Archive for » October 4th, 2009«

04
Oct
Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Chocolate Genoise ingredients:
4 eggs
125 g sugar
125 g flour
60 g butter, melted
30 g cocoa
Raspberry liqueur

Prepare a bain-marie (bowl on top of simmering water pot). Place the sugar & eggs in the upper pot of the bain-marie and whisk for about 10 minutes until ribbons form and fall off the whisk beaters. Then add half of the flour and cocoa and quickly fold. Repeat with the remaining half of the flour and cocoa. Finally gently add in the butter. Transfer batter to a buttered cake mould, and bake in oven for 30 mins (checking with a sharp knife later if it needs more baking time). Remove from oven, let cool, unmould and slice horizontally in half. Brush each slice with raspberry liqueur.

Chocolate – Raspberry ganache ingredients: (sorry no measurements incl, I eyeballed the ingredients for this one) :

1/2 cup raspberries, crushed
250 ml fresh cream
500 g  dark chocolate

Heat the liquid cream and crushed raspberries together- but do not let it boil. Then lower heat and add in the dark chocolate. The proportions are usually the cream being half the amount of the chocolate used. Allow all the chocolate to melt until ganache becomes smooth. Set aside, let cool and then with a spatula spread a layer in between the chocolate genoise and use the rest of the ganache to coat the cake at the end. Finish off by decorating cake with raspberries (optional).

Category: Desserts  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment
04
Oct
Medallions de Porc au Beurre de Noisettes

Ingredients:

50 g hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed*

4 Tbsp cold butter

1 Tbsp fresh chives, chopped

500 g Pork Tenderloin, cut into 2cm slices

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

6 Tbsp Calvados (apple brandy from Normandy)

Method:

*To remove skins from hazelnuts: Preheat oven to 160ºC. Spread hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet. Place in oven and bake 12 to 15 minutes. The nuts should be fragrant and the skins blistered. Transfer nuts to a terry towel, fold over one end to cover the nuts, and rub the nuts together to remove the skins.

Put the hazelnuts into a food processor and pulse to finely chop. Add 3 tablespoons of butter and chives to the processor and pulse to combine. It should be blended but not pasty. Shape hazelnut butter into a log and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate.

Melt remaining tablespoon of butter in a large sauté pan. Season pork with salt and pepper. When butter is foamy, add the pork slices and cook about 2 to 3 minutes per side, until lightly browned. Remove and keep warm. Pour the Calvados into the pan and allow to boil briefly, scraping up the brown bits from the bottom. Remove the hazelnut butter from the refrigerator and cut into as many slices as you have pieces of pork.

To serve: Arrange pork on a warm serving platter. Pour Calvados over pork and top each piece with hazelnut butter.

Category: French, Mains  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment
04
Oct
Grilled Balsamic Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato, thinly sliced

1 medium onion, sliced and separated into rings

1 large zucchini, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped (or more to taste)

salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Preheat the grill to medium-low.

2. Arrange the sweet potatoes and zucchini in the middle of 2 layers of heavy duty aluminum foil, alternating the potatoes and zucchini.

3. Place the onions on top.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, honey and garlic; drizzle over the vegetables.

5. Sprinkle the vegetables with sage, salt and pepper to taste.

6. Tightly wrap the aluminum foil and place on the preheated grill.

7. Cook with the hood closed for about 30-40 minutes (or until the vegetables are tender when poked with a fork).

Category: Side Dishes, Vegetarian  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment