Sauce mousseline is a hollandaise that is refined with whipping cream. It goes very well with fish and asparagus. I used to prepare hollandaise in the past according to the recipe posted some years ago, but this asparagus season I started with Roux's recipe. What a great decision! It beats every hollandaise I had before. It is not beaten over steam, but on a heat diffuser, however I am not sure if that is what makes the difference. On Saturday I found some fava beans in a tiny shop, and I was thrilled, because the whole last year I didn't see them anywhere. I decided to prepare some for lunch today, among asparagus and fish. The gorgeous organic sea bass in the freezer seemed to be just perfect for this light(?) spring dish, that I served with a spalsh of lemon oil.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp white peppercorns, crushed
4 egg yolks
250 g freshly clarified butter, lukewarm
75 ml whipping cream
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
In a saucepan over a low heat, mix the wine vinegar, 4 tbsp cold water and the crushed pepper. Allow to bubble until the liquid has reduced by one-third. Leave to cool completely.
Add the egg yolks to the cold reduction and whisk to combine. Set the pan (on a heat diffuser if you have one) over a very low heat and continue whisking. Gradually increase the heat so that the sauce gradually emulsifies, becoming very smooth and creamy after 8-10 minutes. Don’t let the temperature rise above 65°C.
Take the pan off the heat and, while still whisking, pour in the clarified butter in a steady stream. Season with salt, to taste. Whisk the cream in a mixing bowl until soft peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl. Fold the cream into the sauce and then at the last moment, stir in the lemon juice. (source:UKTV)
About 2 years ago, I prepared my first lasagne with homemade pasta, later again as a Daring Bakers' challenge. In fact the last time I cooked lasagne was that mentioned challenge. Meanwhile, I discovered that I indeed like cooked tomatoes, so I reinvented my Ragù alla bolognese. Nowdays, I cook three types of ragù and this is one of them and it ended up in a lasagne for lunch today.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
2 cloves garlic
2 pinches of dried oregano
500 g beef, minced
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 bay leaf
1 clove
5 stalks of basil
50 ml red wine
300 g tinned tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
60 ml milk
salt, pepper
For the Béchamel:
50 g butter
50 g flour
600 ml milk
nutmeg
salt, pepper
For the pasta:
200 g flour
2 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt
mozzarella
parmesan
Preheat oven to 200°C. Heat olive oil, add grated onion, carrot and celery. Peel garlic and throw it to the pot and fry it all together with the bay leaf (stick clove into the leaf), oregano, salt and pepper. As soon as the onion is soft, add beef and stir. Add tomato puree and cook for a minute and fry until the meat is brown. Add wine, reduce and add tomatoes. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Stir in the milk, bring to the boil and set aside. For the Béchamel melt butter, stir in flour and add the milk while whisking to avoid lumps. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, or until it thickens. Season with salt, pepper and fresh nutmeg. Remove from the heat. Knead a smooth pasta dough using flour, eggs, salt and olive oil and let it rest for 30 minutes. Cut it in 8 pieces and roll it out as thin as possible with your pasta machine. Remove garlic cloves, bay leaf and basil from the ragu and put a spoonful of ragu in an ovenproof dish, then add some béchamel, put 2 long sheets of lasagne on it, again ragu, béchamel, parmesan and so on. On the last layer put some béchamel, mozzarella, parmesan and some chunks of butter. Bake for 25-30 minutes. I suggest to let it stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Finally! The local rhubarb season has just started last week! The first portion of rhubarb jam is simmering on my stove right now. Fresh radish, salad and white asparagus are waiting in the fridge. Among the awaken spring and almost 2 months break, I am also back in the kitchen.
It just happens over and over again that I end up with over ripe bananas. Thanks to that I have learnt to love the chocolate and banana combination, I even cooked banana jam. So after all it is a not such a bad thing that I forget about them once in a while. Actually with these I only wanted to make a banana shake with loads of vanilla ice cream, but the snow outside made me freeze already when I only thought about getting out the ice cream maker from the cold pantry.
So instead I sat in front of my computer and started to check out some banana recipes. I found a shortbread by James Martin, with caramel and bananas, and as I have never baked a shortbread before, it seemed to be the perfect first occassion to do so. I only made a tiny change: he serves it with banana ice cream and caramel sauce, instead I only sprinkled with some molten dark chocolate.
Ingredients: For the caramel
200g unsalted butter100g caster sugar
800g cans condensed milk (I used heavy cream)
For the shortbread
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus an extra spoonful150g caster sugar
150g cornflour
300g plain flour
4 large bananas, peeled and sliced
For the caramel, place the butter and sugar into a non-stick pan over a low heat, stirring until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Add the condensed milk and slowly bring to the boil, stirring continuously, to make the caramel. As soon as the mixture thickens and begins to smell of caramel, remove from the heat. For the shortbread, preheat the oven to 170°C.Cream the butter with the sugar in a large bowl until it is light and fluffy. Sift the cornflour and plain flour into the bowl. Mix and gently knead the dough until it comes together in a ball.
Line a 20cmx30cm baking tin with non-stick baking parchment. Roll out two-thirds of the dough to fit the tin and lay it inside, pressing it neatly into the edges.
Spread three quarters of the condensed-milk caramel evenly over the base (the rest will keep in a covered bowl in the fridge for up to two weeks). Lay the banana slices over the caramel and then crumble the remaining third of the dough over the top.
Bake for 20 minutes. Leave it to cool in the tin for five minutes before cutting it into squares. Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin.(source:bbc.co.uk)
It seems that beets are the tomatoes of the winter to me. In summer usually I can't resist tomatoes, and now it is the same with beet. Specially, since I discovered the tonda di Chioggia by accident, though now when I do look for it, I can't find. Anyway, I still had one in the fridge and I decided to combine it with the common beet in a salad. I served the roasted beet among pistachio crusted fresh goat cheese and a light pear vinegar and mint oil dressing with fresh pear.
Ingredients:
4 beets
1 pear
35 ml pear vinegar
35 ml mint oil
35 ml olive oil
olive oil for roasting the beets
salt, pepper
Preheat oven to 200°C. Sprinkle the beets with olive oil, salt, pepper add a bay leaf if you like, wrap in foil and bake for 50-60 minutes. Let them cool in the foil. For the dressing dice peeled pear in small cubes and mix the vinegar and the oils. Slice the beet with the help of a mandoline, season, sprinkle the dressing over it and serve among goat cheese.
Well, it has just happened. I bought a gorgeous free range chicken on Saturday, no not a Bresse, but a great quality Swiss chicken. Compared to a usual chicken it has a longer breast, longer legs, no wonder, after all it runs around outside for almost 3 months.
On the way home I was wondering if I should go for it. If I should go for Heston Blumenthal's way of preparing the "perfect" roast chicken. After all perfection is totally subjective. Although, it was already quite late afternoon, I had the book in one hand, in the other the chicken and I started. I put it in a bowl and filled it with water to count how much salt it needs. In fact, I prepared two chickens: the so to say kind of deluxe one (though I believe that should be the only way to raise chickens) and an organic chicken (that one had a more round breast, and rather strange short legs, like most chicken have in the stores). After all, if I went for the preparation of Blumenthal, why shouldn't I experiment a bit, at least as far as it is possible in my tiny kitchen. So meanwhile I had both chickens having a bath of 6 hours in salty water. It was already late evening when I started to rinse them for an hour. Then around midnight I was dunking them in hot water. Finally, I put them in the fridge covered with a cheesecloth to wish them good night, well to let them dry overnight. The next day, I preheated to oven to the magical 60°C and left the chickens in there for about 6 hours, but I didn't quite trust them yet, so I gave them another 45 minutes. Of course this mission wouldn't been completed without the roasted potatoes, the carrots and the broccoli.
The potatoes are fabulous, but I must say the carrots were the best! I have never ever had carrots in my entire life like those! And they are so easy to prepare! On low heat, among butter, salt and pepper. Just leave them there for 40-50 minutes. That's all! And the chicken? It melts in your mouth! The only difficulty in the recipe is at the end, when you have to fry a chicken in a pan, that is quite a task! But the crispy skin worth it for sure!
