I have made chicken bastilla quite often but never with shrimps. Originally, I was thinking of a vegetarian version, then I thought shrimps would be a good idea. Bastilla is a Moroccan dish usually filled with meat or fish/seafood and wrapped in filo dough, topped with almonds and cinnamon.

The base is of the chicken bastilla, then the difference is that I didn’t use cinnamon nor sugar. I didn’t think it would go well with shrimps, beside I am not a fan of cinnamon. I made a layer of spinach with preserved lemons and kalamata olives, topped with shrimps, and I loved it. This became my favorite thing to make for the moment.

Ingredients for a bastilla (2 people)

For the shrimps mixture

• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 medium yellow onion
• 1 tsp ginger, grated
• 1 lb shrimps, peeled and deveined
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tbs cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1 saffron dose, dissolved in 2 tbs hot broth
• salt and pepper
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4-6 sheets of whole wheat filo dough (or regular filo dough)
• butter, melted
• 2 tbs silvered almonds, toasted

For the spinach mixture

• 1 tbs olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 10-15 kalamata olives, chopped
• 2 small preserved lemon (or one large), rinsed and minced
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the shrimp mixture

Heat olive oil in a pan, add onions and cook a few minutes (do not brown) add ginger and cook a few extra minutes. Add shrimps, stir until they turn a little pink but not cooked. Add cumin, coriander, paprika, garlic, cilantro and saffron. Sir well and let it cook until the mixture is cooked and water evaporated. Add egg and cook well. Adjust with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

For the spinach

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Add spinach, salt and pepper. Cook stirring until spinach is wilted. Squeeze excess water with your hands. Add lemon and olive and mix well.

In two round pans of about 10 cm diameter, coat bottom and sides of pan using a brush. Cut filo dough sheets lengthwise and place those 2 strips of dough at bottom of the pan in a way that the border of the dough shifts to one side. Brush with more butter. Proceed three more times. Sprinkle toasted almonds. Add the last layer of dough.

Place spinach at the bottom, spreading evenly. Add shrimp mixture and start covering the shrimps folding the filo dough edges on top of the shrimps. Brush with butter at each stage of the folding process. Brush again the last sheet of dough.

Sprinkle almonds on top and cook on a pre heated oven at 375F until golden brown.

I have been playing around with this recipe for a while, changing quantities and I finally managed to like this version which is moist and soft.

I am not necessarily pro or against gluten. I think if people have problems with it, then it should be removed from one’s diet. I removed it from my diet and ate sans gluten for a couple of months to see how my body felt. I thought since everyone talked about it, I should try it too, to get my own opinion, so I did.

Well to be real honest, I did not feel better nor worse. I had less and less carbs cravings and was less bloated but that’s basically it. So I won’t start preaching a gluten free diet or a not gluten-free one, I think that’s a personal choice. If you feel better when you don’t eat gluten, then don’t. That is my philosophy.

If you want to try a gluten free cake that is moist and light, then this is the one.

Ingredients for 6-8 people

• 6 eggs
• 190 g (6.7 oz) brown sugar
• 250 g (8.8 oz) almond flour
• 50 g (1.7 oz) gluten free flour
• 160 g (5.6 oz) melted butter
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bitter almond extract

 Preparation

In two different containers, separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the whites to a thick consistency. Mix yolks with sugar and beat until the mixture whitens and double volume. Add butter. Add flours and mix well to obtain a smooth batter. Incorporate egg whites. Add baking powder and almond extract.

Butter a round baking mold, sprinkle flour and spread the flour evenly into mold.

Pour batter in mold and cook in a pre heated oven at 350F for about 45 min or until completely cooked. Check the cake once in a while so that it doesn’t brown too fast. If it’s the case, lower the temperature.

Sometimes I like to feature recipes that did not travel too far, like this one. I went for dinner at a Basque restaurant in San Francisco a few nights ago and one of the dessert item was “gâteau de maïs à la compote de fraises“, cornmeal cake with strawberry compote. Then I realized that there is an Northern Italian cake that sounds just like this one, but I decided to skip dessert since I had a filling appetizer and entrée. I will have to go back and check out the Basque version now!

Everyone knows savory polenta, but there is another sweet version that a few people know, la polenta dolce. Well, if polenta dolce (sweet polenta) is a less famous way of preparing polenta, it is certainly not less delicious. In Lombardia (Milan, Brescia and Monza are the biggest cities) dessert based polenta are not that rare, and this recipe is a typical Lombard dessert and a good member of gastronomia Lombarda. It makes sense, since those regions produce a lot of polenta, when you drive through this area, you see so many corn fields, it’s so obvious that the production and consumption of polenta is high in these areas.

I made a few changes to the proportions but the ingredients are what they’re supposed to be. A good friend of mine from Milan used to eat soft polenta cooked in milk with raisins and sugar and my mom would look at this with a suspicious eye, thinking those people from the North eat funny things. Many Northern regions such as Friuli, Venezia, Piemonte do have their own versions of Polenta dolce and some other polenta-based desserts, but I somehow like this version with almond powder (or flour) and marsala, but if you like cherries, you can also use maraschino which is a Venetian liquor made with cherries (and also available in the US).

You can serve it with any accompaniment you like, I love strawerries and rhubarb compote so much that I can eat it with anything, yogurt, ice cream, cakes, etc…and with this polenta cake it works perfectly. These polenta cakes are delicious, and can be eaten for breakfast as well, they’re not very sweet nor greasy and very hearty.

Ingredients for 6 individual cakes

• 2.11 oz (or 60 g) butter
• 3 eggs
• 2.46 oz (or 70 g) sugar
• 2. 46 oz (or 70 g) white flour
• 3.14 oz (or 90 g) yellow polenta
• 1.76 oz (or 50 g) almond flour (or almond meal)
• 3 tbs marsala or maraschino
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla powder
• 1 tsp baking powder

Strawberry-rhubarb compote – see recipe here

Preparation

Melt butter and in a mixing container combine with sugar. Mix well with an egg beater. Add eggs and mix well for about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the flours carefully, and vanilla, marsala (or maraschino) and baking soda.

Divide in 6 individual molds or a large one. Cook for about 30 minutes in a 370F pre-heated oven.

Let it cool and serve with a berry or fruit compote.

This tart is an old specialty from Lorraine, to be more precise, the city of Toul (a very small town near Nancy), which no one in the US probably knows where it is nor how to pronounce it…nothing wrong with it, since most French people don’t know it either (as far as the location is concerned). What is Toul famous for? probably some Gris de Toul, a dry white wine, and its cathedral.

Originally this dessert has another layer of dough on top, so technically it’s a tourte instead of a tarte, a tourte is somehow the equivalent of a pie, because of the top layer of dough. Poppy seeds are supposed to help with digestion, and its use is quite common in Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Hungary, and Central Europe’s cuisines. Some poppy seed tarts are savory, mixed with cheese, but the use of poppy seeds is very common in sweet desserts also. The original recipe has no sugar, due to the fact that in the last century, sugar was considered to be a luxury ingredient among peasants, and no one could afford it. Even though poppy seeds tend to be naturally sweet, I just could not imagine a so called “sweet” tart without sugar, so I added some in the filling and also I sprinkled it with orange sugar when cooked.

The poppy seeds need to be crushed into some sort of a paste, that’s the only way you get to taste the subtlety of the poppy seed flavors and its beautiful blue color. I crushed it, but still wanted to keep a bit of the crunchy texture, so in this case it’s a semi-paste.

In the past, poppy seeds were also used as herbal mixture to make some sedative and calming drink, then due to many fatal mistakes in dosage when given to babies, they decided to stop its use.

I made a regular dough of 300 g that is enough for a large tart for 6-8 people, since I only made 4 tartlets, I had leftover dough. You can adjust quantities accordingly or use the extra dough for some other fruit tarts.

The crust is a mixture of various flours which is something I usually do, it gives the crust a very distinct and subtle taste, I stopped using just plain white flours in crusts.

Ingredients for 4 tartlets

For the crust (enough for 8 tartlets)

• 5.29 oz (or 150 g) white flour
• 1.76 oz (or 50 g) almond flour
• 1.76 oz (or 50 g) quinoa flour
• 1.41 oz (or 40 g) sugar
• 3.52 oz (or 100 g) butter, diced
• 1 yolk
• some water

For the filling (for 4 tartlets)

• 4.23 oz (or 120 g) poppy seeds
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 5 tbs almond flour
• 6 tbs sugar
• 5 tbs crème fraîche or heavy cream
• orange sugar for sprinkling
• sliced almond for sprinkling

Preparation

For the crust

In a mixing bowl, combine all flours together, add sugar, mix well. Add yolk, butter and water (the equivalent of what you removed in the white part of the eggs), mix well but not too much, in order to form a nice ball. Wrap in a plastic film, and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 min.

For the filling

Boil milk and pour on top of poppy seeds. Soak the seeds in milk and let them absorb the milk. Crush them using a mortar. You need to get somehow a semi-paste.

Place seeds in a mixing bowl, add sugar eggs, almond flour and cream. Mix well.

Roll dough and place in individual tartlet molds. Fill with the poppy seed mixture and cook in a pre-heated oven at 365-370F for about 25 minutes, until the bottom of the crust is golden brown, but make sure to not overcook the filling, or it will dry out.

Remove from the oven. Let them cool, and sprinkle with orange sugar and sliced almonds.

Yes, it’s this time of the year again. Every January 6, in France we celebrate La Galette des Rois (rois = kings), for the pleasure of kids and adults too. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like Galette des Rois. It’s this sweet thing that even non-sweet tooth do enjoy to eat too.

Galette des Rois is an ancient tradition that refers to Epiphany which is a catholic tradition that goes back to the IV century. Every catholic church celebrates Epiphany on Jan 6. Before Christianity, this celebration was for the apparition of the Greek God Dyonisos who was attached to seasons, he died during the decline of vegetation and would resuscitate with the light. Basically, I think it’s called Twelfth Night in English referring to 12 days after Christmas.

Epiphany derives from Greek that means “event” and refers to the birth of Jesus. Epiphany refers to to acceptance by the Magi (The Three Wise Men) of Jesus being the Messiah.

Galette des Rois was starting to be popular already in the XIV century. Its round shape referred to the cult of the sun of the Saturnales, a pagan celebration. Galette des Rois is split into equal parts, you have as many parts as there are guests, with an extra slice for anyone who would drop by. Inside the galette, a “fève” (I think it’s called charm in English) is hidden, and the one who gets it, is the King and gets to wear the crown. This ritual goes back to Roman times when during a feast, one king was randomly picked by hiding a black or white coin in the food. The one finding it, would become king.

If you look at the picture, you can see a “fève” in the middle of the filling, the one who finds this in his slice, gets celebrated king. All bakeries in France sell Galettes des Rois with a paper golden crown during this time of the year, so that the celebrated King can wear it. Then the king gets to pick his queen. Nowadays, its religious meaning has been a little lost, and everyone enjoys a good Galette despite its religion. Since Galette des Rois is only sold during this time of the year, if you are a Galette lover, you can make it any time.

A galette is made of two puff pastry sheets, with a mixture in between those sheets of almond paste, eggs, sugar and butter and other minor ingredients such as rum or almond extract.

Ingredients for a Galette of 6-8 people

• 2 puff pastry sheets
• 3.52 oz (or 100 g) soft butter
• 5.20 oz (or 150 g) sugar
• 2 eggs
• 7 oz (or 200 g) almond powder
• almond extract
• 1 tbs rum
• 1 tbs crème fraîche
• 1 egg yolk

Preparation

In a mixing container, mix almond powder with butter, sugar, eggs, almond extract, rum and crème fraîche to obtain a smooth consistency. In a round non stick tart tray, place pastry sheets, then pour mixture on sheet, place second sheet on top and seal sides. With a fork, make holes on top crust and form stripes vertically and horizontally with a ravioli cutter to create a square pattern.

With a brush, spread yolk on top of crust to make it golden. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F until the Galette is cooked and golden brown for about 30 minutes.

I just adopted the most adorable white parakeet and named him Pépito (named after some chocolate cookies in France when I was growing up called Pépito, they were cookies covered with milk chocolate and all the kids were going crazy for them)…so Pépito must have flown away from a cage somewhere and ended up on my stairs, good thing I found him….because he could have been the happy breakfast of the neighbor’s cat! So here it is, Pépito has been adopted.

I was reading that those little birds need a quite balanced diet, not only made out of seeds but also with vegetables, fruits, greens and other type of food humans eat. He eats from my hands now, and sits on my finger, but he is still afraid, if I move to quickly, he freaks out and flies away. So I happily got up this morning and prepared him a nice mixture of honey, corn flakes, cinnamon, peach, sesame seeds and millet…he stared at it for a while but did not touch it. I tried to made him accustomed to that mixture but nothing worked, so I gave up and was trying to find on the web what do those birds like, other than millet seeds. It seems like they love a bunch of mixtures, but apparently not mine.

So in the middle of my parakeet menu thoughts, I decided to make something for my tea time, and went for those green tea bouchées. Bouchée means morsel, those are so small that they can fit in any size mouth. I will share them with Pépito, if he ever decide to stick his beak in there, but I doubt it.

I don’t know why I am not crazy for green tea as a drink, I know it’s full of anti-oxydants but I its bitter flavor in the drink bothers me, but I love green tea flavor in desserts. Matcha green tea has been quite popular in France recently, probably because Japanese cuisine has been on the top of the trend for restaurants. Paris has tons of them now (something never thought of 10 years ago) and even Nancy my home town which is a town of about 300,000 inhabitants has three of them! the French are not too keen on raw fish, so I am stunned they’re starting to go crazy for Japanese food.

Those bouchées are great with a cup of strawberries and cream, with some mint tea, or just as is. They’re easy to prepare and to bake, overall time is 25 min!

Ingredients for 12 bouchées

• 2.8 oz (or 80 g) butter
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) white unbleached flour
• 3.5 oz (or 100 g) powdered sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp matcha green tea powder
• 2.7 oz (or 75 g) almond powder
• 3 tbs coconut flakes
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1/3 tsp of baking powder

Preparation

Pre-heat oven at 365-370F.

Cut butter in pieces and melt butter slowly in a small pan. Do not melt until the butter turns brown.

In one container, mix flour, sugar, green tea powder, almond powder, coconut powder and baking powder. Mix well. Incorporate egg and egg white. Add butter and mix the batter to obtain an homogenous paste.

Place in individual mini molds (I used silicon molds, that I can’t get enough of) and bake for about 15 minutes, check to see if they’re cooked around that time and continue baking if they’re not cooked in the middle.