The Cooking Ninja

Dear Readers, this time around, I'm going to cut the crap of my usual blah blah blah and spare you some eye workouts. I'll just go right to the point of this recipe!

What to do with your left over stale bread? We can do a delicious Cheese Fondue or use some of it to make Quenelles de Volaille (Chicken Dumplings) or use it as stuffing in Red Pepper Farcis à la Perpignanaise or we can use it to make the below delicious dessert.

And yes, I'm shamelessly self promoting my own past dishes on my own blog.

Pudding au Pain

Ingredients

• 180 g raisins
• 200 g dry bread
• 1/2 litre milk
• 100 g orange confit (candied orange)
• 150 g brown sugar (beaten like for omelette)
• 3 eggs
• rum liquor
• a bit of caramel

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F - gas mark 5°).
2. Soak raisins in rum liquor the night before.
3. Break the dry bread into small chunks and put them in a big bowl. In the meantime, boil the milk.
4. Pour boiling milk onto the bread and let it soak up.
5. Finely slice the orange confit and drain the raisins off rum.
6. Roughly chop up the milk soaked bread in the mixer.
7. In a big bowl, mix sugar, beaten eggs, raisins, orange confit and chopped up bread until combined.
8. Prepare a bit of caramel in a small pan and pour it into the cake mold.
9. Pour the mixed bread pudding on top of the caramel in the cake mold.
10. Bake in a bain-marie for 1 hour.
11. Let the pudding cool before turning it out of the mold.
12. Serve with a cup of tea. It's delicious.

The Verdict

Surprisingly delicious. It reminds me of a wet version of fruitcake. I enjoyed it very much with nice cup of hot tea. Pretty nourishing however, it is in fact quite dense and will take care of whatever hunger you might have at the time

Notes

Oh, if you don't like candied orange, try apples instead.

GONG XI FA CAI

Wishing Everyone Lots of Luck and Prosperity during the Ox Year !

It seems like the year of the ox didn't start off with a big bang ... well it did for Singapore, in the sense that the government, for the first time since they banned fire crackers in 1972, lighted plenty to welcome the Ox Year. We all have the tight purse strings to thank for. For the first time in years, it actually feels really like Chinese New Year! I don't know about you, but for me, the sound of fire crackers is like dispersing the old year and welcome the new with new hopes and wishes.

Unfortunately for me, this new year kicked off with me losing my "best friend". For whatever reasons she ended our friendship, I wish her well and all the best in her endeavours and may she find peace, happiness and love. Perhaps one day if our paths ever cross, we would be able to put aside our differences and get to know each other again. I hope everyone else's year started with a better footing than me.

Today, I would like to introduce you another easy and quick to make family dessert enjoyed by young and old. It's called Oeuf Au Lait or Caramel Custard. My mother-in-law always makes this whenever she finds a bottle of milk that expires either today or tomorrow. Before coming to France, I had never heard or tasted this family dessert and since then, it is one of my favourites. For those who also don't know, this is pretty much the same as Crême brulée except there's caramel below and it's not, well, brulé (burnt) on top.

Oeufs Au Lait (Caramel Custard)

Ingredients

• 1 litres milk
• 6 eggs
• 160 g sugar
• vanilla essence

Caramel

• sugar
• water

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 190°C (375°F - gas mark 5).
2. Pour milk, sugar and vanilla essence in a pot and put it on boil at high heat. Remove pot from heat once it is at boiling point.
3. While the milk is on boil, beat the eggs in a large bowl like you are making omelette.
4. Pour the boiling milk into the beaten egg mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling.
5. Prepare a few ramequin filled some caramel in a bain-marie.
6. Pour the custard mixture into the ramequin.
7. Bake it for about 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and feels firm to touch.
8. Take out the Caramel Custard and let it cool off completely before putting them in the refrigerator.
9. Serve cold. Eat it right from the ramequin or demould it by running a knife around the ramequin and flip it upside down on a dessert plate.

Preparing Caramel

1. Put some sugar and water in a small pot and heat it up on medium heat.
2. Once it turns bubbling brown and golden, turn off the heat.
3. Pour a bit of the caramel into each ramequin.

The Verdict

It has this nice vanilla flavor with the milk giving it a somewhat silky texture. Yummy! This recipe isn't too sweet like some other people do (which sometimes burns the mouth), and just solid enough.

Notes

For the bain-marie, always use hot water to maintain the temperature of the custard mixture in ramequin.

Today's post and recipe is by Pierre - my significant other

There are some people who love cooking and others who hate it. I enjoy it personally, in reasonable quantities. This is why I stay away from Asian cooking, and especially Chinese cooking: too many ingredients, too much preparation, which results in too much stuff to wash. I have had a fascination for dishes that are simple and fast to prepare yet tasty.

And that's how I came up with this version of a semolina milk pudding. Here's a simple yet tasty and healthy dessert, which doesn't take a lot of ingredients and preparation time is minimal. The only issue I have with it is that you need to bake milk in a pan: this often result in burnt milk at the bottom of the pan, which is extremely hard to clean. Thankfully there's another easier way for lazy cooks like me, thanks to this great invention that is the microwave. Bonus point: it's dirt cheap, you'd be hard-pressed to make a dessert for cheaper than that!

Microwave semolina milk pudding

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 120 g fine semolina
• 110 g sugar
• 1 litre milk
• liquid vanilla flavor or vanilla essence

Directions

1. In a big bowl, put all the ingredients together and stir.
2. Put in a microwave oven to bake at maximum power (I used 12 minutes for a 750 Watts oven).
3. Stop every 3 min to stir and make sure the semolina is not stuck at the bottom.
4. Let it cool down and store in the fridge.

Conclusion

It's not going to be nominated dessert of the year, but it taste nice, is low in fat (none at all if you use skimmed milk), and can be easily customized: you can replace the vanilla flavor with anything that catches your fancy (chocolate powder, coffee flavor, etc.). I like to cover mine with home-made strawberry jam for an extra kick, or just eat it plain for breakfast.

Notes

My version is a rather solid milk pudding, if you like it more liquid add a more milk.

After spending a week in Paris with the public transport on strike, we were lucky enough that the TGV (bullet train) decided to resume work over the weekend and we were able to get home without a hitch 2 weeks ago. Last week it was Air France's employees turn to stop work - in a big way on La Toussaint's holidays. Thousands of peoples ended up as hostages, stuck at the airport with no flight to return home for their work the next day or worst ... some found themselves spending their holidays at the airport going nowhere. Thank goodness, we didn't planned any trip. My friend, Bee Ean posted some funny caricatures about this whole mess.

It seems like November will also be a worthy month for strikes: I just heard on the news that EDF (electricity company), SNCF (trains) & other public transport are threatening to go on strike (again) next week. The fishermen, in difficulties because of rising oil prices, are also demonstrating and threaten to block the petrol supplies. Looks like it will be a fun month for the French and Mr Sarkozy.

Anyway, as I was saying, we got back from Paris to find a day old expired bottle of milk in our fridge. We decided to salvage it by turning it into a all time delicious and favourite French dessert, Gateau de riz or Rice Pudding.

Gateau de riz meringué

(Michèle's recipe)

Ingredients

• 270 g round grain rice or short-grain rice
• 50 g butter (approximately)
• 4 medium sized apples or apricots (peeled and sliced)
• 2 eggs (separate the yolks and whites)
• 7 tbsp sugar
• 1 litre milk
• a little bit of vanilla extract (bean or essence)
• a pinch of salt
• candid fruits (optional)

Directions

1. Wash the rice and cook it in a pot of boiling water. When it comes to a boiling point again, let it cook for 5 minutes. Then drain the rice.
2. While the rice is being cooked, sauté the apple slices in a pan with a bit of butter. (Optional: spread some cognac on the apples while it is being cooked.)
3. In the meantime, boil the milk with the vanilla. Once it's boiling, stir in the drained rice.
4. When the rice completely absorb the milk, stir in 5 tbsp sugar and eventually the candid fruits if desired. Turn off the heat.
5. Mix in the butter and stir quickly when adding the egg yolk to avoid it being scrambled.
6. Spread the rice on a baking dish. Then lay apple slices (or apricots) on top of the rice.
7. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, delicately fold in the rest of the sugar. Spread it on top of the apple slices
8. Bake it on grill mode to golden brown the egg white. Be careful, it only takes a few seconds to brown.
9. Chill the pudding in the refrigerator and serve cold.

The Verdict

As I was pressed for time, I did a simple version of it - just the pudding without fruits and the meringue (we covered it with home-made strawberry jam instead). It still tasted as good but I have to admit that the fruits and meringue version (which Michèle normally makes) give this pudding a special taste and kick. The meringue is soft and creamy - it's like you are eating a coating of melted marshmallows. It's a rather filling dessert that'll keep you from going hungry too soon.