As a kid I somehow disliked plums in their raw form. I only ate them cooked, baked or preserved. It remains impossible for the contemporary me to understand the reasons, but I’m glad that I learned to love this great fruit in all of its forms. This new appreciation does place, however, dire expectations from any plum tart or pie to surpass the raw fruit.

I was mostly pleased with this tart, but it couldn’t fulfill those expectations. It did offer though a chance to consume great amounts of butter masqueraded as a fruit based treat. Next time I make it I will try to have more plums and less sugar.

Tart Shell

• 170gr butter
• 250gr flour
• 50gr sugar
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1tbsp milk
• beans for blind-baking

I took the basic 1:2:3 ratio of sugar:butter:flour but reduced the sugar amount, as the frangipane is very sweet by itself. Still, I would use less sugar next time. The technique for making the dough is explained here.

While the dough is chilled, cut the plums (I don’t know how many) into small, but not too thin, wedges. Add a little sugar and squeezed lemon juice and toss to coat. You don’t have to alter the plums’ taste too much, just to get them to lose some liquids.

Frangipane

• 100gr almond meal
• 100gr soft butter
• 100gr sugar
• 1 egg
• 1tsp vanilla extract

When the dough has chilled through (at least 1 hour) roll it and place in a tart pan. Place the tart pan in the fridge to chill once again before baking, and preheat the oven at 190°C. After 10-15 minutes in the fridge, cover the tart shell in aluminum foil, place some beans on top and bake for 10 minutes before removing the foil and baking for another 5-10 minutes until the rim only lightly browns.

Remove the tart shell from the oven, cover with plums and frangipane:

Bake again until the frangipane gets slightly brown. It’s ok if it is still a little wobbly. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before consumption. In the blazing hot Tel-Avivian August, the tart must be kept in the refrigerator, but it is better if let to warm up a little before serving.

You could argue that posting about a BLT sandwich is stupid. There’s no real recipe to follow, and it’s nothing special that I came up with myself. I’m still posting about it because:

1. Sandwiches are awesome and often overlooked
2. I’ve been barely posting lately
3. The pictures are nice
4. I will be reminded of the idea when I look back in the archive
5. It can inspire others
6. Bacon is a key ingredient for lasting happiness

The last month hasn’t been the best, to say the least. Although cooking provides some sort of therapy and escapism, I still found myself cooking less. Even when I did cook, I wasn’t organized enough to blog about it. However, here are some things that have happened:

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes. I made them with the leftover pastry cream from the Mille Feuille. They turned out too dense, slightly egg-tasting, and overall not that great.

I also made some bagels, of which I had not taken pictures. Making the bagels reminded me how I’ve been wanting to make doughnuts, so I tried it too:

I also made some Matcha Ice Cream (again, no pictures). It turned out quite well, both in texture and in taste. However, it’s not really a “casual” taste that you can pop out of the freezer at any occasion.

This is easily the best tasting dessert I ever made. It didn’t picture well, but it was amazing.

I can now confirm that this dessert belongs to the category of: “It’s somewhat a hassle to make at home, but since you can’t get it very fresh anywhere, it’s well worth the trouble”. You can also make everything in advance, just bake the pastry the same day, you want it as fresh as possible.

This was the original inspiration for making the puff pastry that also served the Bourekas experiment. This was the real deal. Combining different tastes and textures is at the basis of great food. This time it’s the crunchiness of the salty puff pastry with the creaminess of sweet pastry cream.

I’ve made pastry cream many times before, using the recipe from Le Cordon Bleu. However, the last time was quite a while ago, so at first I forgot to whisk the egg yolks vigorously with the sugar before adding the rest of the ingredients. This resulted in a lumpy cream in which the sugar did not dissolve properly. I threw it all away and started over.

This is what the yolks and sugar should look like after whisking, pale and liquid:

You can then follow the rest of the recipe. My first attempts at pastry cream were bad, as it takes some tries to get the technique, and it’s a little hard to explain it in text. It’s best if you can get someone to show you how it’s done. I’ll try to make a video sometime.

This is how the prepared cream looked like, before being refrigerated for the night. The next day, it should be whipped again before use to turn it from a solid cold custard back into a cream.

Next, I had to bake the sheets of puff pastry. My first approach was to cut the dough before baking. This resulted in poorly shaped sheets of which I made the mini mille-feuille that appears at the top of the post:

The better approach was to bake a large sheet of dough and then slice it (guess what happened to all the cut pieces..)

It’s also important to place something on top of the dough when baking, to keep it from puffing too much. I used a small oven tin, put on a baking sheet.

This mille-feuille was better proportioned, but the sun already set and I couldn’t take a decent picture:

As I said, best recipe made ever. Definitely going to become a regular.

Here are some things that I recently made but don’t really deserve a post on their own:

Kaya (Coconut Jam)

The first and only time I had Kaya was when I was in Singapore when I was 16. According to Wikipedia it is mostly popular in Singapore and Malaysia. It’s very tasty but a little weird at first. I made mine using equal portions of canned coconut milk, eggs and sugar. Cooking it slowly over lowest heat and mixing constantly until it thickens. Usually it is flavored with Pandan leaves, but I don’t know if I can even get them over here.

Passover

This year we were four people at Passover’s dinner, and I was responsible for most of the cooking. I made: asparagus soup, sourdough bread,  blinis with smoked salmon, chopped liver, leek fritters, roasted pork chops and cream spinach. The soup turned out great, the rest was fine, but nothing special. I was stupid enough to forget taking pictures.

Logo

I baked a chocolate shortbread logo for the blog. It actually turned out very cool but not too tasty.

Fresh Pasta with Fava Beans and Broccoli Leaves

Not much to say here.

Regular post coming soon…

I love spinach in every possible form. This is the first time I tried it with pasta, for a quick dinner.

Ingredients

• cooked pasta
• 4 slices of bacon, or pancetta
• 2 cloves garlic
• spinach
• double cream
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper
• Roquefort (optional garnish)

Chop bacon and put in a non-stick skillet on high heat. Be sure not to preheat the skillet though, as this will burn the bacon instead of rendering the fat out (a lesson learned the hard way…) When the bacon begins to brown, lower to medium heat, add chopped garlic, and sauteé until it starts to brown. Add spinach – how much? as much as fits:

I did not chop the spinach because my garlic was about to burn, and I liked the result of having concentrated lumps of spinach in the pasta. If you prefer less chewy, more evenly distributed spinach, then chop it. Let the spinach cook for 1-2 minutes until it looses all volume, then add the cream, and put the heat back on high. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice. If you have an open bottle of white wine in your fridge, you can add some of it too. When the cream starts bubbling, lower to low heat and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve with precooked pasta.

I’ve never paid too much attention to smoked salmon. The supermarket smoked salmon should take the blame for it – industrialized production, and, possibly, freezing and thawing, have made this unique fish suitable only for residing in boring sandwiches.

A few months ago I went to the Minzar pub. I was in a mood for vodka and a simple side dish to accompany it, and Gravlax served with a Pretzel and sour cream seemed appropriate. I wasn’t expecting much of the Gravlax, and I was blown away: The salmon, crossway sliced, had a flexible texture (not a rubbery one), full flavor and, most of all, a rich, open sea aroma. It was exceptional, a true proper use of a fine raw material.

I was also as surprised when I found out that making it is a pretty simple task.

Gravlax is basically salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill. You can add spices to the curing, and some recommend alcohol (such as vodka, aquavit or schnapps). I’ve only added some ground black pepper. Cure the raw salmon for 48 hours and you have Gravlax, as simple as that.

This is how I prepared my Gravlax:

Ingredients

650 gr of salmon fillet, deboned
4 Tablespoons of sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
4 Tablespoons of coarse salt
1 Tablespoon of ground black pepper
Fresh dill (enough to cover the salmon)

Preparation

Wash and lay salmon in a bowl adequately large, flesh side up. Mix dry ingredients and spread over the salmon’s flesh (If you want to add spices or alcohol, this is the time). Crush dill stems to extract flavor and slice dill coarsely. Cover the salmon with dill, and then with a plastic wrap.
Use weights to create pressure on the wrapped salmon (I used a bowl filled with water) and refrigerate.

After 48 hours

Remove plastic wrapper and dill. A lot of water is extracted from the salmon during the curing process, so it should be drained. Then, using paper towels, clean the salmon from any trace of salt / sugar left.
Using a sharp knife, slice finely and serve.

It was fantastic with some danish cream cheese on an earthy rye bread.

A note on the ingredients

In this method of preparation the salmon, as a raw material, is completely in light, with no cooking or flavoring to overshadow it’s natural flavor. This means you should use the freshest salmon you can possibly get. If you don’t go fishing regularly in the Northern Atlantic, you should check and see on which days fresh fish arrive to your local fish store and buy your salmon then.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, you can’t find raw wild salmon in Israel, only industrially farmed salmon. If you get your hands on one of these, your’e probably in for a treat.

This dinner dish was fairly easy to make and surprisingly cheap. I bought 6 chops for around 30 NIS (that’s $8) to feed 3, including myself. I think pork is greatly complimented by sweet flavors, so I paired the chops braised apples.

I’m still not used to taking pictures while I cooked, so I only have the complete dish pictured. Use your imagination for the rest of the process

Ingredients

For the chops:

• 6 pork chops (about 1kg)
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 2 tbsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• coarse salt and pepper
• olive oil

For the apples:

• 3 Granny Smith apples
• 1 stick celery
• 2 tbsp butter
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 shot whiskey/rum/calvados
• 2 tbsp sugar/brown sugar
• salt

Preheat oven to 190°C

Start with peeling, slicing and chopping the apples. Put them in a bowl and add the lemon juice, toss around to coat. Using a mortar and pestle, crush fennel and caraway seeds lightly to release their aromas, mix with cumin.

Score the rind of the chops using a small pairing knife. Coat an oven tray with tin foil, spread some coarse salt, black pepper and half of the spices mixture. Place chops on they tray, and cover again with salt, pepper and the rest of the spices. Drizzle with some olive oil. See how Gordon Ramsay does it (but with different flavors):

Start making the apples: Melt the butter in a saucepan, and sauteé apples and celery on medium-high heat. You can now put the chops in the oven, they need to be cooked for an internal temperature of 65°C, for me it took around 10 minutes.

Add the whiskey, cinnamon, sugar and salt to the apples, cover and lower heat, to medium-low. You can add some water to if the mixture is too dry. When the chops are ready, take them out of the oven and cover with tin foil. At this point the apples should be soft enough to be mashed with a wooden spoon. You can mash them a little if you want, then taste them and fix seasoning. Leave uncovered to reduce sauce to the degree of your liking. Uncover chops, and serve.

These anise flavored cookies are just great with tea. I took the butter cookies recipe from Joy of Baking, omitted the orange zest and vanilla extract, and added 1 tbsp of fennel seeds instead. I tried to crush them in a mortar and pestle, but I only have a wooden one, and it didn’t really cut it…

They turned out great, but perhaps they could benefit from some lemon zest, and better-crushed seeds.

It all started with a tray of frozen chicken wings. My roommate has asked me to make them. Circumstances have then changed, and instead of my roommate Yagil, these were shared with my friend Dan.

I knew I wanted to deep fry the wings, and match them with butter-chili sauce – similar to Buffalo wings – but actually trying to imitate the famous wings at Tel-Aviv’s Dixie. Knowing I’ll be already deep frying, I decided to make some French fries too.

Then came along Dan with Bacon, Raclette, Mozarella and Roquefort. The Roquefort was intended for a dip, Raclette and bacon were paired with the fries, and Mozarella was to be breaded and deep fried too!

First, the potatoes were cut and blanched in cold water in the fridge:

30 minutes later they went in for a first fry. After a few minutes we replaced them with the wings:

Meanwhile bacon was being roasted in the oven, and butter melted with chili for sauce. When the wings were all ready, we coated them with the sauce and put them in the oven:

Then a second fry for the fries, later topped with Raclette and bacon, and in the oven:

Lastly Mozarella was fried very shortly. I did the mistake of piling the fried Mozarella, and, within a minute, instead of Mozarella sticks there was a blob of melted cheese and fried coating…

I really liked how the Roquefort dip turned out:Overall, the meal was decadent and tasty – but it wasn’t perfect. The fries turned out soggy, and the wings were more dry than crunchy. Also chili-butter sauce was lacking some punch – perhaps hot sauce, perhaps some spices. I tried to keep it simple, but I did not aim for simple and mediocre.

There are tons of recipes online for chicken wings and french fries, and many variations. I’m not posting recipes here because I don’t feel the result was good enough. The only thing that came out perfect was the Roquefort dip (mix Roquefort, mayonnaise and sour cream to taste). I’ll post a recipe when I get it right.