, which is the way it was traditionally hand shaped, it doesn’t crack..if it does knead a tad more, or if it doesn’t work, add a tiny bit more “manteca”.

By the way, for those of you thinking “yack, pork fat, I’ll just use butter instead”…I thought that too as I’m not a fan of “manteca”, but it just doesn’t work the same!It doesn’t come together the same way. You need much more butter to get a similar texture (which considering “manteca” is pure fat and butter is only about 82% fat, it’s quite reasonable, plus you’d be adding water, so the resulting texture is not as powdery, melt in your mouth!

So believe me, in this recipe, you won’t feel or taste at all the pork fat. First because it is a fairly generously “spiced” dough, but most importantly you need to cook it enough and any “manteca” flavour will be gone!By the way, here is the manteca I use:

Back to the recipe, once the texture feels right, shape into a flattened round (for easier stretching afterwards) and wrap it in some film and rest it for about 20-30 minutes well covered in the fridge.

You could stretch it with a rolling pin into 1,5-2cm thick with a bit of flour, but I prefer to do so in between some cling film pieces, or some parchment paper.

Cut into the desired size, I make them small, for a bite size, but it’s up to you (you can cut shapes or shape individually, just avoid cutters with very thin strips, as they are fairly delicate!)

When you are done cutting up, reshape all the dough into a ball and stretch again (that’s one of the reasons I use cling film, to avoid adding any raw flour into it). Then, cut some more..repeat until finished with the dough.

If you like you can lightly press some toasted sesame seeds over the tops of the cut “polvorones”.

Bake in a 200ºC over for about 8 minutes for cookies under 4cm in diameter, like these ones. Note that all ovens heat differently so check yours, you may need to lower it to 180ºC. You are aiming to get a medium toasted surface all over (you’ll smell it too!). So, adjust if it is colouring too much, as you want the inside to cook as well.

Remove from the oven and DO NOT TOUCH! They are super delicate warm! You must let them cool completely before attempting to move them around!

Dust with some icing sugar if you like…and enjoy!

Either biting into it or crushing it first (best if wrapped individually, though ;)this was just to show you the smooth & delicate texture!

An apple strudel to die for…

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:54:00 +0000

This is my first try at apfelstrudel, and though there’s always room for improvement, I was so overwhelmed by the results, I had to share it! I thought it’d be difficult and end up with a dough full of holes if I managed to get it thin enough to read through it. I researched all I could, read various recipes, watched videos to get a feel of what I was to do and put it all together in a recipe picking ideas from here and there. Though it is mostly known as an austrian specialty (from Viena) it is a dessert inherited from the austro-hungarian empire, which in turn adapted it from the turks. So, you can find excellent versions from Slovenia, Hungary, Trentino in the Alto Adige region of Italy and Austria amongst others.

Anyway, about the recipe, making the dough was a clear choice, as phyllo is too brittle and though it gives a crunchy result, it doesn’t take up flavours as well. I gotta also say that 3 days later, the strudel made with homemade dough is still crunchy!Just had to think about flour choice to have enough gluten to get that elastic but strong network (in Austria they seem to use a 700 type flour, with a higher gluten content, for what I’ve managed to find). Then, deciding the kind of apple to use, cooking or dessert apples, sweet or sour. I went for granny smith, as I wanted sour notes and figured they would lose less water to get the dough soggy. Maybe next time I’ll try “reinetas” (very sour cooking variety) or a mix of both, to get a more compote-like texture. I also preferred thinly sliced apples rather than grated ones and to marinate them a while before using to let the flavours blend before baking.

All strudel recipes include some ingredient to soak up the juices released from the cooking apples, traditionally breadcrumbs, either fresh or crisped golden with a bit of butter for better flavour (even with some sugar to lightly caramelise). I went for those, which I often use as sweet “migas” (crumbs) in various desserts. But other choices include finely processed almonds or walnuts (other than the ones added for a crunch) or crumbled up cookies, wafer etc. so choose to your preference.

Finally the distribution of filling before rolling; many recipes distribute all filling ingredients throughout the whole stretched dough, while others only across the bottom third. I though this to be better as the roll is reinforced so the filling doesn’t pierce the dough through the final layers. Also, it results in really crisp, well defined outer layers encasing the soft interior. So, unless (and even still if) you are using grated apples as a filling, I’d definately go for this procedure for a flaky outer layer that doesn’t get soggy. Whichever choices you make to adapt the recipe to your taste..do try it! It is easier than it seems, you just gotta keep some key points to get the dough right and the rest comes along and sooo very worth it!!Once you get the hang of it, you’ll want to adapt it to other fillings, sweet or savoury!

Apple strudel

(for 1 50-60cm long strudel or 2 half the size)

For the dough:

200g of flour*

20g butter or vegetable oil

pinch of salt

about 90g of lukewarm water**

a few drops of vinegar (or another acid, like lemon juice)***

*Most recipes suggest plain flour, but I think some strong flour is good to develop more gluten so the dough doesn’t bread, so I substituted 50g for strong flour.

**you can substitute some water for an egg (the original recipe I meant to use included 1 small egg, as most recipes do) but I forgot to add it! but since the Rick Rodgers recipe used by Daring Bakers did not include I went on with it. Also you’ll see some recipes substituting water for milk, but it isn’t as common.

***The acid helps making the dough more elastic, as in puff pastry dough.

For the filling:

3-4 granny smith apples (about 700g, peeled and cored)

about 60g of brown sugar (granulated white can be used instead too)

60g of chopped up walnuts (I used pecans)

20g of raisins (you can add more to taste, or skip them)

some rhum to hydrate the raisins, about 30g

50g of fresh bread crumbs

25g-30g of butter to toast the breadcrumbs

Also:

100g-125g of butter, melted (or even better, clarified) to drizzle/brush over the stretched dough

some icing sugar to decorate

I suggest you first watch this video by Greg Patent to get an idea of the texture of the dough and the technique for stretching the dough. For stretching and filling this other video from an german bakery in Argentina is a good aid. Finally, in spanish this series of 3 videos by crazy argentinian chef Ariel Palacios is great to get an idea on some keys for a great elastic dough, though he makes it a bit more complicated. You can also refer to this excellent post for some step by step photos.

So let’s begin with the dough! simply place the flour in a bowl and mix in the salt to distribute it a bit. Add the egg, soft or melted butter (or oil) and add the lukewarm water with some vinegar as you stir with a spatula or scraper until you get a rough mass.

*I think the lukewarm water is used to help developing the gluten, also the dough stretches best at room temperature rather than cold (some traditional recipes even suggest placing the worked dough on a warm bowl or over a warm place).

Place the dough onto a work surface and knead it a bit. It ought to be slightly tacky at the beginning. Neither excessively sticky (in which case add some extra flour) nor hard, in which case add extra water.

Then you can knead the traditional way or slam it against the surface to work it for over 5 minutes until you get a smooth and soft dough. I checked gluten development with a membrane test, just to make sure, and it was almost fully developed.

Then, coat with some vegetable oil and wrap with cling film to rest for at least half an hour. I left it for about an hour, as I find longer resting helps with stretching afterwards. I read a Viennese trick to help making the dough elastic, but haven’t tried it: to place the dough in a bowl and cover with vegetable oil for at least 15 minutes. I just cannot be bothered to use that much oil just for this purpose…

Meanwhile prepare the filling. You could keep everything separate and arrange it over the pastry as you fill it, but I think macerating all together blends the flavours better. Plus you remove excess water from the apples. So, peel and core the apples and cut in half or fourths into thin slices. Drizzle with some lemon juice to avoid browning.

Grate in the peel of half a lemon (optional but it is sooo good!orange can go well too), add the sugar and cinnamon to taste (if you use sweet apples I suggest you cut down on the sugar).

Hydrate the raisins with the rhum. The quick way is to place in a small pan, cover with the rum, bring to a boil and simmer until the rhum is completely evaporated. Let cool and add the the apples as well.

Chop up the walnut to the size you like, I wanted them finely chopped.

Prepare the bread crumbs, just place bread in a food processor to get coarse crumbs and then fry with the 30g of butter over medium heat until you get a nice homegeneous golden colour. If you like, you can finish it off in the pan adding a pinch of cinnamon and a bit of sugar to let it caramelise a bit. Remove and cool.

Time to stretch the dough. Ideally do so in a table where you can go around, at least 2 or 3 sides to help you with the stretching from all sides.

Get an old smooth blanket or table cloth and place it over the table. This will help rolling later, as it will be so thin, it would break otherwise. Flour lightly and roll with a pin at first as thin as you can. Then, the hand stretching begins. Roll up your sleeven and lightly flour your forearms. You can use either, your palms or the back of your hand, whichever works best for you to stretch, just make sure you have no watch, no rings that could damage the dough (watch out for long nails too!).

Begin tugging softly in a center to otward motion going around the dough to do so evenly from all sides. Continue until you can read through it or see your patterned tablecloth! If you get any holes, though some recipes suggest patching, I wouldn’t bother, as it will be rolled over, so it’s not that big of a deal, until it is all broken up!

Aim to get bigger than 60 cm x 90cm, as the thicker sides with be cut/ripped off. When ready do cut the thicker sides and drizzle the whole of the surface with the melted or clarified butter.

I found it best to lightly distribute it with my hands as a brush can damage the thin dough. Some recipes even suggest drizzling after filling to avoid that precisely. Try what works for you.You don’t need a lot of butter or it will be greasy rather than absorbed by the dough (as in puff pastry). So just enough for a light coat to avoid the paper thin dough from drying out.

Then, distribute the bread crumbs throughout the whole surface (it could be just the bottom third, as the apples, but since it will not wet the dough, I preferred it throughout to enhance the layers). Then, the nuts (if they are very roughly chopped you may prefer to add them just to the bottom, as they can damage the layers. Finally place the macerated apples (not taking their juices in the bottom of the bowl, which can be used to make a sauce, they are sooo tasty!) in the shape of a log in the bottom.

Take the end of the cloth closer to you and roll away to encase the apples. “Strudel” in german literally means vortex, which is the motion of rolling the dough with the help of the tablecloth. If needed, add a bit more butter in the end, so the ends sticks.

The ends you can tuck underneath or twist (if too long, cut off a bit).

Now another tricky part…tranferring to your baking tray! You supposedly should use the cloth to slide it into your tray, but mine was so long, I used a thin board (left over from some Ikea furniture) which I used as a baguette board.

If the log is too long, you can either cut into portions that fit, in this case, in half (some people divide the dough in half to begin with to make two strudels, but I find it a waste of time) and bake it as such, or even stretch some leftover dough to close the open ends (no apple fell off during baking in my case, though).

Brush with extra melted butter and place in a 180ºC (fan assisted) or 200ºC preheated oven for about 40 minutes until nicely golden. Halfway through baking, brush with butter again and if you like at the end of baking a light brushing too.

Give it at least 20-30 minutes to cool a bit, sprinkle icing/confectioner’s sugar to taste and enjoy!!!

For autumn,two delicious butternut squash starters

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:47:00 +0000

One from Ottolenghi, the other from Jamie Oliver…This year we planted a seed from a butternut squash that we particularly liked last winter and saved. Up until recently we’ve been enjoying the blossoms day after day but finally the few fruits the plant gives have ripened into extraordinary sweet and tasty butternut squashes.

I had not long ago watched some of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals videos and in amongst others a sweet potato, potato, feta and coriander salad caught my attention. When I picked our first squash and decided what to use it for…Why not that salad substituiting the sweet potato for the butternut squash? I tried it and we loved it!!Super quick to make, incredibly tasty, a burst of flavours, sooo comforting! I still haven’t tried it with sweet potato, but I doubt it can be any better than this!

The other simple dish is from Ottolenghi’s book Plenty, I wasn’t too convinced if I would like it when I tried it, as I’m not a big fan of toasted cured cheese (I love parmesan, but have never really appreciated those toasted parmesan lollies which every “fashion” restaurant seem to offer as an appetiser. But combined with the lemon rind and garlic flavours, the results are super crusty butternut squash slices on one side and a creamy baked texture on the other. I acompanied it with a quick version of a lemongrass and ginger crème fraîche from another recipe, which I find is a must to go on the side (and everyone from my family who’s tried it agrees!).

Butternut squash, potato, feta and coriander warm salad

250g piece of butternut squash

200g of potatoes

1/2 a lemon

a handful of fresh coriander leaves

about 70g of greek feta cheese

salt and freshly ground black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

I suggest you watch the Jamie Oliver video in which he makes the sweet potato original recipe. Though you can find it in youtube, I suggest you go to this page (as the blog has all his 30 minute meals videos organised, in case you are interested) and watch the second video starting from minute 8 to get to that recipe. I love how he does everything so rustic and with that laid-off style!

Anyhow, even if you dont, wash your potatoes and butternut squash skin well, as all goes in! Cut the potatoes in half or 3, depending how big they are and similarly the squash piece in 3 or 4.

Place all in a microwave-proof bowl with the half lemon right on top. Cover 2 or 3 times with cling film (if you have a flimsy cling film that doesn’t stick very well, I suggest you turn it around the bowl rather than cutting two pieces to cover the top)

Microwave at full power (mine goes to 1000 watt) for about 12-14 minutes..You’ll see it looks like it has made a vacuum. Break it open.

While it’s cooking, chop up 1 chilli finely (if you prefer, you can skip it) the bunch of coriander roughly and cumble the feta on top.

Mash the cooked potatoes and squash with a fork a bit and dump over the feta and coriander (or dump and chop together). Season with some salt (maldon is nicer) and pepper and a drizzle of oil and mix it all together as you chop a bit more with the knife. If you have a nice board, like Jamie, serve right as it is, topping with a bit more fresh crumbled feta, coriander leaves and an extra drizzle of oil. If not, pour in the dish or platter of taste and do that.

Ottolenghi’s crusty butternut squash with lemon grass & ginger crème fraîche

about 500g of butternut squash

olive oil, to drizzle over the squash

40g grated cured cheese*

20g breadcrumbs **

2 garlic cloves, grated

rind of 1 large lemon or more to taste, grated

pinch of salt and freshly fround pepper

optional: some fresh herb of choice finely chopped, I used lemon thyme (he uses a lot of parsley and thyme

*The original recipe suggests 50g of parmesan. I like to mix it with a cured cheese with milder flavour. My favourite test yet was with a smoked cheese similar to idiazabal.So, to me parmesan is not essential.

**if you can get hold of Panko, do so for a crunchier texture!if not it’s better to coarsely grate you own dried bread rather than getting the fine powder crumbs usually available.

For the sauce:

125g of crème fraîche (or sour cream)

1 lemongrass stalk, outer layer removed & finely chopped

1-2 tsp of finely grated fresh ginger

pinch of salt

drizzle of lemon or lime juice

Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise, then cut in about 1cm thick slices (just try not to make it too thin as you loose the creamy texture of the bottom part to contrast with the crunchy top)

Arrange over some parchment in an oven tray. Meanwhile preheat the oven to around 190ºC.

Mix all the other ingredients (I used a microplane fine grater for all; cheese, garlic and lemon rind) except the olive oil in a bowl. Drizzle some lemon juice over the butternut squash slices and distribute the crust ingredients amongst them.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes until golden brown on top and tender inside. If you find it is toasting too soon, you can lower the heat to 180ºC.

For the sauce, simply mix up all ingredients, add lemon or lime juice to taste.

Hope you enjoy them both!

Greek roasted aubergine and feta salad

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:53:00 +0000

Over 10 years ago I spent some time in Greece at a close friend’s house. At that time I was pursuing a completely different career, far from the culinary world. But already one of the things that fascinated me most during my stay was watching my friend’s mom cook. She was a brilliant cook, from her I tried (and did my best at learning) the best spanakopita I have ever had, phyllo also from scratch! amongst other things. The family had a restaurant and one of the things that was love at first bite was “melintzanosalata”, the Greek take at a dip like baba ganoush. It literally means aubergine salad and even more than on baba ganoush (or muttabal) it’s focus is further on the aubergine, the smoked flavour of the aubergine in particular. That was the first time I ever encountered that “smoky” taste, I didn’t even know how they achieved it, but it blew me away.

Since, I am addicted to that flavour, which they later showed me it was imparted by roasting the whole aubergines over coals (I’ve achieved it by roasting it over flames, see the photo below). Anyhow, the dip was simply that smoky aubergine flesh, a tiny bit of garlic, lemon juice, a tiny amount of olive oil and after analyzing the dip day after day biting into tiny white speckles scattered in the creamy dip, what I figured to be feta cheese (here is a simpler version without the feta); all barely adorned with chopped fresh parsley. Aside from that dish, my friend’s mom also made a dish she named “melintzanosalata” by roasting the aubergines, opening them in half and turning the flesh into a paste quickly grating with a fork and mixing the same ingredients over it for a more appealing presentation served with red peppers roasted at the same time. It was heavenly!

Since this week I’ve been compulsively testing a few recipes that just don’t get where I want them to be, I present you that simple yet super tasty version of that melintzanosalata. You’ll find that not much explanation is needed as it’s a very simple dish which just involves roasting (whole or halved) seasoning to taste with salt, lemon juice and olive oil, that bit of garlic and scattered feta and some fresh herbs. Just decide if you’d rather roast whole for smoky notes (and less than 10 minutes once the fire is going!) or halved in the oven to not even waste the skin!

Roasted aubergine and feta salad

2 aubergines

1 red pepper

salt & pepper to taste

1 small clove of garlic

40g olive oil plus extra to finish

drizzle of lemon juice

about 50g greek feta cheese (more or less to taste)

fresh parsley or oregano (I also used some lemon thyme)

If you are going to roast the aubergines in the oven, turn the heat on to about 220ºC. It’s pretty high so the aubergines roast rather than stew). Halve them, make 3 or 4 parallel cuts with a knife across the flesh (not reaching the skin) and repeat in the other direction to form a diamond pattern.

Brush the 40g of oil amongst all halves. It’s generous so that the aubergine cooks to a meltingly soft texture, without the oil it dries up and feels spongy. Then, season with some salt and pepper (just take into account that fetta is fairly salty, so don’t be overly generous!)

Roast with the pepper on the side over some foil to avoid dirtying the oven. I made more peppers for other dishes…

Roast the peppers until blackened on the outside or very blistered so it get’s buttery soft inside and very flavourful.

Roast the aubergines for about 25-30 minutes or until nicely golden and soft (sorry I forgot to take a shot!)

Serve on a platter, board or dish (or even on the baking dish if it’s nice looking!) grate the tops with the tips of a fork and taste to make sure it isn’t bland, in which case add a bit more salt…then will come the feta!

Finely grate a garlic with a microplane or pound well to a paste (otherwise you’ll get chunks that are not nice to find) and distribute amongst all halves.

Drizzle a bit of lemon juice, scatter the feta over, the peeled and chopped pepper and herbs of choice (as you know I like coriander a lot…well, here it goes well too, just a different flavour, not so mediterranean but still good). Drizzle with olive oil and serve!

If you prefer it cool, you can roast the aubergines a day ahead and then just do all the seasoning and scattering when you are ready to serve. Easy, simple, quick and tasty!

You can eat it all up with fork and knife…you’ll be just left with the stems of the aubergines!

Late end of summer natural leaven pizzas

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:20:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I last wrote. Since the end of summer I felt like everything was on an uphill road and as I’ve had a difficult time picking up the pace. I needed some time to disappear into my shell (I wonder if that has to do with the fact that I’m a cancer) to see things from a different perspective. I’m not there yet, but beginning to see the light, so it’s about time I get out and back into real life.

I have been cooking quite a bit, so I have some stories I wanted to share but had been put on hold. Like these end of summer pizzas, made with butternut squash and courgette blossoms and cherry vine tomatoes from our orchard (the only ones that made it, actually!). There’s an incredible sense of satisfaction and being rooted that comes from growing your own food; that paired with a making your natural leaven dough makes the result the ultimate comfort food for me. This is what these two pizzas are, all ingredients home-made or home-grown, even the ricotta, which rise this humble dish to the ultimate comfort food! So appreciated when that feeling is a need.

I remember how I saved a few seeds from a butternut squash, sweet as honey and full of flavour that I bought last year that. This year Linguini planted them and though so far we’ve only picked up 4 squashes, I was amazed by the amount of flowers it produced! The plant grows spectacularly fast and if you can tell from the photo at each intersection a flower grows. So, each morning I visited the orchard, the ground appeared flecked with yellow spots from the fully blossomed ones that very day. It was incredible! And this is still going since June, so if you are after the blossoms, this plant is well worth it if you have some space.

For the pizza dough, after a try at a few different recipes, I’ve so far stuck with QJones recipe which he posted in “Madrid Tiene Miga”, but of course you can use any pizza dough recipe you like. I just liked the sweet touch from the fine semolina, the perfect slightly chewy crumb texture but crispy crust of this one made without added yeast but from a fresh very mildly sour leaven (that’s why I avoid using the word sourdough in this case, because it’s not sour!). I made a recipe for 250g of flour, which was enough for 2 medium pizzas.

I made the “unorthodox” ricotta (in between ricotta and mascarpone) a day earlier using Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, which I already mentioned in this post (aha, I just realised I even showed a picture of the first pizzas I tried!).

Late end of summer pizzas

For the chunky confit tomato sauce:

about 200g of fresh tomatoes

2-3 garlic cloves

2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Also:

200g-250g of ricotta cheese

freshly ground black pepper

8-10 courgette and/or squash blossoms

extra drizzle of olive oil

optional: some grated parmesan & some grated lemon rind (for the blossom pizza)

about 200g of cherry tomatoes

ideally: some fresh basil or oregano to taste (I had to do with dried oregano!)

Make your favourite pizza dough or buy a pizza base you like…Here’s the velvety texture of the dough, after an initial rest period without salt added (autolysis) and light kneading. Isn’t it beautiful!Then, it was left to almost double (bulk fermentation) and then, taking care to avoid degassing much, divided into 2, preshaped and then shaped into boules and left to proof a bit for about 30 minutes or retarded in the fridge until ready to use and then brought to room temperature before stretching.

If you do make the pizza dough yourself following any other recipe I do have a few recommendations:

1)I think much of the success is about using the right flours (or it has been for me), I find it best not too use a flour that is too strong unless you like a really chewy crumb!

2)if you like neapolitan style pizza, with some cornicione and those burst slightly charred bubles, take into account that the more hydrated the dough, the more holes in the structure, so make a dough as hydrated as you can handle to shape comfortably for your experience. I’d say no less than 65%…even for this recipe I often add a bit more water (but that depends on the flour).

3)If you like the above mentioned texture and look, do not use a rolling pin to stretch out the dough. You will get rid of all the work from the yeast by forcing all the gas out and get flat “sides” (unless that is what you are looking for, that is). You do not need to know how to flip the dough in the air or any fine moves, just generously dust both sides with flour to avoid stick and lift the disc of dough (after lightly flattening the center of the ball of dough) with both your knuckes and let the own weight of the dough do the rest. It does take a bit of practice…but who cares if it is not perfectly round, I find it tastes soo much better!;)

4)for a darn good crust a high oven temperature is key (most pizza ovens are about 400ºC) so get your oven as high as possible, so the dough puffs up and charrs on the surface as quickly as possible without drying out! Check out Jeff Varasano’s site for some excellent info and watch the Heston Blumenthal video that follows for the cast iron pan trick that really works (he is not an experience pizzaiolo for all those who might have criticised him, but the point is that the trick to get as close to that temperature without playing with your oven pirolysis system does work! I used this until I got a decent stone to retain good heat). Here’s the youtube link in case you experience any problems or want to watch the other 2 that precede.

Anyway, as for the toppings go, I use my favourite quick tomato confit sauce, similar to the one I used here either peeling and deseeding or not the tomatoes (depends on how much time I’ve got :) either is good! I often prefer to peel by blanching and not bother deseeding because the skin dries up a bit and is more noticeable, but if not, you can leave as it is or pass through a food mill.

So, slowly fry the chopped up garlic cloves (or leave whole, just lightly crushed to release their flavour if you cannot bother with chopping) just make sure the heat is low so they release their flavour but don’t colour. Then, add the chopped up tomato, raise the heat, cover so that the tomato flesh softens quickly, then, remove the cover to evaporate until the oil begins to separate again!Tasty & quick!

Time to get your pizzas ready for the oven, full blast (mine goes up to 275ºC (or so it says in the thermostat! but if I can get it to 250ºC I’m happy) I just preheat the stone and place it on the top third so it is closer to the grill.

For the squash blossom one, once the dough is stretched cover lightly the bottom with the cooled tomato sauce, distributing it so it is a thin layer and leaving 2cm off the edges clean so the cornicione raises properly. Scatter knobs of ricotta here and there, place the thoroughly washed blossoms over in a pattern you like or just not arranged and season with some salt, pepper and a light drizzle of olive oil. Also,if you like some finely grated lemon rind and some shaved parmesan.

In it goes while we prepare the next one!

Cover the bottom with ricotta, also a light hand. Then, charr your tomatoes using a torch! An excellent idea I learnt the blog Ideas in Food and used to get that charr flavour and look in this pizza that won’t be enough time in the over to give that colour!

I was amazed with the results! The tomatoes get a bbq flavour but become soft and this brings out their sweetness (Ok, these were good tomatoes) but the flavour and texture this charring exposed is beautiful!

Since I was left with some tomato sauce, I scattered that bit around and then the tomatoes. Finally I seasoned with the pepper and oregano (some fresh herbs would be nicer!but didn’t have any at the time!) a drizzle of oil and ready for the next batch after the first one came out!

In and out it goes!

I didn’t get to take a photo of the crumb, but here’s one of the previous batch. I’ve been needing a lot of comfort food!:)

Inspired by Ottolenghi’s french beans, hazelnut & orange salad

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Have I mentioned that amongst the cookbooks I have, one of the most valued ones is Ottolenghi, The Cookbook…along with his younger brother Plenty! :) I think there’s not one recipe from the book I’m not inspired by. Everything is so vibrant, the ingredient combinations are fantastic, the looks so appetising and colourful. For anyone who doesn’t know it I strongly recommend you flick through its pages just to get a feel of his philosophy of cooking. I got to know it through this post on Delicious Days featuring the almighty aubergine (probably my favourite ingredient) and decided to buy the book after a look at a few recipes. When it arrived and had a quick look at it…I didn’t know where to start, I wanted to have a go at everything!!!Still haven’t got around to visiting the “restaurants” but just to say that I just want to go to London to visit Ottolenghi! So, when I do get to do so, I will definately share the experience, which I am sure will live up to the expectations!

Anyway, about this salad…this year Linguini decided to have a go at planting quite a few vegetables: various tomato varieties, courgette, butternut squash (from the seeds of one we ate and loved), peas and beans. Some have grown beautifully, others not quite as well! It’s such a pity after all the time and care that went into them, to watch how most of the beautiful pea plants after flowering begin to wilt irreversibly from a sun overdose. They are picky, those ones…we did get to try a few pods (five to be exact!)and they were just like candy, straight from the pod. The beans have done so-so, began growing at incredible speed and then some made it through, others weren’t so lucky. But we did get to pick 3 or 4 handfuls of them…

The moment I got the first one, I knew I had to try this salad, which from the moment I saw it I knew I’d love. And like every other recipe I have tried, it was just a perfect match of ingredients! The crunchy very lightly cooked fresh beans with the earthy flavour of the nuts and it’s oil and the citrus punch of the orange rind. All plainly seasoned with freshly ground black pepper and maldon salt…simple yet perfect. The original recipe also includes mangetout, which I love (I would have added them lightly sautéed rather than boiled) but having just Linguini’s tender beans at hand, I didn’t miss them. So, I’ve repeated the salad, with the last handful of beans, the late ones the plant still offered us, for you…and for us to enjoy again!Hope you like it too!

French beans, hazelnut and orange rind salad (adapted from Ottolenghi)

400g of french beans

50g of hazelnuts

the rind of 1/4 of a large orange (more or less to taste)

1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)

hazelnut oil* and olive oil (about half of each) to season to taste

freshly ground black pepper

maldon salt or another fleur de sel, ideally

(the original recipe also includes mangetout and some chives, which I skipped)

*This is the oil I used, From Percheron Frères, a fantastic brand, if you can find it.

So, this salad is as simple as lightly boiling the beans (you can leave them whole or slice in two if you like them smaller) in plenty of unsalted water for about 3-5minutes,(more or less depending on how large the beans are) just enough time to retain a crunch and to plonge them in iced or running cold tap water to keep their vibrant green colour. Once cool, drain and dry.

For the hazelnuts, since I tried these unshelled hazelnuts from a trip to Asturias and realised the flavour and how well they keep, I do not buy shelled ones. So, that’s the only bit of work…worthwhile I find. So, just shell them and roast them in the oven, when ready, they peel very easily. Let them cool before mixing with the other ingredients.

Remove the orange peel in long thin strips (trying not to get any of the white skin, as it is bitter) or cutting it off before slicing finely.

Finally, just mix, season with the oils, salt and pepper to taste and serve! If you are not going to serve right away, it’s best to keep the ingredients separate, so the hazelnuts retain their crunch, or at least to avoid seasoning until the last minute.

Con appétit!!!!

Rosemary rösti crust…A healthy & tasty alternative to a pastry based quiche

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:27:00 +0000

I’ve taken this month off, the truth is that I still feel “off”, someone close to us has passed away and it has shattered our world. I cannot remember having truly dealt with this sort of grief before…memories, many of which I was anaware of have striked me, to make me reconsider attitudes, priorities, to live in order to not regret. I don’t want time to slowly wash away these feelings, to wipe those ideas as our everyday race engulfs us in its maelstrom. But, I’m also literally out of breath, I have difficulty breathing from this whirlpool of emotions. Nothing time won’t heal, but I need time, so I’m taking it slowly…

Anyway, I meant to publish this quiche a few weeks back which is when I first tried it and fell in love with the possibility of substituting the usual “pâté brisée” used as a pastry base for most quiches and tarts with this flavourful, cheaper, healthier and quicker alternative!!I was browsing through food photographs by Con Poulos when I came across one of quiche that caught my attention for the rustic look of the crust that linked to this recipe site. I read about the shredded potato crust and though I love röstis it hadn’t occurred to me to use it as a quiche base!

I decided to give it a try with the belief that although tasty, the cream base would pour through the base (which honestly wouldn’t matter much as you can even make quiches without a crust -call them flans or puddings- but in this case it would get soggy rather than the nice crunchy contrast). I sticked with the recipe main filling ingredients, that is mushrooms and spinach, because I had liked the looks, but of course you can change them to whatever is in season or you like, like cherry tomatoes, bacon & onion, roasted rep peppers and goat cheese, the possibilities are endless and up to you. I just changed the cream base to one more to my liking (the original recipe was low-fat…I’m not so concerned in making it such) and made the rösti base my way, skipping the chopped onion part to make it quicker, not adding any cornflour but using floury potatoes instead for a crisper but lighter result and adding some garlic and fresh romesary to flavour the potatoes…that went beautifully with the mushroom filling, I find.

So, here it is, I hope you give the crust a try, because it is an excellent approach to making quiches, add to it any flavourings available to you according to the time you want to spend to make it. For a quick rösti crust, just spice it with something that goes well with your filling, fresh herbs (I’d love to try sage, for instance with a ricotta and spinach tart…like traditional raviolis!)or dried ones, some pastes (like red pepper paste), slowly fried onion and bacon…Pick one, you won’t regret it!

Spinach & mushroom quiche with rosemary & garlic rösti crust

For the crust:

aprox 450g peeled floury potatoes

1-2 tbsp of olive oil

3-4 whole garlic cloves

some fresh rosemary, finely sliced

salt and fresly ground pepper, to taste

For the filling:

150g of cream (or up to 200g if it fits your mould)

2 eggs

more salt & pepper to taste

50g or more of a cheese that melts ( I used Arzúa Ulloa, which I’m addicted to)

200g of mushrooms (I used portobello, but if you have a tastier variety, even better!)

250g of fresh (baby) spinach

some more sprigs of rosemary

Begin by grating the peeled potatoes with a coarse grind

Season them to taste with the salt & freshly ground pepper and the finely chopped up rosemary (if you choose to use it)

Preheat lightly a 26-28cm skillet (if you haven’t got one, in any case I’d go bigger, to make sure you get at least 2-3cm sides on a 22cm quiche mould.

Add the bit of olive oil and add the seasoned grated potatoes together with the garlic cloves lightly smashed to release their aroma & flavour.

Give it a few turns to flavour the potato and soften (cook) it lightly and spread it evenly over the base and remember to remove the garlic cloves :)

It is IMPERATIVE, that your pan is non-stick, or at least very helpful, as the cooked potato pancake will slide off easily, otherwise you may go through hell!!So, if it isn’t I suggest you cure it with some salt so the potato doesn’t stick

Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until you get a light golden colour on the bottom and invert over the greased (with olive oil) quiche pan. I lined it with some parchment (just in case) but it would have come out without a problem).

Bake for about 15 minutes on a 180ºC (fan-assisted) preheated oven to get again a golden colour (lighter to how you like it). Take into account, that it will need about 15 minutes more with the filling to cook, so if left to the colour you like blind baked, it will get too dark later.

Meanwhile prepare your filling ingredients, in this case, sauté the spinach in batches in a drizzle of oil, remove excess water by pressing against a strainer and season as instructed here.

Sautée the chopped mushrooms, with some more garlic cloves and rosemary if you like over high heat with little olive oil. Again, just remember to remove them once finished.

And mix the eggs and the cream and set aside to season just before filling.

When the crust is ready, assemble it, adding some of the greated cheese in the bottom to impermeabilise the crust a bit and distributing the rest of the ingredients to finally pour in the seasoned quiche cream mix almost up to the rim.

Bake until set, which will probably take 15 more minutes. If you like a paler look to the top, simply lower the temperature to 150ºC and just cook longer until set.

Ready to enjoy! Let cool or serve inmediately!

Kısır…a tasty fresh turkish bulghur salad

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:02:00 +0000

I discovered this recipe, for most “the turkish version of tabbouleh”, from Ottolenghi’s cookbook Plenty (one of my favourite cookbooks together with his first book). I searched for it on the web to learn more about this dish and found two photos that didn’t make it to the print, but that speak for themselves, one in his own blog and another in his The Guardian Column “The New Vegetarian”. I’ve got to admit, that I am quite visual, so I get more inspired by photos than usually by recipes. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try it!

Not that long ago, I had bought some different grades/coarseness of bulghur wheat to play around my take on tabbouleh, for which I undoubtedly preferred the fine grind. I’ve read various recipes in which they suggest the use of cracked wheat instead of bulghur, for those who may be confussed as to the difference between the two. As far as I know, bulghur is durum wheat kernels, bran removed, parboiled and then dried and cracked to different sizes. Whereas cracked wheat is just that cracked wheat, meaning it isn’t previously cooked, so it will take longer to cook. So, if you do use cracked wheat for any of these recipes, count on longer cooking times and more liquid to hydrate it.

Anyway, about the coarseness I’ve chosen for this salad/side-dish, although I’ve read that it is often done with fine bulghur, I preferred the bite the coarser grind brings much better. Plus, since in Ottolenghi’s recipe a “sofrito” is made rather than all ingredients mixed into the cooked wheat, the coarser bulghur absorbs more flavour and stays well separated to be then mixed with all the herbs and vegetables of choice. The only BUT is that I was missing two ingredients from Ottolenghi’s list: the pomegranate molasses (which are used in the south of Turkey to season this dish instead of the lemon juice to give it it’s sour notes)…PLEASE anyone who knows where to find sour pomegranate molasses in Spain, let me know!!!I’ve been looking for it for over a year, no joke! And the other, which is also for looks are the pomegranate seeds, now expensive and not in season…so I used some broken up walnuts instead, which I find go really well!Other than that, all I can do is INSIST you give it a try, it won’t disappoint you!

Kısır (adapted from Ottolenghi’s Plenty recipe)

(enough for 4 generous servings)

400g of coarse bulghur

2 medium onions, finely chopped up

optional: 1 garlic clove

about 75g of olive oil, plus extra to drizzle to the finished salad

1,5 tbsp of concentrated tomato purée (I used this)

1/2 tbsp of red bell pepper paste*

3 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced

optional: some cherry tomatoes cut in half or more fresh tomatoes diced

200g of water (he uses much less, but also suggests the medium bulghur)

1 tsp of ground cumin

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

about 2 tbsp of lemon juice or to taste

a handful of parsley, lightly shredded

a handful of mint leaves, lightly shredded

1 spring onion or the tender stalks of 3 or 4

a handful of walnuts, broken up a bit

*Ottolenghi does not use this paste, which is traditional in this dish, but instead adds green chillies. I substituted it for Harissa hot sauce. But if you have neither, just use 2tbsp of tomato paste and some dried chilli flakes to give it a quick!

Now, for the super simple recipe, make a sofrito with the onion, finely chopped up in brunoise and the olive oil (and the garlic, if you like, I didn’t add any either here or when seasoning). Cook over lowe heat until the onion is soft and translucent.

Then, add the tomato and pepper paste, cook a little bit and add the chopped up tomatoes and further cook for 5 minutes or so. Add the water,season to taste and bring it to a boil and stir in the bulghur. Inmediately, turn the heat off and cover so that the liquid get’s absorbed and the bulghur softens a bit, for about 15 minutes. It should get “al dente”, neither crunchy not mushy…so it’s always best to err on the crunchy side, as you can add more boiling water and cover to soften some more to taste.

When ready, leave uncovered until it comes to room temperature. Then, season to taste with extra salt if needed, pepper, the cumin, the lemon juice and pomegranate if available...it should be slightly on the soury side, to bring out that freshness. Add the finely sliced spring onion, the broken up walnuts and when ready to serve the herbs lightly shredded or whole if the leaves are very small like in the picture. If you like, you can also add some finely chopped up cucumber or more tomatoes.

Peach, nectarine & ricotta galette on wholewheat & oat pastry

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:57:00 +0000

I really like galettes, savoury or sweet, they are really easy to put together and like pizzas are a good base for many combinations of seasonal ingredients. Last week I made a pâte brisée (savoury dough) to use up some courgette we had picked up from the orchard. I used the ingredients I had at hand: some wholemeal flour along with AP flour and I though of using up some rolled oats that have been sitting in the pantry for a while. As a filling I made a base with an “unorthodox” ricotta I’d made following Smitten kitchen’s recipe (in between a ricotta and a mascarpone really), the finely sliced courgettes scattered with some bacon that was close to it’s deadline! We absolutely loved the results! The dough was crispy and buttery, also you could really taste the toasted oats. The touch of ricotta made it really soft inside, which contrasted beautifully with the light crunch of the bacon bits and parmesan shreds put over the whole thing. But…I didn’t get to take pictures of any of it!

So, I gave a try to the sweet version of the dough, just incorporating some sugar and grated lemon rind (you could use orange instead…and I might even prefer it, but didn’t have any!) and as a topping some summer peaches and nectarines…over a bit of sweetened citrus ricotta as well. Here’s the result…I wouldn’t change anything other than perhaps the orange rind for the lemon one! I must say that I love summer fruit sooo much that I am always reluctant to alter it in any way to make desserts (other than the juices of citrus fruits for curds and such) except if transformed into shakes (frozen pulp sorbets), lassis (iced yoghurt drinks) or sorbets. But, this is one of the few exceptions…

I used the ricotta, because it’s what I had at hand, but an overnight drained greek yoghurt, crème fraîche or mascarpone are great alternatives…or you can just skip it altogether as the fruit on it’s own is good enough plus you can season it with spiced or rinds to taste!I also topped it with some blueberries I have frozen, if you like the looks or contrast, you can add any berry before or even after baking. Dust with icing sugar if you have a sweet tooth and you like how it looks at the end…and enjoy the contrast of the crisp toasted oat dough with the creamy citrus ricotta and luscious baked fruit!

Peach, nectarine and ricotta galette on wholemeal & oat pastry

(for 1x25cm diameter galette)

For the pâte sucrée:

60g wholewheat flour

60g AP or cake flour

20g rolled oats + extra for sprinkling

70g ice cold butter

35-40g sugar (or more to taste)

1 cold yolk plus some of the white or ice-cold water to make 30g

pinch of salt

some finely grated lemon or orange rind to taste

For the ricotta:

80g ricotta

grated rind of about half a lemon or some orange

aprox 5g of icing sugar or to taste

drizzle of lemon juice, to taste

For the peach/nectarine filling:

1 medium nectarine+ 1 peach (or 2 of either)

10g sugar, to season or to taste depending on how ripe the fruit is

aprox 5g of cornflour

drizzle of lemon juice to taste

If you are willing to make your ricotta/mascarpone yourself refer to the smitten kitchen recipe. I used 750g of pasteurised whole milk (not UHT)+ 250g of whipping cream (35% fat) with a bit of salt. Warmed up both to about 85ºC and added 2 tbsp of lemon juice.

The first time I prepared it, I expected it to curdle much more, so thinking it wasn’t enough, I kept adding lemon juice. The result was nice but on the soury side, so the times after that, I’ve just added enough juice to see the curds forming and tasting to make sure it didn’t feel sour. If you want some more info on this, I found this link on Serious Eats quite enlightening, though the drainage times vary considerable depending on what type of cheesecloth you are using!Still, I find it quite cool to make and it can find various uses, like these zucchini flowers&ricotta pizzas!

Ah, and here is the courgette galette phone shot before being devoured!

As you can see, it’s the same idea.

Anyway, back to making the ricotta…Once enough lemon juice (or any acid, for that matter) is added, let it sit a few minutes and strain over cheese or butter cloth. I have this cool really fine mesh coffee filter that cost me…about 0.50€, well worth the investment ;) I always use it to strain stocks leaving almost no impurities! It works like a charm! And just strain it for as long as needed to get the consistency you like. As simple as that!

Then, just whip the amount in the recipe (or more if you want a thicker layer) with the sugar, lemon or orange rind and lemon juice and set aside.

Prepare the pâte sucrée, which is the sweet counterpart of a pâte brisée. The sablée is usually sweeter but always has more fat, in the form of butter and egg yolks rather than ice-cold liquid, be it water or milk or…I always use the following mnemotecnic proportion and adjust according to the results I want: 4:2:1, that is 1 part flour, half of that of butter (or more for a sablée) and half of that of sugar. Then, I decide if I want it crumblier (with water or milk) or that holds better together (with some egg, as the proteins aid binding it. And always, be it sweet or savoury, a pinch of salt. Of course you can add any flavourings to taste or play around with the flours, like in this case. Does it help?

Anyway, I just put together the flours (I sifted the plain white one), and pounded lightly to leave some texture the oats (you could also increase the amount and reduce that of white or wholewheat flour).

Now, the other key to making pastries…the mixing technique. You can use either of the two methods: “sablage” or “cremage”. The first, my preferred one most of the time, means mixing the flour and butter into crumbs resembling sand “sable” in french, thereby the descriptive name. Then, you add the liquids and if sweet, the sugar. The “cremage” as the name implies, which is used for sweet dough, means creaming the sugar and the butter until pale and that the sugar is dissolved, then adding slowly the eggs or liquid and finally adding the flour in 1 “coup” all together at once.

I prefer the sablage method, 1) because I find it quicker and easier and 2) because I like to leave the butter in pea-size bits not completely integrated resulting in a more puff-pastry texture. So, for this method, it is key that all ingredients or at least the butter and liquid ingredients are very cold. This is for two main reasons, namely so that the butter doesn’t melt and so that the gluten does not develop at all, resulting in that crumbly pastry. Also, this is why it’s in any case important with these sort of pastries to NEVER overmix once wet and dry ingredients are mixed independent of the method, for the more you work the dough, the drier and less crumbly it gets!

So, a quick trick I use is to place the whole piece of butter in the freezer (in this case it was a can, so I had to scoop out pieces), dip it into the flour and grate it with a coarse grater, that way it wont stick and you will already get small pieces, so you will save time and barely any mixing is required. Or you can go the food processor route by chopping the cold butter in small squares and blend them to get the crumbs. Add the flavourings then, or rub them into the sugar that will be mixed with the liquids and mixed all at once barely kneading, just bringing the whole lot together into a ball. Then, just wrap in film and leave to rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge (a bit more is better).

Cut the nectarine and peach by half to remove the stone and then cut each one into thin slices, depending on the size it will be about 16 slices. Season with the sugar, the bit of lemon juice and some cornflour to soak up the juices as it bakes and avoid making the pastry soggy. I usuall just sprinkle a bit to coat lightly, so if you feel you need more or less according to how juicy your fruit is, trust your instincts!

After the the dough has rested, roll out over some parchment paper (as you can tell I reuse mine a few times!:) ) flouring as needed (removing excess, so you don’t get lumps of flour that will taste ackward when cooked) on both sides until you get a very fine (about 3mm thick) circle, it will be about 30-35 cm, which once the sides are folded over leave you a 25cm galette.

I like to rest the stretched out dough a few minutes in the fridge or freezer before filling it and baking it, but it’s not really necessary. Smear the seasoned ricotta over the surface, leaving about 3 cm borders free to fold in later. Then arrange the peach & nectarine slices in a decorative pattern or without taking too much care for a more rustic look (you can also trim the borders of the galette to make a clean circle or leave them…which I prefer unless you are making lots of small ones, which is more convenient to stretch and cut with a pastry ring cutter). Fold the borders in by segments, one after the other.

And if you like a shinier effect brush the borders with egg wash. Also, you can sprinkle some granulated sugar over and some extra oats for decoration.

Bake at 180ºC for about 25 minutes, if the pastry is still not golden enough, you can lower the temperature to 160ºC and continue baking 5 more minutes or as needed.

You can drizzle with some agave syrup or brush some peach jam as it comes out of the oven for a little shine. Let cool down slightly and enjoy!!

My favourite croquetas: flavourful but delicate boletus croquetas

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 23:18:00 +0000

As most of you know, croquetas, are a typical “tapa” in Spain. They are basically a thickened bechamel sauce, with various flavourings (most often cured ham: if you are lucky “jamón ibérico” though most likely just “jamón serrano”) coated with breadcrumbs and fried. The resulting fritter if served at once, should be crunchy on the outside (and not greasy) and creamy, meltingly soft on the inside bursting with flavour. Most often than not, this is not the case! Most restaurants now recur to the industrial frozen version (which could be good…but usually are not!) which has an evident excess of flour and with a deceptive flavour; bland in most cases as a result of little amount of “flavourings” or poor quality ones.

That said, though it can be time-consuming to prepare, it is very rewarding as a lot can be made ahead, be frozen and then fried from frozen to convenience. They are (deceptively) simple to make, but once you get the key points right, it really is a piece of cake. Though as with most dishes, I do like to take my time to get the most out of the ingredients in terms of flavour and texture. I think that with cooking in general you’ve got to take your time, not necesarily because it is time-consuming, but because you have to have all your senses in to get the most out of it. At least that’s how it is for me, it is amazing how things can turn out when I have a bad day and I get in the kitchen because “I have to” but I’m not really in the mood to cook. Things most likely will come out “just ok” (at least for me) or something simple might turn into a nightmare as I’m not really focusing on what I’m doing and I keep having to “fix” mistakes. On the contrary, when I’m doing what I want, it just flows and the results are more than evident!So, if possible, try to put that little time aside and be willing to cook to get what you want…it will most likely show in the results!

Anyway, about the croquetas…I have already published a more general post on croquetas, using cured ham as a flavouring. So the basic method is there, but here is my all-time favourite croqueta recipe flavoured with boletus! It is true that I do love this mushroom, it is one of my favourites, it not my favourite, but the resulting croqueta has a delicate flavour, evident, though not overwhelming. The creamy bechamel is tanned from using the hydrating liquid, so less mushroom as such is needed to give the right amount of flavour. A work mate suggested using a bit of another (cheaper) mushroom to give it more of a bite within the meltingly soft bechamel and it worked wonders. So, for little money you get a full of flavour “croqueta” to fry straight from your freezer as guests come or as you got a craving! I hope you like it as much as we do…I can only tell you that everyone else that tries it falls in love with it!;)

Boletus croquetas

(for about 50 medium sized croquetas)

800ml of milk

250ml of water (to hydrate the boletus and obtain 200g of flavoured water)

80g of mild-flavoured olive oil

80g of unsalted butter

175g of flour (you can use 160g for softer ones or up to 180g for denser ones)

1 medium sized leek

30g of dehydrated boletus mushrooms

150g-200g of fresh oyster mushrooms (or another inexpensive and mildly flavoured mushroom…mainly for texture)

salt & freshly milled black pepper

some semolina to coat (or flour, if not available)

1 egg to coat

breadcrumbs to coat*

*If you can get panko breadcrumbs, I’d go for them, for a crunchier coating. But this time I made my own by simply grating stale white bread (ideally without the crust)with a coarse grater and sifting through a thick colander to remove larger bits…although not as large as panko flakes, it was fairly close and I definately prefer it over fine crumbs.

To begin, hydrate the mushrooms by just covering with the water from the recipe. I use little water to concentrate the flavour and then add that to the milk, which adds creaminess. When soft, strain and weigh or check that you got the right amount of water: about 200g, otherwise add a bit more milk.

Chop up both mushrooms into smaller pieces and stir fry over high heat with very little oil, first the oyster mushrooms, then add the boletus.

They should just get golden, which will add more flavour into the bechamel. It is important to not use excess oil or to strain it at the end, or else if added to the cooked bechamel, that oil will separate giving a light “split” look. Then, just reserve to add later. Sorry about these photos, but they were taken at night, so the colours are so-so and there are shades everywhere!

Now with the leek “sofrito”, chop the leek as finely as possible. I first cut it in manageable pieces lengthwise, then slice it finely into a julienne and then cut that in brunoise.

Slowly fry it in the olive oil until very soft, but not coloured. Then, add the butter to melt to prepare the roux.

Add the flour and cook it over low heat for a while to get the raw taste out. Then add the milk+boletus flavoured water constantly whisking to blend it and avoid lumps until it’s completely homogeneous. At last incorporate the sautéed mushrooms.

Then, bring it slowly to a boil, constantly stirring to avoid it sticking to the bottom until it completely comes apart from the sides forming a denser dough-like batter.

Pour onto a tupper or mould to set, ideally until the next day. When it’s gained consistency, cut pieces out and roll them sprinkling a bit of semolina or flour. I’ve just realised that semolina works excellent as it sticks less, so you avoid adding excess flour which gives a doughy flavour and aids in adding crunchiness after frying.

Get ready 1 beaten egg which a tad of milk or water to make a bit liquidy without diluting it too much, a small frying pan and a tray of the breadcrumbs (the larger, the more comfortable to work with).

Roll the chunks of dough out and cut to the desired size and round them over the surface as if you were working with playdough. If you like the typical croqueta shape, just roll the balls a bit pressing on the center.

Place a few at a time on the pan and pour a bit of egg and sauté them until they are completely covered with egg and drop over the breadcrumbs. The great thing about this method, other than saving on egg (less than one egg for the whole recipe!) is that it’s very clean, as only the amount of egg needed to coat the croquetas is used, so when they are poured on the breadcrumbs, there’s no leaking of egg. So, you don’t need to keep sifting the crumbs.

Place the finished croquetas on a tray or large tupper side by side and freeze. Then, when frozen you can pack them in ziplock bags.

When you want to serve them, fry from frozen…

…serve and enjoy!!

Three star duck foie gras mi-cuit

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Some time ago I watched a series of videos and learnt about the “gavage” (feeding) ducks and geese undergo to obtain the foie gras. From that point on, as much as I liked this highly-valued delicacy, I was determined to not contribute to that and thus to stop buying foie gras in any form for myself. But, since I still have to work with it from time to time, to make it for others or to teach others how to make it, I thought I’d take the fact that I recently had to prepare it for work, to show those who might be interested how to make a proper mi-cuit at home, much better than most you will find ready made.

It may sound contradicting, but the truth is that aside from the fact that for ethical reasons I do not want to make it for myself from over a year back, I’ve learnt to cook using foie since I began working in kitchens. When I started this profession, it was in all the reknown restaurant menus, so I had no choice but to learn how to properly prepare it. And truth be told, I do agree that it is a delicacy, not just for it’s high price, but because if well-prepared it can be delicious; a subtle flavour with a melt in your mouth texture but with a bit of a bite. Though it is a liver, don’t be fooled, it doesn’t resemble a normal (non-gras) liver, not even from a distance. The flavour is completely different, the texture has nothing to do with it…and obviously neither does the price!

But, like I said it is up to you to decide whether to consume it or not…A bit of info on the upbringing of these ducks: The duck used to obtain foie gras is from the “Mulard”variety, and only the males serve this purpose, as the females have too many veins. The ducks go through a healthy upbringing for 3 months (this is the “élevage”). Then, once they have reached maturity, the “gavage” (forced feeding) as such begins (this is the part that disgusts me). It will last about 14 days on which the ducks will be fed about 1kg of corn twice daily to reach the adequate weight.

This forced-feeding will lead to a hypertrophied liver, that is a larger, fatter liver that plays a role in fat storage due to an imbalance between the excessive production of fat and the (in)capacity to eliminate that fat. Though some people have argued the resulting liver is a sick liver,as far as I’ve read, this is not true, as ducks who are removed from the fattening process return within a few days to their normal liver weight, as happens naturally in the wild when migratory birds have depleted their resources after a long journey. BUT, though they are not sick livers, I do believe the animals are in inhumane conditions. Just like hens are in egg farms, but I find this to be worse as it is “gourmet food”, thus not used to feed a population! Type “gavage” on google and you will get to the ugly side of this, I’m sorry I just couldn’t link to it as it tears me to read or watch it.

Just to finish off on what a foie gras is, for the “appelation”, to be considered as such, in ducks, only livers within the 300g-800g range are accepted; on the lower end up to 550g are the “grand cuisine” ones (considered best quality), on the higher end the “restauration” ones. In terms of nutrition, as expected a foie gras is high in fat, though surprisingly most of the fatty acids in it are oleique acid, that which we find in olive oil, rather than saturated fats,as may be expected. So, I wouldn’t make this the reason to avoid foie gras.

After all this, I leave you to what I find the best way to make a mi-cuit terrine (well, in a more convenient cylinder shape!). I hope those of you who like foie gras try it and find that it delivers an extraordinary quality terrine. The starting point, though, is a good quality foie gras!Here’s most of what you need to know…

Duck foie gras mi-cuit

1 duck foie gras (the one I used was about 600g)

13g/kg of salt (I used 8g/600g of foie)

pinch of granulated sugar (I used 1,5g)

freshly milled black pepper

8g of brandy

4g of sherry

8g of port*

*Port is traditionally added to the goose foie gras terrine, whereas armagnac is used for duck ones, but I like adding both!

Many foie gras are found vacuum packed fresh or frozen, so it is difficult to tell the quality. The colour, more yellowish or paler is not necessarily a sign of quality, it simply depends on what the type of corn they’ve been fed on. But, do look for redish stains or bruises, which are not desirable.

If you can check the foie gras fresh, as many french producers sell it, simply wrapped in a sort of parchment paper, look for a foie gras that when pressed though firm, leaves an indentation but that does not feel greasy to the touch, which means it will melt too easily to withhold the slow cooking required to make the terrine without loosing fat.

Most chefs recommend immersing the whole foie gras (out of it’s bag, if it comes in one, and already thawed if it was frozen) in salted water at around 35ºC. That is right, but I prefer to use cooler water, from 25ºC-30ºC maximum(specially now in summer, in winter it may be best to raise to the higher end), which results in a malleable foie gras to work with, but with less tendency to get greasy from heating it with your fingers as you work.

Leave it (covered, it’s a fresh liver after all) for at least 1 hour, until it comes to that temperature and feels softer to the touch. This salted water will draw out impurities and some blood from the veins, as well as temper it.

When ready, remove it from the salted bath and drain it on kitchen paper well. I like to work over a parchment paper to remove the veins on a clean surface and also cause it is really convenient to at the end, just throw away the paper and the veins removed keeping the work surface clean from being in contact with the fatty liver. Hope that convinces you!

The liver consists of two lobes, the large one and the small one, both connected which you’ll need to cut loose to work with each one at a time. The larger one is easier to devein, as the main veins are always located in the same way, whereas the smaller one is just a web of veins difficult to keep track of! So, I always start with the larger one to keep my patience and not demoralize!;)

Place the large one thicher side down leaving the smooth side down. The idea with both is to open as much as needed on one side to remove the veins, keeping the other smooth side intact, so that when placed back together, it almost looks as if it’s back to normal!

Use the back of a knife rather than the cutting edge, precisely to avoid cutting the veins and rather just slowly scratch off flesh to expose them and then with your forefinger cleaning it and pull to find the smaller ones that follow from the larger ones.

You will find one vertical large vein running from top to bottom at around 1cm inside the flesh, once you find it, like I said with the back of the knife run it to either side as if you were opening a book to see the smaller connections. Slowly pull with your fingers removing all the smaller ones attached.

Once that first set is removed, 1cm further down runs the next large vein, repeat the same way. Try to get rid of as many of the smaller veins as possible, as a vein can ruin the texture of a good terrine, it happens way too often!Also try to get rid of the little drops of blood you find, or those will affect the resulting homogeneous colour and may give a bitter taste.

If your hands are hot and you realize it feels like you are literally melting the foie gras, try to immerse them in ice-cold water as you work, drying before touching it, and immersing again as they get warm again.

Funny that my hands used to be soo warm before, so I had to recur to the cooling of my hands; but with time, they have cooled down?!?God knows why?But this trick does it!

Devein the small lobe, though here you must trust your instincts! Go slowly trying to find all veins, just remember to keep the bottom side smooth and whole!

Here are both lobes and the veins removed…

Time to season! I never really measure the amount of salt and sugar, though it is always said 13g/kg is just right. I checked this time and it was about right! It will look like your foie gras surface is saturated with salt, but don’t worry, it is a must if you want it to have a taste, otherwise it will be too bland.

Then, season with a bit of sugar all over the surface (many people don’t add any, but I think it works great for flavour!). Then, pepper, freshly milled if possible! and then a not so light hand with the alcohols :) Well, I’m sort of generous and the amounts I’ve given in the recipe for the 600g foie gras are what I used to taste. Andoni Luis Aduriz, the chef of Mugaritz, who wrote a book on foie gras, recommends: 8cc of armagnac for a 600g foie, 3cc of port and 3cc of dry sherry. As you can see, I’m a bit more generous, specially with the port, I love the notes it brings!!…

Traditionally after seasoning, the foie was covered and left to macerate for 1 day in the fridge. But, I find that if cooked and then given that rest it works really well. So, time to wrap it up…First, notice how when folded back in place, the foie doesn’t look as damaged after all that extensive vein removal!!All the cut sides go inside, so it looks pretty neat again!

Place it on a cling film leaving the roll, to wrap it up. What we are aiming at now is to remove ALL excess air and press the cylinder tight! You don’t have to shape it as a cylinder, though it is usually done this way and it is quite convenient. In a restaurant I worked at, we kept the foie gras shape intact, just wrapping up in cling film to remove the air and then vacuuming in speacial bags up to about 80%, to avoid squashing of the delicate lobes! If you prefer that shape, keep it, even if you haven’t got a sous-vide machine.

Have a pin or brochette at hand to pick air bubbles as you turn to wrap. Give it as many turns as you need to get a tight cylinder with no air in.

Then, with some twine or cling film threads, cut from the roll (I find this more convenient) secure the sides, rolling to maintain the log tight!

Once rolled, time to cook it. The traditional methods are to either cook it in the oven (at around 70ºC) until the interior temperature is about 45ºC (also, most recipes, advice up to 60ºC), or to do so in a water bath at that temperature, 65-70ºC. But, once I learnt how to use the oven for the mi-cuit, I no longer want to go back to any other method!I was taught to use the oven at high temperature, almost top power for short periods of time, seconds and then, to cool rapidly in iced water.

I’ve slowly shifted onto doing it in a way that I find works best. That is, microwave on very low power, that is from 200-400watts (most microwaves go up to 1000 Watts), sort of like when melting chocolate. This way, the cooking is even, less fat melts and it reaches a perfect, homogeneous cooking, with a fade still slightly pinkish colour. That to me is the best texture, it melts in your mouth and it reaches enough temperature to mingle all those flavours from the seasonings in a very subtle way!

How to tell when it’s ready? By touch! Well, and visually. You should place the foie gras at that power for about 30 second intervals, touch it to test and turn it around for an even cooking. When it’s almost ready for even shorter periods of time. It will be ready when it feels slightly warmer than body temperature and when you see a thin yellowish fat layer forming.

A thin layer, that is, not a thick fat layer as most traditional terrines have…Not that it’s bad, but you just loose too much texture as fat cells burst and melt!So, keep it low (in temperature) until it feels just warmish!Funny that I think I measured how much it was…but I forgot!It’s best to just “feel” it and “see” it, that will tell you best!

Below, though it doesn’t show that well, is the foie gras before going into the microwave, when ready and out and once cooled and set. It will be soft when cooked, it is mainly fat, so like butter at room temperature, it will feel soft until cooled down.

If you can immerse the ready-cooked cylinder into an ice bath…though most of the time, if done right, it can go into the freezer to cool, even if not as fast, to let it continue a bit with the residual heat built up inside. It’s a matter of practice.

You can leave in the freezer, though I think it’s best to leave 1 day in the fridge and then freeze it either whole or into convenient portions that you want to defrost one at a time. Then, just enjoy finely sliced over some toasted bread or brioche (like in the first photo, refer to this brioche recipe, in one word: heavenly!). The truth is that the photo doesn’t make it justice as it was still too soft to handle and added some PX & balsamic reduction (Pedro Ximenez) but took too long to take the photo. But I can assure you it was good…or so did everyone in that cocktail think!

To cut it use a warmed up knife, either with a blowtorch (be careful!though it sounds obvious) or by immersing in some hot water and then dried up before each cut. Or if you have got a wire cheese slicer go ahead!

If you decide to try to make your own terrine, I hope this works for you!

Ah, by the way, mi-cuit means half-cooked in french, to differ with a traditional terrine in which the foie gras is usually cooked a bit more. Though, I think it’s terrible to have a mi-cuit underdone, I equally dislike it overcooked. But, if you prefer it, simply cook it for a bit longer until more yellowish fat forms around the cylinder. Bon ap’

More raspberry…into fluffy & flavourful marshmallows!

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:01:00 +0000

I was addicted to candy when I was a kid, all my weekly allowance went into a bag as big as I could afford of assorted gummies!By that time I already preferred the soury ones over the sweet ones!This post is just a reminiscence of that time gone past which comes back from time to time with the urge to get a dose!;) But this is definately a much healthier option and with more possibilities to play around your favourite flavours into this candy form.

We made these in class last week to use up some infused strawberry syrup we had prepared for a panna cotta and left-over egg whites. Someone, who made me a big favour!, liked the idea and asked for the recipe, so here it goes! I chose raspberry at home, simply because I still have so much of it! But my favourite marshmallow flavours are amongst others: lime rind, coke & lemon (the coke needs to be reduced), passionfruit & kumquat and orange rind & orange blossom…Bailey’s is most people’s favourite, but I find it too sweet!. The recipe is the same, just substitute the raspberry juice for the juice, drink or essence of choice…to taste!Obviously for orange blossom, use with caution as too much tastes like perfume! or for the lime one, add the rind of half and juice to taste etc.

Like I said, this is a good way to use up left-over egg whites, and a much simpler one to making macarons! Though to do marshmallows the whites can be omitted by simply melting enough jelly into juice and sugar syrup or corn syrup, I prefer this method as it gives the marshmallows a fluffier texture. Also, if you are lucky enough to have a kitchen Aid mixer or any mixer of the sort, it makes your life easier and you will get even better results! Making them in the work’s kitchen Aid was dead easy, perfect texture. On the other hand, making them with a a handheld mixer is definately more work…but it works! Believe me, we’ve even made them beating by hand! Tiring, but not impossible, just get someone nearby to take over before your arm in numb ;)!

Raspberry marshmallows

(for 1 20x20cm tray)

2 egg whites (about 30g each)

100g of raspberry puree(I used this raspberry sauce, though fresh juice is best)

250g of white sugar

some water to wet the sugar (about 100g)

8 gelatin sheets, gold*

some lemon juice to taste, I used half a medium lemon to compensate the sauce

icing sugar, to coat*

*That is simply the commercial presentation according to the gelifying power (in bloom degrees)

**I blended some lyophilised raspberries with icing sugar in a coffee grinder to coat the marshmallows for a more intense and sour cover and a bright pink colour, but use either just icing sugar or mix with some sideral “pica pica” candy for a soury touch!

Get your raspberry puree ready, if you have to make it, I find it’s better strained off the seeds.

Hydrate your gelatin sheets (if you use powdered neutral gelatin, use about 14-16g) in cold water. If you haven’t used this before, it is important that the water is cold, specially now in summer when cold tab water is tepid! Otherwise when you try to grab them, you will find they’ve melted in! So, if you need to, add a pair of icecubes!

Then, simply remove excess water over a kitchen paper, so you don’t introduce extra moisture into the recipe.

More mise-en-place, prepare your mould, about a 20x20cm tupper or square metal ring over a tray, or the equivalent rectangular size (if you are daunty enough, you could skip all this and fill up a piping bag with the mixture to pipe the round marshmallow longs into a parchment sprinkled with icing sugar or a mix of icing-sugar and cornflour). For the mould bit, line with film or parchment and lightly grease with a neutral flavoured oil. That’s done!See the photo later on…

Place the sugar in a small pan with a bit of water, just enough to cover…if you add too much, no problem, it will just reduce until it get’s to the right consistency!The less water, the sooner it get’s to that syrup stage. Over medium heat reduce until you get to the firm ball stage, past the 120ºC. To test, if you haven’t got a thermometer, I find it easier to check when if goes past the thread stage, that is, when if you take a bit in between the forefinger and the thumb it makes a thick thread…Then, it will be past 116ºC, a minute more or so and it will do (for the photo, I wasn’t quick enough!so it doesn’t show very well). If you want to be precise, as the link says, grab a drop with the tip of a fork or so, immerse into a glass with cold water to cool and as you remove it, you should feel a malleable but firm ball.

If you have a kitchen aid or a robust mixer of the sort, you want to start beating your whites when the syrup is at about 110ºC or so, that is, when it begins to thicken and the bubbles are a bit smaller, as it will take no time to have them whipped up to make the italian meringue when you have the syrup ready. If you have a hand blender, begin a bit earlier, just in case :)

You want to reach firm peaks before you add the ready syrup, but do not whip past that stage or they will get dry and grainy, still you can add a bit of lemon juice or cream of tartar to avoid the grainyness.

Then, pour the syrup in a thin thread as you continue whipping (again…I love kitchen aids!). When all is incorporated, add the jelly sheets one at a time. From the heat of the meringue, they will melt, though if you prefer to melt them into the puree by heating it a little, or adding both that to the syrup, no problem. If you have added them one at a time, when melted, add the puree, juice or whatever (I haven’t added any colouring, but you can add a few drops of colouring here) and continue beating until the mixture thickens considerably and comes to room temperature…just don’t let it cool so much as to let the jelly set!!

Pour onto the lined mould/tupper, tap it a few times against the working surface to smooth the top and just let it set.

I love the looks of the sticky bits in the bowl!

When set, unmould…the film will come easily off if you greased it well. Another option to greasing is sprinkling icing sugar (on it’s own or with a bit of cornflour) on the surface, but the sides will probably stick, that’s why I prefer greasing. Cut to the desired size.

Coat with the icing sugar, the sideral candy or like I’ve done, the lyo raspberry powder mixed with icing sugar…and ready to eat!

By the way, those pink nibs around are the lyo raspberry!

Keep in the fridge best to keep it fresh, or it will dry up quite quickly if uncovered or go bad otherwise. Hope you or your kids like it!

Two ways to an addictive raspberry clafoutis, plus a tasty jam!

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:31:00 +0000

A few weeks back when I published my second try at Tartine bread in “Madrid Tiene Miga” I had heard about clafoutis and remembered having seen it in Cannelle et Vanille more than once; but had never tried it. It was in my “to try” but had forgotten about it, until from a commentary from Roser I linked to her blog and there it was to remind me! She encouraged me to give it a try and so I began by reading a bit more about this traditional french dessert to learn what it really was and since I had never tried it for comparison, what the result was meant to be…Then came recipe research and then the thorough testing to get to something I liked using rapberries (as I had overproduction) instead of cherries as the authentic recipe requires.

So I learnt that precisely, that only when cherries are used, can this dish be properly named “clafoutis”, if done with any other fruit (or vegetable for savoury versions) then it ought to be called “Flognarde” instead. The truth is that I searched for flognarde and very few links show up, whereas I keep seeing versions with any type of fruit being referred to as “clafoutis”. So, that’s why I’ve still titled my raspberry version “clafoutis” because I think very few people know what flognarde is and to be honest I think it’s ok, just like a strawberry or peach gazpacho is named “gazpacho” as other than the obvious substitution, the characteristics of the dish remain the same. Does this make sense?…what I hate are bastardised versions of a dish, named after it’s original name, pretending to be so, that don’t even resemble what it ought to be (like the tabbouleh example or as it happens so often with tiramisú).

Like I said our raspberry plant has given us sooo many incredible raspberries non stop for over a month (only a few are left now) and that’s why I’ve had to give them a use. Loads and loads of jam, nothing like storebought, with more acidity, an intense radiactive colour :)and an incredible texture; thanks to Christine Ferber’s advice from her books!(it was about time I made my own jams too!). So, I’ve had enough to perfect this recipe to my taste! The first time I made it, it turned out almost uneatable…as to my surprise, the almost sweet raspberries brought out their acidity when heated. So, I adjusted that macerating them with a bit of sugar before using them and that was fixed. Then, the proportions of eggs and specially flour to get a creamier dough after setting and the sugar to get it tasty enough but not overly sweet! I gave it infusing some fresh vanilla in the milk and that too made a difference to better. So, I thought I had it just perfect until I discovered…

Ottolenghi’s clafoutis recipe!!This chef is just awesome, any dish of his I try, becomes a favourite! There are things I may prefer to change to adapt to my taste, but not one recipe I disliked or that didn’t teach me something new! So, from his first book I found a plum clafoutis (he used vanilla too in the dough!)but with an alternate, completely different method to the traditional recipe; where the dough is simply a crêpe batter. His version is more like an american pancake batter! He beats up yolks & whites separate to incorporate a lot of air into that crêpe mix, resulting in a foamy but creamy delicious texture! After quite a few trials…I now think I prefer his unorthodox version (at least for this raspberry flavoured one!). I give you both of the finalists to try and test which one suits your taste. But beware…because they are so easy to put together, such a perfect sweet & sour match, and so feathery light (specially Ottolenghi’s recipe) that they soon become addictive!!Yesterday I prepared one more batch and intended to save some for Linguine..but began with a spoonful and finished the whole thing!!Just don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

Two ways to raspberry clafoutis

(enough for 2x16cm moulds)

Traditional version

1 egg

100g milk (or half milk, half cream)

30g flour (pastry flour is best)

40g sugar (25g for the batter+15g for the raspberries)

pinch of salt

1 small piece of vanilla bean, open & seeds scraped

10g butter, melted (optional)

100g raspberries (optionally substitute 20g for blueberries)

Ottolenghi’s batter recipe version

1 egg, separated

50g cream*

25g flour

25g sugar(for batter)+15g for the raspberries

pinch of salt

1/4 of a vanilla bean, just the seeds

80-100g raspberries

*He recommends double cream, I’ve tried 35% whipping cream and half cream and half milk and both work well

Begin marinating the raspberries with the sugar. They will bleed, but that’s ok, if you do not do this step, they’ll come out really sour!This way, they’ll come out almost like a jam.

For the traditional method, beat together just to combine, no need to incorporate any air, the eggs with the sugar and the pinch of salt. If you are on the run, you can add the vanilla seeds at once in too, if not you can infuse it with the milk from the recipe and melt the sugar in the warm milk (up to you, though the infused one has a bit more taste for the same amount of vanilla, whereas in Ottolenghi’s version, since the yolks are beaten up, rather than mixed, more flavour from the vanilla is released)

Incorporate the butter beating to integrate it, then add the flour and finally the milk (if you infused it with the vanilla bean, not just the seeds, strain it!;) ). That’s it for the batter.

Butter the moulds well, specially if you plan to unmould them later when cool. distribute the berries amongst the moulds and cover with the batter. Ideally (or to my taste) it should come up about 2,5cm-3cm.

Bake at 200ºC for 10 minutes, lower to 180ºC and continue for about 10 more minutes until golden (if you like a paler look, you can cook it for longer at 160-175ºC max, though I prefer it this way). Note that if your mould is high and you fill it up a lot, it will take longer to cook, so lower the temperature a bit. Ready! you can serve warm or cold, it is usually sprinkled with icing sugar, which looks really nice too…I just prefer to keep it simple and less sweet.

Now, for Ottolenghi’s version, it is just a bit more work. Similarly macerate the berries a bit with the sugar, then beat up the yolks with half the sugar, the salt and the vanilla until creamy and pale in colour. This will dissolve the sugar and

Add the cream and then the sifted flour (he says the other way around, but it get clumpy!) to get a smooth batter. Then, beat the whites to soft peaks with a bit of lemon juice or cream of tartar to avoid graininess, add the remaining sugar gradually as you beat until stiff peaks. Just try to avoid overbeating, or the meringue will get dry and grainy and will incorporate worse to the batter. Fold into the batter softly.

For this recipe, since it sticks more to the moulds, he recommends to line the moulds with a bit of parchment, if you intend to unmold the clafoutis. Otherwise, at least butter and lightly flour them before adding the batter. Then, drop in the raspberries distributing amongst the surface…be generous! So, it’s the other way around, as the resulting batter has a thicher consistency.

Bake at 180ºC for 10 minutes, then lower to 170ºC for about 10-15 minutes more. Use a brochette to test doneness, as it may look ready but still be goey in the inside.

I think it may not look as good as the other one…but once you dip in, it’s heavenly!

Up to the last bite! Like pancakes with soury raspberry jam and the mild vanilla flavour!

If you have any batter left over, you can use it as pancake batter! yum!Pour it on the preheated pan (not too hot), add the raspberries or blueberries

…turn and enjoy!

Now for the raspberry jam!

For 1 kg raspberries:

800g sugar (if done with seeds) or 750g if they will be removed

plus juice of half a lemon

Aren’t they just amazing?

I did this over 2 day (or up to 3 for the deseeded jam):

Day one: Mix the raspberries with the sugar and lemon juice and back into the fridge…so the raspberries naturally exude their juices. This day can be skipped and you can go straight into day 2, though I prefer it.

Day 2: bring to a light boil and then cover with some parchment to keep the raspberries dipped in their own juices. This step is specially useful if you want jam with no seeds, so the raspberries soften and then cool to handle them & remove the seeds.

Day 3: If you are going to, remove the seeds, you can use a vegetable masher (pasapurés), though I found a large strainer with a scraper to work better!

A bit of extra straining if like me, you don’t want to leave a bit!!But that’s just me being obsessive…

So, finally, place over high heat the raspberries with sugar & lemon from day 1 or the strained ones, seeds removed until the right consistency is reached. It will be at around 104-105ºC, but if you haven’t got a thermometer, you will notice how no more foam comes out and you’ll notice it clogging and beginning to set. Otherwise, just place a small spoonful in a cold dish and place in the fridge/freezer until it cools to check set. It’s important to check or you’ll end up reducing the jam too much and loose a lot of flavour and colour, to get a more tan shade. Let the pectin+sugar+acid (from the lemon)do their work to gelatinise…not caramelise by reduction!

Here’s the one with seeds:

And the one without:

Isn’t it amazing? our first raspberry jams!

To keep and make a vacuum, just sterilise pots & tops in boiling water for a few minutes and drain over a clean towel upside down. Then, as soon as the jam is ready, with a funnel fill them up to the rim, cover and turn…

Leave like that until cool for the vacuum to work, then just label and keep for ages!!

If you want a simpler way to get a super tasty raspberry sauce, though with a shorter lifespan, refer to the recipe that goes with the cheesecake, it’s really amazing!You’ll get this texture, full of flavour!

I hope you get to try at least one of the recipes!!Enjoy!

Inspired by Quique Dacosta: poor man’s tasty “arroz a banda socarrat”

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:08:00 +0000

In my family we’ve always been rice eaters…almost any dish with rice (well done, that is)we love; be it “meloso” (creamy), “caldoso” (with more stock), risotto or “seco” (cooked dry in a “paella” pan or in the oven) or on it’s own!My mom has always made fantastic paellas (some of the best I can recall) so in my dried rice dishes I took her’s as a base on which to improve.

Quique Dacosta is the reknown chef of the two michelin star restaurant “El Poblet” in Denia (Alicante), which aside from being a “cocina de autor” restaurant with very personal creative dishes, masters the art of cooking rice as expected from the emplacement in the Valencian community (though he himself is from Extremadura). So, being a rice lover, I’ve always followed his cooking as close as possible and immediately had to get his amazing book on rice dishes “Arroces Contemporáneos” when it came out in 2005 with lot’s a invaluable information on the science of rice to understand how it behaves on cooking and numerous beautiful dishes using various cooking techniques.

But, it was not until december last year that I watched him prepare an “arroz a banda” in Robinfood (a fantastic cooking program, in spanish, led by the hilarious David de Jorge). This program marks a before and after in my “paella” style dishes…The radical difference being the amount of stock used per amount of rice! Sounds simple, right? Well, when I heard him mention that he used 1L of stock for 160g of rice (very little for the pan, to make just one layer of grains, no overlapping!), I thought it couldn’t be right! When most recipes, and what I often used was 2 ,5 parts stock (at the most) to 1 part rice. So, I had to go at myself to check if it was possible.

With the idea in mind that I would ruin the “arroz a banda” dish, I simplified his version (full of amazing quantities of tasty fish & shellfish) to make a simple stock with just the heads and carcasses of some medium-sized prawns, convinced I would end up with a soupy rice or creamy at least. To try to compensate I turned the heat to full blast for the first 10 minutes (it’s always higher those first 10 minutes…though I had never tried, that high!) and then lowering to medium the remaining 8. To my surprise, ALL of that simple prawn stock evaporated resulting in a perfectly cooked, with a beautiful “socarrat” (caramelised crust) in the bottom and full of taste…just with a few sad prawns!!

I’ve repeated and repeated this dish, testing different rice types, adjusting the minimum amount of prawns to use to get a tasty & easy to make(but cheap)fumet and removing all unnecessary components to just leave the rice to enjoy it on it’s own! The term “arroz a banda” meaning literally “rice on the side” was coined to refer to a rice, cooked in a paella pan (for lot’s of evaporation) as a side dish to fish boiled to make a sustancial stock (just like “cocido” stock is made and then fine vermicelli pasta is cooked in it). You can of course enrich this basic “poor” version as much as you like up to all the list of tasty ingredients in his main recipe, but this simple version, tested over and over and tried by many people now, is a great starting point that won’t disappoint and leave you wondering how so little can have soooo much flavour! Enjoy!!!

Poor man’s “arroz a banda”

(just enough for 2 as a first dish in a 30cm in diameter paella pan!*)

For the stock:

250g of fresh prawns

11/4L of water (to obtain 1L)

…anything else more you want to add, like fish bone you may have! Though that’s enough for a tasty rice!

For the rice:

about 3-4 tbsp of olive oil, better if it’s extra virgin

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 ripe tomato, grated

160g of rice ** (suggested maximum: 180g, see note below ***)

pinch of sweet pimentón

pinch of saffron

salt to taste (beware, as a lot of stock gets reduced, it will be added later on!)

*To maintain the result of this dish consistent, if you want more rice, I suggest you increase the size of the paella pan accordingly or make 2 simultaneously, otherwise the result won’t be as good)

**I most often use “Calasparra rice” with excellent results. This rice, a D.O., more than a variety (which unless indicated Bomba) is always Balilla x Solana variety, is a cheaper version of bomba, a grain that although does not absorb a lot of flavour from the stock due to a higher proportion of amylose than most Japonica varieties (usually short-grain varieties)does not often overcook, remaining firm to tooth. In the case of dried rices like paella this not a problem as the reduced stock stays on the outside of the rice compensating for that reduced flavour absorption when compared to other varieties like Sénia (the one Quique Dacosta recommends).

***As mention on the first note, the key to this dish is precisely the proportion of rice to stock in the given area of the pan, more rice for the same paella pan will result in overlapping grains of rice and the cooking of the grains and the caramelisation of themselves will be different)

So, now after all that talking, or rather, writing, for the simple recipe…

Nothing fancy, simple prawns, the better, the tastier the stock, though. I buy when I find decent ones at a good price and freeze in 250g batches (as you can imagine, Linguine is a big fan of this dish)

To make the stock, I remove heads & carcasses of the prawns to leave the flesh

Then, I fry them with a bit of oil to release all that rich flavour! Add the water and bring to boil. Make sure you are watching as it comes to a boil, so that yacky foam does not mix with the stock and you can remove it to get a clear fumet. Give it at least 20 minutes to infuse at a simmer (or a bit longer if you can, though fish & shellfish shouldn’t boil for longer than half an hour or they’ll bring out bitter notes…If you like, it’s best to cook for that long, turn off and let infuse for longer before straining).

Meanwhile I prepare the rest, but just to put it all together, when ready, strain to make up to 1L, top up if needed, but keep hot, as the stock should be added almost boiling to the rice.

The bodies of the prawns, I either use to make a starter har gaow..if I’ve had the time (still perfecting, but will come…)

or I just stir fry them over high heat in the oil where I’ll make the sofrito to give a taste into what will come ;)

Remove & serve…or if you prefer to include that into the rice, as in the first dish, chop them up in small pieces, give them that stir fry to give more taste into the oil and reserve to add almost at the end of cooking, when most stock has evaporated. Up to you!

For the sofrito, just slowly fry the garlic, do not let it colour as it get’s bitter!(Quique Dacosta does not add garlic directly, but uses garlic-infused oil, if you have some, go ahead with the substitution!

Then, add the pimentón and the pinch of saffron and immediately add the grated tomato, so it doesn’t burn.

Let that reduce until all the water from the tomato is evaporated and add the rice and give it a short stir before adding the stock. This coats the rice lightly with oil to keep the grains a bit more separate (by the way, this is the Alicante way of making rice: a stock and a sofrito, in Valencia, the make a stock within the paella and then add the rice).

Add the hot stock over and bring the heat high up!!!Keep boiling over very high heat for 10 minutes. You can add some salt here, but as I said before, take into account that there’s a lot of stock reducing completely, believe me, I’ve already made that mistake!It’s best to adjust to taste after at least 7 minutes of boiling down.

After those 10 minutes, lower down the heat to medium for 8 more minutes. After that time is over, the stock should have completely evaporated…if you see a few minutes before it’s not even close, you can adjust the heat accordingly. You may not get it perfect the first time, as you get to know your hobs intensity required for the right times, though it most often works from the first moment!

In the photos below, the stock at the begining as it was added and brought to a high boil and after those 10 minutes to give you an idea of how much gets reduced and the texture of the stock after that time (you can see the rice and the stock is thicker, with a starchy consistency).

Another note about the pan…Dacosta recommends a Lacor paella pan, which is a thick bottom inox pan with non-stick coating, I have another good brand thick bottom pan, and though I’ve made the same dish in other shitty pans (I mean really shitty, not even paella pans) it does make a difference (though all may work once you adjust to them), specially for a homogeneous “socarrat” that the pan distributes heat evenly.

For the socarrat, Quique Dacosta adds a tablespoon of that garlic oil to favorise and aid in caramelisation of that starch. I add a bit extra oil from the begining, so I lately don’t add it, but you can if you like, it helps.

And that’s it! Ideally rest for 4-5 minutes more and serve or eat straight from the pan!!

Hope you like it as much as we do!

Super refreshing tabbouleh

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:25:00 +0000

This is one of those super refreshing salads that are a must for hot summer days (not that it’s specially hot here now!the weather is being weird lately!). It’s been ages since I prepared it, and I must admit that sometimes I’ve done it with couscous. That’s a big NO for those who want to be authentic with this Middle-Eastern salad, but when you cannot find burghul (or bulghur) I’ve used couscous as a substitute…but honestly is not near the texture of the burghul one.

Most often, when you find this Lebanese or syrian dish in restaurants, you are most often served a terrible couscous salad speckled with parsley and mint. I began preparing it years ago using more bulghur than now, and slowly reducing the amount to give parsley the importance it deserves. I am not particularly fond of parsley, in fact I despise it (I guess I dislike the fact that it has been so overused here in Spain to add a bit of “green” to almost any dish)…except for it in this salad! Combined with the touch of mint and dressed with the soury notes of lemon juice and bathed in olive oil…it shines as if it were a different herb to me.

I wanted to make sure I was on the right track to preparing tabbouleh and to recreate it I searched for recipes that would get me there. On my quest, I fell in love with this blog “Desert candy” with many other authentic Middle Eastern recipes, and of course I found a reference by my beloved Ottolenghi in his Guardian column “The New Vegetarian” (I have both his books, but it’s not there!). So, I played around the recipe until I got a version I really liked. It includes still a bit more burghul than the authentic one, but I like to feel it’s texture and I find it balances the salad. Also, though parsley is clearly the star, I do love the taste of mint to add more freshness, so I hope you like it or that you can adapt it to your best yet version of tabbouleh! Just beware, there’s quite a bit of chopping involved…(and please use a very sharp knife to avoid mushing the herbs)but it’s definately worth the trouble!Enjoy!

Refreshing tabbouleh

(enough for 4 people)

80g of parsley, stalks removed

15-20g of mint (“hierbabuena”, as what we call “menta” is more peppery but not as refreshing)

75-80g of fine grade burghul*

about 45g of spring onions, about 1 smallish one (I used red ones)

450g of ripe tomatoes

The juice of half a large lemon, or to taste

about 50g of olive oil, or to taste

salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste

a pinch of all-spice (jamaican pepper)

* If you prefer you can use other coarseness/grade of burghul, but I’ve recently tried both and this is my favourite one, for texture, looks and easiness of use. If you use the coarse one, I find you must cook it a bit, with twice its volume of boiling water before adding it to the salad.

The more time-consuming task, which is washing, drying and chopping the parsley you can do in advance (or at least the washing and drying, as it is important that it is dry for chopping or you’ll get a puree!). Mercedes from “Desert CAndy” does it differently, placing together small bundles of parsley with stem and all to help hold the leaves. I prefer to wash the parsley and remove excess water, remove all stems, let dry well over some kitchen cloth or paper towels and then chop up.

Like I said the washed and dried parsley keeps really well in plastic bags, like ziploc ones with some paper towels on either side to keep dry.

When ready to begin assembling the salad, wash the burghul over a colander until the water runs clear, and shake off excess water…no need to dry thoroughly, as it will slowly hydrate and swell as it absorbs water from the rinsing and furthermore from the chopped tomato juices.

So, chop up the tomatoes in very small squares. I use a serrated knife to slice in rounds…

…then a veg one to chop it up in 1/2cm squares. Add that, along with it’s juices (if you like that these mix with the dressing and stay in the bottom of the salad…if not, just the chopped tomatoes).

Mix thoroughly with the burghul.

Chop the spring onions as finely as possible and add as well

Season to taste, though it will need to be adjusted later and time to begin with herb chopping unless you had done it beforehand!

Like I mentioned, a sharp knife is important, it makes a BIG difference to the results, leaving a clearly defined salad rather than a wet mush. So, chop your parsley as finely as possible…

Then your mint (also washed, dried and stems removed by pulling downwards) into a fine julienne and then the other way around into a brunoise

Add to the rest of ingredients…

Mix thoroughly,

Season to taste…et voilà, ready to enjoy!

Liliana’s comforting Colombian “empanadas”

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 23 May 2011 10:37:00 +0000

One of the best things about teaching, other than the obvious gratification is how much you learn on the way! You learn as you question things to try to explain how and why they work (or don’t work), you learn from the extra research to understand or find about something yourself, but above all you learn from those you are teaching! With cooking you always get that extra reward, because almost everyone knows how to make something in a very special way. Even more so, with a multicultural class where each person comes from a different country with a completely different background and upbringing. So, even those who at the begining say they don’t know how to cook, with time, they come out with something extraordinary to teach everyone else.

This is the case with Liliana…She began by saying she was a total disaster in her kitchen (which didn’t convince me as she was cooking her child’s meals daily!). We began the course and sadly in little time she let us know she would be missing most of it, to just make it back for the last week of class. At mid-course each person who volunteered taught the rest of the class a “special” recipe they made particularly well, but she missed it…Little time later she showed up and brought these colombian empanadas for the whole class…but I missed her! Apparently, they were a success so she wrote up a recipe for everyone to have a guideline of how they were made. But it was not until the last week of class, when she returned that they demanded she made some more, that I got to try them…

It had been a terrible day, I didn’t stop running around trying to arrange last minute tasks…and right at the end, when everyone presented their dishes and I got to try her empanadas…I soooo much regreted not having made the time to take a proper look at how she made them, because they were beautiful! I really fell in love with the taste of the juicy filling enhanced by the addition of the hot & slightly sour “mojo” that accompanied it. The intense taste of corn from the wrapper’s dough was brought out on the outer crispy crust of these fried empanadas (I’m not a big fan of fried stuff) in contrast to the chewier texture inside…such a comforting feeling...Just perfect!

So, from her recipe guideline and from the little I watched her prepare, I had a go at these delicacies hoping to get something close to the ones I tried that day. They came out delicious! They might be not even as good as one of her bad batches, but they are very close what I remember and more than worthwhile to give them a try! So here for you all: Liliana’s empanadas colombianas! Thank you Lili for such wonderful recipe!!!

Liliana’s colombian empanadas

(makes about 16x 12-14cm diameter empanadas)

For the dough:

400g of colombian precooked yellow corn flour (I used the white corn version with a pinch of paella food colouring!)*

About 550g of chicken stock**

pinch of salt

*She told me they were both the same, though the yellow one was coloured to be used for these empanadas, though in the web page they note they are ground from different corns!Still, the white one tasted really good, I’d have to compare side by side to test for the difference.

**I made about a liter of stock, but otherwise you can use water with a bit of stock cubes, as she advised, though I’m not really for those products…so I’d just use salted water.

For the filling:

1 side of chicken breast (or the equivalent weight of another part)*

300g of onions

2 large garlic cloves

1 large red pepper (I used a peeled bbq one I had)

250g of ripe tomatoes

200g of potatoes

a bit of olive oil

salt & freshly milled black pepper to taste

*The chicken breast is convinient as it cooks really quick, but you can use thighs and cook them for longer until tender, to shred them for the filling.

For the “mojo”/dipping sauce:

1 small handful of picked fresh coriander leaves

half a scallion (you could use red or white onion, but scallions are milder)

1 medium ripe tomato

1-2 fresh bird-eyes chillis (I used 1 1/2 for mild hot)

salt to taste

juice of half a large lemon or 1 lime (or more to taste)

1-2 tbsp of olive oil (I added to taste)

Also:

Some oil for deep frying

I had the stock ready, so I seasoned with salt to taste and starting from cold I slowly cooked the chicken breast (I separated the little fillet attached to it, as it cooks sooner, to remove it first). Beginning from a cold or room temperature stock I find is better for poaching (both fish & meat) as it gives a juicier rather than the often dry, overcooked meat; if removed with the center ir cooked right.

Some foam will rise to the surface, just remove it and once you remove the breast & small fillet, strain it through a fine mesh to remove any impurities. This will be used to make the dough.

When the breast has cooled enough, shred it in fibers with your hands or with a fork. I must admit I HATE the smell of boiled chicken (whereas roasted or bbq I love it) but for this this, like for “cochinita pibil” or “ropa vieja” it’s the texture what makes a difference.

You can do this while the filling veggies are cooking, so meanwhile, first place the potatoes to cook in some salted water. Mine were small so I placed them whole, but if it a rush, you can peel them & chop them up. Then, chop up the onion in brunoise and chop up the garlic as finely as possible and slowly cook with some olive oil.

When translucent and soft…Ah, I used peeled bbqued pepper, which by the way gave it a new dimension in flavour (I LOVE all bbqed food), so I chopped it up and added it after the onion was ready. If raw, add it at the same time of little after the onion.

Then, wash the tomatoes, remove the hard scar, chop it up in small squares (concassé) and add it to the rest. I like to cover the pan for a few minutes to soften the tomate, let it exude all it’s juices and then open it up to reduce it. If you forget about the tomato, do it aside with a bit of oil in the same way and add it to the rest.

Finally add the shredded chicken so it soaks up all the flavours (:P ) and then the chopped up cooked potato. Leave to cool…or transfer to another tray/bowl to cool.

Time to make the dough…The stock should be warm, that is neither boiling hot, nor cold. I used it at about 50ºC. Season a bit more if needed so the dough is tasty, you can adjust with fine salt later.

Place the flour in a bowl ( if it is white, like mine, add a pinch of colouring..it does look nicer, just don’t overuse it to make it fluorescent yellow!;) )and add enough water to make a malleable, soft dough. It shouldn’t be too hard nor too sticky (if so, compensate with extra flour). The amount I’ve given is about how much I needed, but it may differ a bit for you, so have some extra stock, just in case.

The dough is ready and the filling is coolish, so, ready for the shaping part? This part I watched her do for a little time, and it struck me how easy she made it look and how efficiently she used a flexible plastic bag to press and shape the empanadas.

So, get hold of a resistent clean plastic bag, at least 20cm in width and cut it half it should be double, that is, 40cm in length, to be able to press the skins. I used a zipper supermarket bag…

I gave it a try making balls of dough to press into 3mm thick, to check for the right amount for the diameter I wanted, and I ended up using 60g balls which when pressed gave me about 14cm in diameter rounds to enclose the filling. If you want them bigger or smaller adjust accordingly. So, I made all the balls first for convenience, after I determined the right size, and then I started.

Just place one ball in the center of one side of the bag, fold the other half over and press with a mould or any flat-bottomed item you can find.

I used a pyrex tray that even left the imprint!

Place a generous amount of filling, though not too much or it won’t close (this is just trial and error) and with the aid of the bag, fold it over and press the borders lightly to enclose it.

Then, this part I loved with I saw her doing it, use a bowl the size you want the empanadas to pull towards with as you hold the folded bag the opposite way to give them a perfectly round shape. It works wonders!My bowl had a bit rounded edges, it’s better with thinner edges, but it worked well. I hope the pictures make out for what words don’t!

Repeat with all the other balls…Try not to get too much oil in the feeling, just enough to make it juicy or it will creep out from the corners!

They are ready for frying, so make the dipping sauce first, just chop up the scallion, the “cilantro” leaves, the washed whole tomato (removing the scar) and the chillis (remove the seeds unless you want it really hot!). Whenever I buy chillis, I always freeze some, as they come in a very large tray and then take them out and use them as fresh in most recipes…They are not as crisp, but they taste and look good!

Then, season with salt and pepper, add lemon/lime juice and some olive oil and adjust adding more juice or oil to taste. It really is delicious and improves the already tasty empanadas!Keep refrigerated until use…

and fry as many empanadas as you want to serve in very hot oil (don’t let it smoke, as it’ll burn, but make sure it is very hot by dropping a piece of dough or bread crumb), it should immediately rise to the surface.

You want a deep golden colour for a crisper result. The first ones I left lighter, but the second batch I fried a bit more and were better.

Ready to serve and enjoy!!

Have a bite, and serve some “mojo” inside to blend with the flavours of the filling…Yummyyy!!!!!!!!

close up of the tasty filling and texture of the fried skins.

“cangrejos de río”(crayfish/yabbies) in spicy tomato sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Fri, 13 May 2011 21:13:00 +0000

These are fairly popular in Spain, though to be honest I don’t remember having tried these until a few years back from my mother-in-law. Two memories spring to mind, the first one which Linguini won’t be too happy that I mention is that when we just started, he brough a tupper of “cangrejos” his mom had prepared. Before he even opened it, he started going on about how she usually prepares them with natural raff tomatoes but this time she didn’t have at hand so did cooked them with canned tomato puree. He got so disgusted just thinking about it, that little after eating them he had to run to the bathroom!

I hadn’t tried them, so the second time she brought some, I didn’t want to miss them as they smelled fantastic. But, though the sauce was delicious I couldn’t cope with their own flavour. So, I thought that was it for me…But a bit later on, I wanted to make them just for the heck of the sauce myself, so I asked her how she did them to have a go at the recipe. I was disappointed to hear there were no “tricks” to it, it was a simple tomato sauce with some slow fried onion (the key is the flavour they impart on the sauce). I thought it sounded so plain, that I decided to add some “hotness” to it :). I added some cayenne pepper and when we ate them, Linguini noted that they were spicy and I assured him I hadn’t added anything to his mom’s recipe! (he’s not too keen on hot food and I could see that one coming!). He was amazed that they had such an intense flavour, they were even hot!:D I kept my lie until he one day he told his parents the story of the “full flavour even hot” crayfish, and I felt obliged to tell the truth as his mom frowned!

Also, that first time I thought cooking them alive was sort of “cruel” and since I had watched in “Mostly Martha” that the “proper”(more ethical) way to kill it was to run a large knife across its head so it “wouldn’t suffer” as it was plunged into boiling water (not that we ever did this with lobsters in restaurants where it was served). Imagine with 1 kg of small crayfish, going one after the other to “give them a less painful” end! they kept on moving and I thought it was more tortuous…to them and for me to watch! Later on I read a scientific paper questioning that they did have a reflexes but did not experience pain…Anyway, to be honest, even though I think they might, I prefer to not dwell on it. But was sure that it was the last time I would finish their existence one at a time, plus, maybe I was impressed from the experience, but to me they had an off, even stronger flavour.

So, when did I get to like them enough to want to share it with you???When I learned that removing their intestines (we call this “castrarlos”) gives them a mellower, less bitter flavour! Funny I had learnt to devein prawns such a long time ago and it didn’t know that these could be deveined without having to peel them first. The problem is that since you ought to buy these fresh, that is alive, otherwise they lose a lot of weight (flesh), you gotta handle with a firm hand to hold them and devein them. Other than that…this is a terribly basic recipe, that I’ve learned to love and now I cannot stop licking my fingers as slurp them and dip bread to finish with the last drop of sauce! If you can get hold of them…have a go!

“Cangrejos de río” in spicy tomato sauce

(enough for 4 LARGE servings)

About 1kg of crayfish/yabbies

50-60g olive oil

about 1 kg ideally fresh tomatoes (otherwise, canned peeled tomatoes)

1 large onion (aprox. 300g)

6 beautiful sized cloves of garlic

3-4 cayenne peppers (I use 3 for a milder heat and 4 for more of a kick!)

2 bay leaves

150-200g of dry sherry wine

salt

a bit of sugar (to remove sourness from the tomatoes)

I begin with the sauce, since as it’s cooking, I can prepare the yabbies (by the way, this is their name in Australia. I just like to call them that as it’s how I learnt them first).

Chop the onion in half and then into a fine julienne. If the onion is large, like mine was, I previously give it a cut crosswise, so the slices are not as long that end up being almost stringy. If you prefer you can just chop them up finely in brunoise.

Then, remove the garlic germ (if any) and chop it up as finely as you can. Place both chopped onions & garlic with the bay leaves and cayenne peppers to slow-fry with about 50g of oil and a pinch of salt.

They are ready when they are really soft and begin to colour lightly (see photo later on).

Meanwhile, prepare the tomato. If you use fresh I suggest you 1) either whiz them up with a blender or processor (after washing and removing the scar) and strain them to remove the skin; this is if you want more of a smoother sauce or 2) as I did this time, for a chunkier, more textured result, peel the tomatoes and then just finely chop them up.

To peel the tomatoes, remove the scar and with a light hand, make a cross shaped incision (this will help you peel later as a starting point). Place a pan of water large enough to fit all tomatoes to boil and then plunge the tomatoes in and over high heat count to around 25 seconds. You don’t want to leave them too short, or they won’t peel, but too long you’ll be left with a mush as they are peeled. You should see the incisions beginning to open up a bit, but not curl up. Then remove them onto a large bowl of cold or iced water and move a bit until cool.

Then, you’ll see how easy they peel and how smooth the surface is.

Once peeled, just chop them up finely and add to the sofrito and cover a bit at medium heat. This will soften the tomatoes before they begin to reduce, so you get more sauce rather than just chunks of cooked tomato.

When softer, remove the cover to reduce rapidly at the beginning (to evaporate more water) and then a bit slower so the bottom doesn’t burn! It will take about 20-30 minutes. Season with salt and a bit of sugar if there’s any sourness.

See the texture of the sauce? I find it’s done when the oil begins to separate from the sauce, later on you can adjust consistency adding more liquid, but this step I find brings out more flavour and sweetness from the tomatoes.

I almost forgot, it might be a GOOD idea to remove the cayenne peppers at this time, before mixing with the yabbies, as they are almost impossible to find…and I’ve already happened to bite into 3 of them!!!This time I remembered after serving…Better late than never!

Meanwhile prepare the yabbies…What’s in the bag? They pierced it!

Prepare a large bowl (the one you used for tomatoes) where you’ll wash them. Then, take one at a time, grabbing the claws together and placing them over the head to press down the tail (they’ll obviouly try to kick themselves free). I use gloves because I don’t like the feeling, but no need to.

Then, you have to twitch the centre segment of the tail and pull away to remove the intestine. Like I mentioned, this removes the bitterness for a milder, more balanced flavour.

Place in the bowl and repeat with the others.

Before I went on, one of them was defying me…Poor thing, as I approached it stood there defensive.

When all are done, time to thoroughly wash them. They’ll probably be really dirty! often with mud from the river. So, wash them a few times until the water runs clear and with the last wash, add a dash of white wine vinegar to remove any dirt that may be left or funny flavours. I find a splatter guard to come in handy!

Make sure you strain as much water as possible, or it will splatter as they are fried.

I used a “paella” pan but if you prefer, maybe a casserole with higher borders might be better.

Add a dash of oil into the preheated pan and add the yabbies, season with salt and cook through until they all change in colour.

Add the wine and reduce by about half and mix in the tomato sauce. Cook lightly covered for about 10 minutes (so the heads are cooked through). If it’s dry add a bit of water (or more sherry) to give the sauce the consistency you prefer.

Adjust seasonings and…enjoy!

I find they are best, like stews, after an overnight rest, as the flavour of the sauce penetrates and blends with their own flavour. But if you can’t wait, like us, serve right away!

Late 4 Easter…fruity & spiced hot cross buns

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 08 May 2011 21:50:00 +0000

A while back I lived for over 3 years in the UK…At that time I knew little about cooking or baking, as I was studying something completely different. But still, food and baking goods were an important part of my life. They provided the comfort for the emptiness I felt out there, far away from home, on my own for the first time. One of those “comfort foods” I was hooked on were these buns. I cannot remember how I got to try them, I don’t even think it was Easter (as they are traditional in Easter time), but from the moment I did, I became addicted! I loved eating them beginning by ripping out the crosses before biting into the torn soft crumb. But above all I loved the aroma (I have this terrible way of “sniffing” all my food before I try anything…Terrible, for those close enough to complain about it, that is;)) and the fruity spiced up flavour.

Back in Spain, I kept them in mind just as a fond memory. But it was not until 3 years ago, that I decided to have a go at them myself! Since then, I’ve tried various recipes, adjusting to my taste. I find these are the best so far and I cannot let another year pass without sharing it with you! It is adapted from Dan Lepard’s and Hamelman’s (from his book “Bread”). Also, I prefer to make the candied peel (confit orange, in my case) myself and since here I couldn’t find the mixed spice, I’ve played around to get a mix I like for this recipe. I hope you like these flavourful & nutricious buns as much as I do!Bon app’!

For those who missed it, here on “Madrid Tiene Miga”, a post (in spanish) on my favourite, so far, natural leaven loaf cooked inside a cocotte.

Hot cross buns (for 1 25x25cm square mould and 4 extra ones!)

For the confit orange (ideally make at least a day ahead):

1 large orange

250g granulated sugar

250g water

(optional: drizzle of lemon juice)

For the buns:

300g flour (about W200, though you can use AP flour)*

100g of wholemeal flour

50g sugar+20g glucose or 60g of agave or golden syrup**

270g milk (boiled & cooled down. Boil a bit more as some will evaporate)***

50g egg (1 small one)

80g butter

6-7g instant yeast or 18-20g fresh

8g salt (I tried with 4 & 6 g, but not half as tasty, it really makes a difference!)

150g raisins (or mixed with sultanas, though I prefer just raisins)

70g of the confit orange (or store-bought orange or mixed candied peel)****

zest of 1/2 orange or lemon, grated

5-6g mixed spice(I used 6g of a mix I liked after a few trials, see after the notes)

*I was getting a tougher crumb at the beginning and asked Dan Lepard on his blog about changing the strong flour to all-purpose, to which he replied that it does make the crumb softer, though the overall hydration of the formula should be decreased. So, if you use AP flour, go for 250g of milk maximum, even withholding some to see if it takes it all.

**Adding glucose, inverted sugar or some sort of syrup makes the crumb moister and adds keeping quality. Glucose is about half as sweet as sugar, so double must be used to compensate. On the other hand agave syrup, as honey are sweeter.

***Milk has an enzyme that unless boiled to denature it makes the crumb tougher, so it’s best to boil it & cool it for fermented dough recipes. About the amount, I used 280g for an overnight retardation of the dough (which was fairly sticky for these flours, that’s why I suggest 270g), if you skip it, as Dan recommends to use about 50g less milk.

****You could use less, but I wouldn’t use any less than 50g…it’s one of the keys that makes these buns so tasty!

For the mixed spice:

2g cinnamon + 1g nutmeg + 1,5g all spice + 1,5g ground ginger + 0,5g clove

For the glaze:

50g sugar + 50g water + drizzle of lemon juice & some grated rind + pinch of mixed spice

For the cross paste:

30g AP flour

2g icing or caster sugar (I process granulated sugar with the coffee grinder)

tiny pinch of salt

10g butter

some grated lemon peel

aprox. 25g of water

Note: For both glaze & cross paste, you can simplify by just using the “main ingredients” skipping the spice & fruit rinds, though they improve the flavour.

Quite a few ingredients, right? If you feel it’s too much preparation, you can just buy the mixed spice & candied peel, and even skip piping the crosses for still some tasty buns!But if you decide to prep all yourself…let’s begin!

The candied orange, which I usually make to decorate Roscón de Reyes, rather than buy all that (to me) disgusting candied & coloured fruit, is cut into slices as thin as possible trying to keep them whole (after washing well, of course!). For this recipe, the looks don’t really matter, as it’s all chopped up, so I make double the recipe & keep the nicest looking ones that go just cut in half over the Roscón and the other more irregular ones for this.

Candied peel is as it’s name states just peel, if you prefer to candy just the peel, which is more bitter (though I prefer this which uses up the whole orange) place it in cold water and bring to a boil and strain. Refill with cool water and repeat up to 3 times. This removes excess bitterness.

Then, bring the sugar & water (with the drizzle of lemon juice for contrast- even here I hate overly sweet things) to the boil to melt the sugar and place the orange slices in to be covered with the syrup and place over low or medium heat to cook & confit them.

Like I said you want to keep the heat low to allow them to get translucent. If the syrup reduces too soon, add a bit more water to top up a bit and again let it reduce. You are aiming for it to look like this:

If you taste it, it shouldn’t be bitter, if it is, it needs reducing a bit more. By this time, the syrup will be fairly thick not runny. place on parchment paper, trying to remove excess syrup that may be attached. Let them dry up a bit on the exposed side, then turn over and again let that side dry a bit. Then, I keep in the fridge over cut up strips of parchment fitted one over the other in a tight seal tupperware. They keep for over a year! They just dry up a bit, but for this recipe, it’s even better that they dry up, so they are not so sticky. For the top of the Roscón, I just soak them for a few minutes to hydrate a bit…and back to what they were!

Look at the close up…aren’t they just gorgeous?
For the recipe, cut up the worse looking slices and mix with the raisins…

Now prep your spice mix…weigh your ingredients (I know they are very small weighs, I have a tiny weigh for this sort of things…otherwise, increase the recipe 3-fold or more and keep the mixed spice blend in a sealed jar for other uses!)

I’d like to note that one of the times I tried this, the resulting buns had an ackward taste, I had used 3x as much cinnamon as other spices, but still cinnamon doesn’t have that funny taste?! I think it might be cassia, which unfortunately is most of the time what they sell as cinnamon in powdered form.

Cassia has a stronger flavour and more numing feeling on the tongue. Whole it is easy to recognise, as it has a darker brown hue and looks more like a thick bark rather than a thin curled up layer. In fact in the top first picture, on the left you see cassia bark and the smaller one on it’s right is cinnamon.

Why I bother telling this? Because it’s obviously best to use the finer flavour of cinnamon, specially if you plan to use more proportion of cinnamon to the rest of spices in your mixed spice. So, be warned!;)

Finally, time to begin with the buns. Another type of preferment could be used, probably for improving keeping qualities, but for taste in these intensely flavoured buns, no need to really bother, a sponge works well.

First, mix the flours in a large bowl and on another smaller one prepare the sponge with about 20g of the flour mix, plus 50g of the boiled milk and all of the yeast. Since it’s fairly liquid, to make sure the yeast doesn’t stay in lumps, dissolve it with the milk first and then add the flour. Give it time to ferment until at least doubled in size, better to give it even a bit more until it’s 3X it’s original volume (it took mine around 30 minutes, though depends on room temp.). You’ll see how foamy it is and it feels it isn’t runny anymore, it holds together…

In his recipe Dan melts the butter with the spices and let’s it sizzle gently to infuse it with all that aroma and flavour! I though this was a great idea, as in cooking, it’s always best to heat somehow (dry roast, fry, etc.) dried spices, particularly if ground, to bring out their fullest potential. But on the other hand, I find adding butter at room temperature into the worked out dough, like for a brioche, gives it better texture so I do this with 30g of the butter, but keep the remaining 50g for adding later (it might just be me…so, if you prefer, it’s simpler to do this step with all the butter).

Ah, you’ll begin to imagine how these buns will taste & be encouraged to go on from the smell that takes up the house!Let it come to room temperature before using.
Now onto the dough, add the salt, orange or lemon zest, the spiced butter with the beaten egg added to it, the sponge, 200g of the milk (reserve the rest, in case you find it’s enough) and the sugar & glucose or the syrup ( I prefer to add half the sugar, develop the gluten a bit, and then add the remaining one, but no need to do that). If you find you need the extra milk, add it.
I used Bertinet’s technique to knead the dough, which came out really wet (I usually prefer wetter doughs, which I find result in tenderer crumbs) but giving it just a few folds and resting it for about 10 minutes in between as Dan suggests (it works wonders, better than constant kneading, without the mess).
Then, when the dough was sufficiently developed, smoother and that can be stretched without breaking, I added the remaining room-temperature butter. But like I said, you could just add all of it with the spices at the beginning…

At first it will look like it breaks apart the dough, but soon it comes together again into a softer, smoother, less sticky dough. Pity these night photos suck for details!

It’s time to add the raisins and orange giving it gentle fold to disperse them. If they are dry, they’ll seem to want to jump away from your dough. But again, give it a few folds with 10 minutes rests and they’ll become part of the dough!

Refrigerate overnight (or give it time to almost double)…

The next morning, bring the dough out and check it’s consistency. If it still feels tacky, I find it helps to shape them while still cool, so they are less sticky. Otherwise leave it about 30 minutes to warm a little. Then, divide into 80g balls. You could make them larger, 90-100g even, but I find for for the 25x25cm tray larger than that, they rise too much & they look too squared. I like that they stick together and give way to the tender crumb in between, but I still prefer a roundish shape. If you prefer shape them each & separate enough from each other to get just separate buns. Up to you!

Since these were a bit sticky, I had to use a bit of the wholemeal flour on top to shape properly. Line the pan with parchment and place 3x3.

I try when possible to keep the candied peel, but specially the raisins on the inside, that is, that they don’t stick out on top, as they burn easily and I don’t like their taste.

Also, once placed evenly apart I flatten them slightly so they are not like a ball!

Cover with some plastic and let proof until almost doubled. They shouldn’t overferment or else they will collapse when brushed before going in or in the oven. To tell, press lightly the risen buns, it should make a light indentation that recovers half-way slowly. If it bounces back, it still needs time, if the indentation stays, handle very carefully and place them straight into the oven!

While they are proofing, though you can do this ahead of time, if you like, make the cross paste. Just whisk the butter with the pinch of sugar, salt and peel and add the water. It should make a paste that when placed in a piping back does not come out unless pressed out. That is, soft, but not runny!
By the way, most cross recipes are plain flour and water, you could try that simpler version, though I prefer this richer one :)

When the buns are sufficiently proofed, decide if you will want to glaze them, which results in tastier, shinier, though slightly sticky buns, or just leave them as is. I sometimes just leave them without the glaze, so to give them a bit of shine, I brush them with egg wash (just beaten egg with a dash of milk or water). But, if you plan to make them with their traditional glaze, brush very lightly with some milk and pipe the crosses. First across one direction, then in the other direction.

Place in a preheated oven at 200ºC for about 15 minutes. My oven is fan-assisted and 200ºC was ok, but you may need to lower it to 180ºC. Trial and error for each oven! If the heat is uneven, turn halfway through baking and leave until golden brown.

For the glaze, which I almost forgot about, just bring all the ingredients to a boil. Do not reduce or the denser syrup will make the buns stickier.

And, ahhh, what a smell!Here are the buns before brushing the glaze and after it.

And the round ones with the egg wash. They are shiny too, though not as much.

Here’s the torn apart bun to show the tender, fruity & spicy crumb!

Delicious on their own or toasted with some extra butter :D

…which brings out their smell into the kitchen again!

So, do you think it’s worth a try? I assure you that unless you don’t like spices or the fruit…you won’t regret it!Enjoy!

Making chorizo…& tasty “picadillo” with the leftovers!

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:07:00 +0000

This time I’m not going to give out a recipe, but an experience…In this ocassion I’m learning how to make this delicious spanish product which we so often use from two of my students. One from Usagre (Badajoz, Extremadura), the other from Cabezas del Pozo (Avila, Castilla y León), so two ways to make the same thing. Each learnt from participating from childhood in their town’s “matanzas” (pig slaughter’s). So, this post is dedicated to them…thank you for all you’ve taught me!!!

In Usagre, they used “cerdo ibérico” but since they didn’t cure the hind legs to make ham, all that meat was used for the chorizos. Whereas in Cabezas del Pozo, white pork was used and since the ham was cured to make “jamón serrano”, only the “paletillas” (front legs) and the “falda” (lap) meat were used for this purpose. Also, in the latter white wine was added to the meat, whereas in Usagre only the essential “pimentón”, salt and garlic were used. And this is just about the ingredients…the techniques also differ!I think it’s fascinating how each makes “chorizo” so differently. Though considering no two people make tortilla the same way…it shouldn’t surprise me at all!

The best part about the time we spent making it is how it brings people together…I’m not too keen on the idea of participating in the slaughter (in fact, as a kid I watched one, and was so horrified I could even perceive the smell of that day in the photos my brother took…the only one in the family who could watch!) but the labours after that are a time for everyone to get together, it’s a special event…with the eating & drinking that follows!;) These two days felt a bit like that, a time to enjoy, to talk around the table, each with a job to do from a chain. It’s been so much fun and the second time, Teresa (the one from Avila) even managed to bring 20kg of proper meat for the task from her town…with the “pimentón”…very hot this time, perfect!!

The chorizos are done over two days, the first day, the tripes (these were natural veal ones) are cut to the right size, tied up (well, here again different methods…one tied one side before filling, the other did it after filling, we ended up prefering for ease to tie them up…maybe because we are not experienced!) and soaked overnight. Also, the meat is seasoned with the salt, pimentón, garlic and wine and left to macerate.

The tripes are sold by length in a largeeeee bundle. Here the girls are trying to get hold of it and then cut it up into the desired size.

They ended up being generously long the first time, so the second time Manoli (from Usagre) watched over the sizing to make them smaller!

Then, the thread is cut up too and tied to one side, and finally all is soaked in water and a bit of vinegar (they have a very particular smell!!basically you can smell they are natural tripes!!)

The same day, the minced meat…which shouldn’t be too finely minced. The first time it was too small, we fixed it the second time…this is how it should be!

The “pimentón”, the salt, the mashed garlic and the wine are all weighted out..

…And added and thoroughly mixed in, well, rather kneaded in! In 20kg of meat this is hard work!!

Big difference in colour, isn’t there? Here it all starts…

If it’s cool weather, “matanzas” are usually still in winter or at the end of it, so it’s cool and dry outside, the macerated meat can be left out to mature, otherwise (this second time) use the fridge!

The second day, the tripes are washed thoroughly…

Everything is ready…Here are two batches of meat, one with one, the other without to test which we liked best.

And finally, when everything is ready…"prueba de matanza”. That is, we get to try if the cooked chorizo meat is good or needs adjusting! The one with a bit of wine wins…Seems everyone likes it! No adjusting needed!!

So, let’s begin “embutiendo” (filling the tripes with the macerated meat). I present you the “embutidora”. Teresa brought this one which has been in her family for ages, it’s got so many stories to tell, and now one more!

Each tripe is pulled in, so that there’s no air in as the meat comes out.At the beginning the tripe is pinched with a needle to remove any air.And here it comes…our first chorizo is out!!!It looks so perfect, like the store-bought!

This is just the start of almost 3 hours!

But it went by sooo fast!

There was time for laughs…I even got “Miss Tripe 2011” posing :) (her idea!)

20 kg, 20 meters of tripe later…not bad!

So, time to clean up…

And with the left-over meat, I prepared the picadillo con huevos rotos, here’s the dish wrapped up for later use ;) and everyone takes home chorizos to cure or to eat fresh!

I cured two hanging in a cool room for 2 weeks and with the meat I prepared this picadillo…

For the picadillo (enough for 4 people)

500g of potatoes (choose a waxy type)

400g of macerated chorizo meat*

5 eggs

a bit of olive oil for sautéeing

extra oil for frying the eggs (it can be used oil)

* Before I learnt how to prepare chorizos, I learnt from my parents in law how to prepare the “picadillo”, I did it to taste, but use like for chorizos about 20g of salt and paprika (sweet or hot, to taste) per kg of meat, plus a bit of mashed or grated garlic, and optionally oregano. Ideally prepare this the day ahead.

So for this rustic super simple but suppppeerrr tasty dish, chop up the peeled and washed potatoes in small pieces and stir fry it covered until soft and slightly golden outside with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

You could certainly deep-fry the potatoes but this way I save up oil and just use one pan!

Remove the potatoes onto a dish and add the meat with a bit extra oil. Mash and break apart the minced meat pieces as they cook, or they’ll just be a big conglomerate. This is the like the way “Migas” are prepared (which will come)

When ready, add the potatoes back in so they soak up the tasty chorizo oil!

Remove onto a dish…

I then, clean up the very same pan and fill with some oil for frying the eggs and heat up well. Fry the eggs, remove excess oil and place over the previous mix, break the eggs up to mix and serve…

In the back the two cured chorizos.

Tasty, comforting, filling…it’s worth a try!If not the chorizo, definately the picadillo!

Crisp & spicy potato and cauliflower samosas

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:31:00 +0000

I really think computers for the past month have set up against me! Each time I do anything related to the blog, something seems to happen! Either I try a new desktop editor and when I press “publish” it just doesn’t work, or I write on blogger and it translates “my language” to it’s own html format. But, I think today beats them all…(I don’t know if to laugh or cry) after over two hours of work, the computer just switches off and…surprise, all the draft is GONEEE!!!!So, sorry to say, I won’t be rewriting the long introduction it once was. This is the “reduced” version of that post…I just hope the next time I’m ready for war and I win and manage to publish from start to finish in one go!

Soooo, I present you these delicious samosas: with a skin that lasts crisps long after frying but as you take a bite into the surprisingly thin layer you find a generous tasty spiced up filling with a light crunch from the cauliflower. I’d seen some time ago a Ghary Rhodes video that presented a recipe of the bengali cook Jayanti Bhattacharyya. So, though I’m still meaning to try her tasty looking filling, I just took the cauliflower and adapted it into my usual one. The result: I loved it! the slight crunch, the flavour, it rounds it all up so that with each bite you feel the sweetness of the slow cooked shallots, spiced up by the curry and with small bursts of flavour from the whole seeds of kalonji, cumin and coriander. Equilibrated with the refreshing feel of the fresh ginger and a drizzle of lemon juice. In terms of feel, the softness of the potatoes that melt in your palate give way to a slight crunch from the toasted cauliflower!Excellent…You ought to try it!

I served it with a spiced up mango chutchey I made over 6 months ago that keeps perfectly in the fridge, but on their own they are as good, or served with a mild yoghurt sauce with a pinch of grated garlic and fresh mint. Hope you enjoy it!

Potato & cauliflower spiced samosas

(Enough for about 14 samosas)

For the skins:

120g of all purpose flour

10g of fine semolina (or just use flour)

pinch of salt

30g of ghee (if available, you can make it) butter or vegetable oil

50-60g of water (just enough to make a soft but not tacky dough)

For the filling:

250g of potatoes (about 2 medium potatoes)

50g fresh or frozen peas

30g of cauliflower, cut into small florets*

about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil

10g of fresh ginger

1-2 garlic cloves

2 shallots

1/4 tsp of coriander seeds

1/4 tsp of cumin seeds

1,5 tsp of a mild curry or 1 tsp of garam masala (or to taste!)

salt & freshly milled pepper to taste

a tsp of lemon juice, to taste

a pinch of kalonji seeds

a few leaves of fresh coriander (optional)

Plus:

a neutral oil for frying

*I would increase the amount of cauliflower to about 40-50g next time!

The filling is dead simple, the trickiest part is getting the skins right! The dough should be soft but fairly dry, not at all sticky, as it will further soften as it rests, and well worked to make it elastic so that it can be rolled very thin and be resistant to be filled up and fried without breaking! The other trick is a proper frying to get it to be crunchy and stay that way rather than turn soggy soon after frying. we’ll get into that, so lets begin…

The flours are mixed up and the fat is “rubbed into” it (this technique, known as “moyan dena” in India is used to obtain strong but elastic doughs that need to rolled out very thin and withstand the filling). Then, when it resembles breadcrumbs, the warmish water is added slowly.

Enough water is added to just bind the ingredients into a rough ball, then it must be kneaded until a smooth & soft dough is obtained. If pressed down, it should lightly bounce back, which means the gluten has developed enough to build up the elasticity.

Then wrap up and rest for at least 15 minutes, though I’d recommend over 30 minutes.

Meanwhile let’s prepare the filling: Boil the potatoes whole, let them cool lightly and dice them up in roughly 1 cm cubes.

Also, boil the peas without covering them until tender and cool them down immediately afterwards if you want to keep them bright green.

While they are cooking, prepare the “sofrito”: Toast the cumin and sesame seeds with a little oil (or dry roast them) until they begin to pop (they make a crackling sound) then lower the heat and add the rest of the oil. Slowly cook the finely chopped up shallot, ginger and garlic. Do not let the garlic brown or it will get bitter.

When the sofrito is almost ready, add the tiny cauliflower florets and cook them a bit as well until they soften a bit but still retain some crunch.

Add the potato and the curry, the kalonji seeds and then the peas and slow all together for a while so they absorb the flavour.

Taste and season with salt and some lemon juice .

Let cool down, this is important, so it doesn’t get the skins soggy, and add the chopped up fresh coriander.

Shaping the samosas takes a bit of practice, but if you get the dough right in the first place, it’s half-way there!

Roll the dough like a sausage to cut it up in 8 equal pieces. Then, round each into a ball to smooth them up as each with then be rolled out into a circle.

Cover the ones you are not using and work with a ball at a time. Flatten it and roll it out into a thin circle about 15 cm in diameter. I bought a kid’s baking set it IKEA just to get a gingerman pastry cutter and got this cute rolling pin that works excellent for dim sums and samosas!!!Cut each circle in half. Each half will be a samosa.

Now grab a small cup to fill with some cold water to make the sides stick as you shape it. Wet your finger and run it around the outside of the half circle. You want to make a cone by folding the flat sides up and pressing them lightly inside and outside to make them stick.

Hold the cone with one hand and fill it generously with the other leaving just a bit of dough to fold over to close the satchel/cone to form a triangle.

To close it up, first fold one side over the filling, then, the other over it and wet it lightly again, if needed, to make it stick.

Repeat with the remaining skins…

When ready, heat up the oil (it should be enough to deep fry the samosas) and test the temperature by dropping a pinch of dough (I forgot to mention I reserve this bit…but otherwise try with a piece of bread). The dough should fall up to the bottom and then slowly rise up.

If it rises up immediately, it is too hot, which means the crust will be too thin and will get soggy fast.

Fry a few at a time so the temperature doesn’t go down too much, as if it does it will soak up too much oil and feel greasy.

They shouldn’t get too dark, just a light golden. Remove them onto a piece of absorbent paper.

And serve at once!!!;)

So, are you going to try them???

One torn apart to show you the thin crust…Deliciiiiooouuusss!

My childhood romesco for our first calçots

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:36:00 +0000

Last week I had never tried calçots, which are a type of spring onion traditionally grown in Valls, an area in the Tarragona province (Cataluña). They are covered ("calçadas" therefore their name) with soil as they develop after sprouting and being replanted, so the stem stays white, very sweet and really tender. Anyway, I had never tried them, even though all my family is from Cataluña and I had heard so much about them. So, this last friday, to receive my parents who had been away for a few months I though they'd enjoy to have them again. So, I made a reservation in one of the best reviewed restaurants in Madrid which prepares them. It was really fun, as since they are supposed to be completely burnt on the outside (like I make peppers and aubergines over the flame ;) ) you are always given a huge bib (i just learnt this word!) so that you don't get dirty, as it's quite messy. I always find, the messier, the more enjoyable to eat! The ones we were served weren't as burnt as I expected, but they were soooo good, so soft on the inside, literally melt in your mouth!!BUT…

There's always a but, I've been raised with my mom's cooking, she's an excellent cook, so I have fond childhood memories of her amazing Romesco. Romesco is the sauce that always accompanies a "Calçotada" (the barbecued calçots) so my standards were really high! And when they brought us a light-coloured sauce to go with them, I could not believe that was their version of Romesco! Even worse after trying it! Not that it was bad, it was just not at all like the real thing! I understand each chef has a way of making it, a personal version, but this was just like a mayonnaise with some romesco added as to make more of it! Sad, really sad...specially for the price they were charging! So, I came out determined to make romesco like the one my mom used to make to make up for it and make Linguini try the real deal!!

The world is just full of coincidences...Never, I mean never have I seen fresh calçots sold anywhere! It's not just that I wasn't looking for them, but they really are almost impossible to find. And then, one day after trying them I go to the recently renewed more gourmet section of Carrefour...and there they are!! Plus at a very reasonable price, 3,50€ the handful of 25 calçots! So, there was not excuse. Plus, 2 days earlier we had inaugurated a bbq we got from my brother (;) ) and tried making a "escalibada" over the flame of red peppers, aubergines, onions for a "coca" (a sort of pizza typical from Mallorca) and we had even tried our own version of calçots with leeks, which although not as tender and sweet worked fairly well, so could make a decent substitution if calçots cannot be found. Though, I must admit, that although good, it's not at all the same thing, so if you haven't tried them and get a chance, do not hesitate...or you can grow them! I found this excellent blog, though in spanish, but with good pics on how to cultivate them. Amazing, they grow in bunches from a single onion! I might even try next year, as it's done over the winter and picked before spring! (Ajonjoli, are you up for it too?).

So, this was our first time making the barbecued calçots...and trying to recreate the romesco from my childhood, after talking to my mother quite a few times. The result: AMAZING!!! Really, I was blown out by the results! The calçots came out delicious and the romescu...so tasty, so creamy, so beautiful bright red, more than the muhammara I already published! I was lucky to use some excellent quality ingredients...some hazelnuts we had bought fresh in Asturias this last summer which still had not tried, I cracked them and toasted them and came out full of flavour, nothing like others I've tried. How can you beat that? No really, any hazelnuts well toasted will do, some people even substitute hazelnuts for almond and some pinenuts. But to me romesco, has to have hazelnuts for a deeper flavour...Up to you to choose! Also, the dry peppers for romesco are suppossedly different to the usual pimiento choricero. I haven't seen them and it's difficult to find anything about them. As far as I know romesco is always done with either dry "pimientos choriceros" or ñoras. Ñoras are stronger in flavour and coarser, not as sweet as the peppers, so I used more peppers than ñoras, though this can be adapted to taste..or availability (if you use only ñoras, I'd add something sweet to compensate. Anyway, try it even if just to accompany some fish, that's what romesco is more commonly used for, because just the sauce is worth it! Bon profit!

Romesco & calçots
For the sauce:

2 choricero peppers

1 ñora

5 large cloves of garlic, for frying

1 small clove of garlic, to use raw

1 slice of bread (about 20g) for frying

optional: 1/2 a dried chilli

about 300g of fresh tomatoes (I used 3 small ripe vine ones)*

20g toasted hazelnuts, or raw and toast them

20g toasted almonds, or raw and toast them**

about 50g of olive oil (I used a mild one to preserve the flavour)***

salt & freshly milled black pepper

white wine vinegar to taste, I used under 10g

Plus: about 10-15 calçots per person

*You can use more tomatoes if you prefer a thinner sauce, I made it thick but just creamy enough for the calçots to take the sauce as they were dipped in.

**Like I said some recipes use just almonds and even some pinenuts, they are all good, but the flavour of the hazelnut I find cannot be beaten!

***Usually more oil is used, I find this amount is just right to emulsify the sauce and mellow it without covering the flavour up, but if you like you can add up to 100ml!

I didn't show you in the introduction to not overcrowd it with photos, but here's the bunch of calçots in the supermarket! I was sooo thrilled I had to take a photo, that was before deciding to buy them and try making them ourselves!

And this is what we were aiming at, the ones from the restaurant, served wrapped in paper in a nice long tile...

As you can tell, these have the grill marks but aren't as burnt as they are supposed to, though were excellent! I'd also like to show you the scene of my parents with the bib eating the calçots...but I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate it, so instead I leave you with this excellent video of El Cocinero Fiel (again in spanish) showing how the calçots are grown, prepared for the calçotada and eaten!!

The truth is that we made this dish on the run, meaning we started at 1: 30 pm preparing for lunch and as I was in charge of making the sauce, Linguini started the fire (it should be wood, not charcoal) to cook the calçots. So, there was noooo time for styling at all, I wasn't even sure about whether this post would see the light, but after the results I was eager to share with you the experience of this rustic meal!
So, I began by hydrating the ñora and the peppers. For that, it's best to open them up and deseed them and place them in tepid-warmish water (If I can take my time I prefer not to use too hot water, as I feel it extracts flavour out of the pulp). I did this in the mid-morning before returning home at almost lunch time. So, they hydrated for over 2 hours... Then, I strained them very well as I prefer to lightly fry them to improve the flavour...

See the change in colour? They get their vivid red back! Time to start toasting the almonds and hazelnuts...But since my hazelnuts weren't even peeled I had to crack them first with the pestle and mortar.

Then, I placed them to toast together in the oven. I intended to toast slowly at 150ºC but set up the oven to 180ºC, placed the nuts in as it was heating and when I realised I had to lower the temperature...they were already done! Bufff, just in time...after all the work! To peel the hazelnuts, just rub them and the thin skin comes off super easily...Beautiful!

I did quite a few more than those 25g in the recipe...to make up for turning the oven on...and to snack on a bit as I was preparing...

Now there are various ways to prepare the remaining ingredients: one is to bbq both the tomatoes and the garlic (in that case it's best to use a whole head and add the cooked cloves to taste, the other is to roast in the oven and the third which I used for time and to profit the oil I was going to use to fry the bread is to fry them.

So, first over medium heat fry the garlic...you want them to soften and cook inside so it shouldn't be too high, and too low they'll confit, which is actually ok. Then, briefly fry the peppers, this will give them a nicer flavour. Be careful not to let them darken or you'll spoil the nice flesh you achieved hydrating. And then fry the bread slice until golden brown

Strain the oil if needed (I used a tiny strainer to not bother changing it around) and with a little bit of oil, just to cover the bottom of the frying pan, fry the tomatoes previously cut in half & deseeded and with the hard scar that attaches them to the plan removed for easy peeling once cooked. Cut side down first:

Now just use a knife or a spoon to rub out the pulp of the peppers & ñora away from their skins:

And ready to pound away...The truth is that traditionally this was done with a pestle and morter, now obviously it can be done with a processor or with a blender, but I still prefer to begin pounding. It probably it is just me, but like with Thai food I feel pounding releases the natural oils better and I also make sure the garlic gets completely mashed up so it is there but you don't feel it! So, first, with a pinch of salt the raw garlic and then the cooked garlic cloves with the bread.

Then, add the pulp of the peppers & ñora...

Then, I do pass it to a processor and add the nuts and the tomatoes (just pull the skin away, it comes off like a shirt!) and blend it all

Add the oil (to taste) and continue blending to emulsify. Add vinegar, salt & pepper to taste and that's it! Back to see what Linguini was preparing...

After washing off the soil on the outside and trimming the roots off, we placed the calçots over the flame. This is great because when making calçotada, usually the calçots are cooked over the flame and then over the embers the meat is cooked. We didn't make good use of them this time as we had nothing planned and had enough calçots for a consistent meal! But next time will do for sure!

Once the first side is black, turn over...don't leave it for too long or it will continue burning layers and you'll lose tasty flesh!

And go on to finish all batches...

And...wrap in hard paper or newspaper (this is all I could find...you can tell what Linguini reads! )

Peel off each calçot. There's a saying in Valls that goes " De la teula feta amb terra se l'agafa amb la mà esquerra. I amb dos dits de la mà dreta se li treu la samarreta", meaning " From the clay tile it's picked up with the left hand, and with two fingers from the right you pull its shirt off. So, now you know, to show you the magical transformation from calcinated to soft & sweet...

And straight onto the dip!

And this is what was left...before we finished up the sauce with some bread!

As I said before, if you cannot find calçots, you can try barbecuing leeks. This was our result, that although not like calçots (not as sweet and tender) was quite tasty too:

So, whichever way, try the sauce, you won't regret it!!Hope you enjoy the experience as much as we have!

Tasty rough puff pastry broccoli & bacon quiche

noreply@blogger.com (Colette) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:17:00 +0000

Not too long ago, I read a recipe by Dan Lepard of a quiche with a very flaky pastry. At first I thought it was the usual shortcrust pastry though laminated as if it were puff pastry. Looking into it I realised it was a rough (quick, we call it here) puff pastry but substituting some of the usual iced water in the recipe for other "liquids", namely milk and yolks. Funny that whenever I want puff pastry (which is not too often for the tedious work and time it takes) I make it from scratch. The proper, long way I mean, inserting the butter inside the dough, with it's up to 6 simple turns (or less depending on the amount of butter for proper lamination)... But since school I haven't used rough puff pastry! (I didn't even remember doing it). So, I was curious, I was sure the so-called " rough puff" wouldn't rise properly to give the delicate crispy layers of the "real" thing. But, had to try it...

Since, I've played around for quite a few times after some research on books, old notes, etc. though it almost worked from the first try! I was sooo amazed the first time I watched reluctant how it cooked in the oven, when it a matter of minutes it puffed up as if it were a perfectly laminated proper puff pastry!! Honestly, the results are wonderful!!!In less than half the time (much less, actually) you get a puff pastry that tastes better than any store-bought one (assuming you use proper, decent quality butter). Butter is what makes it heavenly... Other than it's flavour, mainly because it melts at lower than body temperature, so you get a clean mouth feel, whereas nasty hydrogenated fats in the form of margarines (so overused here in all industrial viennoiserie) melt at higher temperatures, which makes them easier to work with but result in a waxy, sticky mouth-feel. So, considering this quick puff pastry uses 1: 1 parts flour: butter (the maximum you ever use for puff pastry itself) imagine how delicious it is!!!!! (ok, ok, I am aware of the calories or saturated fats, but you don't use that much per portion, plus, did you know trans-fats in hydrogenated oils actually ends up raising the amount of bad fatty acids in the blood?) So...I am totally for: use real butter! ;)

About the filling, I love broccoli and the small touch of bacon makes it super tasty! Believe me, we made this in class and even those not veggie-friendly absolutely loved it! For the quiche cream I often use fresh cream rather than milk for a creamier result (more like crème brulée rather than flan) but it can feel too dense sometimes. So, this time I've substituted some for sour cream with excellent results. The truth is that there's not much quiche cream in the quiche as it is packed with the broccoli itself which takes up most of the space, so the setting cream merely acts as a binder, but with the touch of sour cream, or it could all be crème fraîche, it gives a still creamy but lighter feel. I hope you enjoy the quiche, and specially that you learn to make this simple but awesome pastry for any other uses you like! I will attempt to guide you as best I can though the process of achieving that heavenly crispy & flaky rough puff pastry (thanks Dan for the inspiration!).

Rough puff pastry broccoli & bacon quiche

(For 1x 24cm round quiche mould)

For the rough puff pastry:

    75g of medium strong flour (I used a w225 one)

75g of plain flour*

    1/2 tsp of lemon juice (or cream of tartar)**

    150g of frozen butter (cut in 2 cm cubes)

    75g of ice-cold water

pinch of salt

For the filling:

   1 small broccoli

   1 small onion

   2 cloves of garlic

   80g bacon

   salt & freshly ground pepper

   125g of grated Arzúa Ulloa or tetilla cheese***

   100g of sour cream

   200g of fresh cream

   3 medium eggs

* I've tried making it just with plain flour and works almost equally as well. With a bit of strong flour, it puffs slightly better as the extra gluten helps make the dough layers more resistant. But on the other hand, it may take longer to make as needs extra rests to relax!

**The acid gives the dough a bit extra elasticity to make stretching easier. But it's not that important at all.

***I've used these spanish creamy cheeses that melt very well with a fresh lactic flavour, but use any cheese that melts well that you like.

To begin with the puff pastry, it is important to have all ingredients (well, water and butter ice-cold!).
Cut the butter in small cubes (my butter comes in a round metallic can, so I scooped it chunks) and place it in the freezer, so it stays firm as you roll out and laminate the dough. It's also worth a note, that the smaller the butter cubes, the quicker the lamination process, as less turns are needed, but the resulting pastry is not as flaky as that with larger chunks that makes longer layers.

Mix the frozen butter into the flour and salt (I sift it, but it's not really necessary)

Then add the iced water, if you haven't placed it in the freezer, the best it to add ice-cubes to it and either weight it when cold or if confident add as needed. If you weigh it, do not add all of it at one, as although it will probably be around right, different flours have different hydrations and it may need less, as we don't want a sticky dough...

In fact, at the begining it will look like a rough dry mass that just clumps together, as we laminate it (roll out & fold) it will smoothen up to a soft velvety dough. Soooo, just make sure the ingredients do hold together, if not add more water. Take a look at the ROUGH initial pastry on the first left picture.

I like to place a piece of parchment paper or film underneath at the beginning, as since the pastry is so crumbly at the begining, the paper or film can be folded over to help making the turns without the dough breaking.

Take into account that chunks of butter (even though ice-cold at the beginning) so not melting, as spread in betweet the dough, so as we work and the butter softens, it sticks. So USE FLOUR, it helps a lot spreading a thin layer now and then on both sides to make rolling out easier and clean, so the layers that form stay whole and don't break.

Roll out the dough into a rough rectangle about 3 times longer in length. With the help of the parchment underneath, start the first simple turn, folding the bottom third of the rectangle over the middle one and then the top one over it. First turn, done!

Time for the 2nd turn, which if the butter was frozen, no doubt you can do straight away. Turn the dough 90º to the right first.

We are aiming to start shaping a decent rectangle to get clean borders, so to get an even stretching, it helps to press with the rolling pin to make the folds stick together from either side. I softly punch it down with the rolling pin parallel to it in both directions (do you see the indentations), then stretching out is a piece of cake. Remember to keep both sides lightly floured so no chunks are stuck; I generously flour and with a soft hand spread it and remove excess for a velvety touch. Also, to strech in both ways evenly, start from the center to either side, come back and repeat towards the other side. Do you see it smoother?

Repeat as before for the 2nd turn.

If you can go on because the dough isn't too elastic, and the butter is still firm, go on, but most likely you will have to let the pastry rest in the fridge or freezer for a bit to handle. If it's just because the butter is softer, place in the freezer for about 10 minutes, but if you find it springs back, rest for about 20 minutes or more in the fridge (when making puff pastry usually an indentation per turn given to the dough is made on one corner to know where you are at, if you feel you may forget, do it).

Then, proceed as before, 90º turn to the right, stretch out (you can tell the butter still shows a lot and make the 3rd turn and go onto the 4th and last. If you find that even after the 4th turn, the layer of butter is really visible, it may be a good idea to give it a 5th turn, otherwise in the oven the thick layer of butter will make it ooze out as it heats up! On the other hand, if after 3 turns, you find it's barely visible, it may be enough, you probably cut it up small, as we don't want the separate dough & butter layers to blend together, so too many folds may be counterproductive!)

Here's the ready dough. Leave to rest in the fridge for a while or if you feel it's firm enough stretch to the thickness & shape you want to lay on the mould (about 5min is good).

Grease lightly the mould and place the stretched out pastry over leaving the edges overhanging. Place in the fridge or even better, in the freezer to get the puff pastry really cold, that way, when it is placed in the oven the cold butter takes longer to melt and gives more time for the dough to cook and evaporate water which is what causes the puffing as layers separate.

When it is hard, place a wrinkled up piece of parchment that gets up to the top of the borders and fill generously with legumes or rice or metal weights, with a scizzor cut the excess out leaving some dough still slightly over the top, otherwise it falls down during baking and you end up with no borders!!

For the filling (which you can start in between turns of the pastry, though I've shown it all together for ease of understanding) separate the brocoli florets from the stem.

Most people throw away the delicious stem, don't!! I remove the tough fibrous outside like for the artichokes. Cut through the top but not until the end, and then pull, you'll see how it comes out to show exactly which part is tough as it separates very easily!

Cook the florets and stem bits separately for only two minutes on abundant boiling salted water and cool with cold water or an ice bath to keep them vibrant green!

Cut the onion in brunoise and chop the garlic finely and slow-fry until it begins to soften. Add the finely diced bacon (I like it first sliced thin and then chopped small so it gets golden and crispier on the edges) and continue until lightly coloured. It should get a nice golden hue, otherwise it won't taste as nice!

Remove from the heat and when cooler mix in with the brocoli and season to taste.

For the cream, mix both sour & fresh cream with the eggs beating lightly and keep aside without seasoning until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 180-200ºC (depends on the oven). It should be fairly hot the first 5 minutes so the dough cooks faster rather than give time for the butter to slowly melt away. Blind bake the dough for about 20-25 minutes with the weighs in (the first 5 minutes at 200ºC then lower to 180ºC) and then remove them so the bottom cooks as well so it will end up crispy too! Make sure to PINCH all the surface with the tip of a brochette, a knife or a fork, so the pastry doesn't puff up, because it will want to, believe me!! Check in the oven and if you see it rises, pinch it down!

Lower the oven to 160ºC. Fill the bottom with a thin layer of grated cheese, this will impermeabilise the dough a bit, so it doesn't get soggy. Arrange the broccoli and bacon & onion mixture nicely over. Season your cream & egg mix with salt and pepper and pour over right up to the top. My mould is fairly low, so you can see the broccoli florets show a lot and there's no need for much cream. If your mould is higher, prepare about 100 ml more of cream filling.

Place back in the oven and cook for about 40 minutes until light golden, puffed and when pierced with a brochette, it comes out clean. Remove from the oven to cool.

I like it warm out of the oven, but if you want a proper set, it's best to leave it to rest a few hours or up to the next day and if the puff pastry isn't as crispy return it to a moderately hot oven (180ºC) for a little while.

Can you tell how nice the pastry is?...super flaky & crispy!

And underneath, nicely cooked:

How about a slice?