Flan Patissier (French Flan)

Flan

My first time to France, I was introduced to this dessert and fell in love with it.  This happen to be hubby's favorite dessert.  I looked through and tried many recipes till I found this recipe in a French Website, Journal de Femme.

Ingredients:
Pate Brisee
3 eggs
100 gm corn flour
3 tbsp vanilla extract

1 liter milk
160 gm sugar
2 packet vanilla sugar

Method:
1.  Roll out the pate brisee (short crust pastry) onto a baking pan about 9". Place them in the fridge and prepare the flan.
2.  Beat the eggs, corn flour and vanilla extract in a bowl.  (Lazy Cook does not use vanilla extract, I use vanilla beans instead).  If the mixture is too thick add a little bit of the 1 liter milk.
3.  Bring to slow boil the balance of the milk and sugar. Since I do not use the vanilla sugar, I add half the beans from the vanilla beans.
4.  Remove the milk mixture from fire and add them into the egg mixture.  Mix well and return the mix into the pot and stir over slow fire till thickens.
5.  Pour the mixture onto the pate brisee.
6.  Since I do not pre-cook my pate brisee, I bake the flan at 200°C for 10 minutes then lower it to 180°C and continue to bake for 30 minutes.

Ready for the oven

7.  Remove from oven and cool.  I love my flan cold so I put in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. Enjoy!

Brownie Cheesecake

Brownie Cheesecake

Ingredients:
Chocolate Brownie
120 gm chocolate
100 gm butter
100 gm brown sugar
2 eggs
40 gm all purpose flour
Cheesecake
200 gm St Moret cheese/Philadelphia cream cheese
1 egg
50 gm sugar
1 tbsp flour

Method:
1.  Preheat the oven to 150°C.
2.  Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave.  Add the brown sugar, then the egg, one at a time. Once combined, add the flour to obtain a smooth batter.
3.  Mix the cream cheese with the egg, then add the sugar.  Once combined, add the flour to obtain a smooth batter.
4.  In a buttered pan, add 3/4 chocolate brownie batter, then the cheese batter.  Finish with the balance of the brownie batter.
5.  Bake for 30 minutes.
6.  Remove from the oven and let it cool.  Once cool refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Brownie Cheesecake 

Char Kway Kak (Fried Radish Cake)

Char Kway Kak

Rice Cake (yields about 800 gm rice cake)
Ingredients :
300 gm rice flour
75 gm tapioca flour
1 litre water
1 tsp salt

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl to form a smooth batter.  Strain into a wok or saucepan and cook over low to medium heat, stirring until thickened.
Pour into a greased tray to a height of 4 cm.  Steam over rapidly boiling water for 20 minutes  Remove from heat and set aside to cool at room temperature for 6 hours or until cake has set firmly.

Rice cake, cut ready for the wok

Ingredients for Char Kway Kak:
400 gm rice cake cut into 2 cm cubes
1 large clove garlic, chopped
3 tsp chopped preserved radish (chai poh)
2 1/2 tsp chilli paste or to taste
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/4 tsp chicken stock granules (optional)
2 large eggs
150 gm beansprouts
50 gm Chinese chives
1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Heat a tablespoon of oil and pan-fry rice cake over high heat until lightly browned (about 1 minute).  Set aside.
In the same wok; heat a little more oil to fry the garlic and preserved radish until fragrant.  Add the chilli paste and saute for 20 seconds, stirring continuously until chilli is aromatic.
Add the radish cake and the combined seasonings of light and dark soy sauce and chicken stock granules. Stir to coat well.
Push the cake to one side and crack in the eggs.  Stir to scramble the eggs.  Add the beansprouts and chives, season with pepper and stir everything together for a few seconds before dishing out.  Serve hot.

Lazy cook does not have the chai poh and Chinese chives, so she does not add those in. Lazy cook also do not like chicken stock so did not add it in too.   Woala.... dinner is served!

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