Seri Muka

Seri Muka

This is one of my favorite nyonya kueh.  I got this recipe from Nyonya Flavours Cookbook.

Ingredients:
White Base Layer
250 gm glutinous rice, soaked overnight
250 ml coconut milk
3/4 tsp salt
2 pandan leaves

Green Top Layer
12 big pandan leaves, sliced finely
100 ml water
1 tsp alkaline water

Syrup
200 gm sugar
100 ml water

6 grade A eggs
30 gm custard powder (Lazy cook uses 30 gm corn flour and 1 tsp vanilla essence instead)
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp tapioca flour
300 ml thick coconut milk

Method :
Drain the glutionous rice and put it into a 20 cm (8") square tray.  Mix the thin coconut milk with the salt and add to the rice.  Place 2 pandan leaves on top. ( The coconut milk is extracted from 1 grated coconut by adding sufficient water.)  Lazy cook used 400ml can coconut milk, keep 300 ml for the top layer and add 150 ml to 100 ml coconut milk and add salt.  Lazy cook do not use pandan leaves as cannot find in my French kampong!
Steam the rice layer for 20 minutes.  While steaming the bottom layer, prepare the top layer.
Place the pandan leaves and water in an electric blender and pulse for a few seconds.  Squeeze the pandan pulp through a strainer into a bowl to collect the juice.Stir the alkaline water into the juice.  Set aside.  As cannot find pandan leaves in France, Lazy cook uses pandan emulco that I brought back from Malaysia. The first time Lazy cook made this without pandan emulco only add colouring.  If don't have alkaline water, just leave it out only thing is don't have the springy top.
Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a pot.  Stir to dissolve the sugar.  Remove from heat and cool.  Since Lazy cook don't squeeze the pandan juice the 100 ml water from the pandan juice is added here.
Break the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat lightly with a whisk.  Stir in the sugar syrup.  Mix the corn flour (about 2 tbsp) and 1 tsp vanilla essence, flour, tapioca flour and thick coconut milk, and add to the egg mix.  Since lazy cook uses pandan emulco, I add this into the mix instead of the pandan juice, add the alkaline water and green colouring if needed, stir to blend and strain to get rid of any lumps.  Pour the mixture into a pot and cook over low heat, whisking continuously.  When the mixture thickens remove from heat.
Remove the steam layer from oven and pour the green mixture on top of the rice layer.  Steam for another 20 minutes
Cool the kueh for at least 2 hours before serving.

Seri Muka

Macarons au caramel au beurre salé (Salted butter caramel macaroons)

Salted butter caramel macaroons

I love macaroons and it is so expensive to buy them and on top of that, sometimes not so good.  This recipe is from Cyril Lignac, a French Chef.

Ingredients :
For the macaroons
2 egg white (80 gm)
60 gm caster sugar
yellow coloring
salt
120 gm icing sugar
80 gm almond powder
8 gm unsweetened cocoa powder

For the salted butter caramel
50 gm caster sugar
20 gm salted  butter
100 ml double cream

Mix together the icing sugar, almond powder and cocoa powder.  Sieve the mix into a bowl, the large pieces of almond powder that cannot pass through the sieve, keep for other use.
Beat the egg white till firm, this may take up to 10 minutes on high speed. Add the yellow color and sugar and continue to beat till firm.  Add the egg white into the bowl with the icing sugar mix, and with the aid of a spatula, incorporate delicately into the pastry from bottom to up. This may take up to 50 fold, until a smooth pastry.  Do not overwork the pastry otherwise the egg white would be flat.
With the aid of a piping bag, pipe small balls of pastry on parchment paper, well spaced.  Leave to rest for 1 hour.  This is to aid the forming of a layer of crust around the macaroons.

Macaroons resting before baking

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C.  Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

After baking

During baking time prepare the caramel.  Heat the sugar in a pot on low heat without stirring, until caramelise. Add the butter, then the double cream, mix on high speed with a whisk to get rid of the lumps. When the preparation is homogeneous, continue to cook for a further 5 minutes and remove from heat.  Place the caramel in a bowl to cool.

Salted butter caramel

Garnish a macaroon shell with the salted butter caramel and place another macaroon shell on top. Assemble the rest of the macaroon shell.  Makes about 20 macaroons.

Tarte Tatin II

Tarte Tatin

This version of Tarte Tatin is taken from a French cookbook and modified to make it easier,  this is how I do my Tarte Tatin!

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Roll out one pate brisee, or pate feuillette and cut them to the size of the tart dish.

Prepare the apples, I use half green and half red apples, you can use all green, but I find the mix green/red tastes better!  Peel, core and cut into 8 pieces, depends on the size of the apples, for a tart dish of 28 cm, I use between 9 - 12 apples. Squeeze a lemon onto the apples to prevent them from turning brown.

For the caramel ~ In a pot, melt 70 gm unsalted butter , 4 tbsp brown sugar and 3 tbsp sugar.  You can use only white sugar instead of brown but taste is not so good!

In the meantime, prepare the flour mix.  In a bowl mix, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp flour and 1 tsp cinnamon powder.  You can use only white sugar for this too!

First layer of apples with the flour mix in a bowl

Line the tarte dish with parchment paper, pour the caramel into the dish.  The best part of doing this caramel is don't have to wait for the sugar to turn brown if you use brown sugar.  Arrange a layer of apples on the dish, sprinkle 2/3 of the flour mix onto the first layer of apples, arrange the rest of the apples, then sprinkle the rest of the flour mix.

Ready for the oven

Bake in the oven at 180°C for 20 minutes.  Place the pate brisee or pate feuillette over the apples  and continue to bake for another 20 minutes at 200°C.

Remove from the oven and cool before removing from the tart dish.  Best serve with vanilla ice cream.

Tomate Farcie (Stuffed Tomatoes)

Tomate Farcie

In France, they love to stuff everything from vegetables to meat!  When I arrived here, I don't understand much French and one day I bought some stuffed veal, thinking that it is quite cheap, after roasting the veal, discovered that the veal is acutally stuffed!

When I was doing this stuffed tomatoes, my mind got transported back to Malaysia, yes, it's yong tau foo!   Here is the recipe from Cyril Lignac, a French celebrity chef!

Ingredients :
6 large tomatoes
350 gm sausage meat
3 shallots, chopped
3 stems of parsley, remove stem and roughly chopped
2 garlic, chopped
1 egg
50 ml milk
2 slice of overnight bread
1 bouquet garni
salt and pepper

Method :
1.  Wash and dry the tomatoes. Cut a hat and put aside, remove the seeds from the tomatoes and lightly salt the inside of the tomatoes and set aside.  Reserve the inside of the tomatoes.
2.  Heat the oven to 150°C.  Soak the bread in the milk and break them up, then add the sausage meat.  In France, this is sold like minced meat, when I first arrived I bought it to cook some Chinese style soup, yucky! Add the rest of the ingredients, the garlic, the shallots, the parsley, the egg, salt and pepper. Mix well.
3.  Use a fork to prick the inside of the tomates before adding the filing.  Place them on baking pan, leave the tomato hat on the side of the stuffed tomatoes.  Mix a cup of water with the inside of the tomatoes that was set aside in 1 above.  Add the bouquet garni and pour them into the baking pan.  Put in the oven for 45 minutes, baste regularly with the roasting juice. Remove from oven and serve immediately.

Lazy cook does not reserve the hat on the tomatoes but cut the tomatoes in half so that it looks like more, here is the picture of one done!

Before roasting

Tarte Poire Bourdaloue (Pear Almond Tart)

Poire Bordaloue 

French have a love affair with tarts and custards, this tart is a combination of both and the addition of almond makes it so heavenly.  This recipe is from Chef Cyril Lignac, a famous French chef, why not?

Ingredients :
250 gm pâte brisée http://zhelazycook.blogspot.com/2011/01/pate-brisee-short-crust-pastry.html
3-4 pear or a can of pear in syrup
500 ml milk
3 egg yolk
100 gm sugar
30 gm all purpose flour
75 gm almond powder
1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla essence

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
Roll out the patê brisée onto a tart pan, chill.
Cut the vanilla pod into 2, remove the seeds and place them with the milk. Place the milk in a pot, heat it over slow fire.  In the meantime, whisk the egg yolk with the sugar till pale. Add the flour, continue to whisk till combine.  If you are using vanilla essence instead of vanilla pot, you can add it now. Add the warm milk into the egg mix.  Do not boil the milk because it might cook the egg mix. Mix well, then transfer the mix back to the pot.  Whisk over slow fire till thicken to custard like.  Turn off the heat and add the almond powder.  Let cool.
Once cool, pour the custard over the patê brisée.  Lazy cook don't pre-cook the pâte brisée.

Custard onto pâte brisée

Place the pears onto the custard.  Lazy cook uses the can pears. Put it in the oven at 200°C for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let it cool.  Best easten slightly chilled.

Tarte Bourdaloue before putting in the oven

Pear Bordaloue after cooking

Banana Cheesecake

In Malaysia, normally when we have cheesecake it's made with Digestive biscuit as the base and Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  When I first arrived in France, I could not find any of those cream cheese, and to make cheese cake the cream cheese they use to replace the Philadelphia Cream Cheese is St Moret.
France is known to be land of many cheeses, I've discovered that the French make their cheese cake with cheeses available around the region.  It is not so creamy, and not so sinful eating them!
I have a banana left sitting in the kitchen, so I have chosen this Banana Cheesecake recipe, the recipe is for 4 person.
Ingredients:
125 gm speculoos (belgian cookie spiced with cinnamon)
60 gm butter, softened
1 ripe banana, sliced
2 eggs, separated
1 packet vanilla sugar
30 gm sugar
150 gm ricotta cheese
125 gm natural yoghurt/ fromage blanc

Pre-heat the oven at 150°C.
In a bowl, combine the speculoos crumbs with the softened butter. Press the crumbs onto the base of a greased 6 inch springfoam pan. Refrigerate while making the cheese mix.
Whisk the egg yolk, then add the sugar, if you don't have vanilla sugar just additional 10 gm sugar with a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Whisk till pale,  then add ricotta and yoghurt.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white, with a pinch of salt,  till stiff.  Fold the egg white into the cheese mix.  Arrange the bananas onto the speculoos crumbs, then pour the cheese mix on top of the banana on the speculoos crumbs.  Bake for 40 - 45 minutes.
Cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
To serve, topped with honey.

Banana cheesecake

L'île Flottante

L'ile flottante

L'île flottante is a simple French Dessert, in English it's Floating Island and it's actually meringue served with creme anglaise and topped with caramel.  I normally buy the creme anglaise and caramel so only need to do the meringue only.  For every egg white, I add a tablespoon of sugar.  I use about 2 cups of egg white and add about 8 tablespoon of sugar and beat the egg white till stiff, then I placed the egg white into a baking pan and bake at 100°C for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, let it cool then place in the fridge for at least 4 hours.  Cut them to the size that you want to serve and place them in a bowl, pour the creme anglaise around the meringue and topped with caramel.

Meringue