Recipe 52/10 - Cheese and Potato Nests

I delved into my favourite recipe book this week - The Little Paris Kitchen - Rachel Khoo. I couldn't resist this winter staple, especially now the temperature seems to have dropped about 1000 degrees! Whenever I've tried recipes in this book before they've gone a bit wrong and never look anything like the pictures (when does that ever happen anyway though?) but I'm determined to keep trying, something about the beautiful pictures and French food always draws me back in. I loved the idea of little tartiflette nests in a muffin tin too much not to try it.

I didn't have any reblochon cheese so I used Cheddar (very French I know!) and Gruyere instead, I also didn't use a bay leaf. Good start eh? I couldn't find a 'julienne' blade anywhere so I had to slice by hand. After slicing the potatoes to about chip size I couldn't take anymore, it would have taken me all night to get to matchstick size! Even if the potatoes had been the right size there was way too much to fit in 6 muffin holes, I had to fill a dish with the rest. I also stopped at about 200g of cheese as there seemed to be way too much. Maybe this is why my recipes don't turn out right, I don't actually follow them!

 So as you can guess it didn't turn out like the picture. The potato slices were too big to form the compact nests and they needed a lot longer than 20 minutes to cook and at a higher temperature. The result was really yummy though, just more like a whole tartiflette, and if I can find a way to get the potatoes to matchstick size I will definitely try it again. Practice definitely makes perfect in this case!

You will need:

1 tbsp soft butter
500g waxy potatoes eg. Maris Peer or Charlotte
1 onion (finely chopped)
1 glove of garlic (finely chopped)
1 bay leaf
200g lardons or cubes of smoked bacon
100ml dry white wine
250g reblochon cheese (cubed)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Brush a 6-hole muffin tin with soft butter.
3. Peel the potatoes and use the julienne blade on a mandoline to make thin matchsticks (or slice by hand).
4. Put the onion, garlic, bay leaf and lardons into a large non stick frying pan.
5. Cook until the lardons are golden.
6. Add the wine and reduce until only a couple of tablespoons  of liquid remain.
7. Stir in the potato matchsticks and take off the heat.
8. Remove the bay leaf and stir in the Reblochon cubes.
9. Divide the potato mix between the 6 holes in the muffin tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and bubbling.

Recipe 52/9 - Fried Mozzarella Sandwich

I was looking for a quick recipe this week (I think there may be a few more of these coming up with all the Christmas fair madness at this time of year) and this looked perfect for an indulgent lunch - like french toast with cheese. I love french toast and adding the mozzarella brings it out of breakfast territory, like I need an excuse to have french toast for two meals (or eggy bread as I used to call it when I was younger)!

This is an Italian recipe though (Mozzarella in Carrozza) so it has a few differences such as dipping the bread in milk and flour. 

I think my hopes were too high for this as it wasn't as good as I was expecting, I guess mozzarella doesn't have much flavour. With cheddar instead and maybe some slices of tomato thrown in I think this would be better! 

You will need:

about 4tbsp milk
4 thick slices country bread
2 large slices mozzarella
plain flour (to dust)
salt
3 eggs beaten (I only needed 1!)
olive oil (for shallow frying)

Serves 2

1. Pour the milk into a bowl.
2. Dip the slices of bread into the milk for a few seconds, but do not soak them - they don't want to be too wet.
3. Place a slice of mozzarella on two of the bread slices.
4. Place the other two slices of bread on top of the cheese to make the sandwiches.
5. Dip both sandwiches first into some flour seasoned with salt, then into the beaten eggs and leave for the mixture to be absorbed on both sides.
6. Pour enough oil into a frying pan to cover the base generously and heat gently.
7. Shallow-fry the sandwiches in the hot olive oil until golden, about 5 minutes per side.
8. Serve immediately.

Recipe 52/8 - Chocolate Bourbons

I couldn't resist this recipe, who wouldn't want to make their own versions of the classic biscuit? 

They were pretty fun and easy to make, a great weekend baking recipe! I gave up trying to make them all the same size, so I just made a variety of sizes. The recipe doesn't make very many (only 12 biscuits) so they might not be around for very long!

You will need:

60g unsalted butter

65g light brown soft sugar

110g plain flour

25g cocoa

2 tbsp double cream

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

granulated sugar

Filling:

25g unsalted butter

40g icing sugar

1/2 tbsp cocoa

1/2 tbsp double cream (I found it needed a bit more than this)

1. Preheat the oven to 170C

2. In a food processor, blitz unsalted butter, light brown soft sugar, plain flour, cocoa, double cream, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

3. Knead lightly to bring together.

4. Roll out to 0.5cm thick, cut into about 24 rectangles (5cm x 2.5cm).

5. Punch in the trademark indents with the base of a wooden skewer (I used a fork)

6. Sprinkle with granulated sugar.

7. Chill for 20 minutes.

8. Bake for 10 minutes, cool on a wire rack.

9. For the filling, beat together unsalted butter, icing sugar, cocoa and double cream. 

10. Sandwich a little between two biscuits (makes 12).

They definitely look homemade and sadly don't taste as good as the real thing! The icing sugar in the filling makes them a bit more sickly, a creamier filling would be better. As biscuits though they are still yummy!

Recipe 52/7 - Chachouka

I thought this looked like the perfect warming autumn recipe now the clocks have gone back and it gets dark so early (completely forgot about this last Sunday, I was one very confused person who even had to google 'what time is it!'). I wasn't sure how this would turn out... will eggs, pepper and spices go well together? Yes they do! The smoked paprika and cumin gave it a really great taste and it smelt amazing. The recipe describes it as a 'lovely, lazy supper' which it is, it does take a while though, but mainly just involves a lot of stirring! 

You will need:

3tbsp olive oil
1tsp cumin seeds (I only had ground cumin)
1 large onion (halved and finely sliced)
1 garlic clove (crushed)
1 red pepper (cored, deseeded and finely sliced)
1 yellow pepper (cored, deseeded and finely sliced)
1/2 tsp hot smoked paprika
pinch of saffron strands
400g tin plum tomatoes (roughly chopped, any stalky ends and skin removed)
4 eggs
sea salt and ground black pepper

1.  Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan (preferably ovenproof) over a medium heat.
2. Add the cumin seeds and let them fry gently for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the onion and cook gently for 8-10 minutes, or until soft and golden.
4. Add the garlic and peppers and continue to cook over a low heat for at least 20 minutes, stirring often, until the peppers are soft and wilted.
5. Add the paprika, crumble in the saffron.
6. Add the tomatoes with their juice and some salt and pepper.
7. Cook gently, stirring from time to time, for 10-15 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 180C.
9. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
10. If your frying pan isn't ovenproof, transfer the mixture to a baking dish.
11. Make 4 hollows in the surface and carefully break an egg into each one.
12. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
13. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the egg white is set and the yolk still runny.

The only bit I couldn't get right was the egg yolk - mine were definitely not runny!

Studio Inspiration

Tidied and cleaned my studio today... still doesn't quite look like any of these!

 

Images from Pinterest