I discovered these amaretti in a store in London where I go from time to time. I didn’t have the recipe but just the list of ingredients. I did a few tests and voila! It worked very well. It has pistachio, cardamom and a little orange zest and bitter almond extract in it. They are soft and will keep well for several days (weeks?) in an airtight box.
Amaretti pistachio cardamom for 12 pieces :
- 200g of pistachio powder
- 100g almond powder
- 100g of sugar
- 10 cardamom pods
- a little orange peel
- 1/2 teaspoon bitter almond extract
- 50g of egg white
Put the pistachio powder, almond powder and sugar in a container.
Open the cardamom pods and crush them in a mortar. You can also add 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom powder.
Add a little untreated orange peel. I put roughly the surface of the orange on 1x5cm.
Add the bitter almond extract and the weighed egg white.
Adjust the weight of the white so that the dough just comes together in a ball.
Divide the dough into 12 balls of about 38g.
Put them in the powdered sugar.
Crush them lightly and then with all fingers except the pinkie, press down to mark the dough.
Bake for 12 minutes in a preheated oven at 180°C in rotating heat.
Sprinkle with a veil of powdered sugar when removed from the oven and leave to cool.
Store in an airtight box.
A recipe ready to pop in the oven in a few minutes, perfect for calming an acute cookitis! This time I propose you a version with pistachios and white chocolate chips for a very regressive moment. With a touch of salt and whole pistachio powder, I find them irresistible…
Recipe for a dozen cookies:
- 115g semi-salted butter
- 160g of white sugar
- 60g of pistachio powder
- 200g flour
- 1 egg (50g without shell)
- 1 teaspoon liquid vanilla extract
- 90g unsalted roasted pistachios
- 100g of white chocolate chips
Put the butter, sugar and pistachio powder in a bowl.
Mix well to obtain a kind of cream. Add the egg and vanilla.
Mix and add the flour.
Mix a little and finish with the unsalted roasted pistachios (if not, you can use raw pistachios for 16 minutes at 165°C on rotating heat) and the white chocolate chips.
One mix and you’re done! I confirm that I do not use any yeast or raising agent.
Make slightly flattened balls of 75g. I baked them on a siliconized baking mat, but simple good quality parchment paper will do.
Bake for 12 minutes at 165°C in a preheated oven with rotating heat.
Let cool before peeling. To be enjoyed warm or at room temperature!
This recipe is ideal for those who do not want raw fish or nori seaweed leaves. We see them everywhere nowadays and they are a real fresh delight! When the good weather finally comes, it is a pleasure to enjoy. It’s all much simpler than it seems!
Pour 3 rouleaux (3-4 personnes)
- 215g of round rice
- 270g of water
- 150g of crab sticks (I took 10 wild fish supremes from Coraya, which are 156g)
- a little mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon of lime juice
- a little bit of chives
- 1 lawyer
- a few coriander leaves
- 3 sheets of rice, 19cm square
- 3 large salad leaves
Pour le vinaigre à sushi :
- 25g of sugar
- 35g white vinegar or rice vinegar
- 5g of mirin (if you don’t have any, it doesn’t matter!)
Cut out the “crab” sticks with a knife. I am definitely not sponsored by Coraya, but I took this brand because it is the best fit for this recipe!
Put it in a small container with two to three tablespoons of mayonnaise, the lime juice and the chopped parsley.
Mix well.
Wash the rice in a fine sieve, drain it, then place it with the water (270g) in a rice cooker. When the rice is cooked and still hot, add the prepared vinegar (just stir until the sugar is dissolved) and mix, lifting the rice to avoid damaging it. Let cool.
For this recipe, here are the square rice sheets.
Run a sheet under cold water on both sides. Place it on a clean, dry cloth. Place a salad leaf in the center.
Pour in a third of the cooked rice, about 160g, leaving a 2cm strip at the top and bottom. Pour in one third of the crab and avocado slices. For the avocado, I cut it into quarters and each quarter into 3. So I put one quarter per roll.
Add a few coriander leaves.
Wrap tightly. Do the same for the other two rolls.
Cut with a good knife in half, then each half in 4.
Serve chilled with a clear soy sauce!
Spring Maki with Rice Leaf
With friends, we sometimes eat at the Bouillon in Paris. It’s really inexpensive, well served and very good! I had ordered this dish several times and I found that I could offer it to you, because it is so simple to make and takes only 5 minutes! With the cold weather, it is the kind of small dishes quickly done well that delight the taste buds. In the end it is almost a childish dish adapted to adults, with the tartufata that totally transforms it!
Recipe for 4 people:
- 350g of coquillettes
- 300g of ham in thick slices
- 4 tablespoons tartufata
- 15cl of liquid cream
- 2 large knobs of salted butter
- a little finely chopped chives
- a dash of truffle oil if you have some on hand!
Instructions :
This recipe is ready in 5 minutes! Cook the shells in boiling salted water, the time indicated is usually 3 minutes.
Take thick slices of ham to make small cubes.
When the coquillettes are ready, put them back in the pan on low heat with the cream and the tartufata.
Mix well, add the ham and butter.
A little chive, a dash of truffle oil if you have some in the cupboard and it’s already done!
All you have to do is sit down to eat!
Coquillettes Ham Tartufata
Ingredients
- 350 g coquillettes
- 300 g ham in thick slices
- 4 tablespoons tartufata
- 15 cl liquid cream
- 2 large knobs salted butter
- a little finely chopped chives
- a dash of truffle oil if you have some on hand!
Instructions
- This recipe is ready in 5 minutes! Cook the shells in boiling salted water, the time indicated is usually 3 minutes.
- Take thick slices of ham to make small cubes.
- When the coquillettes are ready, put them back in the pan on low heat with the cream and the tartufata.
- Mix well, add the ham and butter.
- A little chive, a dash of truffle oil if you have some in the cupboard and it's already done!
- All you have to do is sit down to eat!
Nutrition
In the end, it’s not even really a recipe! But I am so crazy about fried camembert with blueberry jam, that I wanted to experience the pleasure of making it for the blog. I sometimes order them in restaurants and each time I enjoy them. The important thing is to use a cheese that is not runny, and to have a very hot oil to allow the crust of breadcrumbs to brown well. In the end with the blueberry jam, it is irresistible!
Recipe for 4 people:
- 1 camembert cheese, not runny
- 1 bowl of flour
- 1 bowl of golden breadcrumbs
- 1 bowl with 2 beaten eggs
- frying oil
- blueberry jam
Prepare the bowls with the flour, breadcrumbs and beaten eggs.
For this recipe, use a Camembert that is not runny at all. When cooked, it will become sufficiently so.
Cut it into half quarters.
Take a slice and dip it in the egg.
Then in the flour.
Put back into the egg, being careful the second time to coat it well.
This time remove the excess egg and place in the breadcrumbs.
Shake bowl well to coat. Do the same for all neighborhoods.
Put a pan of oil on high heat. I avoid the deep fryer because the cheese and breadcrumbs will ruin the bottom. When the oil is at 180°C, put the pieces of cheese.
Be careful, at some point the cheese will want to come out and it will crackle in the oil. That’s why the oil has to be hot to brown the breadcrumbs quickly.
Serve immediately with jam!
Qatayef, or atayef (not to be confused with ktayef, pastry made from angel hair) is a delicious pancake filled with ashtalieh cream, rose and orange blossom water and crushed roasted pistachios. Everything is served with a flavored syrup and gives a final result that is not very sweet. This pastry is found in Lebanon, but also in Egypt and other countries of the Levant. This presentation with half of the pancake folded to make a cone is called assafiri.
Recipe for about twenty pancakes:
For the ashtalieh cream:
- 250g semi-skimmed milk
- 230g full cream
- 75g sweetened condensed milk
- 75g cornstarch
- 120g of water
- 1 tablespoon of orange blossom
- 1 tablespoon of rose water
For the syrup:
- 280g of sugar
- 180ml of water
- 1 slice of lemon
- 1 teaspoon of orange blossom water
- 1 teaspoon of rose water
For the dough:
- 190g flour
- 50g fine semolina
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 425g semi-skimmed milk
- 1/2 teaspoon of dried baker’s yeast
- About 150g shelled unsalted roasted pistachios.
For the ashtalieh cream:
Put the milk, cream and condensed milk in a saucepan over low heat.
In a container, put the cornstarch (maïzena) and the water. Mix well.
When the milk simmers, pour slowly into the container while whisking. Pour everything back into the saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring. The cream will thicken quickly.
Turn off the heat and add the orange blossom and rose waters. If you find a real orange blossom, take advantage of it!
Pour into the still hot cream.
Mix well.
Pour into a clean container then put a cling film in contact. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate. You can do it the night before.
For the syrup, put the sugar, water and lemon to boil for 4 minutes.
Remove from the heat, add the orange blossom and rose water.
For the dough: put the flour, fine semolina, sugar and baking powder in a container.
Pour the dried yeast into the milk and mix well. Then pour the milk into the container while mixing to avoid lumps.
When the dough is ready, let it rest for 15 minutes. Then make the pancakes. I took here a machine with small pancakes which one offered to me for my birthday! But otherwise, in the pan, it will be very good too. The diameter of the pancakes is about 8cm.
The dough will make lots of holes like a thousand hole pancakes.
Cook only one side. They will be perfect. When they are cooked, fold a crepe in half and pinch on half to close them. I do this when they are still warm.
And here are the little cones ready to be garnished.
Pour the cooled cream into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the whisk attachment.
Whisk at high speed for one minute. The cream this time is smooth but still with a good texture.
Chop the pistachios with a knife.
We are ready to fill everything!
Fill the pancakes with the cream.
Then pass them in the crushed pistachios.
Put in a pretty dish then sprinkle with syrup and leave it available.
Atayef Assafiri
I have just returned from Rome where I spent a few days of vacation again, that I already offer you a really simple recipe! The translation being “cheese and pepper”. The sauce is made with the cheese and the pasta cooking water. You just have to be careful not to recook the sauce, which in this case would cause the pecorino to curdle. In about ten minutes, everything is ready and absolutely delicious!
Recipe for 4 people:
- 400g pasta (spaghetti to be traditional, but I used rigatoni here)
- 250g pecorino romano
- black pepper, salt
- olive oil
Put the pepper in a small mortar (or even on a cutting board) and crush it. On the board, take a large knife to crush with the dish of it.
Put about fifteen peppercorns to grill for a minute over moderate heat, stirring. Set aside.
Put a pot of water to boil. Then cook the pasta for 1 minute less than the al dente recommendation. I don’t salt the pasta water at all because the pecorino is already quite salty.
While the pasta cooks, finely grate the pecorino.
Pour a little cooking water into the cheese.
With a small whisk, mix without delay and add just enough water to create something creamy. Be careful not to add too much water, otherwise the sauce will no longer be creamy. Go in small amounts.
Add the lightly roasted black pepper.
Keep some pasta cooking water aside. Drain the pasta then put it back in the pan over moderate heat with two to three tablespoons of cooking water and a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook until the liquid is completely absorbed.
Cut the fire! Then pour the pecorino cream. Above all, do not put the fire back on, otherwise the cheese will coagulate. This is why the pasta is reheated with a little water beforehand, so that everything is hot.
Mix well.
Serve with a little more black pepper.
Cacio e pepe
Ingredients
- 400 g pasta (spaghetti to be traditional, but I used rigatoni here)
- 250 g pecorino romano
- black pepper
- salt
- olive oil
Instructions
- Put the pepper in a small mortar (or even on a cutting board) and crush it. On the board, take a large knife to crush with the flat of it.
- Put about 15 peppercorns to toast for a short minute over moderate heat while stirring. Set aside.
- Put a pot of water to boil. Then put the pasta to cook 1 minute less than the al dente recommendation. I don't salt the pasta water at all because the pecorino is already salty enough.
- While the pasta is cooking, finely grate the pecorino.
- Pour some of the cooking water into the cheese.
- With a small whisk, mix without delay and add just enough water to create something creamy. Be careful not to add too much water or the sauce will not be creamy. Use small amounts.
- Add the lightly roasted black pepper.
- Keep some of the pasta cooking water aside. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot over moderate heat with two-three tablespoons of cooking water and one tablespoon of olive oil. Let it cook until all the liquid is absorbed.
- Turn off the heat! Then pour in the pecorino cream. Don't turn on the heat or the cheese will coagulate. That's why we heat the pasta with a little water beforehand, so that everything is hot.
- Mix well.
- Serve with a little more black pepper.
Nutrition
Here is a simple and effective dish, ready in just a few minutes. The longest will be to cook the plain rice to accompany it! I offer you these crunchy prawns in a spicy sweet and sour sauce, with sugar snap peas and a few Thai basil leaves, for an ultra tasty meal. The hardest to find is Thai basil, but know that it grows very well in pots indoors! Convenient to always have on hand, if like me you are a fan!
For 4 people :
- 30 beautiful raw shrimp, deveined and shelled
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 small red pepper (optional)
- 1 or 2 shallots
- 250g sugar snap peas
- a few leaves of Thai basil
- 2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
- 1 tablespoon nuoc mam
- 1 small teaspoon of white vinegar
- oil
Here are the sauces used: nuoc mam, the famous Vietnamese fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce. Both are very easy to find everywhere!
Start by peeling the garlic and the shallot. Deseed the small pepper. Chop everything finely.
The prawns must be deveined and shelled.
In a wok or sauté pan, put a little oil, the prawns and half the minced garlic/shallot/chili mixture over high heat.
Let everything sauté without burning the garlic/shallot.
Empty everything into a container, then add a little oil with the rest of the chopped mixture and the snap peas.
Sauté over high heat for 2 minutes, stirring regularly.
Finely chop some Thai basil leaves.
Return the prawns (along with the juices and whatever else you have in the small container set aside) with the Thai basil.
Add the sweet chilli sauce, nuoc mam and vinegar.
Cook over high heat to thicken the sauce.
Serve immediately with plain white rice!
Shrimps and sugar snap peas, spicy sauce
I’m straying a bit from tradition at the moment, though I’ll get back to it. But once in a while, when it’s good, I don’t see the problem! I had seen this recipe in a fusion restaurant in the United States a few years ago, so I wanted to do it again here in my own way. This recipe is not fixed at all, you can at your leisure make only the tuna part, or the crab part and replace the fried sticky rice cake, by a more classic plain or vinegar rice. In any case I can promise you that it is fresh, crispy, soft, slightly spicy, but above all irresistible!
Recipe for 4 people:
Two options:
Crispy fried glutinous rice:
- 230g of sticky rice
- 290g of water
For non-fried round rice:
- 230g of round rice
- 290g of water
For tuna:
- 170g of raw tuna
- 30g mayonnaise (Japanese if possible)
- 10g of sriracha
- 1 tablespoon of lime juice
a little chopped chives
For crab:
- 170g of good quality crab flavor sticks
- 30g of mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- a little chopped parsley
To accompany :
- 2 lawyers
- 1 back of salmon from 170 to 200g
- a little fried onion
Start by preparing the rice:
For glutinous rice or non-fried round rice, the preparation is the same.
Weigh the rice and rinse it with clean water for one minute.
Drain it well and put it in the rice cooker with the 290g of water.
Put it to cook.
For the glutinous rice, mix lightly with a spoon to make a paste.
Take a 10cm circle and put cling film in the bottom. Weigh a 130g ball of rice and put it in the bottom.
Close the film and press well. Turn out and open the film.
Do the same with the rest to make 4 patties. You can use the same stretch film each time. Heat a small pan of oil to 190°C. Fry the patties one by one. Do not brown them either czr it becomes too crispy!
Drain the patties on paper towels.
For salmon: remove bones with tongs. Run your finger over it to make sure there are none left!
Run a knife through the skin to remove it.
Cut the salmon into slices and then into cubes.
For the tuna: first cut it with a knife and then chop it finely.
Place it in a small container and add the ingredients: mayonnaise, sriracha, lemon juice.
Add the chopped chives. Mix well, it’s ready!
For the crab (fake) I took a good quality. Cut finely with a knife. I prefer this to taking already chopped crab which is often not as good and too big.
Put in a bowl with the mayonnaise, lime juice and parsley (here frozen parsley works great!).
A little mix and it’s good!
Peel the avocados, cut them into quarters and then into slices.
To serve, put a sticky rice cake, avocado and then the rest: tuna, crab and ending with salmon.
For the sauce, I made some more by mixing a little mayonnaise, sriracha and a little lime juice!
Putting a little on top, with some chives and fried onion, is a delight! You can also use plain rice instead of the glutinous rice cake (130g per person) or make a vinegared rice like for sushi (the recipe of my sweet sushi vinegar HERE).
Crunchy sushi of sticky rice, salmon, spicy tuna and crab
As I travel much less than before, I look at my notebooks in which I wrote down the dishes I had tasted abroad. This dish of crispy wasabi prawns really stuck with me and I had tasted it in Shanghai some time ago. It took me a long time to find the right proportions and since I finally discovered the way to make fried food extra crispy, I am having fun making the delights I had in mind. It’s done with this dish which is very special. I recommend if you try it, maybe only start with half the proportions. The “sauce” that coats the shrimp is very very special. But a delight when you dare to venture there!
Ingredients for 4 to 6 people:
- 500g peeled and deveined raw prawns
For the wasabi coating sauce:
- 10g of wasabi powder with 15g of water or 25g of wasabi already ready in paste
- 115g of Japanese “kewpie” mayonnaise or equivalent brand
- 35g sweetened condensed milk
To coat the shrimp:
- 200g flour
- 230g of water
Then:
- 800g tapioca starch
If you like crispy dishes, try the extra crispy sesame chicken HERE !
Here are the rather special ingredients of this wasabi sauce. No, I’m not mistaken about them, there is sweetened condensed milk! Japanese mayonnaise can be found in Japanese or Asian grocery stores or on the internet. If you know me, I’m a fan of homemade mayonnaise that I’ve been making since my childhood, but if I put Japanese mayonnaise here, there’s a reason!
Mix the wasabi powder with the water or take the wasabi paste directly.
Mix well.
Add mayonnaise and sweetened condensed milk.
A little mixing and it’s already over. Set aside.
Mix flour and water in a container.
Add the deveined and shelled raw prawns.
Mix everything well. In another container, put the tapioca starch. Put the prawns one by one in the starch, removing all the same the excess dough.
Even if it says flour on it, it is indeed starch (in fact, in English it says starch, starch).
Then coat each shrimp with starch. Leave the prawns in the cornstarch by pushing them to the side of the bowl and then leave them in there for 15 minutes. The moisture from the shrimp will create a thicker layer of batter as the starch absorbs this moisture.
When you’re ready to eat, heat up a wok or a pan of oil (not a fryer!). The oil must be very hot, over 190°C. Put the prawns one by one. You will probably do several baths for all the shrimp.
Let them cook for about a minute, no more otherwise the shrimp will overcook. But the superficial layer of dough will be very crispy!
Let the shrimp rest on absorbent paper while cooking them all.
I can confirm that I only cook the shrimp once. If they were cooked again a second time, they would become overcooked!
Pour some of the sauce. You will surely not put everything, just enough to coat them well, but I did my calculations so that everything falls well as it should!
Mix well.
Then serve immediately. I put some wasabi sesame seeds here that I found in an Asian supermarket!
