Always a pleasure to serve a tartelette, with lemon, with blackberries, with raspberries or in this case with pear. The challenge is to capture the delicate flavour of the pears. Making the filling is simple and quick. Making the pastry requires much more time. Feel free to use ready-made pastry!
What You Need
Filling
Pears
Butter
Lemon Juice
Pâte Sucrée
50 grams of Unsalted Butter
40 grams of Caster Sugar
125 grams of All Purpose Flour
1 gram of Salt
1 organic egg
Water (optional)
What You Do (Filling)
Peel and core the pears
Chop coarsely
Melt the butter
Add some water
Slowly cook the pears until soft
Taste and perhaps add a drop of lemon juice
Pass gently through a sieve, without applying pressure. You want as much liquid as possible without damaging the texture of the pears
Set the pears aside and allow to cool.
Reduce the liquid until it becomes thick
What You Do (Pastry Case)
Combine sugar, flour and salt
Dice butter, add to the mixture and combine. Use a hand mixer with kneading hooks
Beat the egg and add
Use your hands to make the dough. It should not be sticky, so it must be easy to make a ball. If too dry, add just a bit of water. If too wet, add some flour
When done, remove from the bowl and wrap in kitchen foil. Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours. It can be stored for a few days.
Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a larger than the top of the tartelette forms. The dough should be approximately 2 or 3 mm thick
Coat the forms with butter
Line the forms with the pastry. Press the pastry well into the sides and bottom. Use a knife to remove the excess dough
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator
Preheat the oven to 190 °C or 375 °F
Use a fork to prick small holes in the pastry
Line the forms with greaseproof paper or aluminium foil, add baking beans and bake blind for 10 minutes
Remove the paper and the baking beans
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 °C or 320 °F
Transfer back to the oven for 5 minutes or until golden
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool
Assembling the Tartelette
When the pastry cases are completely cool, add the pears
Use a spoon to drizzle the pear-syrop on top of the pears
A few days ago A Jeanne In the Kitchen wrote a very informative post about avocados, the name, their origin, the varieties and their nutritious benefits. Excellent read, thanks! We all know how tasty guacamole is, or the combination of fried egg, avocado, salmon and toast. She also mentioned the possibility to cook avocados. New to us!
We searched for recipes. The first option is to slice an avocado, coat the slices with breadcrumbs or panko and deep-fry them. A bit more work: make a batter with avocados, cheese, eggs and herbs, take small portions of the batter and fry these in a pan until golden. A third option: baked eggs in avocado. The pictures looked great, so let’s start cooking!
We halved a ripe avocado and removed the pit. Hm. A halved avocado has room for half a pit. An egg is bigger than a pit. Adding an egg to a halved avocado creates a bit of a mess. What to do? Use smaller eggs or remove some of the avocado? We couldn’t find quails eggs so we made the hole bigger. What to do with the left over avocado? Serve with the baked avocado? But that’s a bit silly, isn’t it? The problem was not yet solved: one egg was still too big for one halved avocado. Remove even more of the avocado? Baked eggs in avocado skin? We decided to whisk the egg, add a pinch of salt, some black pepper, thinly sliced spring onion and crème fraîche. We poured some of the mixture in the avocado and baked the two halves in the oven.
We think the result looks very nice. Unfortunately the avocado doesn’t benefit from the warmth. Even worse: the avocado and the egg reduce each other flavour. A bland combination. The aroma of the dish is bitter, making the dish even less enjoyable.
What You Don’t Need
1 ripe Avocado
1 organic Egg
a pinch of Salt
Blach Pepper
1 teaspoon of Crème Fraîche
thinly sliced Spring Onion
What You Don’t Need to Do
Halve the avocado
Remove the pit
Make the holes bigger
Eat the left over avocado
Whisk the egg
Add salt, crème fraîche and some of the spring onion
Pour some some of the mixture in the halved avocados
Transfer to the oven at 180 ˚C or 355 ˚F for 20 minutes
Recently we bought Asma Khan’s cookbook Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul. ‘An entrancing book’, according to Nigella Lawson. Asma Khan is an Indian British chef, cookbook author and restaurant owner. In 2012 her pop-up restaurant started for 12 guests at her home, serving food cooked from traditional family recipes. Today her all-female Darjeeling Express restaurant in London offers Indian Rajput and Bengalihome cooking specialties.
In 2024 she won the Johannes van Dam Prize, a lifetime achievement award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the world of gastronomy. Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Yotam Ottolenghi, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Jeroen Meus and Alain Passard.
We prepared five dishes from the book and asked our esteemed panel (André, Joke, Martine and Rutger) for their thoughts. In this post we will look into Asma Khans Pumpkin and Coconut Soup and a dessert from Bengali, Bhapa Doi. On July 17th we will post part 2 of this review.
Flavours and Aromas
Asma Khan’s cookbook is about the food she enjoyed when she lived in India, the food she missed so much when living in the UK. By publishing the recipes, she creates an opportunity for all of us to enjoy the food that is close to her heart. That’ s why we followed her instructions to the letter, with one exception; we used less chillies.
Spices
Buying the right spices was a bit of a challenge. One of the ingredients of the Pineapple Chutney is Tej Patta, or Indian bay leaf. It has a clear cinnamon-like flavour and is not to be confused with common bay leaf. We also needed not too spicy large chillies. We found some excellent Kashmiri Red Chilies. Flavourful, a touch spicy and dark red. One dish required Cassia Bark which we couldn’t find and replaced with cinnamon. We wanted to serve original Indian beer, so we had to find a few bottles of Kingfisher or Cobra. The shopping took a bit of time, but it was worth the effort!
Not Just Another Cookbook
The book is called ‘Ammu’ which translates to ‘Mother’. The stories, the recipes, the whole book is a tribute to the food her mother (and the family’s cook) prepared. But we feel it’s more: it’s also a tribute to original flavours, to people taking time to prepare food, to sharing and enjoying, to communities and heritage.
Pumpkin and Coconut Soup
When talking about our menu, we looked at the menu of The Darjeeling Express and decided to prepare one starter and four dishes as main course. A vegetarian Pumpkin and Coconut soup would be ideal as a starter. The ingredients are pumpkin, onion, garlic, ginger, red chillies, coconut cream, salt, star anise and fennel seeds. Two tablespoons of fennel seeds (for 6 servings)? Star anise? Would that work?
The panel was impressed: a delicious pumpkin soup, spicy, but not the kind of spiciness that lingers on. The fennel worked beautifully with the pumpkin and coconut. The star anise gave the soup a nice additional and unexpected aroma. André’s favourite.
Bhapa Doi
When reading the book, we noticed that the recipes are not too complex, however, most are rather labour intensive. The book includes several recipes for desserts but given the time we needed to prepare the other dishes we decided to make a relativity easy Bengali dessert (not included in the book).
The Bhapa Doi is rich and moist, the taste long and (not overly) sweet. It made us think of cream cheese pie. The raisins combined very well with the creamy flavours and the cardamom. Perhaps we could have made smaller portions?
What You Need (for 7 ramekins (150 ml))
One tin of Condensed Milk (approximately 400 grams)
250 ml Greek Yoghurt
100 ml Whole Milk
1½ teaspoon of finely crushed Cardamom Seeds
Handful of Sultana Raisins
Pistachio Nuts (to decorate)
What You Do
Soak the sultana raisins for 15 minutes in lukewarm water
Preheat your oven to 170 °C or 340 °F traditional (no fan)
Combine the condensed milk with the yoghurt until smooth
Add the milk and combine
Add the crushed cardamom seeds
Use kitchen paper to dry the raisins
Add the raisins to the mixture
Fill the ramekins with the mixture
Place the ramekins in a baking tray
Add boiling water up to 2/3 of the height of the ramekins
Close the oven door and reduce the temperature to 120 °C or 250 °F
Leave in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, until set
Test with a needle (it should come out dry)
Remove the ramekins from the baking tray and allow to cool.
Best to refrigerate the ramekins for 4+ hours in the refrigerator before serving
Decorate with pistachio nuts
The Book
Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul by Asma Khan is for sale via the usual channels or your local bookstore for 35,00 US$ or 26,00 EUR. Some of her recipes were published by the BBC, other recipes were published by Great British Chefs and these by the Foodnetwork.
A few weeks ago we enjoyed Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra at restaurant Rigatoni in Haarlem. We loved the combination of pasta and duck so we decided to look into this Italian classic. We found a recipe in La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene by Pellegrino Artusi, published in 1891. His recipe (number 272) combines a whole duck with celery stalk, parsley, carrot and onion. When everything is nicely cooked, he removes the duck from the pan, passes the sauce through a sieve, removes the duck fat and adds some butter. The duck is served with Pappardelle and Parmesan cheese. The vegetables are served separately.
We decided to use orecchiette and fresh duck leg. Orecchiette is a pasta typical for the very south of Italy whereas Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra is typical for Venice. Using orecchiette is probably not-done from an Italian point of view, but we simply love the way it combines with this duck-based sauce.
Wine Pairing
The restaurant served the dish with a glass of Corvina, which we think was an excellent choice. The wine is made in the Veneto region, not far from Venice, with 100% corvina grapes. In general, we suggest a light to medium bodied, unoaked, red wine with aromas of red fruit. Its taste should be pleasant and warm with good acidity. A red wine that should be served slightly chilled.
Heat a skillet and fry both sides of the leg until golden.
Transfer the duck to the oven for one hour, skin on top
After an hour, check if the duck is well done and moist
Let cool
Remove the skin from the meat and the meat from the bones
Very coarsely chop (or pull) the meat.
Set the skin aside
Chop onion, finely chop carrot, thinly slice the celery stalk
Heat a large pan, add olive oil and gently fry onion, carrot and celery.
After 5 minutes add the duck meat and the bay leaf
Add a splash of white wine and allow to evaporate
Add the tomatoes (if using fresh tomatoes, then peeled and deseeded)
Add stock
Cook for 60 minutes
Add more stock if required
In parallel
Cook the orecchiette al dente
Heat a small skillet
Add some olive oil
Slice small squares of the skin of the duck
Fry these until crispy
Add some black pepper and Parmesan cheese to the ragù
Serve the pasta with the sauce and decorate with the crispy duck skin and grated Parmesan cheese
PS
You can skip steps 1 to 6 by using Confit of Duck. We tried it, even though we assumed it would be too salty or its flavour not suitable. But we were wrong, it worked very well.
Some recipes use breast of duck, which we think is too lean for a ragù.
The Johannes van Dam Prize 2024 was won by Indian British chef, cookbook author and restaurant owner Asma Khan. In 2012 her restaurant started for 12 guests at her home, serving food cooked from traditional family recipes. Today her all-female Darjeeling Express restaurant in London offers Indian Rajput and Bengalihome cooking specialties. On her current menu are dishes such as Chicken Momis (dumplings served with smoked chillies sesame chutney) and Badami Baingan (aubergine with coconut, peanut and tamarind). Sounds delicious!
Prize
The Johannes van Dam Prize is a lifetime achievement award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the world of gastronomy. Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Yotam Ottolenghi, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Jeroen Meus and Alain Passard. The prize giving ceremony used to be part of the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food, but for reasons unknown to us it was decided to separate the two events. As a result, the prize giving event in 2024 with Asma Khan was relatively small and went by hardly noticed. A pity.
Cookbook
We bought her cookbook Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul. ‘An entrancing book’, according to Nigella Lawson. We were impressed by the great stories and of course the recipes. Over the coming weeks we will prepare some of the dishes and ask our review panel to taste the flavours of Asma Khan’s kitchen.
Join us!
Please join us in preparing one (or more) of her dishes. You could buy the book, look at her recipes as published by the BBC or these recipes published by Great British Chefs or these from the Foodnetwork. Post about it on your blog and ping back, track back, share or re-post.
Let’s enjoying Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul!
Earlier we wrote about Tarte au Citron, or Lemon Pie. This is a recipe for a Tartelette au Citron, a small but very different pie. The filling is lemon curd, which you add to the pastry case just before serving. You can easily make both components a day ahead. The crunchy, slightly sweet pastry case and the soft, rich, tart filling go together very well. You could decorate the tartelette with meringue or chocolate sprinkles, but we prefer them as they are. Great with a strong cup of coffee.
What You Need
Pâte Sucrée
50 grams of Unsalted Butter
40 grams of Caster Sugar
125 grams of All Purpose Flour
1 gram of Salt
1 Organic Egg
Water (optional)
Curd
65 ml of Lemon Juice
65 grams of Unsalted Butter
80 grams of Fine Sugar
One Organic Egg
What You Do (Curd)
Beat the egg
Melt the butter
Combine all ingredients.
Cook Au Bain Marie until you have the right consistency.
Or transfer to your microwave, put it on 50% or 70% power (depending on your microwave) and heat with intervals of 20-30 seconds. Mix between the intervals. This is a very precise way of heating the mixture and it gives you full control over the process. Towards the end of the process, you may want to reduce the power or shorten the intervals. The percentage and the duration of the intervals depend on your microwave and the bowl you use.
Set aside and allow to cool.
Transfer the curd to the refrigerator. It will keep for a few days.
What You Do (Pastry Case)
Combine sugar, flour and salt.
Dice butter, add to the mixture and combine. Use a hand mixer with kneading hooks.
Beat the egg and add.
Use your hands to make the dough. It should not be sticky, so it must be easy to make a ball. If too dry, add just a bit of water. If too wet, add some flour.
When done, remove from the bowl and wrap in kitchen foil. Store in the refrigerator for at least two hours. It can be stored for a few days.
Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a larger than the top of the tartelette forms. We used 8 cm or 3 inch (quiche-) forms. The dough should be approximately 2 or 3 mm (0.1 inch) thick.
Coat the forms with butter.
Line the forms with the pastry. Press the pastry well into the sides and bottom. Use a knife to remove the excess dough.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 190 °C or 375 °F.
Use a fork to prick small holes in the pastry.
Line the forms with greaseproof paper or aluminum foil, add baking beans and bake blind for 10 minutes.
Remove the paper and the baking beans.
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 °C or 320 °F.
Transfer back to the oven for 5 minutes or until golden
Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
When the pastry cases are completely cool, add the curd and serve
Today April 26th, we celebrate the birthday of the King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. Well actually, his birthday is tomorrow, but you can’t have a party on a Sunday, can you? The Dutch royal family is also known as ‘de Oranjes’, which is reflected in the use of the colour orange when referring to Dutch royalty. There is no real link between the royal family and the colour. The ‘orange’ in their name refers to the French city of Orange, a Principality one of his ancestors inherited in 1544. Over the years we prepared Orange Sabayon, Queen’s Soup, Orange and Almond Cake, Bouchée à la Reine, Orange Flan, Canard à l’Orange and Baba au Mandarine Napoléon on this day.
Today we finally have nice weather in the Netherlands, so let’s prepare something very special: a parfait of orange. The recipe we followed was published by Jeroen Meus, a well-known Belgian chef. He was inspired by Bernard Pacaud, a French chef who owns restaurant l’Ambroisie in Paris, awarded with three Michelin Stars.
Perfect
A (French) parfait is an ice cream made without churning, so no need for an ice cream maker. In this case the mixture is poured into an empty orange and frozen. One of the components of a parfait is the combination of egg yolks and sugar, beaten until ruban. This means that the mixture has become pale yellow and soft. It should resemble Greek yoghurt. The beaten egg whites will add lightness, as they do in mousse au chocolate. Then it’s a matter of richness (cream), flavour (coffee, orange, mango, passion fruit et cetera) and sugar. Making a parfait requires a number of parallel actions, but with the right mise-en-place it’s not difficult (although, to be fair, our kitchen was a bit of a mess).
Orange Parfait
The orange parfait as prepared by Jeroen Meus is a combination of:
Whipped Cream
Cooked Cream flavoured with Orange Peel
Whipped Egg White
Orange Juice
Mandarine Napoléon
Egg yolks and Sugar (beaten until ruban)
Gelatine
A salad of Oranges and Blood Grapefruit
Details can be found on the website of Jeroen Meus, including a helpful video (in Dutch).
The first time we had chicken prepared this way was in a lovely restaurant in Vence, France. The restaurant was called Auberge des Seigneurs and offered a wide range of beautiful dishes from the days of King François I, such as blue trout, tian, chicken and lamb cooked on a spit before an open fire in the dining room. Ah, Madame Rodi, those culinary evenings, the wines from the Domaine de Rimauresq, and your infinite hospitality, dear memories. The chicken was a special treat. It was juicy, tasty and rich. The chicken was rubbed on the inside with a very intense paste. A wonderful idea because the powerful rub flavoured the whole chicken, not just the outside. The result was aromatic, flavourful and light. Since we don’t have a spit with an open fire at home, we had to find another way of roasting our chicken to perfection. An oven dish? A chicken sitter? We think the best way to roast your chicken is using a baking rack over a roasting pan filled with water. The rack will guarantee an evenly cooked and golden chicken, the water helps keeping the meat juicy and the skin crispy. We served our chicken with slow cooked fennel.
Wine Pairing
We enjoyed a glass of red wine made with cabernet sauvignon grapes from the Pays D’Oc In France, produced by Abbotts & Delaunay. The wine is ruby red, it has aromas of dark fruit and the taste is long and velvety. Its fruitiness combines beautifully with the aromatic chicken. In general we suggest an intense, fruity, easy to drink red wine.
What You Need
For the Rub
2 twigs of Rosemary
5 twigs of Thyme
3 leaves of Sage
Salt
Oil
Organic Chicken
Black Pepper
For the Fennel
1 Fennel
Olive Oil
Pastis (optional)
What You Do
Finely chop rosemary, thyme and sage
Transfer to a mortar, add a teaspoon of salt and make into a paste. It must be very aromatic and salty
Add some oil, just to make it a bit smoother
Rub the inside of the chicken
Tie the legs together with kitchen twine
Transfer the chicken to the refrigerator and allow to rest for a few hours (at least two)
Preheat your oven to 350 °F or 180 °C (with fan)
Pat the chicken dry with kitchen paper
Add a layer of water to the roasting pan
Cook until golden and done. The internal temperature should be 165 °F or 75 °C. In general, a chicken needs 30 minutes per 500 grams
Allow to rest for 5 – 10 minutes
Serve on a warm plate with black pepper (and slow cooked fennel)
PS
Slice the fennel, add olive oil to a pan, add the fennel, put the lid on the pan and leave on low heat for an hour or so. Stir and check every 15 minutes. Add a splash of pastis to enhance the taste.
Normally we use the leftovers to make chicken stock. Due to the intensity of the rub this stock will be okay if you want to make Mediterranean flavoured soups, for instance one with zucchini.
Marinating is such an interesting way of preparing food. It can be used to make food (meat) softer, to add flavour or colour, it can be acidic, it can be enzymatic, sometimes it requires only a few minutes, sometimes it takes days.
One of our favourite recipes by Antonio Carlucci is a salad made with maitake, fresh scallops, crab and shrimps. It’s an amazing result, with lots of pleasant flavours, also thanks to the cilantro, dill and parsley. Part of the fun is that the scallops are not seared but prepared with a marinade of lemon, a process that takes a few minutes only.
In this case we want to add flavour (and a bit of colour) to already very tasty cod. The duration depends on the shape of the fillet, in our case it was 30 minutes. You will taste delicious cod with a touch of umami and sweetness and you will smell the aromas of the marinade. The pickles will give the dish a crunchy and briny touch.
Wine Pairing
We enjoyed a glass of our favourite sake: Junmai Taru Sake as produced by Kiku-Masamune. The sake is matured in barrels made of the finest Yoshino cedar, which is reflected in its aroma and flavor. The sake will cleanse your palate and allow for the more intense taste of the marinated cod.
If you decide to pair the dish with a white wine, then we suggest an aromatic, fresh and fruity wine, with aromas of citrus and apple. The wine should be uplifting and juicy with a light character.
What You Need
Fillet of Cod
1 tablespoon of Miso
1 tablespoon of Mirin
¼ tablespoon Soy Sauce (preferably with less salt)
½ tablespoon of Rice Vinegar
1 teaspoon of Mustard
1 teaspoon of Sesame Oil
Pickled Cucumber
What You Do
Combine miso, mirin, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and mustard. Be careful with the soy sauce, you’re looking for a balanced mixture.
Dry the cod and leave to marinate in the mixture for 30 minutes.
Transfer the cod without excess marinade and fry in a warm pan until done.
The fish should be opaque and flaky. Its internal temperature 60 – 63 °C or 140 – 145 °F
The sugars in the marinade burn easily, so the pan shouldn’t be too warm.
Serve on a warm plate with the pickles.
Variations
You can also prepare this dish with haddock (although it’s perhaps too delicate), ling or pollack. If you want a spicier marinade, then add grated fresh ginger. Crushed cilantro seeds will add more depth to the taste.
There is so much fun and creativity in baking! Just think about the aromas in your kitchen when you bake an apple pie, the positive vibes when you transfer it to a plate, the joy when sharing and eating it. Baking can also be challenging, just think about techniques as tempering chocolate, but this apple pie is really simple. No spectacular ingredients and no complex skills required. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee or as a dessert, perhaps with vanilla ice cream.
What You Need
The quantities depend on the size of your baking tin.
(tart) Apples
Cinnamon
Butter
Sugar
Puff Pastry
What You Do
Place butter in a pan and melt
Peel, core and chop apples.
Add apples, cinnamon and sugar to the pan
Cook for 20 – 30 minutes, stirring from time to time
The compote should not be runny, perhaps you need to reduce
Allow for the compote to cool (room temperature is fine)
Preheat oven to 200 °C or 390 °F
Line a baking tin with puff pastry.
Use a fork to poke holes in the pastry
Peel, core and slice apples
Add compote to the baking tin, covering the bottom
Add the sliced apples
Bake until golden
PS
Best is to use apples such as gala, granny smith, jonagold or braeburn. It may take a bit longer to make a compote with these apples, but they remain nice and firm when baking the pie. Don’t use vanilla as ingredient of the compote. We feel it deteriorates the flavour of the apple. Cinnamon and sugar will be perfect. If buying readymade (frozen) puff pastry, make sure it’s made with flour, butter, water and salt only.
