Fabuleux: Changing the idea

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Changing the idea

This blog previously just focused on pastry and desserts. Now that I have my own website : www.fabuleuxfood.co.za, I can dedicate this space to Arno and me and our food travels and our daily cooking rituals. We are both chefs living ~ eating and drinking together. Sometimes there is harmony in the kitchen and sometimes there is war. Our kitchen is really the heart of the home, ask our friends.

I know that it is a late post, but we had such an awesome Introduction Braai for National Braai Day. We had it on Friday night because we had a wedding the Saturday and we can not NOT celebrate braai day. I mean really, it is a huge excuse to braai and you can not let it slip through your hands. We had a huge potato salad with homemade mayonaisse (had some help from friends to make a huge batch mayo!), pap tert (not a winner for Cape Townians, some reason Cape Townians are not really into maize - including my other half. Snobs.) and some breads (some crusty peppadew ciabatta bread from our oven) with mezze style condiments.

Any excuse for a braai is a good excuse.

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the smell of spring...and pannacotta's

Spring can give you a special feeling, it can bring back memories or it can give you a craving for sweet things! It's time to find your swimsuit, buy watermelons and fill it with vanilla vodka! Put the white wine in a ice bucket, get your cocktail recipes out and indulge on fresh food! Spring is definitely the perfect time and setting for a lunch in the sun!

A perfect dessert for Spring would be 'the pannacotta' - light, easy and versatile! So here comes the basic recipe :

1 l fresh cream
500 ml milk
2 vanilla pods,scrape the seeds from the pods
100 g castor sugar
8 sheets gelatine (2g each)

* Put the gelatine sheets in a ice bowl for 20 minutes
* Heat up milk, castor sugar, 250 ml cream and vanilla pods, take of the heat
* Whip the rest of the cream with vanilla seeds, until stiff peaks are forming
* Squeeze out excess water from gelatine sheets, add it to your warm milk mix (gelatine sheets should melt into your mix)
* Fold the whipped cream into your milk mix once it has cooled down to room temp
* Pour the mixture into desired size dariole moulds or flexi moulds. Keep in fridge overnight.

berry variation : 150 g berries, 50 g sugar, 150 g water. cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. Blend until smooth and strain it through a sieve. Fold berry puree into your whipped cream.
lemon variation : 100 g lemon curd, fold into whipped cream.
caramel flavour : 150 g castor sugar(this replaces the sugar in the recipe), cover with water. Dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat. turn up the heat and cook the sugar until caramel camel colour (darker colour will result in bitter aftertaste). Have your milk at hand and pour into your pot once the desired caramel colour is reached. Follow recipe as usual.

go on... indulge!!