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!!

Beef cheeks, Duck breasts, and "Hello Kitty!" sugar

In Cuisine this week:

a)  Starters:  1)  White fish ceviche guacamole.  b) Marinated herring mixed with cream and caviar, served in little cucumber cups.

b)  Mains:  1) Duck breasts baked in salt crust dough, vegetable "tagliatelle" and crispy potatoes.  2)  Beef cheeks "Miroton" style with cumin carrots and stuffed turnip

The duck breasts came out nice and rosé, perfumed and flavoured by coarse sea salt dough studded with chopped herbs.  It was also a delight to crunch into the wafer thin potatoes!

The beef cheek stew is a rather traditional dish, the meat was so tender by the end of our 3 hr class, nicely gelatinous in the middle, flavoured with red wine and herbs, sliced and breaded with light herb seasoning.  Very heart warming when you bite into a piece.  Also, an ingenious way to serve turnip in cups filled with mushroom duxelles and ham.

C)  Dessert:  Warm strawberry soup flavoured with ginger, served with yoghurt sorbert (made during class, of cos')  2) Light tiramisu-style mousse and sugared raspberries.

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!

Pastry: Mousses and chocolates

Out of the cakes and pastries below, Rus who visited for 3 days this week, had the pleasure of tasting the Douceur Chocolat, base: hazelnut dacquoise (sponge) with creamy choc mousse, a crunchy choc disc balanced in between, another layer of choc mousse and another choc disc with deco.  Sorry guys and girls.... this could not be brought home, it would have melted.  I hope the chocolate pieces will be satisfactory.  We did a lot of chocolate this week....

Every tried 'creme brulee' on a vanilla/choc mousse cake?  

The last pic you see, is a coconut mousse sandwiched with choc joconde, and topped with mango-passion fruit mousse, aptly called Jamaica.

Cakes!! Give me cakes!! - Marjorie from "Little Britain"

It's easy to see why the Fat Fighters are so crazy about cakes, it's pleasing to the eye as to the tongue, not many pleasures in life give you that.... 

I have submitted my post on the Opera cake in the other blog, so here, we have, a Jamaica: mango - passion fruit mousse on thin layer of choc sponge filled with coconut mousse with rum pineapples.
We have Royal Chocolat - soft smooth choc mousse cake with a crunchy layer in between, very delicious.   We also have a Lemon chocolate mousse cake, and a vanilla/chocolate 'buttercake' lined with roasted almonds.  A small dessert from Cuisine: Strawberries in Red Wine "Soupe".

Sweet endings...

The last practical for pastry for the week was a very simple chocolate lava cake with a mousse and coconut ice cream, but the important point was to test our plating.  (Mine is on the grey marble).  We also made a strawberry cake (fraisier), which I believe most people incorrectly label it as a strawberry shortcake, in fact there's nothing 'short' about it at all ('short' meaning a heavy butter-based crisp, crunchy e.g. shortbread biscuits, tartshells).  This is just a plain and simple sponge with mousseline cream and fresh sweet strawberries.   The green layer on top is marzipan, edible of course!

For cuisine, we deboned a fish (while keeping it whole!) and stuff it with mushroom duxelles, we made an easter pâté in puff pastry (with lotsa eggs!  Doesn't it look like a SG 'steamed meat bun??), typical of Le Berry region of France, lastly, cod (real cod!) panfried, served with flemish-style red cabbage and beer jus vinaigrette.

Other dishes on demo, was a 'belgium pizza' - flammenkuchen, potjevelesch (a sort of jellified cold dish with various meat in it, it reminds me of some chinese cold appertiser), rooster in red wine finished with sauce thickened with fresh pig's blood.  2 plated desserts: mirabelle parfait, and caramel chibouste with speculoos (a type of thin spice cookie), and le poirat - pear tart.