Valentine's dinner n°2

Bonjour à tous! Hope you had a great Valentine's day. As you can guess, mine was based on the dinner I planned to cook for my girlfriend. Nothing fancy, just a simple and romantic meal perfectly done. Don't hesitate to steal the recipes if you want to cook for her next time!

I started the menu with ginger and chilli caramelized scampi on top of a spinach salad. I wanted the two scampi to look like heart-shaped but it didn't work, but still looked delicious. Moreover, the spiciness of this light plate is exactly what you need to start the dinner.

Fry the chilli and the ginger in oil, add the scampi for approximately 5 minutes and pour just a bit of soy sauce. Prepare the spinach salad by cooking them very quickly with olive oil and salt in a frying pan, if you overcook them you'll lose all the texture so be careful.

Next on the menu was a Duck Confit on string beans and mushrooms with a red wine and blueberry reduction. Of course! I couldn't make a romantic dinner without cooking duck, we love it both too much ; and Duck Confit was the first dish I made to impress my girlfriend so I had to do it again. You can find my recipe HERE. 

This time I cooked the mushrooms in the duck fat, and for the reduction I deglazed the pan I used for the duck with 100ml of red wine then I added the blueberries and let it cook over high heat until it thickens.

And then the dessert!

I made a "very revisited" Norwegian omelette. First, place the pistachio ice cream in a mixing bowl and let it melt. Prepare the fruits you want (I wanted to use cherries but couldn't find any so I used mixed berries), add them to the ice cream and mix well. Put it a mold and store it in the freezer. Beat two egg whites until stiff and add sugar. Take the ice cream out of the freezer and cover it with a thick layer of the meringue. Brown the meringue with a cooking torch (which was my girlfriend's present to me for Valentine's day, definitely the best) and place the "very revisited" Norwegian omelette back in the freezer until you are ready to serve. Just before you do, flamber 20ml of rum and drizzle it on the dessert.

Did anyone cook for Valentine's day? Comment this post and tell us what you made:)

Magret de Canard au Thé

I know: duck again. What can I say? I just love it and my girlfriend loves it even more. And this bird is way too expensive in Norway so I bought a lot before I came back from France. But this is so delicious I could actually eat only duck everyday... The lady agrees. If you can find some wherever you live, the recipe could be a great idea for your Valentine dinner guys.

For the recipe, you need (2 pers):

• 1 duck breast fillet
• 4 potatoes
• 8 asparagus
• 1 shallot 
• 30 cl milk
• 10 cl white wine
• 2 bags of earl grey tea
• white grapes
• Nutmeg
• Sugar / Salt / Pepper

Peel the potatoes, put them in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and bring to boil until they are ready. It should take approximately 15min but to make sure, stick a fork in the potato and it should go through very easily. Remove the water, mash the potatoes, add salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg powder and pour milk until you get a soft puree. If it's too liquid, just keep the puree over low heat to reduce it. To cook the asparagus, bring to boil water with salt in a saucepan and put them in it for 5 minutes so I recommend to cook them just at the end.

Use a sharp knife to score across the duck breast through the fat but just barely to the meat. Rub the skin with salt and pepper. Put it in a preheated frying pan, fat down over medium-high heat for 6 minutes and turn it on the meat side for 3 minutes. Put it in another pan with 1/3 of the grease and store it in the oven (low heat, just to keep it warm) covered with aluminium foil. While the duck rests in the oven, deglaze the frying pan with the white wine over a medium heat and add the shallot finely chopped. Put the 2 earl grey tea bags in a cup and fill 1/3 of it with boiling water. Wait 1 minute, press the tea bags to get all the flavor in the water and throw them away. Add the tea in the frying pan. Peal a dozen white grapes and put them also in the pan with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Let it reduce until the sauce thickens, add a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper just before serving.

Take the duck out of the oven and cut it in few slices, the meat should be pink and not bloody. The bitterness of the tea in the sauce with the sweetness of the grapes really work with the duck.

Are you going to cook for Valentine's day? If you need any advice or idea, just comment this post:)

Parmesan Soufflé with Magret de Canard fumé

I have the honor to present you my very first Soufflé! I'm actually very proud as I'm not a big baker at all and making Soufflés was a challenge for myself. Unfortunately, it went done a little bit before I had time to take the picture but I think it still looks very good, don't you?

To make 4 cheesy soft Soufflé, you need:

• 50 cl milk
• 6 eggs
• 100g butter
• 50g flour
• 150g parmesan
• A pinch of Nutmeg powder

Start by melting 40g of butter to apply it in the ramekins and store them in the fridge. Melt another 60g of butter, add the flour and mix under med temp control. At this point, I took few slices of Magret de Canard fumé, cut them into very small pieces, cooked them very quickly and added it with the grease to the butter and flour. Then boil the milk and put it with the rest, keep mixing for 3 minutes. Season it, and perfume it with a pinch of Nutmeg powder. Fill up the ramekins and put it in the oven at 200°c for 20 minutes.

On the side, I prepared a simple tomato, lettuce and cucumber salad with mustard vinaigrette and slices of Magret de Canard fumé.

I made two small Soufflés and two bigger ones. They were really soft and the taste was perfect. Of course, you don't have to add the duck as I did and a "simple" cheese Soufflé will always be a great and impressive dish to serve;)

New Year's eve

This year I got some real help from my fellow kitchen partner Camille! Therefore, I could finally make a mixture of tastes on one single plate. My goal was for everyone to experience the power of food. Considering the goal and what we had in the fridge, we had no choice but to assemble a mixed plate for everyone.

For our first course we had five different appetizers:

First of all we decided to have the classic french “foie gras” on a french toast. Everyone appreciates a great “foie gras” with some sweet white wine (Sauterne).

Then we had to come up with something more exiting for the “foie gras”. For this, I used 5-6 really sweet “Pink Lady” apples, sweet french white wine, cassis and a little bit of water. First cut out the heart of the apple, then cut the apple in small cubes. Throw them in a saucepan, add 100 ml of white wine and 6 tablespoons of cassis. Cook at a medium heat and put on a lid. Cook until the liquid is almost gone, and then taste if you need to add some more cassis for stronger taste or not. If you need to prepare the main dish before you serve, add 50 ml of water into the saucepan and repeat the same steps before serving.

This was followed by cherry tomatoes filled with ricotta, chives, olive oil, salt and pepper.

To continue, the norwegian salmon was prepared with an Asian twist. I put the salmon in aluminum paper, poor some olive oil on it, add a pinch of salt and pepper, add 50 g of peeled and cut ginger, add 3 tablespoons of soya sauce, half a chopped chili, 1 pressed lime juice and some coriander for the taste. Put it in the oven at 180 degrees for approximately 40 min. Check after 20 min and be careful to not overcook the fish. With this I made a blue cheese, natural yoghurt and roquette salad. just mix 250 g of blue cheese into a lot of salad, then add 3-4 tablespoons of yoghurt, a pinch of salt and pepper and Olive oil. Be careful not to choose a too strong blue cheese (it will kill the great salmon taste). This dish was greatly appreciated by everyone.

Before we began with our appetizers we made a chili, garlic and pepper infused sunflower oil for the shrimps. Before serving, we fried the delicious shrimps in our oil and served it with a little bit of fresh chili, lime juice and coriander.

Everyone loved the different tastes, and I believe that the quietness spoke for itself.

For the main dish we used 3 kinds of meat. Chicken, beef and duck.

Camille is a master at preparing chicken. First we stuffed the chicken with butter, honey, laurel leaves, provincial spices salt and pepper. Then we massaged it with olive oil, butter and honey to give it a great golden color. We then put it in the oven at 190 degrees for 1,5 hours. Remember to always moist the chicken so that it stays tender. With this we made provincial spiced, oven baked, sliced potatoes and dijon sauce. For the sauce I used 500 g of crème fraiche, 2-4 tablespoons of dijon mustard, chives to give a little extra taste, salt and pepper. Taste your way to the perfect combination. The potatoes are just peeled, sliced, spiced and put in the oven for 1 hour depending on the type of potato.

Secondly we cut the 2 Kg beef into smaller portions and fried them to medium rare. While it was still hot, I put a piece of french blue cheese on top to create a creamy textured sauce. With this we had fried potatoes in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. For bigger portions, use blue cheese mixed with crème fraiche, salt and pepper in a saucepan to create a real creamy sauce.

Finally, for the duck, I pre-heated the frying pan and began to fry the ducks fat side first. Some of the duck fat will then melt and create a great frying oil. Duck meat does not have to fry long at all, so be careful! With this I prepared conserved peaches with white wine and star anis. You need 150 ml of white wine and 8 pieces of star anis in a saucepan to cook the conserved peaches. For the best results, the meat has to be medium rare, the sauce caramelized (the secret is to add a little bit of white sugar) and the peaches hot.

For Desert we made a Mousse au chocolat. For this you need 250 g of dark chocolate (70% cacao), 20 g of butter to get a silky texture, 4 eggs and a little bit of salt. First melt the chocolate in a “bain marie”, then add the butter. Let the chocolate cool a bit while you whip your egg whites! Add the egg yolks into the chocolate mix, then slowly add the chocolate mix into the whipped egg whites. This will create a great mousse. Let the mousse cool off in the fridge for 2 hours minimum, and it's ready to be served.

During this dinner, the only thing we could hear was the sound of cutlery touching plates. For amateur cooks, that was the greatest compliment of all. For the record we also got a funny one: “this is like a orgasm in my mouth... damn!”

I would like to thank Camille for his great work, Christophe for his great help and everyone else for their compliments!

Confit de canard au duo de Pommes

Oslo is getting colder every day and the perfect place to get cosy during Christmas time is in the kitchen. This is my first blog post, and since my girlfriend is my number one food critic, it had to be her favorite dish.

A nice Duck Confit with apples and potatoes sauté is always a great visual and tasteful success. This one comes from the South-West of France, not far from my hometown and is really delicious. The company "Reflets de France" sells products from small producers from all over France with both high quality and individuality. Look them up if you need inspiration!

Back to the recipe now.
For this Duck Confit (2 pers.), you will need:

• 2 duck legs confit
• 1 apple (the crunchier, the better)
• 6 Amandine potatoes
• Pepper

Let's start :)

When you buy Duck Confit, it is preserved in a lot of grease inside the box which might be the most delicious ingredient to cook with, therefore you put it aside.
The first thing you need to do is to peel the potatoes, cut them in 5mm slices and put them in a kitchen rag. Then put the two legs confit in a pan on low temp control as they just need to be reheated in the grease until the meat easily loosen from the bone. Add some of the grease so the bottom of the pan is covered (about 4mm).

While the meat is in the pan, start heating some more grease in another pan on medium temp control and drop the sliced potatoes in to have them "sauté".  Keep an eye on them all the time and keep stirring!

The duck legs must be cooked with the skin down the majority of the time (without burning it) and be careful so the meat doesn't end up dry. It has to melt in your mouth when served. To avoid this, use a soup spoon to pour the heated grease onto the meat. Repeat regularly while you also look after the potatoes.

As soon as the skin looks crispy and the meat is warm, lay it on a plate with some of the grease from the pan and store it in the oven set on 50°c so it doesn't get cold or dry. Slice the apple and drop them in the pan that was used for the duck. This will still contain some the grease that didn't go in the oven with the duck. Set on medium temp control.

By now your potatoes should be crispy and have a beautiful color. Just let them rest on a very low temp control, to keep the little crisp, and focus on your apple slices. They will be ready very quickly, just about 5 minutes. You want to soften them up on the outside but keep the crunchiness inside. When they too reach the golden color they're ready to be served.

Of course while doing this, do not forget to tend regularly to the duck (keep using the spoon to soak it in the grease). 

When you're ready to serve, lay the potatoes "sauté" in the middle of the plate. Then add the apples around them and finally let the Duck rest on the top. Since the grease is already salty you do not need to add salt. The sweetness of the apples gives a lovely balance to this dish and lightens it up a lot! But you can sprinkle a little bit of pepper around for the presentation's sake.
A good wine-tip could for example be a red Côte du Rhone which is perfect with duck, or as I chose, a red Italian wine; Barbera d'Asti.

Bon appétit!