For Christmas, more and more of you are preparing your own foie gras. I have already suggested 5 different cooking methods and here is the sixth one, a little bit…]]>
Vacuum packed foie gras (method 6)
For Christmas, more and more of you are preparing your own foie gras. I have already suggested 5 different cooking methods and here is the sixth one, a little bit special, for those who have the equipment to do it. But the result is really delicious and the foie gras keeps its natural elm. It is not a recipe, but a method of cooking.
Ingredients
- 1 foie gras
- salt, pepper and sugar
- alcohol of choice or not
Instructions
- Prepare your foie gras your way. It is especially important to add salt and pepper.
- On all sides!
- Wrap in a layer of stretch film (microwave safe).
- Place it in a vacuum bag.
- Vacuum seal it with a bell jar or small vacuum machine.
- And There you go !
- If you have a probe immersion heater, heat the bath to 56.5°C. When the temperature is reached, plunge the foie gras.
- Leave in for 50 minutes. Without air, the livers do not float.
- The lid must be on during cooking.
- Once cooked, plunge the livers into an ice water bath.
- Chill for at least 3-4 days before eating.
- The advantage of this cooking is that you keep the shape of the foie gras.
Nutrition
Serving: 8peopleCalories: 16kcalCarbohydrates: 1gProtein: 2gFat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0.2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.03gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 61mgSodium: 16mgPotassium: 27mgVitamin A: 3642IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 5mgIron: 4mg
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Tarama
Tarama is a specialty of the Mediterranean basin, from Greece to Turkey, and each country has its own recipe. With cod or mullet roe, I offer you my recipe, which is exactly what I expect from tarama!
Ingredients
- 70 g bread crumbs (bread without the crust, but quality bread!)
- 1/2 egg yolk (just take a little yolk)
- 280 g smoked cod eggs (or mullets if available)
- 170 to 200 g oil
- 1/2 glass of milk
Instructions
- Start by removing the crust from the bread. I bought bread from Poilâne, which has a dense and delicious crumb. It is very easy with a fresh crumb.Put the crumb in a bowl and pour enough milk to soak it completely.
- Wring out the crumb in your hand. Remove excess milk from bowl. Return the crushed crumb to the bowl. If the bread still has a little milk in it, that’s good because the tarama will hold up even better!
- Add half an egg yolk (this will not give any taste, but provides the protein needed to emulsify the oil).
- Mix at low speed with an electric whisk for 2 minutes, to break down the proteins in the egg yolk and milk.
- Add the equivalent of two or three spoonfuls of oil while still mixing at low speed. This will start the emulsion. The oil immediately begins to enclose itself in small “capsules” of water (which comes from the milk and thanks to the half-yolk).
- Here is an egg pocket of smoked cod.
- Open it with a knife on one side. All that remains is to remove the eggs with a spoon.
- Add the eggs (without the skin of the pocket).
- Then start mixing until all the pocket pieces are gone.
- Add the remaining oil in a thin stream, slowly rising just like a mayonnaise.
- Do not make the tarama with a blender as I read in some recipes! Then with an electric whisk, add the oil in a stream, very gently, just like a mayonnaise! I made my tarama on the fly, trying to get the best result possible. But I weighed everything before and after, so the proportions I listed above are the ideal ones for me.Regarding the addition of lemon, I prefer to leave it up to each person to add it to the tarama at the time of tasting!Once all the oil has been added, mix well with a spoon, scraping the edges to incorporate everything.
- Film the tarama by putting the cling film in direct contact with the preparation. Let stand in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours before enjoying on slices of toast or (untraditional but delicious!) on warm blinis!
Nutrition
Calories: 655kcalCarbohydrates: 17gProtein: 21gFat: 57gSaturated Fat: 7gPolyunsaturated Fat: 18gMonounsaturated Fat: 31gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 439mgSodium: 1190mgPotassium: 208mgFiber: 1gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 714IUCalcium: 264mgIron: 9mg
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Thousand Hole Pancakes (Baghrir)
This is a recipe that I really love since I rediscovered it during my stay in Morocco. Lalla Myriam did not imagine letting me leave without making me “baghrirs” or “thousand holes” pancakes…! These pancakes are all light and airy. This way, they absorb the honey and melted butter even better. A real torture, especially when they are heated in a tagine dish, a few minutes on the fire, the time to let the honey and butter caramelize together. The baghrirs are then all soft and full of sweetness! But you can also eat them with whatever you want: jam for example. I love these pancakes and make them all the time because they take very little time to prepare and cook, are pretty economical, and are finally balanced if you don’t put butter and honey in them. I eat it instead of bread for breakfast. Obviously in Morocco, women prepare the baghrirs with measures and sometimes do not get the thousands of small holes. So I also made the recipe at home with the advice and proportions of Lalla Myriam, but I weighed everything at each try until I got the perfect recipe, to be able to reproduce for sure these famous holes which give the softness to the “thousand holes” pancakes.
Ingredients
- 370 g cold water
- 215 g fine semolina
- 25 g flour
- 10 g sugar
- 2 good pinches salt
- 1 packet dehydrated baker's yeast
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Put the water in the blender container with the baker's yeast.
- Add the semolina.
- As well as flour, salt and sugar.
- Mix well for at least 2-3 minutes to obtain a smooth paste. Moreover, by mixing, we will heat the whole, hence the importance of putting cold water. At the end of the 3 minutes, the dough is warm and starts to heat up.
- Let rise 15 minutes, the dough will swell and form lots of little bubbles. If the dough doesn't bubble too much, it's not too bad! At this point, add the two teaspoons of baking powder and blend again for 20 seconds.
- Heat a small frying pan over fairly high heat. It is necessary to master the cooking and to adapt according to the result which you have in front of you! Pour a small ladleful of dough.
- If it's a Teflon pan, I just grease it with a little oil on a paper towel, every 3 or 4 pancakes.Bernard's tip: depending on the reaction of the dough (it depends on the ambient heat, the heat of the plate or the gas...) it will be necessary to put more or less dough, to let the dough spread by itself or on the contrary to help it a little by moving the pan... You have to find your own solution!
- The pancake will "bubble"!
- You should only cook on one side: this way, the pancakes will stay soft. When all the dough appears cooked (which is not yet the case on the picture!), just take it out and start again with a new ladle of dough!
- You can see the thousands of little holes. There are even holes in the holes!
- Serve the baghrirs with hot honey and butter...
Nutrition
Serving: 10pancakesCalories: 92kcalCarbohydrates: 18gProtein: 3gFat: 0.5gSaturated Fat: 0.1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.1gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.1gSodium: 183mgPotassium: 50mgFiber: 1gSugar: 1gVitamin C: 0.002mgCalcium: 56mgIron: 1mg
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Cheese Gougères
Here is my recipe for cheese gougères. They have an extremely tasty texture. Crispy on the outside, they reveal a melting heart on the inside. You can make them any size, but I like them smaller because that way they crisp up even more with the cheese on top. A small wonder very simple to carry out.
Ingredients
- 250 ml water
- 250 ml eggs (you need a colume for the choux pasry to succeed! that's about 5 eggs)
- 140 g flour
- 110 g butter
- 5 g salt
- pepper and nutmeg
- 150 g grated cheese (Emmental is not as good!!) + a little for spinkling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.Put water, butter and salt in a saucepan.
- Bring to a boil over low heat.
- Add the flour all at once off the heat.
- Stir well (even quite briskly!!) then put back on low heat for 1 minute to dry out the dough. It is necessary to mix constantly. The dough will come off the bottom of the pan.
- Pour the dough into a bowl.
- Add the 250ml of beaten eggs little by little to the dough (stirring well each time).
- Stir vigorously to blend.
- Add grated cheese.
- Add pepper and grated nutmeg.
- With a piping bag, make small piles. Never mind the shape, they will swell.
- Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes at 180°C. Enjoy it hot! The gougères will be crispy on top and melt in the mouth.
- They are perfect for a sunny aperitif!
Nutrition
Calories: 2216kcalCarbohydrates: 90gProtein: 89gFat: 167gSaturated Fat: 92gPolyunsaturated Fat: 13gMonounsaturated Fat: 45gTrans Fat: 4gCholesterol: 1322mgSodium: 6678mgPotassium: 832mgFiber: 5gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 5433IUCalcium: 1709mgIron: 10mg
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Pão de queijo
The pão de queijo is traditionally made with ingredients that are hard to find in France, such as “polvilho doce”, which is a starch based on manioc and “meia cura” cheese (medium aged) but no problem to make them!I came back from Brazil with a “meia cura” cheese and I made my “pães de queijo” in the most authentic way! And in France you can replace with half grated fresh parmesan and half grated and chopped gruyere! The result will be almost identical!In Asian supermarkets you can find tapioca flour, which is actually tapioca starch, tapioca being cassava. So it’s a different name for what is in fact the same product! Tapioca flour = polvilho doce!The first ingredient is done. The second, the “meia cura” cheese, can be found in Brazilian grocery stores. But the price is quite high and you won’t notice the difference if you replace it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese . Sometimes I don’t have the courage to grate parmesan cheese, so I shamelessly use parmesan powder.In short, the cheese breads (“pães de queijo” in plural) are delicious and easy to make, you have to eat them 5 minutes after they come out of the oven, they have a slightly crunchy texture on the top and a heart extra soft (thanks to the tapioca flour!!). Everyone who has tried it at my house has become a fan! Well, yes the cäipirinha helps a lot!!!
Ingredients
- 500 g tapioca flour
- 200 g parmesan cheese
- 200 g Gruyere cheese grated and chopped
- 2 teaspoons salt (it seems like a lot but this is it!!)
- 200 ml milk
- 75 ml oil
- 220 g egg
Instructions
- Heat milk and oil in a saucepan until boiling, remove from heat.
- While the milk/oil is heating, put the tapioca flour and salt in a bowl and mix well. Pour the hot liquid mixture over it and mix vigorously.
- Add all the cheese. Mix well then add the eggs. Mix again, by hand it is easier than with a spoon. With a Kitchenaid, it’s even easier! The dough will be sticky, this is normal. If it sticks too much to form the balls, put half an hour in the fridge.
- This is the famous “meia cura” cheese I mentioned at the beginning of the recipe! You can either use this one or replace it with half grated parmesan and half grated and chopped gruyere!
- It can be grated and then put into the dough in the relevant step!
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Place walnut-sized balls of dough on a baking sheet. You can put a lot on a baking sheet because the breads will not puff up much in the end.
- If you wish, you can leave the plate with the dumplings in the fridge overnight. This way, the dough will dry on the surface, and when you bake, you will have rolls with a thicker crust! I find them even better this way!
- Just put in the oven for 15-20 minutes, the Pão de queijo should be well rounded and slightly golden . To be eaten as soon as possible, without burning yourself!
- For the caipirinha, I prefer the one with maracujas (passion fruit). To do this I put the pulp (and seeds) of a dozen maracujas in a bowl, I pour cachaça (500ml) then I sugar while tasting to be sure not to put too much or not enough, good excuse to start They are delicious with a little touch of salted butter in the middle that will melt!
Nutrition
Serving: 15portionsCalories: 718kcalCarbohydrates: 81gProtein: 23gFat: 35gSaturated Fat: 14gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 14gTrans Fat: 0.05gCholesterol: 91mgSodium: 1491mgPotassium: 216mgSugar: 5gVitamin A: 734IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 720mgIron: 1mg
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