Shortcrust Pastry (Pâte Brisée)
Oct0
This easy to make pastry is often used as a base for tarts or pies. When baked, it does not rise up, but instead reaches a nice crunchy texture. Usually I just buy a roll of shortcrust pastry at the supermarket because I don’t have much time, but whenever I can I try to make it myself.
Pâte brisée is used a lot in french cuisine for both savory and sweet tarts. Possible fillings are tomatoes, zucchini, ham and cheese, apples, figs etc. Some people make a sweet alternative called sweetcrust pastry by adding sugar to the original recipe. Personally I use the basic shortcrust pastry for sweet tarts as well because I love the contrast between sweet and salty.
The pastry itself is very easy to make, however the tricky part is to prevent it from getting soggy once you add the filling (which mostly doesn’t need to cook as long as the pastry itself). This is why it’s very important to lay out a pie/tart-form with the finished dough and prebake it for approximately 10 minutes without the filling. This will ensure that the pastry is baked properly at the end and that it doesn’t absorb the liquid from the filling before the latter solidifies.
Ingredients
- 200g flour
- 100g soft but still cold butter (unsalted)
- 1 egg yolk
- 4 cl water
- 1 teaspoon salt
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Preparation
- Pass the flour through a sieve and make a little pile with it.
- Form a hole with your fingers in the middle of the pile and add the butter.
- Work the flour and the butter a little until you have a pile of crumbs (you can do this with a food processor as well).
- Form another hole and add the egg yolk, the water and the salt.
- Knead everything well with your hands until your pastry has a smooth but firm texture. If it feels wet still and if it sticks to your hand, gradually add flour until it reaches the desired texture. Do not work it too long or it will start to fall apart.
- You can wrap the pastry in a piece of clingfilm and refrigerate it for later use. Actually it is recommended to let it rest for approximately 2 hours in the fridge. If you don’t have the time you can still use it right away.
- Roll out the pastry so it becomes a round, 5-7 mm thick sheet.
- Lay out a tart/pie form and pierce the pastry a few times with a fork.
- If you want to make a tart or a pie, remember to prebake the pastry for approximately 10 minutes before adding the filling.
A Perfect Sauce Béchamel (White Sauce)
Oct0
VideoJug: How To Make Bechamel Sauce
Yesterday I decided to use up the Cauliflower/Broccoli I had left in my fridge and of course my first thought was to make a gratin with a nice Béchamel Sauce. Although I didn’t get time to make the actual gratin, I’d still like to post about how to make a perfect Sauce Béchamel. I’m using this quite often (in moderate quantities) as a base for gratins, to make lasagna or to cook other sauces.
This sauce can still be considered part of the basics of traditional French Cuisine; unfortunately it’s not being used much anymore by accomplished/modern chefs, due to the thick and rich texture of the sauce.
Personally I like to use this sauce in small quantities because:
- It’s made quickly
- You always got the ingredients at home
- Can accompany many dishes
- Can be seasoned and adapted almost infinitely
I found a video on videojug which reproduces almost exactly the recipe I usually follow to make my white sauce. I adapted the quantities to those mentioned in the video to make it easier. You can either follow the video or my description below. Anyway props to the people who made this video 
Ingredients
- 25g butter (you can substitute oil for this)
- 25g flour
- 300ml milk
- 1/4 peeled onion (optional)
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 4 cloves (optional)
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
- salt and pepper
____________
Preparation
- With the cloves, stick the bay leaves to the onions (if you use any, I don’t).
- Place the milk in a small pan and add the onion with the bay leaves.
- On low-medium heat, let the milk cook until it’s almost boiling.
- Turn off the heat and leave for five minutes to infuse.
- Remove the onion/bay leaves/cloves.
- Put the butter into a medium sized sauce pan and let it melt at low heat.
- When the butter is melted (be careful not to burn it) add the flour and stir well with a wooden spoon at low heat for about 1-2 minutes (you just made a “white roux”).
- Remove the pan from the heat and gradually ad the hot milk while whisking. You must beat constantly so the roux blends with the milk.
- Put the sauce back on the stove and bring to a boil while continuing to whisk constantly. This is very important, don’t stop to beat or the sauce will burn. When it starts to boil, lower the temperature and let simmer until the sauce reaches the desired thickness. Again, do not stop to whisk at any moment.
- Remove the sauce from the heat, season it with the nutmeg and the salt/pepper.
- Strain the sauce through a sieve to remove any possible lumps.
- If you are going to use the sauce at a later point, always cover it with a clingfilm, else it will develop a skin.
Enjoy!
Pumpkin-Carrot Soup with Ginger
Oct0
It’s autumn which means it’s pumpkin season! Normally every market should be filled with a great variety of pumpkin/squash/acorn. Yeah well that’s normally :p Unfortunately here in the south of France pumpkin is not really a staple food. When Halloween approaches the big supermarkets import a few pumpkins but whatever they don’t manage to sell is sometimes being offered for weeks after as prepacked pumpkin slices. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences so whenever I buy pimpkin I’m extremely careful. Luckily at the moment the markets here do have a few pumpkins lying around and they still appear to be fresh.
When I decided to make this soup I thought about adding a little fresh ginger to give it a spicy kick. Although I’m not a big fan of ginger the outcome was surprisingly good, however if you don’t like ginger don’t add any.
Ingredients
- 500g of pumpkin
- 2-3 carrots
- 1 onion
- 250 ml vegetable stock
- 1 tsp of grated ginger
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 slices of bread (white bread works nicely but you can use any sort of bread, I for one used black bread here)
- 2 tsp of paprika powder
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- crème fraîche (optional)
- finely chopped parsley (optional)
——————–
- Peel and clean the pumpkin. Cut into small pieces.
- Chop the onion finely.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan.
- Peel, clean and cut the carrots into small pieces.
- Put the carrot into the saucepan with the hot oil and cook them at medium heat for about 5 minutes.
- Add the onions, the pumpkin and the ginger and cook everything for approximately 15 minutes on medium-low heat. (Or until the carrots and the pumpkin are nicely soft)
- Add the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
- Put the soup aside.
- Cut the bread in cubes and drizzle them with olive oil. Powder them with a little paprika and put them in the oven at approximately 180 °C.
- Either use a food processor or an immersion blender to blend the soup until the texture is nicely smooth.
- Run the soup through a sieve and remove the croutons from the oven.
- Add salt and pepper to the soup if needed.
- Serve with a little crème fraîche and chopped parsley. (optional)
Serves 4.
NYC Wrap Rolls: Light Version
Oct0
Before flying to
I don’t know about you but when I want to cook something there is nothing that “turns me off” quicker than a huge list of ingredients. I don’t really like adding components (like spices) to a dish for the sake of it. If I use an ingredient I want to be able to taste it while eating.
I highly doubt that all those recipes have really been cooked and developed by the big chefs themselves. Just like the products you can buy which carry the name of a celebrity chef and often the stuff simply tastes gross and isn’t worth the money (Maki made an interesting post about this topic on her blog).
This time however I was pleasantly surprised. The recipe was quite simple, didn’t require $100 worth of ingredients and the outcome was actually very tasty. Of course the recipe itself was adapted to the summer months, but I don’t think that eating light food is only something you do in summer. I’m actually looking for healthy, low-calorie recipes the whole year round. And this is definitely one I’m going to cook regularly from now on. What’s great about those wraps is that you can either eat them as a main course or you can take them along for lunch at work.
Ingredients (recipe adapted from “cuisinez comme un chef”)
For the light Cesar dressing:
- 3 Tbsp light mayonnaise
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 clove of garlic (crushed) [optional]
- 2 Tbsp milk
- 2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tsp
- salt and pepper
For the wraps:
- 2 tortillas (I used store bought ones that had a note of salsa)
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1/2 avocado
- 1 carrot
- 2 big lettuce leaves
- 1 tomato
- 1/2 yellow pepper (or any colour you prefer)
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Preparation
- Make the light Cesar dressing by mixing all the ingredients for the dressing mentioned above. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you added whole pieces of garlic, remove them before using the dressing.
- Put a teaspoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan and heat it up well at medium-high heat.
- Cut the chicken in bite sized pieces and put them in the hot pan. (Remember never put meat or fish in a pan that’s not hot, it turns the meat to rubber)
- Cook the meat while stirring frequently. At the same time wash the yellow pepper and cut it into thin stripes. Add those to the meat and let everything cook together until the meat is nicely brown and the pepper stripes are soft. Add a little salt at the end and put aside.
- Peel the carrots and cut them in julienne stripes. Wash and cut the tomato in slices. Peel the avocado, remove the core and slice it in stripes. Wash the lettuce leaves.
- Cut two pieces of baking sheet the approximate size of a tortilla.
- Cover one of those sheets with a tortilla. Start by covering the tortilla with one of the lettuce leaves and continue with a layer of 2-3 tomato slices. Be careful to put the ingredients in the middle of the tortilla rather than the sides else the filling won’t stay in the tortilla once wrapped.
- Season the tortilla with some of the Cesar dressing. Now add lengthwise: the chicken and pepper, the carrot stripes and the avocado slices. Fold in the sides a little and then roll your tortilla using the paper as help when needed. The baking sheet is supposed to be wrapped around the tortilla at the end.
- Repeat for the second tortilla.
- Cut in a half and serve. Serves 2.
Bon appetit !
Gnocchi with Pesto Rosso and Mozarella
Oct0
Gnocchi is one of my favorite Italian dishes. Usually I eat them with just a little grated cheese and I don’t think that any type of sauce is necessary for them to taste good. It’s actually not easy to find a good sauce for Gnnochi and I’ve been searching for a long time :p For me usual pasta sauces (bolognese, basil pesto, carbonara etc.) were simply to heavy for a Gnocchi dish. Sometimes I ate them with a simple tomato sauce but my stomach isn’t always happy about that, so I continued the search and finally today I decided to try and make a Pesto Rosso.
I’m actually not quite sure if Pesto Rosso is a traditional Italian sauce. I didn’t find anything about it on Wikipedia. If you happen to know where Pesto Rosso comes from and if it’s used in traditional Italian cuisine, please leave a comment
The only thing I know is that I found two different types of recipes on the internet. One type involved a lot of olives and fresh thyme. The other type leaves out olives entirely and uses basil as herb. The latter is the type of pesto rosso I tried here in France before and that’s the one I tried to reproduce with this recipe. However I don’t know if this is the “original” recipe (should there be one).
Unfortunately I didn’t make the Gnocchi myself as the process is quite time consuming and requires some practice. But if you’d like to give it a shot check out this video.
Ingredients
For the pesto (recipe adapted from this site):
- 200g fresh, firm tomatoes
- 10 sun-dried tomatoes, drained of their oil
- 2 cloves of garlic (optional, I didn’t put any)
- 2 tablespoons of fresh basil, chopped
- 50g walnuts, chopped (you can also use 100g almonds)
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (the best you have)
- salt and pepper
Other than that:
- 500g of uncooked Gnocchi
- grated parmesan or mozarella cheese (optional)
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Preparation
- If you are using almonds, cook them in some water for approximately 5-10 minutes. Drain the nuts, cool off with cold water and peel away their skin. If you are using walnuts you can omit this step.
- Put the fresh tomatoes in a bowl and pour some hot water over them. Let them in the hot water for about 2 minutes, drain and remove their skin (should be easy now because of the hot water). Cut in cubes and put aside.
- Roughly chop the dried tomatoes. Put aside.
- If you are using garlic, chop finely.
- Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan and add 3 teaspoons of salt.
- Put the fresh and the dried tomatoes in a food processor. Add the nuts, the garlic and the basil. Turn on the processor on high speed while slowly adding the olive oil. Once all the olive oil is incorporated continue to process everything until you are happy with the texture. Personally I like it as smooth as possible, but that’s up to you.
- At last add salt and pepper to taste.
- Turn of the food processor and put the pesto rosso aside.
- Cook the Gnocchi according to manufacturer’s instructions.
- Drain them well and serve with 1-2 spoons of pesto rosso. Sprinkle with some grated cheese if you like.
Serves 3-4. If you have some pesto rosso left you can conserve it in the fridge for a couple of days. Some even say that it conserves for up to a month if covered with a film of olive oil but I’m a little sceptical about that. Enjoy
California Rolls
Oct0
How to make California Rolls? Let’s start with the list of ingredients & utensils.
- 2 cups of Japonica Rice (There is no good substitute for this, check this post for more information)
- 4 cups of water
- 1/4 cup of sushi vinegar (You can get this in Asian/Japanese supersmarkets, but if you have troubles finding this -I’ll add a recipe later)
- 2 nori sheets - cut in half (If its full size nori sheets, which is mostly the case, fold it and halve it along the longer side)
- 1 ripe avocado (to check this, press a little with your finger on the skin… if it gives slightly the avocado is ripe, if your finger leaves a mark, it’s too ripe)
- toasted sesame seeds (for a greate visual appeal try to buy black and white sesame seeds, they don’t have to be toasted as you buy them, you can toast them yourself in a frying pan in five minutes easily)
- half a cucumber (don’t peel it, just wash it very well)
- imitation crab sticks (surimi), just buy a package of those, you’ll need about 5
- bamboo sushi rolling mat
- clingfilm
1. Cook the rice using these instructions. At the end of the article she describes how to make sushi rice, follow these instructions as well (when you are about to cook the rice, you do not have to substitute the water with dashi stock, I personally don’t like the smell of dashi stock at all and my sushi rice tastes just fine without it). Note: It is really important that you wash the rice. Many people omit this step but it actually helps giving the rice exactly the texture it needs, not too sticky. Also cooling the sushi rice can be painful but you’ll get used to it and as fancy as it might sound, the blow dryer is a huge help.
If you didn’t find sushi vinegar you’ll find the recipe for it at the end of her article as well.
2. While the rice dries, cooks or rests, cut all the vegetables length wise: Peel the avocado and halve it. Then slice down 5 mm thick stripes from the middle to the edge.
Halve the cucumber lengthwise and remove the seeds, then slice into 5mm thick stripes.
The crab sticks are best halved lengthwise as well.
3. In a frying pan toast the sesame seeds on middle heat and keep stirring them until they are golden brown.
4. Wash your hands carefully and put them under cold water, then let them wet and take about a handful of your prepared sushi rice. Dispense it over the whole norisheet by leaving about a cm space at the bottom. Don’t squeesh the rice; just keep your hands wet, that’s the whole trick to easily work and shape Japanese rice. Don’t put too much rice either, biggest mistake at the start is to put too much rice. You are supposed to still see some places of the norisheet through the rice. Don’t worry about evening out the rice, the bamboo mat’ll take care of that.
Try to always free your hands of the rice starch between each step and after washing them, leave them wet.
5. Now take about a teaspoon of sesame seeds and sprinkle them over the upper half of the rice on the nori sheet. After that grab the nori sheet by the upper and lower corner on the left or the right side and flip it upside down. The rice free area is still at the bottom.
6. Put two stripes of avocado in the middle of the sheet, followed by two and a half of the imitation crab sticks you cut before. Those are placed ABOVE the avocado slices. Just under the avocado slices position two cucumber stripes.
7. Now wet your hands and roll the sheet starting from below as firm as you can without squeeshing it. After having the role in front of you, position the clingfilm over the Sushi roll followed by the bamboo mat. Now gently press the mat with your hands around the roll to make it firm.
8. Remove the clingfilm and the mat and take a sharp knife with a wet blade. Cut the role in six pieces.
8. It’s quite hard to describe the procedure clearly. But luckily there is a video from an experienced Sushi chef, which will clear up a lot of questions you might still have: Check this video, (the video about California Rolls)
My first bento!
Oct0
Ok this morning I got up 1 hour earlier than normally but I’m glad I did it, because check the result: my first bento!
Bento is a traditional way of preparing lunches for school/work in boxes that have several compartments to store the food carefully in order for the tastes not to get mixed up. But there is much more behind bento. Bento is also (as Japanese food in general) about the preparation. The appearance is supposed to be so appetizing that you feel like eating everything. For Japanese children for example a bento is the link between home and school. The mothers carefully prepare food for the child to feel accepted among friends and for the child to feel so appealed by the lunch that it will eat everything to the last rice grain. There are even bento meetings for parents and loads of magazines with ideas.
But bento aren’t only children meals Adults and people in general like to eat those whenever they aren’t at home. You can often buy those in shops or at train stations. Sometimes they contain special regional foods and then the bento are called ekiben (if I’m not mistaken ^^).
Taken from Wikipedia:
Types of bento
- Chūka bentō (中華弁当) are filled with Chinese food. The Chinese do not eat food that has become cold; this was invented in Japan.
- Kamameshi bentō (釜飯弁当) are sold at train stations in the Nagano prefecture. A bento is packed in a clay pot and cooked. This clay pot is a souvenir item.
- Makuno-uchi bentō (幕の内弁当) is a classic style of bento with rice, a pickled ume fruit (umeboshi), a slice of broiled salmon, a rolled egg, etc.
- Noriben (海苔弁) is the simplest bento, with nori dipped in soy sauce covering cooked rice.
- Sake bentō (鮭弁当) is a simple bento with a slice of broiled salmon (鮭, sake) as the main dish.
- Shidashi bentō (仕出し弁当) is made in a restaurant and delivered during lunch. This bento is often eaten at a gathering like a funeral or a party. It is usually packed with traditional Japanese foods like tempura, rice and pickled vegetables. A shidashi bento packed with European-style food is also available.
- Sushizume (鮨詰め) literally means “packed sushi“, and is a bento filled with sushi.
Other
- Hayaben (早弁), literally “quick bento”, is eating a bento before lunch, and having another lunch afterward.
- Hokaben (ホカ弁) is any kind of bento bought at a bento franchise called “Hoka-Hoka Tei”.
- Reitō mikan (冷凍ミカン) is a frozen mandarin orange often sold at a train station alongside ekiben. It was one of the earliest desserts sold onboard a train.
- Hinomaru bento (日の丸) was the name for a bento consisting of plain white rice with an umeboshi in the centre. The Hinomaru bento takes its name from the Hinomaru, the Japanese flag, which has a white background with a red circle in the centre. These bento were common in during the second World War, both because of the scarcity of food and the desire to and necessity of avoiding displays of excess while maintaining an image of stout. patriotism.
How to make bento? Well I will devote many many entries to this as I am reasearching stuff about bento like mad so stay tuned :p
I don’t claim to make perfectly traditional Japanese bento boxes, please don’t get me wrong I take a large part of Japanese recipes and check which ones I can cook that aren’t too time consuming (as I’m a full time student I don’t have much time) and that are doable with the ingredients that I can find here in the region I live in. (we only have one Asia-mart and they have one single shelf of Japanese ingredients… So not much choice for now - and ordering over internet is kinda pricey). Also I will fairly often use local recipes or western food that is well known (like chicken nuggets, country potatoes or taboulé).. but I will generally try to keep as much Japanese foods as I can and I will also try to keep the food as healthy as possible.
The obento you see above consists of Japanese cooked rice with roasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top of it. Moving on to the right we have teriyaki fried chicken (Teriyaki is a marinade for meat - will add a recipe at the end). Then cucumber slices and a little cornichon. Above we have chopped carrots and an onigiri (Japanese rice ball). Totally on the left we have a little fruit salad, a milk bottle of salad dressing (cute no? ^^) and two cherry tomatoes.
Recipes that you’ll need:
Onigiri
Makes 4 servings
- 4 cups of freshly cooked Japonica rice
- salt
- nori seaweed, cut in 4×2 cm stripes
- fillings (traditional fillings are Umeboshi (pickled plum),chopped pickles in general or dried bonito flakes… but as it is really hard to get a hold of any of these fillings here in France I like to use flaked cooked salmon, tuna seasoned with a tsp of soy sauce, omelet or any fried meat. The filling may not contain any liquid, it must be dry and it must be conservable up until you actually have lunch) note that fillings are not obligatory but if you put in some it should generally be fairly salty as it is accompanied by a lot of rice
- optional: black and white toasted sesame seeds
(If you don’t know how to cook Japanese rice: click here)
Clean your hands so that they are impeccably clean. Wet them under cold water and then rub a bit of salt with sesame seeds on your hand palms. Take 1 cup of cooked rice (while it’s still hot … test the degree of heat that you can still bear with your hands) and rapidly working, form a ball. Make a little, but deep hole with your finger in the middle of the ball of rice and add a teaspoon of filling. Now close the rice ball in such a way that the filling is embedded in the center; shape the onigiri either in a triangle shape or in a disc shape or in a rounded cylinder shape. To make triangles just cup your hands in an angle and rotate the onigiri until happy with the form. A sheet explaining this better: click.
Teriyaki fried chicken:
For the Teriyaki marinade
- 1/2 cup of soy sauce
- 1/2 cup of mirin (if you don’t find this ingredient you can substitute it by either sake and sugar or a sweet sherry)
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
Put all these ingredients together in a little pot, mix them and turn on low heat while stirring it. Let it simmer a few minutes and then turn off the heat. After the sauce has cooled down put it in a bottle and store in the fridge.
For the chicken:
Cut one chicken breast in bite sized pieces and pour about 3 tbss of teriyaki sauce over it. Now add salt and pepper and cover the chicken well with the sauce. Put it in the fridge to marinate for about an hour then fry in a pan. Watch out with the heat though as the sauce contains a lot of sugar it will easily burn.
Fruit Salad
- Fruits of your choice, cut in little pieces. For example: peaches, pears, cherries and grapes.
- 1/2 cup Honey
- 1/4 cup lime juice
Make a dressing from the honey and lime juice and pour over fruit pieces. Mix well, serve cold.
See you soon!
Saturday is Curry Day!
Oct0
“Indian curry is really the best!”
“Nah, I love the curry they make at the Chinese restaurant not far from here…”
“Personally, I prefer Japanese curry :)”
“What??!!? Japanese don’t make curry!”
As a matter of fact Japanese do have a curry dish :p It’s actually one of the most popular dishes over there. According to some recent surveys the average Japanese family eats curry about 2-3 times a week. If right now you think “probably some variation of Indian curry, boring -_-”… you couldn’t be further from the truth. Japanese curry has a completely different taste. The texture, while thicker than other curry types, is much lighter and has a sweet distinct flavour that hits the taste buds when you eat it for the first time and you just go like “wow, I like!”. Surprisingly though, Japanese style curry is the least known over here.
Approximately 2 years ago, I ate my first curry. It was one of those premade curries from house that you heat up in the microwave and then just pour over freshly cooked rice. I found out later that the taste of that curry was far from what you can produce yourself, but still, I liked it so much that I started cooking curry every week. Bit by bit I improved and I managed to get it just right. The perfect curry!
I can say, without exaggarating, that Japanese curry is my favourite dish. By far. Even though I grow tired of just about any food if I eat it too often, I can’t get enough of this one. If you’ve never eaten Japanese curry before, I can only urge you to try it out. You are missing out on a piece of heaven on a plate!
To make Japanese curry, you need very simple ingredients. However there is one thing, that might be a little difficult to get: the curry roux. Curry roux is a sauce mix (mostly in the form of a dried block) which gives the dish its particular flavour and which thickens the sauce at the same time. Of course you can make this yourself (click here for a recipe) but let me tell you from experience: it’s tedious, takes long, requires a lot of trial and error and the final result will be far from what you can make with curry roux cubes. You can find curry roux from two different brands: S&B Foods Inc. and House Foods Coorp. Both offer good sauce mixes which you can buy in about any Japanese/Asian supermarket.
You can choose among three different levels of “heat”: hot, medium and mild. In America S&B’s Golden Curry seems to be more popular, whereas Japanese seem to like House’s Vermont Curry better. The choice is up to you, personally I like both equally. If you have troubles finding Japanese ingredients, please check out this post.
Japanese curry is actually always eaten with rice. The sauce, once done, is poured over one side of the plate while the rice is on the other side. I’ve found out that this way the rice actually doesn’t get mushy from the sauce and stays firm until you are done eating. You can use any type of western style rice, but I highly recommend you to eat this with authentic Japanese rice. It simply mixes perfectly.
Ingredients
- 3 cups of uncooked Japonica rice
- 1 box of curry roux (the one that yields 6 portions, however sizes differ so check the manufacturer’s instructions)
- 2 potatoes
- 2 carrots
- 1 onion
- two pieces of chicken breast (you can use beef, veal or shrimp if you prefer)
- water
- oil
______________
- Wash the rice and cook it according to these instructions.
- Cut the onion.
- Cut the meat in bite sized pieces.
- Heat up the oil in a pot at medium-high heat.
- Cut the potatoes and carrots in bite sized pieces.
- Once the oil is piping hot, put the onions in the pan and cook them while stirring. It is very important that you do not put the onions or the meat in the pot before the oil is hot. If the temperature is too low (aka if you don’t hear a psssssshhht when you drop the meat in the pot) the meat will turn to rubber.
- Add the meat and continue to stir everything. Cook the meat with the onions until they get a nice brown color.
- Add the potatoes and carrots. Cook those along with the rest for about a minute while stirring.
- Now fill up the pot with water. The amount is specified by the manufacturer on the package of the curry roux. Cover the pot with a lid and let simmer for 20-30 minutes (again check package).
- Finish the curry sauce according to instructions on the package. (Because Golden Curry cooking method differs from Vermont Curry… etc.)
Serves 6. Enjoy!
"La jardinière" Soup with Zucchini Pancakes
Oct0
“Les soupes, c’est pour les vieux” (Soups are for old people)
“Errm… mais moi j’aime la soupe :p” (Uhm… but I like soup :p)
“Pas possible!” (Can’t be!)
I remember having a similar conversation with my husband’s adorable aunt. Well I’m not quite sure if young people really have come to hate soup nowadays, but I can’t imagine autumn without colorful vegetable soups. I must admit that the above soup looks more like a purée but that’s exactly the consistency I like 
Ingredients
- For the soup:
- If you live in France, you can buy a bunch of vegetables together (”Pot au feu” - vegetables). One of those boxes is what I used here (minus one onion). If you do not have anything similar where you live use 4 carrots, 1 onion, 2 turnips, 1 leek. You may, of course substitute the vegetables in any way you like (with what you got at home), you can even use 1-2 potatoes.
- water
- salt
- For the Zucchini Pancakes:
- 200g of flour
- 1 cup half milk half water
- 2 eggs
- 100g yoghurt
- 1 big Zucchini, finely shredded
- salt
- pepper
- optional: grated emmental cheese
- oil (olive oil for example)
____________
- Cut the vegetables roughly and put them in a pot. Add water to the pot to cover the vegetables. Cover with a lid and bring everything to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer for about 45 minutes. If the water level gets low, don’t hesitate to add more.
- 15 minutes before your soup has finished simmering, start preparing the pancake batter. Pour the flour into a mixing bowl then slowly add the milk/water while mixing well. Adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients while mixing prevents lumps. Then add the eggs, the yoghurt and the spices. Mix everything well, then fold in in the shredded Zucchini (if you leave the skin on, it gives the pancakes a nice color).
- Put some oil in a frying pan and heat it up well at medium heat.
- With a laddle pour some of the batter into the pan until the whole surface of the pan is covered. Let it cook until the pancake is golden brown on the down-side then flip it. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on it and let the pancake cook until it reaches the same golden brown color from the other side. Once that is done you can fold the pancake in a half or you can fold it the way I did in the above picture (the cheese must be inside though).
- Once the soup is done, remove it from the stove and let it cool off a little while finishing the rest of your pancakes.
- Once that is done, pour the soup into a blender and blend it really well until there are no bits of vegetables left. You can then pass the soup through a sieve if you’d like a really smooth texture. It is not necessary though.
- Season the soup and add a little crème fraîche or some chopped parsley as garnish.
- Serves 4. Enjoy
Pasta Primavera
Oct0
[image to come soon]
“Ok, what would you like for dinner tonight?”
“Pasta, Pasta!”
“Again? :p”
“Yes :)”
I’m sure you know this type of conversation just too well. What can you do if your family likes Pasta a lot but if you’d still like to cook something healthy?
While strolling over the vegetable section of a local shop here in Aix en Provence, I found a bunch of different vegetables which all looked very appealing but I simply didn’t know how to put them together. So while browsing the wonderful foodblog of Elise I stumbled on a recipe that I’ve always wanted to try out: Pasta Primavera.
Pasta primavera is an Italian dish that consists of pasta and fresh vegetables. A meat such as chicken, sausage or shrimp can be added if desired, but the focus of primavera is the vegetables themselves.
This recipe is so interesting because it is a healthy, low-fat alternative to all those pasta dishes with heavy sauces. Refreshing, light, a taste of autumn and italy on a plate. A great recipe to use up vegetable leftovers you might have in the fridge.
Ingredients
(You can substitute/adjust the following vegetables in any way you like)
- 2 carrots
- 1/2 zucchini
- 1 red pepper
- 1 yellow pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 onion
- 7 cherry tomatoes, cut in a half
- garlic (if you do not like garlic, don’t put any)
- olive oil
- 200 ml tomato purée
- 200 ml water
- thyme or herbes de provence
- salt and pepper
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 200g pasta (penne for example, you can also use whole-wheat pasta)
- grated parmesan cheese (optional)
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- Chop the onions finely. Wash and cut the vegetables in bite sized pieces, stripes for example. Put a large pan on the stove and heat the olive oil in it. (medium heat)
- At the same time bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add some salt and a bit of olive oil.
- First put the onions along with the garlic in the hot pan, stir them once and cook them for 30 seconds. Then add the rest of the vegetables and stir to cover with the olive oil. Let the vegetables cook like that for approximately 10 minutes (while stirring once in a while), until they are almost soft.
- Once the water is boiling, add the pasta and cook them according to manufacturer’s instructions.
- After the vegetables are soft enough for your taste, add the tomato purée, the water and the vegetable stock cube. Stir well and let everything cook for a minute while adding some thyme (or herbes de provence) and salt/pepper.
- Drain the pasta and add it to the vegeatables. Mix everything well and adjust seasoning if needed. Add the cherry tomatoes and remove from heat.
Serves 4. You can add some parmesan cheese but personally I left it away. Enjoy
