The Cooking Ninja

I have been sadly neglecting this blog for a month - besides being so caught up with so many things on the domestic front, my passion for cooking and baking suddenly left me - how did that happened ??? Could it be the summer heat that zapped it out of me? I just know that lately I just don't feel inspired to cook or bake anything. Sad isn't it, considering the fact that it is this passion that inspired me to start 'The Cooking Ninja'.

This blog was created right after I finished my exams of my last year at the university to be exact - about a year ago. Finally I had time to write about my passion for cooking. Back then, Little One had just turned 1 and was taking her first wobbly steps - so no worries, I still had plenty of time to cook, clean the house and blog. Boy, did I blog a lot more back then.

I think there must be something magical about the age 1 because a week or so after she turned 1, her wobbly steps became firmed and she walked her first steady '5 steps' without any aid at all on the sandy playground. What a sight and joy for both of us... we felt like some proud peacocks at that moment. Soon those 5 steps became 10 and more, then she was all over the place: climbing here and there, opening this and that. The whole house became a treasure island for her especially my nightstand drawers - she loved raiding it. Then the walking gave way to running ... it was so cute to watch her run - see her diaper backside swaying left and right like a little duckling.

These days, she is a real demanding little person. She does not like it whenever she sees me on the computer. She would either climb all over me like on my shoulder, or sit on my lap right in front of my laptop (like what she is doing right now ) or pull my hand away so that I'm left only with 1 hand to type or surf. She demands a lot of my time and attention as she grows older which leaves me so little time to do any surfing or posting - my last post took me more than 10 days to publish. *sigh* With just 1 kid, I find it hard to keep my house clean and in order. I do not know how some mothers with more than 1 kid manage to find time to blog everyday and sometimes have a full time work on top of it. I truly admire their ability to do that. Maybe I'm just lousy in my time management or maybe it is just the big 'P' word. Do you know what does this big 'P' stands for?

Enough of my rumblings. Today I'm going to share with you another very simple yet delicious recipe that I have came up with after eating a similar one at a French restaurant. This will also be my entry for the Pie in My Eye Adventure hosted by Joelen's Culinary Adventures.

Crispy Apple Pie

Ingredients

• 1 flaky or puff pastry
• 3 apples (cored and thinly sliced)
• sugar syrup
• sugar
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 220°C (425°F - gas mark 7).
2. Lay out the flaky pastry on the baking sheet on a flat baking tray. Fork all over the pastry surface.
3. Boil a bit of water in a pot and stir in some sugar to make a syrup.
4. Using a your finger or a brush, spread the syrup all over the surface of the pastry.
5. Line the thinly sliced apples starting on the outside towards the inside center of the pie.
6. Sprinkle some sugar, cinnamon and a bit of nutmeg on top of the apple slices
7. Spread small slices or bits of butter all over the pie.
8. Bake it for about 20 to 25 minutes.
9. Serve it warm, maybe with a bit of vanilla ice cream.

The Verdict

I love it - almost like the one we had in the restaurant. Crispy or flaky, buttery, delicious taste of the apples (not overwhelming) and not too sweet. It's nice to get a successful experiment sometimes, given all the ones that fail

The next time I'll do it, I'm going to sprinkle some dry rasins and almonds flakes before putting the butter bits all over the pie. Should be interesting.

Notes

Some put a layer of home-made apple sauce (cooking diced apples with sugar and cinnamon until it is all melted) on top of the pastry before laying the apple slices while others brush a light coat of apricot jam (stir some jam with a bit of water over low heat till it becomes a syrup) on top of the pie just before serving.

I was at Michèle's place recently and was browsing through her small but valuable library of cook books when one titled Tourtes, feuilletés et autres pies caught my eye. On the front cover was this delicious looking meat pie that had me drooling over it. There are a lot of interesting recipes in this book and I couldn't decide which to try it out ... so here comes Pierre, my knight in shinning armour (or more exactly a Mystic Blue coupé - times change) to the rescue. After browsing the book for a long while and salivate at a few pages, he picked on this interesting recipe and this is what we had for dinner that day.

Tourte à la dinde et granny smith

(taken from Tourtes, feuilletés et autres pies by Anny Mayer-Armbruster)

Preparation: 30 minutes
Baking: 40 minutes
Makes: 6

Ingredients

• 2 granny smith apples
• 700 g turkey (2/3 minced & 1/3 cubed 1x1 cm)
• ½ savoy cabbage (chou vert frisé)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 15 cl white wine - dry
• 10 cl fluid crème fraîche
• 2 shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée)
• 1 egg yolk (slightly beaten with a bit of milk)
• salt & pepper

Directions

1. Peel the apples and cut them into quarters.
2. Mince 2/3 of the turkey meat together with the apples.
3. Separate the leaves from the cabbage and remove the middle hard stem.
4. Boil the cabbage in a pot of boiling salted water for about 3 minutes. Drain and plunge them in cold water to cool them. Well drain them and cut them in thin slices.
5. Heat the pan with 1 tbsp oil, stir in the minced turkey and cabbage. Add in the white wine, the crème fraîche and season it with salt and pepper. Let it simmer uncovered, stirring it often until the liquid is absorbed. Then keep it cool.
6. Cook and season the rest of the turkey (cubed) in a pan with the rest of the oil. Mix with the stuffing. Keep it cool.
7. Lay the pastry on a deep pie dish or baking pan lined with the baking paper. Spread the stuffing in the pie.
8. Fold in the side border of the dough (towards the stuffing) and brush it with water (this helps to seal the two pastry). Then cover it with the other pastry, pressing on the border a little to make sure it is sealed to the bottom pastry. Fold in whatever is left on the side.
9. Cut a tiny hole in the middle of the pie a make a chimney using a small rolled piece of cardboard.
10. Brush the surface of the pie with the beaten yolk-milk mixture.
11. Bake it at 200°C (400°F - gas mark 6) for about 30 minutes.

The Verdict

This is the first time I'm baking this dish so I wasn't sure what to expect. For me, the pie itself taste fine: it has the nice flavour of the meat and cabbage, but it's overall kinda flat (a feeling that my in-laws also share). Perhaps I'm used to eating my food with lots of spices and not used to something that is relying more on just its flavour without any spices enhancing it. Pierre on his side somewhat likes it (funnily for someone who doesn't really like cabbage) and had a second helping too, but felt that there was way too much stuffing.

In preparation of this pie, I forgot to mince the apples together with the turkey meat so I did them both separately. We replaced the dry white wine with apple cider (we ran out of white wine in our cave and since we have apples in the recipe, we thought «why not?») and thick crème fraîche instead of the liquid version. We were somewhat taken aback by the large quantity of water that our stuffing produced during cooking and baking. In the end we had to scoop out the water. We don't know if this is due to the fact that we used apple cider instead of wine (we don't believe it should make much of a difference) or maybe I didn't drained the cabbage well.

We both felt that there was way too much meat in this pie compared to the quantity of crust, and would recommend cutting the quantity by 1/3 if you attempt the recipe. Also the book called for 1/3 of the turkey to be cubed. To us, it doesn't really make a big difference in taste and the chunks of meat aren't very nice to munch.

Note

When choosing savoy cabbage, choose a head that's heavy for its size. The leaves should be crisp, not limp, and there should be no sign of browning. Refrigerate, tightly wrapped, in a plastic bag for up to 1 week.