Some Cuisine : Black Sesame Cake

I went back to my local organic supermarket recently and was intrigued to find some black sesame butter.

As I had already tried - and loved - black sesame ice cream, I thought "Hmm...Why not?"...and so it came back home with me!
And here's my first try at cooking with it - a black sesame cake! And guess what? It's also vegan-friendly!
I made it totally from scratch, so I tried to write the proportions, but I'm not sure they're perfect - there's a bit too much flour, making it a bit compact for my taste. Anyway, here it goes :

• 140g flour (a bit less flour - something like 100g - might actually be better);
• 1 pack (11g) baking soda;
• 60g brown sugar;
• 2 very ripe bananas;
• 100g almond butter (or any other, like cashew for example) + black sesame butter (I put something like 2 tbsp almond and 1 tbsp black sesame because I was not sure I' d like it if it was all black sesame);
• about 10cl liquid (I used coconut water because that was all I had available, but almond milk, soy milk or rice milk would be fine too).

Mix the flour, sugar and baking soda together.
Squash the bananas - if they're ripe enough, a fork should do the trick, no food processor needed.
Add the bananas and butters to your flour/sugar/soda mixture. Then add the liquid until you get the same texture as muffin dough.
Transfer to a baking pan lined with baking paper and put into the oven at 180°C.
Let it cool, then...enjoy!

You can also make a non-vegan version if you replace the bananas with 2 eggs, part of the butters with regular butter (but still, keep the black sesame...otherwise it would take out all the fun!) and regular milk instead of almond or soy milk, and maybe a little more sugar (I didn't put much of it because I was using bananas and they're already sweet). And do feel free to change the proportions if you want something a bit lighter or a different taste!

Some Cuisine : Tuna/Avocado salad/spread

Cocktail hour (or "l'apéro" as we say in French) is back with summer. And, with it, some recipes usually enjoyed with a drink, before supper.
I usually like tuna salad, but some of the recipes I see use dairy products or mayonnaise, which tend to make the whole thing too liquid and/or too fat. After reading a few vegan blogs (I'm not vegan myself but I'm interested in other ways of cooking, and how vegetal products can be used as substitutes for other stuff!) this idea came to me : why not replace the mayonnaise or cottage cheese in my tuna salad with...avocado?

I tried...and let me tell you, the result does not disappoint!

So here's my recipe (should serve 4 persons, as a side for drinks before lunch or dinner) :

• 80g canned tuna
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1small shallot (with its leaves)
• 1 pinch black sesame
• 1 pinch white sesame
• salt
• 1 tsp wasabi powder (I'm not very precise there ; it's actually better if you taste and add as much/little wasabi as you like.)
• optionnal : thin-sliced radishes for decoration

Put the tuna (without its juice) and the diced avocado in a bowl. Add the lemon juice.
Slice the  whole shallot very thinly, Add the sesame, salt and wasabi powder and mash the whole. If the avocado is ripe enough, you should normally be able to do it with a fork.

Note : if you want to use a food processor, it's better to add the shallot and sesame at the end so it doesn't get crushed.

Serve with a good bread, add some sliced radish on top if you like. Enjoy!

Some Cuisine : Butternut Squash Lasagne

I like butternut squash. And I like butternut squash soup. But sometimes I get a bit bored of it. This is how I came out with this recipe.

Serves 4 :

• 12 lasagne sheets
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 of a small butternut squash
• 10 slices of coppa or pancetta (or 10 slices of Italian style ham if you can't find coppa or pancetta)
• 250 g of mozzarella di buffala
• 50 cl vegetable stock
• 1 dash of white wine
• 1 tbsp sugar
• pepper, dried rosemary, dried sage
• grated parmiggiano or grana padano
• grated emmenthal

Peel and dice the butternut squash.

Peel the onion and garlic. Shred your slices of coppa. Put all of this in a frying pan with 1 tbsp olive oil until the meat starts to be crispy and the onion soft. Add a dash of white wine. When it's evaporated, sprinkle with sugar to caramelize.

Add the diced butternut, pepper, sage, rosemary, then the vegetable stock. Simmer till the butternut is soft. The water must evaporate, but not too much - you don't want the lasagne to be dry!

Turn the fire off. Drain the mozzarella and dice it. Mix it with the meat, onion and butternut. Add 2 tbsp grated parmiggiano.

Take a deep dish that goes in the oven and start layering the lasagne. Start with enough lasagne sheets to cover the bottom of the dish, then ladle the butternut and coppa mix and spread it evenly. Then, alternate between lasagne sheets and butternut mix until you're out of the filling, ending with lasagne sheets. Sprinkle 2 generous handfuls of grated emmenthal, put in the oven for 20 min at 200°C.

Serve hot.

Some cuisine : Potato and camembert gratin

Hi all, got a little recipe for you today!

Here's a dish I like to make in winter. You know, when you want to eat things that are light and fresh (just kidding). I've been tinkering with this recipe for a moment...and I think I just got it right yesterday evening, so here it is :

For 2 persons (or 4 if you want to serve it as a side dish) :

• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 4 potatoes
• 1 apple
• 1 camembert
• 20 g butter
• 1 shot glass apple juice
• 1 leaf of laurel
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg
• caraway or cumin

Peel and dice the potatoes. Peel the garlic clove. Put in a saucepan, cover up with water, add the laurel and some salt, then boil till soft. Drain the water from the potatoes.

Peel and dice the onion and the apple. Spread them evenly in a dish that goes in the oven. Put the potatoes in that same dish, mix (as much as possible, without squashing them) with the onion and apple. Cut the butter in small bits and distribute it evenly in the dish. Pour the apple juice evenly the dish. Cut the camembert in small bits and scatter them over the dish. Add pepper, caraway/cumin and nutmeg, to taste (no salt, as the camembert is already quite savoury). Put in the oven for 30 min at 180°C.
Serve hot, with some salad on the side if you want. I used some lamb's lettuce yesterday evening.

Previously, I would do this recipe using a whole glass (ie 25cl) of cider, instead of 1 apple + a shot glass of apple juice. But the alcohol contained in the cider gave a bitter taste, and the whole thing was rather watery. However, the apple+apple juice combo gives just the right amount of sweetness and it's not watery at all anymore!

Some Cuisine : Rhubarb tart

Although it's mentionned in my blog's title, I realize there's not a single food recipe in here.

Thing is, I love to cook, but my schedule doesn't allow me to do it often, let alone document what I make! But I decided to remedy that, so here's a rhubarb tart recipe I tried during these holidays :

What you will need (serves up to 8 persons, depending on how hungry you are) :

• 3 stalks rhubarb

Sweet shortcrust pastry : 

• 150 g flour
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg
• 80g soft butter
• 1 pinch of salt
• cinnamon (to taste)

Cream mix : 

• 2 eggs
• 20g sugar
• 3 tbsp mascarpone
• 5 amaretti (or more if you really want to feel the taste)

Peel the rhubarb stalks and dice them. Put them in a bowl and sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Pastry : mix the sugar and egg together. Apart, mix the flour, salt and cinnamon together, then, little by little, add them to the egg+ sugar until you get a crumbling texture. Finally, add the butter cut in small pieces, until you get a homogenic texture.

Roll it and put it in a baking pan, with baking paper to keep it from sticking to it. Pre-bake, 180°C, for 15 min.

Evenly scatter the rhubarb bits on your pre-baked pastry.

Cream : put the sugar with one tbsp of water in a saucepan and boil to make a syrup.
Break the eggs, separating the yolks from the white. Keep the yolks, mix them with the syrup and whip until it gets white and firm. Then add the mascarpone. Reduce the amaretti to a powder in a food processor, then add to the cream and mix. Pour the cream mix in the pastry, over the rhubarb.

Put in the oven for 30 min at 180°C (it should be slightly golden on the top), let it cool, and...enjoy!

Some Cuisine. And a fun pic.

Up to now, no "cuisine"-labelled post had been published on this blog. Consider it done, even if the cook involved here is not yours truly.
Here is what I have now been seeing for a few weeks in  the windows of a bakery, not far from my home :

Sorry for the crappy phone picture. But to the point, now.
As you all know, Easter was a few weeks ago. And at the same time, here in France, we are in the process of voting for a new President. And this baker had the idea of decorating his window with racing chocolate eggs (you can't see their bodies behind the "Arrivée" sign, but yes, they're chocolate eggs!), each of them standing for one of the candidates...now, it's a bit of a pity I did'nt take the pic last week, when the 8 other candidates were "still in the race"...but still, it's fun, isn't it?
And who will the last one be? We'll know it on the 6th of May...and when we get there, don't forget to vote!

NB : I just posted this picture because I thought it was fun. If anybody wants to discuss politics, please don't do it there. There's plenty of specialized forums where you can do just that.
As I said before, this is NOT a politics blogs.