mmmmm*

coconut tapioca soup with mango sorbet, passion fruit, cilantro syrup and coconut tuiles

* that's Meeta's Monthly Mingle Mango Mania

Seems like I embraced all the relaxing and doing nothing of our June holiday for a bit too long. Instead of baking and posting, we spent our weekends catching up with friends, enjoying the sun (something that very rarely happens here, so whenever we do have a sunny day, I try to make the most of it), and going to Belgium for a friend's wedding. We also had a lovely dinner party with our Japanese friends S and A; last time they cooked Japanese food for us so this time it was our turn to cook. We made them Gentse waterzooi – a sort of fish stew from Ghent. Which didn't look very pretty, but tasted rather good. Which was a good thing, because we had never made it before and it could have all gone horribly wrong. I had warned our friends though, that if it did, they would have the choice between an Indian or Chinese takeaway. Or halal pizza.

For dessert I also decided to experiment, with a multi-component concoction. But even if the whole thing failed, the sorbet bit couldn't go wrong so there would be something edible for dessert at least. And fail it almost did. I had set my mind on one of Claudia Fleming's composed desserts: coconut tapioca soup with sorbet and some garnishes – something sunny and tropical.

I had never used tapioca before, so I tried the soup bit of the dessert the week before. British tapioca must be different from American one, as I ended up not with a soup, but a very thick custard. Yummy, but not soupy enough. During the week, I looked up some other recipes and found one on Steamy Kitchen that sounded promising. So promising, I didn't try it out beforehand. Big mistake. Nothing wrong with Jaden's recipe, it's just that I didn't know how to cook tapioca and there were almost no cooking instructions on the packet. I started off making the tapioca soup first thing in the morning and had to make it three times before I finally got it right! Soaking the tapioca in water for an hour didn't work, I just ended up with a big mush. Boiling it separately in water didn't work either. What did work in the end (lucky me) was combining Claudia and Jaden's recipes: I cooked the tapioca in milk, which gave me a thick custard, and later added a milk-water-coconut milk mix to thin it into a proper soup. Phew, crisis averted.

For the mango sorbet, I used those incredibly sweet, small and pretty yellow mangoes which I finally found at my local market. Unlike those sour, unripe ones I used last time. They're not cheap, but worth every penny. And they come nicely decorated with ribbon and wrapped in some tissue paper. All I did was add a bit of sugar and some lime juice, bang the whole thing into the freezer and stir it every half hour or so.

The coriander syrup takes no time at all to make and the tuiles I wasn't too fussed about: if they worked: great, if not: tant pis. Luckily they did. They didn't look anywhere as elegant and thin as Michel Roux's version, but good enough to serve to our dinner guests. Who loved the whole dessert, seeing as how they asked for seconds and even thirds...

coconut tapioca soup
adapted from Claudia Fleming's Last Course and Jaden's Steamy Kitchen

1/4 cup tapioca
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cup milk

Bring milk and sugar to the boil, add tapioca, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until tapioca pearls are soft (appx. 35 minutes).

plus:
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup coconut milk

Bring water and sugar to a boil. When boiling, turn heat to low and stir in milk. When mixture returns to a boil, turn off the heat and stir in the coconut milk. Remove from heat, let cool to room temperature and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Before serving dessert, add this mixture to tapioca mix to thin as required.

mango sorbet
adapted from Tessa Kiros Apples for Jam

about 1.2 kg mango (as this sorbet basically is frozen mango, everything depends on the quality of the mangoes)
1/2 caster sugar
juice of 2 limes

Peel mangoes and cut into small chunks. Put in bowl with sugar and lime juice. Leave to macerate for a few hours. Purée everything and freeze.

coconut tuiles
adapted from Michel Roux Jr's Le Gavroche cookbook

1 egg
80g caster sugar
80g unsweetened desiccated coconut

Whisk eggs and sugar, until just mixed, add coconut and whisk until smooth. Spread out thin shapes on baking sheet (the back of a fork dipped in water works well for this) and bake at 160˚C until pale brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and leave to cool.

To assemble: ladle some soup into martini glass. Add a scoop of sorbet. Add passion fruit, some coriander syrup and finish with a tuile. Enjoy.

milk jam

About a month ago, I discovered Aran’s beautiful blog, cannelle et vanille, when she left me a comment. I instantly fell in love with her beautiful creations and photographs and luckily, she hasn’t been blogging for very long, so it didn’t take ages to read through her archives – lucky me, otherwise I would have been reading through the night. One thing immediately caught my attention and that was her milk jam. I’d never heard of it before, but it sounded intriguing and lovely.

Especially because vain little me wanted to bleach my teeth and my dentist had instructed me to only eat ‘white food’ for the two weeks it would take. No coffee, red wine, tomatoes, red peppers, strawberries … Of course after about a week I got incredibly fed up with eating cauliflower, rice and apples – we have a saying in Flemish that goes ‘they came out of my ears’, which I think pictures my sentiment quite well – and I was desperate for some variation. The milk jam provided just that; luscious, creamy, buttery and milky. Delicious! If you haven’t made it yet, stop reading and go make it right now. The recipe is here.

I have mentioned before I’m not a fan of gelatine, so I left out the gelatine and reduced it a bit more to compensate, to about 250g. It set to a very spreadable paste in the fridge. For my second batch (did I mention how delicious this is?) I had to use half and half milk (S drank all the full-fat milk) and I added some nutmeg. Out of curiosity I reduced it to 300g, which also worked fine. And for my next batch, I’m thinking coconut milk. Or maybe sweet massala spices…

sweets for Diwali

Diwali was actually celebrated on the 9th of November this year so I’m an entire week late, but I’m sure Ganesha’s appetite for sweets is the same all year around. And as for Lakshmi (even though she’s a tough cookie – my friend’s words, not mine), surely my rice pudding is sweet enough to sway her.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated big in the area where I live, with lots of fireworks. My friends who celebrate it make sure their house is spic ‘n span clean from top to bottom, in anticipation of Ganesha and Lakshmi’s visit. These Hindu deities bestow wealth, success and happiness, but only upon clean households. In addition to all the cleaning, there are also sweets. Lots of them.

Now why would I be celebrating Diwali - blonde Belgians and Indian festivals, surely that’s a strange mix? Well, blame my friend S, a crazy (in a lovely way crazy) Mauritian girl, from Indian descent. She not only decided that I was going to be half Indian, but also introduced me to Bollywood music and films, textiles, henna, and of course Indian sweets. Which, with all their spices, are absolutely perfect for this time of year. And after restraining myself with the custard last week, I was itching to make something else with a mix of heart-warming spices.

Many moons ago I made gajjar ka halwa (carrot halwa) – an extremely sweet dessert with grated carrots and lots of cream, butter and milk – which was delicious but took me an entire afternoon to make, and I just didn’t have that much time on my hands. Ras malai is my absolute favourite – it’s a sort of milk curd ball in sweetened milk with pistachios and rose water – but I have absolutely no idea how to make that myself. And so I thought I’d give my gran’s rice pudding a go.

A bit nerve-racking, considering her rice pudding is heaven on a plate (and that’s a lot to live up to!), and also a bit of a challenge, with the vague instructions she gave me. It turns out her vague instructions are absolutely spot on though, there’s no way to make them any clearer. Gran only adds saffron to her rice pudding, but I added a bunch of spices. Other than that, I stuck to her ‘recipe’. And the result? A very Flemish dessert, with an Indian twist.


recipe
1 cup of rice (I used Arborio, but any rice that is suitable for risotto will do)
a knob of butter
full fat milk (about 1 litre)
a squeeze of honey
1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
half a stick of cinnamon
a pinch of saffron
1 star anise
5 cloves
3 cardamom pods
a pinch of nutmeg

Melt some butter in a saucepan, add rice to pan and make sure it is coated with butter. Add enough milk to cover rice and add all the spices. Keep on stirring and adding milk (I added a tiny squeeze of honey halfway through) until the rice is soft, about 45 minutes.

It’s basically like making a risotto, so it takes some dedication, but the results are more than worth it. The spices I listed are the quantities I used, but you can of course adapt according to preference (S tasted and said it was ok, but he thought the star anise was too overwhelming), add some cream instead of only milk, and sweeten it as much or as little as you like.

oops

Pressies! A whole bunch of cook books and other goodies.

I woke up one morning and suddenly realised it’s October already. There was also this nagging thought in the back of my head - something to do with chocolate. And vanilla. And then it dawned on me. My little blog! So woefully neglected this past month! Oops.

Well, I guess that’s what happens when one spends weekends in Belgium visiting family (and stocking up on chocolate), frantically doing DIY preparing one’s house for a visit of said family, attending talks by certain food bloggers, and organising a big birthday party for oneself (my thirtieth, but shhh, don’t tell anyone).

Which didn’t leave much time at all for kitchen experiments. Or for the Daring Bakers September challenge, which completely passed me by. Check out all the other DBs cinnamon and sticky bun rolls here.

On the plus side, I now have beautifully oiled ‘dark Jacobean oak’ stained floors, which - I have already discovered - provide a perfect backdrop for food pics; the family (who all came over from Belgium especially for the birthday party) were suitably impressed with our house renovations and it was wonderful having them all here to celebrate with me; and, throwing yourself a birthday party of course means getting lots of presents, some of which will make appearances on vanille & chocolat in the not too distant future...

shamelessly plugging a friend

A friend of mine and wonderful artist, Freddy de Vierman, is exhibiting in the Mary Place Gallery (12 Mary Place, Paddington, 2021 NSW) in Sydney until this Sunday, 5 August. If you live in Sydney, like the look of his work and have spare time this weekend, please go see his show - and, while you're there, buy his work as well :-).

birthday baking (and Meeta's monthly mingle)

no, not a Tiffany's box...

When I asked my friend A what she wanted for her birthday, her answer was: ‘those cookies you made for my birthday last year were really good’ so cookies it was. The ones I made her last year are a firm favourite of mine – cardamom shortbread – but I couldn’t really bake her the same ones this year, could I? I was thinking maybe a few different sweets, with different tastes and textures, assembled in a nice box. A box was found – baby blue, which made A exclaim ‘That looks like a Tiffany’s box!’ Lucky for me, she wasn’t too disappointed that the goodies were of the edible rather than the diamond kind.

Of course there had to be something chocolate-y – I do have my Belgian-ness to live up to after all – so I decided on truffles. Coffee-cardamom truffles to be exact. Which I made, ironically, with British chocolate. But only partially; I used Belgian chocolate as well. Besides, it was dark espresso Green & Black’s chocolate, and there simply is no excuse necessary, ever, for Green & Black’s chocolate. Half the truffles I coated in unsweetened cocoa powder, the other half in the cocoa nibs I finally found at Wholefoods on my last trip to New York – after various unsuccessful shopping expeditions all around London in search of the elusive cocoa nib.

And whaddyaknow, now that Fresh & Wild here in London has been taken over by Wholefoods, they sell cocoa nibs. I’m not sure I still like the shop – it seems so much more soulless, there is much more plastic packaging and lots of fruit & veg are flown in from faraway places like Kenya and Peru, rather than the locally sourced produce they used to sell, but they do seem to have more products on offer. Like cocoa nibs. And jars of lovely caramelised shredded peppers, that go perfect with brie and basil on ciabatta. Mmm, getting hungry now … but I digress. Back to the birthday baking.

Apart from the chocolates, I also made lemon squares. I had been itching to try Mary’s recipe, and this was the ideal occasion. Unlike Mary – lucky woman – I don’t have a Meyer lemon tree in my garden, so I had to make do with ordinary supermarket lemons, but apart from that I followed her recipe to the letter. And boy, it was good.

Now, since odd numbers almost always work better, I needed a third sweet for good measure. Something soft and cakey would go well with the other two I thought. Madeleines were my first choice, but those are really only good straight out of the oven methinks. If need be, they are still ok a few hours later, but the longer you leave them the more of their yumminess they lose. So no madeleines this time. Browsing through Claudia Fleming’s Last Course, I found a recipe for almond-brown butter cakes, a financier-like cake baked in mini muffin tins, which sounded perfect. Again, I didn’t change anything about the recipe (mainly because S is always chiding me about changing recipes the first time I make them) though I was a bit apprehensive about the ginormous amount of sugar going into the batter. Indeed the finished cakes were sugar-coma-inducingly sweet, so next time I will substantially lower the amount of sugar. Also, American mini muffin tins must be much bigger than European ones, because I ended up with almost double the amount of cakes stated in the recipe. The finished cakes looked a bit plain I thought, so I brushed them with rose syrup.

And there I had it. A home-made birthday present for my friend, which she loved and enjoyed. Although I bet she secretly would have preferred if it had been a Tiffany’s box – but then what girl wouldn’t? Of course I made way too much of everything for the one present and the leftovers stretched far. They accompanied me to a picnic with friends (their only comment was ‘mmmm’), S took some to work (the comment there was ‘please ask your girlfriend to give me the recipe’) and finally I took some into work as well, where they disappeared faster than the speed of light. The only thing the sweets haven’t got yet, is a virtual recipient. So what better than to take the little blue box to Meeta’s monthly mingle, where she can virtually enjoy them for her big birthday bang. Although maybe she would prefer a Tiffany’s box as well…

chocolate truffles
my own recipe

250g dark chocolate and Green & Black’s espresso chocolate
150ml whipping cream
5 cardamom pods, black seeds only (crushed)
unsweetened cocoa powder or cocoa nibs, for finishing

Chop/grind chocolate into tiny pieces or powder. Bring cream with cardamom to a boil. Take off heat as soon as it starts boiling, cover with cling film and let flavours infuse for about 10 minutes. Add chocolate to cream and mix until the chocolate has dissolved completely. Put in fridge overnight or until firm. With a teaspoon (or melon baller) shape into truffles and dunk into cocoa powder or cocoa nibs.

g'day

no points for guessing where I've been...

Back at home, back at work and still ‘enjoying’ jet lag. With six long haul and three short haul flights in the past month, I’ve now done more than my bit to pollute the earth – maybe I should plant my back garden full of trees (but I’m not sure the neighbours would agree) or not use electricity for about a decade (but that would pose some serious problems involving ovens and baking, not to mention computers and my little blog). It feels strange being back after such a long time away. All that’s left now is memories. Oh, and a gazillion pictures to sort through.

a spread of Peranakan food (but not the home-cooked one)

Singapore was fun – I especially liked the notices in the MRT (the local underground) listing different fines for eating, drinking and smoking, plus a separate and huge fine for eating durian. S and I caught up with friends who introduced us to the different cuisines of Singapore: cheap ‘n cheerful hawker food, chilli crab, dinner at the Fullerton hotel (our friends know the chef there and he prepared something special for us). We also enjoyed an utterly delicious home-cooked Peranakan meal (prepared by a linguitst/writer/chef) for my friend W’s birthday. Thank you B and K for inviting us into your home and making our tummies so happy!

the Blue Mountains

In Australia we spent a lot of time with various friends, ate the most wonderful fish, seafood and tropical fruits, had too many cocktails, saw lots of funny-looking birds, cute geckos, big spiders, a teeny tiny croc in the wild and a cassowary. And I even managed to get a tan – yay! I also learned that ‘terrorism is un-Australian’, which I think is a great statement and every country in the world should adopt it. Not the ‘un-Australian’ bit, obviously, but un-‘whichever-country’.

a random surfer on Bondi Beach

We worked our way up the East Coast starting in Sydney, where we did touristy things such as walking around the city all day; taking pictures of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (which is surprisingly beige in real life – it was built in the seventies after all – but in photos it strangely becomes bright white); spending a day at Bondi Beach (which is surprisingly small); and taking a day trip to the Blue Mountains (where you don’t want to get lost, apparently the whole national park is half the size of Belgium).

ugly but oh so yummy Moreton Bay bugs
(and my newly married friend A with his shiny new wedding ring)

In Noosa we had our first big get-together with friends and our first encounter with Moreton Bay Bugs. These ugly critters won’t win any beauty contests, but they are incredibly delicious. From Noosa we all moved on to Maleny for our friends’ wedding, which was beautiful and funny. Although it was a good thing we didn't know about all the funnel web spiders the owner of the place was killing while we were enjoying champagne at the courtyard reception. Of course we had to go to Australia Zoo – we couldn’t go to the area and not visit the zoo – so now we now exactly what to do when encountering a crocodile. And how to say ‘crikey’ like a native.

the incredibly beautiful Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island

After the wedding S and I spent a few days on Fraser Island before moving on to Port Douglas, where we rejoined our friends, took a daytrip to the Daintree Rainforest and went snorkeling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Even though I was terribly seasick all the way out to the reef, it was so worth it. Then we enjoyed one last day in Brisbane, where we met up with S’s former colleague D and his family for a lovely leisurely afternoon and a stunning meal at River Canteen (my eyes still glaze over when I think back at the pan-seared barramundi with twice baked sand crab soufflé, Sauternes crème and grilled asparagus, or the passionfruit soufflé with vanilla bean custard and passionfruit ice cream I had for dessert).

the Glasshouse Mountains, as seen from Maleny

Getting back home was a bit of a nightmare thanks to SingaPOOR airlines. First of all, they didn’t think it necessary to let us know they changed their schedule. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5.30am and got to Brisbane airport at 7am for our morning flight, only to discover it didn’t exist any more and we were rebooked on the 3pm flight. Hanging around at an airport for half a day is not my idea of fun, especially since this delay meant I would miss (most of) my friend W’s birthday party in Singapore. The next day we got up at 5.30am again, went to Changi airport at 7am, only to be told that our flight was full and we couldn’t get on it. Eventually, we did manage to get on the flight after all, but, needless to say, I’m not in a hurry to fly SIA again any time soon. Having said that, once we did get on board, the entire service was impeccable. And the food not half bad for airline food (btw, check out this cute website about airline meals).

On another note, I got a comment from someone who is not related to me and not a personal friend – which means that someone is actually reading what I scribble down, wow. Thank you for the kind words, Helene. Now that I’m back home I cannot wait to start baking again and trying new recipes from the cookbooks and magazines I picked up in Singapore and Oz. Although they will have to wait just a bit longer, as my darling S has expressed a craving for marbled cake. And how could I refuse such a sweet and simple request...