Friday Dose of Chocolate #2: Chocolate Saucisson

Slice them up, Chocolate Saucisson

Have you ever broke the law?

I am not proud of it but for the love of food I did. Most international airports normally prohibits bringging in and out of certain meat products and I cannot count how many times I violated this. You see french charcuteries and me are like inseparable lovers. Since the first time I tasted them I already fell in love with them. My favorite are the french saucisson! Those dry-filled sausages best eaten with cornichon (tiny cucumber) pickles. When we used to live in Tokyo, I see to it I bring back home some for a year's consumption. I would wrap them in socks or hide them in the middle of my clothes unnoticed. The latest stint I did was when we visited New York and to please our French friends based there we brought along some. I always succeed in passing probably because of my innocent look :-)

So why am talking about this? Well, Lore of Culinarty is hosting an interesting food blog event on Original Recipes. And I am pretty sure you haven't seen nor tasted something like this before. And since its my second edition of my Friday Dose of Chocolate I'll be sharing this Original Chocolate recipe, my Chocolate Saucisson. Don't be deceived they are sweet. Kids will surely love them and adults as well. You can serve them right after a good meal with a cup of strong coffee.

(By the way, sorry for not visiting your blogs yesterday I wasn't at home. We had some family affairs to attend to.)

Chocolate Saucisson

125 g of dark chocolate
50 g of butter
150 g of chopped hazelnuts
12 pieces of Pims soft chocolate-orange cookies (you can replace it with genoise like chocolate cookies with orange marmalade fillings)
100 g of dried raisins
6 tablespoons of icing sugar
3 tablespoons of Amaretto or Cognac (optional)

Melt the chocolate in bain-marie or micro-wave oven. With the help of spatula mix well the chocolate to help it make shiny. Add the butter in the melted chocolate. Crush with your hands the Pim's soft cookies. Mix all the ingredients except the icing sugar. The alcohol is optional, omit it if it's for kids. Put them in the fridge for about thirty minutes. Check the consistency. It should be still a little bit soft and manageable for shaping. Put them in a parchment paper and roll as if you are shaping a long sausage. Once you have shaped them roll them over icing sugar. Wrap them with alluminum foils or parchment paper and keep in your fridge for minimum of seven hours. It is advised you cut them in front of your guests so they can still see the shape of your chocolate saucisson.

You can check my other chocolate recipes:

Chocolate Creme Brulée
Mini-Dacquoise cake in Chocolate Creme Chantilly
Profiterole with Lychee ice-cream and Cherry Chocolate Sauce

* For my French readers: you will find the french version of this recipe of "saucisson en chocolat" here: http://www.lesfoodies.com/hilda/recette/saucisson-en-chocolat

Chorizo, Cumin & Curry Bread

Chorizo, Cumin & Curry Bread

What's BUGging your mind lately?

The past few days there's something bogging my head and probably you can help me out. Well let me tell you from the start. When I went to the kitchen the other day and opened the cupboard I was literally received by a dozen squirming food bugs. Startled and disturbed by my presence, they flew in all direction giving a small spectacle on the curious eyes of my daughter and a horrified me. Naturally my daughter was so happy even shouting and clapping her hands. While I was desperately shooing them away towards the window and shouting "Cassez vous" (eng. translation: get the hell out of here!!). After that incident I cleaned the cupboard and dump every possible nesting place they could be hiding. My hubby advised me to put some fresh branch of bay leaves to drive them away.

With this agenda in my mind, I went immediately to my in-laws' garden to gather some branches. In the garden however, my attention was caught by the beautiful yellow blossoms of a mysterious plant. My mom in law told me that they are curry plant. I gathered some and went back home to bake this chorizo bread in the following hours. The bread was really delicious and the curry flavor perfumed my food bug infested kitchen.

The bread was delicious but the food bugs were still there. Any suggestions? :-)

I'll be sending this bread to Ruth for her weekly round-ups of Bookmarked Recipes.

Pretty aren't they?

Chorizo Cumin & Curry Bread
taken from 30 Bread Recipes by Lisa Mazieres

1 tsp of cumin seeds 1 tsp of fresh curry leaves 150 g of sliced chorizo 3 tablespoons of olive oil 350 g of flour 1 tablespoon of instant dry yeast 1 glass of milk 5 g of salt

On your working table, put the flour and make a small well in the middle. Add little by little the milk and the yeast. Mix them gently with your hand until it becomes homogenous. Add the salt and olive oil. Knead the dough for about ten minutes or until it becomes smooth and elastic. Continue kneading but this time try to add little by little your chorizo, cumin seeds and curry leaves. Make a small ball and let it rise on a bowl covered for an hour. After an hour dust your table with flour and work on the dough and shape the bread of your desired shape and size. Let it rise again for about two hours. Spray the surface with water. You can add some cumin seeds and curry leaves on the top. Preheat the oven for fifteen minutes at 210° celsius. Bake the bread for ten minutes at 210° celsius then another 20 minutes at 180° celsius. Bake the bread with a ramekin filled with water inside.


Here are my other bread recipes:

French bread (Baguette)
Caramelized onion and roasted tomato Foccacia
Mini Flute Bread with Cumin, Sesame and Poppy seeds

Home-made Apricot Cinnamon Jam

Apricot Cinnamon Jam

Vegetables are the food of the earth; fruit seems more the food of the heavens. ~Sepal Felicivant

In few days, France will officially enter summer season. And when summer comes, fruit comes too. Our market is once again flooded with all the colorful and delicious summer fruits. I can't hardly wait As I finish off today the last jar of Apricot jam I made last summer 2007 I am already imagining the taste of fresh apricots I will eat, yum!

It's Wednesday edition again of my Wordless Home-made Recipes.

Apricot Cinnamon Jam
makes about 5 jars

1 kilo of apricot (very ripe in preference)
1 kilo of sugar
1 teasepoon of cinnamon
1 vanilla pod

Start first by macerating the apricot with sugar. You will be needing a big salad bowl to put the sugar together with your apricots cut in halves and seed removed. Cut the vanilla pod into two and take the grains inside and put it in your apricot. Include also the vanilla pod. Let it macerate until the mixture gives out its own juice, thats about at least an hour. I always cook my jam in a crock pot but you can use any thick casserole. Pour the apricot-sugar mixture. Put your cinnamon powder and let it cook slowly over low fire for a long time (probably an hour). Some use thermometer to determine until when to stop cooking since I dont have I just check the consistency every now and then. Once it becomes a bit like a syrup. I remove it from fire. I pour it over my pasteurized jars, cover them and put them upside down. You can keep them normally for a year.

Jamming with Apricot jam

Here are my other jam recipes:

Watermelon and lime Jam
Pineapple and Mango Jam

Caramelized Onion Roasted Tomatoes Foccacia Bread

Caramelized Onion Roasted Tomatoes Foccacia Bread

During my foreign student’s life in Tokyo I still remember well one of the incident that shocked the entire class when one of our Japanese professor confessed something in front of the class. He said that he would never wish to live a longer life. It definitely shocked us because it is contrary to the norm were people would do anything to search for this elixir that will give us the eternal youth. But eventually, of course we understood what he meant. You see his already on his 60’s and apparently he is the youngest in their siblings and everyone else is still alive including his parents and grandparents. (Don’t ask me how old they were? :-)

Japanese indeed surpassed almost any human being when it comes to life’s longevity. Imagine, in the average Japanese ages between 50-60 years old a truly aging society. I am not an expert but I do believe that food plays an important role in prolonging one’s life or cutting it short. But then again science has contributed a lot in making our life easier and longer to live. I know that science has its own evils too but we cannot eliminate the fact on how science saved lives a million times.

One fascinating aspect of it is the organ transplant: from heart to skin grafting we have come to perfection this technology that dates back before Christ. In some big hospitals in a lot of developed nations operating organ transplant comes to a banality that operation is just simple a routine. The great problem that’s confronting organ transplant is the lack of organ donors. The worst story of this is that desperation has given way to international traffic of organs from poor countries selling their precious organs for for few hundred dollars. I witnessed how in Sri Lanka, were each member of the family were forced to sell their kidney due to poverty. And this is just but one example.

I believe that there is only one solution to all these problems that we have and that is love. It may sound so pathetic but it is the truth. If we could only love and care the same value for everyone else, whether we know them or not, whether they are poor or rich, whether they are white or black, whether they are ugly or pretty, fat or thin. Giving would be a lot easier. After all we all weight the same value in the eye of the Great Creator.

This delicious and definitely a very healthy recipe of Foccacia bread is my entry to Equal Opportunity Kitchen's Tried, Tested True Take 2 blogging event. That first one was so succesful that they are doing it the second time around. There are prizes at stake and you have until the 21st to send in your entries. This event also aims to rasie awareness on the importance of organ donation.

Roasted Tomatoes, Caramelized Onion Foccacia Bread

Serving for 4-6 persons

2 big onions sliced
3 big red tomatoes
Some olive oil
Herbes de provence: fresh thymes and rosemary

For the bread: 350 g of flour (type 45 all purpose)
20cl of water
5 g of salt
4 tablespoons of olive oil
10 g of dry yeast

Place the tomatoes in a baking dish, shower with a little bit of olive oil (about 2 tablespoons) and herbes de provence and roast in the oven at 200° Celsius for about 20-25 minutes. This will depend on your oven, tomatoes needs to be beautifully roasted and that skin is easy to remove, the tomatoes are done. Once it’s cooled off remove the skin and seeds. Chop the roasted tomato, set aside. Heat a pan and place olive oil and onion. Cook for about ten minutes over low fire or until onions are soft and golden, set aside. For the foccacia bread, put the flour on your working table and make a well in the middle and pour ¼ of the water that you have (you will have to control it depending on the consistency of your dough later). Dissolve your yeast in a tablespoon of water and add it in the middle of the well. Add the salt, as much as possible avoid direct contact with the yeast. Start handling your dough, add more water if needed. Knead the dough for about five to ten minutes or until the dough becomes elastic and does not stick to your hands anymore. Add about one tablespoon of herbes de provence directly to your dough. I love to do this because the flavor of the different herbes gets even better when cooked inside the bread. Over a parchment paper, put directly the dough. Make a square shape depending on the size of your baking dish. Cover it with a towel and let the dough rise for minimum of an hour. Preheat the oven at 200° Celsius. Brush the surface with olive oil and put your roasted tomatoes and caramelized onion on the top. Sprinkle more herbes de provence. Bake for about 30 minutes. It will be ready when the top becomes golden brown. Let it cool and cut the edges to have a perfect square. You can cut it the size and shape you want eventually. You can serve it perfectly accompanied by arugula salad or a simple carrot soup.

Introducing The Recipe Muncher

If we would rate the magnitude of my excitement level at a Ritcher's Scale at this moment, It would definitely perceive a very strong intensity. Guess why? Because after days of hardwork I am finally presenting to the public my very first web project, THE RECIPE MUNCHER.

Recipe Muncher is a site that will gather all the best food blogs that exist. A place where blogger or just normal readers could get cooking inspiration. An interesting site for foodblog sighting geared at increasing food bloggers viewership and exposure. Once you opened your account and it gets approved it will automatically publish the picture of your latest post with a direct link to your blog, that way it is convenient for all of us.

I can't wait to see all gorgeous recipes out there. This is an invitation for all of you!
Kisses,
Dhanggit

ps, Some of your favorite bloggers have already signed up, you can check them out.

Cannelloni Diablo

Cannelloni Diablo, really really spicy!

Call this culinary masochism or whatever term you want but I do love eating spicy food. The hotter the better. It makes you sweat all over, makes you feel numb and gives you that strong sensation to reach out for a glass of water (although people highly advise to avoid drinking water and to chew a piece of bread instead if we want to rinse out that spicy taste in our mouth).
My strong affection for spicy food was nurtured at a young age for my parents adore hot chili pepper. It is always served on the table freshly cut from the backyard. Certainly that liking for spicy food is an acquired taste. Although I have lots of friends who abhor anything spicy I always encourage them to try it to appreciate not only the sensation but also chili's health benefits.

When I used to live in Japan, I never fail to have lunch at my favorite Ramen House not far from where I live, because it is the only place I can eat noodle soup at their different degree of spicyness. And it's been quite a long time I haven't had that culinary sensation.

So I thought why not with my favorite pasta dish. After all I am masochist, slave to my culinary cravings.

I hope Joanna (Joanna's Food) loves spicy food too for I am sending her this Cannelloni Diablo , for Weekend Herb Blogging that she will be hosting this week. This is a wonderful blogging event created by Kalyn.

Canneloni Diablo
4 persons

Ingredients:
about 300 g of pre-cooked lasagna pasta (or Canneloni pasta)
3 red onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 red bell pepper cut in cube
200 g of canned whole tomato (chop them using your cutting knife)
125 ml of Sangrita (spicy tomato)
1 tsp of cayenne powder
2 to 3 pieces of hot chili pepper
400 g of ground meat
Salt and pepper

Start by cooking your pasta. I normally use lasagna pasta when I do canneloni because its easier to fill them up and just roll them to form the canneloni shape. In a large casserole boil water with salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Put the pasta and cook depending on the cooking instruction. Once the pasta is cooked start by preparing the stuffing. Heat a pan with oil, start by sautéeing the garlic, onion and pepper. Afterwards add the meat. Cook for about four to five minutes or until the meat has changed color. Add the salt, pepper and cayenne powder. Put this stuffing inside the canneloni. Arrange the canneloni in a baking dish and pour over the chopped tomatoes and sangrita. Bake in a preheated oven at 180° celsius for 20 to thirty minutes.

Some like it hot, some like it really really hot

Friday Dose of Chocolate: Chocolate Creme Brulée

Creamy and chocolatey: Chocolate Creme Brulée

Friday the thirteenth, goodluck or badluck?

I was so much inspired by the Cookbook project of Barbara (Taste & Tell) and I have been pondering for a while to do the same thing considering the tons of cookbooks that I have. But I wanted to do something that best speaks of me. And I guess there is no other way to do this but to share with you my love for chocolate. From this day on, I'll be sharing with you my chocoholism through my Friday Dose of Chocolate, a weekly post on the chocolate recipe I enjoyed that week. Considering the number of chocolate cookbooks that I have prepare for something really different and delicious. I warn you this could be sinfully addicting.

And no other better date to debut my very first Friday dose of chocolate but on this lucky(unlucky) day of Friday the thirteenth.

Allow me to tell you some of my chocolate trivia:

* When I was a kid, I'd love to do errands for others in that way the I could buy my favorite Choc'nut bars through the centavos I get paid.

*Growing up as teenager I enjoy spending time in my cousin's place specially in the afternoon when my auntie prepares our afternoon snack. Our all time favorite is her chocolate rice pudding out of left over rice. Ihough I never succeed in discovering her secret.

* Eversince I met my husband I'm having strong heart-palpitations. Well there isn't any romantic explanation to this , the only culprit is my higher pure cacao consumption since we lived together.

* This is my minimum daily chocolate consumption: 2 full scoops of chocolate powder for my cold milk in the morning, 3 spoonful of Nutella chocolate spread for my croissants, a slice of chocolate cake during lunchtime (this could vary though: muffins, pie but always chocolate flavored), a bowl of chocolate cereals for my afternoon snack and a bar of chocolate caramel in the evening.

Everybody loves chocolate. And I do hope to satisfy your cravings with my Friday Dose of Chocolate.
Chocolate Creme Brulée
source: Accro au chocolat by Cyril Lygnac
4 ramekins

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks + 2 whole eggs
20 cl of heavy cream
125 g of chocolate
40 g of sugar
20 g of brown sugar for the caramel topping

Beat the egg yolks and two whole eggs with the 40 grams of sugar. Blend them well until them become creamy. Place the cream in a saucepan, over low heat allow it to simmer for about three minutes. The add your chocolate and let it melt. Turn of the fire and let it cool down before adding the eggs-sugar mixture. Pour this chocolate cream on your ramekins. Place your ramekins in a baking dish and fill the baking dish with enough water to come halfway up the sides of the reamekins. Place the dish in a preheated oven 180° celsius and bake for 20 minutes. We have different ovens so the cooking time and temperature could vary depending on your oven just be sure that the custards are justly cooked; still creamy and yet firm. After their cooking time refrigerate for minimum of one hour the ramekins. Just before serving sprinkle the top with brown sugar. Put ice cube in a tray around ramekins and place try under a preheated hot grill for about one minute or until sugar melts and is golden.

I want some more...