Day 4 of Light and Natural Cooking

Day 4 of Light and Natural Cooking leads us to Desserts! Of course these are nothing compared to the Pastry stuff. But it's quick and relatively easy to put together restaurant desserts.

Yes yes, it's another workshop again. 1 to 1 with chef! And 5 desserts! Lol, I'm getting more bang for my bucks now!

The first you see, is a pan roasted pear (cut in 'pyramid' to have even golden coloration) in a pool of caramel cream (from reduced fat cream).

Here, you will ask, if the cream has less than 30% fat content, one will not succeed in whipping it! That is true! That is why, the caramel cream was placed into a siphon and pressed out right, nice and moussy!! So, here's another advantage of the siphon!

Next is a Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar, Yoghurt with Spice.

We made the yoghurt 2 days ago. It's really simple and delicious! Basically, you bring milk to 42C, not more, and at 38C, add some store-bought

yoghurt and milk powder, let it cool and place in little jars/pots, and place them into a yoghurt-maker (it's like an incubator) which will keep it at a warm temperature overnight, for the beneficial bacteria to grow.

After the overnight incubation, let it cool gradually, before sealing the jars, and place them into a fridge. The first day was a 'drinking yoghurt' consistency, the longer you leave it to mature, the thicker it will become.

Next is French Toast with Wine and Coconut Cream. Red wine and spices are reduced to a nice syrup, day-old bread immersed in it, and topped with some light cream moistened coconut flakes.

These are mini-bananas served with a light flan. That means no egg yolks which are normally in regular flans. We use the eggwhites only, and frankly, it taste like a cooked meringue. I prefer the real flan anytime.

Last but not least, are Duo of Mango and Pineaple, sauteed, and served with yoghurt and Fromage Blanc cream. Looks like a square pineapple!

See you next week for Modern Star Cuisine!!

A Macaroon Diversion

Yes, macaroons!! Again!  This is the second time we made the little bite size macaroons, but this time with a slight difference in technique - we used Italian meringue instead of the traditional French meringue, and end result is that it holds its shape better and removing from the baking sheet is a piece of cake.  The large macaroon 'cake' we made earlier this month was also from the same technique.  

What's so special about macaroons, those who are not initiated, would ask, it's just ground almonds, sugar and egg white?  Or is it...?  There's a lot of care and preparation that goes into its fabrication and nothing less than love, one for its pure divine taste, and two for perfection, can one really succeed....  Of course, putting the fairy tale book down, you will need a good pastry kitchen, well-controlled humidity and room temperature, a good oven, a good hand and a good eye in the techniques required. 

As you bite into a (good!) macaroon, your teeth meet some resistance on the shell, which snaps and gives way completely to a soft crumbly, moist centre.  While grains of ground almonds play on your tongue, you slowly begin to pick up the flavors.  Cool, palatable, fruity, exotic, well-balanced.  Sometimes sweet, sometimes a bright flash of citrus, but always well-controlled, poised, elegant, much like the two berets of macaroon biscuits pieced together in total equilibrium.

I made those in the first picture, chocolate macaroons with a variety of fillings - a) chestnut cream b) banana chocolate, and c) milk choc with orange.  All with a light 'swish' of gold dust.

And I will be happy to try (again!) to reproduce them in Rumia.  

Current trend is to try out different shapes and sizes of macaroon and different style of presentations.  But classic still holds its grounds.

Also in petit-fours, last week, we made some bite size miniardises - choux with ginger lemon cream, green apple 'jelly', cheese mini-cakes, and soft almond mini cakes with passionfruit mango gel centre.

But still, nothing like macaroons.... of course!

Cuisine Week 2

I have a break on (most) Wednesdays this term.  Take the opportunity to upload more regularly. 

Dessert:  Baked bananas in its skin, with red fruits sauce and banana sorbert.

Starter:  Foie gras flan with morel sauce and herb salad.

Main:  Hake fish wrapped in parma ham and grilled baby eggplants, side of olives and fava beans with turned carrots/celeriac root/zucchini, sauce fresh tomato and olive oil with herbs.  You will see 2 platings here, the one with a more yellow background (landscape) is the chef's demo, the (portrait) one with dots of sauce is my dish served to the chef.  

Continuation:  We looked at a creamy pumpkin soup with truffles and smoked duck breasts; main:  pot-au-feu of monkfish in a herb butter sauce.  The photo with the snowpeas radiating outwards on a dish is chef's, mine was a centralised plating with 2 'discs' of chopped herbs at opposite corners.  Dessert:  Liquorice flavoured panna cotta with some crunchy sugar studded choux allumettes! 

First of Pastry (Superieur)

We started classes mid-week, as such, we only had 1 lesson so far, and thus few photos.  It seems we always start the term with 'travelling' cakes - sort of pound cakes that you can bring along, as opposed to mousses and cream which looks pretty, and will never survive out of the house.  

The first, a chestnut cake, and on the right, a carrot cake topped with mini panna cotta whose centre is filled with apricot jelly - looks like a mini fried egg, yeah - cute.  For practical, we made some tube cakes, filled with strawberry mousse with a coating of banana compote inside; next are florentins (sticky almond cookies) half covered with choc.  Simple, to start us off.... it will soon be a lot of heat (for sugarworks), and stress (chocolate showpiece) and the finale of our very own creation of a cake!