Supper at the North Star Delicatessen

Last Friday, I attended a supper event in Chorlton, at the North Star Delicatessen.

Normally, reaching Chorlton has always been a bit of a chore, with overcrowded buses that take 25 minutes to get there. BUT, this time around, I have been able to get there in 15 minutes using the brand new Metrolink tram line. And what more, the North Star Deli is right outside the Chorlton stop. So, the evening started well I thought.

First impressions: the Deli has a refreshing interior, white, clean, crisp and at the same time familiar and welcoming.

On entering the deli, I met the friendly team, and had a browse to see the products sold there - only the ones shelved as the fresh produces were tidied away: it was after the shop opening hours -.

I was glad to spot a good selection of glass teapots (great to show off one's flower teas) as well as home roasted coffee, and teapig tea (I have a soft spot for their popcorn tea...).

The shop is rather spacious, and the products well presented. A great incentive to browse. Also a good range of quality products (look, I'm not going to show it all to you, you'll have to come and see for yourself!)

Anyway, back to the supper, with the menu below:

The meal started with a Mediterranean fish soup, not quite like my mum's, however very fresh with tasty pieces of white fish and a garnish of delicious shellfish. The rouille was not too garlicky - one of the chefs Deanna did warn us it might be quite strong - and I was rather grateful for that. Back home, my dad is the one in charge of the rouille (quite a delicate operation: it is not simply a mayonnaise with rouille spices...) and he overloads it with garlic, like anything he makes with it. Which means that you end up having garlic nightmares the whole night, and waking up realising it was not a nightmare, but a reality that lingers with the breakfast too.

The dishes were presented and commented on by Deanna, and for the main course, Lee Frost the local butcher who provided the lamb, gave us a few passionnate words about his craft. That was very much apreciated by the foodies in the room.

An the lamb was..... amazing, cooked to perfection and tender o so tender it melted in the mouth. I am definitely set on paying some visits to the butcher now Chorlton is so easy to reach..

And the dessert was the well chosen Manchester tart, the best one I've ever had, light, fresh, and I am not biased because they added my favorite fruit: raspberries, fresh and flavoursome.

I loved the very northern touch with the Vimto sauce...

Like after any good meal (I usually don't bother after a bad meal: it's a satisfaction thing...), I had a coffee, which happened to come with the wonderful Jenny's Salted Caramel French macaroons (yes Jenny, they are comparable to the french ones, you qualify to be honorary french for producing such goodness).

The meal was light on the stomach, the quantities were perfect, not too muc that woul;d make you regret having eaten too much nor not enough that would make you want to beg for more.

So if you add to the great meal the fab company I had, then it was a great evening all around, and a lot of very empty plates!

My last word will be to thank the chef and Deanna who worked so hard behind the scenes...

Source: Pictures taken by myself

Pear tart (with a base)

This is my mum's recipe, I tend not to use a base on my tarts, but that was a special request of my friend Lilanthi who tasted the dessert when we visited my parents.
Again, an easy and very French dessert.

Ingredients:
- Shortcrust or puff pastry
- 120g almond powder
- 2 eggs
- 25cl cream
- 100g sugar
- 4 pears

Method:
Precook the pastry in the tart mould till slighly golden.
Mix well eggs, sugar, add the almond powder and the cream.
Cut the pears in slices and arrange them on the pastry.
Pour the mix over the pears Cook at oven 180 degrees for approx 45 minutes

Source: recipe from my mum and photo from me.

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.