Coconut Curried Vegetables with Gaspésien Oven-baked Trout

This is a really simple and delicious meal that myself and my friend Kim made while visiting the Sea Shacks in Ste-Anne des Monts, Québec. This meal was an amazing end to an amazing ''weekend.''

You have to know cooking basics to follow this recipe. We stir fried the vegetables starting with onion, garlic, ginger and sesame oil. We cooked the cauliflower first on high heat in order to braise it with turmeric. We parboiled the sweet-potatoes separately, adding them with the sauce and the other vegetables at the end. The coconut-curry sauce really compliments the taste of seafood so feel free to experiment.

Stirfry:

Cauliflower

Red Pepper

Snow peas

Sweet potato

Garlic

Ginger

Sesame oil

Curry Sauce:

Coconut Milk

Red Thai Curry Paste

Fish Sauce

Garlic

Ginger

Lime juice

Trout:

Baked in tinfoil with garlic and butter

Enjoy!

CrabFest Classic Dip

Rencontre:

• 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp water
• 2 green onions, sliced, greens included
• 3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 Tbsp dried parsley)
• 1 Tbsp horseradish
• 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon of Tabasco or Frank's Red Hot (or more to taste)
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1 cup of fresh crab meat (or a can of crab meat)

Rendez-vous:

1- Preheat oven to 350°F. Blend together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, lemon juice, water, onions, and parsley until smooth. Mix in your chosen hot sauce and horseradish. Fold in the slivered almonds and crab meat. Place in an oven-proof casserole serving dish.
2- Bake until bubbly and heated through, about 20 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips, crackers or thinly sliced baguette.

Salade de chèvre chaud

salad:

2 portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 red peppers, sliced into thin strips
1 bag of arugula
toasted walnuts
fromage de chèvre, sliced into rounds

sauté the mushrooms in olive oil on low heat until tender
roast the red peppers in the oven with a dash of maple syrup, olive oil, salt pepper

vinaigrette:

maple syrup
dijon mustard
balsamic vinaiger
grapeseed oil
salt
pepper

place rounds of chèvre on a baking sheet lined with wax paper
bake on high heat until bubbles form around the edges
top each individual serving of salad with 2-3 rounds of chèvre and drizzle with vinaigrette

Asian spicy shrimp soup

Photo © Barbara Girard

Ma très très populaire soupe épicée aux Crevettes !!
Pour 4-6 personnes

Ingrédients

Bouillon

4 c.soupe (60 ml) Sauce d'huîtres
3 c.s. (45 ml) Sauce de poisson
1 c.s. (15 ml) Sriracha  (ou 1c.thé (5 ml)  Sambal Oelek )
2 c.s. (30ml) Instant sour shrimp paste  (ou pâte de Curry Rouge)
60 ml Gingembre frais rapé (et/ou citronelle)
3 gousses d'ail hachées fin
3 tasses d'eau

Soupe

1/2 bloc de tofu ferme ou mi-ferme coupé en cube
1 gros oignon haché grossièrement
1/2 sac (170 gr) de crevettes non-cuites
4-6 oeufs cuits durs (1 par personne)
1/2 - 1 chopine de Champignon de paris tranché
2-3 nids de nouilles aux oeufs orientales
1-2 grosses tête de brocoli
30 gr d'algues séchées (comme du wakame ou kumbo)

Étapes

1. Faire cuire les oeufs à la coque dans un chaudon remplit d'eau à part.

2. Dans une poele, faire revenir les champignons de paris.

3. Dans un grand chaudron à  soupe,  faire revenir quelques minutes à feu moyen les cubes de tofu dans la sauce d'huîre, la sauce de poisson, la sriracha, la pâte de crevettes.

4. Ajouter le gingembre, l'ail, l'oignon et les crevettes, faire revenir encore ensemble 1-2 minutes. Attention que ça ne colle pas au fond car ça a tendance à vouloir caraméliser assez vite.

5. Ajouter l'eau, puis les champignons de paris rotis, les nouilles au oeufs et les têtes de brocolis. Laisser mijoter jusqu'à ce que les nouilles soit prêtes.

Servir avec un demi oeufs dans la soupe, des échalottes, de la coriandre fraîche, décorer avec des graines de sésame et des champignons Enoki.

Note

Chez nous on est tous des fanatiques d'épices, et à fortes doses... alors si vous n'avez pas l'habitude des épices, je vous suggère de diminuer la quantité des épices de la moitié et même de 2/3. Par contre, pour  éviter que cette soupe ne devienne fade suite au retrait des épices ajouter du bouillon de crevettes (idéalement) ou sinon de légumes ou de poulet.

Par contre, si vous êtes un dogué des épices (comme nous), vous pouvez encore augmenter la dose de 1/3 facilement. D'ailleurs c'est ce que je fais quand je suis enrhumé, j'utilise cette soupe comme un délicieux casse-grippe  ;)

Bon appétit !

Hojicha Tea (Kukicha)

 

Hōjicha (ほうじ茶) is set apart from other Japanese green teas because it is roasted in a porcelain pot over charcoal. The tea is fired at high temperature, altering the leaf colour tints from green to reddish-brown. The process was first performed in Kyoto, Japan in the 1920s and its popularity persists today. The roasted flavours are extracted and predominate this blend. Hōjicha is often made from Bancha (番茶, "common tea"), tea from the last harvest of the season, however other varieties of Hōjicha also exist, including a variety made from sencha, and Kukicha, tea made from the twigs of the tea plant rather than the leaves. Hōjicha infusions have a light- to reddish-brown appearance, and are less astringent due to losing catechin during the high temperature roasting process. The roasting replaces the vegetative tones of standard green tea with a toasty, slightly caramel-like flavour. The roasting process used to make Hōjicha lowers the amount of caffeine in the tea. Because of its mildness, Hōjicha is a popular tea to serve during the meal or after the evening meal before going to sleep and even preferred for children and elderly.

     *     *     *     *     * 

En se promenant dans St-Jean-Baptiste aujourd'hui moi et Fred on a décidé de faire un petit arrêt au Crac pour se réapprovisionner en fines herbes. Pendant que j'attendais, comme à mon habitude, je me suis mise à sentir des choses au hasard dans les rayons des épices et des thées en vrac. Notre choix découverte aujourd'hui s'est arrêté sur ce thé Japonais, on le trouve au Crac sous le nom de Kukicha. 

En arrivant à la maison, on l'a tout de suite essayer. On a tout de suite beaucoup aimé son arome qui rappelle le goût du sirop d'érable,  à ce temps-ci de l'année c'est tout à fait de saison, et si on ajoute un peu de sucre le goût est encore plus frappant. En tout cas, nous on l'adopte et l'ajoute définitivement à notre collection de thé.

(Lire aussi l'article wiki sur le Kukicha pour savoir comment bien le préparer.)

Cocoa Swirl Bread

 













(adapted from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest)
You make this bread in two parts; 
cocoa part and white part...

Cocoa Part:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup hot water
3 T maple syrup
1 T canola oil
1 t salt

White Part:
1 1/3 c. hot soy milk
3 T honey
2 T canola oil
1 t salt

Combine the each part in a small bowl and set aside.

While the initial mixes are cooling down, make two spongy mixes. In two more seperate bowls but 1/2 T yeast, 1 c. wrist-temperature water, a drop of honey, and 1 cup of white flour into each.

Whisk together and set aside for 45 minutes.

Mix each spongy part with one of the mixes (this will give you two new sticky mixes, a cocoa one and a white one). Add approximate 4 cups of whole wheat bread flour to your sticky cocoa mix and 4 cups of white flour to your sticky white mix. In both mixes flour is added one cup at a time, finishing with about 10-15 minutes of kneeding (at which point you'll have two batches of dough)

Set each dough aside to rise for 1.5 hours. Punch each down. Divide each batch of dough in half. Roll each of the four pieces of dough into an oval on a floured surface. Put one oval of cocoa dough on top each oval of white dough and roll them both up. Place each swirly rolled loaf in a greased loaf pan. Set aside to rise for another hour.

After they have risen, brush tops with soy milk, oil or egg-white, depending on what texture you're going for.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Black Sesame Cake

 

Photo © Barbara Girard

A quite surprising but delicious cake, I found this in an awesome japanese recipes book. I also made the chocolate leaf myself.

recipe condensed version.
You must already know a bit the basics of kitchen to follow properly the recipe.

200g butter
200g black sesame seeds (grind)
3 eggs lightly beaten
340g caster sugar
60g flour
30g flour to yeast incorporated

Icing: semi-sweet dark chocolate + plain yogurt  + pure cocoa

oven 180 ˚ C. grease pan.

Melt butter + sesame paste. Remove from heat, stir the eggs + sugar, stirring constantly. Sift flour over mixture + stir.

Pour into the buttered pan. 35 to 40 minutes in the oven.