Daring bakers: tuiles

This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

So what are tuiles? According to Joy of Baking, tuiles are a thin and crisp cookies with a lacy texture. The name ‘tuile’ comes from their traditional curved shape (like a Pringle) that copies the shape of roofing tiles once used in France.

Here’s a snapshot from the basic recipe: A tuile batter is made by simply mixing together melted butter, granulated white sugar, flour, freshly squeezed orange juice, a touch of Grand Marnier, and finely chopped almonds. The batter is spread into thin circles on a well buttered baking sheet and baked until golden brown. While the cookies are still hot, they are laid over a rolling pin which gives them their classic arched shape.

I went for a more simple route and used the alternative recipe the Daring Bakers gave us as an instruction. They turned out a bit too thick, more like biscuits than tuiles, but at the same time I think they were quite pretty. At least half of them anyway. But at least they came out edible, not as the last challenge, which was a total failure.

Some good points to remember from Joy of Baking: tuiles lose their crisp texture over time, so it is best to make them the day they are to be served. Luckily, the batter can be stored in the refrigerator up to a week so the cookies can easily be made on demand. They make a wonderful accompaniment to ice cream, sherbet or mousses.

I served them with banana caramel bavarois from my Marcus Wareing cookbook (see the review of the book here). Here’s the recipe for the dessert (serves six):

• 80 g caster sugar
• 2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed to a smooth puree
• 200 ml milk
• 375 ml whipping cream
• 5 medium organic egg yolks
• 4 leaves gelatine
• 25 ml dark rum
• Vanilla ice cream and melted dark chocolate, to serve

# Heat frying pan until hot. Add the sugar and spread evenly, then leave without stirring over a low to medium heat until melted to a very golden caramel. Be careful not to burn the caramel!

# Before the caramel goes too dark, beat in the bananas until smooth. Mix in milk and 75 ml of the cream.

# Whisk a little of the creamy mix into the egg yolks in a bowl. Pour this mixture back into the pan and combine thoroughly with a wooden spatula. Stir over a low heat until the banana custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spatula. Transfer to a bowl.

# Soak the gelatin in a bowl of cold water. Lift out and squeeze to remove excess moisture, then drop into the hot banana custard and stir until melted. Stir in the rum.

# Lay cling film on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming, then refrigerate.

# When the custard is almost cool, beat it until smooth. Whip the remaining cream to soft peaks and fold into the custard until evenly incorporated. Divide the mix among six glasses or dishes, cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours until firm.

# To serve, top with small scoops of ice cream and drizzle with melted chocolate. I used chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla (because that was what I had at hand). A very cute dessert, especially with tuiles on top.

Xin Nian Kuai Le! 新年快樂

The Chinese New Year has begun; time to celebrate. I decided to greet the year of the Ox with a Chinese dinner. So I set myself to Chinatown and got the necessary ingredients, such as shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, Chinese chili oil and such. I consider myself a knowledgeable shopper in grocery store, but while in the small stores of Chinatown, I was totally lost. There were way too many people and me with my big rucksack (full of books of course, I came straight from the library) in the tiny aisles was like an elephant in a porcelain store. Still, it was somewhat enjoyable. The streets were all dressed up and you could feel the surrounding festive mood in every step you took. So it was not all that bad. And although it took me ages to find what was on my list, I got everything I needed. Not something I can say about the local Morrisons, which often lacks the products I need (for example, why do they not sell mascarpone?). 

So what was on the menu? The dinner consisted of traditional Chinese spring rolls, five spice roast chicken drumsticks with Szechuan noodles and some small cakes that I got from a pastry shop at Garrick street, in the middle of Chinatown. And of course, a cup of jasmine tea was accompanying the meal. No alcohol and loud music, not like the usual NYE partying. Instead a sophisticated and quiet dinner, some Chinese music and Clooney’s movie Good Night, and Good Luck. 

So how did it all taste? 4.5 points out of 5. I need some more practice in making spring rolls – they were ok, but the filling was not quite there yet. I did everything according to the recipe, but maybe I am missing some important secret Chinese ingredient…you tell me. Also, all that chopping of the vegetables took for ages. I therefore recommend you to share the work with somebody…If the provided recipe is not very clear, check this video. 

As for chicken – it was nice and crispy, but the liquorishy five spice was in my opinion overpowering the dish. I recommend decreasing the amount of five spice and adding a little bit more soy sauce: that way you would still have a tasty dish, but instead of liquorish, you can still taste the chicken. 

The best part of the dinner was the bowl of noodles. It was surprisingly tasty and needed the least effort. Just boil the noodles, pour over with a simple sauce and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. I seriously don’t know why this recipe has been hiding from me so far. Not anymore!

The pastries on the other hand were pretty tasty. All in all, I think me and J gave a proper welcome to the year of the Ox. 

Still, I must mention my greatest disappointment of the day: I was not able to find any fortune cookies in Chinatown. Maybe I just did not know where to look…I wanted so badly to crack a cookie open at the end of the meal and see what does it have to say about my future. Fortunately, the online world has saved me this time. Check out this virtual fortune cookie, which has some meaningful quotes hidden inside. I tried it for a couple of times, and stopped when I got the message ‘help, I am trapped in a fortune cookie factory’. Smart cookies. Then I was off to another fortune cookie site. And now I am going back to my study books. Happy new year!

Delicious seafood snacks

I wanted to try something interesting from my new Gordon’s book. And I did. Me, who knows nothing about seafood, decided to try whether scallop and prawn brochettes are any good. And they were! According to the recipe, you should use king prawns and large scallops, but I had to go with the smaller variation of each. You know, financial crisis…

The picture is as it is - not very good - but I hope you’ll get the idea. After all, what matters is the taste and I can’t give you the taste through the WWW anyway.  So, to the point. I changed a bit the original recipe, but will give you both – the original and the way I did it. I assume that both variations are worth to give a try.

Serves four:

2-3 tbsp olive oil

spring of rosemary, leaves finely chopped

small handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped

juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

12 large scallops

12 king prawns

12 bamboo skewers

 

# At first, prepare the chili butter: mix 100 g warm butter (not melted, just warm) with 1.5 tsp coriander, 0.5 chopped chili pepper, salt and pepper. Put the butter into the fridge (inside a foil).

# Then soak the bamboo sewers in cold water. This will help them to prevent from burning too quickly during grilling. 

# Mix the olive oil, chopped herbs, lemon juice and zest together in a bowl and set aside. 

# Thread 2 scallops and 2 prawns alternatively on each skewer, then brush with the lemon and herb marinade.  Place the skewers on a tray, cover with cling film and chill for 20-30 minutes. 

# Prepare the barbecue or heat a griddle pan until hot. Season the scallops and prawns with some salt and pepper. Barbecue or griddle for 1 1/2-2 minutes on each side, basting occasionally with any leftover marinade, until the scallops and prawns are opaque and lightly charred. Remove to a serving plate and top with slices of the chili butter, serve immediately. 

The way I did it:

# I skipped the butter as I served the snacks cold.

# Prepared the marinade and placed scallops and prawns into different bowls, covered with marinade and chilled for a couple of hours.

# The prawns that I bought were already cooked, so I did not want to grill them at all. The scallops however needed  cooking (according to the package, I needed to heat an oiled pan and cook them for about 6 minutes), so I cooked the scallps and set them to cool.

# When the scallops are cooled, thread them together with prawns on toothpicks and serve!

The marinade is really good. Recently I only served marinated prawns for a starter and the comments were only positive.

Berry trifles

We had those for NYE. The custard did not come out as fluffy as it was in Gordon’s book (see the picture below) and the color was more yellowish than white…Regardless, the taste was divine. Highly recommended! Serves 8.

Custard:

600 ml whole milk

1 vanilla pod, split lenghtwise and seeds scraped

85 g caster sugar

6 large egg yolks

40 g cornflour

150 g double cream

 

Trifle:

150 g raspberries

150 g strawberries

150 g redcurrants

1 tbsp Crème de Cassis

1 tbsp icing sugar, or to taste

 

# Put the milk, vanilla pod and seeds, and a tablespoon of the sugar into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks, cornflour and the remaining sugar together in a bowl.

# Slowly pour in the hot milk, stirring all the time to prevent the eggs from scrambling. When fully incorporated, rinse out the pan. Strain the mixture back into the clean pan and return to the heat. Whisk over low heat until it thickens sufficiently – usally right before simmering point. Transwer to a bowl to cool, stirring every once in a while to prevent a skin from forming. 

# Once the custard has cooled, whip the cream into soft peaks, then fold into the custard to lighten it. Chill for a few hours or overnight, if preparing it in advance. 

# To assemble the trifles, spoon the custard to fill the bottom third of 8 small clear glasses. Cut 4 attractive strawberries into quaters and set along with 8 small sprays of redcurrants. Put the rest into a large bowl along with the Crème de Cassis and a little icing sugar.

# Crush the fruit with a potato masher or a large fork to get a compote-like texture. Spoon a layer of this into each serving glass, then top with the remaining custard. If you have any left, spoon a little juice from the crushed fruit over the custards, then garnish with the reserved strawberry quarters and redcurrants.

As you can see, I was a little short of berries (not exactly the season), but nevertheless the trifles came out nicely.

New year, new beginning?

I just wanted to thank those who still visit this page to check the old posts (and probably still hoping to see a new post one day). Again, I have to admit that ever since I went back to school, I abandoned the blog. Instead of spending time on writing about the new recipes I have tried, I must concentrate on my essays and term papers instead. Also, my camera has died, so there is another excuse for not updating this blog. For those who are wondering, I still cook and once in a while challenge myself with difficult recipes – one has to eat, you know. Those challenges sometimes come out very tasty, sometimes not even edible. Take for example the last Daring Bakers’ challenge, the French Yule Log. The recipe was 18 pages long and something told me that there is a chance something can go wrong. Well, everything seemed to go wrong. The consistency wasn’t right, the layers were with uneven texture, so it was impossible to cut the log, and the taste was somewhat strange. I think that all that could go wrong in this recipe, went wrong. Look at that picture – it is a total mess. And on the right see how a proper French Yule Log look like (picture is from the host of the challenge).

 

                     

I guess that the more time you spend on a dish, the higher the possibility that the end result is tasteless. I was planning to serve the Log for Christmas Eve at home, lucky me that I also prepared a backup dessert. This carrot cake that I mixed together with 15 minutes, tasted way better than any Log would have tasted. 

Other than that, the Christmas holiday was great. Sauerkraut, black pudding, meat jelly and marinated meat, cranberry sauce, marinated pumpkins – I had all of them in extra large amounts. Estonian Christmas cuisine rocks!

Santa was especially kind this year. I got several presents, among them two cookbooks (wohoo!). Both completely different and full of exciting recipes. “Grandma’s cookbook” with its sweet and simple Estonian dishes and Gordon Ramsay’s book with elegant recipes – all I needed to start a new year properly. 

I tried to take pictures of the books with my PC, but somehow the pictures came out backwards…don’t know why. Can anyone help?

              

Since last week I have followed MasterChef, a cooking show in BBC for amateur cooks who want to change their lives and make cooking their career. I have realized how little I actually know about cooking. For instance, I have no idea how do a poached fish, I probably wouldn’t be able to invent a dish with the right balance of flavors and texture only  in 40 minutes, using only the ingredients they’ve been given. I would surely fail the “know-the-ingredients” round (pardon me, but I really don’t know the difference between chicken egg and duck egg). But I am up for more learning. 

I have already tried several recipes from Gordon’s book and hope to share them with you in the coming days.