la soufflerie

A restaurant in Angers, France devoted to the cause of the souffle.

roast tomato, red pepper and chilli soup

Autumn leaves are falling red on the ground and the nights are cooler, but this will warm your cockles. All you need is a roasting tray full of tomatoes, maybe 10-12, cut into quarters. A red pepper or two quartered and deseeded, 2 red chillis depending on your taste buds, a few cloves of garlic peeled and left whole and 2 onions roughly chopped and thrown in together with the tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste, a good drizzle of honey or maple syrup, olive oil, cumin and thyme.  Roast on 100C for approximately 3 hours stirring occasionally to coat with oil and juices to ensure they don't dry out. When juicy and roasted blitz in a food processer, then strain through a seive and serve with a good dollop of creme fraiche. Ymmmm.

Words of advice from a friend. Definitely not.... means maybe. Maybe... means yes!

the secret of creme brulee

I was starting to look like a creme brulee amid the taunting of my collegues. So you call yourself a cook and you can't even make a brulee? And all those recipes that tell you that it's so simple well pffffff! In the process of this exercise I may have invented a new dish, a self saucing flourless sponge which was strangely addictive but clearly not right. My repertoire now includes onion, orange zest and cardamom, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla until finally a recipe from Lorraine Pascale that worked. It set. The secret (for me) was to whisk the eggs and sugar by hand until just starting to turn pale, several times I overwhisked, and also to take the cream off the heat just before it boils.

Ginger and Marscapone Creme Brulee
Ingredients:
450mls double cream
100g marscapone
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10cm root ginger peeled and finely grated
6 free range egg yolks
60g caster sugar
Method:
Preheat oven to 150C. Put six small ramekins into a roasting tin and pour boiling water until half way up on the ramekins.
Put cream, marscapone and vanilla into a saucepan and heat until almost boiling.  Remove from heat and stir in the ginger.
Whisk egg yolks and sugar until just starting to turn pale.
Gradually add ginger cream whisking all the time until fully incorporated.Remove any bubbles lurking on the surface.
Divide between the ramekins then place in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until just starting to set.  Should be wobbly in the middle.
Remove from oven, allow to cool and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, preferably a few or overnight.
Before serving sprinkle each ramekin with one tablespoon of caster sugar evenly over entire surface. Place under grill until sugar starts to turn a deep amber or alternatively use a blow torch.
Wait a few minutes for allowing devourment!

Becoming Human

Once a man came to me and spoke for hours about

"His great visions of God" he felt he was having.

He asked me for confirmation, saying,

"Are these wondrous dreams true?"

I replied, "How many goats do you have?"

He looked surprised and said,

"I am speaking of sublime visions

And you ask

About goats!"

And I spoke again saying,

"Yes, brother - how many do you have?"

"Well, Hafiz, I have sixty-two."

"And how many wives?"

Again he looked surprised, then said,

"Four."

"How many rose bushes in your garden,

How many children,

Are your parents still alive,

Do you feed the birds in winter?"

And to all he answered.

Then I said,

"You asked me if I thought your visions were true,

I would say that they were if they make you become

More human,

More kind to every creature and plant

That you know."

HAFIZ

cheese souffle

Today I entertained myself in the quest for the perfect souffle. My first batch turned out lumpy and inconsistant and I felt confused about the mixing of the egg whites into the batter - should they be well mixed with no lumps or bumps at all? Or just quickly mixed and poured into the ramekin? Anyway to my delight I found a Julia Child video on You Tube with the perfect instructions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytp96F00nhs. She constantly threw out little nuggets of wisdom and gave ratios for bechamel sauce to eggs enabling  you to inprovise. I can feel an addiction coming on. The mystery of egg whites being folded in was also solved, they must not be whipped to the crumbly stage, they must be only whipped to perfect velvety peaks, then they will fold into the bechamel sauce like a dream!

Basic cheese souffle
50g unsalted butter plus extra for buttering the ramekins
40g plain flour
1/2 tsp english mustard powder
pinch of cayenne
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
300mls milk
100g gryere, compte or chedder
6 medium free range eggs separated plus 2 extra egg whites.
Preheat oven to 200C.  Place baking sheet to heat up.  
Brush 6 ramekins with melted butter and breadcrumbs. I made breadcrumbs by blitzing some toasted brioche in the food processor.
Melt the butter, add flour and spices.  Cook for a couple of minutes, gradually add milk stirring until comes to the boil.  Boil for two minutes or until thick.
Off heat stir in cheese and egg yolks (Julia said to stir in cheese at the end along with egg whites but I found the compte cheese went all clumpy and I had to over stir it)
Whisk 8 egg whites with a few drops of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of salt until they reach the velvety stage. Should form gentle peaks, if you over-whip to the fragmented crumbly egg white stage simply add another egg white and keep your eye on the last stages of whipping.
Add a spoonful of egg white into bechamel sauce mixture to loosen it, stirring it in well.  Then gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the mixture by folding in and turning the bowl around with your left hand. When incorporated into a smooth mixture although may be a few lumps of fluffy egg white left, spoon into ramekins. Level the top and run your thumb around the edge to give a groove which should help it rise.  Julia then put a piece of tinfoil - buttered around the top of the ramekin so the souffle didn't fall out into the oven.
Put on baking sheet and bake for 8-10mins for small ramekins or 25-30 for large.  
They are ready when they're still a little wobbly but golden on top.

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

chez jojo - saint saturnin sur loire

Tucked into the banks of the Loire is a magical little place called Chez Jojo. It started life in 1959 grilling fish and serving wine, was taken over by a girl called Jocelyn who christened it Jojo which has stuck although hands have changed again. This is according to the waiter anyway. So off we trundled in our limousine, ala clapped out Renault 5 with dents and permanent air conditioning thanks to broken windows, we do like to travel in style. Into the evening sunshine, passing through tiny stone villages. I love the fact Chez Jojo has signs everywhere, so once you're in the vicinity of Saint Saturnin sur Loire it's a breeze. Sweeping up to the restaurant down a rickety old dirt track, I don't think anyone could fail to be enchanted. The premise is simple, an array of plastic and wooden picnic tables, chequered cloths and traditional french fare underneath a canopy of trees and coloured lights overlooking the Loire. It is so beautiful people keep leaping up to take pictures with fancy cameras trying to record the beauty of the moment and the fading sunset. Staff are friendly and exuberent and happy to translate the menu. And if you're lucky a little fat man might wander from table to table playing requests on his accordian (only on weekends) and singing with gusto whenever the spirit overwhelms which seems to be quite eratic. "Reminds me of something out of Chocolat" muses my friend. So we ate with abandon. Best to come here with an empty stomach. Twenty two euros for a three course set menu. I started with a white fish terrine, cheese tartare and simple salad followed by duck drenched in pepper sauce and the best chips, crunchy and creamy. Berry clafoutis for dessert topped with homemade ice cream sigh it was one of the dinners where you're so full you might explode but you want it all to start over from the beginning anyway. We ate every drop. And apart from being humiliated by said accordianist who swayed beside my ear and treated me to a full rendition of 'la vie en rose' whilst coaxing me to join in and causing seeming hilarity to the rest of the diners, I loved every second! Closed from September 9th for winter... I know where I'm heading next summer.

polish potato pancakes

These are pretty versatile things, and luckily my colleague Alicia who is from Poland instinctively makes the best ones I have EVER tasted.  So I watched her in the kitchen throwing a few ingredients together and this is what she did. You can either finely grate the potatoes or put them through a juicer.  So to feed about 6 people comfortably put 25 medium sized potatoes (can use old ones or new it seems to be inconseqential to the final result our ones were old and rubbery) and 3 large white onions through the juicer. Retain the flesh and transfer to a large bowl, adding the juice extracted until you are left with a mixture the consistancy of porridge.  Add salt and pepper to taste, needs rather alot!  Then 2 eggs, half a teacup of flour and herbs of your choice. We added cumin and herbs de provence. Mix well until everything is incorporated. Heat up a large heavy frying pan with a good coating of oil and fry well on each side.  Best eaten immediately whilst crispy on the outside.  A traditional polish accompaniment might be a hearty beef stew piled on top of a large pancake which is delicious, but this time she made smaller ones and we trickled them with mushrooms cooked simply in garlic, butter and cream. There are so many things you could do with this recipe. Serve for breakfast with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce, make miniature hors d'oeuvres with a delicate topping of smoked salmon, creme fraiche and caviar. Wow!

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the most of everything they have.

coco chanel cocktail

Recently I drove to Saumer - a beautiful town on the banks of the Loire - for a meal in a lively little square where I was seduced into having a Coco Chanel Cocktail.  Coco was apparently born in Saumer.  It was however one of the most disappointing cocktails of my life,  I can't specifically remember what it consisted of apart from the fact that it tasted very much like watery flat orangeade.  I thought this does not befit Coco at ALL, this thing.  Anyway... here is a recipe I found that sounds a little more more decadent maybe than watery orange juice and seems to be the one most attributed to Coco! 
1 oz kahlua

1 oz double cream

1 oz gin

Mix all ingredients in with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass.  It sounds like it might taste catastrophic,  and as I surveyed the ingredients on the table I said to a friend 'this could be terrible, what's the worst that can happen?'.  He said helpfully ' that we all become violently ill?'.  But I can assure you, in addition to being extremely healthy, it is triumphantly glorious. Hiccup. Salute!

“Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?” 

dinner for two

Ripe cantaloupe melon with Muscat
The Worlds Best Lasagne
Lemon and Strawberry tart.

What the boy wants the boy gets! I find myself helping a friend concoct a romantic candlelit feast tonight, and the favourite dish of a certain someone happens to be lasagne. I haven't cooked lasagne for years, and might have found the whole idea a trifle boring if I hadn't discovered this! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/worlds-best-lasagna/. We played around and substitued chilli and herbs de provence for the basil and fennel as well as a good old walloping of marscapone onto the top layer of pasta. And it looks so pretty piled high with all the layers and sprigs of parsley! If only I could have found some fresh basil would have propelled it through the roof.
Meandering around the market in Le Lion d'Angers yesterday (every friday morning ) produced the lovely cantaloupe - everywhere stalls were piled high and spilling over with melons. Chilled muscat poured into the hollowed out centre at the last minute makes a simple beginning.
And as for dessert. It has been on my mind to conquer 'fear of pastry' making.  The bought pate sucre in France just never has the sweet crumbliness of home-made. So henceforth to 'Strawberry and Lemon Curd Tart'.  This pastry was so simple it took my breath away, straight from the Rose Bakery cookbook 'breakfast, lunch, tea'.

Ingredients
500g plain flour
120g caster sugar
320 g cold unsalted butter
pinch of salt
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
Put the flour, sugar, butter and salt into a food processor to blitz until incorporated and resembles fine breadcrumbs or alternatively work the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingertips.
Make a well in the middle of the mixture and add the egg, egg yolks and vanilla extract.  Stir with a fork to cincorporate the flour evenly until you have to begin using your hand.
Using one hand only, bring the dry and wet ingredients together.
Dust your work surface with flour, then remove the dough from the bowl and knead it on the floured surface for a few minutes until it is smooth and homogenous.
Roll out the dough to 5mm thickness and carefully ease into your tart tins. I found that half of this amount of pastry made 4 small tarts. You can freeze whatever you don't need to use immediately.
Chill the tart cases for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Bake blind (I used tinfoil with uncooked rice to hold it down) for 20 minutes until lightly golden brown.
Take out and leave to cool in the tart tins.
Meanwhile make the lemon curd. Put the zest and juice of 4 lemons, 100g butter and 200g sugar into a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water.  When the butter has melted, add 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk (stir them with a fork quickly before adding to the bowl) and whisk enthusiastically for the next 20 minutes or so until the mixture is thick and custardy.  Take off the heat and whisk occasionally as it cools. 
When completely cool put a large dollop of lemon curd onto the bottom of each tart case. Cover with fresh whole baby strawberries and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
Paulo Coelho