Surfside Screens

Jeremy and I had a little dinner party. We came up with a menu for a fictional drive-in movie theatre called Surfside Screens in Nag's Head, NC. Here's a peek into the evening

Filleting fish that afternoon

Fried pickles

Blueberry muffins in the bread bowl

Hot chocolate to finish the night

Pate a Choux

Clafoutis avec Mémé

When my parents flew back to the US for the summer, they stopped off in Paris to visit my French grandmother Suzanne. We call her Mémé and she is known- above all else- for her cooking. She is the only woman who could get my 12 year old self to eat fish. How? By whipping up one of those famously French, sinfully delicious white butter-laden sauces .

But I'm here to talk about her clafoutis which is a sort of cake made with black cherries. If you haven't already tried one, you should. As I've mentioned before, I don't really even like cherries, but this takes the cake. (ha!)


It's not even that difficult to make- Mémé doesn't even have a set recipe. So if cherries are still in season near you, I'd suggest giving this a try before it's too late.

My mom had the ingenious idea of taking pictures of the process while she was visiting and so whitout her permission, I have posted them here for our mutual enjoyment. See how much I care?

Et voila ma Mémé Suzanne:

Step one- Butter a baking dish. All good French recipe require butter. fact of life.

Now here we have some pitted cherries. Some say that you MUST keep the pits in as they infuse the cake with their nutty almost almond like flavour- but others are more practical. My Mémé falls into the later category.

Mixing up the batter. Do I spot some yogurt or creme fraiche on the lip of the bowl?

Adding the obligatory milk.

And a bit of flour tooNext are the cherries. And try not to lose any, ok?

Mix it all up
And pour into your buttered pan

Into the oven for 34-40 minutes.

Et voila! Un delicieux clafoutis aux cerises!

Clafoutis
From the Larousse Gastronomique
A desert from the Limousin region of France , clafoutis consists of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish, covered with fairly thick batter and baked. It is served lukewarm, dusted with sugar. As a rule, the cherries are not stoned (pitted) but simply washed and stalked (stemmed), since the kernel add their flavor to the batter during cooking.

• 500g black cherries
• 100g caster sugar, seperated
  
• butter for greasing
• 125g flour
• pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• 300ml milk
• icing sugar, for dusting

Remove the stalks from 500g (18 oz) washed black cherries, dust them with 50g (2oz) caster sugar and leave for at least 30 minutes. Butter a baking tin and fill it with cherries. Put 125g (4 1/2 oz) plain flour in a mixing bowl and add a pinch of salt, 50g (2oz) caster sugar and 3 well-beaten eggs; mix well; then add 300ml (1/2 pint) milk and mix thoroughly again. Pour the mixture over the cherries and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) for 35-40 minutes. When it is lukewarm dust with icing sugar.

miam!

Egyptian Lentil Soup

Last weekend I had a lovely surprise email waiting in my inbox from my mother's good friends Rosalie. She had seen my blog and wanted to share a recipe she had acquired while living in Egypt. Egyptian Lentil soup is a "big deal to them!" according to Rosalie and this soup is sure not to disappoint. From the creamy texture and punchy cumin, right down to the color, this soup is perfect this time of year.

Let's get started shall we?

Just look at those ingredients! How can you go wrong?

Wash your lentils thoroughly

Bring your broth to a boil and then add your lentils, cut tomatoes and quarted onion.

Let the broth mixture simmer while you prepare your chopped caramelized onion.


Cut to 20-30 minutes later: your chopped onion is caramelized and your soup should be pureed- add in the cumin.

And voila!

Egyptian Lentil Soup
This is the recipe as written by Rosalie- my mom's fabulous Roman friend who lives with her China. Talk about an international recipe!
Ingridients :

• 2 cups ads majroosh, (dried, hulled split, red lentils), or other dried lentils
• 2 quarts chicken stock, fresh or can
• 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
• 1 medium tomato, quartered
• 2 teaspoons garlic, coarsely chopped
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 1 Tablespoon onion, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• black pepper freshly ground
• lemon, cut into wedges

Prepararazione:

Wash the lentils in a large sieve or colander set under cold running water, until the draining water runs clear.
In a heavy 4 to 5 quart saucepan, bring the stock to a boil over high heat. Add the lentils, onion, tomato and garlic, reduce the heat to low, and simmer partially covered for 45 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.
Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over moderate heat. When the foam begins to subside, add the chopped onions and, stirring frequently, cook for 10 minutes, or until they are soft and deeply browned. Set aside off the heat.

Puree the soup through a food mill or pour the entire contents of the saucepan into a sieve set over a deep bowl and force the ingredients through with the back of a large spoon, pressing down hard on the vegetables before discarding the pulp. Return the soup to the saucepan and, stirring constantly, cook over low heat for 3 or 4 minutes to heat through. Stir in the cumin, salt and pepper, and taste for seasoning. Just before serving, stir in the remaining3 tablespoons of butter.
To serve, ladle the soup into a heated tureen, sprinkle lightly with the reserved browned onions and serve the lemon wedges separately.

Mixed Berry Pavlova

I probably should have mentioned that with all those eggwhites leftover from the Eclairs, Jeremy and I thought we should put them to good use and make a Pavlova. If truth be told, Jeremy made the pavlova on his own while I fiddled around with the eclairs... but it was a midnight triumph! And a great way to enjoy the last of the summer berries


Mixed Berry Pavlova

From Ina Garten's recipe

• 4 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Sweetened Whipped Cream, recipe follows
• 1/2 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
• 1/2 pint fresh blueberries
• 1/2 pint fresh raspberries
• Triple Raspberry Sauce, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees F.
Place a sheet of parchment paper on a sheet pan. Draw a 9-inch circle on the paper, using a 9-inch plate as a guide, then turn the paper over so the circle is on the reverse side. (This way you won't get a pencil mark on the meringue.)

Place the egg whites and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat the egg whites on high speed until firm, about 1 minute. With the mixer still on high, slowly add the sugar and beat until it makes firm, shiny peaks, about 2 minutes.


Remove the bowl from the mixer, sift the cornstarch onto the beaten egg whites, add the vinegar and vanilla, and fold in lightly with a rubber spatula. Pile the meringue into the middle of the circle on the parchment paper and smooth it within the circle, making a rough disk. Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Turn off the oven, keep the door closed, and allow the meringue to cool completely in the oven, about 1 hour. It will be crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Invert the meringue disk onto a plate and spread the top completely with sweetened whipped cream. Combine the strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in a bowl and toss with about 1/2 cup of raspberry sauce, or enough to coat the berries lightly. Spoon the berries carefully into the middle of the Pavlova, leaving a border of cream and meringue. Serve immediately in large scoops with extra raspberry sauce.

Sweetened Whipped Cream

• 1 cup cold heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Whip the cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (you can also use a hand mixer). When it starts to thicken, add the sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until firm. Don't overbeat!
Yield: 1 cup

Triple Raspberry Sauce

• 1 half-pint fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup seedless raspberry jam (12-ounce jar)
• 1 tablespoon framboise liqueur

Place the raspberries, sugar and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 4 minutes. Pour the cooked raspberries, the jam, and framboise into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until smooth. Chill.
Yield: 2 cups

Jeremy and I were nice enough to share this with my brother who had to stop mid-way through his first bite and ask: "What is this called again?" A pav-loh-va- why? "This is definitely in my top ten of all time. Why didn't I ever think of this combination before? It's so obviously perfect." And I'll drive the point home by saying that my brother is a bit of a picky eater- even with desserts.

Eclairs

Well it's been another month and I really can't believe that this is my 6th challenge with the Daring Bakers. I still feel like such a newbie!! And yet this challenge didn't kick my ass for once- maybe it's because I was back home for 2 weeks and had free range on my mother's supped up kitchen or maybe it's because I was lucky enough to do the challenge with Jeremy, who is well versed in the Science of baking- because baking IS a science and I just can't be bothered to keep up.


So this month we were given the task of making eclairs based on the recipe by Pierre Herme; baking god, revered by us mere mortals. Although I love baking, I'm not really a fan of patisseries. Maybe I'm just not a fan of pate a choux. I can remember the cake my grandmother special ordered for my communion- a ridiculous folly of pate a choux with caramelized sugar strands and marzipan. something like this. It's called a Croquembouche and incorporates almost every baking element I don't like. But enough about things I don't like! Let's move onto things I loooove- like the coffee pastry cream we made. And how delicious these eclairs became after a night in the fridge! Have you pulled out your baking essentials yet? Because I'm ready to make these all over again. Ready? Let's go-

Let's start with the Pate a Choux which you make in a saucepan! You then put it in an electric mixer (praise the heavens for my mother's Kitchen Aid) and add 5 eggs- one at a time.

Once you've made your dough, you're supposed use some pastry bags to pipe out the eclairs' shape. We didn't have the pastry bags but we had the tips! So we settled for a Ziploc bag.

I'd say that it worked pretty well:



This little number made me feel very professional. It's in the recipe, folks!


All lined up...

Now at some point during the baking, Jeremy and I will have made the coffee pastry cream and the chocolate sauce to use in the chocolate ganache (and this annoyed more than a little bit... a recipe for something to use in another ingredient which itself is ALREADY an ingredient for the overall recipe is ridiculous. I'm not sure if you followed that but I saw the chocolate ganache as the square root of the eclairs....(i don't think that makes things any clearer)) Moving on....
Look! Delicious coffee pastry cream!

And here are the tops after being drizzled with that super-special-multi-multi-step chocolate ganache:

And the money shot-

And I know I've already said this- but the recipe says to serve immediately and I thought these were EXPONENTIALLY better the next day. Honestly when I tried one immediately after finishing them, I wasn't too impressed and kept thinking "I can't believe I spent all that time and effort making something so 'meh'!". So if you don't love them right away- let them mature overnight. I promise you won't regret it!