Corsican Chestnut flour flan

I recently visited the French island of Corsica, for a familly visit. I did not land straight in my familly, instead we chose to drive some of the island for a few days. Starting with Cap Corse, then going along the whole East Coast down to Bonifacio and back up to Porto Vecchio.


The Island, besides being absolutely beautiful, has a lot to offer to foodies. It has rather stayed unspoilt for most of it, and the local produces are of great quality.

The island harbours a great quantity of chestnut trees in the mountainous areas (The centre of the island - see map above) and the corsicans who used to live in autarcy, make good use of the chestnuts. The latter, besides being eaten by the wild pigs, are used for human consumption for making flour amongst other uses.

Chestnut flour is ground in the winter for the whole year, so the locals buy it then and store quantities for the rest of the year. I had tried to cook with chestnut flour years ago, but was unsuccessful as I then used it pure. This time around, I got some tips from my aunt, who told me that for uses such as in shortcrust pastry, a ration of 20/80 mix of Chestnut and wheat flour) or 1/3-2/3 depending on one's taste is usual since chestnut flour is so strong. It is however used pure in cakes, or flans, dishes in which flour is not the main ingredient in general.

Before reaching my aunt's house in Propriano, on our costline drive, I have had the opportunity to taste a chestnut flan in a restaurant (the Bosco) in Ajaccio that I found delicious. The meal at the restaurant had nothing special to it, but the dessert made up for the whole. When I asked my aunt, she though I was talking about a flan in the style of a steamed creme caramel, more common, but the one I tasted was more like a French flan, made with chestnut flour.
Just to mention for coeliacs, chestnut flour is glutenfree.

Flan for 6 people:
- Shortcrust pastry or puff pastry
- 90 g chestnut flour
- 20g walnut and sesame powder
- 120 g sugar
- A few drops of vanilla
- 6 whole eggs
- 20 g melted butter
- 1/2 pint milk
- 80ml single cream
- A pinch of salt

Method:
Lay the pastry in a tart mould, and cook at 220 degrees until golden.
Sieve the Flour with the walnut powder. add the sugar, salt, and mix well.
Make a well and pour in the beaten eggs. Mix well and carefully.
Add the cream and the milk, then the butter.
Pour the mix in the cooked pastry and place in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 min. watch that the top takes a golden colour.

And if you happen to have some of the delicious Corsican mountain honey, a filet of it on the tart makes great presentation and great extra flavour.

Source: recipes, my own alteration of a french flan, photos by myself.
http://adrianamullenphotographyblog.com

Self-saucing chocolate cake

You know how chocolate cakes can be same-same...

Well, I found a very original one, in my favorite cake book: 'Cakes Bakes and desserts triple tested by Australian Women's Weekly'. They generally have recipes you can be confident about, but this one in particular is absolutely brilliant, it contains absolut gems...

Dieters abstain, of course!

It's one of these I had not made yet, and I was wondering about the result, slighly sceptical I suppose.
I reduced the sugar content as I am not a sweet tooth and also to make the dessert easier to remember, and I increased the cocoa coontent:

-60g butter
-125ml milk
-vanilla extract
-5 tblspoon 100% cocoa powder
-5 tblspoon 100% cocoa powder extra
-150g caster sugar
-150g self raising flour
-150g brown sugar
- 500ml boiling water

Grease a small oven dish, and preheat the oven if necessary at 180 degrees.
Melt the butter with the milk in a medium milk pan,
Remove from the heat and mix in the caster sugar and the vanilla extract,
Then add the sifted flour and cocoa.
Pour the mix in the oven dish.
Sift the brown sugar and extra cocoa pwder over the mix.
Pour very gently (you can use a turned up spoon to make the pouring more so) the boiling water over the cake - yes I know this part is weird!
Then cook in the middle of the onen at 180 degrees C for 40 minutes.

Wait 10 min approximately before serving (you don't want to burn your guests'tastebuds, do you?).

I am very pleased with this cake. Apart fromn being a brilliant party trick to finish a meal, it is a doodle to make, and takes no time. I was very impressed with the self saucing effect, and the sauce comes out tasting similar to the french chocolate pots from my youth.

So a big thumbs up for that one, and especially to my favorite book. I have no commission on it, but I do highly recomment getting it :)

Source: recipe, Australian Women's Weekly, Photography, myself.

Sweet and sour cold summer soup & hot sweet grilled gammon on the side

You have never heard of this dish?
Me neither. I just invented it today, and it is definitely worth sharing. I had a very sudden burst of good inspiration. And once again, it is very quick to prepare and is very tasty, and the salad is very healthy.


Per person for the sweet gammon you will need:
- 1 slice of gammon
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- black pepper, coarsely ground.

Prepare the gammon first as it takes 18 minutes to cook.
Lay the slice of gammon on a flat over proof dish or plate, brush it with the maple syrup, sprinkle with the black pepper. Done.
Cook at 200 degrees (last 5 min with the grill on) in the oven for 18-20 min depending on your oven.

Per person for the cold soup you will need:
- 4 little tomatoes cut in quarters or 8/10 cherry tomatoes cut in half
- 1 mango, diced (use the juice too)
-1/4 lime juice
- fish sauce - same amount as the lime juice
- 1 small clove of garlic (optional)
- 1 slice of fresh ginger finely chopped
- a small handful of roasted peanuts
- 1 lemongrass stalk, sliced
- 1 kaffir lime leaf, fresh if possible
- 1/2 a chili pepper (less if you use the Birdeye type)

Mix all the ingredients. Done, how's that for easy!?

Serve the sweet gammon and the soup at the same time, and enjoy. It is very refreshing, very tasty in flavour, rich and satisfying. And there you are, you have your five a day...

The dish looks beautiful and colourful, so if you have guests to impressed and want to spare some efforts, that's the one.

On a funny note, I'd probably describe this dish as Thailando-Canadian!

I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have!

Recipe and photo: me.

Hong Kong Style egg tarts

Egg tart, originally uploaded by Christ tell.

When I go for dim sum, I usually get the egg tarts at the end of the meal, and they come still warm, with this crazy smooth gooey consistency and these gorgeous texture, smell and flavour, brittle puff pastry , aaaaaaah.. They are not too sweet either..I know, I am raving, but hey, they ARE gorgeous.
So I wanted to try them at home. No idea how they are made. Ah. Let's google it. humm, the ones I want to make are those that people take pictures of at the bakeries and restaurants hence no recipe.
On the wiki I could find a recipe for Portuguese egg tarts, but no, not what I want..

You know me, I would nott have stopped at that, so yes I improvised!
And guess what? the result was rather close, I'm very proud of myself.Yes it must be said.

So I prepared a french pastry, and also used puff pastry I bought (never done puff pastry, somehow it clashes with the title of my blog..).

for 6 egg tarts:

French pastry (for the equivalent of one big tart = twelve little tarts):
- 30 to 40g soften butter (no British butter allowed there, please use the French one, they taste very different!)
- 250g flour (Coeliacs use soya flour)
- 1tblsp sugar
- hot water (about an espresso cup worth)

crumble the butter into flour and sugar, when homogeneous, add the water, and work into a smooth ball, but do not knead and work as least as possible: the more you work it the hardest it will come out once cooked.
Cut and place in moulds.

The egg tart filling:
- 1 egg
- soya milk (ahem, no I did not measure, sorry... but think in proportion more than you would use in a quiche)
- vanilla essence, a few drops

Mix and pour in the pastry

Place in oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes, then watch for the next 5 minutes, I figured from the look of the egg tarts I get at the restaurants that the filling should not cook too much, and the tart should look glazed.

Eat whilst it's hot please!
These egg tarts are still different from the ones I had in the restaurants, despite being close, and after making them I kept looking on the internet.
I fould this recipe(by Easy Recipe) and that one (by My Kitchen Snippet)and the Portuguese ones (by Leite's culinaria) that seemed closest. I will try it another time to see how they compare.
In any case, getting the puff/flaky pastry like I like it is possibly mission impossible...
At first glance it seems a bit more complicated/long. Anyway, if you have a recipe for it, please pretty please tell me!

Verdict: I will make these again, because they were so simple and tasty, and yes, the consistency was great...

Half apple half chocolate tarte

Here's a sweet post for you, sprinkled with little sugar hearts and cinnamon.

Could not be easier, but could be healthier, ok.... It's a yin yang concept, one side is healthy, the other side could give you a heart attack, let your guest choose what suits them!

In a hurry as your guests will arrive in a short time:

For the pastry:
(I have tastier ways to make it, but this recipe is for the last minute emergencies)
250g flour (coeliacs use soya flour)
1 espresso cup vegetable oil (or soften/melted margerine or butter)
1 espresso cup hot water
salt
1 pinch salt

Mix all together as quickly as possible, do not knead it or manipuilate too much or the pastry will come out too hard, the dough should not be elastic.
spread the dough and lay it in a tart mould.

For the Chocolate topping
25g butter
200g dark chocolate
a dollop of nutella (optional)
a small dollop of double cream

Melt the butter with chocolate, stirr well and add cream at the end.

For the apple side:
4 apples (steam them for 10 min if you can whilst you prepare the pastry)
1 pinch cinammon
a sachet of vanilla sugar
a sprinkle of sugar hearts

Assembly:
In the tart pastry, arrange the apples cut in thin quarters in half the tart making a dam in the middle as a future barrage for the chocolate sauce - you can make it look like a yin yang, but if you are in a hurry it won't happen, will it..! -, sprinkle with the vanilla sugar, the cinnamon and the sugar hearts.
Then pour the chocolate on the other half, and
Place in the oven for 15-20 min at 200degC (a bit less if you steamed the apples)Et voila!
A fun and fast chocolate and apple tart, and believe me, there can't be anyone who does not like one or the other!!

Vegans, skip cream and butter and use alternative (soya?) it should do the trick easy

Source: me

Baked fragrant tofu

When I was in Singapore, I tasted a dish called fragrant tofu: a slab of hot silken tofu covered with a meat and herbs topping. I absolutely loved it, it was like a savoury creme brulee!

So recently I have bought some silken tofu, and it stayed in my fridge until I was reminded of my intent by an article about baked tofu I read on the internet. So my intents gave birth to a cross between fragrant and baked, hence the title!
And today, I wanted to eat something healthy and tasty, easy, and most of all satisfying.
Hence I knocked my own version of fragrant tofu with what I had in my fridge and baking it because I fancied it caramelised:

- 1 slab silken tofu
- 1 big slice of ham chopped in small squares
- 1/2 big green chilli chopped
- 1 spring onion chopped
- 1 teaspoon full of chopoped ginger
- 1 dash oyster sauce
- 2 tblspn sesame oil

Place the tofu on a small oven dish, mix all the other ingredients together and cover the tofu with it.
Place in the oven for 1/2h at 200 degC
I did not have time, but marinating the tofu in the mix first could have worked really well too, if you have the time. For vegetarian or vegans, skip the ham and replace by vegges.

Also, the same dish could be steamed, and I reckon it would be pretty tasty too!...


Source: my own food meanderings

Le pâté en croute (pâté lorrain) PART 2

This post is a follow up of this one, where I had not given the recipe for the pâté lorrain. UponMarjolaine's request, I will now post the recipe.
Where I come from, we call this dish the pâté en croute, but it is recognised other parts of France as the pâté lorrain. I have eaten this pâté many times in France since I am originally from the Champagne region, next to Lorraine.

Here in Britain, I really miss it. So everytime I go back to France, I ask my mum to cook it for me.
Why don't I cook it myself?
Well, I cannot get hold of rabbit or veal very easily here, it's quite a big hassle. And rather than compromise on the taste - if it does not taste of my childhood, what's the point...- I prefer to eat it only in France. The bakeries sell it in Lorraine and we used to buy it there, but my parents have moved to the sunny south of France, so we have to cook it as it can't be gotten hold off down there...

For the stuffing:
- 500g porc neck, noix de veal, rabbit, cut in thin strips

- 2 shallot chopped finely
-2 tblsp parsley chopped - 10g sel + pepper
- 10 cl of Riesling white wine

Mix the ingredients with the hands, then marinate for 12h in the friedge, covered with plastic film.

Assembling of the pâté:
- 500g puff pastry
- 1 egg yolk
- salt
- water Roll the puff pastry, cut a rectangle, place the meat in the middle, fold the sides onto the meat.

Add a smaller rectangle on the top, and create 2 little chimneys, cut a pattern on the top.

Brush the yolk mixed with salt and a bit of water over the pastry.

Leave to rest for 1h30 in the fridge

Place in oven at 200degC for 45 min and at 175degC for 15 Minutes. The pâté can be eaten hot and cold. Serve with a salad and a pinot noir red wine.

Source: my mum...

Winter Warmer stew

Yup, still cold here in Britain. Sunny, but cold! So it makes me a bit lazy about spending time cooking. But I still want to eat healthy and balanced. So here's another easy recipe for you.

Ingredients for 2:
- 2 pieces of pork (filet mignon will do nicely)
- 4 tblspn chinese white wine (or dry sherry)
- salt flakes &cracked pepper
- 4 tblspn soy sauce
- 1 red pepper bell chopped in squares
- a handfull of sweet dried cranberries
- 4 medium to small potatoes (not new potatoes, King edwards will do nicely) chopped in quarters if small potatoes
- 4 carrots chopped in short sticks
- 1 big onion chopped in squares
- 4 big cloves of garlic chopped in big bits
- 2 tins chopped tomatoes
- 1 tblspn of herbes de provence
- a dash of olive oil
- water

Rub the meat with a bit of oil, salt, pepper, soy sauce and chineese white wine. Leave to rest at the bottom of an oven dish big enough to contain all the ingredients above. Add the cranberries and red pepper bell Then top with the carrots, garlic, onion and potatoes, pour a dash of oil, add the tins of tomato, top up with water so that the meat is covered, then sprinkle with the herbs. Place in the oven at 200deg Celsius, set the timer for about 1h30, forget about it and snuggle with a cup of tea in front of a good film. When the timer rings, dish up and eat, the sauce is rich and flavoursome, and satisfying! Enjoy and bon apetit!

Source: the inspiration of the day....