Coeur de Sel

edamame

Zera — 2010-08-31T08:44:07Z

Is there anything better than a bowl of salty edamame? I always ordered them in japanese restaurants, but had no
clue what I was eating was actually soybeans. I found out this spring, more or less the same time I discovered that Zollinger is selling soy seeds.

This April I'll started the experiment of growing my own edamame. Wasn't too difficult, only next time I'll have to plant 10 times as much :-)

Cooked in very salty water - delicous!

Witches Birthday Feast

Zera — 2010-08-31T07:02:48Z

Last weekend was our sons Birthday party. He wanted it to be a witches party.

We made some really fun things like a very scary witches cave in our cellar and we cooked some serious magic potion with our witches.

Kids party means chocolate cake but since we always invite friends for beer and chips afterwards and we never have enough food I started to rummage through some cookbook in search for more cakes I could bake. It happened what always happens ... I can't decide, I find plenty of things I'd love to do. Whilest my studies I came up with the idea of having a very scary round table with things witches eat - like toad slime and bats poo.

I baked till total exhaustion but it was worth it. Lot's of fun and my son really loved it.

Work in progress.

Pierre Herme's Nutella tart .

The spider ring.

Insects pie.

the lovely cheese cake from foodbeam for the fearful ones.

spiderweb cakes.

matcha cupcakes.

and of course some jelly and a proper birthday cake.

Courgette pie with feta cheese and fresh mint

Zera — 2010-08-17T20:32:49Z

3 big courgette plants in the garden means courgettes almost every day. This is a dish I could eat almost daily these days. Even better it's easy and fast.

puff pastry
2-3 medium size courgettes
1 small onion
a pack of feta cheese
1 bunch of fresh mint
some black olives

Fry the onion in a dash of olive oil. Add the finely cut courgettes fry for an other 3-5 minutes. Season. Take of the heat and add the feta cheese, the olives and the chopped mint. Roll out the dough, fill the pie and bake for 15 minutes or until slightly brown.

Serve with fresh green salad.

Fresh tomato sauce

Zera — 2010-08-17T20:19:20Z

Now is the time I have to eat my yearly ratio of tomato. I only eat tomatoes during the hot summer month when they are ripe and sweet and smell beautifully. One of the favorite summer dishes is a simple tomato sauce.
We are lucky here, we get almost 20 different tomatoes types during the summer. Big ones, tiny ones, red, green, yellow and even burgundy ones.

As I said if you can't get hold of these perfect summer tomatoes don't even think of doing a fresh tomato sauce - use tinned ones instead.

2 sliced onions
2 garlic gloves
a handful of capers
10 black olives
all kind of different tomatoes 5-6 depending on the size
salt
pepper
fresh basil
dried italian herbs
1/2 buffala mozzarella

Slowly fry the onions and garlic in a good dash of olive oil. Add the capers, tomatoes and the olives.
Season. Let cook for approximately 20 min. Add the fresh basil and if you like some buffalo mozzarella ( this does not look very elegant but tastes pretty good). Mix with the pasta and serve.

Earl Grey crème brulée

Zera — 2010-08-17T12:29:25Z

I want summer back! I want to go back to these days were it was to hot to do anything else except sitting on the balcony and drinking whiskey sour. Back to the humid heat the made baking and cooking almost impossible.

Instead it's cold and raining non stop. I try to be optimistic and see this as a temporarily thing. Time to try some new things in the kitchen that we can enjoy on the next summer evening. Earl Grey crème brulée seems like one of the desserts that go together perfectly with a warm summer evening in the garden.

5- 6 persons
make one day in advance.

1 dl milk
7.5 tbs earl grey tea, preferably "earl grey french blue" from mariage freres if you can get hold of it. (Bring one home next time you visit paris I suggest ;-))
8 egg yolks
130 gr caster sugar
500 ml single cream
40 gr brown sugar

Heat the milk add the tea and let infuse for 5 min. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until white.
Strain the milk infusion. Then mix it with the cream and heat again. Pour onto the eggyolks and sugar. Mix well and allow to rest in the refrigerator for 24h.

Next day preheat the oven to 100° . Fill the mixture into 5-6 ramekins and bake for 1h or until they have the consistency of creme brulée. Let them cool down. Sprinkle with the brown sugar and caramelize with the gas torch.
Serve when still a bit warm.

Traveling around the world with my son

Zera — 2010-08-04T20:25:39Z

Did I ever tell you about the high expectations I had of my son? I was so looking forward discovering the culinary world with him. I dreamt of eating sushi in japan and sea urchin fresh from the sea. Picking berries from the bushes in our garden and hunting for blueberries in the woods. How naive was I ! I must have read to many food blogs. :-) I got confronted with parenting reality when we introduced him to his very first home made carrot mush - he hated it. He got this really red face he get when he is seriously upset and started screaming. It only got better when we introduced pasta some month later. Plain pasta I mean.

We tried everything to make him eat "normally". In the end everybody was upset and dinner was just plain stress. At a certain point we decided , or he forced us with his behavior, that he'll get his pasta with parmesan cheese in the evening and we eat our dinner when he's in bed. I don't feel particularly good with this solutions but dinner and cooking is less stressful and to me it's more important that everybody is enjoying his food.
For a long time we lived with this arrangement quite happy. The list with what our boy eats got longer and sometimes shorter again. Basically he doesn't like when different foods are mixed together ( except maybe risotto which he loves ). He his very fussy with textures. He likes vegetables but only raw. He was keen to try cooked asparagus and artichokes, and likes them, but would never try strawberries or any other fruit except apples . All red things all come from hell in his eyes except tomato sauce which has nothing to do with(red) tomatoes of course.
But when, on a trip to france, I found myself hunting through the city of Narbonne for a place we could find cooked pasta for our boy I became desperate again. This is the last thing I thought I would ever do.
We love to travel and he likes it too but where can we go with a boy who only eats pasta and raw vegetables? Next year we plan on going on a big holiday so there is some work to be done.

So some weeks ago we embarked on a culinary travel around the world. He gets to choose the country he wants to visit. Then we collect images from this county. We talk about the animals which life there and what is different and special about that country. Most important we check if they have a football team and how good they are. We even listen to some local music. A modern parent would be lost without the internet! Then we make a collage for our travel journey and then finally it's shopping time.

When we sit down for our lunch he is really quite ready for the adventure. It's not that he would like most of it but at least he tries and has fun. It's fun for me to. First I have to find out what the national diet in the selected country is and then I have to come up with a children adapted menu. Next is Ivory cost - I'm pretty lost, what can I cook with with jams and plantains? Any tips?

Here where we've been so far:

Greece:

We started our trip in greece. Because a good friend of him was in greece by then. 
On the menu were:
Tzaziki, Moussaka, rice and lot's of black olives.
Conclusion: Tzaziki: well cucumbers are better without yoghurt he thinks, Moussaka, didn't help that I used the left overs from his fathers tomato sauce ( which was spicy as hell ) but the rice and the olives can feed you too.

Vietnam:

In vietnam we had for lunch:
Fresh spring rolls, peanut butter dip, fresh asian herbs and rice.
Conclusion: Two bites of spring rolls, lots of thai basil and cilantro, he liked the dip but did not like to dip in... and he ate lot's of rice (as long as it comes with soy sauce) . The making of the spring rolls was popular though.

Mexico:

On the menu ware burritos filled with saffron rice and peas. tomatoes, Onions, cilantro and avocado to roll in. Tortilla chips and guacamole.

Conclusion:

He did not like his burrito but said this is strange since he liked everything he rolled into it. I suggested to unpack it and eat all the ingredients separately. This worked fine. He tried a tiny bit of avocado but did not like it at all. Meanwhile he was happily dipping his tortilla chips into the guacamole ;-)

Harvest

Zera — 2010-07-24T18:44:50Z

Our garden is in full blossom now. So many courgettes I don't know what to cook with them any more. We probably will have to start eating the flowers too - fried in batter a l'italienne.
Today I could also harvest the first beetroot and carrots. Soon the berries are ripe too.
What a lovely time of the year.

Fresh flower infusion

Zera — 2010-07-11T13:48:23Z

The garden is in full blossom. Mint, calendula, chamomile, melissa ... What I really like is these days is boiling a kettle of hot water over the fire in the garden and make some fresh infusion.
Sometime I mix everything together, sometimes I just make a simple calendula infusion with a little bit of mint, lime and honey. Delicious!

Refreshing Spicy Summer Dish

Kevin — 2010-07-11T12:49:56Z

Vietnamese or Thai food is ideal for hot summer days. Here's a recipe that serves as a basis for all kinds of dishes. We usually use it with shrimps and / or fish, but it works just as well with veg. We never tried meat, but I don't see why that shouldn't work also.

Thai Basil

Ingredients (serves 2-3 people):

3-5 cloves of garlic
1-3 fresh small thai chili
1 tablespoon cane sugar
1 fresh ginger root (roughly sized 60 x 30 mm)
1 fresh lime
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 tablespoons sunflower oil
3 teaspoons thai or malaysian curry or spice mixture
20 - 50 leaves of fresh thai basil (depending on the size...)
10 - 20 leaves of fresh mint (again, depending on the size)
1 handful of unsalted peanuts
Your choice of fish, shrimps, other seafood or alternatively vegetables

Preparations:

Peel and chop the garlic cloves into small bits.
Chop the chili into thin slices, don't throw away the seeds, - use them. Wash your hands thoroughly after this!!!
If you have large basil and mint leaves, rip them up into smaller bits and put them in a bowl to have them at hand when needed.
roast the peanuts in a pan just like that, no oil or fat needed for this. Keep stirring until nicely brown. Put them to the side and have them ready for later.
Chop your fish or vegetables into dices (maybe 30 x 30 mm) or make sure your shrimps are unfrozen and ready to go in the pan.

Cooking:

Put the oil in the pan and turn on the heat (1 notch below maximum)
While the oil heats up, you can already add the garlic, chili, cane sugar, salt and the curry or spice. Let it sizzle while stirring until the garlic starts to turn brown.
Throw fish and / or seafood or alternatively vegetables in the pan - cook for about 10 minutes (depending on your choice). Depending what type of fish you chose, it may crumble into tiny bits - that's just fine, especially when using fish alongside shrimps.
Put what you've cooked into the bowls you will serve the food in, add thai basil, mint and peanuts to the servings, squeeze lime over it and mix it up a bit. Remember that you're using the basil and the mint more like a salad than a herb in terms of quantity, so give each serving plenty of it. Enjoy!

Tip: Goes well with the "Sensational Soup" as starters and a green papaya salad alongside.

Little chocolate cakes

Zera — 2010-06-07T12:13:39Z

My son and I, we do a lot of baking. He's a fuzzy eater and I hope helping in the kitchen will open his mind and his taste buds. These little chocolate cakes are cute and easy to make. He loved everything about them, so small, so cute and so easy to make.

120 gr dark chocolate
120 gr Butter
120 gr sugar
4 eggs
1 pinch of salt
70 gr ground almonds
60 gr flour

Pre heat the oven on 175°

Melt the chocolate, butter and the sugar in a pan over medium heat.
Beat the egg white with the salt till stiff. Mix the yellow with the almonds. Add the chocolate mixture and slowly add the egg whites. Fill into the buttered cake forms and bake for approximately 15 min.