Tuesday 19 December 2006

Happy Hanukkah!


Last year when we were lighting the Hanukkah candles my daughter asked: "Who has a birthday?". Now she grow up a little bit (she is almost 4 years old) and she already knows that it's for Hanukkah.

During our stay in UK, we want to keep our traditions more than ever. We light the candles, eat donuts and pancakes. By the way, the donuts on the picture are mine :-).
But now I want to share with you great recipe of sweet potato pancakes:
For the ingredients you need :
3 medium sweet potatoes
1 egg
1/2 - 2/3 glass of flour
salt to taste
vegetable oil or butter

The method:
1. Cook the sweet potatoes not peeled,
2. once they cooked, peel and dry off.
3. Finally mash potatoes.
4. Add the egg, flour and mix well. Season with salt to taste.
Make a little pancakes and fry on vegetable oil or on butter.

The result should look like this and may served with sour cream:

"Beteavon" (Bon Appetit in Hebrew)!

Wednesday 13 December 2006

Seafood heaven

The long-waited demonstration had come! There were prawns, mussels, shellfish, oysters, langoustines and even winkles. Yes, they eat winkles. But I still can't. Everybody told me : "Taste, you have to! It's really delicious! Close your eyes, forget that it's winkle and eat". But I couldn't. May be it will take some time ...

Six years ago I was in Australia for 4 month on business trip from my work (thanks to Amdocs). It was wonderful period. It's a beautiful country. Even now, when I'm thinking about it I'm remembering all the smells, beauty, the peace of this place. May be one day I'll be there again. But it is another dream :-).

Until that time I never tasted oysters. We were travelling along the beaches and some guy bought oysters. The oysters in Australia as a Fish and Chips here in UK, it's just everywhere. So, he offered me to taste the oyster. I said: "No, I can't eat this raw thing!" And I thought - "It's should be disgusting, how he is eating it?"
But you know, when the woman says "No" ,even to food, it means "Yes, but later" :-).
A little bit later I tasted oysters and until now it's my favorite dish.

On that demo session the chef prepared Mussels Mariniere, Shellfish, Deep fried Prawns (I think it was unnecessary to fry them in deep oil, it's killing all the taste) and Seafood plate.
At the end of the demo we are testing the chef's dishes, I was twice in the queue for tasting :-).
For those who likes mussels, there is an annual street fair in Lille that in North of France , called "Braderie". It's on the first weekend each September. It's an unusual fair! There is a long line of pavements throughout old Lille, selling paintings, antiques, furniture and junk of every description.
Part of the celebrations is eating moules-frîtes - mussels and chips. Traditionally, after eating you leave your empty shells outside the stall of restaurant - they compete to see which amasses the biggest pile by the end of the fair. Interesting, isn't it ?!

Tuesday 12 December 2006

"More butter please!"

What do you know about French cuisine?
Before I started my study at Le Cordon Bleu I didn't know much (I'm still learning :-) ). I knew something like - French cuisine is usually expensive one, delicious and it usually comes in small portions on big plates.
Do you know how much butter is in the dishes?!

"There are some kinds of French chefs: from North , South-East and South France - said our chef - Those from North regions use a lot of butter, from South-East use as butter so olive oil and those from South France regions mostly use olive oil so live longer :-) "
I am trying to conduct a healthy way of life - healthy food, be active and etc. That's what I'm trying to pass to my family members, but it not always works, but I keep trying :-).
My cooking are based on olive oil, there are some exceptions when I'm cooking for my daughter I put butter. Children have to get butter in their menu in order to growth and get all the vitamins.
And of course in pastry and cakes is always butter. It's cheaper to put margarine, but the taste is so different.
Actually my point of view on eating that we should eat everything we want, but only when we hungry and stop when we almost full. After long way of the war with weight and dieting I found this theory (with some help) to live without thinking about the food, e.g thinking about the food only when I hungry . But it's another story , may be I'll find the time to write about it later.
Back to French cuisine, all the recipes contain BUTTER. All souses are with at least 200gr of butter.
At one practical session when we cooked omelets a few students (I was one of them) put the olive oil into the pan and got the shout from the chef - "What are you doing??? The tradition of hundreds of years the omelets have been cooked in France on butter". So, we changed the pans.
But, I have to say, in spite the fact of my personal view on butter (I prefer an olive oil), the dishes are very tasty.
French Onion Soup
Chicken with mushroom cream sauce


Risotto Milanaise (with saffron and Parnesan cheese)
Calves Liver withh Onions, Sauteed potatoes
Supreme of Guinea Fowl stuffed with Provence Herbs, Tomato butter, courgette spaghetti
Meringue with creme Anglaise and carameliswd hazelnuts

Tuesday 5 December 2006

Basic cuisine


Basic cuisine is the first course of cuisine trilogy. The course has started from a basic food preparation techniques - for a example cutting the veges, poaching chicken, basic souses and etc. Even these basics are very interesting because you start doing things professionally - e.g the carrot from now will be cut into "julienne" and not sticks :-). They (teaching chefs) do not assume that we (students) know something about cooking, so they start teaching from the basics. And there are some people in the group that didn't cook more then omelet in their lives. So all the things are new.
The students in my group are from all over the world. The majority of them are from USA, then from Asian countries and from east Europe. Almost all of them are very young (10 years younger then me :-( ). When they saw that I'm "Mrs" they didn't believe. "You look so young! What? You have a child? NO! You don't look like a Mom!" - It was nice to hear, but how are Moms look like? (probably not like me :-) ).


I almost forgot about uniform! It's really funny - blue trousers in squares, the jacket and the hat. There is a children TV show "Big cook and small cook". When my daughter saw me in this uniform at the first time, she said: "My Mom is a Big cook and I'm a small".

And most surprising that there are a lot of girls, I think more then a half. How come?! The most famous chefs are men! Where are them?
Almost all the chefs (teachers) are french and they are speaking with very nice French accent. They are from different regions of France and therefore have a different styles of cooking. At the demo session we have three hours of live cooking show, where the several delicious dishes are being prepared, and all of these are accompanied with a lot of humor, stories about France and chef's lives. It's really fun to be there. As one of the chefs says - "Now you are smiling, we will see you after the school, It will not gonna be a Club Med!" :-)


To be continued...


These are the pictures of a few first dishes that I prepared.
Enjoy
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Quiche Lorraine

Pasta Alfredo

Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding


Puff Pastry with Leeks


Fruit tart


Roast Rack of Lamb with Parsley crust