Omlette soufflet et piperade

Soufflet Omlette with Basque Pepper relish 

Hi Honey, I'm home!

Graduating University takes up too much time for my liking but I'm really happy to have a Sunday where i finally have time to focus on my cooking and on my challenge! I even went for a run today (mainly to get the blood flowing after an awesome partys-worth of alcohol last night). This got my appetite bubbling but having already guzzled up the traditional hangover breakfast, i decided i wanted something a bit lighter. So i went for a souffle which looks bigger because its fluffed up with air! 

After the painful night of whisking egg whites with hot choc whisk and a dinner fork for our cheese souffles (which was about as progressive as running up a downward escalator  in Lady Gaga's day shoes) i decided to invest in a human sized balloon whisk. Verdict: Good decision.                                                                                                                                          Disregarding the time i take reading and re-reading the recipe and occasionally stopping to chat about meditation, sex and buff women (we had a guy round for lunch today!), this meal is actually very quick and simple to whip up. If you haven't tried a basque relish before, I'd recommend it. Whilst munching away i was thinking it would be dead good on a hot dog! (Am i spoiling the French-ness of Rachel Khoo's recipe now? Eek!)                                                                                                But it's very simple and delicious and made with relatively cheap ingredients that you probably have sitting in the fridge most of the time. (Perhaps not if you're a student). Green Peppers (i used red...Naughty!), onion, thyme, garlic, pinch of sugar,  a chopped up tomato and olive oil. Oh and some chilli powder for a little kick...

...cooked up in a saucepan with a lid until soft and mushy, it has what I'd like to describe as a smokey flavor that works awesomely with a fluffy plain souffle. 

I resisted the urge to 'experiment' as i do, and add cheese to the souffle. (Just because that's what students do...add cheese on top of everything we eat. Why do we do that?) To really get the magic out of the relish you should stick to a plain souffle...it's only there for texture really. Fluffy and crunchy...nom nom nom.

 

Poulet et champignons dans une sauce au vin blanc (Chicken & Mushroom in a white wine sauce)

Many apologies for not posting sooner...here is my list of completely real and relevant excuses:

1/ I'm coming to the end of my Degree and things are starting to get hectic.
2/ An amazing business opportunity is absorbing all my attention.
3/ As a result of this I have very little time to keep up with my regular gym visits.
4/ ...this combined with Rachel Khoo enlightening my life with the art of good cooking (and thus eating) is starting to show on my waistline!

What was it my boyfriend Sam said to me today? "What happened to your chiseled abs?"
Well, if I'm honest I'm more flattered to find out that i once HAD chiseled abs than I am upset because i now don't!

But still...maybe i need to focus on some of those salad recipe's now...

One of the his first concerns when we were first dating was whether i could cook or not.
I disappointed him!
But that never stopped me trying, and i think we'll all agree that it's unusual for students to have a nack for cooking...and cooking well! So here's hoping my chicken and mushroom in white wine sauce went down well.

This recipe sounded very complicated but actually it's very simple and very quick. It takes about 45 minutes prep and cooking time and its all done in two pans sitting side by side on your hob. My step mum used to cook this dish and i have to say, she cooked it to perfection. It came very near to the close and personal relationship that i have with my Dad's lasagne. Rachel (step mum) used to cook the chicken breasts whole whereas Rachel  (Khoo)chops them into large chunks. Both taste equally delicious but I think it cooks quicker the Paris Kitchen way and allows for maximum sauce coverage! 

The Bechamel Queen is challenged with another sauce! I'm starting to learn that creating the perfect consistency of sauce is all about the whisking tools and the timing: take off the hob, allow to cool, add this, heat on the hob, simmer gently...Usually, with cooking instructions you have a bit of lee-way to experiment. With sauces, it's a really good idea to try and be perfectly exact with timing as well as ingredients. And with stirring method also! (Did i mention before how we tried whipping up egg yolks into stiff white peaks with a hot chocolate whisk?! Thankfully i had the initiative to go out and buy a human sized one after that painful evening.)

Rachel Khoo's recipe really is quite simple and easy to follow here. Just make sure you have all your ingredients measured up and prepared before you start cooking: timings are essential!

Have we lost Julia on this one? I think...whilst I'm extra busy getting fat, she's extra extra busy working out and expanding her career as a fitness instructor. Could this be a one woman challenge? Did we have a deadline? No...okay, lets not make one.

Souffles au Fromage! (Cheese Souffles)

Again...did not realise how long this recipe took but...wow! It was it worth a 10.30pm dinner! On Sunday evenings we are not usually both home until just past 8 so to start cooking then, means eating an extremely well-longed for meal.

 Forgive the rather rubbish photograph that fails to do this dish justice at all: tired, hungry and cranky as a result: i wasn't in the mood for playing with my camera much! (Sorry Jules!)

So firstly...why, why, why!...don't we have a whisk any bigger than a tube of lipstick?

Most people know that to make any kind of soufflés, it requires a hell of a lot of whisking! The key to souffles are getting that air into the mixture evenly so that they rise into a fluffy textured bun that will lightly melt in your mouth (if you get it right). This requires whisking up egg whites into 'stiff white peaks' Everyone imagining mountains? (If you've never seen this before, i'd recommend watching the Paris Kitchen episode that shows her making cheese soufflés before you start. Theres no room for slacking on this one! Too many times i cried at Julia, "okay thats enough, show mercy! I'm sure it'll work, it looks peaky to me!" Relentless...merciless...she pushed me to keep whisking but took over when her fitness brain probably realised i was about to do myself a repetitive strain injury in my wrist.

Me...armed with a fork.
 Julia...armed with a hot chocolate whisk  ...for mice.
As the clock ticked 22.00hrs, we battled on...

Now i'm not about to give away all of Rachel Khoo's secrets, (you should buy the book and follow us through it!) but it's important to note that the key mixture to her cheese soufflés...is a béchamel sauce. Was that a trumpet i hear blowing in the distance? I took care of this part whilst Jules prepared the dishes and decided what pleasing shapes we were going to cook these in. Not having quite the right muffin shaped tin...we went for slightly smaller, bite sized soufflés from an average cake tin. We decided it was a stroke of genius actually: they'll cook so much quicker! :P

Don't forget to read up on Rachel's recipe when turning the béchamel Sauce into a Mornay sauce. Basically...remember to add the cheese. After chilling ours in the fridge for almost too long, i realised that all the cheese i'd painstakingly grated earlier (why is our cheese grater also made to fit the kitchen requirements of a mouse?) was still in the bowl and not melted into our key mixture? We almost had plain soufflés for late Sunday night dinner. Probably would have been better for the nightmares...

The correct amount of chilling will turn your sauce into the thicker texture of a cake mix so stick to the books on this one. Don't follow our bad example and simply wait until it feels cool because you're so hungry that your stomach is shouting rebellious insults at you.

Despite this, after mixing in half the peaky egg whites and gently folding in the rest and cooking our soufflés, they were an absolute mouth watering success. I couldn't get enough of them! I ate way too much for a late night dinner and justified it because..."they were light" :D
 I'd be so rubbish at dieting.

Now, i added bacon to half of the bite size soufflés that we made. Like most of the additions i make to Rachel Khoo's recipe's...this wasn't necessary...but she asked us to use a 'strong flavoured cheese' like comte. All we had was your average cheddar...justifed. Again! :P

Every English citizen knows you can't beat the simple flavour combo of cheese and bacon...
Oh and one more tip...
                   I'm pretty sure that our time spent cross legged on the floor in front of the warm amber light, watching our 'buns in the oven' and whispering 'ahh they grow up so fast' really paid off. Perhaps the love we poured over them here made up for the amount of mistakes we (okay: I) made during the preparation process.

Learn by bad example? Sorry guys!
 (But seriously...bacon...good idea)

Macaroni au Fromage (Mac and Cheese!)

A working Saturday that ended short (as weekends should!) for both Julia and myself. Coming home from the cafe at half past 4, i find Julia smuggling a biscuit belly on the sofa, TV in full working order. I may also have been hiding a secret belly of sorts today...a freshly baked chocolate brownie belly! Somebody put me back on Choco-lent because i cannot resist those things when they're delivered to work, steaming with warm, chocolatey scents, crumbling on the outside and still gooey on the inside...

So today we're on cheese...right...gotcha...

Ooo what's this? A free evening? Both of us? At the same time?
Too rare an opportunity to pass up a Paris Kitchen cook!

The brownie consumption today (amounts being hidden on purpose) led me to settle for just an apple for lunch. So, desperate for something substantial, i needed to make sure i really deserved something tasty! So trainers on and off we go for the next 45 minutes, on a painful, challenging and...eeeventually rewarding city jog.

When working for FatFace clothing store, i had an incredibly business related talk with my manager once...about food. Colleagues were always jelous of his prepared, cooked meals (or banquets) at lunch break. He told me something very valuable to the enjoyment of cooking and eating: Once you have cooked the dish, often you find yourself so saturated with the smells of the individual ingredients, you don't actually appreciate the combination of flavors in the finished meal. Cook, prepare then put it away. Go for a walk or a run. Re-build the appetite you had before you started cooking. Make yourself long for your meal just that little bit more!It's about food appreciation and also about respecting the food you cook with! Sound funny? Maybe Julia could explain: View Julia's fitness and food blog.

Mac and Cheese really is just as simple as it sounds. Even in the French way apparently. The Paris Kitchen cookbook uses a Mornay Sauce with their Mac, which is a bechamel sauce with grated cheese added. Now I've been practicing cheese sauces since i moved out of home and had withdrawal symptoms for Pa's legendary lasagne! He even gave me his recipe and for so long i still couldn't get it right! Julia has now labelled me 'The Bechamel Queen!' because something in Rachel Khoo's explanation got through to me, and now i make a pretty royal cheese sauce! (Toot Toot! ...my own horn :D ) Ta Rachel!

Slowly melt the butter...add the flour and rapidly mix until you have a thick paste. Cool slightly, just a couple on mins! Then get the whisking wrist ready (no sexual jokes please) and gradually add your milk, fighting back the lumps and dissolving all of the paste. Super tasty Paris Kitchen seasonings: quarter of an onion, skinned; one bay leaf; cloves; nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Whilst your pasta is cooking and your oven is heating up, get the flames involved again and thicken up the sauce on the hob. Should take about ten minutes...ish.

Personally, i think the great thing about this sauce is that the measurements are not exact. There's a certain amount of 'adding what you feel is right'. 'Kitchen common sense' perhaps.
 It's too thick?Add a splash of milk!
Not thickening? Another sprinkling of flour?

My boyfriend will be the first to tell you that this attitude doesn't always work for me in every recipe...i have an experimental nature in the kitchen that has often proved counteractive...Ill now spend the rest of our lives together trying to prove that i CAN cook! (Lucky him, was that his plan all along?)

The Bechamel Queen will now be taking her sauce off the hob to cool to a warm temperature before sprinkling in a strong flavored, grated cheese and evolving, pokemon style, into the Mornay Queen! Hmm...doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The rest is very simples...a good sized baking dish with the cooked, strained pasta. Fish out your onion and your bay leaf and pour the sauce generously over your pasta, mix well and even more generously cover the top with more grated cheese (this is necessary see...how else, but for the browning and crisping of thick cheesey topping, are we supposed to know when it's ready to eat?

I have a confession Rachel Khoo...i longed for a bit of colour in this dish, as amazing as it would taste on its own! I couldn't quite restrain that experimental cook inside me. Underneath the cheesy topping, we added a layer of sliced green courgette, pushed lightly into the surface of the Mornay Sauce, so as not to cook too dry on top and separate the topping from the bake. I wont toot the old horn again, but it wasn't a bad addition. It added colour without overpowering the awesome cheesiness of the Macaroni bake. I'll admit it wasn't necessary in the end. But we learn more from our mistakes than our lectures...not that your shows are like lectures...digging a hole Mercedes!

Yum...tomorrow we're building up our appetites for another stew...this one with some pretty special dumplings. Perhaps we'll hear from Julia on that front. Although i think she still owes a man a meal...?


Click here for Jules' blog

Navarin d'agneau printanier (Spring Lamb Stew)

Of course when we student/young folk speak of 'Lamb stew', what we really mean is that slightly cheaper type of lamb...'Chicken' stew. (It'll be an improvement I'm sure) Even Rachel Khoo says she likes to add a little something different to her traditional French recipe's. That's license to experiment, isn't it?

So this is the first of many French recipes that we'll be tackling together in our little English Kitchen/Dining Room. Julia is a fitness instructor and lifeguard whose days consist of a constant cycle of eating and exercising. She's also my lovely landlady. I am the student lodger that does slightly less exercise but probably eats the same amount... :P

Tonight, Julia is a little under the weather: exhaustion through too many cycles, squats and suicides i reckon. Slow down girl! As a result, we're cooking 'something brothy' as the lady calls it: Navarin d'agneau printanier...or 'ragout de poulet' rather. We've stayed true to the little Paris Kitchen method and all the other ingredients are exact. We figured that chicken was perhaps a softer meat for those of us that have only just popped their meat cherry! (Julia recently broke free of vegetarianism...a disease I'm told effects About 3% of the UK population. Just kidding...don't bite me Julia! Or worse still, take me back to boot camp at half 6 in the morning!)

So our chicken stew was a great success. I don't think we could have wanted it more after finding out it took 1 1/2 hours to cook! First lesson of cooking like real adults: always check the timings and start cooking accordingly!

I've never made a stew before so I wasn't really aware of the difference between a stew and a soup.

I still don't really know.

In my inexperienced imagination, I envision soups to be thick pastes of blended ingredients and stews to be thinner with chunky chopped ingrediants and an awesome mixture of herbs and spices, each one complimentary of the others in a way that only real chefs can determine.

Well our stew was well worth the wait! Onions, chicken, crushed garlic, olive oil, we chopped, cried, browned our meat then simmered in water with chunky chopped carrots, thyme, stock and a bay leaf. (It's true, the Paris kitchen recipe states that stock in not necessary. However, our chicken lacked the juicy flavours of the lamb neck marrow bone used in Rachel's Khoo's show).

We popped the pot into our warmed oven and waited, strained butter beans and chickpeas and prepared the sundried tomato loaf we'd cooked in the trusty bread maker earlier that afternoon. Other than dumplings, I couldn't think of a more perfect accompaniment to a good stew than teared chunks of freshly baked bread with a generous spread of butter dunked and devoured. Thanks very much!

Towards the end of the the baking time (thankfully Chicken cooks quicker than lamb!) we chucked in some fresh greens and beans, waited until they softened and then swallowed two rather large helpings for two very hungry hard workers, with a bowl of bread between us. The combination of flavours made a seriously tasty broth of juices, which filled our little kitchen with a teasing aroma all evening. It almost dissuaded me from having a bowl of Ben n Jerry's karamel sutra ice cream to finish off...but it didn't...and we did...

Sorry Rachel Khoo...but would you resist it?

One recipe down...success!!! How many more to go Jules?