Mediterranean Fish Soup

Fish soup photo by Jpazam

When I was little, my dad was taking my brother and I fishing near the harbours or in the rocks, in Saint tropez, where we were spending our summers, we were going early in the morning, and my brother was protesting, always impatient.

It was great fun fishing with the bamboos we'd carefully selected to turn into fishing rods, using various baits. With the mediterranee being so transparent, we could see the fishes approaching most of the time, which was making the activity even more exciting. We were getting small fishes of all sorts, colourful or ugly and rocky, red, rainbow...

and when the fishes were failing to fall in our traps, we'd go in the rocks trying to catch little green crabs, those who add such a great taste to the soup.

Ingredients:
- 1kg of varied small mediterranean rock fishes
- 1 small rock crab
- olive oil
- 3 or 4 tomatoes
- 3 garlics sliced
- thyme - laurel
- pepper
- 1 to 1l 1/2 of water
- as many garlics as guestsplanted on a fork each

Method:
Wash the fishes, roughly scale them. Do not empty them. Heat the oil in a pot at medium fire (preferably not metal) and throw in the fishes. mix the fishes until they are soft and falling apart. Add the three tomatoes, and the garlic, herbs, pepper and water. Simmer for approx 1/2h Pass the fish soup through a vegetable grinder. Prepare croutons , and the rouille (mayonnaise with rouille spice mix) Serve the soup with the croutons, the garlic planted forks and the rouille.

Source: familly recipe from my mum, and fish soup photo by Jpazam, other photos by me.

Tomates farcies (Stuffed tomatoes)

This is one of my favorite french dishes, full of flavours and one of these dishes that are even better reheated. Not difficult and great for eating at work the next day, it can be a main on its own, or served with rice or couscous. A doodle to make, you can leave the dish to simmer whilst you are busy doing something else.

Ingredients for 4:
For the meat stuffing:
- 500g minced pork
- 500g minced beef
- 1 onion or shallot chopped
- 2 clove garlic peeled and chopped
- thyme
- laurel
- salt, pepper
And
- 16 tomatoes approx(if you have more, add them to the dish anyway)
- olive oil

Method:

Mix all the meat stuffing ingredients together using your hands. Divide it in equal size balls (smaller than the tomatoes).

Heat the olive oil in a pan and sear the meatballs - don't cook them, just brown the outside. Then reserve them.

For a better presentation, cut a reversed pointy hat in the tomatoes - so that they can contain a meatball each. However ince I could not find reasonnable sized tomatoes, I cut the tomatoes in two and cooked the tomatoes alongside with the meat.

Using the same pan, with the meat juice, cook the tomatoes, and first cook the tomatoes upside down to cook the flesh inside.

When the inside is confit looking, turn them all around and drop a meatball in each of them, place the lid of the pan 1/4 open and let it simmer for 1/2h, until the tomatoes are soft and the meat is simmering in the juice of the tomato.

That's it, the dish is ready!

Source: my mother's recipe, and my photos.

Lancashire black peas

I just wanted to share with you a local/regional discovery. In spite of having lived in Lancashire for 12 years+, I failed to realise one of the old traditional food of Lancashire is bl;ack peas. They were featured at Accrington food fair and I did not miss the sampling. They taste very much like mushy peas, slightly different, and they are to be sprinkled with salt and pepper. My opinion? I really liked them, and the pot they were in was way too small!

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!

I already have a few recipes ready in my sleeve....

Thai Chicken Galangal soup

This is one of my favorite thai soups.

I learnt to do it a long time ago, when I was taking Thai cooking classes. The recipe stayed with me and I cook it regularly. It's very delicate and quite easy to make, and very healthy.
I live close to Chinatown, so I am pretty spoilt, but I reckon many of you will find it difficult to find fresh galangal, and all the other ingredients I always have at home. I'd say you could replace it by either fresh ginger or pwdered galagal, however, it wopn't quite be the same. Thai food is best eaten with fresh ingredients. Other than that, the other ingredients should be easy enough to find in normal supermarkets, in Britain anyway.

You will need for 4 people (or two greedy ones):
- 200g chicken Fillet, sliced into mouth size pieces
- 5 slices of fresh galangal
- 2 cups of Coconut milk (a tin of Chaokoh coconut milk will be perfect)
- 1 cup chicken stock or water
- 2 sticks of fresh lemongrass sliced diagonally
- 3-4 Kaffir lime leaves, fresh if possible, dry is ok
- 2 tblsp thai fish sauce
- 1 to 2 tablspn Lime juice
- 5 bird eye chilis, (2 if you are a bit sensitive), sliced diagonally
- 2 sprigs of fresh coriander
- 200g fresh mushrooms, prepared and cut in half

Heat the coconut in a pan, dilute with either chicken stock or water , and once hot, throw in the galangal, mushroom, lemongrass, kafir lime and then the chicken.
Season with the lime juice and fish sauce, the chilis
Simmer for one minute only and then add the coriander to garnish.
Serve right away and enjoy.

This soup is great to warm you up in winter, and obviously can be apreciated in hot weather as well. It
feels very light and satisfying.

It is a typical soup you can find in Thailand, in restaurants or as street food. The photo at the top was taken at my favorite streetfood stall in Koh Samui: John's stall as I mentioned in an earlier post.

The soup can also be made with prawns or seabass instead of chicken.
Also, the same soup can be made without the coconut milk (only chicken soup), but it would then be a Tom Yam soup, very delicious as well.

The best coconut milk available in our shop is the chokaoh brand, as it is made of young coconut scrapped.

I have inserted below a few photos I took during a stay in Thailand, where I visited a coconut harvest at a plantation, near Chiang Mai:

Making coconut milk


Bunny Rabbit coconut grater

Source: My Thai cook teacher Chorchaba, photos: myself.

North African Tabouleh

Very common in France, but much more difficult to find in the UK, a tabouleh is a (cold) fresh and summery salad with a base of couscous. Very easy to make, it has very fresh minty notes and can be easily taken to a party or a picnic.
In the middle east, boulghour is used instead of couscous grain.


You will need for 4:
- 300g couscous
- The same volume of boiling water as that of couscous grain.
- 4 tomatoes cut in dice
- 1 diced white onion
- 1 bunch of parsley chopped finely
- 1 bunch of mint chopped finely
- the juice of a lemon
- 10cl oil
- salt, pepper.

Mix the couscous grain with the oil, salt, then add the boiling water, and set aside for 1/2h.
Then add the other ingredients, then leave in the fridge for a while.

Serve cool.

Easy no?
North African cuisine is completely integrated in French cuisine and kitchens, and you will find the dishes cooked in French homes as well as in restaurants everywhere. It is a very fragrant, fresh and full of flavours.

Enjoy the tabouleh whilst the good weather lasts!

Source: Photography, me , and recipe, the one I tend to make.

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.

Exotic summer cake (no baking )

Another dish inspired by mango, because they are very tasty at the moment.

And again, it is an 'on the spur of the moment' cake. It fits the bill as well: easy, very quick to make, and very tasty, refreshing in the summer...

It is based loosely on tiramisu and Charlotte.

You will need:
- 6-7 small brioches each cut in three pieces in the length (slices)
- 1 pot of mascarpone
- 1 ripe sweet mango cut in slices
- 3 heaped tablespoon sugar
- 2 big splashes of cherry alcohool (or another alcohool if you don't have any)
- 1 passion fruit

Lay on the bottom and sides of a medium sized dish the slices of brioche. sprinkle with a dash of the cherry alcohool.
Mix the mascarpone with the sugar, then pour half of it on the brioche as a flat layer.
Lay the mango slices on top as a layer.
Pour the remaining mascarpone on top as a layer again.
Sprinkle the passion fruit pulp evenly on the cake.
Place in the fridge for two hours.

Eat and Enjoy.

Recipe and photography: me

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.