White chocolate and orange tart

This is one of my own recipes and it is simple but also one that you will never forget. I like it because it is a fresh dessert with the necessary sweetness and guilt.

White chocolate and orange tart

(serves 4)

120 g white chocolate

2 cups cream

2 oranges zest

5 ml orange essence

5 ml vanilla essence

½ cup sugar

10 ml gelatin

• Half a pack tennis biscuits

• Heat the cream with the orange zest, sugar, vanilla essence, orange essence and bring to a simmer.

• Soak the gelatin in 10 ml water to make it soft and add it to the cream mixture.

• Once the gelatin is added take the mix of the heat and add the chocolate and stir till it is all melted and mixed in to the mix well. Do not let the gelatin boil it won’t set.

• Crush the tennis biscuits and put them in a thick layer on the bottom of the serving dish.

• Now pour the mix over the biscuits and put in the fridge for 90 min to set. Once it is firm to the touch you can serve the tart.

• Serve with whipped cream (not sweetened) to break a bit of the sweetness or if you like serve with sweetened whipped cream. You can even serve it with a bit of orange marmalade or just orange slices.

High Steaks Cooking

Steaks, the big question are where we can find a good one. Well it’s not that difficult. Don’t grab the car keys yet you’re not going anywhere. There is only one place that serves a steak like you want it. Be it medium with mushroom sauce or well done with salt and pepper. At this place they do not judge how you eat your steak and they serve it with your favorite drink. This place is your kitchen. Well after you read this it should be.

Don’t be scared of cooking this piece of meat. Some people fear cooking steak and they have good reason. Somewhere in your life you probably had a steak that you could wear while running the Comrades or so raw that you swear it just made a sound. That’s what we have as a reference and so we are afraid to cook it because we know how much we hated that person that served us those steaks and don’t want our friends to feel the same towards us. (If this is the point where someone says: “They won’t hate me because they are real friends and real friends love each other” then I dare you to give you friend a tough piece of steak.)

Like I was saying don’t fear it because one of the most feared Chef in our universe has made it easy for all of us.

This recipe comes from Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and he also used it on his cook along show. If you want watch the video at the end of this post all this information is in there as well.

Gordon says “don’t be afraid to cook a steak on the big night. If you follow these simple rules, it will be easy. Let the pan get nice and hot. If there’s no heat in the pan, there’s no color. If there’s no color, there’s no flavor”. Make sure the steak is relaxed, meaning it’s at room temperature. A relaxed steak will cook quicker, and won’t be stone cold in the center. Ingredients needed to cook a perfect steak couldn't be simpler, so grab a steak next time you’re at the market, and treat yourself to a delicious meal.

Keep in mind, stove cooked steaks can produce lots of smoke while cooking. Open the windows before you start, and turn on the exhaust fan.

Ingredients:

• New York Steak (or your preferred cut)
• Salt
• Freshly Cracked Pepper
• Butter
• Vegetable oil (not olive it starts to burn quicker)

Directions:

Use a generous amount of salt and pepper to season the steak, and gently press it into the meat with your fingers. The thicker the cut of steak, the more salt and pepper you will need.

Use a heavy pan for cooking steak. Cast iron pans work best for this particular meal. Get the pan nice and hot, and then add the oil. Wait for the oil to heat up; it should just start to smoke before adding the steak. Add the steak and push it down in the center with your fingers to ensure the entire steak is touching the bottom of the pan.

It’s very important to only flip the steak once during cooking. Moving the steak around while cooking it will only drain it of essential juices and lead to a less than desirable result. For rare, cook 2-3 minutes on the first side, then flip the steak. About 1 1/2 minutes into the second side, melt butter into the pan. Spoon the butter over the steak, ensuring to cover the entire steak. When the steak is just about finished, turn it onto its back, fat side down. Cook for about 30 seconds to reduce and soften the strip of fat. Remove steak from pan, and baste again with butter from the pan. Leave to rest, and then slice if desired

.

You can test doneness of the steak by comparing the firmness of the steak to parts of your hand. Rare is on your thumb muscle, near your palm, medium is near the outer edge of your thumb, and well-done is where your wrist meets your hand. Watch the video for a visual explanation of firmness.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtIiR7DBAqY

Bacon Wrapped Eggs

Bacon Wrapped eggs

The weekend is here and come Saturday morning we all want a delicious breakfast in bed. So I will share one of my favorites with you and it is so easy you can almost cook it while in bed. And it looks very impressive.

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 jumbo eggs

8 slices of bacon

100g grated chedddar cheese

20g fresh chopped parsley

150g chopped Mushrooms (Any kind, Vegetable of the month) http://chilliout11.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-little-fungi_20.html

Salt

Pepper

20 ml olive or vegetable oil

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C

Take 4 ramekins or even teacups or small bowls. Make sure its oven proof

Line them with two bacon pieces each

Break one egg into each ramekin

Season with salt and pepper


Cover the egg with the rest of the bacon and bake in the oven for about 20min for soft eggs 30min for medium

While they bake, take the mushrooms and fry them in some oil with the chopped parsley and salt and pepper.

Once your eggs are done layer the mushrooms on the plate and the eggs on top and finish by topping the eggs with some cheddar cheese.

Always season all your food to your own taste

Back to basics

Here’s the problem with recipes and cooking programs on the television. There are a lot of words they use that you and even I do not understand. Sauté, Braise, Blanch and Refresh.

Before I studied to become a chef I thought that Blanch is a word used after the word Carte, I thought raise was always miss spelled as Braise and refresh was a button that I clicked on when the internet page stopped working. You can see how this would make cooking difficult.

Now how much do you hate going out for dinner, sitting down, opening a menu and reading this:

Filet Mignon Crème Florentine topped with Demi glace and served with Courgette Au Gratin

Huh??? As I’m typing this even Microsoft Word is going "THESE ARE NOT WORDS!!!!!!"

 To break it down if you would order the above dish you would get Beef fillet steak garnished with creamed spinach topped with a rich beef sauce and served with some baby marrows grilled with cheese on top.

She misunderstood the recipe totally.

Okay so the next question is why do chefs use these words? Well it is like medical or legal terms. It is there so that we can say Sauté onions instead of fry in a hot pan with a bit of oil or butter. Most of these terms are French and I would not dare suggest you study them before going out for dinner but it is good to familiarize yourself with some of these. 

Knowing these basics will help you to read a recipe better and also help to improve your menu knowledge when you go out for dinner.

So here I leave two links to the best online cooking glossaries. Hope this helps!

http://www.keep-your-home-cooking.com/cooking-terminology.html

http://wikieducator.org/Culinary_Education/Cooking_Glossary

A Little Fungi

You get Button, Brown, Caesar’s, Cauliflower, Beef and summer truffle. You can eat them raw and cook them. Some of them are poisonous and some are edible. And let me tell you the edible ones are the best vegetable under the sun. Of course I’m talking about mushrooms.

Shiitake Mushrooms grow in East Asia and is used in allot of the cuisines there. It is also used in medicine.

Mycophagy, the act of consuming mushrooms, dates back a very long time ago. Edible mushroom species have been found in Chili in ancient ruins, but the first reliable evidence dates back several hundred years BC in China. The Chinese used mushrooms for food and for medicine. We all know that Ancient Romans had food tasters. This cruel tradition started because the wealthy Romans would buy mushrooms and then have the tasters taste them to see if they were poisonous.

Ceasar's Mushrooms. A delicious Mushroom that was a favorite under the Roman Empire.

Today we have a great variety of mushrooms available to us and you don’t have to go to some doggy part of town or have someone else risk their lives for you to get access to them These days simply walk into a local grocer and you will most likely be able to find the normal mushrooms as well as some more exotic ones.

The Champignon Mushrooms also known as White or Button mushrooms. These guys are available everywhere these days. Fresh, dried or canned. In the early stages its called Button Mushrooms and later when it is mature we know it as the Brown or Portobello Mushroom

Enokitake Mushrooms are one of the more exotic Mushrooms that you will find these days in our local grocers.

Mushrooms are very healthy and contain selenium which is a good-for-your-bladder nutrient. This helps to prevent bladder cancer as published last year in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Mushrooms help boost your immune system and also contain a lot of antioxidants. They contain Vitamin B which is good for your metabolism. And the big surprise is that they contain Vitamin D. Mushrooms are the only fruit or vegetable that can produce this Vitamin. In America they have now started to expose the mushrooms to high levels of   ultraviolet B just before going to market converts more of the plant's ergo sterol into the so-called sunshine vitamin. Oyster mushrooms are a good source or iron. 

Plus, mushrooms are low in calories: Six medium white mushrooms, for example, have just 22 calories.

The summer truffle is part of the truffle family and is regarded as one of the most expensive "mushrooms". Chefs describe this "mushroom" as the diamond of the kitchen. These days you can buy truffles or even get truffle infused olive oil. Truffles have a strong taste and has to be used in small quantities as it can easily over power a dish

Mushrooms farmers Carla and Quentin started their own “at home mushroom farming kit”. This is a kit that helps the regular person to grow their own mushrooms. 

Read their story at http://www.foodwithastory.co.za/View-Business/385/The-Mushroom-Factory and if you would like order go to http://www.mushroomfactory.co.za/

The Mushroom Factory kits. This one is growing Oyster mushrooms.

Mushrooms are the best and most delicious vegetable according to me. Mushrooms will be the Vegetable of the month and I will be posting a recipe every week that will focus on these little beasts and to bring them to their rightful place on your menu.

Food Convertions

Here is a link to online food conversions
Believe me this helps allot
http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml

Good Honest Food

I have always loved good honest food. Well let’s be honest, I love any food even the devilish kind. People like Maggie Beer, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver are the unofficial faces of your country side good honest food. They have easy recipes, working with ingredients that is in season and easy to find. The food they serve is pack with flavor and has a certain farm style feel to it but all is done with a drizzle of elegance.

Now with Easter coming up, and for me Easter is all about the good and honest, it is important to keep your eyes out for those fresh but ever elusive hot cross buns. These little buns of joy are delicious when hot with butter and a cup of tea. The problem we have is for us to enjoy them hot we need to heat them up at home after driving back from the bakery or grocer and they seem to dry out sometimes… So this is the time, get practicing to make your own hot cross buns and come Easter time you can serve the freshest hot cross buns in town to all your friends and family.

I do not have a recipe for them so after a long search for the best hot cross bun recipe ever, I found this recipe and it seems to be easy and delicious. Nigella has put together a devilish hot cross bun recipe. If you like you can omit the cardamom and cloves.

I can’t wait to try these….http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/hot-cross-buns-3216

Salmon and Lemon Zest Cream Cheese Parfait

Salmon and Lemon Zest Cream Cheese Parfait on a Rocket and Butternut Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

200g Smoked Salmon

100g Plain Cream cheese

250g Butternut

1.5 cup Rocket leaves (washed)

150g Cucumber (peeled and cut)

1 Lemon

15g Fresh dill

1 tbls fresh or dried thyme

3 tbls capers

2 tbls olive oil/ vegetable oil

1 cup Vegetable oil

Salt

Pepper

Method

• Switch on your oven grill on a medium heat.
• Peel and cut your butternut into small cubes.
• In a oven proof dish put the butternut, thyme and 2tbls oil and mix together
• Roast the butternut for 20-30 min (depending on oven strength) till their soft and crisp. Let them cool.
• Wash the rocket, and let them dry again
• Heat the vegetable oil in a pan as if you were going to deep fry chips.
• Once the oil is hot dry out your capers and fry 2tbls in the oil till they are crispy also do the same with half of the dill.
• Zest your lemon and then juice them keeping them seperate.
• Chop the remaining dill and capers
• Mix the zest, dill, capers, and half of the lemon juice with the cream cheese until it is evenly mixed, season to taste.
• Take a sheet of salmon and spread some of the cream cheese mix in it. Do this with all the sheets of Salmon. Now layer them on top of one another. Four layers should be enough. Now cut them in a shape you want. I like taking a square (2x2 cm).
• Now mix your cool butternut, rocket, cucumber and the remaining lemon juice.
• Plate the salad and place the parfait on top.
• Garnish with the fried capers and dill.

Tips:

Use the salmon and cream cheese off cuts and blend them to make a salmon spread for a fresh Ciabatta

Capers are flowers so when frying them in oil you will see they open up and they don't take long to cook.

Drain any excess oil from your butternut, capers and dill with paper towels.

ALWAYS SEASON EVERYTHING!!! BUT DO IT TO YOUR TASTE!