Parmesan and Broccoli Parisian Gnocchi

Hi there,

This week, we keep on  reviewing the main cooking techniques by exploring 4 new topics:

• Dough 8: choux dough ***

• Cooking 6: Boiling Green Veggies  *

• Cooking 38: Boiling  choux dough gnocchi  *

• Hot & cold sauces - mix 5: Béchamel sauce & similars*

First thing we need to realize is the choux dough which is a very common  dough throughout cooking worl. Some people say it's very difficult but if you follow the preparation step by step , it's going to be  a real piece of cake.

In fact this dough has three key moments during elaboration. Once you know how to proceed , the choux dough won't  have any more secrets....And you'll never fail!
We can prepare dozens of different sweets and dishes but the recipe will always remain the same!

CHOUX DOUGH -INGREDIENTS FOR 8 PAX

• 4 whole eggs
• 100GR- 3,5 OZ  Butter ( cut in pieces)
• 25 CL -  8,5 FL OZ  Water
• 150 GR -  5,5 OZ Flour (sieved)
• 2 GR -  1 pinch Table Salt

Technique:

1. Bring to boil the water with the salt and   butter  cut in small pieces in saucepan.
2. At boiling point, put the pan away from the fire ( very important) and pour the sieved flour in one time.
3. Stir the dough with spatula or wooden spoon till you have a smooth but sticky consistence.
4. Put   the pan back on the fire (set a low as possible), then heat up the dough for a while in order to dry it up. It's important  to keep in mind that the result you want is to get a non-sticking dough , no matter how long it might take...So , keep on slowly stirring the dough until  it sticks neither to the spatula nor to the pan , you are done for this part. 
5. Pour the dough in a preparation bowl and leave it cooling down for  few minutes. We still have to add the eggs, that 's why it has to cool( to prevent scrambling).
6. To end up our choux dough , break one egg , pour in the dough and stir with spatula until the dough becomes smooth again. Repeat this step for each egg; if you try to add several eggs at a time , the dough would split and will have to start all the way from the beginning......

At this point , your dough is complete and can be used in many different ways. Keep this recipe as  a reference and you'll succeed for sure.

BOILING THE CHOUX DOUGH  PARISIAN GNOCCHI

So, your choux dough  nice and ready  . You just need to cook your Parisian gnocchis. 

• Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.
• Fill a pumping bag with a round muzzle  with dough.
• Pump the bag over the water and cut small pieces in a "corklike" shape with the tip of a small knife.

• Leave the gnocchis to boil until they float back to the surface .
• Remove from the pan with a skimmer and dip in cold water .

• Keep on the side for further use.

                           BECHAMEL (WHITE )SAUCE   -  INGREDIENTS FOR 8 PAX

This sauce may be the most famous basic techniques ; everybody knows this but  we often hear about lumps in the sauce. I'll just tell you soon how to avoid this .....

• 50 CL - 17 FL OZ  Semi - skimmed milk
• 30 GR - 1 OZ Flour 
• 30 GR- 1 OZ Butter
• 1 pinch Ground Nutmeg
• salt & white ground pepper

Technique:   

1. Melt butter in pan with no color 
2. Add flour and slowly stir with spatula or whisk to get a blond paste- leave en the side to cool down.This preparation is called a "roux" and always made with equal quantities of butter and flour.
3. Bring milk , salt , grated nutmeg &pepper to boil.
4. Slowly pour hot milk on the cold roux while whisking the preparation .
5. Once  the milk poured, put your smooth béchamel on the stove and bring to boil (always keep on whisking).
6. Leave to boil few seconds and remove from fire . You're ready.

Important tip:

The only way to avoid lumps in a Béchamel is to have hot milk poured on cold "roux " or  cold milk on hot "roux". The first solution tastes much better on my opinion.

You have cooked a plain Béchamel sauce.It's barely never used alone.

 In many recipes , this basic sauce is used with some grated cheese and egg added to give an interesting taste and better color when baked in the oven.

Today , we will add when the sauce has cooled down  for few minutes:

                                    80GR - 3 OZ  grated Swiss Cheese 

                                    20 GR - 0,7 OZ grated Parmesan Cheese

                                    1 whole egg

Your sauce is just great now!

                                                        Boiling Green Vegetables

This sounds very simple but 9 persons out of 10 do not really know how to do it properly. The main idea is to keep the veggies as green as possible  for visual pleasure , avoiding vitamins and nutriments loss and having the right consistence.....

• Bring a large quantity of salted water to boil as strong as possible.
• Drop your green veggies  ( broccoli in that particular case) in the water and let them boil at maximum T°C.
• when cooked , removes the green vegetables with skimmer and put in a large quantity of ice cold water . This step will make the green color become more intense and stop the cooking process.
• Strain and keep on the side .

You would just need to reheat the vegetables in a boiling salted water for few seconds in the case your veggies  would be used as a side dish.Never keep green vegetables hot for a long period of time ; they will turn to an ugly military green color!

We are almost done ; the only thing to do is to  finalize the gratin.

• Spread a layer of Cheesed Béchamel in the bottom of the gratin dish(third of quantity)
• Add the  gnocchis and broccoli sprouts cut in medium pieces.
• Pour the remaining Béchamel sauce on top of the dish
• Sprinkle with extra grated parmesan and swiss cheese. 
• Bake  at 180°C -360 °F until  you have a nice light brown color.....

Enjoy your meal.....This dish is great for cold winter evenings.

Warm Pumpkin creamy Soup

Creamy Pumpkin Soup with heavy cream spider net pattern  decoration

Howdy,

In our way  to French Chefs Cooking Techniques and as winter is at the threshold , will explore another topic of cooking  which is how to prepare soups , creams and veloutés. Today we're gonna have a close look at the Creams .
The technique , once more, will always be the same whether you may want to achieve an asparagus , Celeriac or whatever creamy soup.

Sometimes , you'll see the name "velouté " for a creamy soup; this is exactly the same process of elaboration  except you thicken  with flour and  at the very end of cooking , just before serving , you shall make a egg yolk finish. It gives an more unctuous consistency but can not be reheated at all otherwise , it would split......Flour thickening can be useful if you have no starchy vegetables in the recipe.

As usual now, your are familiar with our techniques directory(just register for free to get it), today we'll get familiar with two new items:

1. Hot & cold sauces - mix 18: Heavy cream thickening*
2. Cooking 39: Creamy Soups & Veloute soups  *

INGREDIENTS - SERVING 8 PAX

• BUTTER                                                          40 GR     - 1,4 OZ
• LIQUID COOKING CREAM                         12 CL  -   4 FL OZ
• CARROT                                                          200 GR    -   7 OZ
• PUMPKIN PEELED                                        800 GR    -   1,7 LB
• LEEK(WHITE PART)                                     400 GR    -    14 OZ
• POTATOES                                                      300 GR -     10 OZ
• CLEAR POULTRY OR VEGGIE BROTH     1,5 L -  3 PINTS
• SALT

       As you can notice , we do not use any  pepper in a soup because it makes ugly  dark spots and pepper gets stronger and stronger when it cooks . This tip avoids having too spicy soups ; except if you love it!!!!

TECHNIQUE : cooking 39

•  Wash  ( be careful to the  grit !) and finely chop the white leek.
• Peel  and Cut  pumpkin , carrot  and potatoes in half inch cubes.
• In large pot melt butter and sweat the chopped  leek white with no color , just in order to get rid of the veggie strong water .
• When done, pour the poultry or veggie broth and bring to boil.
• At boiling point, add carrot, pumpkin and potato cubes and season with the salt.
• Leave slowly boiling with lid on.
• When cooked , blend the soup and strain it if you want to avoid lumps of veggies .
• Bring to boil again  and the last step  will be  the cream thickening.

TECHNIQUE : Hot & Cold sauces - mix 18: cream thickening

This technique is not used that often but it's the same tip as mustard thickening, blood or urchin cream thickening....You'll sometimes meet those weird techniques in classical  French recipes.

But let's be back to our cream for the last step.....

• When your pumpkin ( asparagus, lettuce...) soup is ready bring it back to boil for a minute .

• Pour the cream in a preparation bowl and whisk it slowly while adding a ladle or two of hot soup.This is very useful to heat the cream up and  will avoid a strong temperature chock and a high  splitting risk .You may have noticed  this sometimes when making hot creamy sauces.

• Then pour the lukewarm cream + soup mix  back in the pot while slowly  whisking and your creamy soup is ready  .

With those few tips , creamy soups have no more secrets for you now!!

N.B :  In case you need to cook a Lettuce or Calaloo  creamy soup , you may not use  potatoes  to thicken the soup. Flour will replace the starchy veggie. Then you will use the same amount of flour as  butter. Sweat your leeks in the butter and add flour , leave slowly simmer  for a minute and proceed exactly the same way for the rest of the recipe.....