Black currant sorbet

I'm a sorbet girl. While I would never shun a bowl of salted caramel ice-cream on my summer party dessert table, if I have a choice I almost always go for the sorbet. After having more than my fair share of gelato in Italy,in France I made a conscious effort to forgo anything in the ice cream family in favour of all time favourite baked goods like almond croissant, brioche au sucre the occasional ham and cheese quiche. Than one night in Paris, after scouring an entire neighbourhood for an Isabel Marant store, I came across a small shop that claimed to be selling only the very best Berthillon ice-cream. Well, that I had to try. I've read so much about it on the uber popular blog of David Lebovitz, skipping it would have made my trip incomplete. So I bought two scoops of cassis sorbet. Happy to say, it was amazing. So much so, that I've been wanting to replicate it ever since I've returned home. As black currants aren't so easy to find around here, I only got around it this past week.
This black currant sorbet is rich, sweet, tart and silky all at the same time. Enjoy, along with a few of our photos from all around France, one of my favourite countries in the entire world.


Black currant sorbet

Ingredients:

3 cups granulated sugar
2 3/4 cups fresh black currants
1 tbsp cassis liqueur

Bring sugar and 3 cups of water to a boil. Let sugar dissolve, remove from heat.
Place currants and 2 cups sugar syrup in a saucepan. Simmer for 12 minutes. Puree in a blender. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Discard solids. Cool completely. Add 1/2 cup water, 3/4 cup sugar syrup and cassis to black currant mixture. Refrigerate until very cold. Freeze in an ice cream maker.




Photos: L.N.

Apricot-red currant summer tart

I just had to make this tart. But then again this time of year there's always something I "just" have to make. Every day there's something new. Don't you just love August? We already have peaches and apricots, still have red currants and strawberries and I even found some of the last sour cherries( my absolute favourite) of the season. So many recipes, so little time...
Because the season of these wonderful summer fruits is so short, I tend to over bake and over eat all month long. And I'm loving every moment of it!
This apricot red currant tart is best served warm. Think sunny weekday afternoon, tall glasses of homemade lemonade, iced coffee and a few girlfriends popping by unexpectedly. Let the good times begin...


Apricot-red currant summer tart


Ingredients:

300 g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
200 g diced, unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs
150 g sugar
about 8 medium sized halved, pitted apricots
250 g red currants, picked over
1 cup sour cream
powdered sugar to serve

Preheat oven to 375F.
Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add butter, 1 egg, 100 g sugar and mix to form a dough. Knead several times until smooth. Form into a ball and refrigerate covered with plastic wrap for at least 1 hour. Line a medium sized baking tray with baking paper. Mix sour cream with the egg and remaining sugar until sugar dissolves.
Roll out dough on a floured surface to fit baking tray. Place apricots, cut side up on top of dough. Scatter red currants on and around apricots. Pour sour cream mixture around fruit and bake until golden around edges, about 35 to 40 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar. Cut while still warm in large rectangles.

Chocolate and hazelnut baklava cigars

Summer hasn't been very nice to us this year. So far we've had rain, thunderstorms, cooler than usual days and everything in between. Longing for a hot summer afternoon spent on a porch, somewhere very quiet, with a slice of peach pie, some home made lemonade in hand and Billie Holiday tunes in the background seems foolish at this point.
August is usually my month of cold soups, iced drinks, grilled fish and salsas. This year it's a bit different. I had hot chocolate for breakfast this morning. That should explain a lot...
Last week however, I spent a lovely afternoon at home with my new favourite summer read and one of the best cook books I've ever owned: Postcards from Portugal by Tessa Kiros. This book will immediately make you want to jump on a plane bound for Portugal. Given the fact that Portugal is just a tad farther than my local green grocer's I decided to take a quick trip to the latter. I couldn't really find all the ingredients to make anyhting from the book, so I made the best of what I had at home. We had an Andalusian gazpacho, some corn on the cob with mint and feta butter and these yummy, albeit not so summery chocolate-hazelnut cigars to finish. By the end of the meal, we all felt like we just had a great day. A great day, indeed.

Chocolate and hazelnut baklava cigars





Ingredients:

130 g dark chocolate, chopped
250 g toasted hazelnuts
140 ml runny honey
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
6 sheets filo pastry
70 ml melted butter

Preheat oven to 390 F. Combine chocolate, hazelnuts and spices. Add to a food processor and coarsely chop. Add honey and pulse until mixture comes together. Lay one sheet of filo on a clean working surface. Brush with butter. Fold in half, then brush again with butter. Spread two big tablespoons of chocolate- hazelnut filling along the edge closest to you. Fold in the two sides, then roll up tightly. Place on a baking tray. Brush again with butter. Repeat with remaining pastry and filling. Bake until golden, about 8 minutes.
Serve with a vanilla ice cream affogato and you'll be in heaven.

Tutti Frutti Jam

Finally, I can make all the jams and preserves I've been craving so much. Well, not all of them as I I don't have much space to store them for the bleak winter days ahead. When I grow up ( at this rate that will never happen!), I'll have a special pantry just for jams and preserves. A special little nook for concoctions like green tomato and fig jam, chili-vanilla red currant jam and the like.
You know, for the cave woman in me, just to evoke those primeval feelings of self sufficiency and survival.
Until then, I'll keep it simple. I made this tutti frutti jam from leftover fruit. Jam making is easy if you stick to some basic rules. It's just fruit+sugar (a concentration of over 60 % of sugar will create a hostile environment for those nasty micro-organisms),+ some lemon juice for some added pectin. I made this jam using equal amounts of cherries, strawberries, raspberries, red currants and apricots. Mixing low pectin fruits(cherries, strawberries) with high pectin ones( raspberries, red currants) will make for a not overly sweet or overcooked jam, as the jam will set faster, giving you a real fruity taste.
Make sure you use sterilized jars. You wouldn't want those previously mentioned micro-organisms taking up residence in your jam, now would you?

Tutti Frutti Jam

1400 g of cherries, red currants, strawberries, raspberries, and apricots (equal amounts)
850 g sugar
juice of one lemon

Wash and clean all fruits, halve and stone your cherries and apricots.
Add all fruits to a medium sized pan and cook over medium heat until they release some of their juices. Add sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium high and cook until setting point is reached. A simple method to check the setting point is to put a saucer in the freezer when you start making the jam.Then, when your jam has somewhat thickened drop a little jam on the cold saucer and let it cool for a minute or two. Push with your finger. If the jam crinkles, setting point has been reached. If it looks too runny, boil for a few more minutes then test again. Remember this will be a soft set jam, unlike the store bought hard or jelly like varieties.
When setting point has been reached, remove jam from heat and pour into hot sterilized jars.
Have a regal Sunday breakfast by serving this fruity goodness on some toasted apricot bread, slathered with ricotta cheese.

Spiced cauliflower with Egyptian dukkah

A few weeks ago I bought a beautiful head of organic cauliflower from the farmer's market. It was a hot summer day and I was going to make some creamy cauliflower spread with shallots, mayo and lots of lemon; And then have it slathered on fresh white bread with juicy ripe tomatoes, just the way my grandmother used to serve it when I was a child. I used to spend most of my summer vacation at my grandmother's. Back in the day when life wasn't crazy, when we could afford the luxury of loosing track of time without any repercussions and the 3 month long summer vacation seemed like an eternity. In a good way. Back then it was all about friends, games and the meals in between . Most mornings I woke up to the smell of savoury french toast and mint tea. After breakfast we went fishing at a nearby creek, then played hide-and-seek in the orchard. To get away from the scorching sun we took a nap. Every day, after lunch. No exceptions. Not just the children, but every living creature enjoyed some good old siesta time. It was dead quiet, except for one pesky fly that always found its way into my cool, shady room.
Very annoying at first, I must say. But after a while It became indispensable for my afternoon nap. Sort of like an odd lullaby.
By the time I woke up my afternoon snack was ready. It was usually this creamy cauliflower spread, with just picked juicy tomatoes, or vanilla custard with poached meringue, caramel pudding or ice cold lemony apple compote.
Those days are long gone but as vivid in my memory as ever. I try to make the above mentioned goodies as often as a can. Every summer. It was one of these hot, kinda quiet days a few weeks ago when I decided to buy some cauliflower. I wasn't able to prepare it the same day, and as luck would have it, the weather cooled down so drastically the next day, that it felt more like October than June. So I decided to forgo my previous plans and go for a more weather appropriate, hearty cauliflower dish instead.


Spiced Cauliflower with Egyptian Dukkah


Dukkah is a delicious mix of nuts, seeds and spices. My version has almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts with coriander, sesame and cumin seeds, but feel free to use any type of nuts you may have on hand.

For the Dukkah:

Preheat oven to 375F. Roast 1/4 cup each of blanched almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts until fragranat, about 8 minutes. Cool. In a skillet toast 1/4 cup each of coriander and cumin seeds. Cool. Add nuts and spices to a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Add mixture to a bowl. In same skillet toast 1/4 cup of sesame seeds until fragrant. Add sesame seeds along with some salt and pepper to mixture in bowl. Store in an airtight container.
Dukkah is also lovely sprinkled on top of salads, carrot soup, spicy tomato soup or used as coating on fish or chicken.

For the spiced cauliflower:

1 large head of cauliflower, cleaned, cut into small florets
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 red chili, seeded, chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
3/4 cup of bread crumbs
Thick yogurt and lemon juice to serve

Cook cauliflower in salted boiling water just until crisp-tender.( It will have an unpleasant smell and texture if overcooked).
Drain well. In a large skillet heat the olive oil, add chili, lemon zest and bread crumbs. Cook until toasted and fragrant. Add cauliflower and stir to coat. Sprinkle a generous amount of Dukkah on top and serve warm with thick yogurt and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Oh, and special message for ZS. Long live all hockey players!!!

Lemons, lemons, lemons

I dreamt of Italy last night. Again. What is it about this country that gets you hooked? Sure they have all that glorious nature, wonderful, exuberant people, pizza, gelato, opera, unforgettable sunsets over the Colosseum, etc... but I have traveled to lots of exotic, remote corners of the world (getting almost crippled by the weight of my backpack, a.k.a. my best friend), saw incredibly beautiful things, met all kinds of people, and ate my way across several continents and none of these places trigger as many nostalgic emotions as Italy does. And things ought to get better, as far as my daydreams are concerned anyway. Memories get better with age. They get wrapped in this strange fog like filter. You know, like the ones they use to make new photos look old. You look at them, immediately see a story there, and in your mind it all plays out in slow motion. But I digest, as Joey Tribiani so eloquently put it.( If you don't know who Joey Tribiani is, you should probably stop reading this blog). What I wanted to talk about here are lemons. Amalfi lemons, to be precise. These ubiquitous little gems that litterally fall on your shoulders when you take a stroll on the notoriously narrow roads of the Amalfi. You can't escape the scent of lemons here, they're everywhere. In the air, in your pasta, in your salad, in baba al limone or that hornlike little thang Italians call sfogliatelle. What surprised me the most was that it's mostly the zest of lemon that is used, rather than the juice.
So in keeping with tradition, I made this lemony panna cotta today. Not a traditional one, as this version is made with buttermilk and lots of lemon zest, making it lighter and tangier than the usual panna cotta made with cream. And because strawberries are in season, why not serve your panna cotta with some honey-lemon strawberry salad?
Finally, if you're ever in the Amalfi region please, oh please have some lemon granita for me. And maybe a shot of Limoncello. Or two.Thank you.



Buttermilk panna cotta with honey-lemon strawberry salad






Ingredients:

750 ml buttermilk
100 g sugar
zest of one organic lemon
3 1/2 gelatin leaves, softened in cold water

salad:
1 cup sliced strawberries
1/2 tsp mild honey
juice of half a lemon

In a medium saucepan combine buttermilk with sugar and lemon zest. Bring to a slow simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Do not boil. Squeeze out excess water from gelatin and add to buttermilk mixture. Stir to dissolve completely. Strain into 4 cups and refrigerate at least 6 hours.
For the salad combine all ingredients and spoon atop panna cottas.
Serves 4 of you or 1 of me.