Pancakes

I use to buy pancake mix because we all love pancakes.  Then arrive in France and cannot find the mix that I use when I was in Malaysia.  So I search the web and found this recipe which is fairly easy from Chef In You website.

Ingredients :

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp melted butter

I don't have the measuring cup, all I use is a normal teacup and it works well.  Mix the flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisk in the milk, then the egg whites, vanilla essence, honey and butter.  Don't need to rest, can cook immediately in a pan.  Heat a frying pan and butter the pan, then place 2 tbsp pancake batter and cook on both sides.  I make about 10 nos.

Yummy breakfast served with pancake syrup.  The best part is can freeze the balance for later urge!

Terrine de Foie Gras (Duck Liver Terrine)

Duck Liver served with salad, smoked duck breast and raisins in champagne vinaigrette, yummy!!!

Foie Gras, in English is Goose Liver.  I am doing Duck Liver Terrine, it is fairly simple, I am doing 2 Duck Liver, one weighing about 600 gms, that is a big liver and poor duck have to carry so much weight so we can enjoy this delicacy.

Raw Duck Liver

Leave in room temperature for about an hour, then remove the veins.

Veins from the Duck Liver

Marinate the duck liver with salt, sugar, pepper and I marinate with port/brandy mix.  The alcohol mix should be 100 ml for every 100 gm.  My mix is 1000 ml port and 300 ml brandy as my duck liver weighs about 1.3 kg.  You can use Sauternes (sweet Bordeaux white wine) instead.

Duck Liver marinated

Put a cling film and leave in the fridge overnight.  The following day, place the duck liver in a terrine, compress as much as possible.  I don't have a cover for my terrine dish, so I cover with a aluminium foil.  Place them on a bain-marie, and in the oven at 150°C for 45 minutes.

Duck Liver in Terrine Dish

In Bain Marie ready for oven

Duck Liver after cooking in oven

Remove the oil and place them in a ramekin, I use another terrine dish and place some weight on the terrine to compress the terrine.  My weight is the oil I remove from the terrine.

Duck Liver Terrine with weights

Leave it for a few hours, them remove, and I add the oil back to the terrine and place them in the fridge for at least 2 days before removing from the terrine and serve.

Duck Liver terrine ready to serve

Roast Chicken

Roast chicken, yummmmmmmy!

This is the first mat saleh (white man) food I learnt to cook after I got married to a Frenchman.  My mother-in-law showed me how to do it and a few mat saleh friends.  I learnt to cook Roast Chicken because everytime we get invited to any dinner with mat saleh friends, it is always always Roast Chicken.  My roast chicken has come a long way since I first started cooking roast chicken.  Since I am a fan of kay tooi (chicken drumstick), I now only cook roast chicken drumstick, very lazy.  I end up cooking only the drumstick because a whole chicken takes forever to cook and have to check them every now and then, and I hate the most is having to cut up the chicken before serving, it's such a MESS!

Today, I have 8 people eating so I cook 8 chicken drumstick, so easy, no need to fight over the chicken all same all fair.  I normally buy 5 kgs of frozen chicken drumstick and just have to de-frost the exact amount I need.   I cook chicken drumstick for all my curries too!

Marinate the chicken with oregano, thyme, tarragon, rosemary, salt and pepper.  Rub them with mustard and then olive oil.  If you don't have all the herbs just marinate with whatever you have.

Place the chicken drumsticks in a roasting pan.  Today I feel like having chicken soup with potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes and garlic.  So I topped the chicken with about 5 medium size potatoes, 2 medium size carrots, 1 onions, 3 tomatoes and 5 garlics.  All peeled and cut into bite sizes.  Then I add about 6 cups of chicken stock, only a bit of the chicken are exposed after adding all the above.  I forgot to take a picture, sorry....

You can add whatever root vegetable you like, some people add apples, chestnuts, bacon, the list goes on... and you can add less chicken stock or just plain water.  I add a lot of water because lazy cook don't have to turn the chicken all the time, just leave them in the oven at 160°C for 45 minutes, no need to peek, no need to check, just remove from the oven after 45 minutes.  I always cook the chicken early and when time to serve I remove the chicken from the soup and roast them at 190°C for a further 10 minutes, together with  the soup seperately in the oven.

Chicken soup with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions and garlic

Roast chicken separate from the potatoes for final roasting

Chicken all ready to be served with potatoes, carrots, so easy, no sweat at all, no mess!

Tarte Tatin

Success!! Tarte Tatin

A popular dessert in French and I finally got it right!  I love this dessert and it is expensive to buy but so cheap to make, fairly easy once you get the correct recipe.  I have failed so many times till I found this recipe in Taste of Home website.

Ingredients :

1 cup sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
6 apples, peeled, cored & sliced into 12 slices
1 tbsp unsalted butter
pâte brisee (http://zhelazycook.blogspot.com/2011/01/pate-brisee-short-crust-pastry.html) or pâte feuilletée

Start the oven at 200°C.

Roll out the short crust pastry to the size of the pie dish.  Keep in the fridge for later use. I use an 11 inch pie dish. Line the pie dish with parchment paper, this step is important cos the tarte tatin would come out beautiful and no need to dig out from the pie dish!

Pie dish lined with parchment paper

Peel and cut the apples and squeeze a lemon into the apples to prevent it from turning brown.

Apples

Combine 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon and flour (flour mix).

In a small skillet, heat 3/4 cup of sugar with about a tbsp water, do not use any spoon, just move the skillet around till the sugar caramalised. You can add less water but because lazy cook is lousy in making caramel, I add a little more water. When the sugar is golden in colour pour it onto the pie dish, it doesn't matter if the sugar does not fill up the dish.  Lay the apples in the pie dish, top with the flour mix and layer the rest of the apples, dot it with butter.  Can see from my picture, lazy cook style of layering the apples, in Penang, we say kalam kabut, in English would be freestyle!

Before topping the pastry

This time I have some Puff Pastry leftover, so I use Puff Pastry, normally I prefer Short Crust Pastry, cos Puff Pastry have their moods!

Ready for oven

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Straight out from the oven, so ugly!

Let it cool for about 2 hours before turning them over.  I let mine cool for about 4 hours and whar lar.....

Pâte Brisée (Short Crust Pastry)

Puff Pastry ready to freeze

In French cooking, they use a lot of Pâte Brisée and Pâte Feuilletée (Puff Pastry). Lazy cook buys the Puff Pastry, but for the short crust pastry, I normally make a batch of 3 and freeze them.

Ingredients :
500 gm all purpose flour
6 gm salt
250 gm unsalted butter, softened
10 cl cold water

Mix the salt to the flour, then add the butter till it becomes like bread crumbs.

Flour and butter mix

Add water and combine. Let it sit for at least an hour.  Then I make this into 3 portions and put them in the freezer for later use.

Kangaroo steak in red wine butter sauce

This is not for the faint hearted!  I served this to my customers and one of them throw up, and he is French, suppose to eat all kinds of red meat. Then hubby joked, Skippy the Kangaroo!

I bought this kangaroo steak frozen, so after defrosting I marinate with salt, pepper and olive oil and let it sit in room temperature for about 10 minutes.  Then over very hot pan, sear the meat on both sides, cook between 3-5 minutes on each side, depends on the thickness of the meat. Then wrap the steak in aluminium foil to keep warm  for about 10 minutes.  I serve this with Red Wine Butter Sauce ( http://zhelazycook.blogspot.com/2011/01/red-butter-sauce.html)

Kangaroo steak in red butter sauce

Red Wine Butter Sauce

This sauce goes very well with red meat.  It is easy to make and in a French kitchen all the ingredients are available.  Wine is cheap here and I just love to cook with wine.

Ingredients :
1/2 cup red wine
1 tbsp minced shallots
1/4 cup double cream
100 gm butter, cut into 8-10 cubes

In a saucepan, reduce the red wine in shallots till the wine is almost absorbed.  Add cream and reduce until syrupy consistency about half volume.  Remove from heat and whisk in the butter a little at a time.  Keep warm over boiling water, while you prepare the red meat.