The flavors of New Orleans & Cajun inspired chicken in a spiced cream sauce

I’ve been in love with New Orleans for years! I’ve never been and hope to someday. The colorful culture & mix of ethnicity’s intrigues me. The music; amazing jazz wows me! The food…ooooh the food…unique, tasteful with the influences of the French, the Spanish, the Creole & the Caribbean, its simply amazing! Thick sauces, jambalaya’s, étouffées and fresh seafood…yum! I have to admit that I am no real expert on the differences & uniqueness of Cajun vs Creole cooking however both are extremely delicious which is all that matters! Key cajun ingredients are the cajun vegetables (called the “Holy Trinity” of cajun cooking :-), cajun spices & the roux, each imparting a lovely taste to you dish.

This chicken inspired dish gets its name from the cajun spices fried off with the chicken to give a wonderful

A lovely day for a loaf of bread!

Love the bakery smell? The smell of comfort & fresh baked goodies? Make your own crisp, crusty & fresh loaf and it’s sooooo easy! The no-knead method is a dream and you’ll never miss that wonderful aroma again!

The Very Berry Banana Trifle

Over New Year I made a beautiful trifle that I want to share with you. I’ve been making trifles for years, the simple ones; cake, fruit, more cake, more fruit & topped with custard & cream.

This one is a bit special though.

It’s inspired by Heston 🙂 Did you watch the Masterchef Australia episode when he had the contestants make the Royal Jubilee Trifle? It looked amazing! & so elegant!

The ideas for adding a strawberry compote & a shortbread for crunch were amazing.

The crystallized petals, jellys & such however are all too dainty for my taste so I only incorporate the ideas of the compote & shortbread.

It takes a bit of time to get everything ready, so I make the compote & custard and semi-assemble on one day (the flavors develop more when it stays over night) and then make the cream and shortbread the next day. I only add the shortbread & cream layer a few hours before I serve it.

It’s yummy & delicious and full of taste & texture!

Give it a try for a special occasion & you’re going to fall in love with it!

Very Berry Banana Trifle

Cheers!

Re-discovering “my” food & Keshk Frakh (Chicken Keshk)

Egyptian traditional; creamy savory “eggless-custard” with shredded chicken & crisp fried onions.

It’s funny…I never used to cook a lot of traditional food before I started this blog. Somehow now, I seem to be doing that more & more often.

Crispy Skin Salmon with Chili-garlic, ginger, honey & soy

Quite an easy dish to make. Light and tasty.

I use salmon fillets & like crisping up the skin, it makes for a lovely taste & texture. A good visual guide while cooking the fillets is to look at the sides; they should be turning opaque but without white foamy spots sprouting out from the sides – if you start seeing those, the heat is too high or you have been seriously flattening it with your fish slice. That white stuff is called “albumin” and it doesn’t make for an appetizing piece of fish.

The sauce in my opinion tastes better as it “ages”…it mellows out and the flavors infuse beautifully so if you can make the sauce/marinade in the morning or even the day before and store it in a jar in the fridge till you need it. The sauce quantity below will make more than you may need & can be stored in a tightly sealed jar in the fridge for 2 weeks.

I make 6 salmon fillets as they are usually 150gm so the extra 2 fillets are halved between us.

The rice is just day old rice mixed with veg & some of the sauce, so it’s not fried rice. The bok choy, I decided on at the last minute so while it’s not listed exactly in the recipe how to cook it is explained.

The profiles below show the calorie & nutrition info for the salmon plus the veg rice excl. the bok choy & the sauce (The sauce is approx. as it serves more than just 4 servings).

Crisp salmon and rice

The sauce profile.

Crispy Skin Salmon with Chili-Garlic, Ginger, Honey & S

Cheers!

Long weeks and a dish of braised veal!

As much as I like to cook, sometimes, I want the food to be ready with the least possible effort from my side. Long days and long weeks usually have that effect on me. This week has been one of them and it’s Thursday already and I feel wiped! And while most stews are like that to be honest, I’m not a huge stew fan…I want something I can sink my teeth into…

One of my go to dishes when I’m in this mood is Braised Veal Chops with Caramelized Onions.

A dish that takes about an hour or so to make, doesn’t need any attention except midway to flip the chops and at the end for a few minutes to thicken the sauce.

The outcome is tender meat that literally falls off the bone and sweet onions with a hint of lemon for balance. It’s hearty yet not too rich.

You don’t have to use chops, you can make it with any somewhat thickly cut beef or veal though I do prefer it on the bone; it makes for a more flavorful onion sauce:-)

If you don’t “french” the ribs, the extra veal layer that covers the “eye” & rib bones cooks down to something so tender, soft and delicious…I really can’t describe it, but its yummy! I frenched 6 ribs (they make for nicer photos 😉 ) and left the other 2 whole for the “carnivores” in our house :-).

Eat with rice or buttered mash or just make them into sandwiches, whatever you like really. I love to mix the onion “sauce” with the rice and nibble the meat off the rib bone…it’s just yummy…

Braised veal chops with caramelized onions

Cheers!

The beauty of homemade jam…

My first memory of jam is of my dad making a marmalade. Lovely translucent orange colored jelly with long orangey things suspended in it! For a child it looked like magic! Spread on buttered toast, it tasted magical too! Both he and my grandma made jams, mainly marmalade and date jams.

But it was only last year when I tried my first batch. Which I gloriously burnt! 🙂

But hey, that wasn’t going to stop me! So after spending an hour trying to get the burnt jam off the bottom of my pot, I tried again. And it was magnificent!

Full of fruit, not too sweet and tasting completely of strawberries!

Why strawberries? To me they were a medium challenge – not easy yet not difficult to set. I’ll start working with more challenging & exotic fruits soon I hope 🙂

So is it difficult? Absolutely not! Nor does it need specialized equipment. I use my pressure cooker since its the largest pot I have with tall sides. I use apples for the pectin (I was turned off by what I read about powdered pectin, not that I would find it here anyway!). I sterilize re-used jars in the oven and make small batches to ensure my jam comes out perfect and none spoil.

Just get the freshest, firmest and tastiest strawberries you can find and give it a little care & attention!

Give it a go; seriously nothing says “homemade” like a jar of your own jam!

Homemade strawberry jam

Cheers!

Les trois petits cochons…

My mum and aunt both have this wonderful memory from when they were in college. After they’d finish and when they were in a mood for something special, they’d go to Groppi. Now Groppi back in the day was a fancy tea-house and despite being Italian owned was serving up special teas and french pastries and ice creams.  My mum and aunts’ special order was always Les Trois Petits Cochons! 3 scoops of ice cream served with a special sauce which had pieces of little “gems” of candied fruits…my aunt insists that it was angelica that gave it its special taste! I’ve never been, and unfortunately Groppi is now run down with only a beautiful facade while the delicate and delicious pastries of old have deteriorated as has it service and style 😦

So in honor of my aunts birthday & her lovely memory, I made a different version of their “petits cochons”

3 perfectly crisp choux buns, each with a different filing & topping…

Caramel Delight with salted caramel creme patisserie & a caramel glaze, Chocolate Dream with chocolate mousseline & chocolate ganache And finally, Strawberries and Cream with strawberry jam fruits, whipped chantilly cream & a dusting of icing sugar…

The filling “base” is a creme patisserie, which turned out to be a fancy word for very rich & thick custard!!! I flavor it with chocolate & whipped “chantilly” cream for the chocolate buns (chantilly…yet another fancy word for cream whipped with vanilla & icing sugar 🙂 and caramel sauce for the caramel bun.

The strawberries & cream are filled with strawberry jam pieces from my homemade strawberry jam and some whipped cream.

And this is how the full serving plate looks:

The dessert looks stunning & tastes amazing!!! The recipe links are listed below and you can spread them over 2 days and make the assembly on the 3rd (the day you want to serve it). It’s not difficult, just needs some time & patience and the results are wonderful! I hope you give it a try! Choux Buns Les Trois Petits Cochons Cheers!

Family fun and Crusty pull-apart bread

It’s the weekend. We have guests coming over. I’m making the dinner and some treats as it’s somebody’s birthday too!

I made the truffles in the morning (and I got the right ratios this time for the orange intense truffles! And I’m quite pleased with myself 🙂 )

They’ve asked me for the spicy bisque style shrimp fettuccine so I’m working on the sauce.

And in the midst of this my son asks for a pull-apart bread!

I hadn’t made that in a while and I did have a gorgeous sour dough loaf on the counter, so why not?

It’s easy, yummy, delicious and it takes about 20 min prep…the same amount of time I’m sitting around waiting for my sauce to finish simmering!

I’d first come across this in an article hubby sent me. 29 Ooey Gooey, Cheesy, Chocolatey And Delicious Pull Breads To Make…the title itself is amazing!

Just looking at the photos made my mouth water and we tried one and it was awesome!

Since then I’ve played around with the “toppings” as I love the garlic/cheese/mushroom flavor combination but you can dress it whichever way you want! Even make it sweet not savory!

Use store bought bread or make your own loaf, either way it turns out delicious!

Here’s the link to the original recipe I adapted from “Very Culinary”

The great thing is you can prep it and just leave the adding butter and baking bit till you want to eat. It only takes 25min in the oven.

This is sharing food at its best, yummy and messy 🙂 eaten with hands, not a knife & fork 😉

But sharing with loved ones, who cares about messiness?  🙂 Dig in and tear out the bread “fingers” and enjoy!

Which is exactly what we all did!

Yum!

Crusty yummy pull-apart bread

Cheers!

Roz Maamar (Baked rice with beef and cream)

My mum used to make us this dish on special occasions. It’s different than typical rice as it comes out a bit soft and a bit creamy in the middle and the rice grains are not separate like in regular rice. It’s cooked in broth and milk and is finished off with a layer of cream. The result is creamy and lucious rice with nuggets of tender beef cooked inside it.

While traditionally its made with veal I think beef gives it a deeper yet still subtle flavour

It’s easy to make and if you cook the beef in a pressure cooker you’ll shave off about an hour of the cook time.

Use medium grain round rice similar to arborio. I use regular egyptian eldoha rice and if that’s not available around you then arborio should work.

Enjoy!

Roz Maamar recipe