Trembom - English version

New Address

2008-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

I will no longer post at this address. I am moving to A wee bit of sugar, Cupcakes do Trembom and Trembom. I would love to see you there.

pork and beef ragu

2008-11-10T13:47:00.001-08:00

I am not a great meat eater any longer. However, I do like to prepare meat dishes every so often. Having been very busy at work and barely having time to cook properly during the week, over the weekend I decided to prepare some food for lunch and this ragu proved a great treat. It is very versatile: can be eaten with rice, polenta (not that I like it), with pasta, in cannelloni, as pie filling. The spices add a wonderful taste to the ragu, very elegant and gentle. I fall in love with every mouthful I take of this delicious ragu. When it comes to seasoning, it is important not to overdo on the salt otherwise the beautiful flavour of the cinnamon and nutmeg will be lost.
When I do not happen to have sage at home, I use rosemary instead. After approximately 1 hour of the cooking of the meat, I like to add approximately ½ cup milk. I feel that it reduces the acidity of the ragu.

Ingredientes:

30g butter
¼ cup olive oil
8 sage leaves
2 onions finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 carrots, cut into 1cm pieces
2 stalks of celery, halved lengthways and cut into small pieces
2 leeks, halved lengthways and thinly sliced
Large pinch of ground nutmeg
1 stick of cinnamon
250ml red wine
500g minced beef
500g pork mince
2 cups beef stock
2 cups passata
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Heat butter and oil in a large heavy based saucepan, and add sage leaves, onions, garlic, carrots, celery, leeks and spices and cook, stirring occasionally over medium heat por approximately 10 minutes. Add red wine and cook for 15 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced quite a lot. Add the beef and pork, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes, and then stir the remaining ingredients and season to taste. Just go easy on the salt. Bring the mixture to the boil, then cook, covered over low heat for 2 hours, stirring occasionally or until the meat is very tender.

Source: Gourmet Traveller

Cauliflowers and Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-10-18T12:34:00.001-07:00

It is that time of the week when I post my contribution to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb blogging. Being a weekly event I always have something to look forward to for my English language posts. If you are reading this post and do not know about Weekend Herb Blogging, please click on the link to get more details about the rules and who is hosting the events in the different weeks. This week it is being hosted by Amy and Jonny from We Are Never Full. WHB is reaching its 3^rd birthday and it is indeed a reason for loads of us to celebrate the opportunity to meet so many interesting people who often take part. This week my post is also part of an event that I host at one of my Portuguese language blogs. I was glad that Kalyn was Ok with this dual contribution. I also recommend that you pay Kalyn's blog a visit - Kalyn's Kitchen. it is packed with lovely and very healthy recipes.

I have always loved cauliflower – baked, raw, in soup. Reading a bit more about it in order to write this post I learnt that there are other varieties apart from the white one – the green and purple types. I am not too sure that I have seen them yet. It got me really curious. I did read that it is very rich in fibre, and is also has potassium, is high in vitamin C ( I had no idea), is equally a good source of protein, phosphorous and calcium. It is terribly low in fat and calories. Perfect for a snack. If you decide to boil it, by squeezing lime juice in the water the cauliflower will keep its beautiful white colour.
In this recipe I chose to have it fried. For the first time. It is not deep fried, just shallowed fried. In the end it is coated in lovely spices: coriander, fennel and cumin. I absolutely adored the final result. So unexpectedly delicious. Makes a great side dish to grilled meats. I do confess that I had it on its own as I could not stop picking it. My inspiration was the wonderful book Moro East by Sam & Sam Clark.

Ingredients:
1 tsp coriander seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp fennel seeds
8 peppercorns
Sunflower or peanut oil for frying
1 medium head of cauliflower, stalk removed, broken into florets
(Maldon) sea salt
Lemon wedges to serve

Grind the spices with the peppercorns and set aside. Pour 1cm depth oil into a large saucepan over a medium to high heat. When hot, add the cauliflower and fry on all sides until tender and slightly golden. Drain well on kitchen paper and season to taste with salt.
Mix the spices with the cauliflower by scattering the mixture all over them. Serve with the lemon wedges on the side, and if I were you I would leave the remaining spice mixture at hand just in case you want to sprinkle some more over the cauliflower. It will be difficult to resist.

sweetcorn polenta and aubergines - weekend herb blogging

2008-10-11T15:21:00.001-07:00

I have become a huge fan of Yotam Ottolenghi..The funny thing is that my recent admiration is for reasons savoury whereas my initial attraction to his work was all to do with sweets bites and his beautiful shop Ottolenghi which can be found at different parts of London. When I bought his book it was for the sweet reasons and then I discovered this wonderful savoury side. The book has some great salad dishes as well as sweet recipes. I know that Kalyn also bought the book and I wonder what she makes of it. Ottolenghi now contributes weekly to one of the Saturday papers in the UK and I have been getting more beautiful recipes as this one here. This recipe attracted me for the use of sweetcorns. I have been getting some in my basket and the thought of making some sweetcorn polenta was irresistible. What with the lovely aubergine sauce to go with it.

I thought that this week’s weekend herb blogging event deserved some beautiful corn. Firstly because corn is one of my favourite ingredients. I lived a great part of my life in a state in Brasil that is big in corn and we would always have it in all forms and shapes: ice cream, soup, croquettes, on the cob smeared with butter, etc. Secondly because of the fabulous goodness in it. Corn contains Vitamin B1 (thiamine, Folate, Vitamin C, Phosphorus, Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid, Vitamin A (more in the yellow corn), Manganese, and several antioxidants including ferulic acid and phenolics. It is an awful lot of benefits and cannot be ignored. Plus sweetcorn tastes so good.

Most recently I read the extract below from a scientific study:
The researchers purchased sweet corn and cooked the kernels in batches at 115 degrees Celsius (239 degrees Fahrenheit) for 10, 25 and 50 minutes. Liu says that the cooking increased the antioxidants in sweet corn by 22, 44 and 53 percent, respectively. The scientists measured the antioxidants' ability to quench free radicals, which cause damage to the body from oxidation, increasing the risk of cancer and heart disease..In addition to its antioxidant benefits, cooked sweet corn unleashes a phenolic compound called ferulic acid, which provides health benefits, such as battling cancer. "It's not a free acid," says Liu. "It's bound to the cell wall and in the corn's insoluble fibers. We found that ferulic acid was substantially increased after the sweet corn was cooked at high temperatures and by cooking it at the same temperature over a longer time."

Sweetcorn polenta
Polenta:
6 corn ears 0r 560g scraped kernels
500ml water
40g butter
200g feta, crumbled
½ tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Aubergine sauce:
150ml vegetable sauce
1 medium aubergine, cut in medium pieces
2 tsp tomato paste
60ml white wine
200g chopped peeled tomatoes( fresh or tinned)
100ml water
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp chopped oregano, plus whole leaves to garnish

To prepare the sauce:

Heat the oil in a large pan, then fry the aubergine on medium heat for 15 minutes, until nicely browned. Drain and discard as much oil as you can. Stir in the tomato paste, and cook for two minutes on medium heat. Add the wine and cook for another minute. Add the tomatoes, water, sugar, salt and oregano, and cook for five minutes to get a deep flavoured sauce. Set aside.

To prepare the polenta:

Shave off the kernels from the corn. Place them in a medium-sized saucepan and pour in the water, to cover. Add half the butter and cook on a low simmer for 12 minutes. Then lift out the kernels with a slotted spoon – don’t throw the water out as you will need it, and transfer them to a food processor or blender. Process for a few minutes to break as much of the kernels as possible, and add a bit of the cooking water if the mixture is too dry. Retun the corn paste to the water in the pan, over a low heat and stirring all the while. Let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the mixture thickens to the consistency of mashed potato. When it reaches this consistency it is time to fold in the remaining ingredients: salt, sugar, butter and feta, and cook for two minutes of a tad longer. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Serve the polenta with the aubergine sauce spooned out on top. Sprinkle fresh oregano leaves on top.

I hope that Kalyn and Susan from The Well Seasoned Cook like the choice made for this weeks events. Please check WHB site for future hosts and how to submit your entry. Kalyn's Kitchen is also a great blog full of terribly nutritious recipes so if you have not yet visited it just click on the name and it will take you straight there.

Weekend Herb Blogging round up

2008-10-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

We received 23 contributions to Weekend Heb Blogging – including my own. I loved reading every single post that came along. The recipes where quite varied and herbs as usual take central stage. I would like to thank everyone who took part and who have made last week another eventful WHB week. I know that I will be experimenting with some new ways of preparing old friends as well as with new ingredients. I hope you also enjoy reading all the posts. I have had some problems with editing so apologies in advance if the final post is not the best looking one.

And here is the round up:

I prepared some butternut squash in a new way - stuffed with
vegetables and cheese. It is a very versitile dish and I have already
planned on using different fillings for it.
This is my week's contribution to this event that I am so
fond of.

Cheryl prepares some lovely tilapia – one of my favourite fish, with lemongrass from her own garden. As a bonus she gives a tip about growing lemongrass plants to cat owners. In her post you can read about all the nutrients found in the fish as well. Look for parchment tilapia, lazy style in Gluten Free Goodness.

Brii who lives in the beautiful Lake Garda in Italy,
sent us a lovely recipe of mint flavoured sugar to help
use up this herb. The result is a sugar that can be used
in many different ways and that will give whoever tries
it great pleasure. Check her post at briggis recept och ideer.

Jude teaches a lovely recipe with rice flour which is an ingredient that I believe many of us can really do with learning a bit moreabout it. This recipe of gyun-dan – Korean sweet rice balls is very versatile and there can be many different ways of stuffing them. Do check it out at Apple, Pie, Patis & Paté .

Pam from Sidewalk Shoes prepares a really simple but dead nice herbal rub for pork loin - pork loin arista . She came across the recipe when trying to find a quick way of adding flavour to a piece of pork which she had forgotten to thaw in advance .The source of inspiration was The Wine Lover Cooks Italian: Pairing Great Recipes with the Perfect Glass of WIne

Rachel who is based in Saratoga County and writes
The Crispy Cook has a great recipe for brussel sprouts:
brussels sprouts with lemon balm vinaigrette.
The lemon balm is from her own garden and it is still resisting the arrival of autumn. What a lovely way to present the sprouts.

Anna tell us about apple butter all the way from
Mill Valley California. She prepares her mum recipe
and best of all, she manages to reproduce it exactly
as her mum used to make it.how lovely is that?! She
uses sorghum molasses. It is a warm post with a great
introductory poem. The blog is Anna's Cool Finds.

Andrea writes from Virginia in the USA.
Her blog is Andrea's Recipes.
She gives us a lovely recipe of mint ice cream,
with spearmint picked from her own garden. The
inspiration came from one of her favourite cookbooks, Cooking with Shelburne Farms.

Pam from Backyard Pizzeria delivers a great hummus recipe,
hummus bi tahini. She seems to know her food well. Her post
tells a bit about the hummus preparation process and she
presents us with a mouth watering photo that makes one want
to prepare the hummus straight way.

Haalo who has the blog Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once,
has a wonderful recipe of black-eyed beans with chorizo and
chimichurri. The dish is flavoursome and so nutritious. She has
managed to marry some fabulous flavours here.
On top of that it is also a stunning dish to look at.

Marija from the lovely blog Palachinka contributes to
the event with a twist on a classic: a grape stuffed gnocchi.
The grapes look like lovely dark pearls inserted into
the delicate gnocchi pieces.They are served with grated
cheese, pepper and chives. What a lovely meal they will
make.

Natashya is the host of the blog Living in the Kitchen with puppies and a lover of basil. She grows various types:
Thai, lemon, greek, spicy bush, opal and sweet basil. For this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging she prepared a recipe of shrimp scampi with basil and tomato using two basil varieties: opal and sweet.

Graziana from Erbe in cucina, who lives in Italy, brings a great recipe that will add a special touch to many dishes. She teaches us how to prepare lemon zest, hot lemon peppers and the recipe of marinated fish with lemon pepper.

Jennifer from the blog Do you like to Cook? tell us about her
success with thyme planted in the her garden and how well it
has done. I learnt a lot about some of its properties as well, and
also some successful combinations. We also get a beautiful recipe
of chicken with lemon thyme.

Anna from Morsels & Musings sends us a lovely post from Australia and she teaches us all a bit about the wonderfully fragrant kaffir lime which is used widely in Asian cuisine. She gives us three recipes with kaffir lime.
Kalyn, the master mind behind WHB event, and hostess of the blog Kalyn’s Kitchen, comes with a post filled with lovely baked chillies - recipe for chiles rellenos bake. She has learnt this recipe from a neighbour – I wish I had this luck. I am often the one who does the food hand outs on my street.

Annie from House of Annie and who is in California, brings us
not only a recipe for barley with fuchok and guigko nuts but
also teaches us a bit about barley and its goodness and some
great ingredients from Asian origin. I was hooked on her
post – I could nearly hear her voice.

Maggie from Say Yes to Salad – what a great name for a
blog, came up with a great okra recipe. I might be bias
because I love okra and new ways of preparing it – new to me, are always very welcome. This dish has a taste of seafood in it.
It is a gumbo - an okra squash shrimp gumbo. I will be
preparing it as soon as I can put my hands in some okra.

Ning who is in the Philippines and write the lovely blog
Hearth and Hearth has given a bit of a lesson on Lotus and its edible properties. She crowns her post with a beautiful recipe
of chicken soup with lotus root and red dates. You have to
read this post.

Maria who has the Organically Cooked blog always brings
us great things. This time she has brought us a most unusual aubergine dish: Eggplant pizza. For aubergine lovers like me
this is a fabulous new way of preparing it. Check it out – the
photo is so appetizing.

Dhanggit from the lovely blog Dhanggit's Kitchen has prepared
a delicious chicken with lemon preserves and olives amongst all
her busy unpacking and family reunion.
She tells us about it with such lovely prose that you feel as if you
are at the table and about to savour the dish.
After reading it I felt like buying lemon preserve and heading
to the kitchen.

Stuffed butternut squash and Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-10-01T04:29:00.001-07:00

This week is my turn to host the Weekend Herb Blogging event. I am so excited. It is a very successful event that has been in the blogsphere for quite some time and has quite a faithful group of followers. Since Monday I have already been receiving various emails from people who have sent their contribution already. I am amazed at people’s dedication and organization. Thank you to all of you who have already been able to post your share. Contrary to my own record – I tend to post on the last day; I have already prepared my first contribution to the week.
If you are new here and are not familiar with the Weekend Herb Blogging event, it is a weekly occurrence in the English language blogsphere where should you choose to take part, you need to select a main ingredient for your post, prepare a dish with it and in addition to sharing the preparation method with all, also tell us about the ingredient of your choice. Kalyn from the lovely blog Kalyn’s Kitchen is the master mind behind this event. She is one of the sweetest persons I have come across, very kind and due to the success of this event that has been going on for over 2 years I am not the only one who thinks that. If you want to take part in future events, check this link for details about the event, who is posting and future dates - Weekend Herb Blogging.

My ingredient of choice this week is the butternut squash. Last week I received one in my weekly veggie basket and I immediately ran to prepare it. In one of the magazines that I buy every so often, Delicious, they had a recipe for stuffed butternut squash and I just had to prepare it. It is a very versatile recipe as you can play with it and mix and match ingredients of your choice. It just so happened that I used most of the ones in the recipe this time. However whilst preparing and eating it I already thought about how it can be done differently next time. Not because I didn’t like it, on the contrary.It is just that the sweetness of the butternut squash can go so well with many other ingredients, plus it is a fairly quickly dish to put together. And it is full of good things for you. I was reading about butternut squash for this post and found out a few interesting facts:

It seems that it was eaten in the Americas over 5,000 years ago – cultivated by the Incas in the 15t Century
It belongs to the same family of the pumpking, cucumber and courgette. The butternut squash falls under the winter harvested squash, whereas cucumber and courgette are summer squashes
It is rich in complex carbs and low in saturated fat and sodium. It is also a very good source of vitamin A and C, plus betacarotene, magnesium, manganese, calcium and potassium
They are the longes keeping vegetables. If kept in a cool and ventilated place they can be kept for 2 months or more – I would have never thought that. However, if kept at room temperature or in the fridge they will deteriorate quite quickly

There is also the additional bonus that they can be used in so many different types of dishes: gratin, soups, purees, curries, pasta dishes, risottos..

This is how I prepared my dish:

The ingredients chosen were:

2 buttenut squash halved as described below; olive oil, onions/shallots, garlic, spinach, crumbled goats cheese, sal, black pepper, juice of ½ lemon, pinolli

I preheated the oven to 180oC.

I took two butternut squashes and cut off the long halves of each squash. I got the seeds out of the round end as well as a bit of the flesh. I drizzled it with a bit of olive oil and put it in the oven on a baking sheet for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime I peeled the long bits and chopped them in little pieces. I also chopped some shallot. I heated a non-stick frying pan, put some olive oil on it and softened the shallots and crushed garlic. I then tipped the chopped butternut squash and cooked until starting to get soft – I added a few drops of water at some point. Only then did I throw the spinach in, and stir it until it wilted. I seasoned and added the goats cheese as well as some pinolli. I removed it from the heat, and squeezed a bit of lemon juice in.

I removed the round bit from the oven and filled them with the filling above – you might have some left over as not all will fit in. You can keep that and have it with pasta the next day..Or do what I did which was to have it on the side as well.

Open lasagne of mushrooms and spinach - Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-09-28T13:14:00.001-07:00

This week's Weekend Herb Blogging event is being hosted by Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once.
Next week I will be hosting it and I am so excited. I really like this event. It has been literally the soul of the English version of my blog. It was a long time ago that I told Kalyn, the event creator, that I would love to host it one day.

This week I will make it by the skin of my teeth. I have had a really busy weekend and just had time to stop and prepare something an hour ago to be exact. I have been thinking about this open lasagne since Tuesday. I wanted to have a light lasagne and also a very seasonal one. So I chose mushrooms.

This is what I read about mushrooms which I did not know: The Pharaohs thought they were food from heaven; the Romans spread them throughout their Empire and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance they were an autumn feast.

I love them because they taste delicious and also because I know that they are a good source of minerals - specially potassium, a good source of vitamins - specially vitamin B, low in fat and have no cholesterol, low in calories, its protein is superior to that of many other vegetables, and they are in season.

I watched this show on BBC2, What to eat Now, and found out that I could watch the first episode on the website. It is all about seasonal food. This is where my inspiration came from.The first show followed Valentine Warner, the new cook on the block – he says that he is not a chef, walking in the woods with a mate collecting mushrooms and truffles. They gathered quite a few mushrooms but no truffles. And they ended up preparing some scrambled egg with truffles that Valentine’s friend had in his pocket. Valentine prepared this lovely oven baked lasagne as well when he got home. I decided that I wanted mine to be an open lasagne. I just thought that it would be much lighter and I wanted to try my idea.

I had no special recipe - just what i saw on the show. I had a bunch of different types of mushrooms which I sliced and cooked in a very hot pan with a bit of butter, finely chopped garlic and thyme. Towards the end I seasoned it with salt. You could add black pepper if you like. I then set the mushrooms aside, boiled water for the pasta and proceeded to prepare the spinach. In the same pan where I had prepared the mushrooms I threw a big bunch of spinach with more chopped garlic and let it wilt. I then seasoned it with freshly ground nutmeg and a wee bit of salt. I transferred the spinach mixture to a colander and let the excess water from the spinach drain. I cooked the lasagne sheets and then once cooked I heated a non stick frying pan and threw a tiny piece of butter in and a bit of ras el hanout, that beautiful Moroccan style spice which has amongst other things rose petals. I just fried it a bit in the oil and then just threw the lasagne sheets in, one by one, so that they got a bit of the ras el hanout on them.

I then assembled the dish: one sheet of lasagne, a bunch of mushroom, another sheet of lasagne, bunch of spinach, another sheet of lasagne and some grated parmesan cheese on top. I thought of adding goat’s cheese to the spinach originally but in the end decided not to.

Red peppers wiht couscous and yogurt her sauce - WHB

2008-09-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging evTent is being hosted by Zorra from Kochtopf . As you all must know by now, Kalyn from Kalyn’s kitchen is the master mind of this great idea that has been going very successfully for the last two years. She has got a very faithful bunch of bloggers who contributed regularly. The recipe I chose for this week had been prepared previously for the event but in the end I decided to go for a completely different one. This time I prepared it again and I am glad that I am going ahead with it.

Capsicum is native to the Americas, and they were already cultivated by the native people of that continent. It can now be found worldwide.There can be red, green or even yellow. Each 100g contains 29kg calories, 1,3g proteins, 0,1g fat, vitamin A, B1, B2, B5, C, 140mg potassium, 16mg sodium, 20mg calcium, 0,5mg iron. I much prefer them roasted as their flavour seems at its best in my opinion. Stuffing them is a great way to prepare. I have done loads of stuffings with meat and herbs, or even rice,meat and herbs. I do much prefer the couscous stuffing. It adds a nice texture, together with the pine nuts. Oh pine nuts, they just lift most of the dishes they are added to. The first time I prepared this dish I added some chopped anchovies to it and the result was quite exciting. I had none in the house this time so had to leave them out. Perhaps you would like to try the combination yourself.

Ingredients:
2-3 medium to large, ripe peppers
200g couscous
6 spring onions
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp ground paprika
Grated zest of half lemon
Large handful chopped mint leaves
Large handful chopped coriander
75g toastes pine nuts

For the yogurt sauce:
200g plain,thick yogurt
Handful each of chopped coriander and mint
Pinch of paprika

Preparation:
Preheat the oven at 180oC. Cut the peppers in half, clean them out from seeds and lay all of them cut side up in a baking tin.
To prepare the stuffing, prepare the couscous as per instructions in the packet. I like to use vegetable stock instead of water.
Meanwhile finely chop the spring onions and let them soft in a glug or two of olive oil over a moderate heat. Just before they start to colour, add the garlic, paprika and grated lemon zest ( reserve the lemon juice). Stir in the chopped herbs and the toasted pine nuts. When all is fragrant and starting to darken a little in colour, stir in the couscous and lemon juice. Season to taste.
Pie the stuffing into the peppers, sprinkle some ground black pepper over it and drizzle over a little more olive oil. Cover loosely with foil and bake for about 45 minutes.
Mix the yogurt with the coriander, mint and paprika and serve.

Pasta with aubergine and pine kernels - Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-09-14T09:53:00.001-07:00

I spend my whole week thinking of a recipe that is good enough to take part in Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging event - click on the logo above to be taken to the site and find out more about it. I prepare various things and in the end I post my favourite item. This week the event is being hosted by Gretchen from Canela & Comino . I already had a lovely red pepper dish to post, but when I got the paper this morning I came across this aubergine pasta dish, and I decided that I had to prepare it because it might be worth taking it into consideration. In the end I chose this recipe. If anything because it was such a different way to prepare aubergine with pasta.

Did you know that aubergines and tomatoes are related? That’s right. They are from the same family, and some say that growing them can be similar to growing tomatoes. They don't like cold weather.
They are also known in the English speaking world as eggplant or brinjal. My friends from India always say brinjal which makes me think of 'berinjela'which is the portuguese world. Their shapes go from oval to round to sausage shaped. They also come in a variety of colours: dark purple, violet, stripy purple, yellow, white. There are big ones, little ones. When buying them it is best to look for smooth, unblemished and glossy skinned ones. They should feel firm to the touch. They are apparently not particularly high in any single vitamin or mineral. However, they do have the benefit of supplying few calories and being virtually fat free. I was amazed to read that for a while in Europe it was believed that they could cause madness, leprosy, cancer and even bad breath. Only on 18^th century it was established that it was a good food item both in Italy and in France.
There are so many ways of preparing them, and I just loved this new way – new to me anyway. I got the recipe from Nigel Slater.

Ingredients:
measure pasta for four people
2 large aubergines
Olive oil
A large handful of basil leaves
½ lemon
4 tbsp pine kernels

Preparation:
Preheat oven – 200oC- 180oC fan assisted. Cut each aubergine in half lenghtway, then make criss cross cuts on the flesh nearly all the way down to the skin. Brush with olive oil and bake for 25 minutes or until soft.
Boil the water for the pasta and whilst that is getting ready toast the pine nuts on a non stick frying pan.
When ready scrape the flesh out of the aubergine skins to a mixing bowl. Pour the olive oil gradually mixing it with the aubergine flesh until you get to a smooth paste. Season it to taste. I used salt and black pepper but next time I might use some cumin.
Drain the pasta, and mix it with the aubergine to coat it really well. Add shredded basil and the pine nuts. Be generous with them as they add a lovely nutty taste to the dish. As a last touch squeeze a wee bit of lemon. That will bring all the flavours together. Enjoy!!!

Onion, sweet corn and mascarpone tart - Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-09-07T12:21:00.001-07:00

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging event is being host by Ulrike from the bilingual blog Kuchenlatein. Kalyn from Kalyn’s kitchen is the master mind of this great idea that has been going very successfully for the last two years. Every week it is hosted by a different blog host.This week I wanted to make a tart. I took the base from an old recipe favourite – with walnut. I also usesd buckwheat flour instead of normal flour. I do have to say that perhaps I ought to have mixed buckwheat with normal flour as I feel that the final result was not the best. I do list only normal flour in the ingredients as this base recipe has been tested and approved. I just love the filling of this tart as I have been getting so much corn at the moment. I lived for a long time in a part of Brazil where corn is very abundant, and we also had it in our diets: corn soup, corn sauce, corn croquettes, corn dessert..Corn is high in nutrients: vitamin B1 ( aids the digestion of carbohydrates), vitamin B5 (helps with physiological functions), vitamin C ( fights diseases), folate ( generation of new cells), rich in fiber..so many goodness in it. And it tastes just wonderful. You can use frozen corn here but I had my kernels taken straight from the cob.
It is thererefore a very seasonal recipe.And with a great green salad it constitutes a meal in itself.

Walnut tart ingredients – 6 of 10 cm tart tins
250g flour
40g natural yoghurt
100ml walnuts, toasted and ground
125 cold butter, grated
Cold water

Mix the flour, yoghurt and walnuts in a bown, then add the butter and mix it all with your fingertips until you have a crumb like texture. Start adding water bit by bit until you reach an uniform dough. Wrap with cling film and rest for 2 hours in the fridge.

Filling:
2 talblespoon olive oil
1 ½ cups sliced onions/leeks
1 ½ cups slightly cooked corn grains
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 cup mascarpone
½ cup heavy cream
2 large eggs at room temperature
3 tablespoon finely grated parmegianno cheese

To prepare the filling:

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the corn and cook, stirring often for 2 minutes. Stir in the basil, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat, transfer to a large bowl, and cool for 10 minutes.

To prepare the crust:
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it in out. Distribute it among the six tart tins. Take it back to the fridge for 30 minutes.

Back to the filling:
In a medium-size bowl, beat together the mascarpone, cream and eggs until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Add to the onions and corn mixture and mix together until the ingredients are well blended. Transfer the filling into the crusts, and sprinkle lightly with the Parmesan. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until the filling is set. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Serve it on a bed of greens.

Tomatoes in Coconut Cream - Weekend Herb Blogging

2008-08-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging event is being host by Katie from the exciting blog Thyme for Cooking. Kalyn from Kalyn’s kitchen is the creator of this lovely event that has been taking place every week for the last two years. Every week it is hosted by a different blog host.
I am rushing to post this recipe. It has been a very busy week as I hold a blog in Portuguese which is only about events and this week I had loads to do on it.This beautiful recipe was one I prepared for WHB as it just seemed perfect. It is a gorgeous tomato dish with beautiful spices and coconut cream. I could not stop eating it. Honestly. I baked some ciabatta bread and just over ate. I know, not a nice thing to admit to.
Tomatoes are just so wonderful and full of goodness. Tomato is a good blood purifier, it is a natural antiseptic therefore it can help protect against infection, they can be helpful to reduce blood cholesterol, thus helps prevent heart diseases, they contain lycopene (the red pigment in tomato), this pigment is a powerful antioxidant that can also fight cancer cells.
In the summer they are plentiful and I am always looking for different ways of preparing it. This time Nigel Slater inspired me with this beautiful dish which was in the Sunday issue of the Observer Magazine.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive or groundnut oil
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 hot, green chillie chopped with seed and all – ok. If you don’t like heat, leave the seeds out of it
A thumb-sized piece of ginger, chopped really finely
½ tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp cumin seeds
6 green cardamom seeds, slightly crushed
12 moderately large tomatoes, cut into slices
50g creamed coconut
Handful of coriander leaves

Preparation: Heat the oil on a high-sided frying pan and then add the garlic, ginger and chilli. Let it all soften over a moderate heat without colouring it. Add the chilli flakes, coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds and cardamom and stir them in. Once they have warmed through throw in 4 of the chopped tomatoes and stir in 100ml water. Mix it all and bring it to the boil. Add the remaining tomatoes, add the coconut cream, mix it all, let the coconut cream dissolve and warm through. From now on the sauce should not boil, just keep the heat. Once the tomatoes are tender, sprinkle the coriander leaves and serve with slices of toasted lovely bread.

fennel and feta with pomegranate seeds with sumac

2008-08-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging event is being host by Srivalli from the wonderful blog Cooking 4 all Seasons. Kalyn from Kalyn’s kitchen is the creator of this lovely event that has been taking place every week for the last two years. Every week it is hosted by a different blog host.

I bought the Ottolenghi cookbook for the cakes recipes. Having been to their stores many times I just dreamt of being able to recreate some of their creation. Funny enough I have used a lot of their salad recipes quite intensively. In fact I have barely baked any of its cakes. I hear that Kalyn has purchased it as well and I really hope that she I enjoying it.
One of the things that drive me to choosing this or that recipe to take part in the weekly Weekend herb Blogging is trying to add something new and exiting to this event. Kalyn is always preparing amazing salads in her blog and I feel that I ought to keep the game up.

This salad is so refreshing and crunchy. As I have already mentioned here, crunchiness in a salad is something that I cannot resist. The original recipe had salt in it but I chose not to use because of the feta cheese.
Tarragon which is used here, is a herb full of medicinal properties. The ancient greeks chewed it to treat tooth infection I have read.Why you might ask, because it numbs the mouth. It is also known to being a very good digestive. Fennel which is the main actor, is full of so many great properties: vitamin C, dietary fiber, potassium, manganese, folate..Not only is this salad delicious as it delivers a handful of healthy benefits in very mouthful. I had mine with some smoked trout. And it worked a treat.

Ingredients:

½ pomegranate
2 medium fennel heads
1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoon sumac
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons tarragon leaves
2 tablespoon roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
70g greek feta cheese pieces
Sal and black pepper to taste

Preparation:

1.Start by releasing the pomegranate seeds. Some people swear by the wooden spoon treatment: Place half of the pomegranate on one hand, cut side facing down. Hit it with the back of the spoon and you will see the seeds start falling on your hand
2. Remove the leaves of the fennel, keeping a few to garnish and the rest for future use. Trim the base of the fennels, and slice it very thinly lengthwise – I chose not to. Put the olive oil, black pepper, sumac, lemon juice and herbs in a bowl and mix. Throw the fennel slices in the bowl and toss well. I chose not to add salt because the feta cheese has enough salt on it.
3. When ready to serve, place the fennel on the serving dish first, followed by the feta cheese and pomegranate seeds. Garnish with the dill leaves and sprinkle some sumac if you like

Mixed mushrooms with cinnamon and lemon

2008-08-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to this week Weekend Herb Blogging event which is being hosted by Marija from the blog Palachinka. To the blogsphere novices, this event was created by the lovely Kalyn from the lovely blog Kalyn's Kitchen which is packed with great recipe and posts. WHB is now 2 years old and it is a very successful event.

This week I have opted for a mushroom salad. As last week's, this recipe was taken from the Ottolenghi the cookbook. It is one of my favourite books at the moment.

I read that mushrooms contain vitamins A, B, C 7 D. There is a cancer research facility that even suggested that they may prevent cancer.

When it comes to preparing them, remember that they should not be washed. Instead, they should be brushed to remove the dirt on them. The only mushroom that should be washed before cooking is the morel variety.

Every one has a favourite mushroom. I am personally very addicted to shitake. Unfortunatelly I could not get hold of any for this dish. I used button, oysters, enoki and abalone. You can pick your own selection. A lovely thing is to have a nice bread to eat with this salad- use it to mop up the juices

Ingredients for 6-8 people – adapt the quantities depending on how many you will feed:

400g button mushrooms

400g chestnut mushrooms

300g shitake mushrooms

400g oyster mushrooms

200g enoki mushrooms

160ml olive oil

30g chopped thyme

10 garlic cloves, chopped (I crushed mine)

100g flat leaf parsley, chopped

6 cinnamon sticks

25g coarse sea salt

1 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper

60ml lemon juice

Preparation:

Get your mushrooms ready – clean them without adding water, just using a brush;
put a large non-stick frying pan over medium-heat and add the olive oil to it so that it can heat slightly. Then sprinkle the thyme, the garlic, the parsley and cinnamon stalks. Add the button mushrooms and let them cook for about 5 mins without disturbing them. Then give the pan a good shake and add the oyster mushrooms, season with salt and pepper. Stir it a bit and then let it cook for about 3 minutes. Add the enoki mushrooms and then turn the heat off. Add the lemon juice, give it a good shake. Serve still warm with slices of brown bread.

Cucumber and radish salad

2008-08-10T03:56:00.000-07:00

This is my contribution to this week Weekend Herb Blogging event which is being hosted by Divya from the blog Dil Se. For the ones of you who do not know, this event was created by the lovely Kalyn from the equally lovely blog Kalyn's Kitchen which is packed with great recipe and posts. WHB is now 2 years old. When I was not able to publish in English one of the things that I missed most was taking part on this event. So glad to be back. I missed last week 'sas the posts had to be submitted by the Saturday and I got ready to post my entry on the Sunday, the last day.

This salad is inspired on a recipe from the Ottolenghi book which I purchased in early June. I used to live just down the road from the first Ottolenghi shop in London and have grown quite fond of their creations. When trying to select a salad for the event I thought that this one would be just perfect.

I love a crunchy salad, the ones that make lovely little noises as you chew. They make the jaws work hard, and on top of satiating they also turn out to be great fun – in my eyes anyway. I have mixed feelings about cucumber and whenever possible I try to avoid the seedy ones as they are very watery. I tend to stick to Lebanese cucumbers as they are crunchier. I give it a good wash and try not to peel it as the vitamin A is mostly on its skin. This salad is very simple, very few ingredients, but full of goodiness. Plus it looks so pretty with its greens, reds, whites and the sprinkle of poppy seeds.
We tend to take cucumber for granted many times, but it is rich in vitamin A and C, folic acid and potassium. When I was in my teens I was really into my natural beauty treatments and the cucumber slices over my eyes were popular with me. Raddishes are not only beautiful with their lovely colour but contain a significant amount of vitamin C as well and are linked with anti-cancer properties. As one would say, not only a little pretty thing.

Ingredients:

Lebanese cucumbers

Radishes

Parsley

Poppy seeds

Olive oil

Sal

White wine vinegar
Preparation:
Wash your cucumbers and radishes, pat them dry with kitchen towel. Chop cucumbers diagonally, in medium thickness pieces. The radishes should be sliced not too thinly. Throw both of them in a bowl. Chop the parsley very thinly and sprinkle it over the cucumber and raddish. Make the dressing with olive oil, vinegar and salt.Remember the ratio 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar and you will be fine. The poppy seeds are added last. It is ready to eat. Very simple and sure to give you a lot of pleasure.

Chocolate Biscuits

2008-08-03T05:34:00.001-07:00

I have already been a great cookie/biscuit eater. Nowadays I have greater self control - much needed self control with extra pounds that insist on staying with me, like a best friend. However, that does not stop me from recognizing a good recipe when I see one. And I try to treat my friends with them. If I cannot have them I might as well see other people having pleasure. In this spirit I chose this recipe for my good friends Namrita and Prashant who work in the Singapore office but were in the London office for 5 weeks. Elson, who joined their team about 6 months ago, was also in London so he also got a nice treat.

I only made a change to the list of ingredients below. Instead of using plain flour I used 100g brown rice flour and 50g chestnut flour. The biscuits turned out quite lovely and I will be making this recipe again in the near future.

Ingredients:

100g dark chocolate , chopped coarsely

80g butter, chopped

1 cup ( 220g) caster sugar

1 egg beaten slightly

1 cup (150g) plain flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¼ cup(40g) icing sugar

Melt chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. I tend to wait until it is all quite melted, I then remove it from the heat and the heated saucepan gives enough heat to finish off with the melting process.Transfer mixture to a bow.
Get the caster sugar, plain flour, cocoa and flour, and sieve them into the chocolate mixture. Add the egg, and mix it all well until you reach a firm consistency.
Transfer mixture to the fridge for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile heat the oven – 180oC/160oC oven assisted. Grease and cover baking tray with parchment paperl.
Make little chocolate balls and roll them in the icing sugar. Place the icing sugar covered balls on the baking tray, leaving at least 5 min between each one. Bake for approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool on tray.

Fruity friand slice

2008-07-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

I am a tad obsessed with friands (financiers). I will try any new twist on these gems. The first one I prepared was not nice. And I felt so disappointed – nearly sad. I followed the recipe to the letter but the final texture definitely did not please me. However, I was very determined to try this little beauty. And I carried on hunting for other recipes. My future attempts were all very successful and in a way I ended up preparing it my way.
This recipe is great and you can use any frozen fruit you have – I had raspberries and that is what I used. I just take them from the freezer when it is time to add them. I like sifting all the dry ingredients, and tend to use a fouet for that. It mixes everything and at the same time leaves the mixture quite aired.
If I could have shared those with someone it would have been Paz. She has always been such a great supported of this blog – even when I stopped posting in English. She visits my Portuguese language blog – which is frequently updated, and leaves lovely messages. ‘Thank you sweetie!'

You will need:

4 egg whites
100g butter, melted
1 tablespoon milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (125g) almond meal
1 cup (160g) icing sugar
1/3 cup (50g) self raising flour
1 vanilla bean
2/3 cup (100g) frozen fruit chopped coarsely

Then just do like that:

1. Preheat oven – 170oC/150oC fan assisted. Grease 19cm x 29cm slice pan; line base and two long sides with baking paper, extending paper over long sides
2. Place the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix very gently. Add milk and extract, followed by egg whites. Split vanilla bean in half lengthways, scrape seeds from bean, and stir seeds into the mixture, using the fouet - mix gently to incorporate the ingredients. The butter is added last and then mixed until completely incorporated to the batter. It might look as if there is too much butter – have faith and keep mixing. You will see how the amount is just right.
3. Pour mixture into pan, sprinkle fruit over mixture. Bake for 30 min. Stand in pan for 10 min before lifting slice onto wire rack to cool. Dust with sifted icing sugar, if desired.
Keeps really well in a tin – tastes even more moist the day after

In Memorium

2008-07-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

Even though I have not been posting very regularly in English, I felt rather saddned by the news of Sher's passing. Her blog is What did you Eat. I visited her blog many times in the past. This flower is for Sher, wherever she is now.

rubharb friands

2008-03-30T02:52:00.001-07:00

I was away in Asia for nearly a month. Despite having had a wonderful time and having eaten fabulous food throughout I really missed my kitchen. Whenever I went to the supermarket to get bits and bobs I always wished that I could buy food items to cook. So when I finally got back home I could not wait to start planning and cooking.

The first few days were spent tidying my kitchen up. This was because I left in a bit of a hurry after a very busy period and could not leave my kitchen as I wanted to find it. A mistake never to be repeated. Once the kitchen was ready again I started playing with new recipes.

I subscribe to the Good Food magazine, and the last issue brought a lovely variation on a friand recipe : rhubarb friand. I just love friands, these lovely and delicate French treats also known as Financiers. Using friands was a lovely twist and it also meant making them seasonal. The tangy taste of the rhubarbs go really well with the sweetness of the friands.

Ingredients:

200g rhubarb

2 tbsp icing sugar

For the friands:

100g butter

140g icing sugar

25g plain flour

85g ground almonds

3 egg whites

Heat the oven to 200C/ fan assisted 180C/gas 6. Cut the rhubarb in 4cm pieces and arrange them in a single layer over a non-stick baking tray. Sift over the icing sugar bake for 12-15 minutes until the rhubarb is tender, then leave to cool.

Melt the butter, use a little to brush the friands/muffin tins, then leave to rest to cool slightly. Sift together the icing sugar and flour, then stir in the ground almonds. Whisk the eggs whites to a gentle foam. Then fold into the dry mix and mix well with a whisk. The butter goes in last. Mix it all.

Half-fill the tins, add pieces of rhubarb to each, then cover with the remaining cake mix. Top with the remaining rhubarb. Bake for 17-20min until golden and firm to the touch. Cool in the tins for 5 mins, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. Dust lightly with icing sugar to serve.

Upside down banana cake

2008-02-03T02:09:00.001-08:00

The reasons why we decide to prepare a recipe are so varied. I was once asked about what drives me. It is difficult to pinpoint. This time I was driven by a present. I have this wonderful girl friend that lives in

Japan

and she sent me a pair of really beautiful mugs. I wanted an occasion to have my first cup of English breakfast in them. Flicking through the latest issue of Olive, the magazine, I came across this lovely cake. I cannot resist banana in cakes. In Brazil they are terribly popular. Bananas are fairly abundant and popular commodity. Once you bake with bananas you understand why they are favoured. There is some sort of magic alchemy that happens to them in the oven and they become little wonders.

This cake is dead easy, and does not take long to get ready. I used currants instead of sultanas because I had none in the house. Rum was also not to be found so I used vodka instead. Once the cake is ready and you open the oven door there is this most beautiful smell, a smell of the sweet baked banana…I then got my kettle to boil and finally got to use one of my beautiful mugs.

A big thank you to my lovely friend Clarice for the lovely pressie, and I so wished she were here, drinking tea with me and eating cake away.

Ingredients:

100g sultanas

50ml rum

4 large or 6 small bananas

6 tbsp golden syrup

75g butter softened

100g caster sugar

1 medium egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

175g self-raising

60g pecan, chopped

Soak the sultanas in the rum for 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 160oC/ 140oC fan assisted oven. Grease a 23cm13cm loaf tin and line its base with baking paper. Peel and cut 2 bananas in half, and mash the rest of the bananas.Pour the golden syrup along the base of the tin and cover with the banana pieces.
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy – about 3 mins. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat a bit more. Add the mashed bananas using a metal spoon, followed by the flour, nuts and raisin.
Spoon the mixture onto the bananas, being careful not to move the bananas at the bottom. Bake it for 45mins or until cooked through – test with a skewer.
Remove it from the oven and let it rest for 10min so the syrup soaks into the cake. Only then turn onto a plate and serve with crème fraiche or yoghurt.

Beetroot Salad with Pistachio Sauce

2008-01-20T13:44:00.001-08:00

It has been a very long time since I last posted here. It is not very easy to maintain two blogs when one has a very busy work schedule. I have however missed this little corner here and the wonderful people that I have met through the English version of my blog.

I have a very dear friend who is an English speaker and reads no Portuguese at all, who has been a great incentive in me coming back to writing in this blog. I dedicate this post to her.My dear friend Paula. Here you are darling, finally got my act together. I am also using this post to go back to posting for the event Weekend Herb Blogging which is being held by Anna from Anna's Cool Finds.

I am a massive fan of beetroots. Really adore them. Did you know that beetroot is a great source of fibre? This recipe here came about because I had received quite a few beetroots in my weekly organic box and roasted all of them at once. This one recipe asks for raw beetroots but, eventhough I never had it with raw beetroots, it goes very well with roasted ones.

The beautiful pieces of pistachio, like little emeralds, add such beautiful colour to the dish together with the herbs. This is a winner of a salad. Fabulous on a winter day when there are quite a few gray days in this part of the world. The inspiration came from Moro East by Sam & Sam Clark.

Ingredients:

500g raw and peeled beetroot, finely sliced - you can also use baked beetroots

small handful fo flat-leaf parsley

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

For the sauce:

100g shelled unsalted pistachios, finely chopped either by hand or using a food processor
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 dessertspoon finely chopped fresh mint
1 dessertspoon caster sugar
7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
4 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon orange blossom water ( optional)

Mix all the last 7 ingredients first and season with salt and pepper. Add the pistachio. Mix some more.Add the sauce once you are ready to serve the salad.

Coconut cake with roasted pineapple and ricotta cream

2007-10-06T15:38:00.001-07:00

Flicking through one of the issues of an Australian Vogue I came across this recipe. I was attracted to the unusual way of serving this cake, with ricotta cream. And the roasted pineapple.

The recipe is very straight forward, the cake dough gets ready in no time. You just have to wait a little bit for the pineapple but boy, it is worth it. Plus I am sure that whoever you serve a slice of this cake to will just love it. How couldn’t he/she?

150g self-raising flour ( or plain flour with 1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder)

55g ground hazelnuts

275g caster sugar

110g dessicated coconut

125g melted butter, unsalted

3 eggs, separated

125ml buttermilk

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons Demerara sugar

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped roasted peeled hazelnuts

Roasted pineapple:

Pineapple, peeled and chopped diagonally in medium-small pieces

Lemon juice

Brown sugar

Ricotta cream:

½ cup ricotta

125g plain yoghurt

2 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 160oC/ fan assisted oven 150oC. Grease and line the bottom of a 10cm x 21 cm loaf tin and reserve.

Combine flour, ground hazelnuts, sugar and coconut in a bowl, then add butter, egg yolks, buttermilk and lemon zest and stir until combined.

Using a mixer whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and gently fold into coconut mixture. Pour the coconut mixture into the loaf tin and sprinkle with combined Demerara sugar and chopped hazelnuts. Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin for 30 min before turning it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For roasted pineapple increase the oven temperature to 200oC. Place pineapple pieces in an oven proof dish, drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with brown sugar. Roast for 10 minutes, then baste with the juices and place under the hot grill until the pineapple turns golden ( it is not really necessary so feel free to skip the grill bit).

For the ricotta cream just mix all the ingredients together. Serve slices of cake with roasted pineapple and ricotta cream. Yum!

La Festa al Fresco 2007

2007-09-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

Lis and Yvonne, the ever-so-enthusiastic-duo, are holding a ‘festa’. I just could not miss the opportunity to take part and decide to make a special effort here. I say special effort because I have been really struggling with my time recently.

I got some lovely fresh fennel plus some other ingredients and decided that a lovely and refreshing seasonal summer salad would be a lovely choice for this end of season event. Yvonne and Lis, here is my contribution to the party.

Just check out how simple and delicious this great summery fennel salad is:

The ingredients used were carrots, raddish, cucumber and fresh fennel the quantities will depend on how many hungry mouths you will feed.

Just chop the vegetables to your favourite shapes. Display them on a salad plate.

Prepare the dressing:

Olive oil

Grainy Dijon mustard

Lime juice

Adjust the quantity of the dressing ingredients to your liking. Some people like to add a wee bit more salt to it.

Drizzle the salad with it and enjoying crunching away. It is a really refreshing and summery salad.

Moist Coconut Cake

2007-08-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Even though I am still not posting at the pace that I want to, I am glad that I have managed to post at least one recipe a week. Baby steps I suppose. This week I will post twice as Wednesday will bring a surprise post in this blog.

I have become very interested in the history of Brazilian cookery, the baking aspect to be more precise. Every time I go home to Brazil I buy a book and read, make notes. Our baking tradition has been highly influenced by our colonizers, the portuguese. And a lot of the ingredients we use in baking have either an European influence, an African influence – mostly West Africa, or influence from the Portuguese travels. Obviously there is a lot of local produce such as corn flour, manioc flour - hopefully I will be able to talk about that in future posts.

When it comes to coconut, I read that when the colonizers arrived in our continent they already found coconut trees along the Brazilian coast, but our native people did not use it in cooking. It was used mostly for drinking the water – which is very good for you and a habit highly cultivate up to this day, as well as for eating the coconut flesh. The cooking aspect, the use of coconut milk to be more precise, is an indirect influence of the Indian cooking. It was later adapted to baking.

We have loads of versions of coconut cake but this one in particular takes my fancy because it is not very sweet despite the fact that it uses condensed milk. The cake becomes really moist because it is drizzled with a mixture of coconut milk & sugar once baked. The end result is a lovely cake which can be consumed cold – if you have a fridge that is big enough you can leave the cake in there for a couple of hours before serving.

Moist coconut cake – brazilian style

4 eggs

¾ cup condensed milk – I used a 180ml ¾ cup

165g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

240g plain flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

To drizzle the cake:

240ml coconut milk

45g caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven – 180oC/160oC fan assisted. Grease and dust with flour a 25cm round baking tray and reserve.

Beat the eggs for 5 minutes – they will double in volume. Then add the condensed milk, the melted butter, the sifted flour and baking powder. Mix with a spatula until the mixture is even, without any lumps. Be gentle when mixing. Pour the mixture in the reserved baking tray and bake for 30-35 minutes. As soon as you get it out of the oven use a fork/skewer to make tiny holes in the dough and pour the mixture of coconut milk and sugar on it. Let it cool in the tray for about 5 min and then transfer it to a cooling rack. Sprinkle it with grated coconut before serving. Use fresh grated coconut if available;if not dessicated will do fine.

plum and pistachio cake

2007-08-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

I have a good friend, with whom I worked in the past, who is again working with me. It is truly great. She is just a really nice girl and we do get on. Not that we always agree about everything, but we respect each other’s opinion. She also loves her food and we get to talk about food as well, and we share grocery shopping. Those things that you buy to keep in the office in case you have hunger pangs, cravings.We both care about food and the quality of what we buy.

The other week I really wanted to to bake her a cake. Loads of recipes came to mind. In the end I chose a recipe of plums, so abundant at this time of the year, and pistachio nuts. If anything the beautiful colours of green and red that the main ingredients bring to mind made my mind for me.

Cakes do not necessarily have to be covered in amazing decoration. They have to be made with lovely and fresh ingredients, and taste honest. Plums are such great fruit, and go really well in cakes. I already have a recipe that is a terrible success, simple, terribly honest.This one has the extra nutty element to it.

After being initally smitten by the ingredients I went to read the recipe and then fell even more in love with this simple cake when I learnt that there would be two layers of plums. Can you imagine how moist this cake will turn out – there is also added nuts to increase the moisture.

It tasted as lovely and moist as I suspected it would. Plus it had an added zest. It tasted even nicer the day after it was baked and it kept really well for about 4 days.

The preparation was dead simple which is another plus. And I share it here:

500g plums

50g shelled pistachios

175g softened butter

175g caster sugar

3 eggs

175g self raising flour ( or normal flour plus ¾ teaspoon baking powder)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

icing sugar for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 180oC/ 160oC fan assisted.

Butter and line the base of a 20-22cm cake tin with baking parchment. Halve and stone the plums, and then cut them in quarters.

Tip the pistachios into a food processor and finely grind. Add the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, lemon zest and juice. Process for 1-2 mins until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Spoon half the cake mix into the prepared tin and smooth it over. Scatter half the plums evenly over the cake mix, then spoon the remaining cake mix on top. Smooth over and scatter with the remaining fruit.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until the cake is firm and golden brown. Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then turn out and cool completely. Dust the top lightly with icing sugar for serving.

Recipe from Good Food Magazine, September 2007.

Lime, clove and macadamia biscuits

2007-08-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

It is a lovely feeling to be able to post here again after nearly two months – I think that is about that long. I had problems with my laptop initially – drowned its keyboard in red wine in a moment of excitement; it eventually stopped working properly; went away on a business trip which was meant to be for only 2 weeks and ended up being for nearly a whole month; came back and still had no laptop for about two more weeks. Paid many visits to different laptop shops and for quite some time gave up on my purchase after being confronted by very unhelpful shopkeepers.

Enough of complaining, here I am back. It feels great to post again, and this time a lovely, simple recipe. Ideal for an afternoon tea. A biscuit recipe.

The ingredients were the reason why I chose it: lime, cloves and macadamia nuts. How unususual!! I love limes. They are plentiful and cheap back home in Brasil. In the UK where I live they can be easily found in the region where I live but they are far from being cheap. However, I never go one week without buying some. Their flavour is equal to none. Sharper than the yellow variety.There was a time in my childhood when I enjoyed sucking them. I remember pretending that they were like a nectar to me - go figure!!

Then there comes cloves. I am a bit fascinated by cloves. I remember this nanny that my brother had who used to chew cloves for a few minutes before going out. It would give her a lovely breath.Fresh. Over the last few years I have developed the habit of having a clove-chewing session every so often. Just for the sake of the taste. I then discard it.

In this recipe by Peter Gordon, a new zealander chef who lives in the UK, the limes and cloves come together in this lovey,little recipe. Plus the macadamia. I could not resist it. The page where the recipe is printed on was ear-marked for quite some time and this morning these biscuits finally came to life. In addition to the loveliness of flavours, which go very well together, not in an overpowering way at all, there is also the fact that these biscuits melt in one’s mouth. After being taken from the oven they have to be handled with care when time comes to transferring them to a cooling rack. I didn’t know that and ended up sweeping the kitchen floor which got covered in biscuit crumbs.

Lime, clove and macadamia biscuits

250g unsalted butter, at room temperature

80g icing sugar

2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest

1 teaspoon freshly ground cloves

150g flour

130g cornflour

½ teaspoon baking powder

150g macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

Pre-heat oven to 170oC ( 150oC fan assisted oven). Line a baking tray with baking paper and set it aside.

Cream butter, icing sugar, zest of lime and cloves until pale. Sift flours and baking powder and mix into butter, then stir in nuts. Divide mixture into 24 balls and place them on the baking tray leaving a lot of space between them – you might have to split them into at least two batches.

Lightly press mixture down with your thumb, then bake for 16-20 minutes, until they go just a little golden. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and leave to go cold.

If stored in an airtight container will keep well for about 5 days.

Lemon polenta cake - gluten free

2007-06-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

This cake was originally picked to take part in the Weekend Cookbook Challenge organized by Sara from I like to cook, this time round held by Ani from Foodie Chickie. The theme was cornmeal. Unfortunately I have been doing quite long hours and tiredeness got the best of me and I fell asleep before baking the cake to meet the deadline - I only found out about the event one day before the deadline. The ones of you who have visited my blog have read this before. I still have hopes that my work won’t have such impact on my life as it does. At least not by sending me too sleep just like that.
Back to the cake, as the recipe had already been selected I decided to go ahead with it. After all polenta/cornmeal cakes are such winners in my experience. Plus this one had such appeal with all the lemon juice and rind. Plus the fact that it is gluten free.
Looking back I am ever so happy that I didn’t give up on it. Shame that it didn’t manage to be included in the event. It is a very light and refreshing cake. I brought it to work - I am posting it from work, and it did not last long. Wonderful treat for an afternoon tea or even for a moment of hunger or pure indulgence. Plus all the people who need to have gluten free cake can eat this most yummy treat as well.

Lemon polenta cake – gluten free

280g butter, room temperature ( I only used 250g)
225g sugar
6 eggs separated
175g ground almonds
115g yellow cornmeal or polenta

Rind and juice of 4 lemons
Icing sugar to dust

Greased round baking tray – 25cm + line it with baking parchment

Preheat the oven – 180oC/fan assisted 160oC.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Approximately 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Then add the ground almonds, polenta/yellow cornmeal, lemon rind and juice. Mix well using a wooden spoon.
Beat the egg whites until it forms hard peaks. Using a metal spoon incorporate the egg whites to the mixture and bake for a good 50 minutes. Test inserting a skewer in the middle of it to check that the cake is cooked – it needs to come out clean. Remove from the oven and let it cool in the rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Couscous salad with chickpeas and goat’s cheese

2007-06-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging event, that great idea that Kalyn had, is being held by Karen from the beautiful and inspiring blog Rachel’s bite.

I have not prepared this recipe with the event in mind, In fact I did have another recipe that I really wanted to post. I just picked it out of a book on Moroccan dishes. However, when I tasted it I thought that it would be a mistake not to use t his recipe.It has so many Maroccan elements to it.

It is very seasonal in that it will go very well in a summer day, when one sometimes does not feel like standing the stove heat for long. You prepare it very quickly and it is a meal in itself. Plus it it full of goodness. And, nearly forgot that, looks great too. Golden sun colour because of the turmeric, plus the other beautiful reds, greens and white. Next time I prepare it I might add some diced dried dates.

Couscous salad with chickpeas and goat’s cheese

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 ½ cups chicken stock ( or vegetable stock for a vegetarian version)

1 ½ cups couscous

420g chickpeas, cooked and peeled

150g goat’s cheese, crumbled

2 red peppers, seeds removed and roasted in the oven

Juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons each chopped mint and parsley

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 preserved lemon

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes to light brown. Add crushed garlic, tumeric, and cinnamon, and cook for another 30 seconds, then add stock and bring to the boil

Stir in the couscous, then remove pan from the heat, cover and leave to steam for 10 minutes to soften. Remove covering and fluff up couscous with a fork. Set it aside to cool

Toss through the remaining salad ingredients, except preserved lemon, and season well with salt and pepper to taste

Remove flesh from preserved lemon and discard. Rinse the rind with cold water. Finely slice rind and scatter over finished salad to garnish

Beijinho de coco for Meeta

2007-06-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

I wanted to bake something special for Meeta’s birthday, for her birthday mingle. Something Brazilian.

Me being me I left it till the last minute to bake this lovely Brazilian cake, Ant’s hill cake. It is a cake with coconut milk and little chocolate bits. Delicious. Mum used to make it for me. Unfortunately the cake sunk in the middle, to my total disappointment. It was then too late to bake something else.

However, as soon as I had some free time I went back to the task. I know that the mingle is well over so I am doing this isolated post.

I chose a sweet which is very common in children’s birthday parties – coconut kiss. If you ever go to a Brazilian birthday party – for children it is, you will find loads of little bite-size sweets similar to these. They will vary in the ingredients: chocolate, Cashew nut, strawberry, prunes..They are made by hundreds. The birthday table is nicely decorated with all those beautiful sweets, very well presented.

You might not know but Brazilians are very good and into making lovely bite-size sweets for birthday parties, weddings, christenings. We inherited that from the Portuguese who colonised us. They really liked sweets. Very sweet ones. That was inherited from the Moors who dominated the Iberian Peninsula for a very long time.

The Portuguese brought sugar cane from the Madeira Islands and planted them in Brazil. The Portuguese sweets tradition acquired many tropical characteristics.

The rich landowners’ wives and daughters used to prepare lovely little sweets to give as presents. They would be given to relatives, friends, even to loved ones. They would always be beautifully presented. We keep this tradition to this date. The names they take are quite often affectionate ones: ‘coconut kisses’, ‘little caresses’, and ‘kisses’.

This one sweet I chose is made out of condensed milk and desiccated coconut. Its preparation is very simple and the great appeal is in the way it is presented. As I am living abroad I cannot always put my hands on lovely cases and wrappings to truly demonstrate how we do that.

Coconut kiss

1 can condensed milk

1 tablespoon butter

4 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Cloves

More desiccated coconut to coat the sweets

Put the condensed milk and butter in a pan over low fire. Keep stirring it until the mixture thickens and you can see the bottom of the pan. Approximate 10 minutes. The consistency you want is not too soft – or you can’t roll the little balls, nor too thick – or the little balls will be too hard. When you reach the right consistency remove it from the fire and throw the 4 tablespoons of desiccated coconut inside the pan. Mix it some more so that it is all incorporated. Pour the mixture on the plate and let it cool. When it is cool roll little balls with it, bite size, and roll them over the desiccated coconut. Stick a clove in the middle and put it in a little case. Repeat it until the whole mixture is dealt with.

If you wish you can make a little indentation in the middle and put ‘dulce the leche’ in it.

graviola flan

2007-06-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

click to enlarge

Some of you or many even, might not be familiar with the fruit ‘Graviola’. I believe that in the Spanish speaking countries of the Americas it is know as guanabana.Graviola is how we know it in Brasil. Mind you, not all over Brasil because it is native to the north and in the rest of the country not everybody is familiar with it. Nowadays we also find it in central Brasil – I recently saw it in a market near Brasilia which is where my mum lives. I was fortunate enough to grow up drinking a lot of graviola juice. Brasilians as most latin americans that I know love their fruit juice. I am no longer in my twenties, let alone thirties, so that gives you an idea of how popular fruit juice has always been back in my home country. Ops, I have gone on a tangent. Sorry! Back to Graviola.

I was quite surprised myself to find some info about Graviola in a site about alternative cancer treatments. Read here if you would like to find out more.

Moving away from the medicinal side, I always loved it because it is so refreshing. I remember that one of my cousins always used to pick the ripe ones from her back garden and would prepare juice, desserts... When I was home last year I made a lovely flan with it. And boy it was refreshing.

As we can find it abroad in the form of frozen pulp I have decided to publish its recipe here as well. Any stores that sell Brasilian products, including frozen pulps, will have graviola pulp amongst the various flavours sold. Just ask. I also believe that in North America you might be able to find it in stores where they sell produce from Latin American countries as it is a fruit found in many other countries. I found this company from Ecuador for instance - look here.

The condensed milk ingredient makes it so Brasilian in the sense that we use condensed milk an awful lot in sweet dishes. As for the pulp, if you are lucky enough to find the fruit near where you live, you will need to blend it and push the contents through a sieve before adding it to your recipe. If you are using the pulp there is no need for that. It is a recipe put together very easily and lovely for the hot summer days.

Graviola flan

1 can of condensed milk

2 ¼ cups of graviola pulp

6 gelatine leaves or 1 packet of powder gelatine

1 starfruit cut into slices

A bit of Drambui liqueur

Hydrate the gelatine by putting it in cold water for five minutes. Then squeeze the excess water and dissolve it in Bain Marie. Put the condensed milk and the pulp in the blender and give it a good whiz. With the blender still on gradually add the dissolved gelatine. After that transfer the mixture to flan containers which would have been previously put in cold water. Sprinkle the poppy seeds before putting the containers in the fridge for a good 4 hours at least. Before serving prepare a nice sauce with Drambuí liqueur.

We just made it by putting equal measure of water and sugar in a pan. When the sugar dissolves lower the heat and continue stirring until it starts to thicken. Take it off the fire and add a splash of Drambuí liqueur.

Drizzle it over the flan and decorate it with the star fruit slices.

Linguine with clams and tomatoes

2007-06-07T18:10:00.002-07:00

Pasta is such a great thing to cook.Very versatile - all the possible sauce combinations. I chose this dish to take part in Ruth's Presto Pasta Nights events. Check here for the details. I actually first emailed Ruth about a month ago or more saying that I really wanted to take part in these events. Only now I managed to get organized.

I love sea food and since the first time that I saw this recipe I decided that I had to prepare it - the lovely clams! With all the lovely and fresh ingredients this is such a fabulous dish. not too laborious, extremely delicious and gets ready in no time.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Linguine with clams and tomatoes

400g italian dried linguine

60ml extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, finely sliced

2 small fresh red chillies, finely chopped, or ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes

Sea salt

1 kg clams

125ml white wine

500g cherry tomatoes, cut into halves

3 tbspoons finely chopped fresh parsley

Freshly ground paper

Cook the linguine in a large saucepan. Whilst it is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the garlic, chilli and sea salt for 1 minute. Add the clams, white wine and tomatoes. Cover the pan and cook for 3 minutes, or until the clams open. Remove from the heat.

Drain the pasta and add to the frying pan with the parsley. Gently toss to combine, then season with the salt and pepper.

Nana Maria canjica

2007-06-02T13:36:00.001-07:00

My grandmother on my mother’s side, Dona Maria, was originally from the state of Paraíba, in the north east of Brazil. In that part of the country corn plays a very important part in people’s diet. It is done in various forms: raw corn that is grated and then cooked, Brazilian corn flour – which is very fine, pre-cooked corn flour. The list is long.

Nowadays we find corn in most parts of the country nearly all year round, but in my nana’s days and in her region it would be very abundant around Easter time. And she was famous for making canjica and pamonha - both are corn based dishes. You are probably saying to yourself: what the heck is she going on about. Canjica (known in the south of Brazil by the name of curau) is made using grated corn that is cooked with milk and sugar. It is sprinkled with cinnamon powder when ready and put in the fridge to cool. Pamonha is a bit more laborious: the corn is also grated, and then the kernels are scraped to extract any remaining bits as well as the juices; the pulp is seasoned , strained and it is used to fill the corn husks which will become little filled parcels; pamonhas can be sweet or savory. In the part of Brazil where I spent my adolescence and where I lived until I came to Europe, pamonha is nearly a religion. Back to my nana, she used to add coconut milk to her recipes. She would grate the coconut and then extract the milk to be used in her cooking.

Since we are now in the month of June, and all over Brasil a national festivity starts, lasting nearly the whole month – Festa Junina, and canjica ( curau) is eaten nearly everywhere, I have chosen to post my grandmother’s recipe here as a toast to the month of June. This is the nicest part of the Brasilian calendar year to me. There are loads of special foods that we eat specially at the festivities that happen everywhere. You can read a bit about this festivity here.

Nana Maria Canjica Recipe

4 medium-sized corns

½ cup milk

½ cup coconut milk

Sugar – to your taste

Cinnamon powder

Grate the corns and then push the pulp through a sieve. If you feel that the pulp is very coarse, before pushing it through the sieve put it in a blender with a bit of the ½ cup milk and give it a good whiz. You want it to be really mushy. Now push it through a sieve. Transfer the sieved corn to a heavy bottomed pan, adding the milk and some of the coconut milk. Put the pan on a medium heat and add sugar to the mixture so that it is to your taste. Stir the mixture until it thickens a bit, pouring the remaining coconut milk little by little – this is to avoid that your canjica is not too runny. When you reach the right consistency, like thickish porridge, remove the pan from the fire, transfer the mixture to various ramekins, or even to one big dish, sprinkle with the cinnamon and let it cool. Once cooled transfer it to the fridge for at least one hour so that it gets cool. Lovely on a summer day.

Please note that when you grate the corn, if you feel that the amount you have might not be enough to all the hungry mouths you will be feeding, just grate more corns. Depending on the size of the original corns, the amount might not be enough. As for the milk and sugar, just add more accordingly. It might sound complicated but it is dead easy. I promise.

The Gateau Saint Honore Challenge

2007-05-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Daring Bakers in action once again. This time the challenge has been shared by Helen and Anita. The challenge chosen was the Gateau Saint Honore.Some very good reasons why it was chosen:

Turns out that May 16th is Saint Honore (pronounced o-no-ray) Day, patron Saint of pastry chefs and bakers. It also turns out that there is a very traditional cake named after him: Gateau Saint Honore. It is the “must pass” element of pastry school students and it is a cake that includes several elements and techniques that bakers should try at least once: puff pastry, cream puff dough, caramel and pastry filling. There are many fillings as they are bakeries: chiboust cream, pastry cream, Bavarian cream (aka Diplomat cream). The cake building goes like this: - base of puff pastry - rings of cream dough baked on top (so that the cream sticks) - cream puffs set on the pastry filling or hooked to the base with hot caramel - cream filling to fill everything

I really enjoyed this challenge. When I finished it I had a great feeling of accomplishment. I managed to laugh at my faults and made note to self to work on improving them. Most of all I felt really pleased about my accomplishments. And believe me, I am the type of person who can really focus on my mistakes. So definitely a fabulous result. The cake does not look like it should but it was my best shot. Thank you Helen and Anita for organizing and for picking the challenge.

As a piece of patisserie I don’t really like Gateau Saint Honore. I find it really busy, there is a lot going on. However, once it is broken down into parts it does give me immense pleasure – or rather, it did. The Saint Honore Cream is so delicious. I could barely stop picking on it. I followed it to the letter with the exception of the Cointreau liqueur. I had one too many spoonfuls so many times. I wonder what it will go well with since I still have some of it in the fridge. I also loved making the puff pastry because had it not been for the challenge I would not have made it anytime soon. I was always a bit scared of it. It is true that it requires a bit of elbow grease but hey..I felt good once it was done. Also had a laugh with the funny shapes of my piped dough. Need to work on that. The caramel was something else that terrified me. I foresaw, in my dramatic nature, burnt fingers and hand. In the end I did survive it and even managed to play with it at the back of a ladle.

The only thing I did not make this time was the puff pastry. As I have already made it in the past I went for the store bought one – as Helen said it was Ok.

Please accept my apologies for posting only today. Since I spilt some red wine on my key board a few months ago on top of having to buy a brand new keyboard as the other one never recovered from the trauma, I also had to deal with a laptop that would switch itself off just like that. And yesterday it did it again. All of a sudden: puff. Only difference was that this time it would not switch itself back on. I have managed to borrow a friend’s laptop today so here I am, finally posting my cake.

I would suggest you visit the other Daring Baker's sites to see their creations. The sites are listed on the bar on the right hand side.

I will post the recipe as published by Helen, with the exception of the puff pastry. Here it goes:

Pate a Choux – Cream Puffs Dough

4 ¾ oz. all purpose flour (135 gr)
1 cup water ( 240 ml)
2 oz unsalted butter (58 gr)
¼ tsp. salt (1 gr)
1 cup eggs (240 ml)

Sift the flour and set aside.
Heat the water, butter and salt to a full rolling boil, so that the fat is not just floating on the top but is dispersed throughout the liquid.
Stir the flour into the liquid with a heavy wooden spoon, adding it as fast as it can be absorbed. Avoid adding it all at once or it will form clumps.
Cook, stirring constantly and breaking up the lumps if necessary, by pressing them against the side of the pan with the back of the spoon until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan, about 2-3 minutes.
Transfer the dough to a mixer bowl. Let the paste cool slightly so that the eggs will not cook when they are added. You can add and stir the eggs by hand but it requires some serious elbow grease.
Mix in the eggs, one at a time, using the paddle attachment on low or medium speed. Do not add all the eggs at once. Check after a few, the dough should have the consistency of thick mayonnaise.
Transfer the dough to a piping bag and use as desired.

Pate Feuillete – Puff Pastry:

Makes about 2 1/2 pounds.
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface (420 gr)
3/4 cup cake flour (105 gr)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (7 gr)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, well chilled (60 gr)
1 1/4 cups cold water (295.5 ml)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (14 gr)
1 3/4 cups (3 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, well-chilled (405 gr)

1/ Make the dough package: In a large mixing bowl, combine both flours with the salt. Scatter butter pieces over the flour mixture; using your fingers or a pastry cutter, incorporate butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2/ Form a well in center of mixture, and pour the water into well. Using your hands, gradually draw flour mixture over the water, covering and gathering until mixture is well blended and begins to come together. Gently knead mixture in the bowl just until it comes together to form a dough, about 15 seconds. Pat dough into a rough ball, and turn out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Wrap tightly, and place in refrigerator to chill 1 hour.
3/ Make the butter package: Sprinkle 1/2 tablespoon flour on a sheet of waxed or parchment paper. Place uncut sticks of butter on top, and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tablespoon flour. Top with another sheet of paper; using a rolling pin, pound butter to soften and flatten to about 1/2 inch. Remove top sheet of paper, and fold butter package in half onto itself. Replace top sheet of paper, and pound again until butter is about A inch thick. Repeat process two or three times, or until butter becomes quite pliable. Using your hands, shape butter package into a 6-inch square. Wrap well in plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator until it is chilled but not hardened, no more than 10 minutes.
4/ Assemble and roll the dough: Remove dough package from refrigerator, and place on a lightly floured work surface. Using a rolling pin, gently roll dough into a 9-inch round. Remove butter package from refrigerator, and place it in the center of the dough round. Using a paring knife or bench scraper, lightly score the dough to outline the butter square; remove butter, and set it aside. Starting from each side of the center square, gently roll out dough with the rolling pin, forming four flaps, each 4 to 5 inches long; do not touch the raised square in the center of the dough. Replace butter package on the center square. Fold flaps of dough over the butter package so that it is completely enclosed. Press with your hands to seal.
5/ Using the rolling pin, press down on the dough at regular intervals, repeating and covering the entire surface area, until it is about 1 inch thick. Gently roll out the dough into a large rectangle, about 9 by 20 inches, with one of the short sides closest to you. Be careful not to press too hard around the edges, and keep the corners even as you roll out the dough by squaring them with the side of the rolling pin or your hands. Brush off any excess flour. Starting at the near end, fold the rectangle in thirds as you would a business letter; this completes the first single turn.Wrap in plastic wrap; place in refrigerator 45 to 60 minutes.
6/ Remove dough from refrigerator, and repeat process in step 5, giving it five more single turns.Always start with the flap opening on the right as if it were a book. Mark the dough with your knuckle each time you complete a turn to help you keep track. Chill 1 hour between each turn. After the sixth and final turn, wrap dough in plastic wrap; refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight before using.

Saint Honore Cream (Rapid Chiboust or Diplomat Cream)
1 envelope unflavored gelatin (7 gr.)
1/4 cup cold water (60 ml)
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons sugar (130 gr)
½ cup all-purpose flour (70 gr)
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
2 cups whole milk (500ml)
1 Tb. rum
¼ cup whipping cream (57 gr)
3 egg whites
dash of salt
1/2 cup sugar (105 gr)

Soak the gelatin in the 1/4 cup of cold water.
Put the sugar, flour, and salt into a saucepan and stir together with a whisk. Add the yolks and enough milk to make a paste. Whisk in the remainder of the milk.
Place over low heat and stirring constantly, cook until thick. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
Stir in the whipping cream.Set the mixing bowl in cold water and stir until the cream is cool. Place the egg whites in a clean bowl and using clean beaters, whip them with the dash of salt. As soon as the whites begin to stiffen, gradually add the 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until they are very stiff. Fold the egg whites into the cooled cream.

Caramel:
8 oz sugar (240 gr)

Assembly:

Roll the puff pastry out to 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick, 12 inch square (30 cm). Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate covered at least 20 minutes.
While the puff pastry is resting, make the pate a choux and place it in a pastry bag with a # 4 (8mm) plain tip. Reserve.
Leaving the puff pastry on the sheet pan, cut a 11 inch (27.5 cm) circle from the dough and remove the scraps. (An easy way to cut it is to use a 11inch tart pan as a “cookie cutter”). Prick the circles lightly with a fork.
Pipe 4 concentric rings of Pate a Choux on the pastry circle. Pipe out 12 cream puffs the size of Bing cherries onto the paper around the cake.
Bake the puff pastry circle and the cream puffs at 400F (205C) until the pate a choux has puffed, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375F (190C) and bake until everything is dry enough to hold its shape, about 35 minutes longer for the cake and 8 minutes longer for the cream puffs (just pick them up and take them out as they are done)
Place about 4 oz (114 gr) of the Saint Honore Cream in a pastry bag with a #2 (4mm) plain tip. Use the pastry bag tip or the tip of a paring knife to make a small hole in the bottom of each cream puff. Pipe the cream into the cream puffs to fill them. Refrigerate.
Spread the remaining cream filling on the cake. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to set the cream.
Caramelize the 8 oz. of sugar:
Fill a bowl that is large enough to hold the pan used for cooking the sugar with enough cold water to reach halfway up the sides of the pan. Set the bowl aside.
Place the sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and cook until the sugar until it has caramelized to just a shade lighter than the desired color.
Remove from the heat and immediately place the bottom of the pan in the bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.
Dip the cream puffs into the hot caramel, using 2 forks or tongues to avoid burning your fingers. Place them on a sheet pan. The caramel must be hot enough to go on in a thin layer. Reheat if necessary as you are dipping, stirring constantly to avoid darkening the caramel any more than necessary. Also, avoid any Saint Honore cream to leak out of the puffs and get mixed in with the caramel while dipping as the cream can cause the sugar to recrystallize.
Whip the one cup of heavy cream and teaspoon of sugar to stiff peaks. Place the whipped cream in pastry bag fitted with a #5 (10mm) star tip. Pipe a border of whipped cream around the top of the cake. Arrange the cream puffs, evenly spaced, on top of the filling, next to the cream.

Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

Madeleines with buckwheat flour

2007-05-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

I was in

France

recently and on the way back I grabbed a magazine which had an article with a Breton chef called Olivier Bellin. He has received an award as a sort of ‘young revelation’. He has made buckwheat flour as the centre of his cuisine. Buckwheat flour, blé noir, was until the 19^thcentury, one of the staple foods of Brittany and Normandy. They used to make buckwheat porridge in Normandy – the flour would be soaked either in curdled skimmed milk or in plain water and then stirred in a pan over the heat. There was an article in April ‘Saveur’about Brittany crêpes, which are made with buckwheat. Olivier uses buckwheat flour not only in his crêpes, but in things such as madeleines and crème brulées.

I am fascinated by people who take ingredients to a different level. Local ingredients, most importantly. I feel that people tend to look elsewhere for the greener grass, the more interesting view. And many times there is equal beauty and value in our backyard.

As I had never, ever cooked/baked with buckwheat flour I decided to buy a bag and give it a go. Amongst many things, it is gluten free. I elected Olivier’s ‘madeleines au blé noir’. I have already made madeleines before – with rosewater and also with orange rind, but never with buckwheat. I was dead curious to give this recipe a go. The recipe has to be prepared at least 12 hours before baking (don’t try to rest it for less than 12 hours). Oh, and it is well worth the wait. I loved the madeleines. They have a sun tanned look about them and a sort of nutty flavour because of the browned butter. They taste rather special. And very, very good. I took half the recipe to work and they went just like that. I also gave another 1/3 of the recipe to a French friend who is not too keen on madeleines in general, and she just loved these. She said that she will be in the look out for buckwheat madeleines from now on.

Madeleines with buckwheat flour

65g buckwheat flour

150g icing sugar

35g almond flour

5 egg whites

150g butter – unsalted

1 teaspoon honey

Melt the butter until it turns into ‘browned butter’. Transfer it to a bowl and mix it with the honey. Let it cool. In the meantime put the flour – almond and buckwheat, together with the sugar in a big mixing bowl. Mix the egg whites lightly with a fork, until they just begin to froth. Transfer the egg whites to the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix them using either a fouet or a wooden spoon. Once the butter is cool add it to the batter as well and mix it a bit more. Cover the mixture and put it in the fridge for 12 hours at least. No less than that. It works well if you leave the batter to rest overnight and bake the madeleines for breakfast.

Pre-heat the oven – 180oC/160oC fan assisted ovens. Prepare the Madeleine moulds – I used small ones and it yielded 80 madeleines. I baked them in two days. No, not because it takes ages, but because I took 40 to work and the following day I baked the other 40 as a gift to a friend. As you have noticed there is no leavening agent in the batter. It will raise as a result of the cold batter being placed in a hot oven. Only take the batter from the fridge once the oven temperature is right. Keep it in the fridge in between one load and the other. For small madeleines it took only 8 minutes to have them ready.

Asparagus salad with brown butter

2007-05-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

I remember my first encounter with asparagus: mum used to cook this beautiful and deadly easy chicken with asparagus sauce dish. A dish that I even cooked in my university days. I remember vividly asking this good friend who was 10 years older than me how to cut a whole chicken. Mum used to go for a lot of fresh vegetables, loads of fruit, we never had fried food at home...but the asparagus wasn’t fresh. I think that in the part of Brazil we lived then it was nearly impossible to find it in those days- I am talking 1982. When I buy asparagus these days, and even mum, all beautiful and fresh, it is hard to understand how we could eat and enjoy that dish. Canned asparagus is just so soft that I call it mushy. I could not touch it with a barge pole nowadays. Funny thing life.

So on a very different note; I prepared this beautiful salad over the weekend. It is a Joanne Weir dish. So simple and so utterly delicious. The dressing is nothing without the brown butter. I tasted it before the butter was added, and I can say that the butter adds a depth to the sauce that had me asking for more. I went for some brown bread to mop up the sauce left on the dish. It is a sin to waste a single drop in my opinion.

I thought that it would be the ideal contribution for this week’s WHB. Beautiful asparagus, in a gorgeous sauce. So seasonal, simple and a great starter. The dressing can be used with other salads as well. I have sent my email to Ellie from Kitchen Wench with my contribution. Hope she likes it!

Asparagus salad with brown butter and lemons

2 eggs

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 shallot, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 ½ pounds fresh asparagus ends removed

Steps:

1^st: boil the eggs, remove them when ready, chop them up and reserve them until they are required.

2^nd: this is the trickiest part – and the maker of the recipe in my opinion, place the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook the butter until it begins to foam and then the foam subsides. Continue to cook until the white solids turn into a rich golden brown and the butter just begins to smoke. Remove from the heat immediately and,

3^rd. throw the melted butter in a bowl, followed by the olive oil, lemon juice, white wine vinegar and the chopped shallots. Mix well.

4^th. Right before serving steam the spinach. When it is ready place the asparagus on a plate, drizzle the dressing over it and sprinkle the boiled egg on top.

If you have some lovely brown bread hanging around use it to mop up the juices as they cannot be wasted.

Macadamia nut chocolate cake

2007-05-20T15:04:00.001-07:00

This morning I felt like baking a chocolate cake. I wanted something not very fussy but quite yummy. Flicking through this book I bought recently, James Martin Desserts, I came across this recipe entitled Macadamia nut chocolate cake. There was a picture of this pretty little cake, encrusted with little pieces of chopped macadamia nuts. I decided to make it as I had all the ingredients at home. It was not even an extensive list. The only tricky item could have been the macadamia nuts, but in the end I also had that in my nuts basket.

I don’t often bake with macadamia nuts so it was a nice excuse. I love nibbling on those nuts at work, when I have a terrible hunger pang. I used the food processor for the chopping. And used the pulse button. Since I once processed peanuts for too long and they became this horrible oily mass I have decided to mind my nuts whilst getting them chopped.

The result was a lovely moist cake with a lovely discreet crunch to it. And all the deliciously sinful chocolate sauce. According to the author it is best to have it still warm. If cold it looses a bit of the texture. In case there is some to be had the following day or at a later time, just warm it up in the microwave first. If you don't feel like warming it up it is ok as well. The texture reminded me of a muffin. A nice, chocolatey one.

I have to admit that I did not notice much about the macadamia nuts. It was definitely not like hazelnuts which just fill my lungs, heart, and mind. I could only feel a gentle hint of it on the crust. Altogether it was a rather lovely cake. Not pretentious but looking very classy and as if one has spent ages on it

Macadamia nut chocolate cake

serves 8

75g toasted macademia nuts
190g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g sugar
4 eggs
45g unsweetened cocoa, sifted
70g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

For the chocolate sauce:

25g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp unsalted butter
4 tbsp double cream
15g sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 180oC/350oF/Gas mark 4. Butter 8 moulds ( 5cm wide each). Place on a baking tray. Reserve.

Finely grind half the macademia nuts and coarsely chop the remainin half.

Cream the butter and sugar together and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the cocoa, flour and baking powder and stir until fully incorporated. Gently fold the ground nuts into the batter.

Fill the moulds two-thirds full with the batter and sprinkle with the chopped macadamia nuts.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

To make the sauce, gently heat the chocolate and butter in a saucepan until melted, stir in the cream and sugar and continue to heat gently, stirring, until combined.

To serve, pour a pool of chocolate sauce onto each plate. Place a cake in the centre of each plate on top of the sauce. Spoon a scoop of ice cream on the side if you fancy an extra treat. The author suggested coconut.

Avocado and chickpea salad

2007-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have already spoken about the way we eat avocado in Brazil here. In my new phase, I have become a great eater of avocado in salads. This time I went for a simple but fairly delicious specimen where creamy avocado contrasts with crunchy chickpeas. Both embrace the delicious taste of mint – cooling and warming at the same time, and you are in for a delicious dish of greenery. It is such a green salad, perfect for spring. It lifts your spirit just looking at it. Back home we say that green means hope, good vibes and this dish surely embodies it. Hope of lovelier spring days ahead, hope that there will be more gorgeous salads like this one, hope that you will all feel tempted and give it a go as well.

This was just the dish I chose for Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Rinku of Cooking in Westchester. I missed WHB last week, with me going away for the weekend and all, plus working late every single day, I did not get the time to prepare my post.So t his week I just cannot miss it as it is an event I have very much grown to like.

Avocado and chickpea salad

400g cooked chickpeas ( if using uncooked you will need about 250g before you cook them)

1 avocado, peeled and quartered

½ cup mint leaves

Lettuce leaves

¼ cup lime juice

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ teaspoon sugar

Sea salt and cracked black pepper

If you are a pacient person, roughly chop the chickpeas. I am not patient to this extent so I had my chickpeas as they were supposed to be eaten: whole. Combine the chickpeas with the avocado slices and mint – I love mint! Arrange the lettuce leaves on a serving plate/salad dish and place the chickpea,mint & avocado combo on top. In a separate small bowl mix the lime juice, olive oil, sal and black pepper. Give it a good mix and pour over this beautiful salad.

Mango, Mint and Farro salad

2007-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

I loved the idea of this event held my Meeta, Spring is in the air. I LOVE spring, I love spring food, spring air, spring acitivities. It is a period of great hope, where one starts over again. We had a long winter in the UK and I was counting the minutes for the change.

I love having loads of salad at this time of the year. Fresh herbs. Fruit.Berries, berries, berries. I have prepared this delicious salad which I think is very suitable for Meeta's event: a mango, mint and faro salad.The original recipe asked for bulgur wheat but I only had farro at home. If you don't know what farro is, in a nut shell it is a grain very much used in Italy.They say that the Roman legions used to feed on it. This is what About, the website says:
Grano Farro has a long and glorious history: it is the original grain from which all others derive, and fed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations for thousands of years; somewhat more recently it was the standard ration of the Roman Legions that expanded throughout the Western World. Ground into a paste and cooked, it was also the primary ingredient in plus, the polenta eaten for centuries by the Roman poor. Important as it was, however, it was difficult to work and produced low yields. In the centuries following the fall of the Empire, higher-yielding grains were developed and farro's cultivation dwindled: By the turn of the century in Italy there were a few hundreds of acres of fields scattered over the regions of Lazio, Umbria, the Marches and Tuscany.

The salad is great to be served with some nice chicken grilled on the barbie. A light meal. And truly scrumptious.

You'll need:

handful of mint
120g farro/bulgur wheat
a large mango cut into slices
juice of a lime
olive oil - about 2 tbs
spring onions - 4
salt adn freshly ground pepper

Prepare the faro / bulgur wheat according to the instructions on the package. Place the mango slices on a salad dish,followed by the mint leaves and the spring onions. Add the faro/bulgur wheat and mix it all.
In a separate bowl pour the olive oil, lemon juice and mix well. Then add the salt and pepper and pour it over the salad. Mix it all an serve with grilled chicken breast. It is absolutely delicious!

Inspiration: The Observer Food Monthly, UK

passion fruit cake

2007-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

My good friend Patricia was the one who first told me about the event being hosted by Barbara from Winos and Foodies - 'A Taste of Yellow' in aid of the Armstrong foundation. When I heard what it was really about I decided to take part as I have lost a few people close to my heart who suffered of this terrible disease.

I lost a very, very dear friend to breast cancer a few years back. We were house mates and I was with her from the beginning. She was a fighter and survived for 5 years. Andrea would have loved this cake. She loved trying new recipes. Barbara is a fighter and a surviver and this cake is also for her.I chose to bake a Brazilian version of passion fruit cake. We love passion fruit cake in Brazil and there are different versions of it. This one recipe I got from a wonderful Brazilian story teller called Sonia Novaes. The cake is lovely, slightly tangy. I like having a lovely cup of coffee with it.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar (360g)
2 cups plain flour (250g)

1 cup of passion fruit juice, no seeds

60g butter
1 tablespoon baking powder

5 eggs separated

Preheat the oven to 180oC – 160oC if you have a fan assisted oven. Grease and flour a bundt pan or a 31 cm x 22 cm baking tin (approximate measurement).

Beat the sugar, butter and egg yolks until the mixture is creamy and paler – about five minutes. Then intercalate the addition of flour and passion fruit juice, always mixing it with a wooden spoon. Once the two ingredients are fully incorporated add the baking powder followed by the egg whites. When you add the egg whites put 1/3 of it first, mix gently to incorporate and only then add the rest. Pour the mixture into the reserved baking tin and put it in the oven. Bake it for approximately 30 min.

When the cake is ready let it cool for 5 minutes in the tin before transferring it to a rack. Proceed to prepare the passion fruit syrup:

Pour 1 cup of passion fruit juice – seeds and all, in a pan followed by 1 cup of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. Stir it until the sugar is dissolved. When it starts to boil remove it from the fire and drizzle the cake with it.

Tomato, Quinoa, Chillie, Lime and Avocado

2007-05-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

When I first saw this salad in my Observer Food Monthly magazine I said to myself straight away: got to make it. I just so happen to be madly in love with quinoa. Not only does it looks gorgeous, little golden balls, that brighten up any salad, but they are also so good for you that one would be a fool not to have them every so often. Did you know that they are claimed to be the one of the most complete foods there are? The first time I had them was in this one delicious salad where they were coupled up with corn kernels. I only posted it in my Portuguese language blog. I will post it here as well since it will certainly be done over the summer at my house. Going back to the salad, in addition to the lovely quinoa, it also has beautifully red and ripe tomatoes, sexy wedges of avocado, and parsley plus coriander (cilantro to many of you). Visually, it won my heart. In a rational-brainy way, it won my mind and heart again. Well, stomach had to be pampered as well. So on Monday I was already preparing it as soon as got home from work. And Tuesday we had a repeat.

The picture does not make it justice. A picture taken at night is never the same. A spring/summer salad certainly deserves to be shone upon by sunlight. However, as we say back home ‘If your hunting dog is not available, take your cat hunting with you’ (make do with what you have). I took the picture with artificial light.

I have been getting avocadoes delivered with my organic box for the last three weeks now. And it is all in the name of lovely salads and spring/summer meals. I was brought up in a culture which treats avocado as a fruit which is used in sweet dishes, smoothies.. So avocado in salads and other savoury concoctions is an eating habit I developed quite recently. I remember my school days and the countless number of avocado shakes/smoothies mum used to feed us with at breakfast, before going to school. It used to be pretty filling. Deliciously creamy. The native avocado variety in Brasil (excuse the ‘s’and not the ‘z’ – I’m going native here) is different from the one I purchase in Europe. Our variety is bigger, and the flavour is not as concentrated as the one we find in the neck of the woods where I live. I also remember a very delicious and terribly simple dessert made out of avocado, condensed milk and a little bit of milk. You would pour the three ingredients in the blender and give it a whiz until you had a good creamy end result. It was a delicious creamy dish that would be kept in the top section of the fridge in order to firm up and also to get really, really cold, and work as a ‘God’s send’ in the very hot Brasilian summer days.

This salad seemed to me as the perfect late evening meal and my special post for the WHB which this week is being looked after by the lovely Kalyn. It is pretty simple to make – check it out:

100g of quinoa – ¾ cup

1 good handful of parsley

2 good handfuls of coriander (cilantro)

Cherry tomatoes – loads ( this time I used vine tomatoes chopped in four as I have quite a lot of them hanging around)

2 small ripe avocadoes, sliced in wedges

One red chilli, deseeded and cut into little, thin strips

For the beautiful dressing which I unfairly forgot to talk about above – it is the soul of the salad in my opinion:

a lime

a small clove of garlic

extra virgin olive oil – be generous without being unhealthy on the amount used

Cook the quinoa first by boiling plenty of water and adding salt to it, as soon as it reaches boiling point. Add the quinoa grains to it, reduce the heat and let it cook for around 15 minutes. Whilst the quinoa is busy getting ready, get a salad bowl (or whatever you find appropriate for your salad) and place the herbs on it, then the tomatoes and the avocado wedges. If you are using chilli as well, scatter them over the salad at this stage. Once the quinoa is ready drain it and quickly run it under a tap of cold water. Then throw it over the salad.

To prepare the dressing just put your clove of garlic (no skin please!!) in a mortar and crush it. Then add the salt and black pepper crush it a bit more. Add the lime juice and olive oil. God, it is good.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad, get some charming salad ‘mixers’(often in long spoons shape) and toss everything together nicely. Then, what are you waiting for?

Chocolate Crepe Cake

2007-04-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Bri, I am sorry but after loads of torn crepes, a lot of swearing and many more disasters I've hang my boots.

Congratulations to all the other Daring Bakers who have successfully wore their badges and posted the most amazing cakes. Please visit all the other daring bakers posts - their blog addresses can be found on the side bar on the right hand side.

Valentina - not so daring a baker.

Brazilian cheesebread

2007-04-24T14:28:00.001-07:00

When I learnt about Waiter Waiter There is Something in my Bread, the event organized by Spitton Extra I thought of so many different recipes. I read various different books that I have but without being able to make up my mind. It was only with the help of my dear friend Pat that I ended up deciding to post this recipe here which is so close to my heart.

Brazilian cheese bread is such a popular recipe in Brazil. It spans all the five regions in which the country is divided and no matter your background or where you come from you are very likely to be fond of it. Obviously there will be some who don’t.

There are many different recipes and I personally baked using a different one for a very long time until last year when I came across this recipe with potato in the dough. It fascinated me.

The main flour for cheese bread is tapioca flour (or potato starch in some countries). There are two types of tapioca flour in Brazil: a) the sweet or fresh starch, and b) the sour starch. The latter has a more acid taste than the former. It has all to do with the fermentation process of the cassava juice. In some parts of Brazil you only find one of the types. Luckily in London I find both of them and sometimes I have halfof the tapioca flour amount of the sweet one and the other half with the sour flour. I personaly believe that the sour flour gives a nice crust. Where the sweet one is odourless, the sour one is rather 'acid'( slightly smelly).

Melissa from The Traveller’s lunch box wrote a very good article about our national treasure – as a Brazilian I was marvelled by her accuracy of the facts.

The recipe below can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days but it cannot be frozen. I tend to keep it in a sealed container. And bake medium portions at a time. The time in the oven tends to be around 15 minutes at least. The cheese bread will be nice and round(ish). If they are not left in the oven for the correct amount of time they will deflate as you remove them.

You can read more about it in an article I published at my Tapiocaflour blog. Please note that the cup measures in that article are for a 200ml equivalent cup – it applies to milk and vegetable oil amount.

Brazilian cheesebread - another variation

Approximately 30 units

140g tapioca flour ( tapioca starch)

300g cooked and mashed potato

100g grated parmesan cheese ( I tend to add a wee bit more)

1 tablespoon butter ( approx 15g)

1 egg

Put the tapioca flour and the mashed potato in a bowl and mix with your hands. Then add the milk and do the same. The next step will be to add the oil. The cheese is added after the oil is well incorporated into the mixture. Finally, bet the eggs lightly and then add them to the bowl. Here I prefer to mix everything with a woden spoon first, and then use my hands towards the end to ensure that the mixture is even. The mixture will be ready when it no longer stick to your fingers.

Make small balls and put then on a baking tray – no need to grease the tray. You can also freeze some of the recipe and bake the cheesebread from frozen.

Preheat the oven to medium temperature – 180oC , for about 15min and bake the cheesebread rolls until they become golden.

llittle daisy cakes

2007-04-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

Since the first time I saw these cakes in one of the Waitrose publications I fell in love with them. They had this wonderful spring feel. Appealing to the eye, and hopefully to the taste too.

I had never worked with marzipan before – believe me, that was true then, but I decided to give it a go. I even got the nasty glace cherries. I completely loathe them. I always wonder how something as wonderful and delicious as cherries can be turned into this ghastly tasting thing. However, I decided to pretend not to care about them and get my cakes done. After all they had a role to play. The whole cake doesn’t take very long to prepare. They look so cute when ready to go into the oven that I couldn’t wait to see the final result. Once ready I couldn’t wait to prepare my cup of tea and enjoy the first bite. They are lovely cakes. The sort of thing you want in the middle of the afternoon, when a nice cup of tea is asking for company.

Sugar High Friday held by Monisha, seemed a perfect occasion to post them over here. A perfect celebration of what is to me one of the most wonderful seasons – spring. After all the dark, cold wet days of winter there comes this fabulous time of the year when colours are everywhere, we feel rejuvenated, ready to do loads of things. What most wonderful than little daisies?

Little Daisy cakes

200g butter, softened – plus a bit extra to grease the tins

200g white marzipan at room temperature

75g caster sugar

275g self-raising flour

5 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp almond extract

200g glace cherries

200g sultanas

25g flaked almonds

Preheat the oven – 150oC, gas mark 2. Generously grease 20 holes of muffin tins.

Cut the butter and marzipan into cubes and place in a large mixing bowl with the caster sugar. Beat with an electric whisk until pale, fluffy and completely combined. Sieve the flour into the marzipan mixture, add the eggs and beat together. Stir in the milk and almond extract. The cake mixture should have a soft dropping consistency.

Wash the syrup from the cherries, pat dry with kitchen roll, and then cut in half. Reserve 20 of the halves and stir the remaining cherries together with the sultanas, into the cake mixture. Spoon the mixture evenly into the 20 holes in the muffin tins. Arrange the flaked almonds on top of each cake and place one of the reserved cherry halves in the centre to make a flower pattern. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the cakes are light golden, and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.

Confit leeks, tomatoes and mushrooms with arak and almonds

2007-04-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

I have already told you about this wonderful book Saha. This wonderful recipe was in the section entitled vegetable mezze. It was really hard to pick a recipe up amongst so many. I really liked the idea of stewing the vegetables in such wonderful broth – with the arak (or a substitute in my case) At first I got a bit worried about the fennel – ‘is it going to work well with all these vegetables?’’ I didn’t want anything too sweet. I did not have the arak, in fact I had no idea what it was. After reading about it in the introductory note to the chapter I decided to use Pernod instead as it was the only thing I had at home. Arak to the ones of you, who don’t know, is an aniseed-flavoured spirit like so many others which are popular around the Mediterranean. The only difference seems to be that Ouzo, Raki, Sambucca and Pastis all are very sweet. Arak is set apart by the fact that it is pure, only containing two ingredients: grapes and the aniseed. Its flavour seems to be a great cleanser to the palate. I will most certainly check it out one day.

I found this dish to be a delicious and elegant mezze. I had it with toasted bread and it just proved delicious. There were some leftovers the next day and it tasted even more delicious than I remembered.

I though that it would be a wonderful contribution to this week’s WHB that is being held by Sher at What did you eat?

Confit leeks, tomatoes and mushrooms with arak and almonds

3 leeks, white part only, cut into 4cm rounds

8 shallots, peeled

4 cloves garlic, peeled

2 bay leaves

Few sprigs of thyme

1 teaspoon black peppercorns, lightly crushed

1 teaspoon fennel seeds, lightly crushed

Juice of 5 lemons

400ml dry white whine

500ml water

400ml extra-virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

8 medium Portobello mushrooms, trimmed

6 small vine-ripened tomatoes

80ml arak or another aniseed liqueur

Freshly ground sea salt to taste

Extra-virgin olive oil

60g flaked almonds, fried golden brown

Put the leeks, shallots, garlic, herbs and spices into a large, heavy-based non-reactive saucepan. Pour on the lemon juice, wine, water and olive oil and stir in the salt.

Cut a circle of baking paper to fit the saucepan and sit it on top of the vegetables. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and cook at a very gentle simmer for 20 minutes. Lift up the paper and slip the mushrooms and tomatoes in amongst the vegetables. Replace the paper and simmer gently for a further 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the arak. Leave the vegetables to cool slightly in the liquid.

When ready to serve, lift the vegetables out of the stewing liquor into a serving dish, season with a little salt, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Beijos de Dama - Lady's Kisses

2007-04-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

I don’t mean to cheat. These biscuits were made in December when I was visiting my family in Brazil. As at that time I was pretty slack with the English version of my blog the recipe is only being added now. I need to put it (plus many more) in my other English language blog, Tapioca, but I shall walk with baby steps.

There is an Italian biscuit called Bacci di Dona that if translated in Portuguese would be called just like the one I am posting here - however, the ingredients are not exactly the same. Beijos de dama is originally from north Brazil where Brazil nuts are abundant. I am not too sure whether they are cheaper there then elsewhere in the country, but they are indeed terribly popular. My mum in fact has a wonderful recipe of Brazil nut biscuits that melts in the mouth – the recipe is very similar to this one and the only difference lies in the ingredients. I vaguely remember having this conversation with her when I was home. Her recipe has corn starch and no egg yolk.

These biscuits that I am telling you about, Beijos de Dama, smell and taste great. Nuts have a beautiful smell once they are roasted slightly. Burnt nuts are not very attractive.

I have to add something about the ingredients: mum has always cooked an awful lot and her kitchen always had all sorts of gadgets. The first stop of my holiday was Sao Paulo and whilst there I wanted to bake some bread for a friend and ended up buying a scale for her as she had nothing like that in her kitchen. As I left to go to Brasilia she told me to take the scale with me and I replied that there was no need as my mum had everything in her kitchen. To my surprise once I got home I found out that mum’s scale was on loan and I never saw it during the whole three weeks I spent there. I used a measuring cup to get my ingredients sorted – never without complaining incessantly. Can you imagine what they had to endure for 3 weeks? It would have been less painful to buy a scale but at the time I decided that complaining was the way to go. What is it with us and our families? I feel forever the 17-year-old who left to go to university. Anyway, back to measuring: these measuring cups have equivalents to all the ingredients and the cup of flour reads 150g, 1 cup of sugar reads 200g. For the butter I used 200g.As for the 1 ½ cup of Brazil nuts, I put the nuts in the measuring cup and filled it up to the 1 ½ flour. Very unorthodox, I know. You basically put the ingredient required in the cup until it is levelled with the mark that corresponds to the desired quantity. If I had prepared the recipe with a scale I would have used the equivalent in grams that I wrote down below as they correspond to the standards I adopt. For all my Brazilian recipes, unless specified in the recipe itself, I go for 1 cup of flour equals 125g, 1 cup of sugar is 180g, a cup of butter is 200g..and so on and so forth. I will leave it to you to decide what you would like to do in case you feel tempted to preparing them as well.

I had loads of fun cooking with my mum. I remember that the first biscuits that I tried to ‘decorate’ with chocolate stripes were not too pretty. I got very frustrated and felt terribly inapt. Mum took over that role. At first we got big splodges of chocolate and ended up laughing about it – mum kept saying that it was modern art. In end I loved the way they all turned out

Beijos de Dama – Lady’s kisses

1 cup of sugar (180g)

1 ½ cups Brazil nuts, toasted and ground

2 cups flour (250g)

1 cup butter (200g) room temperature

1 egg yolk

Icing:

100g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven – 180C – medium temperature. Grease and flour a baking sheet – 40cm x 32cm.

Prepare the dough: sieve the sugar in a bowl, add the Brazil nut, the flour and the butter. User your fingers to mix it all together until it resembles crumbs. Add the egg yolk and use the tip of your fingers to mix it all until you get uniform dough.

Make little balls with the dough – around 2cm each. Arrange them on the baking sheet keeping them a bit apart. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or when it is golden brown. Transfer it to a rack to cool.

For the icing: put the chocolate on a bowl over a pan boiling water and let it melt – do not let the bowl touch the water. When melted, remove it from the heat and use the thongs of a fork to draw lines over the biscuit.

Chocolate & Chestnut mousse

2007-04-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

HHDH Mousse Event:

I have been looking for a mousse recipe for this event for a while now. I wanted to find one that was truly special. After visiting Helene’s blog – Tartellete, over and over again, I keep seeing these wonderful posts she makes. She pushed the bar way up there.

I knew that I need something that was not common. The other week I made a recipe I had been thinking about using for the event: chocolate with chilli mousse. That turned out to be a bit of a saga: first I wanted to find an egg substitute for the recipe and read a bit about it. In the end I decided to give vinegar a try as replacement because I had read somewhere that it would do the job. Well, what it didn’t specify, and me being so eager didn’t use my head, was that it was probably good but not for stuff like mousse. When I tried the mousse I could tell straight away that there was something wrong with it. The texture didn’t look right, and the taste...well, it was as if the ingredients had not really gelled together. I was terribly disappointed. I ended up making the recipe again, this time to the letter. I then decided to serve it to my guests without telling them about the chilli ingredient first. I wanted to see if they would notice it. The chilli was noticeable without being overpowering. My guests liked it – they even said that had they known about the chilli they wouldn’t have tried it, but they were glad they hadn’t been told in advance. That was a very successful try in the end.

However, I was still looking for THE recipe, and I read books, magazines, marked pages…However, today I decided that I would have to pick one and stop with all the fuss. After all I might have ended up missing the event all together.

I ended up choosing a chocolate and chestnut mousse by Mary Cadogan, an amazing British food editor who is spending some time in France at the moment and keep posting these great recipes and a lovely diary.

The recipe asks for chestnut purée so I dashed to my local supermarket to get some. I had to prepare the recipe before changing my mind again. I also decided to buy some cooked chestnuts as well as I cannot find them al natural at this time of the year – it would be nice to have some sliced on top of the mousse. At in the end I was glad that I decided to do that as it looked quite pretty – click on the picture to enlarge it.

I was just not so impressed with the final result though. Don’t take me wrong, it was rather lovely, but in a way it just tasted like any other chocolate mousse. I kept trying to find the chestnut flavour in it and I honestly did not. I think that the role of the purée might have been to play with the texture – I did find creamy in a special way.

That’s what you need for the mousse:

Chocolate & Chestnut mousse

200g bar dark chocolate

200g sweetened chestnut purée

5 eggs, separated

4 tbsp brandy or Cognac

284 mil carton whipping cream

1. First of all take 25g of the dark chocolate and use a vegetable peeler to make chocolate curls. Set the curls aside until you need them.

2. Break up the remaining chocolate, then put it in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water until melted (you know the drill – don’t let the bowl touch the water). Remove from the hit then stir in the chestnut purée until smooth. Stir in the egg yolks and brandy. It might look as if it will not all blend together, but it will. Have faith.

3. Whisk the egg whites in a large, clean bowl until stiff, stir a quarter into the chocolate mix to soften it, and then fold in the remainder until well mixed. Divide the mixture between your bowls/cups... whatever you might want to use for your mousse. Put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

4. When it take them out of the fridge to serve up, quickly whip the cream and spoon it over the mousse. I then added slices of the cooked chestnut and to finish it off I sprinkled it all with the chocolate curls.

Miss Bessie’s Cornbread

2007-04-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

I have been given a most beautiful book about the American South, Larissa's Breadbook - Baking Bread & Telling Tales with Women of the American South. It is a book with ten remarkable women and their stories and recipes.
This recipe here is by Miss Bessie, from Snowhill, Norh Carolina. It is one of most lovely cornbread recipes I have ever prepared. A delicious treat at the breakfast table, or for an afternoon tea session. I had it with butter as well as with jam and aproved both choices. You can prepare it , put it in the oven and get on with setting the breakfast table. By the time you finish the bread will be ready and your house will have the most wonderful and comforting smell of baked bread.

Let me share it with you:

Miss Bessie’s Cornbread

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1 ½ tablespoons sugar

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 eggs

1 ½ cups buttermilk

¼ cup melted butter

Preheat the oven – 425oF. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Add cornmeal. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together eggs, buttermilk, and butter. Add flour mixture. Mix just enough to moisten. Pour into a greased 8-inch square baking pan or a 12-muffin tin. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes (15 to 20 minutes for muffins) or until golden and firm to the touch in the center. If using a square pan, cut cornbread into squares.

Ricotta and tomato tart

2007-04-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

Ricotta and tomato tart

I had already seen this recipe in Bill Granger’s ‘bills Sydney food’ but only recently I got an opportunity to prepare it. I love the beautiful colours that go together: tomato-red, parsley-green, ricotta-white...from the moment you look at it you start devouring it with your eyes. Great dish for a spring or summer day. Let’s use up all these beautiful tomatoes that are so abundant at this time of the year.

The Weekend Herb Blogging event which is being hosted by Haalo this week just seemed the right occasion to present you with the recipe. It has tomatoes, spinach/rocket, and parsley. The original recipe asked for a puff pastry base but I decided to use something a bit lighter and I made this fabulous cornmeal pastry base which was prepared by Ana who is the owner of the blog Kitchen Space. This base is delicious and nicer than puff pastry in my opinion – perfect with the filling. One thing I like doing when I bake pastry is to season the tin with salt and black pepper before I put the pastry in. I find that it works beautifully well.

We all approved it at home and I served it with watercress and rocket salad. Just a great and light meal.

Here’s what you need for the filling:

2 ripe tomatoes, finely sliced

Sea salt

2 cups ricotta

2 eggs, lightly beaten

50ml cream

¼ cup finely grated Parmesan (I added ½ cup)

Pinch of ground nutmeg

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup shredded rocket/baby spinach

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Place tomatoes in a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave to drain. Place ricotta, eggs, cream, Parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well. Add rocket/baby spinach and stir to combine. Cover and put it in the fridge until you need it.

For the cornmeal pastry base as copied from Ana’s blog:

2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup whole-grain pastry flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons water

For the crust:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Combine cornmeal, pastry flour, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to incorporate. Add butter and oil and pulse about 20 times, until mixture resembles small pebbles. Add water and pulse until mixture forms loose dough. Remove dough from processor and press into bottom and about 1/8-inch up the sides of a 9-inch tart pan with a detachable rim. Press aluminium foil into the bottom and sides of the pan on top of the dough and weigh down with uncooked rice or pie weights. Place tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and remove rice and foil. The only thing I (Valentina) made different was to beat one egg and brush the pie crust with it – it seals the pastry really well. Return to oven and bake for an additional 5 minutes, or until no longer shiny and wet. Remove from oven and let cool.

Whilst the base is cooling remove the filling from the fridge. Once the base has cooled off spread the filling on it and arrange the tomato slices over the top of the filling. Bake in the oven for at least 35 minutes or until golden. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley and freshly ground black pepper.

Balila Hummus with crushed chickpeas, pine nuts and cumin

2007-04-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have bought a wonderful book called Saha – A chef’s journey through Lebanon and Syria. It is by Greg and Lucy Malouf. After reading about when Greg and Lucy came to London for the book launch at Nordljus I could not resist purchasing the book. And God knows how glad I am that I have bought it. I have already prepared quite a few dishes from the book, and this one here is one of them. The book is so beautiful that it moved me. Greg Malouf is Australian born to Lebanese parents and the journey that is shown in the book is a beautiful one not only in terms of showing the cuisine of Lebanon and

Syria

but also one where he gets in touch with his roots. If you enter a bookshop which has the book on sale I beg you to flick through it. It is lovely.

I picked this recipe because a) I love hummus and b) it was hummus with a twist. When I heard about the Arabian nights that Meeta has organized. I thought that it would be great to share it here as well – I posted it in my Portuguese blog first. I couldn’t stop eating it. I love the creamy chickpea paste and the crunch pie nuts and lemon tang.Ingredients:

250g dried chickpeas (or 400g cooked)

2 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda

1 small clove of garlic, crushed with 1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cumin

Juice of 1 ½ lemons

50ml olive oil

Garnish:

50ml olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

50g pine nuts

Juice of ½ lemon

Soak the chickpeas overnight in twice their volume of cold water and the bicarbonate. The next day, rinse the chickpeas thoroughly. Place them in a large pan of fresh water and bring it to the boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for 1-2 hours, until the chickpeas are tender – the timing will depend on how old they are. Don’t cook them to a mush, but you should be able to squish them easily between your fingers. When cool enough to handle, swish them around to loosen the skins, and remove as many as you can. The more skins you can remove, the better.

Drain the chickpeas, and reserve ½ cup to garnish Tip the rest into a food processor with the garlic paste, cumin, lemon juice and oil. While still warm, blitz to a smooth purée.

To prepare the garnish, heat the oil in a small pan and fry the garlic and pine nut until they start to colour. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Tip onto the hummus and add with the reserved chickpeas. Squeeze on the lemon juice. Serve immediately with plenty of Arabic or pita bread.

I dare you not to over eat!

pumpking and pancetta risotto

2007-04-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

Pumpking and pancetta risotto

My organic box still brought me some sweet mama squash. Probably the last of the lot."Goobye! See you in about 9-month’s-time". Looking for what to do with my last squash of the lot I came across this delicious pumpkin and pancetta risotto in a Gordon Ramsey book – Gordon Ramsey A Chef for all Seasons. I once had a friend make me an utterly delicious pumpkin risotto and I had never dared preparing one after that.She is such a wonderful cook!! However, today I changed my mind as I thought that I could also take part in the Weekend Herb Blogging with it. This week's event is hosted by Anh. How delicious the risotto came out! And the colour is also soo beautiful. I am very happy to have used the last of my pumpkin in style and have killed two birds with one stone. Thanks for reminding me Pat!

Sweet mama squash is related to buttercup squash and has a lovely sweet flavour once they are cooked. It worked really well with the pancetta in the recipe. The mascarpone added a beautiful creaminess plus the wonderful taste of the parmesan. Would you like some? I would recommend that you visited this site to find out about all the different types of squash.

The amount below would serves 4 as a starter and 2 as a main dish.

40g pancetta, chopped
500-600ml light chicken stock ( I always tend to add a bit more - just in case I need it)
2 large shallots, chopped
500 pumpkin flesh cut into very small cubes - not bigger than 1 cm
3 tablespoons of olive oil
200g risotto rice (a 240ml cup)
240ml dry white wine ( Gordon says 100ml)
2 tablespoons mascarpone
25g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

heat a dry non-stick frying pan and, when hot, fry the pancetta until browned and crisp. Drain and set aside. Heat the stock to a gentle simmer in a saucepan.
in a large saucepan, gently sauté the shallots and pumpkin in the oil for about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook for another 2 minutes to toast the grains. Pour in the wineand cook until reduced right down.
now pour in a quarter of the stock and stir well. Cook gently until the liquid has been absorbed, then stir in another ladleful of stock. Continue cooking and stirring, gradually adding the stock, until the rice grains are just tender.
about roughly 2 minutes before the end of cooking stir in the pancetta, mascarpone and half the parmesan. check the seasoning, then serve in warmed bowls, sprinkled with the remaining parmesan.

It's sinful!!

Avocado Pear with wasabi sauce

2007-04-09T02:56:00.000-07:00

It was no special occasion rather than to try this recipe which had been tickling my senses. I first read about it last week on the Wednesday edition of The Guardian. Wednesday was the first day of a new cookery show, Neneh & Andi Dish it up. I vaguely remember Neneh Cherry and I definitely do not know Andi. Had never heard of her – excuse my musical ignorance. They were famous in the 80s I believe.

However, it does not matter here. The show will have them entertaining friends and family. The two are famous for cooking together, and always for family and friends. I would have loved to have got home in time for the show but when I arrived the credits were already coming up on the screen. I did, however, made the avocado pear with wasabi sauce as the idea of the wasabi with the avocado was terribly appealing. I foresaw a fabulous union: soft, creamy avocado dressed up in wasabi sauce. And I am so glad that I gave it a go as the result to my eyes is a fabulous marriage. I can see it going really well with grilled meat. I had it on its own because I wanted to try it first of all. I adapted the recipe to one avocado pear, and then had to prepare another one – couldn’t stop picking on it.

It is dead simple and with the nice weather coming up (not that it would matter to me) it is a serious container for all the garden meals I will have. By the way, you can see all the recipes of the show in the BBC Food website.

The quantities here are for 4 to 5 avocado pears, cored, peeled and sliced.

1 bunch of spring onions finely chopped

Sauce:

2 teaspoons wasabi

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Juice of one lime

Black pepper

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl.

Arrange the avocado slices on a serving dish, sprinkle with the spring onions and dress them with the sauce. I dare you to stop picking on it.

Cardamon sour-cream cake

2007-04-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

When I saw this recipe I thought to myself: I have to make that. One of the reasons was that I really like cardamom. The other reason was that I had never had a cardamom cake in my whole life. According to Rachel Allen’s notes this was meant to be one of the most delicious cakes ever. Enough for me to give it a go.

I had no ground cardamom in the house but I decided to use my cardamom pods and grind them in my coffee grinder. Great. It was all sorted. Whilst grinding the cardamom and getting the batter ready I could always smell the cardamom – that beautiful smell. I expected that once I took the cake from the oven the whole kitchen would be invaded by its wonderful aroma. I have to admit that I did get disappointed smell wise as the cake came out of the oven and I did not feel inebriated at all. It made me doubt the cake immediately. After all it had ‘let me down’ (in my mind).

Despite that I decided that I should finish it off as I would have in case I wanted to eat it – even though I did not anymore. I used a hexagonal cutter and cut the cake into little hexagonal cakes. I did regret not having baked it into a square tin as it would have facilitated my cutting. I prepared the icing and ‘dressed’ it pretty. I used a wee bit (and I really mean tiny, tiny) of ground cardamom just so that the icing didn’t look bare. I then decided that I had to have a bite since I had baked it. The moment I had my bite I realized that I had been wrong about the cake, my doubts were unfounded. The cake tasted very elegant. The cardamom flavour was just right but certainly noticeable. I so loved it. If you like cardamom I recommend this cake. It is lovely!!

Ingredients:

1 egg

200ml tub sour cream or crème fraiche ( reserve 1 tbsp for icing)

175g caster sugar

225g plain flour, sifted

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

1tsp ground cardamom seeds

For the icing:

125g icing sugar, sifted

1 tbsp sour cream or crème fraîche

Preheat the oven to 180oC (gas mark 4 – 350oF). Grease the sides of a 20cm (8in)round cake tin and dust with flour;line the base with greaseproof paper.

Whisk the egg in a large bowl. Add all but 1 tablespoon of the sour cream or crème fraîche and the sugar and whisk to combine. Add the sifted flour and bicarbonate of soda, then the salt and the ground cardamom. Fold the mixture to combine, do not over-mix. Transfer into the tin and place in the oven. Cook for about 35 minutes until the top of the cake just feels firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin and transferring it to a cooling rack.

Make the icing just by mixing all the ingredients listed above and pouring it over the cake once it has cooled.

Squidgy pineapple and allspice cakes

2007-04-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Waitrose has a bi-monthly magazine called Seasons which is free. I picked the March/April one up and saw so many opportunities for some of the recipes. This is a good thing about Easter in my opinion. Bakers have a really good excuse – not that we need one, to go mad and bake loads.

One of the temptations was this recipe of ‘Squidgy pineapple and allspice cakes’. They looked so cute, mini-loaves shaped. I took a look at some of the ingredients and decided straight away that it was going to the top of the list. Have you seen anything more delicious than pineapples? Well, in fact I have, but they are awesome after undergoing some heat. They are only behind bananas (all time favourite) and apples.

The cakes are ever so easy to prepare. The only thing I would tell you to be careful about is the melting of butter together with treacle and sugar. The temperature has to be really low and it has to be done really gently. Otherwise, if it gets too hot when you add the egg you will end up with scrambled eggs. Yes, it did happen to me. I had to prepare another batch. Ah, nearly forgot: the original recipe calls for slightly salted butter. First of all I don’t remember seeing ‘slightly salted’ butter anywhere where I shop so I decided to use unsalted butter. Very pleased that I did so.

This recipe yields 8 cakes – using 150ml mini-loaf tins.

All you need is:

75g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing

250g of pineapple cut into little pieces

200g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground allspice

100g caster sugar

100g black treacke

6 tablespoons milk in room temperature

1 egg, lightly beaten

Now just follow these easy steps:

pre-heat the oven – 180oC ( 160oC if fan assisted) and grease & line the baking tins. It will facilitate the removal of the cakes later as they will be terribly soft. Reserve.
Sift the flour, baking powder and allspice into a bowl,. Reserve. Put the sugar, treacle & butter in a saucepan and heat ever so gently until the sugar is dissolved and butter has melted. Remove form the heat and pour milk into it, followed by the egg. Mix well.
Pour over the dry ingredients and stir until well mixed. Add nearly ¾ pineapples to the batter and mix it all. Divide equally amongst the tins and scatter the surface of the cakes with the remaining pineapple pieces.
Bake for 25 minutes until the cakes have risen and are just firm to touch. Remove from the oven and gently lift them from the tins, and leave them to cool on a rack.
Drizze the cakes with the icing below. Let it to dry and serve. Oh, it will be hard to eat only one. Trust me.

Icing:

100g icing sugar + 2 tablespoon water for icing . Mix it together and drizzle the little cakes with it when ready

Passion fruit yoghurt cake with passion fruit syrup

2007-04-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have been a very big fan of Julie Le Clerk since I made the first recipe from one of her books. Well, truth is that the book made me a big fan of hers. As I walked my way through it – believe me, I baked/cooked an awful lot from that publication, I just consolidated my admiration. One day browsing through Amazon I learnt that she had a book on small cakes. I LOVE small cakes so I ordered that. The other week I decided to bake this little cake recipe with passion fruit yoghurt in it. Boy, I had a hard time looking for passion fruit in the supermarkets. No idea why that was so. Up to a month ago – or at least that‘s how I remember it, I could find passion fruit yoghurt all the time. Now what I can find is a mixture of passion fruit and peach. Across all brands I come across. Do these people sign some sort of agreement where it says what flavours they should all go for? Like a Daring Bakers of the yoghurt world?

I finally found some passion fruit yoghurt and went to bake this pretty little treat.Sorry? Why didn’t I change the yoghurt to a different flavour? Well, I love passion fruit you see. And I really wanted to use that. Obviously I would have used a different flavour had I struggled for a few more days. I was so pleased that I chose to stick to the original flavour in the end. The final cake all soaked in syrup is just deliciously tangy, and tastes heaps nicer the following day. I baked them for a friend and I shall be baking some more soon. I might try strawberries next time. I don’t think that I will be exciting with a non-tangy fruit as peach – as much as peach is delicious.

1 cup (240ml) canola oil (I tend to use groundnut oil)
1 ½ cups sugar (I measure 180g per cup)
2 eggs – large
1 cup (the same 240ml one as above) passion fruit yoghurt
Juice and rind of 2 lemons
2 cups (I measure 125g per cup) self-raising flour or 2 cups normal flour plus 2 teaspoons baking flour

Heat the oven to 160oC – 140oC if fan assisted. Grease 12 muffin tins or one 20cm round baking pan.

Beat the sugar and oil until well mixed. Low the speed and add the eggs, one at a time, then beat until creamy. Add the yoghurt, lemon juice and rind and mix it all with a wooden spoon. Incorporate the sieved flour taking care not to over mix it – unless you like heavy and stodgy cakes, in which case go ahead. Divide the mixture between the cases and bake for approximately 20 min. When ready let it cool in the tin for approximately 5 minutes before transferring it to a rack. Prepare the syrup and pour it over the little cakes whilst still hot.

Syrup:
½ cup lemon juice
½ cup water
1 cup sugar (180g)
½ cup of passion fruit pulp with seeds and all

Put all the ingredients in a small pan and heat it up until the sugar is completely dissolved. Never stop stirring – boring but worth it in the end.

Despite the last minute rush, a beautiful recipe

2007-03-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

I made this cake in my head so many times. I had already made it for real once a few years ago, using the recipe in the first Magnolia cook book. My first attraction to it was because of its bright red colour, contrasting with the icing. When I joined the Daring Bakers group I got quite happy about the challenge of the month as I thought that it would be my chance to redeem myself and ice my cake really well. Plus make it well in advance.

As it turned out it did not happen quite like that and I am here just fighting against the clock, just waiting for the cake to cool so that I can post it. What a poor start. I am disappointed with myself. I had an unexpected visit from a friend on Saturday and ended up spending the whole day with him and another couple of friends. That was meant to be my baking day as on Sunday I had engagements.

I chose the recipe that Peabody used. I wanted to try something different from my original post. The icing is also Peabody’s recipe and I just loved it – couldn’t stop picking on it. The pecans just make it a delicious icing. Yum!!

Since I started the post there have been developments:

Cake has been iced, pictures have been taken and I have eaten a generous slice of it. I really liked the cake texture and the contrast with the crunchy and sweet icing. I did have to drink a big glass of water afterwards but it does not take away the yummy factor. I can see this cake being a big crowd pleaser. I have enjoyed this last minute stress though and even though I did not prepare a cake as gorgeous as I wanted I have just about managed to do it.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this experience – even though I am the very last person to post.

Peabody's recipe - which has been adpated from Mrs. Wilkes’ Boardinghouse Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from Her Savannah Table by Selma Wilkes:

Red Velvet Cake

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar (270g)
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 tsp white vinegar ( I ended up using cider vinegar )

2 1/2 cups cake flour ( 315g)
1 tsp baking soda
2 to 3 TBSP cocoa powder
1 cup buttermilk ( 240ml)

1 tsp vanilla
5/8 ounce bottle red food coloring ( I had a bit less )

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream the eggs, sugar, oil and vinegar. Sift the cake flour, baking soda, and cocoa together. Add the flour mixture to the creamed ingredients while beating.
Slowly add the buttermilk. While still beating, add the vanilla and the food coloring.

Pour into three 8-inch layer pans and bake for about 25 minutes. Press lightly;if the layers are spongy, then the cake is done. Frost the cooled layers, assemble and frost the top and sides.

Serves 12 to 14.

Red Velvet Cake Frosting

1(8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
1 (1 pound) box confectioners sugar
1 cup chopped pecans

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the cream cheese and butter and melt over very low heat. Add the sugar, pecans and vanilla and mix well. If the frosting becomes too thick, add a little milk. Frost one 8-inch or 9-inch layer cake.

Source: Adapted from Mrs. Wilkes’ Boardinghouse Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from Her Savannah Table by Selma Wilkes

Check out the other Daring Bakers - and by far more organized:

Peabody, Quellia, Mary, Ivonne, Elle, Morven, Hester, Brilynn, Lisa, Tanna, Helen, Jen,

Mary(Bread Chick), Veronica and Freya.

couscous cakes

2007-03-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

I am soooo behind with my posts here. Life is still hectic and they day doesn’t seem to have enough hours. Despite all my backlog of recipes that I yearn to share I have decided to start with this one baked just this morning. Reason being that it is just delicious.Delicious.

Flicking through one of Julie le Clerc’s books I saw the title: couscous cakes and it really did tickle my curiosity. Couscous is only for savoury things, right?!? Well..in my books, not any more. Then there was also this other ingredient: olive oil..attractive. I always wanted to do a lot of olive oil baking.. Someone had told me that they add such moisture to cakes.. Well, that was my chance. And I did not hesitate at 6 in the morning.

I am so very glad I gave it a go. This cake is really fantastic. The couscous gives it a beautifully grainy but not dry texture – moisture being added by the olive oil. It has just the right level of sweetness. A beaufitully moist and scrumptious cake. Lovely in the morning, afternoon..whenever takes your fancy. It was so lovely it made me happy !!

¼ cup rum or brandy

½ cup olive oil

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 oranges

1 cup couscous

2 eggs

¾ cup sugar

½ cup flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

¾ cup dried cranberries or sultanas

Preheat oven to 170oC. Grease and flour 12 individual cake or muffin tins or one 20cm spring-form cake tin.

In a saucepan heat rum or brancy, oil, orange zest and juice. Place couscous in a bowl and pour over hot liquid. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to steam for 10 minutes. Uncover and fluff up couscous with a fork.

Whisk eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Stir this mixture into couscous along with remaining dry ingredients and cranberries or sultanas.

Spoon into prepared tins and bake for 15 minutes or until cakes spring back when touched.

Ginger-scented chocolate mousse with mango and passion fruit

2007-02-25T02:43:00.000-08:00

Ever since I first read this one article about Philippa Sibley, the famous Australian desert chef, I wanted to make all the recipes in it. Her main element is fruit in desserts and I am such a fan of fruit in sweet things. Plus she is so innovative. It is exciting to read her recipes and I believe that if you are passionate about cooking there is no way you won’t feel like heading to the kitchen. I had to have a great amount of self-control. I gave in to temptation straight after purchasing the magazine and prepared her cherry and pistachio clafoutis. What a great dish. Delicious to the taste and visually equally stunning with the pistachio-green-tone. The next one on my mental list was the ginger-scented chocolate mousse with mango and passion fruit. The sheer unusual combination of ingredients has to be seen first hand. There was an event on the web which I wanted to join and this was going to be my dish. Unfortunately I missed the deadline but here I come with the dessert anyway. If you ever get your hands on a magazine with an article about Philippa, do read it. I am sure you will also be captivated by her talents.

I just want to say that I was a bit too greedy and prepared really big portions of the dessert (look at the size of the glass!). I am convinced that it has to be served in smaller portions. Less is more!! I have learnt my lesson.

Serves 6

1 egg

2 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

175g chocolate – 64%, melted and kept warm

60g glacé ginger, finely chopped, syrup reserved

1 ½ cups thickened cream, whisked to soft peaks

Pulp of 6 passion fruit

1 large mango (about 460g) cut into 2 cm cubes

Chocolate curls to serve

Combine egg and egg yolks in an electric mixer and whisk at high speed for 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Combine sugar and 1/3 cup water in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat to dissolve sugar, then bring to the boil and cook until syrup reaches hard ball (121oC on a sugar thermometer). Reduce mixer to low speed and add syrup to egg mixture in a thin steady stream, then increase to high speed and whisk for 5-7 minutes or until completely cold. Fold in chocolate, and then fold in glacé ginger and cream.

Combine passion fruit pulp and 2 tsp syrup from glacé ginger in a small bowl. Divide the mango among serving glasses, spoon over passion fruit syrup, then spoon chocolate mousse over fruit and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set. To serve, scatter with chocolate curls and serve immediately.

According to Philipa’s notes in order to get the curls you can drag a round pastry cutter across chocolate to form the curls. If you don’t success – as me, top with coarsely grated or shaved chocolate.

seafood risotto

2007-02-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

This is a really lovely risotto. I absolutely adore seafood The end result is a very creamy dish with lovely flavours coming through at every mouthful. I did not make my own stock. Instead I used bouillon which is a vegetable stock with no artificial additives, no gluten. So instead of all the stock preparation step below I boiled my stock and added the fish. After approximately10 min I removed the fish and flaked it. I also did not have to put the stock through a colander for obvious reasons. The rest was as described below. I have omitted the addition of a glug of olive oil at the end as I felt it to be unnecessary as well as the extra spoonful of stock once the risotto had been divided between the plates. My risotto was already creamy enough.
The recipe was taken from Jamie Oliver's JAMIE'S ITALY. A book that is full of wonderful recipes and to whom watched his show on TV where the whole trip was filmed it will bring all these memories from scenes shown.

1.5 litres water (3 pints)

2 small carrots roughly chopped

3 tomatoes squashed

1 bay leaf

A small bunch of fresh parsley, one sprig left whole, remaining leaves picked and finely chopped

1.5 kg mixed seafood, scaled, cleaned, gutted, if using mussels they should be debearded

400g risotto rice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

A knob of butter

½ bulb of fennel, finely chopped, herby top removed and reserved

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

A pinch of crumbled dried chilli

A pinch of saffron strands

Juice of 1 lemon

50g butter

If you are going to prepare the stock from scratch put all the water into a large pan with the carrots. Tomatoes, bay leaf and whole sprig of parsley. Bring it all to boil, adding the whole fish to it and leaving the shellfish out. I used a beautiful peace of salmon I had. Simmer for 10 minutes, then remove each fish from the pan and flake the flesh away from the bones. Put the meat on a plate and reserve. Return the bones to the stock to simmer for another 15 minutes. This will add great flavour to your stock. Skim any froth from the surface. Pass the stock through a colander into another pan and throw away the vegetables bits as well as the fish bones. Return the pan with stock to a low fire

Start the risotto by putting olive oil and knob of butter on a pan. Once it is melted add the chopped fennel, fennel seeds, dried chilli and saffron strands and cook very slowly stirring until the fennel bits have softened. Add the rice and put the heat up. Keep stirring all the time until the rice is translucent. Then start adding ladles of the stock to the rice, always stirring. Once the amount added is nearly all absorbed add another ladle full. When the rice is nearly cooked add the shellfish and flaked fish. Stir for a good 3-4 minutes until all the shellfish is cooked (the mussels will have opened up). Remove from the heat and add the butter, check the seasoning and add the lime juice. Divide the risotto between the plates and sprinkle with the remaining parsley and reserved fennel tops.

Scottish Pancakes

2007-02-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve always really enjoyed Scottish pancakes. Firstly because they are small. Secondly because of how great they taste. They are not blow-your-mind delicious, but have a gentle ‘deliciousness’ about them that does it for me. I used to buy small packages at Marks & Spencers and eat them up as if there was no tomorrow. Seriously. I find it quite charming that they are treated like toast and we eat them with butter and/or jam. I love toasting them. They are also great with scrambled eggs.

In preparation to pancake day I decided to prepare some Scottish pancakes. And had them with a tad of butter. The next day I still had some so I only had them toasted with butter again. I had no jam in the house so butter was the only option.

This time round I have used Nigella Lawson’s recipe from the beautiful book ‘Feast’. This is definitely the best Scottish pancake recipe I have ever prepared. Approved even by a scott.

Here it goes:

½ teaspoon white wine vinegar

150ml milk – room temperature

110g plain flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 egg

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon golden syrup

Put the vinegar into the milk and set aside. Put the flour into a bowl and add the bicarbonate of soda. In another jug or bowl add the egg, oil and then with the oily spoon measure the syrup in and whisk everything together. Add the vinegary milk, and then add the jug of wet ingredients to the dry, whisking to a batter.

Heat a flat griddle or heavy non-stick pan with no oil. Add 1 ½ tablespoons of batter to make each pancake, and then when bubbles appear flip them over to make them golden brown on either side.

lavender rice pudding

2007-02-04T02:41:00.000-08:00

I saw this dish for the first time in the beautiful blog ‘Café Fernando’. What attracted me to it first was the lavender ingredient. I have always loved the smell of lavender and last year I baked with lavender for the first time. The way all the senses are touched by this ingredient fascinates me. Plus I also had some lavender in the cupboard so I decided to use it.

The experience was fantastic. If anything it was relaxing. I had it cold as per Cenk’s post. Even though I am not a big fan of rice pudding I did enjoy it. I just thought that Cenk’s was creamier than mine. I did forget to cover it with cling film when in the fridge so I wonder if the pudding lost a bit of its moisture like that.

Cenk, thank you for this experience!

Below I put the ingredients and how to prepare exactly as per Cenk’s post – but do visit his blog if you haven’t yet done it as it is a beautiful space. This is the way to Café Fernando.

Lavender Rice Pudding

Ingredients

1/2 cup Arborio rice

2 1/2 cups whole milk

1 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons lavender

2/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

Method

Put milk, sugar and lavender in a small pot, bring to boiling point, take off heat and let steep for 30 minutes minimum. Put the rice together with boiling water in a small pot and cook on medium heat with lid half closed for 15 minutes, until all the water is absorbed by the rice.

In a small bowl, mix cornstarch together with a couple teaspoons of water and add a bit of hot milk to increase its temperature. Then add the whole thing into the milk. Transfer the infused milk through a strainer into the rice and cook for 30 minutes or so, until you reach the desired consistency. Transfer the pudding into your serving dish and refrigerate (covered with plastic wrap) until serving.

Leek and lime risotto with lime prawns and parsley

2007-02-03T01:35:00.000-08:00

I tend to leave the office at the end of the day feeling really famished. It is not only a hunger pang. I find that when we feel like that the danger is that we go for the first edible thing that crosses our path. I struggle really hard not to eat the first pack of crisps that I see on the way home. Often a bottle of fizzy water keeps my stomach at bay. The other day I got home and the quickest thing that I could knock out was a risotto. I know that risottos require a lot of attention but the good thing is that it keeps me off nibbling and by the time my risotto is ready I enjoy every bit of it.

There is something wonderful about rice. It is so comforting; versatile.It looks beautiful in its whiteness. Risotto is one of those dishes that play with our creativity. This time I used leeks and lemons. I also had some prawns in the fridge so I prepared them on the side and served with the risotto as well. The result was a lovely, creamy dish with a lemony taste.

This dish feeds two not-so hungry eaters.

For the risotto:

700ml chicken/vegetable stock (I tend to use vegetable)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1-2 leeks, finely sliced

1 cup Arborio rice or any other risotto rice

Parmesan shavings

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Freshly ground black pepper

For the prawns:

A knob of butter

Prawns for two people

1 teaspoon lemon rind

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Sal

I like to prepare the prawns first: Melt the butter in medium heat and when it has melted add the lemon rind and chopped parsley. Give it a good stir before adding the prawns to the pan. Season. When the prawns turn pink all over it is time to take them off the heat. They can so easily become rubbery and unpleasant to the palate.

To prepare the risotto: place the stock in a saucepan in medium heat and take it to a very slow simmer. Then place the olive oil in a separate pan, throw the leeks in and cook until soft. Slowly add the rice to the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until it is translucent. Only then start gradually adding the stock. After every addition stir constantly until liquid has been absorbed. Continue adding stock until rice is soft and the risotto is creamy. If you need more liquid heat extra stock. The rice grains should be firm but tender. Serve immediately and put the parmesan shavings and prawns on top of the risotto.

It will put a smile on your face.

Banana and passion fruit soufflè

2007-01-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Banana and passion fruit always remind me of home, Brazil. Not that we are the only country that has those fruits are native specimen. It is just that we have such wonderful variety of bananas, and our passion fruits are really big and juicy. I grew up on passion fruit juice to calm the nerves.

Back to the soufflé. It is a Gordon Ramsey recipe, from his book Sunday Lunch. I also watched Ramsey prepare it on a cd-rom that came with the book and in it he uses very soft butter to brush the ramekins – as opposed to melted butter as described in the recipe. I used very soft butter as well. This soufflé is absolutely delicious and banana and passion fruit work so well together that I felt like making more experiment with them. You will have to return in order to see my experiments. For now I will leave you with the soufflé. Enjoy!!

Crème pâtissière base

150ml milk

100ml double cream

15g plain flour

10g corn flour

3 large egg yolks

50g caster sugar

The soufflé

4 ripe passion fruit (the skin is slightly wrinkled)

1 ripe banana peeled (approx 100g)

Squeeze of lemon juice

2 tbsp banana liqueur (optional – in my opinion it makes no difference)

About 20g softened butter, to brush

50g caster sugar, plus extra in case you want to dust with it

Grated chocolate, in case you want to dust with it (I recommend)

2 large egg whites

Icing sugar, to dust soufflés at the end

For the crème pâtissière base:

Heat the milk and cream in a heavy-based saucepan until almost boiling. Sift the flour and corn flour together. Reserve. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl, and then mix in the flour well, so that no lumps form. Add a splash (not a drop more) of the hot creamy milk and whisk well (I like using a fouet) until the mixture is smooth. Then gradually whisk in the rest of the milk. Pour back into the pan and whisk over a medium-low heat for 3-5 minutes until thickened and smooth. You will be able to see the bottom of the pan. Transfer to a bowl, cover and cool at room temperature, stirring occasionally to prevent a skin forming.

To prepare the filling:

Halve the passion fruit and scoop out the seeds and juice into a sieve set over a bowl. Press to extract the juice, and then pour into a blender. Break the banana into pieces and add to the blender with the lemon juice and liqueur (if using it). Give it a good whiz until smooth, then stir the mixture into the crème ptissière and set aside.

Heat the oven to 190oC.Brush 6-8 deep ramekins with a generous layer of melted butter, using upward strokes that imitate tram lines. That will help the soufflé rise once the heat is in action. Dust the inside with caster sugar or grated chocolate – I think that the chocolate is by far the nicest way, and pale the ramekins in the fridge to chill and set.

When ready to serve, whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl to firm peaks, then gradually whisk in the 50g caster sugar a spoonful at a time to make a film, glossy meringue. Whisk a third of the meringue into the crème pâtissière base and mix to combine everything into a smooth paste. Just then carefully start folding the rest in, using a large metal spoon, being careful not to break the bubbles of air created.

Divide the soufflé mix among the prepared dishes – only ½ first. Tap them on the work surface to level the mixture. Then proceed to filling them to the top and level with a palette knife and run your fingerprint around the edge of the ramekin. It will create a slight depression between the edge of the ramekin and the top of the soufflé. It will help the soufflé rise evenly. Sit the ramekins on a wide baking tray and bake for 12 minutes until well risen and lightly golden on top. DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO OPEN THE OVEN DOOR UNTIL THE TIME IS OVER. They will be a bit wobbly in the middle when ready. Dust with the icing sugar and serve at once.

Silvia´s mother-in-law's bread recipe

2006-12-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

The original recipe for this bread was taken from a Brazilian blog called Doce Casinha – click here if you wish to visit it. A couple of things made me pick this recipe: the first one was the lovely description given by Silvia, the author of the blog; the second was the fact that I had bought some fresh yeast at the supermarket and was looking for a recipe. I have to add that I love when I am home in Brazil and I can easily buy fresh yest at any supermarket. In the UK we always need to go to a local supermarket that is big enough to have its own bakery so that you can ask for some. I do not like using dried yeast.

Back to Silvia´s recipe, she got it from her mother-in-law, and in the post she comments on how she ended up veering out of her diet because of it. The bread is meant to be irresistible.

I loved the dough – it has to be said. It came together very quickly. I do have to admit to not having used the same method as Silvia to prepare the dough. I use a method learnt in a bread making course given by Richard Bertinnet. In it all the dry ingredients are put in one bowl – each one in its little corner. The salt (and sugar when used) are covered with a bit of flour so that they do not get in contact with the fresh yeast before it is the right time. The fresh yeast is crumbled in its little corner, away from salt (and sugar) and complety mixed with the flour using the hands. Once it is all incorporated you proceed to giving the dry ingredients a mix before adding the ‘wet’ ingredients to the mixture. Using a spatula you proceed to mixing all the ingredients in circular movements until dry and wet are all integrated. From there onwards the process is the same: turn the mixture on to a lightly floured surface and then you know the rest. Richard’s method has never failed me. However, I will say that you should stick to a method that you are familiar with.

As for the filling I just wanted to add that despite the ingredients listed you can use your own variation. You will be surprised with how light this dough is. Already a favorite.

INGREDIENTS

Dough:

- 50 g fresh yeast

- 2 cups of water
- 1 kg bread flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar

- ½ teaspoon salt

- 3 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil

Filling:

aproximately 300g ham e

aproximately 300g de cheddar

finely chopped onions

finely chopped tomatoes – no seeds

chopped parsley - or coriander if you prefer

a bit of salted butter

Preparing the dough:

1. Dissolve the yeast in 2 cups tepid water.

2. Put the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix the ingredients.

3. Add the dissolved yeast, oil and eggs and mix all the ingredients until you get an even mixture.

4. Transfer it to a lightly floured surface and knead it for about 4 minutes. The mixture will come together very quickly. This is na excellent dough.

6. Put it in a bowl, cover and leave it to rest in a warm corner of your kitchen, away from drafts.

Now get busy sorting out the ingredients for the filling:

1. Chop the ham and the cheese and put it in a bowl

2. Add the onions, tomatoes and chopped parsley

3. Season it very lightly if you wish. Reserve.

Have a cup of tea, sort out the baking tray. If you are going to use muffin tins get them out of the cupboard and give them a nice wipe. No fluf in your bread!

When the dough has doubled in size get it back a floured working surface and knead it gently one more time. You can divide the dough in 2 as it is big enough.

You can shape your dough in many different ways. The original recipe maker opens it up like an A4 sheet. Some butter is spread evenly on it and the filling follows. Try to keep the filling in the center leaving a bit of room on the sides. Roll it up as if you preparing a swiss roll. Do exactly the same to the other half of dough if you have split it into two parts. Put both rolls on trays, cover them and return them to the cosy kitchen corner previously used. They will increase in size again – about ¾ of their original size.

Final stage:

When your dough has already been resting for 30 minutes of its last stage, turn the oven on – 200°C. The oven will be ready at approximately the same time as your dough. Just before you take it to the oven brush it with an egg wash mixture and sprinke it with dried oregano if you like the taste of it. You will love the smell that will take over your kitchen. Take the tray in and bake it for about 15 minutes. It should be golden when ready.

Leave it to cool before taking a bite. If you burn your tongue first you will not be able to fully appreciate the delicious flavour of this bread.

a delicious white cake with chocolate ganache

2006-11-20T03:14:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a while since I posted a recipe here. Maintaining 3 blogs and the occasional post on a 4th one can be quite a challenge and my work load just did not help. I carried on cooking but physically only managed to post on the Portuguese version of Trembom. I do have to say that it is wonderful to be back here. Hopefully this time I will have no more interruptions – not very long ones any way.

To celebrate my return I have decided to share a cake that I baked for a lovely friend, Deb. She is now married to my very good friend Rob, whom I have worked with for a good few years now. She is as wonderful as he is. What a lovely couple. I couldn’t go to Deb’s surprise birthday party so when I was invited to have dinner with them I decided that the occasion asked for a lovely cake. I did try loads of different recipes – all equally nice. Some I had already baked before, others I wanted to have a go at. I am not the most decisive person. Up to the last minute I am thinking about another ‘possibility’. When I go out for a meal for instance, I keep changing my mind about my choice until the minute the waiter takes my order. Often it ends up being none of the ones I had already talked about.

So keeping up with tradition, on the very last minute I decided that the cake that I was going to bake was going to be a white cake. Even though I did know that Deb really likes chocolate I decided to go for a white cake with chocolate ganache as filling and icing. It would be not as sickening as a whole chocolate cake with chocolate trimmings as well.

The idea for the cake came from the blog Technicolor Kitchen. Patricia, who owns the blog, got the original recipe from Baking Sheet. See the original recipe here. As Patricia rightly said the cake is absolutely delicious. It is quite firm but also wonderfully light – no egg yolks, only egg whites. Plus it smells absolutely divine. The almond and vanilla essence combined transport you to a wonderful place – it tickles all your senses in my opinion. For the ganache I got a recipe from Pierre Herme ‘Chocolate Desserts’. It is great because it is not too sweet but it is chocolaty enough for the chocoholics to enjoy. If you wish a copy of the recipe just let me know and I will mail it to you.

I did still want to decorate the cake and I went for chocolate fingers, fencing it off, and chocolate flakes on top. I do have to say that I was quite proud of my achievement. I am not the most gifted person when it comes to cake decoration but perhaps there is hope for me.

Strawberry and Lime Cheesecake

2006-07-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

I bought Sophie Grigson’s Country Kitchen a while ago. After seeing her on TV a few times – actually quite a lot, I decided to buy the book. For no special reason I only got to use it this weekend just gone. I fell in love with this strawberry cheesecake recipe and made sure that I got all the ingredients to try it over the weekend. I did consider using yogurt in order to make it a tad lighter but I had to drain it for a good eight hours and I didn’t organize myself enough. So in the end I decided to use the recipe as it is, and not to feel guilty about the extra calories. Instead I would enjoy every mouthful if it was worth it. It is one of those cheesecakes that don’t get cooked. You just need to let it set in the fridge. Lovely in a very hot day as nobody can stand the extra heat of the oven.

I loved the fact that we combine strawberry and lime as the two fruits seem to complement each other very well. I used a little bit more biscuit as I really love a crunchy base. In my opinion this cheesecake works well because it does not get too sweet – I did worry about it a bit. You can prepare a sauce to go with it but in my excitement to eat the cheesecake I confess to have forgotten all about it. Indulge.

For the base:

220g digestive biscuit/ tea biscuit

110g unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

3 leaves gelatine

150 ml single (pouring) cream

300 g cream cheese

125 g caster sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 limes

300 g ripe strawberries, hulled and chopped

150 ml double cream, whipped

Crush the biscuits finely, either using a food processor or putting the biscuits in a bag and crushing them with a rolling pin. How thin you crush them depends on how you like them. Pour the butter over the crumbs and mix it all until the biscuit crumbs are covered. I prefer to do that using my hands as opposed to a spoon.

Put some water in a baking tin, enough to cover the gelatine, and throw the gelatine in. Leave to soak for 5 minutes. In the mean time bring the single cream to the boil and the remove it from the heat. Squeeze each gelatine leaf to remove the excess water and throw it in the pan with the cream, stirring one by one. They will dissolve instantly. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Put the cream cheese in a bowl with the sugar, half the lime zest and all the lime juice. Beat together until smooth and creamy. Mix in the single cream mixture and then the chopped strawberries. Next fold in the whipped cream. Now pour the whole lot into the tart tin and smooth down lightly. . Chill until set, then sprinkle with the remaining lime zest.

Whole wheat, Oatmeal and Raisin Muffins

2006-07-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

This is a delicious and very healthy breakfast muffin. There is so much goodness in one of these – loads of fibers, dried fruits, vitamin E, antioxidants. It is very filling as well. One of these plus my morning fruit and coffee keep me going for the morning.

Another great thing about it is that you can play with some of the ingredients. This time for instance I haven’t used dried cranberries as I had none. Instead I used dried figs. Did the same with the dates – used prunes instead. You can prepare the dried mixture the night before, in the morning put the oven on and whilst it heats up mix the wet ingredients with the dry ones. Leave the mixture for about 15 min – it allows the oats, wheat germ and bran flakes to soak up the liquid. I have made it without the resting time in the past and I did notice that the muffins weren’t as tender as they get when they rest.

If you use UK measuring cups it will be 240ml full cup, I used Australian size cups – 250 ml – greedy, I know.

1 cup whole wheat flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons untoasted wheat germ

2 tablespoons wheat bran

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups quick cooking oats

1/3 cup chopped pitted dates

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1 cup buttermilk

¼ cup groundnut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

½ cup boiling water

Combine the flour and next 7 ingredients (through salt) in a large a bowl. Next step is to stir in the oats, dates, raisins and cranberries.

In a separate bowl mix the buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract and egg. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the wet ingredients to it. The boiling water is the last ingredient to be added. Let the batter stand for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190˚C/ 375˚/ gas mark 5. Spoon the batter into cooking oil coated muffin trays. Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched. Remove the tin from the oven and get the muffins out of the tin immediately, moving them to a wire rack to cool.