One of the most awesome dishes from work, seabass carpaccio with ponzu, truffle salsa and fresh summer truffles. So good, we gladly give the customers spoons to finish off the sauce.
Yum.
Créme caramel
That was the first recipe I saw in the new Good Food and planned on making it last week, but ran out of steam on Wednesday afternoon. Today though, having cleaned the house, done the laundry, an enormous pile of ironing, cleaned up the garden and relaxed in it for half an hour with a glass of apple martini- there were no more excuses.
I started with the caramel, done it for the first time ever using an actual recipe, rather than chucking lots of sugar into the pan and hoping for it to work. 70 g of sugar plus 2tbsp of water got nicely melted on the pan and some bubbling and colour- changing later I had some lovely caramel, that I poured onto 4 ramekins and got to the custard.
I used 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk plus 50 g of sugar that got beaten up until nice and light and then I gradually poured 250 ml of hot milk while beating still. It needed straining, after which I added some Cointreau for extra flavour and some vanilla paste and finally poured onto the ramekins with caramel. I baked it in bain marie for 20 minutes in 130 Celsius, then cooled and chilled in the fridge for 4 hours.
Very happy with the texture, will be more generous with Cointreau next time.
Another taste of Dinings
A couple of pictures from the food training session at work the other day.
Wagyu tataki, beef so tender it melts in the mouth, rare, chargrilled- which gives it slightly bitter, wonderful flavour on the edges. Served with ponzu sauce. Yuuuuum.
Chilli garlic shrimps, chargrilled again and marinated in chilli garlic paste, the coriander and sesame oil give the flavour another dimension. I couldn’t get enough!!!!
Custard and strawberry treats.
I felt like baking today, so I produced 4 little pastry cases ( recipe the same like in blueberry tartlets plus some ground almonds) , filled them with fresh custard, topped with strawberries and some jelly on top to keep them fresh and shiny. It was a lovely and light dessert, will put some more different berries next time. Nice.
Mushroom tortelloni with white wine sauce
Sunday’s all about good dinner. Must be home made, planned, tasty and worth putting on the blog. Today it was pasta again ( I’ve been wondering, if I had to choose what my last meal on earth would be, it’d be between Italian, some awesome stuffed pasta or Japanese, but I’m yet to try the wagyu beef nigiri with truffle salsa on top, so good thing I don’t need to decide just yet ).
It was supposed to be ravioli, but when Florek rolled out the pasta for me, my fingers somehow shaped it into tortelloni, for a change. The stuffing was very simple, just sauteed, finely chopped shitake and cup mushrooms with some onions and parsley on butter, seasoned with salt and white pepper. Boiled for about 3 minutes.
The white wine sauce was suggested by Nick, who always seems to have a selection of good ideas up his sleeve whenever we discuss food at work. What an excellent and simple sauce! 2 chopped shallots quickly panfried on butter with a handful of fresh thyme, 250 ml of white wine in ( we went to Majestic to stock up today, among other things we got 2 bottles of a lovely fruity Iona sauvignon blanc, it was a great and refreshing thing to have in the evening! now I regret we only got 2 of those), 200 ml of double cream added when the wine reduced a little, a touch of dijon mustard, some black pepper, lemon juice, strained and poured over pasta with some freshly grated parmesan. I loved the flavours. Really did. Could have had more!!! 🙂
Good morning.
Tuesday night doesn’t get better than that.
There wasn’t a great deal of cooking and skills involved tonight. I went to Waitrose and when passing by the meat counter I heard a fillet steak calling my name loud and clear and when I looked at them they said- ” We’re here!!!! where have you been? buy us, buy us now!!!” (yes, I did have 3 glasses of wine before turning on my laptop). 🙂
The dinner consisted of roasted potatoes, roasted they way Hugh F- T likes them, quickly boiled for 5 minutes and then thrown on a hot tray with hot olive oil, nicely seasoned and roasted off until nice, brown, lovely and soft inside and crispy outside. The fillets went on a griddle pan to be cooked medium rare and served with béarnaise ( shop bought), the asparagus was guickly steamed and thrown on the pan with the steaks and seasoned while it finished off and finally just a simple rocket salad with pine nuts. And a glass of Shiraz. One of the nicest meals I can think of.
Gnocchi bake.
Gnocchi have been sitting in the fridge, bought as a meal for a person, whose girlfriend works in the evenings. Girlfriend decided she actually felt like gnocchi, so she made a nice, thick sauce based on fried pancetta lardons, fresh celery, mushrooms, canned tomatoes, a good splash of sweet wine, fresh oregano and basil and thickened it with cream and flour for extra healthiness. 🙂
I preboiled the gnocchi for a minute or so before they went into the sauce, all nicely covered, then placed in individual baking dishes, covered with grated parmesan and baked for about 30 minutes.
Served with rocket, avo and parmesan salad and a nice glass of vino rosso. Yum.
Lime pie.
I just realized I’m being a bit boring here, all there is for the last few weeks are desserts. Should maybe get back to savoury stuff some time soon. Tonight though I went back to ” The Art of Pastry ” book and made a lime pie. Very pleased with it, I must say, it’s very light and limey, as expected.
The pastry base, baked in the newly purchased tin ( together with a new pair of jeans to cheer myself up ) was made with 225 g of plain flour, 115 g of butter, 2 egg yolks, 30g of sugar and a bit of cold water. Blind baked for 20 minutes.
The filling like this I tried for the first time ever, as I always associated condensed milk with things like toffee sauce and here they told me to whip it up with the egg yolks. And it worked a treat! 4 yolks, a 400g tin of condensed milk, a juice and rind of 3 limes, 2 tbsp of sugar I whipped together bit by bit, then added whipped egg whites and mixed in. I then baked it all for 20 minutes in 160 Celsius. It’s risen, but then sat down when cooled, still ended up with lovely, moist, light and fluffy texture. I finished it off with some whipped cream, bits of lime and mint. Will be making it again! 🙂
Green tea raging success!
It’s Florek’s birthday today. I’ve cooked him a menu he asked for and even pulled off a proper Bento Box!!! The plan for green tea ice cream was far more ambitious, I did ask at work how to make it, I did go to Japan Centre on Picadilly to get the green tea powder, but eventually settled for Alex’s suggestion to simply mix the good quality vanilla ice cream with green tea powder. Yummmmmm!!!!!!! The fondant recipe is the same, today used Valrhona chocolate, picked by Florek in Waitrose.
It looked like this….
