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...

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.

Fou rire

Once again a post in french... it was too difficult to write in english today. But if you want a translation of the recipe, you can for it in the comments...


Hé, oui, encore une fois je poste en français, en effet, je ne crois pas que j'aurais réussi à expliquer ce qui va suivre en anglais...

La réalisation de cette brioche fut épique.... Commencer à 21h une recette qui inclut 3-4h d'attente était un peu fou mais nous étions en week-end, une énorme buche flambait dans la cheminée et nous voulions des brioches fraîches pour le petit déjeuner.

La recette en elle -même n'a rien de drôle... seulement les personnes présentes étaient toutes fan du SAV d'Omar et Fred diffusé sur Canal+.
La fatigue et certaines intonnations de voix aidant, le pétrissage de la brioche a fini en pleurant (de rire).

La recette originale vient du livre "Le recette de Marie-Louise Cordillot"

Les brioche "d'Omar et Fred"

Ingredients pour 9 brioches individuelles environ :
200g de farine
160g de beurre (dans la recette originale, mais 100-150 devraient suffir)
10g de sucre
7-8g de levure de boulanger
2 oeufs

Préparer le paton:
Melanger du bout des doigts :1/4 de la farine (soit 50g) , la levure et 3 cuillières à soupe d'eauchaude.
Former une boule et inciser en croix sur 2cm. Recouvrir d'eau chaude (50°C) et l'aisser lever jusqu'à doublement du volume). Le notre a fini quasi dissolu dans l'eau... La technique doit pouvoir être améliorée.

Pate à brioche :
Disposer le reste de farine en couronne dans un grand saladier. Déposer les oeufs au centre et incorporer doucement la farine en tournant à la cuillière en bois. Pétrir jusqu'à ce que la pate soit homogène. Ensuite, il faut lever la pate à 30cm et la plaquer violemment dans le saladier. Répéter l'opération jusqu'à ce qu'elle soit élastique et non collante.
Ajouter ensuite le beurre ramolli mais non fondu.

Quand le paton a doublé de volume, incorporez-le à la pate avec les mains.

Ramassez au fond de la terrine, couvrir et faire lever dans une pièce à 20-25°C sans courant d'air pendant 3-4h.

Quand la pate a levé, la battre du bout des doigts pour la faire retomber. Et réserver dans un endroit froid jusqu'au lendemain.

Cuisson:
Former des boules de la taille d'un oeuf et les faire lever dans un endroit chaud pendant 25-30min. Cuire à four chaud (200°C/th7-8) pendant 8-10 min.


Et le sucre? Je n'avais pas noté quand l'ajouté, nous l'avons donc incorporé après les oeufs... mais peut-être aurait-il fallut le mettre dans le paton... Quoi qu'il en soit les brioches étaient bonnes et il n'en restait plus après le petit-déleuner!

Evil week-end and terrific chocolate cake

It was supposed to be a "playing and cooking" week-end at my grandmother country house. We were supposed to be 10 friends spending the week-end together and we had a long list a meals we wanted to taste. Well...

To make a long story short, destiny was against us and we were finally 3 remaining after the timetable/conference/car problems that happened. Not enough to play but some cooking was involved !

I will post the recipes we follow (or not!) in the forthcoming days... But the one I want to share first is the Chocolate and salty butter caramel cake we prepared for sunday lunch.

This recipe was inspired buy a recipe I saw on David Leovitz's blog. I had a big plan about preparing my own dulche de leche a week in advance, but was unable to find enough time... So I came with that new plan of using "caramel au beurre salé" (I found it "taste" better in french) instead.


That's very easy...

1/ Prepare a cup of salty butter caramel (recipe there)

2/Follow David's recipe and use caramel instead of dulche de leche... I also reduced the amount of sugar (100g) and didn't used any nuts.
You can also use your favorite browny's recipe...

Tip: put more caramel in the cake than at the top of it. But we all liked the caramel crust that appeared over the cake and on its sides...

Next time I'll tell you the story of our brioches.

Crumble

I'm leaving for the land of chocolate tomorrow, and so it wasn't reasonable to go to the market during the week-end. For once I bought some fruit in the supermarket on thursday, but I was desapointed by the greengages (reine-claudes) I had. And after few days it was obvious I wouldn't be able to eat them if I didn't cook them.

Then arrived the coincidence: on friday, Lilian told me she was planning to bake a crumble and when I turned on the TV on saturday I saw a show where they were talking about english food, and a woman was explaining her crumble recipe.

I had no choice...
What was particularly interesting for me in Rose crumble was that it didn't needed an oven to be baked.

Greengage and almond crumble
for 2
5-8 greengages (depending on their size
1/3 of stale bread
4 table spoon almonds
2 tablespoon "vergeoise" (I think you can use brown sugar instead, it was actually the only suger I had at home)
butter

Cut the greengage in 2 (or 4) and remove the stone. Cook in a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of butter for 5 min. Put in the dish you choose to serve them.

Process bread, almonds and sugar until it's like a powder.
In a pan, melt 1 tesponn butter. Had the powder you made and cook it until it browns. Don't stop stering (I did and it started to burn!).

Cover the plum with the bread and almond mix.
Serve warm.

Looking the best way to prepare hummos... and failing(!)

I have to confess : I looove Lebanese meals. So when I discovered that hummos (or hommos or hummus or houmos, I can't find wich one it the right) was so easy to make I was really pleased.

The first recipe I tried was from a cooking mag : Cuisine et vins de France (actually the recipe that was in the printed document seems a bit different). But there was a je ne sais quoi that needed to be added or removed to reach the hummus perfection.

Then I tried the recipe that David Lebovitz posted but I didn't had all the ingredients since my parsley died unexpectidly in my fridge and I was unable to find the chili powder on the spices shelf. But it was close enough from the taste I was looking for.

Today I'm going to P & C place for a post holidays friend's dinner and I said I would bring some home-made hummus. So yesterday I went to the supermarket, bought some chickpeas and olive oil (and forgot the parsley again).

At home I mixed together 2 cloves of garlic (because some people there don't like garlic as I do), the olive oil, the chickpeas, the lemon juice. The taste was strange but I thought it was because of the new brand of chickpeas. So I rectified the seasoning, added a little more of lemon, oil, again lemon and find a taste that was satisfying... but still there was something strange...

This morning I almost forgot to take it out of the fridge, but when I did I realized what was strange : I forgot to add the tahine, one of the more important ingredients!!! It was too late to arrange it, so I packed my "chickpeas purée" and the tahine and I will try to mix them tonight just before dinner (crossing finger, hoping it will be good).

And that's the end of my terrible week...

EDIT : I finally had 2 or 3 tablespoons of tahine and it was good...

Omnivore’s Hundred

Summer, means holidays, and since I was away staying at a hotel I couldn't cook.

Back home, I'm too busy to try new recipes so, sorry but I have nothing special to write

except that I found this oomnivore's 100 on some food blog I was surfing and I thought I could share.

The original list was build subjectically by Andrew from Very good taste.

Here's how it works:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I used italic)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile > but I tried kangaroo, does that count?
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi >this strongly ressemble something I cooked last winter
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper >Never ever ! (considering how i react to normal pepper...)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float > I don't like sodas (no sparkling things for me except champaign ;-) )
36. Cognac with a fat cigar > I have nothing against cognac, but cigar: pouah!
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O > Interesting...
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects > I 'm not sure I would, but baked in a sauce, maybe?
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear > on my list, and I brought back some prickly pear liqyuor from hols
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine > I's been on my list for a while... just need to fly to Quebec
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian > not sure
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette >tried in someone else's plate (don't like it)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost >not really interested, I prefer cheeses that don't look like plastic
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie > I don't see the point of trying that
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. >no, but if anyone plans to invite me, I'd be more than happy to try
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate > you can guess that's on my list now...
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Total : 35...not that bad...

And now it makes me wonder what I would put on my omnivore's 100... and what would be yours?