Radish and Broad Beans Salad with Giant Couscous

As you all know by now, I am fond of Yotam Ottolenghi’s way of cooking. He’s never afraid of mixing spices and odd ingredients in order to create tasty and colorful dishes.

As spring time brings us back tasty greens and peppery radishes, it is just the right time to write about that salad.

As usual, I slightly adapt the recipe. Today, there’s nothing really different except for the fact that I add wholewheat giant couscous to make it more consistent. As a consequence, I do not serve the salad with Pita bread. I just find it healthier, different and also perfect if you want to prepare it for your lunch box!

I also use giant couscous because it recently became my new favorite ingredients as an alternative to couscous, bulghur, pasta, rice and other ingredients that we are used to cook and sometimes bored with. The giant couscous has that perfect round shape and funny consistency once cooked that makes it different and makes your salad more interesting for a change.

If you never tried it, give it a chance and if you like it as much as me, use it hot or cold, with pesto dressing, grilled vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, fennel and as many spices as you like!

Ingredients for 4 people

• 200g of wholewheat giant couscous
• 500g shelled broad beans, fresh or frozen*
• 350g small radishes
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander
• 1/2 preserved lemon, finely chopped
• juice of 2 lemons
• 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 200ml Green tahini sauce (see below)
• salt and black pepper

Ingredients for the Green tahini sauce**

• 150ml tahini paste
• 150ml water
• 80ml lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 30g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped if making by hand

Method for the Green Tahini Sauce

In a bowl, thoroughly whisk the Tahini, water, lemon juice, garlic and salt together. The mixture should be creamy and smooth. If it is too thick, add more water. Stir in the chopped parsley, then taste and add more salt if needed.

If using a food processor or a blender, process together all the ingredients except the parsley until smooth. Add more water if needed. Add the parsley and turn the machine on again for a second or two. Taste for seasoning.

Method for the Salad

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil and cook the giant couscous for 7-9 minutes depending the instructions on the box. Drain in a colander and place under cold running water to get it cold and stop it from further cooking. Drizzle a little olive oil on top and set aside.

Place the broad beans in a pan of boiling water and simmer for 1–2 minutes, depending on size. Drain through a large colander and rinse in plenty of cold water to refresh them. Remove the beans from their skins by gently squeezing each one with your fingertips.

Cut the radishes into slices 1-2mm and mix them with the giant couscous, broad beans, onion, coriander, preserved lemon, lemon juice, parsley, olive oil and cumin. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, pile a mound of salad in a small deep plate or bowl, drizzle with a tbsp of Tahini sauce and sprinkle some chopped herbs on top. Pour the remaining Tahini sauce in a bowl and leave it on the table for your guests.

Yotam’s advices for that recipe:*Most beans, especially the ones sold frozen, are perfectly fine eaten with the skin on. So if you prefer to skip the skinning stage, cook them for a minute longer. You’ll lose a bit of the light, ‘bouncy’ texture but save yourself a lot of time.

**The sauce should be thick but runny, almost like honey. Once chilled it will thicken, so you will need to whisk it again and possibly add more water.

Spanish Chicken*

Many of you have been waiting for that recipe as I have been doing it many times since I learned it from Philippa, my dear friend from the partners kitchen.

She found it in a newspaper and kept it in case…. Thinking that sometimes, after busy periods such as Christmas or Easter, you can get somehow lazy and go for unmissable recipes!

The other advantage of that recipe is that everybody craves for it and you can easily adjust the quantity… it can be perfect for 2 as well as for 22 and it’s still very tasty as a leftover.

So definitely  a top 10 recipe! Once again…. thank you Philippa for that recipe!

Ingredients for 6 people

• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• Olive oil
• 12 chicken thighs, on the bone, skin on
• 2 red peppers sliced in stripes
• 100g of chorizo cut into 3mm slices
• 1 large onion roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves peeled and chopped
• 3 tsp of smoked paprika
• 1 tsp of dried chilli flakes
• 1,3l of chicken stock
• 375g of Spanish rice
• 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 lemon juice

Method

Preheat your oven to 180° and get all your ingredients ready.

In a broad, shallow pan, heat 4 tbsp oil. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and brown them on all sides in 2-3 batches depending the size of your pan. Once they have a nice coloration, set them aside and throw in the peppers and chorizo and cook them over a medium heat until the peppers start to soften. Still in the same pan, add the onion and garlic and cook gently until the onion is soft. Stir in the paprika and chilli and cook for another minute.

Depending on how you wish to present it and how big is the pan you are using, keep the same pan if it can contain the whole chicken and rice or divide it into two or use a nice oven dish that you can present on a table. Spread the onion, peppers, chorizo and chicken evenly in the dish or in the pans and cover with the chicken stock. Cover and cook gently for about 5 minutes.

Then pour the rice all around the chicken thighs, season with salt and pepper.

Cook in the oven for at least 20 minutes or until the stock is fully absorbed and the top is getting gold. Don’t stir the rice at any moment.

Once the rice is cooked, take the dish out of the even and cover it with foil paper and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Just before serving, squeeze a lemon juice on top and spread some chopped parsley on top.

*Like any curry recipe, this recipe is a good base for any rice dish. You can replace chicken with shellfish, pork or rabbit. You can also add some vegetables such as spinach, green beans, courgettes, mushrooms or tomatoes and use other spices if you wish to. The idea is just to save some time and to make everybody happy including you.

Ossobuco Alla Milanese

As you may have noticed, I am back on my blog…. The past 2 years have been sort of hectic with the pregnancy and the arrival of the twins in our lives! The new bottles-nappies rhythm kept me more or less out of the kitchen for a while and for the few new recipes I was able to try, I either did not have time to take pictures or time to write a post!

But here I am, back to work: whisking, frying, baking and having lots of fun trying new recipes! And as I looked at my Index of Recipes, I just realized that there was not that much meat recipes… not that I am a Vegetarian now but just that I am having more interest in sweets and vegetables… Anyway, I want to offer a wide range of choices and to do so, I am trying different techniques including meat!

I choose Ossobuco because it’s not a common piece of meat but also because it’s one of the recipe that we learned at the Cookery School when we had to braise meat and it seemed to be so complicated at that time that I wanted to give it another try….

To our old fashion school recipe I preferred The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook recipe which is easier and very tasty. Also in that recipe they are using veal shin which is much better but also more expensive than the tail….!

By the way, if you did not have the opportunity to go to that restaurant…. it’s really worth it! We went there with my husband on a sunny weekday in April 2 years ago and we had a lovely time on the quiet terrace, a few steps from the Thames River walk. The fish is fresh and delicate, as well as the meat, the dressings are well balanced, the puddings are the final great touch. This is a feel-good place not a presumptuous one. Only one advice…. book in advance!

Ingredients for 6 people

• 6 pieces of veal shin – 2-3 cm thick
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• Plain flour
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 120g of butter
• 1 small red onion peeled and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves peeled and chopped
• 1 celery heart peeled and finely chopped
• 1/2 a bottle of white wine
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tin of plum tomatoes (400g) drained of juice and coarsely chopped

Ingredients for the Gremolata

• 2 lemon zest finely grated
• 1 clove of garlic peeled and chopped
• 1 handful of flat leaf parsley chopped

Method

Preheat your oven to 150°.

First of all choose a heavy-bottom ovenproof pan or have a deep tray at hand in which the pieces of veal will fit in one layer.

Prepare all your garnish and set aside.

Season the veal with salt and pepper on both faces and dust with the flour. Shake off the excess of flour and reserve on a tray.

Heat the oil in the pan and brown the meat over medium-high heat just to sear the pieces on both sides.

If the pieces don’t fit in your pan, brown them into 2-3 batches. If you put too many pieces, it will not brown properly and if you have a pan too large, you may burn the oil. Just be careful to use the right pan…!

Remove the pieces from the pan and set aside on a tray.

Wipe the pan and put it back on medium-low heat, add the butter and gently fry the onion, celery and garlic until they get very soft (10-15 min). Don’t forget to stir from time to time.

Once they are soft, cover with the wine and bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer gently until it reduces by half.

If the pan is big enough, place the pieces of meat back on top of the vegetables with the bones upright so that the marrow cannot fall out while cooking.

If you cook for a large number, spread the veg on a deep cooking tray and place the pieces of meat on top.

Add the thyme, bay leaves and chopped tomatoes on top. The liquid in the pan should come halfway up the pieces of veal.

If it doesn’t, add more wine and for the tray, add more wine and water and keep an eye on the level of liquid while cooking. If needed, repeat the same process, add more wine and water.

Bring to a boil then cover with a cartouche (parchment paper cut to fit inside your pan or tray with a hole in the center to release the steam) and the lid.

For the tray, you may put a serving spoon on top of the parchment paper if your oven has a fan as it will prevent it from flying away.

Cook for 2-2.30 hours in the lower part of the oven and check regularly that the liquid is gently simmering.

While that time, prepare the Gremolata: grate the lemon zest, chop the parsley and the garlic and combine them together and reserve in a bowl until serving.

As a result, the meat is not chewy but very tender and falls from the bone. You don’t even need a knife to eat it.

Serve the veal with the sauce and the vegetables from the pan and sprinkle the Gremolata on top.

Roasted Vegetables and Pesto Tart

The winter is almost over but we still miss the sun and the temperature rise… That’s why I thought that the best way to cheer you up was to take you far away from cloudy sky and rainy weather!

What about a trip in Provence, on a sunny terrace for lunch with a glass of fresh rosé and a slice of Roasted Vegetables and Pesto Tart?

Let’s start!*

*Just before you start…. if you want to make it easy, you can skip 1 or 2 steps of that recipe….

First you can buy your shortcrust pastry in any supermarket….

Then if your knife skills are really that bad…. some places such as Waitrose offer vegetables already peeled and cut… you just have to cook them. Otherwise you can buy grilled vegetables in Italian Deli or at Waitrose.

And last but not least, especially if you don’t have a blender, you can buy very good pesto as well. Carluccio’s restaurants offer fresh food to take away and they have fresh pesto as well as grilled vegetables sometimes.

 

Ingredients for the Parmesan Shortcrust Pastry

• 250 g of flour
• 125 g of cold butter – diced -
• 1 egg or 1 yolk & 30 g of water
• ground pepper
• 75 g of grated Parmesan or Cheddar, Comte, Pecorino….

Method for the Parmesan Shortcrust Pastry

In your Kitchen Aid, using the paddle or the blade if you have a food processor, combine the flour, butter, salt & pepper and process till it start to crumble.

Add the egg or the yolk and part of the water, keep on processing and add the gratted cheese till incorporated to the dough.

On a clean surface, drop the dough and give it a nice homogenous look then roll it in a ball and wrap it with cling film. Keep it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Ingredients for the Pesto

• a garlic clove
• a handful of toasted pine nuts
• 70g of grated Parmesan
• a generous bunch of basil washed
• olive oil
• ground pepper

Method for the Pesto**

In a food processor, process the pine nuts, Parmesan and garlic. Add the bunch of basil roughly shredded (leaves and stalks). Process gently and add some olive oil to bring it into a paste. Depending on the consistency you wish to have, add more olive oil to obtain a smooth pesto.

For the Tart, your pesto must not be too liquid. It has to be a spreadable consistency.

Taste the pesto and depending on your taste, add more cheese, basil or pinenuts. I don’t add any salt in mine as the Parmesan is already very salty.

If you make a large quantity of Pesto, you can keep it in a jar in a fridge. You just have to cover its surface with olive oil.

**Once you are used to make your own pesto, you can have fun and use rocket or coriander instead of basil, hazelnuts or almonds instead of pine nuts, you can also make it with sun-dried tomatoes…

Ingredients for the Grilled Vegetables

• 1-2 courgettes cut into thick slices (1-2cm)
• 1 red onion cut into quarters
• 1 red pepper and 1 yellow pepper cut into chunks
• 1-2 tomatoes cut into quarters
• 1 garlic clove
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• thyme

Method for the Grilled Vegetables

Preheat your oven to 200°.

Place your vegetables on a baking tray covered with parchment paper, season with salt, pepper, olive oil, thyme and crushed garlic.

Roast them for about 20 minutes until soft and slightly caramelised on the edges.

Let them cool down.

Ingredients for the Filling

• 150 ml of sour cream
• 150 ml of milk
• 2 eggs & 2 yolks
• salt & pepper

Method for the Filling

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk and sour cream. Season and keep at hand.

Method for the Tart

Once the dough is set in the fridge, get it ready to be rolled and lined.

Preheat your oven at 180° and get your tart tin, flour, rolling pin, parchment paper and baking beans at hand.

Clean a flat surface in your kitchen. Spread a little flour on it and on your rolling pin and start to roll the dough. To help you getting a nice round shape, from time to time, give your dough a 90° turn and add a little flour on the surface if the dough is sticking.

Once the diameter of your dough is larger than your tin, roll it on your rolling pin and unroll it on the tin. Make it stick to the tin by pressing it with the back of your finger.

To get rid of the excess of dough, use a knife or your rolling pin by rolling it on top of the tin.

Line the dough with parchment paper and pour lots of baking beans and cook it for at least 15-20 minutes at 180°.

Once the dough start to get a nice color, get rid of the beans and parchment paper and put the tart shell back in the oven for another 5 minutes till the bottom of the tart gets a nice golden color.

Let it cool down while you are preparing the vegetables, pesto, filling.

Once the shell is cool, spread a generous quantity of Pesto all over your tart base, add the vegetables on top and at last pour the filling on top of it. Don’t pour too much as it will rise.

Bake the tart for about 30 min.

Once the surface is golden brown and the mixture set, get it out of the oven and let it cool down a little.

You can serve it hot or cold with a nice mixed green salad for example.

Let’s change and have a Strawberry and Pistachio Mille-Feuilles!

Whenever you go to a Patisserie in France, you can ask for a baguette,  a croissant, a brioche or a pain au chocolat but among all the French specialties you can find in a Patisserie, you can also find the Mille-Feuilles.

That dessert is really a French basic. It is sold as a single portion or a larger desert to share. And when you go to a Patisserie, if you want a Mille-Feuilles this is what you have to look for: 3 layers of puff patry with 2 layers of pastry cream in between and a layer of fondant on top with chocolate fondant stripes to make it easy to identify.

As I learned how to make it, I really was thinking that it was among my least favorite desert. To me, it looks very old-fashioned and most of the time, the vanilla pastry cream is very heavy and the fondant on top makes it definitely too sweet… but it’s only a point of view! Most of my friends still love it as it is today!

Anyway, I came to look at new ways to make the Mille-Feuilles and I gave it another try… and I have to say that I changed my mind.

It’s still the same recipe but you can make it more glamorous by adding fruits, color and flavor and also make it look different in term of presentation…

Here it is…. the Strawberry and Pistachio Mille-Feuilles! And it is even quicker to prepare as you don’t have to spread fondant on top of the Mille-Feuilles!

Ingredients for the puff pastry layers:

• one puff pastry sheets
• icing sugar
• 2 baking trays

Method for the puff pastry layers:

Roll out your puff pastry on a baking tray covered with a silicon mat or a piece or parchment paper. If you are using a block of puff pastry, roll it into a rectangle about 25 cm x 35 cm and about 5 mm high. Keep it about 1/2h in the fridge.

Preheat your oven to 170° and once the pastry is firm and cold, cover it with another tray or a rack about the same size as the pastry. The pastry needs to be covered otherwise it will rise too much.

Bake it for about 20 min until the pastry gets a nice golden color. Let it cool down on the baking tray.

Increase the temperature of your oven to 250° or on the grill. Using a sieve, cover the puff pastry with a thin layer of icing sugar and put it back in the oven for 2-3 minutes until the surface is caramelized. Depending on your oven, you will have to stay close to your oven and maybe turn the tray after 1 minute if only one part of the pastry get caramelized.You can also finish it with a blow torch.

While the puff pastry is still hot and the caramelized sugar still soft, cut it with a serrated knife into 3 stripes of the same size (10 cm x 20 cm). As the edges may not be perfectly straight, cut the edges to be sure to have three layers matching perfectly.

Here is the result…

Ingredients for the pastry cream:

• 25 cl of whole milk
• 2 cl of vanilla extract or a vanilla pod cut lengthwise and seeds scrapped with a sharp knife
• 2 yolks
• 45 g of sugar
• 1 tsp of pistachio paste
• 25g of butter diced
• 25 g of corn flour or flour or 1/2 and 1/2
• 2 gelatin leaves soaked in cold water
• 1 tbsp of Mascarpone

• Fresh strawberries cleaned and cut into quarters or whole raspberries.

Method for the pastry cream:

In a pan, bring to a boil the milk and the vanilla extract (even better if you have a vanilla pod!).

In a bowl, whisk together the sugar and the yolks till creamy white. Whisk in the flour or corn flour then pour in the milk and the pistachio paste. Whisk it and pour it back into the pan.

Gently bring the pastry cream to a boil and constantly whisk it. The liquid will very quickly get thick and stick to the pan. If you have been using flour, keep on whisking as it is boiling (at least one minute) to get rid of the flour taste.

When the pastry cream is cooked, turn the heat off and incorporate the diced butter and the soaked gelatin leaves.

Whisk again then pour it into a bowl, cover with cling film and let it cool down. If you want your pastry cream very smooth and creamy, you can mix it with a hand held food processor then cover it with cling film.

Method for assembling the Mille-Feuilles:

Get the pastry cream out of the fridge and give it a good whisk. You can even incorporate a tbsp of Mascarpone at that stage to get it smoother.

Pour it in a piping bag with a nozzle about 8-10 mm.

On a flat surface or a rack, place the first layer of puff pastry.

If your layers are not all nicely caramelized or if one of them as a hole or any imperfection, keep it for the middle layer and keep the nicest one for the top…

Pipe the pastry cream on the puff pastry, about 3-4 generous heaps next to each others or nice lines a few millimeters from the borders of the pastry as it will expend a little with the pressure.

Now place the strawberries in between the pastry cream heaps and press gently on top of each one to make sure they will stick to the cream.

Cover them with another layer of puff pastry and keep going on with the same process until you have placed the last layer of puff pastry.

To finish, you can simply sprinkle icing sugar on top of the Mille-Feuilles.

I like to let a nice stripe of caramelized puff pastry apparent. I just place a piece of folded paper on top of the Mille-Feuilles and sprinkle the icing sugar on the puff pastry still uncovered.

Here you are…. Your Mille-Feuilles is ready to serve!

When it comes to cutting the Mille-Feuilles, use a long serrated knife such as bread knife and start to cut in the middle of the cake and on the edges. It will be easier and the slices will look very professional.

Madeleines

Last summer, my friend Jeanne gave birth to a cute little Madeleine. As she was thinking of a canapes menu for the party after her daughter’s christening, she asked me about the Madeleines recipe in order to offer them home-made to her guests!

There is quite a lot of recipes for the Madeleines… even for the basic ones. One contains baking powder, another one is with melted butter and needs to rest, a third one is with butter at room temperature and so on…. I have tried many of them and the only thing that I can say is that I like my Madeleines when they are sweet and buttery in a well-balanced way. I don’t like them when they are too light and airy and they need to be cooked enough to have that nice golden color on the edges and at the bottom.

It’s up to you to make your choice among all the recipes you can find in books and on the web. Mine belongs to Philippe Conticini’s cookbook Sensations because I really think vanilla and lemon make the difference.

Ingredients for 20 madeleines

• 125g of plain flour
• 3 eggs
• 140g of caster sugar
• 135g of melted butter
• 50g of semi-skimmed milk
• 5g of baking powder
• 2 tsp of honey
• 1 tsp of fleur de sel or Maldon Sea Salt
• 2 tsp of lemon zest grated
• 1 vanilla pod cut lengthwise, seeds grated
• 1 tbsp of groundnut oil

 

Method

In a pan, melt the butter and let it cool down.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, honey and vanilla seeds until it gets white and foamy.

Incorporate the groundnut oil and the lemon zest to the mix.

Mix together the flour and baking powder and add it to the mix then incorporate the melted butter that must not be hot.

Once the mix is uniform you can then add the milk, whisk it again and cover it with cling film to avoid any crust on the surface.

Leave it to rest at least 1 hour in the fridge.

Brush the madeleines cases with melted butter and fill them with the mix up to 90% and leave it to rest another hour in the fridge.

Before baking the madeleines, preheat your oven to 160° with the baking tray in the oven.

Once the oven is ready, place the cold madeleines tray on the hot baking tray of the oven and bake it for 10 minutes.

You can serve them straight away or leave them to cool down and keep them for later. The fresher the madeleines, the better… As many French treats, they don’t last very well and you may be disappointed the day after!

About the Madeleine’s shape… Philippe Conticini’s explanation:

You may think 2 hours of rest takes a while but it is what it takes to get a mix really cold.

Because the mix is very cold and the tray is very hot, the mix will react in such a way that a bump will appear.

 

Orange, Fennel, Cranberries and Spinach Salad

Salad sounds like a Summer word, fresh and colorful, light and appetizing especially when it comes to green salads…. Winter salads are often starchy in order to fight properly against cold weather and snowy days….

You may still want something green and colorful as a side of your dish or as a main sometimes but you find it difficult to make it appetizing AND tasty as most of the vegetables you were thinking about are not as you expected them to be those days…. Tasteless tomatoes, watery cucumber, peppers that are not crunchy…

Why don’t you use seasonal vegetables and other ingredients that will make your salad so special?

Here is an idea….

Ingredients for 6 people

• 500g of baby spinach washed and spinned
• 1 small fennel bulb washed
• 3 oranges
• A handful of dried cranberries
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

Method

Finely grate the zest of 2 oranges and reserve in a bowl.

Using a sharp serrated knife, peel the skin of the oranges and carefully cut the orange segments. Reserve them in a bowl and squeeze the extra juice in the zest bowl.

Cut the fennel into 2 and get rid of the heart of the fennel that is to hard and not very tasty. Using a mandolin or a sharp knife, finely slice the fennel and marinate them in the orange zest and juice. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and reserve in the fridge for 30 minutes.

To assemble, layer some spinach in a salad bowl then add some fennel, orange segments and cranberries and spread some of the marinade of the fennel on top. Check the seasoning first. You may want to add some extra acidity. In that case, you can add some cider vinegar for example.

Keep on layering until you finish all the ingredients.

Other ideas:

• Use blood oranges or grapefruits instead of oranges
• Add finely chopped dill or chervil in the marinade
• Use mixed leaves or rocket instead of spinach
• Replace cranberries with pomegranate seeds
• Add some pumpkin seeds or nuts such as pecans or pine nuts
• Add crumbled feta, grilled haloumi or shredded mozzarella for a more consistent salad