Posts tagged spices
A flavor of Belgium – Spéculoos with almonds and cinnamon essential oil
Oct 31st
Un goût de Belgique – Spéculoos aux amandes et huile essentielle de cannelle
Belgium is a tiny country, but it sure does how to make cookies. I grew up with spéculoos, probably because I lived close to the Belgium border.
My friend Laurent who is Parisian never heard of Spéculoos. So that’s why I came up to that conclusion. Actually The Netherlands and Germany do have their version of Spéculoos, and Northern France too. It’s a crunchy cookie with spices, and quite a substantial amount of cinnamon.
I did not bake those cookies for myself since I am not a huge fan of cinnamon but for one of my friend Mike. I thought Mike being American, he must like cinnamon. Usually spéculoos are thinner and have animal or rectangular shapes, I played a bit with it and made them round and thicker.
The particularity of theses spéculoos is the cinnamon essential oil that I added. I bought a book called “cuisiner aux huiles essentielles” (Cooking with essential oils” from Valerie Cupillard) which is quite an innovative cuisine.
Essential oils don’t only have to be used in baths, perfumes, massages, etc…if you only use a few drops they can also used in cooking. It gives a complete new dimension to your vegetarian dishes. Cooking with essential oils are a true olfactory discovery linked to the pleasure of your palate. Essential oils are very concentrate and a few drops are sufficient.
There are some strict rules to follow when cooking with essential oils. They always have to be diluted in a oily or syrupy mixture, and never be ingested pure.
Those cookies are delightful with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, or can even be used as a base for various desserts, such as on crumbles, verrines, crusts, etc…their use is infinite and their flavor exquisite. It’s truly very versatile cookie with lots of personality.
Ingredients for about 15-20 spéculoos
- 8.8 oz (or 250 g) flour
- 4.4 oz (or 125 g) brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp four spices
- 3-4 drops of cinnamon essential oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3.52 oz (or 100 g) butter
- 1.76 oz (or 50 g) almonds, ground
- 1 pinch salt
Preparation
In a mixing container, blend flour, sugar, ground almonds, baking powder and spice powders. Melt butter, and beat egg. Add drops of cinnamon essential oil to the butter, then mix butter and egg to the flour-spices mixture. Add salt. Mix all ingredients well, you will obtain a soft dough. Form cylinders with dough of about 2 inches diameter. Wrap in plastic film and place in refrigerator overnight. The day after, remove from refrigerator and cut in small disks, about 5 mm. If you like them thicker cut them to 1 cm.
Place on a cookie sheet and cook in a pre-heated oven at 350F for about 15 minutes. Do not over cook or the spéculoos will become too hard.
A small je ne sais quoi – Ricotta cake with honey, raisins, cranberries, candied orange, and spices
Aug 15th
Un petit goût de pain d’épices qui me plait bien – Gâteau de ricotta au miel, raisins secs, oranges confites et épices
This has been something that arrived out of the blue after a crazy wedding weekend…ricotta is an ingredient I like to put everywhere, and I love it particularly in desserts.
On my last trip to France, I bought a pain d’épices spices mix. I have wanted to make pain d’épices for a long time, it literally translates to “spiced bread” and is a wonderful and spicy cake from Alsace, my neighboring region. The base of the cake is honey and lots of spices, it has a dark brownish color, and is quite sweet. Kids love it. Even though you can find many variations to the cake, the city of Reims has its own, the city of Dijon as well. In Alsace you can find a Pain d’épices Museum that retraces the history of that cake with all the tools developed for its fabrication.
I would certainly not call this cake a pain d’épices, but it does have a few important ingredients that pain d’épice has such as the spices and the honey, so there is an after taste of pain d’épices. The spice mix I used is composed of star anise, cinnamon, cardamom and clove. Since I don’t like cinnamon that much, I did not add too much, but I know that Americans are very fond of that spice, so whoever likes it can add more if desired. For those who won’t have the spice mix available, I would just use the loose spices powder.
The ricotta made this cake very moist and soft and the spices are not overpowering, so it turned out really well. To be enjoyed with a nice hot cup of tea a bowl of fresh fruits or whatever you feel like having.
I added Mirabelle liquor which is something I brought from France, my dad makes it with our mirabelle plums he grows in his garden. You can find it I think in some specialty liquor store in the US. You can use other fruity liquor as well, such as calvados, Grand Marnier, etc…
Ingredients for 6
- 3 eggs
- 4 tbs honey
- 6 tbs light brown sugar
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1 cup white flour
- 1/3 cup quinoa flour
- 5 tbs vegetable oil
- 1 tbs dried cranberries
- 3 tbs golden raisins
- 2 tbs candied orange zests
- 2 tsp pain d’épices spices mix or (1/2 tps cinamon, 1/2 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp clove, 1/2 tsp star anise powder)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- zest of half a lemon
- 1 tbs herbal liquor (I used Mirabelle, a liquor made out of plums)
- Powdered sugar to sprinkle on top
Preparation
In a mixing bowl, mix eggs, sugar, honey then add ricotta. Add oil. Mix well. Add liquor. Add flour and baking powder and baking soda. Mix well. Add spices, lemon zest, and dried fruits. Mix well to get a smooth consistency.
Bake in a non-stick deep dish, in a 375F pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes, check after 30 min. to see how the cakes comes along, and keep cooking or until the cake is cooked all the way through.
The angry crêpe- Spinach crêpes stuffed with crab and prawns in a spicy and creamy tomato sauce
Jul 7th
La crêpe est verte - Crêpes d’épinards farcies au crabe et crevettes dans une sauce épicée légerement crémeuse de tomates et herbes
In French, the expression “être vert” “to be green”, means to be mad. So we have a green crêpe today, a pretty mad and angry one. Then it got filled with crab and all of the sudden got much nicer.
Crêpe being a batter, you can add anything you like in it. After twisting the idea of flavoring the crêpe batter for a while, I added blended spinach, to give it some pretty color and nice leafy taste that goes perfectly with seafood. Everyone loves crêpes, they’re light, tasty and fun to make, the fun part is when you throw them up in the air to turn them around, and they land beautifully in your pan, or if you are clumsy on your feet.
So the other exciting part of making crêpe, if you are going to stuff them, is the filling. You can use your imagination to make the filling.
Our traditional one, you can get at any crêperie in France is the jambon-fromage (ham-cheese). If you ever go to Paris and don’t get the chance to go through Brittany, try a crêpe in the quartier breton (the Brittany quarter) close to Montparnasse. When I lived in Paris I loved going to Jocelyn, it’s a crêperie in that area that used to serve wonderful and authentic crêpes with lots of cider. I bet it’s still around.
Ingredients for 6 crêpes
for the crêpes
- 5 tbs frozen spinach, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp olive oil
- one pinch nutmeg
- milk
for the filling
- 12 large shrimps
- 2 king crab legs
- 1 tbs basil, chopped
- 1 tbs parsley, chopped
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 2 tomatoes, chopped and diced
- 1 pinch chili pepper
- 2 tbs white wine
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 6 long chives
- salt and pepper
Preparation
The batter
In a mixing bowl, add flour, chopped spinach, egg, olive oil, nutmeg and milk. For the milk, add enough milk to make a thin batter but not too liquid, it needs to coat your spoon. Place the batter in a blender to make it smooth and homogenous. Let the batter rest for about an hour.
The seafood filling
Heat olive oil in a pan, add shallots and brown them. add basil and parsley, stir to get the flavors out, then add tomatoes, crushed garlic, chili powder, white wine, salt and pepper. Stir and let cook for about 15 min until the tomatoes are cooked but not too mushy. Add unshelled shrimps and crab flesh, cook the fish mixture until shrimps turn pink. Add 2 tbs cream. Mix well and stuff the crêpes with the filling. Tie a chive around each crêpe to keep it folded and serve very hot.
A little craving for quinoa – Spicy quinoa with asparagus, peas and carrots
Jun 1st
Une petite envie de quinoa – Quinoa épicé aux asperges, pois et carottes
A little quinoa bowl is enough for a light dinner with a salad. Especially that today I did not have any energy whatsoever. Muggy and awfully grey weather, friends moving out of the Bay Area, is not helping with the blues.
It felt like the sky was falling on my head. That is a feeling I am very familiar with, since I grew up in the Eastern part of France, where everything is sooo green (soooo green, is what people say), obviously it’s so green because of the rain.
Gray weather + not wanting to spend to much time in the kitchen = quinoa
I mixed many vegetables to this quinoa so that one bowl would be nutritious enough as a meal. The spices gave it a nice kick, a little exotic flavor to it.
Ingredients for 4 as side dish
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 carrot, shredded
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 1/3 cup peas
- 1 onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbs mustard seeds
- 1 tbs cumin seeds
- 1 tbs coriander powder
- 4 cardamom pods
- 3 curry leaves
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Chop the onions and brown in olive oil, add garlic, stir for a few minutes at low heat. Add the spices, mix well for a few minutes, then the carrot and the peas. Stir the mixture. Add quinoa, and cook for a few minutes with the mixture. Add broth, curry leaves, salt and pepper.
Cut the asparagus in one inch chunk and cook them the in salted boiling water, for 5 minutes or more, until cooked but still firm.
Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low, and cook for about 20 minutes until the quinoa has absorbed the water.
When quinoa is cooked, add asparagus and mix well. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve hot.
