Feeling Crabby??

Try an easy quiche recipe!

Quiche au crabe

* 1 round puff pastry or other pie dough
* 1 tablespoon butter
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 2 cups sliced leeks (approximately 2 medium sized leeks)
* 2 x 225g cans canned crab meat, drained
* 85g shredded cheese - Gruyère, Emmental, or Swiss
* 4 large eggs
* 1 1/2 cups crème fraiche (or substitute whipping cream, half and half, or
   part milk)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/8 teaspoon pepper


1.     Begin by blind baking the crust. Line a 10 inch tart pan with the pastry dough, pushing it firmly to
        the bottom and sides. Prick in several dozen places with the tines of a fork. Place the crust in the
        freezer for at least 20 minutes. When it is well chilled, place the crust in a preheated oven
        (200°C/400°F) to bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool before adding other
        ingredients.

2.     Melt the butter and oil in a medium sized skillet on low-medium heat. Add the leeks and cook
        until the leeks are soft (about 10 minutes), stirring frequently. Don't brown the leeks. Stir in the
        drained crab meat and remove skillet from heat.

3.     Whisk together the eggs, crème fraîche (or substitute), and salt and pepper until combined.

4.     Spread the cooked leeks and crab in the bottom of the baked tart shell. Sprinkle with cheese, then
        pour in the egg mixture.

        Bake in 200°C/400°F oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serves 6

Tamara's Chocolate Challenge!!

Design your own chocolate bar with chocri

chocri is a German company, founded in September 2008, but launched in the US in January 2010. What they do is allow you to customise your own chocolate bar on their website. You get to choose a base chocolate of either white, dark, milk, or a milk and white combination, and then choose your favourite toppings from the five categories – fruit, nuts, spices, confections, grains and decorations. There are more than 100 toppings to choose from. For example banana chips, blueberries, papaya cubes, nougat pieces, gummy bears, but they can also be real gold flakes, bourbon vanilla, orange pepper, pretzel, chive rolls, jalapenos... you name it! They hand-make the bars in Germany, and ship them to you.

So now my challenge, set by Chef Eric here at Cook’n with Class is to design the most delectable sweet chocolate bar and the craziest savoury chocolate bar there ever was that is still also extremely delicious and has you craving for more more more!!!

I have decided to take on a Thai theme for my savoury chocolate. Flavours of the world, who can go wrong with that?

For this chocolate I have chosen to go with the dark variety. Dark chocolate and savoury flavours normally complement each other quite well. So my first ingredient is basil. Sounds strange I know but hopefully it will bring a nice zest to the chocolate. I have added orange pepper which will bring a mix of black pepper and citrus flavours. Lastly to complete this oriental themed chocolate, I have added coconut shavings and cashews to add some different textures.

Now for my sweet chocolate bar my theme will be one my favourite movies (and jewellery brand) Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I have chosen to use the traditional milk chocolate. Being a girl, I decided to head straight for the decorations and chose the silver pearls. Afterall who wouldn’t want to be at breakfast without their finest jewellery on? Secondly I have chosen ground coffee beans. No breakfast would be complete without that cup of coffee in the morning! My third ingredient is organic muesli flakes but who can forget that glass of healthy OJ, so I have added some orange pieces to the mix. Lastly breakfast wouldn’t be complete without that lovely bunch of flowers on the table. So I have chosen to add pink sweet candied lilacs.

Now time to place that order! You are asked to name your creation and they will print it on the packaging for you. So appropriately named, my masterpieces are called Tamara’s Thai Delight and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The big day…

A squeal of delight was heard throughout the school when the chocri box finally arrived this morning. Only 11 days I must say since I ordered it, so I was quite impressed we didn’t have to wait too long for my creations.

The Verdict:

A little worried at first how the basil would taste in Tamara’s Thai Delight, but the flavour worked perfectly. The dark chocolate they used contains 72% cocoa so it tastes a little rich but very good. I don’t think they used enough of the orange pepper, we were waiting for that spicy kick. Otherwise my favourite ingredient in it was the coconut shavings. Highly recommended.

Overall this creation has been given a 7/10 by Chef Eric.

Now for my very girly creation, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The appearance looks so good I don’t want to open it! But I am very eager to try it. On first taste it was very crunchy because of the pearls, they were there obviously more for decoration than taste but added that touch of class to my creation. The flavours of the coffee lightly scattered throughout the chocolate and the big helping of the orange pieces worked so well together. Coffee and chocolate…a great combination. The muesli you couldn’t taste so much, but the small lilacs added that little bit of sweet candy flavour.

This creation is voted a 10/10 by all at Cook’n with Class.

I am very proud of my chocolate delights however they were not cheap to create. They would definitely be great as presents for people. Don’t be afraid to add any unusual toppings. They are not very strong in the chocolate and not scary at all. So get wild and crazy!

To make your own creations, visit their site at:

http://www.tata-paulette.com/ext/http://www.createmychocolate.com/

Tamara Ratnayake

Homemade Tomato Ketchup

Ingredients:

3 kilos of ripe tomatoes,

3 large red onions,

4 large cloves of garlic,

1 red pepper,

25 cl of apple cider vinegar,

150 g of light brown sugar,

3 teaspoons salt,

freshly ground black pepper,

3 cloves and other spices to add to your taste: cinnamon, coriander and fenugreek (powdered), Espelette pepper ...

Preparation:

First chop the onions and the garlic, wash and chop the peppers, wash, wipe and cut the tomatoes into quarters. 
Place in a heavy bottomed pot, cover and cook for half an hour on a medium heat.

Pass the tomatoes through a blender or use a food mill (fine grid), then put it back on the stove, add vinegar, salt and spices.

Don’t hesitate to taste the sauce as you cook it.

Simmer uncovered for one more hour or a little more, the ketchup needs to reduce by half and thicken. 

Then add sugar and cook for another twenty minutes. Purists will be careful to keep the glass Heinz bottles to fill them with their own ketchup☺

Others use jam jars or other containers hermetically sealed. Be sure to boil all the containers before filling them with your cold ketchup.


This ketchup is to keep cool and eat within three months.

Pistachio Financiers

Pistachio Financiers
(makes about 30 small financiers)

Ingredients:
180g/6oz ground almonds
180g/6oz all purpose flour
360g/12oz sugar
1 pinch of salt
180g/6oz room temperature unsalted butter
2 tablespoons pistachio paste
30g/1oz dark rum
2 tsp vanilla extract or seeds of 1 vanilla pod
180g/6oz of egg whites (about 6 eggs)
fruit or dried fruits or nuts (ex. cherries, dried figs, pistachios, pine nuts etc)

Procedure:

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F. Prepare some small moulds (financier moulds or small muffin tins) by brushing with butter first and then coating lightly with flour.

In a standup mixer add ground almonds, flour, sugar and salt. Mix with the paddle attachment to combine, then add the butter, cut into small chunks. Keep mixing at low speed until mixture resembles wet sand. In the meantime, in a separate bowl add rum and vanilla to the egg whites and beat with a whisk until a bit frothy. Set aside.

Add pistachio paste to the standup mixer bowl, let disperse evenly then add the flavoured egg whites and keep mixing at medium speed until batter is nice and smooth.

Transfer batter into a piping bag and fill the moulds. Top with fruit and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Top should be golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the financier should come out clean.

Let cool before unmoulding.

The Figaroscope Gourmet Award Winners

Each month the Figaroscope, a supplement of the French newspaper Figaro, anonymously surveys bakeries, pâtisseries, pizzerias, crêperies, brasseries, restaurants and bars to test, rate and class the best of Parisian gastronomy. If you've missed it, here in chronological order, are all the winners recently announced by Figaroscope!

The best burgers
What are these burgers really worth with so many price differences? For our test, we took into account three elements: the bread (artisanal and mass-produced), the meat (cooking, texture and flavour) and trimmings (salad, homemade fries or not ...). Of course, the price plays a role. The winner of the test is Scoop (1st arrondissement) beating PDG (6th arrondissement).

The best pain au chocolat
We tested one of children’s favourite pastries in twenty-five addresses in the capital. Pretty to the eye, pleasing to the nose, pleasant in the mouth, trust your first impression when you buy! It was an artisan bakery who won. Winner: the bakery Julien (1st arrondissement).

The best egg mayo
Fans of this bistro appetiser, this survey is for you! Twenty-three excellent addresses were tested on this classic bistro dish, even graduates of Asom - Association for the Protection of the Egg Mayonnaise. The winner is Voltaire (7th arrondissement).


The best baguette
At a time when the trend in baguettes is the "Tradition", we chose to test the ordinary baguette in twenty famous bakeries in Paris, with the help of baker Gontran Cherrier. We are proud to test this ordinary baguette because it is one of the most sold products. The winner is found in Jacques Bazin (12th arrondissement).


The best pizza Margherita
The Margherita pizza is one of the most popular pizzas in France. We tested the twenty best pizzerias in Paris: rive gauche institutions, trattorias in West Paris, and tiny pizzerias in the Martyrs Trudaine-Abbesses area and few extra ones recommended by "pizzavores". Two winners tied for the Napolitan speciality: the Bistrot Napolitan (8th arrondissement) and Pizza Chic (6th arrondissement).

The best wholemeal crepe
Twenty creperies were tested on a best-seller: the wholemeal savoury crepe filled with ham, egg and cheese. The winning creperie the Breizh Café (4th arrondissement), where you can taste "the alternative crepe" is a reflection of a new generation of crêperies, the opposite of rustic Brittany type.

The best flan
Finding a good flan is a challenge. We tested twenty from artisan bakers and patissieries under the supervision of the patissier Christophe Felder. Like a homemade dessert, the flan should be rustic and straightforward. A simple pleasure is to buy it at the right time because bakers are often sold out by the middle of the day. The winner was found at L'Autre Boulange (11th arrondissement).

The best lemon tart
A classic dessert is a favourite of the French. A good enough reason to try out these delicious creations. Twenty addresses and reputed pâtisserie offering lemon tarts all year round were tested with the help of pastry chef Christophe Felder. The winner is Carl Marletti (5th arrondissement).

The best mojito
A cocktail for young people? Not only. This is one of the most requested cocktails in all the bars in the capital no matter what age. All Mojitos are born from the same recipe (rum, sugar, fresh mint, lime, ice and soda water), the mojitos somewhat resemble identical twins: same genetic traits but can be different! Our favourite is from Hotel Costes (1st arrondissement).

The best millefeuille
The millefeuille is one of the classic French pastries. We have made a careful selection to keep only twenty addresses, some of the most famous of the capital. The two winners come from local pâtisseries owned by excellent artisans: Vandermeersch (12th arrondissement) and Pâtisserie de l’Eglise (20th arrondissement).

The best plate of seafood
We tested a standard plate for two, as commonly proposed (with oysters, shrimp, prawns, crab and shellfish ). We've selected a good fifteen seafood oriented establishments, including some iconic brasseries of Paris. The winner is the brasserie Jarrassé in Neuilly.

The best Paris-Brest
If the Paris-Brest is a classic French pastry, which celebrates its hundreth year, it is not so easy to find in the supermarkets! This test has covered ten addresses among the most famous of the capital who make them daily. Result: the winner is sophisticated and tasty (La Pâtisserie des Rêves) and a simple but delicious boulangerie (Boulangerie Bazin).

This article is from Figaro.

Chocolate Viennese Cookies

Ingredients: 

260g/9oz all purpose flour (T45 in France)
30g/1oz unsweetened cocoa powder, better if alkalized
250g/8.5oz soft butter
100g/3.5oz icing sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 egg whites at room temperature

Procedure: 

Preheat the oven at 180C/350F.

Whisk flour and cocoa together (sift if necessary), set aside.

Mix together salt and icing sugar, set aside.

In the bowl of a standup mixer fitted with the paddle attachment put in the soft butter and start at medium speed until fluffy. Add salt and sugar mixture and keep mixing until it is a smooth consistency. Whisk egg whites lightly and add to the mixer. Keep mixing until well incorporated, stop and scrape a few times to make sure there's no chunks of unmixed butter at the bottom of the bowl. Stop and gradually start incorporating the flour and cocoa mix by hand, with a spatula. Mix until well incorporated but avoid overworking the dough.

Prepare a pastry bag fitted with a star tip; fill it with the mixture (not all at once or it'll be hard to squeeze) and pipe on a tray lined with baking paper. Classic shape is a "W". To pipe rosettes keep the tip above the paper at about 1 cm and turn your hand as you pipe. When the desired amount of dough has been piped stop squeezing the bag and keep twisting until dough naturally detaches from the piped cookie.

Bake immediately for 10 minutes then transfer baked cookies on a cooling rack.

Candlemas (La Fête de la Chandeleur)

The French holiday, La Fête de la Chandeleur, or Candlemas, is celebrated on February 2nd, 40 days after the birth of Jesus. Originally a Pagan festival honoring the Roman god named Pan, revelers paraded with torches through the streets. In 472, the Pope decided to Christianize the holiday; it would mark the date that it is thought that Jesus would have been presented at the Temple for consecration. It is said at this occasion there was a meeting of Jesus, his parents Mary and Joseph, and those he would be presented to. For this reason, the festival is also called "Hypapante", in Greek ("The Meeting"). Since the festival was celebrated with a candlelit procession at mass, the holiday was also called "Candlemas."
Since the holiday commemorates Mary having offered a sacrifice as part of her purification ritual after the birth of her son, it is dedicated to her and some people refer to the holiday as "The Purification."

This holiday is called la Chandeleur, Fête de la Lumière, or crêpe day.

Not only do the French eat a lot of crêpes on Chandeleur, but they also do a bit of fortune telling while making them. It is traditional to hold a coin in your writing hand and a crêpe pan in the other, and flip the crêpe into the air. If you manage to catch the crêpe in the pan, your family will be prosperous for the rest of the year.

There are all kinds of French proverbs and sayings for Chandeleur; here are just a few. Note the similarities to the Groundhog Day predictions made in the US and Canada:

À la Chandeleur, l'hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur
On Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens

À la Chandeleur, le jour croît de deux heures
On Candlemas, the day grows by two hours

Chandeleur couverte, quarante jours de perte
Candlemas covered (in snow), forty days lost

Rosée à la Chandeleur, hiver à sa dernière heure
Dew on Candlemas, winter at its final hour

Crepes Recipe

This sublime French crepe recipe is guaranteed to please all!
Served with Nutella, or sweet fresh fruits… ice-cream, whipped cream… chocolate sauce.
We 'll all scream for more!

You can make these crepes in any basic frying pan. 7 or 8 inches works best. Or, better yet, with a handy crepe maker.
The basic batter recipe is just below, but if you want to skip right to the fillings, go ahead!

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: about 30 minutes


Ingredients (for about 15 crepes):
2 cups Flour
2 1/2 cups Whole Milk
4 Eggs
2 tbsp. Butter (melted)
Pinch of Salt
1/2 Vanilla Stalk or Few Drops Vanilla Extract (optional)
Vegetable Oil (for pan)

How to Prepare Batter:

1. Sift flour and mix with salt in a bowl.
2. Make a well and pour in eggs. Stir well.
3. Slowly pour in milk while stirring. Keep stirring batter until small bubbles form on the surface.
4. Stir in Butter.
Voilà!

NB: The batter does not need to stand before using it. However, if you do let it stand, you will most likely want to add 1 tbsp. of water before cooking with it. General rule of thumb: if it seems thicker than cream, add a little more water, and/or a little more milk.

How to Prepare the Crepes:

1. Pour a little vegetable oil on a folded paper towel, and wipe the pan evenly. Keep paper towel at hand while preparing crepes, in case you want to give it another wipe.
2. Pour in 2 - 3 tbsp. of batter and quickly move the pan around, so that batter spreads evenly, covering the whole surface with a thin layer.
3. Let it cook for about 1 minute. Then, flip with a metal spatula, and cook other side for about 30 seconds.

Repeat these steps until you are out of batter, stacking cooked crepes on a plate. Yum!

Make your own Nutella it’s that simple and so good…

Try something new…Make your Own Nutella...
Nutella is a Chocolate-hazelnut spread. The kind of thing to me, which is like peanut butter or macaroni cheese to an American. I grew up on Nutella - spread on tartines, on crepes, with a spoon in front of the TV.

Here is my very personal recipe…

Yields about 1 1/2 cups - that is if you refrain from eating it while making it.

1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and peeled
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
12 ounces good milk chocolate, chopped and melted - I used milk chocolate chips

To toast and peel the hazelnuts, heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toast the hazelnuts in one layer on a baking sheet for 15 minutes, until they are golden. Wrap them in a clean dish towel and rub continuously for a few minutes to remove the skin. You won't be able to remove everything but that's ok. Let the hazelnuts cool down before you grind them. Grind the hazelnuts well in a food processor to make a paste - my tiny food processor made me a paste with very tiny morsels (like big sand particles) and it's the best I could do, but it was fine. Add the oil, the sugar, the cocoa powder, and vanilla and continue processing. I microwave the chocolate chips on low power in small increments of 30 seconds, stirring before I would put it back in the microwave.
I transfer the hazelnut paste to the bowl of my processor, and then pour the chocolate, and pulse for a minute to blend it. I recommend straining the mix if you can still see large nut pieces; I did not because it was fine enough. Pour into a jar and let cool and thicken.
The spread will keep for about a month at room temperature (be sure the jar lid closes tightly there).
I recommend using whenever by itself, on crepes, on tartines, on muffins... You name it!