Sunday, August 30, 2009

Fausse tarte aux mûres

Le week-end du 15 aout m'a ramené dans la régionnantaise pour quelques jours de détente... L'appel de la cueillette était irrésistible, et après moulte péripéties, luttes contre les orties et les ronces, nous avons repris le chemin de la maison avec quelques kilos de prunes et des mûres!

Les prunes étant trop acides pour être dégustées telles quelles, elle "finirent" en clafouti et en confiture.

La cuillette de mûres n'étant pas aussi généreuse, la confiture n'était pas envisageable. Cependant j'avais lu il y a quelques semaines le blog "Tartelette" (en anglais) qui donnait la recette d'une tarte "fromage de chèvre et fruits rouges" qui m'avait beaucoup intriguée.

De retour à Paris avec mes mûres, j'ai repensé à cette recette, et comme je n'ai toujours pas de four, j'ai adapté la recette pour en faire un dessert extrêmement simple -mais bon!- : une fausse tarte aux mûres et au chèvre...




Fausse tarte aux mûres

Pour 4-5 "fausses tartes"
- des sablés bretons (type palets de la trinitaine ou roudor)
- 1/2 cuillère à soupe de chèvre frais (type chavrou)
- 1 cuillère à soupe de crème fraiche
- sucre ou miel (selon votre gout- j'ai mis 1/2 cuillère à café de miel)
- fruits de la cueillette

Réalisation :
-Battre la crème en chantilly.
-Battre le chèvre avec le miel pour avoir une texture crémeuse.
-Mélanger la "crème de chèvre" avec la chantilly délicatement pour garder la texture mousseuse. Le plus dur est fait!

Recouvrir les palets de crème et disposer les mûres au dessus.

Déguster frais!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Le gateau Nantais


J'ai passé le week-end du 14 juillet à Nantes ce qui signifie accès illimité à un four à toute heure du jour ou de la nuit! J'en ai donc profité pour tester diverses recettes nécessitant un four que je vais décrire dans les prochains jours.

Le gateau nantais est extrêmement facile à réaliser, nécessite peu de matériel (et donc de vaisselle!) et est délicieux. Comme beacoup de gateaux, il est meilleur si on le prépare la veille. Si ce n'est pas possible d'attendre aussi longtemps, faites quand-même attention à prévoir assez de temps pour que le gateau ait totalement refroidit au moment de réaliser le glaçage.


Gateau Nantais

100g de poudre d'amandes
100g de sucre
100g de beurre (à température ambiante)
2 oeufs
1 cuillère à soupe de farine (bien bombée, ou 2 cullières rases)
1 cuillère à café de levure
2 cuillères à soupe de rhum blanc

Glaçage
rhum blanc
sucre glace

Ustensiles:
1 saladier (pour réaliser le mélange)
1 cuillère en bois
1 moule à manquer de 20cm



Préchauffer le four à 180°C

Mélanger le beurre et le sucre pour en faire une pommade.
Ajouter ensuite les amandes puis les oeufs et le rhum.
Enfin ajouter la farine et la levure.
Ne pas trop travailler le mélange!

Enfourner pour 25min.

Attention : le gateau, magré la farine n'épaissit presque pas, il faut donc éviter de prendre un moule trop grand!

Au sortir du four, laiser le gateau refroidir dans le moule pendant 10-15min puis démouler sur une grille. Une fois refroidit, le conserver au froid jusqu'au lendemain.


Pour le glaçage:
mélanger 3 cuillères à soupe de sucre glace avec 2 cuillères à soupe de rhum. Ajouter plus de sucre ou de rhum selon la consistance et la quantit de glaçage désiré.
Recouvrir le gateau.

C'est prêt!



Remarques
- j'ajoute le rhum avan la cuisson pour que le gateau n'est pas trop le gout du rhum, le parfum venant surtou du glaçage dans ce cas. On peut aussi ne pas mettre de rhum dans la pate mais imbiber le gateau encore chaud avec la même quantité de rhum.
- si on n'aime pas le gout prononcé du rhum, on peut faire le glaçage à l'eau.

De retour.../ Back...

J'avais de grands projets pour ce blog, je voulais revoir son organisation, y mettre plus d'images, bref qu'il soit plus beau, plus agréable à lire etc... Malheureusement, je manque de temps! Je reprend donc le blog sous la même forme... et en alternant français et anglais. Si vous voulez une recette particulière en français, demandez-le !

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I'm back at blogging. If I stopped it was not that I was bored with blogging... I had great expectations for this blog, I wanted it to be more pretty, nicer to read and with more pictures... Unfortunately I have not enough time to do it... So I'm back with the same old version. I will now try to post recipe both in french and english or alternante them... If you want a special recipe in english while it's written in french, please ask and I will translate it for you.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Christmas cooking

I love living in Paris, the only problem there is that apartment are small and mine don't even have a proper kitchen. And the small place that's supposed to be a kitchen is so small that no oven can fit there.
Going back home for hols means means seeing all the family, and also having an unlimited access to a real kitchen !!! with more than 1 functional stove and an oven !

Needless to tell that I spent most of my holidays time in that wonderful room.

First thing I've done was testing a recipe of macarons. Wandering around the internet, I found a delicious website which is offering a lot of macaron recipes (in french). Marina, the author of this website also gave a lot of tricks that will help you cooking the perfect macaron.

I tested the "confiture de lait" (dulce de lece/ milk jam) and the raspberry recipes.
My attempt was almost a success but I think I need to practice more...

Sunday, December 7, 2008

December again

If you haven't noticed yet, chrismast is approaching... Paris is more than ever the city of lights and everyone starts wondering about christmas presents.
December also means going back to Nantes for christmas and having an access to a real kitchen!! My mother is not fond of cooking and so I'm in charge of preparing the lunch on the 25th. So I put my nose again in my cooking books and magasines and went for some wandering on my favorites cooking site and blogs. I still haven't decide yet what I will prepare. But one of my favorite recipe is marinated salmon (gravlax kind). So if you're looking for something to prepare as a starter, maybe it can help you.

Marinated salmon (serves 6)

PREPARE A DAY BEFORE SERVING !

2 salmon filets with their skin (500g in total)
2 tablespoons sugar (brown is better)
4 tablespoons of salt (i take "gros sel" from Guerande)
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
some dill (I don't like to have a too strong taste of dill so I don't use much)

Mix sugar, salt and black pepper.
Wash the salmon and dry the remaining water.
Put the 1st fillet, skin down, in a dish. Spread the salt & sugar mix all over salmon and add the dill.
Cover with the second filet (skin up).
Cover with plastic film, and find something to press the salmon (eg. other dish, plate+died beans).
Put for 6h in fridge. After 6h, remove the water from the dish, turn the salmon upside down (upper filet is now down), and put it back in the fridge for 2 more hours. Do this 2 more times -> that will be 24h to marinate.

Take out of fridge 1h before serving.
Remove the salt & sugar mix using absorbing paper.
Cut in thin slices, normally the skin will go by itself, but if not, remove it!

Serve with toasts.

You might want to serve a sauce with it. My favorite one is made of 1 tablespoon of cream and 1 tablespoon of yogourt, with a pinch of salt, dill and chive.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Salon du chocolat (Chocolate show)



Last sunday was my first experience at Salon du Chocolat.

I had heard good and bad things about it and it was time to try by myself. Actually I didn't get there by myself since Chloe and Lilian convinced me to join them in their chocolate adventures. Needless to say it was not too difficult to persuades me to come. At 10am on sunday we were a group of 9person ready to taste any kind of chocolate.
At 10:05 there was already a group split : it was too difficult to stay together to wander around. The crowd was reasonable until 11-11:30 but later it became too difficult to navigate from 1 place to the other.
The smell was amazing, and so were some of the samples I managed to taste. I just regret some sample were ridiculously small... how can you really taste a chocolate cake with something that is less than 1cm²?
I could attend the cooking lessons since it was too crowded but the smell was amazing... I might take a day off and go there during a week day next year...

Friday, October 10, 2008

The O&A experiment


or "Using leftover orange juice to make amazing dessert"

On a boring evening I decided to entertain myself experimenting with agar-agar again. The tricky point was I was coming back from almost a week out of town and the fridge was empty because I hadn't had time and energy to fill it.
The only things left to prepare a dessert were orange juice and dried apricots...

So I came up with the idea of a "cocktail cream" made of apricot, orange and rhum.

When I tried to eat it as a cream (remember? last time I tried it has a texture similar to a "crême aux oeufs"), I found the texture was more like jelly with small pieces of apricot inside and I dislike it.

The O&A experiment remained in a fridge... Until I had a new idea: process it! I put the "jelly" in the food processor for 2min and it came out with a fluffy texture between a cream and a mousse.
And it makes the difference: it was good! To make it more appealing I used some melted chocolate to built a multilayer dessert.

Chocolate leaf (for 5)
25g chocolate
1 tablespoon chocolate
1/4 teaspoon oil or butter

Melt all ingredients together. When melted form a leaf and refrigerate 20min (or more).

Orange cream
-250ml orange juice
-cinnamon
-1 tablespoon rum
-5 dried apricot (not mandatory)
-1g agar-agar

Cut apricots in small pieces and let them in the orange juice to humidify.
After 10 minutes, add the rum and a pinch of cinnamon to the juice. Then boil the juice+apricot with 1g of agar for 30s and let it cool down for 2h.
After 2h process in food processor and eat as a cream or build the dessert : cover 1 leaf of chocolate with the O&A cream and alternate layers of chocolate and cream.