LEAVING WINTER, WELCOMING THE SUNSHINE...

Because I’ll be away on holidays soon- which implies that I’ll be taking a break from blogging too- I thought I’d leave a few savoury images which you will hopefully enjoy…

I’m leaving this post short, with a dish mid way between the cold and sunny days… some comforting purée de pomme de terre to say good bye to chilly weather, and colourful roasted vegetables perfumed with fresh basil, olive oil and garlic to remind us that sunshine is on it’s way!
Before I end this post however, let me share with you a few secrets I used:

To add volume & crisp to a dish: simply grate a potato to produce thin shreds (like when grating carrots). Rinse under cold water several times. Optionally (but recommended), leave the grated potatoes in a bowl with cold water and icecubes. Drain, dry, and fry. The result? Crispy golden threads that can be used to decorate your dish!

For ‘herbal visual reminders’- if basil is one key ingredient of your dish, fry large beautiful basil leaves. They will become translucid and crisp, placed on your dish they will hint to the presence of basil. It’s a change from simply placing a fresh basil leaf, as when fried, it has a more ‘jewel’ like aspect.

When roasting tomatoes: depending on the ‘mood’ of your dish, I love leaving the stems of the tomatoes on. It adds a graphic yet rustic edge to any dish!

Lastly, (and some of you may already know this), when cooking meats or fishes, leave them out under room temperature about an hour before cooking them up. In French, you would say that ‘ca les detend’- which means, it helps the meat/fish ‘relax’ before it contacts heat and does not ‘shock’ as intensely in regards to the temperature change. This helps obtain a more tender result at the end.

RASBERRY CHEESECAKE

Before I start writing about raspberries, cream cheese, and other sinful deliciousness, I need to mention a couple of things :
1) I’ll very very very likely be away on a trip end of this week (I’m taking a few days off from work, hurrah!)… destination will be revealed upon my return- but I can tell you from now that I’m very excited about where I’m going, and I think my camera is in for a real treat!

2) Today’s subject is cheesecake, as you probably guessed…and for this I need to make a confession. I’ve made cheesecake only twice in my life- this being the second time. I know, this can be a shock to some of you, but the truth is that cheesecake just happens to be one of those things I just don’t make at home…for some unknown reason. When I have a slice, it’s usually when I’m eating out.
Anyway- with that said, you can imagine that this second attempt to make cheesecake was quite a dramatic and intense experience for me as more then six years have gone by since my last home-made version. So I was crossing my fingers hoping that this would work out. I did tons of research to unlock the mystery of what makes a perfect cheesecake- from the baking time, to using or not using a water bath in the oven, to how long one should be mixing the ingredients, so on and so forth.

Finally, my gut feeling and baking experience helped lead me to a conclusion and I think I came up with a recipe (which was the result of research and a combination of many recipes) that I will keep and use again and again, because the result was just lovely! Each bite was a wonderful creamy rich experience with chunks of raspberries that reminded me spring time is very near, contrasted by a fragrant speculoos base…mmmm, pure delight!

Raspberry cheesecake (recipe for a 20cm diameter round cake mould)

200gr speculoos
25gr butter, melted
100gr sugar
Vanilla essence or pod
2 eggs
450gr cream cheese
100gr soured cream (in France, look for ‘crème fraiche’)
200gr raspberries + a handful for decoration
Raspberry coulis (optional)
Icing sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to th4/160C/350F.
Butter the sides of the cake mould, and line the bottom with parchment paper. Crush the speculoos to powder (either manually or in a mixer), and mix with the butter as to form a dough. Place this dough on the bottom of the mould, smoothing it out with your hand or the bottom of a cup. Bake for 10 mins, remove and set aside. In the meantime, mix the sugar, vanilla, and eggs and mix briefly (you don’t want too much air). Add the cream cheese and soured cream, mix at low speed until texture is creamy with no lumps. Throw in the raspberries and stir gently with a spatula. Transfer to mould and bake for 50 mins. At the end of baking time, turn oven off and leave cheesecake inside the oven for 30 mins. Remove, let cool and place in fridge overnight. Decorate with fresh raspberries, coulis and icing sugar, enjoy!

P.S: do NOT use frozen raspberries for inside the cheesecake. It will release water and you will have a soggy texture- trust me on this one!

TURRON & ALMOND BROWNIES

Well… I was hoping that I’d be more regular with my posts this year, but I guess things aren’t working out exactly as planned ! Since the beginning of the year, many events have been happening in my life which have taken up a lot of time from sharing my culinary experiences here! I hope this will change soon, because without the cooking…I just don’t quite feel the same…cooking, baking, spending time in the kitchen and being curious with ingredients is certainly an integral part of who I am!

Anyway, I thought I’d pop by with a chocolatey hello with scrumptious turron & almond brownies- giving the classic recipe a bit of a Spanish twist! I absolutely adore turron, especially turron de Jijona (the softer type), and I thought I’d throw some into a brownie recipe along with some almonds for a bit of a crunch!

The brownie recipe I usually follow never disappoints- except this time I thought I should add a bit more flour and prolong baking time by 10 mins… well let me tell you- do not do it! Because the end result was not as moist as I was hoping for, and instead I obtained a somewhat cakey-brownie texture. Nonetheless – do not get me mistaken- these culinary accidents still produced a delicious result, and these brownies are especially fantastic when enjoyed with a cup of coffee (turron and coffee pair up amazingly well!).

Turron & Almond brownies (the right recipe!):

200gr chocolate, 70%
200gr butter
200gr sugar
4 eggs
100gr flour
5gr baking powder
Pinch of salt
100gr chopped almonds
150gr Jijona turron, diced

Preheat oven to th4/180C/350F.
Start by roasting the almonds- either in the oven or in a pan. Roast for about 5 mins, this will make them crunchier and gives them a delicious scent! Remove from oven/pan, chop the almonds and set aside. Melt the butter with the chocolate, preferably over a bain-marie. Transfer to mixing bowl, add the sugar & eggs- whisk. Follow with the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Finally add the chopped almonds and turron blando- mix very gently. Bake in oven for 25 mins, remove and let cool before serving.

P.S: because the Jijona turron is so crumbly and fragile, it would be best to dice and place in the fridge a couple of hours (or even a day) prior to baking the brownies.

BEAUTY CAKE!

Alright ladies (and gentlemen!), clear out your beauty shelves, set your skin cream jars & tubes aside, and make some space for this beauty cake! Yes, that’s right: beauty and cake are two words that can be written side by side. And I’m not talking about a “beautiful looking cake” (because clearly, this cake I’m posting about doesn’t score much points in terms of good-lookingness), I am talking about a cake that can make your skin look more beautiful.

So why is it that I’ve given this cake the name of a “beauty cake”? Of course, it all has to do with the ingredients. Take a closer look at this wonderfully scented cake with a melt-in-your-mouth texture which miraculously enough might also be beneficial for your skin.

In general, my cooking rules is try to make everything as healthy as possible without compromising on taste. I am a firm believer in this, and having grown up on a Mediterranean diet, you can imagine that our household consumes an above-average amount of good-for-you ingredients such as olive oil, almonds & Co.

This cake is in line with my culinary beliefs, as it contains no butter (and no, I have not substituted butter with apple sauce or gelatin or what not), no egg yolks, and no sugar (and no, the sugar hasn’t been replaced by aspartame!).
What it contains is this: egg whites, high quality honey, almonds, dried figs (with no sugar added), and sunflower oil (yes, you can bake cakes with sunflower oil).

Now being the research freak that I am (always googling stuff up!), all the ingredients of my beauty cake recipe have been documented about to be skin-friendly (and good for cardiovascular health too! )

Let’s start with the obvious ones: almonds is super packed with Vitamin E- and we all know that Vitamin E is your skin’s best friend. Vitamin E is actually an ingredient that helps keep your skin smooth & supple, that’s why it is so common to find in skincare products (did you ever notice the sheer amount of skin creams that contain vitamin E?) (and these are words coming from someone (me) who has worked on skincare products!)

Sunflower oil has been known for years to help skin retain moisture and is also, like almonds, rich with Vitamin E. Many beauty products actually contain sunflower oil for the softening factor, and some people apply sunflower oil directly on their skin.

Honey has been repeatedly studied to contain antioxidants. Now take a minute and think about what most anti ageing skin creams read… yes indeed, they all stress on the importance of anti oxidants to keep fine lines at bay!

Now interestingly enough, egg whites have been used in home-made masks to treat wrinkles! So egg white goodness does not just stop on it’s protein loaded and virtually fat free content (which makes it a fave for celebs who diet all year long i.e: Victoria Beckham hehe).

Finally, dried figs are packed with beauty nutrients such as potassium, iron, calcium & magnesium which are great for healthy skin and hair.


They say there are always exceptions in life, and this might just be one.

Doesn’t it feel good for once to enjoy a slice of cake without the guilt factor?
Recipe for the Beauty Cake:

4 egg whites
120gr good quality honey
50gr sunflower oil
20gr whole grain flour
100gr ground almonds + some chopped almonds to add in the batter
6-8 dried figs, diced

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/th4. In a bowl, whisk the egg whites until they become fluffy. Then add in the honey and mix. Add the vegetable oil, mix. Follow with the flour & ground almonds, mix well but gently. Finally, add some chopped almonds and the diced figs, mix gently with a wooden spoon or spatula. Transfer batter to mould, bake for 30 mins, check with a knife to see if cake is baked. If not, extend cooking by sequences of 10 mins, checking with a sharp knife after each sequence. Remove cake from oven and let cool.

RAINBOW OF SPICES

Oh my goodness, I have been away from my blog for way too long and I have definately missed writing about my culinary experimentations and discovering those of fellow bloggers too! It feels very good to be back on here!

So here I am with a savoury spicy note and a recipe for easy to make delightfully tender chicken breasts that have been marinated in a collection of spices mixed with yoghurt in the same way some Indian recipes are done, and served with a fragrant brown rice mixed with onions, fresh chopped coriander and toasted almonds. Just the perfect meal that adds some heat to this seemingly never ending winter season...Roasted mango & coconut ice cream was then a perfect refreshing way to cool down our flaming tastebuds and keep us on an exotic note for the rest of the day...
Recipe for Indian inspired spicy chicken:

For 2 chicken breasts:

100ml yoghurt

Mixture of spices (cumin, coriander, cardamom, chilli powder, anise, ginger, turmeric)

1/2-1 teaspoon garlic paste

For the rice:
Brown rice

Chicken stock

Handful of chopped fresh coriander leaves

1 onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Toasted sliced almonds

Other:

Vegetable oil (or butter)

Salt

Mix the yoghurt & spice mixture & garlic. Coat chicken breasts with this mixture and set aside (keep cool in fridge).

Cook the brown rice in chicken stock. In the meantime, sauté onions in a pan with oil and cardamom. When rice is ready, mix in the onions, chopped coriander & toasted almonds. Set aside, but keep warm. Add salt if necessary.

Heat a deep pan with some vegetable oil. Place chicken breasts and cook at high heat for the first few minutes. Turn down heat, cover and let cook well for about 15 minutes. Turn heat up again for the last few minutes before serving with rice.

SYRIA & LEBANON (savoury side)

And here is my savoury continuation to my recent trip in Syria & Lebanon... recollections amongst bakeries, souks or restaurants, the least I can say is that literally everything I ate was absolutely delicious, and as mentionned in a previous post, maybe what I enjoyed most was how the fruits and vegetables tasted like... seasonal and in their proper untouched non genetically modified state... sigh...

So where do I start?

Maybe a passage in the morning to a bakery would be a good idea. Undeniably, you can only appreciate how all goods are pretty much made around the clock, at almost anytime of the day, whatever you buy has likely just popped out of the oven! You pass by almost any bakery, and you will see someone rolling out the dough, the other working on the garnishes, and someone else transferring items to a flaming oven...until it finally lands in your own very hands waiting to be devoured.

Above: the smell of local bakeries immediately captures your senses in every street leading you to freshly made "mana'ish" (such as a za'atar variation above- by the way, there is a local belief that eating za'atar improves your memory and makes you more intelligent!) or "saj bread" (above, sprinkled with nigella and sesame seeds) baked on a heated cushion type utensil (you have to see it to visualize exactly what I mean by a "heated cushion"). This is likely to be your first stop of the day as a preparation for a delicious breakfast typically enjoyed with a black cup of tea, olives, and cheese.

Then taking a trip to the souk will amaze you with hills and colours of nuts & spices...

Above: an array of every imagineable spice bought at the fraction of the price that it is usually sold at in Western countries... and lovely green & brown za'atar in image just above.

And during our stroll at the souk, we spotted at one of the numerous spice/tea/herb shops this container with what seemed to be dead dried lizards...! We asked the shop owner what on earth these could possibly be used for, and he whispered back to us "it's like Viagra- for both men & women- if you want best results, then slip it into a lentil soup". Anyone want to try that out and let me know if it works?
You can also admire beautiful coffee pots that you might want to bring back home as a souvenir to reproduce the particuliar taste and aroma of Arabic coffee "ahwé" (or better known as "Turkish coffee"). Coffee is considered sacred in the Middle East, and is enjoyed all throughout the day- in the morning, before lunch, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner, etc etc... If you have the chance to bump into a fortune teller, they can also read your future in your coffee cup after you have sipped it away... What happens is that after drinking the coffee, you have to leave a tiny quantity at the end, turn over your cup and leave it for a few minutes. The patterns that the remaining coffee traces on the insides of the cup form images and symbols that fortune tellers can read and thus allowing them to predict your future... Entertaining, the least I can say!

Then you can break for a charming culinary escapade at one of the many traditional Arabic restaurants where your eyes & tastebuds will be thrilled with beautiful interiour décor and most tasty dishes... The best ones are located in the old quarters...

It would be criminal to skip the typical gigantic mezzé served at the beginning of a meal and relish on salads such as fattoush (below, with the pieces of bread), the infamous taboulé (below) made with tons of super healthy chopped parsley, or a refreshing eggplant, tomato, pepper and mint salad (my personal fave)...

Taboulé has to be "the" most famous salad in these countries, just watch out you don't leave the table with pieces of parsley stuck in between your teeth!Of course you must order some glorious "hummus" (and for a recipe you can try out one I blogged about- it's a family secret recipe!). We ordered a most amazing hummus EVER served with crushed walnuts and chickpeas... and I highly recommend you try out "mouhammara" (below) if you havent tried it yet. Your tastebuds will be whisked away by this mixture of red bell peppers, walnuts, pomegrenate mollasses and other secret ingredients...

It is common to order a "barak bil jibné" as part of a mezzé- these are basically cheese pies that can come in different forms. Some are fluffy and airy like a pillow, they are my favourite!

And please, let us not forget enjoying vine leaves in such countries! Below is "yalanji" (similar to dolmades in Turkey & Greece). As part of a mezzé, you will often encouter the cold lemony variety. As a main course, it is typical to savour it as a hot main course served with meat, as blogged and wonderfully explained by Tony from Olive Juice.
If you're in the mood for a popular chicken based staple dish, then please do order tender & tasty shish taouk (above).

Or try more local dishes, such as okra called "bamyé" in Arabic- convenient for vegeterians if you ask for no meat to be served with it.

Or even better- "kibbé". Kibbé is a beloved dish in the Middle East, and can come fried, baked, served with a yoghurt based sauce (below, "kibbé labaniyé") and in certain occasions, it is grilled "kibbé mishwiyé" which is -for me- the kings of all kibbés! It is traditionally enjoyed with a glass of "arak" (known as Ouzo in Greece for instance).

Meals that last for hours, catered by most friendly waiters, cooked by chefs that know their stuff, and ending with an apple, cherry, watermelon (amongst the endless list of options) flavoured arguile... With that, you have really had a taste of an example of a genuine Middle Eastern meal.
Of course, there are tons and tons of other savoury dishes to enjoy...which tempt me to take a flight back and take more photos...In the meantime, you can always check out my travel photos on my Flickr stream.