Well, I was reading the original recipe (! almost) for Sachertorte and I have to try it. It's like a chocolate mousse made into a cake and filled with apricot jam and topped with a chocolate casing sauce.
It has to be fluffy. The chocolate and eggs have to be the best you can find, as for the apricot jam, homemade preferably and the rest is all up to you and your skills.
Have fun. It is a good cake for breakfast or tea.
Boil it, fry it, braise it or roast it: you don't have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that how you prepare and cook any ingredient will affect just how much of its integral taste will remain in the finished dish Guardian
A burst of flavour
Saturday June 1, 2002
This approach is used extensively in food manufacturing, in many cases probably unintentionally. Think about a bar of milk chocolate with nuts and raisins in it - their flavour is invariably encapsulated within the bar. If the nuts and raisins were puréed and mixed into the chocolate, they would not provide anywhere near the same flavour.
The same applies to marmalade - it wasn't so long ago that it was marketed as containing "real" orange pieces, as perfect an example of flavour encapsulation as you could wish for. I apply the approach extensively in the restaurant because it's an essential tool in the crusade against palate fatigue. (I'll talk more about palate fatigue in future articles, but in essence it's when you become bored with what you eat.)
Recipes serve four.
Bacon and egg ice cream
This forms part of a dessert served at the restaurant. It's a twist on breakfast: caramelized brioche in place of toast, tomato and red pepper compote for jam, chewy salted butter caramel with wild mushrooms, and this ice cream, all washed down with a small cup of jellied Earl Grey. The idea stemmed from thinking about why some ice cream tastes of egg. I came to the conclusion that it's because the custard is overcooked. When you cook custard, the heat makes the proteins in the egg coagulate, which thickens the mix. If you continue cooking the custard, it will scramble, with the proteins completely clumped together. Egg yolk sets at 72C. So, by cooking the custard to 82C or more, as advised in many traditional recipes, the proteins begin to coagulate. Although the custard may still look liquid, tiny clumps of protein will have formed. And so, according to the coffee bean theory, the custard will be full of little bursts of egg flavour.
All of which got me thinking about how to exploit this eggy flavour, and so this recipe was born. The other parts of the dessert (bar the caramel/mushroom dish) follow, because the ice cream needs them to deliver the full impact of the breakfast dessert. And yes, you do need this many egg yolks; use the whites to make the chocolate fondant from the March 9 issue. These quantities make around one liter.
300g sliced streaky smoked bacon
1 litre full fat milk
25g skimmed milk powder
24 egg yolks
50g liquid glucose
175g unrefined caster sugar
Roast the bacon in an oven at 180C until slightly browned. Place in cold milk and leave to marinate overnight. Tip the milk and bacon into a casserole, and add the milk powder. Put the egg yolks, glucose and sugar in a mixing bowl and, using an electric whisk, mix at high speed until white and increased in volume.
Heat the milk and bacon mix to simmering and, with the whisk still going, pour a little on to the yolks. Tip this back into the milk pan, and cook over a lowish heat until it hits 85C. Hold at this temperature for 30 seconds, then remove from the heat. Cool the mixture down by stirring it over ice, tip into a blender and liquidize until smooth. Pass through a sieve and churn.
Caramelised brioche
The breakfast toast in the dessert, but also delicious served with caramelized apples, bananas or chocolate sauce.
1 dssp unrefined caster sugar (plus 20g or so extra for dusting)
250ml whole milk
2 soupspoons white rum (optional)
3 eggs
75g unsalted butter
1 loaf brioche
Mix 1 dssp sugar, milk, rum and eggs in a bowl. Clarify the butter, heating it gently in a pan or microwave. When melted, leave to stand for 10 minutes. Carefully scrape off the white skin that forms on the surface and discard it. Pour the clarified butter through a fine sieve or tea strainer.
Heat the butter in a frying pan. Dip the brioche in the milk/sugar mix for a minute or so, then place in the hot pan. Cook, turning regularly, until lightly colored. Sprinkle with the extra sugar and caramelize lightly before serving.
Tomato and red pepper 'jam'
5 ripe tomatoes
1 red pepper
50g icing sugar
Splash of Worcestershire sauce
Splash of white-wine vinegar
10ml olive oil
2 coffee beans
Blanch, peel, deseed and dice the tomatoes. Peel, deseed and dice the pepper. Put everything in a pan and marinate for 24 hours. Cook very slowly on a low heat, until dry and jam-like.
Tea jelly
Of course, you do not need to use all of these different teas - amend as you wish.
250ml water
45g unrefined caster sugar
1 green tea bag
1 lemon verbena tea bag
2 Earl Grey tea bags
10-15ml lemon juice
2 gelatin leaves
5g citric acid (optional)
Bring the water and sugar to the boil, and remove from the heat. Add the tea bags, stir gently and leave to infuse for five minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve and add the lemon juice. Meanwhile, soften the gelatin in cold water. When soft, gently squeeze out the water and add the gelatin to the warm tea (along with the citric acid, if using). Stir until the gelatin has dissolved, then pour into cups and refrigerate until set.
Recette de Pierre Hermé, Larousse du chocolat
J’ai obtenu 60 macarons de 4-4,5 cm de diamètre environ
1ère étape : faire la ganache au chocolat
300g de beurre mou
320g de chocolat noir
220 mL de lait
Écraser le beurre à la fourchette et le malaxer jusqu’à ce qu’il devienne mou et onctueux.
Hacher le chocolat, le mettre dans un saladier.
Porter le lait à ébullition, en verser un peu sur le chocolat, mélanger doucement et ajouter ainsi le reste du lait.
Quand le mélange a tiédi, ajouter petit à petit le beurre mou, mélanger doucement sans trop travailler la pâte pour garder une texture moelleuse.
Mettre un film sur le saladier et conserver la ganache au frais.
2ème étape : préparer les macarons
480g de sucre glace
280g de poudre d’amande
40g de cacao en poudre non sucré
7 blancs d’œufs
Tamiser le sucre glace avec le cacao.
Hermé préconise de tamiser aussi la poudre d’amande, pour moi ça ne marche pas, ce ne passe pas à travers le tamis alors en fait, je passe la poudre au mixer pour qu’elle soit encore plus fine.
Mélanger le tout.
Monter les blanc en neige, y incorporer délicatement le mélange cacao-sucre-amande.
Remplir la poche à douille de cette pâte et répartir des ronds de 4 cm de diamètre (ou plus ou moins selon le résultat attendu) sur une plaque de four tapissée de papier sulfurisé.
A noter : la première fois que j’ai fait des macarons, je n’avais pas de poche à douille, j’ai fais mes tas de pâte à la petite cuillère et ça avait vraiment très bien marché.
Laisser reposer 15 min à température ambiante et préchauffer pendant ce temps le four à 140°C (thermostat 4-5).
3ème étape: la cuisson
Enfourner et laisser cuire 15 min (ça c’est pour les macarons d’à peu près 4 cm de diamètre, ensuite il faut adapter) en maintenant la porte du four entrouverte grâce à une cuillère en bois (pour éviter que la surface des macarons craquelle).
Sortir du four, soulever un coin de papier sulfurisé et faire couler un filet d’eau froide sur la plaque. Cela permet de décoller facilement les macarons. Les laisser refroidir sur une grille.
Vu la quantité, il faut faire plusieurs fournées, je conseille de re-mélanger la pâte à chaque fois avant de remplir votre poche à douille.
4ème étape : assemblage
Garnir la base plate d’un macaron avec la ganache et poser un autre macaron dessus.
Disposer les macarons ainsi obtenus dans un plat, couvrir de papier film et essayer de les laisser deux jours au frigo avant de les croquer…
Mais moi je préfère de les manger tout suite
300 g Quark, 100 g creme fraiche, 4 egg yolks, 4 egg whites, 50 g maizena flower, 40 g powder sugar, lemon and orange zest, clarified butter. pinch of salt.
Mix the quark, creme fraiche, zests and maizena flower. One by one, mix the egg yolks. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and one thrid of the sugar until creamy and fluffy, then add the rest of the sugar and beat more.
Mix one third of the creamy egg whites into the quark mix, incorporate. Then, incorporate the rest of the egg whites mix using a inox-steel spoon or a wooden spoon.
Have a non-adherent frying pan swabbed with some clarified butter. Heat it up and add some of the pate. When the bottom of the omelet is cooked and with a golden color, fold it and place the pan in the oven for a few seconds until it grows a little bit. Serve with powder sugar on top and some red fruits compote. By Eckart Witzigmann.
Try this:
Breakfast Steak Hash... from the book (buy it! great recipes inside !) of Paul Gayler:
Mashed potatoes pancake with strips of steak on top and a fried egg, topped with black bean salsa.
serves 4
to make the black bean Salsa get 2 tomatoes, blanched, seeded and diced; 1/2 red bell pepper cut into 5 mm dice; 100 g cooked black beans; 1 red onion, chopped; 1 small red chili, seeded and finely chopped ; 1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander; 1/2 tbsp maple syrup; juice of 1 lime - mix them all in a bowl and let infuse for one hour in a cool place.
to make the hash potatoes mix 300 g of crushed cooked potatoes with 2 egg yolks and 1 tbsp flour. Season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Mold this into 4 small patties, chill for 1 hour. Get a non-sticky frying pan with 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and, when hot, cook until golden, 3-4 minutes in each side. Keep warm.
Heat another non-stick pan with 1 tbsp of oil and when very hot, season the beef, a 400 g mignon steak cut in thin strips, with salt and pepper and add to the pan. Fry them quickly until sealed and golden all over, then remove from the heat, add the half avocado, seeded and stoned to the pan together with 5o g Cheddar cheese and stir together until the beef is bound with the cheese.
Fry the 4 free range eggs in another pan .
On the plate, place a potato cake and top it with some beef mixture and a fried egg. Spoon some black bean salsa around and over. Serve at once.
Thanks Paul
Eggs Florentine are a classic.
Basically it is a poached egg served on top of a blanched bed of spinach leaves, all covered with Mornay Sauce - which is made on a Roux base, with Gruyère cheese added, serve with a sage leaf on top and a tiny bit of grounded nutmeg.
Try if you fancy this, its quite good.
Check this out:
Buffet
Fresh fruits and natural fruit juices
Available
Green tea
Coffee, Black and white
Expresso
Entrée
Smoked Salmon cubes with toast and Dill Sauce
Main Course
Eggs Benedict en Cocotte
Desert
Tiramisú
Sounds good for breakfast ?
Your opinions, please...
Try this:
As you start making the scrambled eggs, add a pinch of Fenugreek leaves. Towards the end, just before the eggs start to coagulate all together, add some finely chopped chive.
It will taste a bit like curry, because curry uses Fenugreek seeds, and the taste is similar, but not the same as the leaves.
You may use dried leaves.
Tell me if you liked it...
Try this:
Get some water boiling in a deep pan.
Place 2 eggs, whole, or as many as you wish, as long as they fit comfortably side to side, inside the bottom of the pan, for 15 to 25 seconds inside that water. This will make the egg white inside the shell to start to coagulate and it will be easier to do the next step.
In another pan, boil some water, but add some white wine balsamic vinegar, or other.
Take it away from the heat and open those eggs into the water, gently.
Wait 3 minutes.
Take them out using a ladle and place them in very cold, or icy, water, after you have trimmed the eggs, so that they look nice and oval. Be careful not to crack them open.
When you are ready to use the eggs, get some water boiling with salt and let them in for 30 to 45 seconds, this will be enough to heat them up again.
Get them on toast with bacon or anyother use that you want and enjoy your poached eggs.
Yes, what about omolette?
How do you like it? Plain or with something special? Well done or creammy inside? I make them everyday, and always try to have them creammy inside and my favorites have herbs and tomato and pancetta crunchy bits. I should video one, to show you how I do them.
At the moment, we are quite busy, to say the least, in Vila Joya, where I work, so I don't have much time to make photos or videos of what I am doing, but as soon as it calms down, and I do hope that it doesn't (right, Joy?) ;-) I will make the videos I promissed you, ok ?
Meanwhile, please comment on omoletts, send me recipes, do something! Please...
And are you all cooking your breakfasts? Come on, don't be lazy, get up and have a king's day start !
Be good !
Today I tried a new recipe created by me, Eggs Bennedict 'en coccote'. (in a glass)
Recipe, pics and maybe a video tomorrow.
Stay tuned
I found out after a couple of days, that my kitchen brothers and sisters did not have a propper breakfast, usually only coffee and that's it, so my breakfast was always at 12 o'clock , they called it lunch, the same system as in Portugal, but I am not used to it anymore, I am a breakfast cook, remember?. So this is the story of one 'trés bon petit dejeuner', pardon my french...
Getting ready for a memorable lunch at L'Espérance of Marc Meneau. It,s 12 o'clock now of April 22, 2007.
Caviar on beetroot, egg white and créme and lemon zest, toghether with a Chablis grand au "Vaudésir" 2002 Domaine Brochard, a white wine from Vézelay ! What a start. I had this 'amuse bouche' at the gardens before I went to the main room. Delicious.
To work out my apetite (!) I had this special cumined Carrot stripe rolled around a foi gras farse. with delicious sauce.
Imagine the sea with all its secrets... and get it all on a presentation dish, Tadam.... ! this is It ! When I saw Adeline preparing the Urchins I had no idea that this woul be the final result... Inside a urchin shell, I had a mouth watering sabayon a little bit brulleé at the top and to contrast it, the urchins corals in cold sea water gellatine. To eat and dream away, weted by a "Chassagne Montrachet "Morgest" 2004 Domaine Borgeot"... I just have to close my eyes to remember... and...
After this, I had a Lobster with 'Liveche' (wild Cellery) sauce and 'Petit pois au lardons' green peas with microscopic pieces of bacon (I had cut some previously at the kitchen for mise-en-place). I was soaway from this world that I did not take a photo, so you will have to take my word for it.
And this is the tenderest, mouth watering, savouriest piece of lamb I have ever had, and with a special wine , of course... Sauvigny lés Beaune "Narbantons" 2004 Domaine Guillemot. Confectioned by Julien Boyet, I belive. So... Now I am starting to feel quite full but I have to find space, and so easily, for the next show... desert, starting with cheese !
A Comté millesimme 1999 cheese, with cellery and apple cumined salad ! To be remembered...
This desert starred at Sofia Coppola's Movie 'Marie Antoinnette' by the hand of Chef Marc Meneau who was the consultor for gastronomy. And now I was about to eat 'history'... Imagine strawberrys picked up that morning tocheter with a ginger foam, and other wonderfull things I can't reveal. The desert wine was Pinot Gris d'Alsace "Vendanges Tardives" 2000 Domaine Rolly-Gassman The perfect light desert for a perfect breakfast at the garden's of Éden that is L'Espèrance of Françoise and Marc Meneau. Coffee and petit fours were next...
Mainly, I was just looking at this tastefull dish, I was so complete that I just took a Lychee and had my expresso, calmly finishing my Pinot Gris d'Alsace... It is now 2:26 PM... And I start work again at 5, time for a walk or a siesta? You guess...
Thank you, Grand Chef and thank you Madam Françoise Meneau and all my dear friend cooks for this memorable Breakfast !
Easy, but do it with love and care. It is difficult to work with one hand and film with the other, please use both.
Beat two egg whites with some salt until it stiffens.
Fry some pancetta slices until crispy and let the grease drain on a piece of absorbent paper.
Sautée some wild asparagus, after blanching them. Cut in small pieces, but let the tips whole. Season with Cellery salt.
Have some Cerfeuil leafs chopped and ready on the side.
Have a egg yolk ready and intact on the side.
Using a omellette sautée, non-stick, please, heat it up and smudge some ghee (clarified butter) on it with a silicone brush. Add a bit of garlick for flavour if you wish.
Instead of the butter you can use Virgin 1º olive oil, from good portuguese quality , the best, I must say.
Add the crushed pancetta, chopped Cerfeuil and asparagus and gently incorporate them into the beaten egg white. Save a small spoon of beaten egg white to use later.
Add this mix to the now hot sautée, give it a omolette shape.
Keep rolling gently so that it cooks the outside, always keeping the omolette shape.
when you feel that the outside is resistant, lay the omolete on one side and cut a big enough hole to add the egg yolk, unarmed, inside this little hole.
Remember the egg white that you have saved earlier? Use it now to close the hole and gently roll the omolette so that it cooks that part of egg white that you added.
Now, just before you place the omolette on the serving dish, brush it gently with some ghee and add some black pepper fresh from the mill.
Decorate as you wish, and eat it starting on the middle side, where the egg yolk is hidden.
To eat and enjoy with a glass of fine portuguese wine. I still look for the best marriage.
Instead of the Wild asparagus, you may use Salicornia, but reduce the salt because it is already a bit salty by itself.
I realize that it may seem strange to eat, because it is so far away from what one is used to, but the result is very gratifying, believe me...
For breakfast, off course.
Bom Apetite
Camembert, camelised Apple slices and grinded Wallnut with bred crumbs around it.
But... something is missing here...
I tried it and I have to make a few changes to adapt it to my taste, sorry Jean-Charles... nothing personal, I am just a begginer... your book is phantastic ! I try again and make sure I do it as you say exactly in your book, ok?
These are egg yolks stringed and cooked inside a light sugar syrup.
We call these "fios de ovos".
And this is what it will fill the little nest of 15 grms "fios de ovos", it is made with finely grounded almond, sweet and bitter ones, then almost caramelized, egg yolks added after this and cooked until it all becomes a nice soft cream like this one.
that's how it looks when they are mixed in a little ball, but it's not ready yet...
Now, cook some sugar and a bit of water to make this nice syrup,
roll each delicacy in it, but just enough to cover the little delight as this helps it to continue moist inside, among other things.
Gently, place it on a square of waxed paper to rest.
sprinkle it with icing sugar and grounded cinnamon.
That's how it looks like when you eat it. The original, as this one, is quite sweet and strong flavored, should be taken with a stong expresso coffee without no sugar added, or as Paulo, our sommelier well suggested, with a bitter almond liquer with some lemmon drops inside and ice cubes, and the coffee after or before, as you wish.
Fold silver foil and make a nice package, the usual is in the form of a pyramid, well like a pyramid, almost. I like to make other forms and this time we tried this one.
(that's me, the fat cook, but not for long, i'm on a diet!)
Tadaaaaaammmmm !
I have to make them less sweeeeet and maintain all the flavours and textures to make it available to the common mortals, but that's another recipe....
Have fun with the DOM RODRIGOS ! A delicacy from the south of Portugal, here where we are, in the Algarve region ! Almond trees, lots of 1st class chicken eggs and the sugar and spice given to the monasteries as payment, made the monks or nuns create this marvel, some centuries ago.
No excuse now, you can enjoy it as well, in your own home.
to make 16: 240 g "fios de ovos"; 100 g sugar; 60 g grounded almond; 10 egg yolks; syrup; icing sugar and grounded cinnamon; waxed paper; foil; inspiration...
Let's cook !
Doesn't it look so good as a morning treat !
Yummie !
More to come about cheese !
One early morning, I found Chef Koschina at the kitchen after a busy night. He asked me to give him a hand and prepare a nice breakfast for a special couple of guests, this is the story...
At first I prepared a dish with house made smoked salmon and another one with 'pata negra' smoked ham (presunto), nicely decorated and with toasted bagette slices on the side.
Then he prepared some scrambled eggs with salicornia, tomato, shives, mimolette cheese, cream, salt and pepper from the mill, while I grilled tomato slices and placed them on top of nicely toasted bread.
On top of the toasts and grilled tomato slices, I placed a triangular leaf, ladlle like, of Iceberg lettuce.
Inside the lettuce, Chef Koschina placed the egg mix and topped it with a lump of Sevruga caviar and Perigord truffle slices.
After this, we prepared the desert !
'Rahmschmarren' (?), a kind of oversized fluffy oven pancake, made with sour cream, self-raising flour, eggs and sugar, mixed with puff pastry bitts, on top of a smudge of raspberry jam, topped with vanilla ice cream.
He himself took the dishes to the guests and had breakfast with them.
He said to me that I was a good help and thanked me, (that's good, I presume).
And that's the story of one Chef Koschina's special breakfast...
(I hope that it is ok to use your pic here Chef...)
Fruit is the very best thing that you can start your breakfast with.
Simple orange juice, freshly hand squeezed, does wonders to your day, for example.
One simple apple, eaten fresh, is a nature's miracle.
Make a red fruits fruit salad, and add some cold sweet jasmin scented green tea.
A tropical fruits salad and add orange peckoe water and honey, that's wonderfull...
Grapes, pinneapple, sweet mangoes, strawberries, raspberries and yoguhrt.
Use lime juice drops on top of your mangoes and ripe papayas.
Just before eating a piece of juicy melon, press with your fork on a lemon rind, just the yellow bit, and then using the same fork, pick a bit of melon and eat... it takes you to a new dimension... my grandmather's Bia trick, she was a wonderfull cook and grandmother too.
And fresh figgs.... fresh from the tree, picked up early morning still wet and fresh...
Sweet peaches, water mellon sliced bits, dark sweet plums and so many others.
Cook your breakfast, be happy all day...
