Mediterranean Scents Grilled Vegetables Salad

The Grilled Vegetables Medley served with a cumin French dressing

This week we'll learn two new useful techniques  from your  directory( if you don't have it yet , just subscribe and you'll get it for free).


Grilling vegetables * :  cooking 29

The French Dressing * : Hot & Cold mixes  6

This salad is very nice when  you wish to have a light meal , as a starter or a buffet display...Grilling vegetable might sound very easy but they are delicate to cook correctly this way. Concerning the French dressing, you will know this basic for the rest of your existence......

VEGGIES FOR 10 PEOPLE( as a main course)

• Zucchini                                     600GR--  21oz
• Red onions                                 600 GR-- 21oz
• Red bell peppers                        600 GR -- 21 oz
• Green bell peppers                     600 GR -- 21 oz
• Tomato                                       600 GR -- 21 oz
• Eggplants                                   600 GR-- 21 oz

Technique:

1. Peel the red onions  with removing all the stem tough end and cut in quarters without  breaking .

2. Cut  the bell peppers in for 4 long stripes and remove stem and seeds.

3. Trim the extremities of zucchini and eggplant then cut 1cm---1/4 Inch  thick slices.

Cut the tomatoes in quarters.

4. Heat the Grill up at a very high temperature in order to allow the veggies to be correctly seared.

If the heating is not efficient , I actually use  a big piece of aluminium foil folded in four; leave it on the grill  for a moment and it will help the temperature to drastically increase.

5. When the grill is hot enough , just wipe a bit of olive oil on a cloth to avoid the veggies from sticking.

6. Sear the veggies on the grill just to get them marked by the hot metal. We won't totally cook the vegetables  right now. The aim is to have them nice.Don' t move them during this step , the grill marks wouldn't be visible; leave them long enough to get the result you wish.

7. Afterwards , we need to finish the cooking in a medium oven (150°C --300° F) sprinkled with a bit of olive  oil , salt , pepper ,  cumin and oregano . I use to add a bit of water  or veggie broth in the cooking pan to avoid drying during the cooking process.Cook every kind of veggie separately.
8. when ready , let  the dishes cool  down.The main ingredient are ready.....

CUMIN FRENCH DRESSING FOR 10 PEOPLE

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil                                   30CL  --  10 FLOZ
• Red old wine vinegar              10 CL --    3 FLOZ
• Ground cumin                          2 big pinches
• Garlic                                       1 clove thinly  crushed
• Dijon mustard                         10 GR --  0,35 OZ   
• Salt & pepper                          

Technique:

1.In a Bowl, pour mustard salt and vinegar . This step is important because the salt is able to melt correctly in vinegar and mustard but wouldn't in oil. If not , your dressing would be gritty and almost unsalted ...

2. Start whisking the mix and slowly add the olive oil . The aim is to create a emulsion that won't split in few seconds. The faster whisking the better.
Some people even use a blender and  a bit of water  ; the result is great and your emulsion will last few days....

3. Add the crushed garlic and the cumin  and check the seasoning.
Every French dressing will done the same way .

You're done now, dress your plate with some salad in the middle and arrange your veggies all around; pour some cumin dressing  and ... Enjoy!!! 

After Halloween ......... Try the Pumkin and almond tart and its warm chocolate sauce

   

AFTER-HALLOWEEN'S TREAT

Here we are , Halloween time is gone with plenty pumpkin left?
The following almond & pumpkin tart really great .

This recipe will use once more the "Doug 1-2 tart dough/ roll and fill a mould :" and "cooking 1: pre-bake a tart" techniques  but as new tip you'll shown how to realize a warm chocolate sauce named "Cream & mix 18": Chocolate sauce *.

That means , in every next recipe you'll know this sauce. No need re-reading this recipe again; it will  always be the same. 

As I  tell you since a while , if you have already subscribed to this blog, you should have your updated French Chef Cooking Techniques Directory. For the next chocolate sauces , you just need to click on the recipe name and it will lead you right to the "Cream & mix 18": Chocolate Sauce*...So easy!! 

 

OK , let's go ! 

First of all you'll need  a tart dough; no problems , we saw it two weeks ago in the Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart (just click on the link!).It's gonna exactly be the same for rolling the dough, setting it in the mould and pre-baking.

In a word  we just need to learn how to realize the almond and pumpkin mix that will fill our tart and our famous chocolate sauce later on.

Almond & pumpkin mix  :

Ingredient for 1 tart  (serving 8)

• Butter   60 GR
• Cream  6 CL
• Egg yolk  3
• Egg  2
• Peeled pumpkin 600 GR
• Cater sugar 150 GR
• Sliced Almonds  50  GR
• Vanilla Extract 
• Almond Powder  100 GR

Technique:

 Put the pumpkin cut in small pieces in  a pan , add water and ,  bit of salt and if possible a vanilla pod skin to give extra flavor.Bring to boil.

When ready strain the softened pumpkin an mash or blend finely. 

Add eggs, yolks, cream, melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract and almond powder  to the liquidized pumpkin.

You can also add a dash of brown rum if you wish, its flavor matches very well with the pumpkin.

And ........your tart filling is ready.

The tart bottom: 

As we saw during the previous weeks: click in your directory to remind the following techniques ; they will be always done the same way:

"Doug 1-2 tart dough/ roll and fill a mould :" and "cooking 1: pre-bake a tart" 

When your tart is done and pre-baked , it just needs to be filled with your pumpkin mix; sprinkle sliced almonds on top and bake at 180°C (350°F) till the tart is light brown and set.

Your almond ans pumpkin tart is ready.Let it cool down and now we just need to finalize with the warm chocolate sauce that will be referred as "Cream & mix 18": Chocolate Sauce *

Chocolate sauce

Ingredients  for serving 8

• Butter 10 GR - 0,35 OZ
• Semi skimmed milk  10 CL - 3 FL OZ
• Dark (confectionery ) chocolate 100 GR -   3,5 OZ
• A vanilla pod skin( if available) 

This chocolate sauce will be the same for every recipe to go with fruits, ice creams, cakes and so on........

Technique:

Bring the milk to boil with the vanilla skin. 

Turn the fire off ( as i said in the chocolate ganache tart, chocolate hates heating over 56°C -  135°F  to avoid shining loss and gritty consistency).

Sound like ganache isn't it ? Only proportions differ.....

So , enjoy your Almond & Pumpkin Tart . This one was so easy , wasn't it?

Your second step........ The pissaladière (or the pizza ancestor).

Hi there,

This next  recipe will bring you to discover Two new tips 'cause you already know the technique  of "Dough 2** ".We saw it last week in the Dark  Ganache Chocolate Tart.

 So , we shall discover how to cook softened onions in order to use them later on.The purpose of simmering  the onions like a kind of jam will make them more tender and the strong smell which burns your eyes will disappear to reveal the real flavor of the onions. This technique named "cooking 3" is very useful when you deal with strongly flavored veggies / fruits or very long to tenderize.

This is a key  for your  chutneys  or onion soups for exemple...

So ....Let's go!



 "Dough 4" :The pizza dough  *  

INGREDIENTS for 2 PIZZAS( or pissaladières)

• White flour           425 GR (1,5 OZ)
• Olive oil               5 CL ( 0,17 OZ
• Table salt              8 GR  (0,3 OZ)
• Brown sugar         4 GR (0,15 OZ)
•  Water                   35 CL  ( 12 FL OZ
• yeast                      8 GR (0.3 OZ)
• garlic , oregano ( just a little bit)

Technique:

1. To begin with , pour the water ,the yeast and the brown sugar  in a jar and mix well. This step is important and can be done even a bit earlier in the day  so the yeast becomes active. Yeast is a sort of mushroom that needs water and food ( sugar ) to develop.                                                                                                                                                                                                             INFO: Never leave yeast and salt in contact , it would lead to the sudden death of the yeast !!!May be does it give you an answer to your  previous missed yeast risen doughs?                        
2. Sieve the flour  in a preparation bowl  , add salt ,  olive oil  and if you wish to give extra flavors to your pizza dough  :Add crushed garlic and oregano( some cooks pour a dash of viandox as well).                                                                                                                                                        
3. Mix all this very well and add  your sourdough (Yeast-water-sugarmix). Keep on mixing until your have a homogeneous ball of dough.                                                                                                    
4. At this step , your dough won't make it because it's not elastic at all. In order to rise properly your have to knead the dough until you get  an elastic dough. When the kneading process is ok , you will notice that your dough doesn't stick anymore neither to your fingers nor to the bowl. Notice that the kneading action is working on the gluten and is the key for an elastic dough. If the dough sticks to your hand , do not add flour , just knead a bit more...                                                                             
5. You've sweated a bit and you're proud of your first pizza dough; leave it in the bowl  and sprinkle just a bit of flour on top. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave the dough rise at room T°C (20 -30 °C is fine --70 - 90 °F)  it swells to the double     .This operation may last 1 to 2 hours according of the yeast quality and surrounding temperature.                                                                                                                                                                                                         The fact of being elastic doesn't allow   the Co2 bubbles produced by the working yeast  to escape from the dough. As bubbles cannot escape , they just grow .......leading the dough to rise itself. 

                                                              

"Cooking 3":"jam like" simmering for the onions  *

First thing, you will have to peel  1,5 kg(3,3 LBS )of  onions and slice them . This technique was seen already in my september post named "How to safely use your chef's knife step by step".Once you're done,you can cook the onion jam.

1. In a cooking pan , bring  8 cl ( 2,5 FLOZ) olive oil to medium heat and the aim of this technique is to cook the onions very slowly without any brown color . Leave it for an hour or so simmering and mix regularly to avoid the pot to burn.
2. After that time you will have some  blond jam like onions , which become really good and sweet. Season  your preparation and leave aside.    Easy , no?                                                     For an onion soup  you would proceed the same way....Some French people add a bit of tomate or tomatoe paste in the jam , don't be surprised if you find this out in other recipes......

"Dough 2" :rolling  a dough  *  check our last week 's post "the dark ganache chocolate tart".
          So roll your dough like you would for a tart , round shaped  at pizza size. Remember you'll have to nice pizzas with this amount of dough.....Set the pizza dough on a non-sticking baking dish and we are almost ready...

1. Just spread your onion preparation on the pissaladière , add anchovy fillets in a fishnet pattern, few black olives , sprinkle some oregano . Notice we don(t use any cheese in this recipe).The cheese was added later on by the italian cooks.                                                                                        
2. Bake in a very hot oven (250°C -480°F)for about 20mn and you're done.

Enjoy....

the next step ..... the french pissaladière

Coming very soon....

the dark ganache chocolate tart...Yummy!

Hi guys,

As promised , we are going to take a look at a simple and very nice tasting tart . The recipe is very , very easy and we'll have the opportunity to study 4 basic  important  techniques :


Dough 1 : the  tart dough*
Dough  2: rolling a dough and setting in the mould **
Cooking 1: Pre-baking an empty dough *
Cream  & mix 1: elaborating a dark chocolate ganache *


Concerning the  tart dough techniques (making, rolling , cooking), once mastered, you will be able to realize any sweet tart you wish. For the ganache , same thing; this cream is very common and it is included in tons of  pastry cakes.



Let 's go for the dough:    "Dough 1 technique"

INGREDIENTS : 1 TART SERVING 8 PAX

• 250 GR (9 OZ) flour
• 125 GR( 4,5 OZ)  unsalted butter
• 10 GR (0,4 OZ) caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 5 GR (0,16 OZ OR 2 pinches) table salt
• 5 CL (1,5 FLOZ) cold water 

TECHNIQUE:

1. Sieve the flour on your working surface
2. cut your butter in small pieces
3. with the tips of your fingers , start mixing butter and flour until you get something looking like yellow sand . This is important in order to have a correct mixing later.

1. Then, shape a kind of well with this sandy mix
2. Inside the well , add the egg yolk, sugar, salt and the very cold water ( very important , i'll tell you why later).
3. With the finger tips of one hand , start making circle moves in the middle of the well and with the opposite hand push a bit of flour mix toward the center.

1. Once the flour is mixed , is it now very important that you mustn't knead the dough!!  Once the flour is wet , the gluten get in action with the kneading and your dough will definitely become too elastic ! The result would be that you couldn't roll it properly.
2. Instead , just spread the dough on the table exactly like you would spread butter with the hand. Set you dough in a ball and make 1 more spread. This action will (allowed twice)properly mixes the ingredients without allowing the gluten to enter in action. your dough is ready!!
   
   
   
   

1. Now you have to control if the consistance is ok...Just pinch the dough with two finger ....If the dough breaks that means you have to add a bit of water otherwise it will break during the rolling phase. If the dough doesn't break appart when you pinch it , that means no further problems for rolling it.
2. Wrap your dough ball in a plastic film and leave it for 30 mn in the fridge( to avoid the even small gluten action ). By the way, the purpose of the cold water in the dough is to a avoid the sticky gluten action.

----------------

As your nice dough is cooling down, you will now prepare your dark chocolate ganache: Cream & mix 1 technique.

and noww....Action!

After those few posts , you know now that every single recipe is made of a selection of two or three  techniques out of  300.

In every future post , I'll decipher a recipe in techniques , exactly as I did with the Veggie quiche.

Every recipe will teach you one or two techniques with an allocated number . Afterwards , every new recipe will be refer to its number.

The purpose of this site is to provide you a kind of   French Cooking Techniques Directory.

In a matter of a year or so , you may refer to this blog to find the techniques you need for a particular recipe.

For the very first posts , we will focus on the simplest tips and then we'll go crescendo until we reach the most difficult  and delicate skills.

The easiest will show  the  "*"sign , the average difficulty tips will show the"**"  and the most delicate ones will show the "***" sign.

Last thing for today , but not least, a good dish has to highlight  and mix minimum two different textures ( cripsy and creamy for example) and match  properly two or three flavours. If you take a closer look at the famous chef's best masterpieces , you will identify those principles.


So , on the next posts , we'll start with  easy sauces, doughs, cooking modes, etc....  Keeping in mind our goal : mastering the tools .....

See you soon!

The right approach of recipes.

Here we  go...

As I wrote  earlier in my presentation, to make the job easy for you starting today, we shall take a little moment to find out the hidden basic techniques  in the recipe you want to execute.

This is how it works , with the alphabet  every word is at your reach !!!

Cooking is exactly the same; with the more or less 300 basics , every single recipe can be done which makes cooking  suddenly more simple; they work as benchmarks.

When I 'd been studying at the catering school , we had 120 recipes to know by heart which  included those 300 tips. So now , 25 years later, i can still remember most of them and they appear in every single recipe.

The best way for you to understand is a real example for sure.

Let's go for a veggie quiche ( vegetable tart)...what are the techniques i have  to isolate?

1. the dough
2. the salty set custard mix
3. the veggies

For number 1 , I think , most of you already know how to make  a tart dough , right? You can even buy it in the supermarket!  Number one wasn't that hard, was it?

For the number 2:  The "set" salty custard, mix only milk, cream, eggs  & seasoning  .... and you're suddenly able to make all the quiches you might dream at!

Number 3: peeling and cutting the veggies ( safe slicing is shown on my last post already), then "sweat"  them ( one of the basic techniques to be posted ) in a bit of oil or butter .
Not sauteed but just softened,  the aim is to make the vegetable sweat their inner juices in order to reveal their best taste.

And take 5 minutes to assemble the parts of the recipe , bake the quiche ( while reading or whatever...) and you're are done!


For your next quiche :

• you can use  mushrooms , blue cheese ,  seafood  or what you feel.
• put herbs in your dough?
• add some curry or tomatoes to the custard mix???

In fact , they are all done the same way . You can now make hundreds of different quiches.

Starting now , you can decipher every single quiche recipe and like a chef , add what you feel like to reach a interesting texture and flavor combination of your own.

That's how famous chefs do ......  

So damn easy!