Chocolate Mousse and Eggs Bendict

I have had this nice little glass bowl in my cupboard since the beginning of March when Berrin gave me some home-made pate. In Turkey, they have a tradition of returning the container with somethig in it. So I finally got around to making chocolate mousse and now I can pass the little glass bowl back to her.

Before I could make the mousse, I needed to make Eggs Benedict for Kelani. That was what she has wanted for a while now, and I have had work to do (and still do, but work will have to wait, I need some creativity time).


Chocolate Mousse
Fondant Au Chocolat
from Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One, Alfred A. Knopf, 2001

For about 5 cups serving 6 to 8 people

Two 3 quart porcelain or stainless steel mixing bowls

A wire whisk or electric beater
4 egg yolks
¼ cup instant sugar (very finely granulated)  I put the sugar through the coffee grinder
¼ cup orange liqueur

A pan of not-quite-simmering water
A basin of cold water

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until mixture is thick, pale yellow, and falls back upon itself forming a slowly dissolving ribbon. Beat in the orange liqueur. Then set mixing bowl over not-quite-simmering water and continue beating 3-4 minutes until the mixture is foamy and too hot for your finger. Then beat over cold water for 3 - 4 minutes until the mixture is cool and again forms the ribbon. It will have the consistency of mayonnaise.
6 ounces or squares semi sweet baking chocolate (175 grams)

4 tablespoons strong coffee
A small saucepan
6 ounces or 1 ½ sticks softened unsalted butter (175 grams)
Optional: 1.4 cup finely diced, glazed orange peel

Melt chocolate with coffee over hot water. Remove from heat and beat in the butter a bit at a tie, to make a smooth cream. Beat the chocolate into egg yolks and sugar, then beat in the optional orange peel.
4 egg whites
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks are formed’ sprinkle on the sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the rest.


Turn into serving dish, dessert cups. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.


2 cups lightly whipped cream sweetened with powdered sugar
Pass the whipped cream separately.

Lemon Chicken

I rarely have all the ingredients so I have my substitutions and I think it still tastes pretty good. I had the math department over for Chinese food last week and the lemon chicken was the first to disappear.


The recipe comes for the book The Food of China by Jason Lowe, Deh-Ta Hsiung and Nina Simonds. I highly recommend this book if you like Chinese food.


The marinade:
1 lb (500 grams) skinned boneless chicken breasts
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine*
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger*
1 garlic clove, finely chopped

Cut the chicken into slices. Place in a bowl and add the marinade and toss lightly. Marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Note: I rarely have rice wine so I use a little rice vinegar and white wine. I also have found that this thick sweet soy something I have called KECAP MANIS (also says rasa mantaap) is a great substitute for the soy sauce. And I use more than one tablespoon of chopped ginger.

Lemon Sauce:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sesame seed oil
3 tablespoons chicken stock or water
½ teaspoon cornstarch

Combine the above to make the lemon sauce.


1 egg lightly beaten
¾ cup cornstarch
oil for deep frying

Add the egg to the chicken mixture and toss lightly to coat. Drain any excess egg and coat the chicken pieces with the cornstarch.

Fill a wok one quarter full of oil and heat to 375 F or 190C. (I use less oil and turn the chicken as it is frying, if you use a lot then you just keep stirring the chicken while it is frying) Add half the chicken (if you have room) one piece at a time and fry for about 2 minutes on both sides. Remove with wire strainer (or chopsticks) and drain. Repeat with the remaining chicken.

Drain the oil and reheat the wok over medium heat. Add the lemon sauce and stir constantly until thickened. Add the chicken and toss lightly in the sauce.

Ravioli

Kelani has become the official pasta maker. I do not know how you would make this without the little hand cranking machine to make the pasta.

the dough:
1egg
3/4 cup flour

Put the flour in a mound on the table. Put a hole (well) in the middle of the flour and add the egg. Blend the egg into the flour (Kelani uses a knife and then her hands) until you have a ball.

The ball then goes through the press on the number 1 setting. After it goes through fold the dough into thirds and repeat. Sometimes the dough will get holes in it, but that usually disappears on the next time through the machine. You pass the dough through the machine 5 times on the no 1 setting then change the setting to 2 and repeat again 5 times. Do this all the way up to through the no 5 setting. We then put the dough through the numer 6 setting just once.

Using a wine glass, cut circles out of the dough. Put about 1/2 a tablespoon of filling in and fold it over, seal the edges with a fork. We like to fill the circles with the spinach pesto.

To cook the ravioli boil water with some salt and a little olive oil. When it is boiling, add the raviolis, they will cook very quickly (about 3 minutes) and will float to the top when they are finished. If there is meat in your ravioli you may want to cook it longer or fry them.

Enjoy!

We are back!

Now have access to the blog again, so I can start posting again.

I think some work K-dog has been doing would be appropriate, plus the recipe is easy to type up!

No/little access

Currenlty Turkey has banned the blogger sites as some one was posting football matches and the tv people were upset and seem to have a lot of influence.

I cannot easliy access the blog. I seem to be able to get to the posting part- a back door? but cannot view the blog.

so Kelani has been doing a lot of cooking...

will post soon and hopefully will be up and running normal again soon too.

Roasted Vegtable Lasagne

This is for Nicola who has spent days moving into her new apartment, starting anew. she asked for the recipe, so I am attempting to write it down.

When I first started making lasagne, about 4 years ago, this is what I started with. Some things may be missing as it is coming from my head and a lttle piece of paper I took notes on while searching the web years ago.

One key to this dish is to pick at least 5 vegetables to use. For this dish I used

• 2 Japanese Eggplants (or one large eggplant/aubergine)
• 3 medium/small zucchini
• One medium sized onion
• Celeriac (the root of celery, or you could use celery)
• Peppers- I used one red bell pepper, one green and one red Turkish
  pepper which are long and about 5 cm wide at the top.  
• Mushrooms- about 1 cup=250 ml, chopped
• A mixture of grated cheeses- salty feta’ish goat, plus a plain cheese all mixed, about 400 ml.
• Spinach pesto
• Béchamel sauce 

 Preheat oven to 180 C

Clean and take some of the skin off of the eggplant/aubergine and zucchini (squash works too). Slice them long ways about 1 cm thick. Place on a baking sheet which has been generously greased with olive oil. Sprinkle salt on top. Bake for about 20 minutes, turn over, salt and bake another 20. They should be lightly browned and soft.

Chop onion, celeriac and peppers. Put about 1 tablespoon olive oil in frying pan, medium heat and cook vegetables until soft, add mushrooms if using. Put in bowl.

Chop up roasted vegetables. Add to bowl of pan cooked vegetables.

Make béchamel sauce and add spinach pesto to the béchamel sauce.

Assemble lasagne- béchamel sauce, noodles, béchamel sauce, ½ of vegetable mixture, cheese, noodles, béchamel sauce, rest of vegetable mixture, cheese, noodles, béchamel sauce cheese. Cover with foil.

 When you are ready to bake it: oven 180 Celsius. Cover with foil, cook 20 minutes then take off foil and cook another 20 minutes. Should be bubbling when you remove it from the oven. Let set about 10 – 15 minutes before cutting. Enjoy!

Enchilad-Taco Burritos

It has been a not so nice day/week/(last couple of weeks). I do stress during report writing, the students stress as they realize- no more they can do, and parents start to stress (a little late) too. Today got a call to take Kelani’s friend home with us as there is rioting near their house- no problem. Had a parent conference scheduled for 11:30- but they did not show up- time much wasted waiting- I do have mock exams to write. Get home and the maid had not come to clean! And we have two middle-schoolers coming to stay with us tomorrow, arghhh; I do not have time to clean the bathrooms, dust and do the floors, I have dinner to make.

I took the chicken breasts (2) I had set out for our dinner tonight and cut them up into little pieces. Then I remembered my dad telling me the best marinade for tender chicken was white wine and cornstarch, or tequila and cornstarch. I had already opened a beer, so I marinated the chicken in beer with cornstarch.

I fried up the chicken in a little oil, added packet of taco mix (ground cumin, chili powder, and garlic salt) a can of corn, some homemade tomato sauce, and leftover vegetables sitting in the fridge.

Enchilada sauce:

2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons chili powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
2 cups chicken broth (or whatever broth you have in the freezer)
1 tablespoon oil

Mix flour, cumin and chili powder together. Put the oil in the skillet, heat it up, add the garlic stirring for about 30 seconds. Add the flour mixture and stir waiting for it to turn dark. Slowly add the broth, whisking all the time and whisk until it thickens. Turn off the heat.

Assemble:

Put some chicken mixture in a tortilla, add a little grated cheese and roll it up into a burrito. Place these into a 9x13 pan. After all have been rolled, pour the enchilada sauce over the burritos. Add some cheese to the top and place in a 350 F or 180 C oven for 20 minutes, until bubbling.

Now, if I got everything right, the kids will go for seconds, making your day a little nicer and the house smell good even though the maid blew you off.