Monthly Archives: September 2015

Good Food

Chinese with a high 5.

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I recently purchased some fresh and fragrant Chinese 5 Spice, needed it to make something from 15 minute meals. I used it today to make a pork stir fry, turned out to be particularly lovely, so it landed here. Very difficult to make an enticing photo of a stir fry though.

Pork fillet, thinly sliced, tossed in a mixture of beaten egg, 2 tsps of 5 spice, same amount of cornflour and brown sugar.  Once quickly fried on the wok, it got removed, mixed veggies fried- a shallot, a carrot, some asparagus, green peas, bell pepper, 2 crushed cloves of garlic. Then the cooked rice. Then pork back in. Lovely flavour, which I sexed up with soy sauce and sesame oil. Yum yum.

Baking

Coffee eclairs.

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All my ambitious plans of flattening my stomach again are pointless. I love eating too much. I can’t just have 1 eclair, I have 3, with beautiful whipped vanilla cream and the coffee glaze dripping down my fingers. So much more pleasure than sweating on the floor with Ewa Chodakowska, hoping to lose 2 kg around the stomach. Sorry Ewa, eclairs 1, you- 0.

Eclairs were one of the challenges for the Bake Off contestants last Wednesday. Most of them were mixing plain flour with the strong one, hoping to make the choux more stable and drier. I tried that trick, I thought my choux was excellent, but whether it was due to that addition or not, not sure.

For the pastry I used 105g of flour, 30 g of which was  a strong one, 85 g of butter melted in 225 ml of water, a pinch of salt and 3 lightly beaten eggs. Until today I didn’t know I should really cool the flour/ butter/water mix before I add the eggs, now I know. The end result- smooth and shiny dough, ready for the piping bag.

I piped my eclairs quite small, that made me around 16 of them. The sight of eclairs rising in the oven is lovely, I was watching them with Izzie. One day I’ll teach her to bake with me.

They baked for about 25 minutes in 200 degrees, then I got them out of the oven, made a small hole in each and returned them in for another 4 minutes to dry them out.

When ready for dessert, I stuffed them with vanilla cream and finished with coffee glaze- just a double espresso with about 5 tbsps of icing sugar. Keeps nicely in the fridge, our eclairs are being enjoyed for 3 consecutive evenings. Yum.

Baking

Plum and chocolate chip muffins.

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I was looking for a recipe for chocolate muffins as a form of down payment to Florian, who finally, after months of nagging, begging, threats of suicide and slashing veins agreed to complete the thresholds in the kitchen.  The search engine on mojewypieki.com showed only 800 recipes for muffins, but I went with these, as I happened to have some plums and not enough chocolate to make the chocckie ones.

Easy, quick, yummy. For 12 muffins I used 2 tall glasses of plain flour, a tsp each of soda and baking powder, 120 g of sugar, 2 eggs, beaten, half a glass of sunflower oil, 300 g of soured cream and 5 medium plums, chopped in small pieces.Also, a handful of chocolate chips. All dry ingredients combined, all wet ingredients added, into paper muffin cases, baked in 180 degrees for 25 minutes.  Very pleasant indeed. 🙂

Good Food

Dough balls, less is more.

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I made us some sufficient lunch this afternoon, which is why dinner was to be smaller and simple.  My lovely child made me super happy at the lunch table,  when she pushed away her bowl of chicken and carrot cream soup and picked some cauliflower and french beans off my plate and  was happily munching on them, disregarding her lovely soup.

Back in old times, when we used to live in Ruislip and often ate at Pizza Express, they served a few dough balls with garlic butter as a starter. This evening I made some for us. Regular pizza dough I normally make, just formed into balls, baked in 220 degrees for about 7 minutes, fresh garlic butter, some salami and rocket, some parmesan and a glass of French red. Simple, delicious, enjoyed in the company of my lovely man, who appreciates good food as much as I do. 🙂

 

Good Food

Onion and garlic tortilla cake.

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Inspiration came from a chap called Guy Fieri, who presents “Diners, Dive-in’s and Drives” on foodnetwork.com. I liked the look  of it, but did not follow the recipe blindly to the dot. I did make my filling out of red onions, sweated with some sugar, cooked for nearly 20 minutes. Some roasted garlic “from the jar” was to be added, probably common thing in America, not here, so I just roasted my own garlic, mashed it and added to the onions, when they cooled a little. Chopped coriander. Salt, pepper, parmesan. All rested in the fridge overnight. Then spreaded over 8 tortillas and again left in the fridge for about 6 hours. Guy recommends leaving off some stuffing as a dipping sauce, that didn’t convince me, dip- yes, by all means, but something slightly sharper, not the sweet onions again.

I cut my “cake” into 8 triangles, then grilled, like on the picture, until black, charred marks appeared and the whole triangle was heated through.

Overall, it’s a nice idea, we had it with some sausages on the side and a salad, finally drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Link to the original:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/garlic-onion-tortilla-cake-recipe.html

 

Baking

Yuzu macaroons

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I’m pretty confident with macaroon making now. With good recipe (Dorota’s), good pastry thermometer and now excellent food colourants- Wilton’s- I feel I could make them for sale! Cocky!!!

It does take a good few hours in the kitchen, but the batch I’ve made today are perfect. The look excellent, they taste great, tomorrow Ewa and Co will be tasting them and giving their verdict. My stuffing was made with a good splosh of yuzu juice, alongside lemon curd and mascarpone. I’m very happy with the lot.