antipasti of mozzarella, chilli, and lemon crostini

copied from Jame Oliver's website

starter | serves 4

ingredients

• 8 slices ciabatta bread
• 1 clove garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 balls of buffalo mozzarella
• Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
• a small handful of fresh basil leaves
• 1 lemon for zesting

Heat a griddle pan until it’s really smoking hot, then griddle each slice of ciabatta for a couple of minutes on each side until they are nicely charred.

Cut the garlic clove in half, rub each ciabatta slice with garlic and drizzle with a little olive oil. Tear the mozzarella evenly over the 8 crostini. Season well with salt and pepper, sprinkle over the sliced chilli and basil leaves and grate over the lemon zest. Finish with another drizzle of olive oil.

Our Tiramisu Recipe

Copy tu facebook cua ban Tracy Nguyen

To make this tiramisu, you will need
- A 20x20cm glass bowl.
- 2 large mixing bowls
- Wooden spoon
- Spatula (optional but it can scoop out all the cheese better n help with the folding)
- Electric mixer (manual mixer works just fine but needs some extra work)

Ingredients:
- 500g Mascarpone cheese
- 5 egg whites (put it in the prepared large mixing bowl)
- 3 eggs yolks (put it in the other mixing bowl)
- 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- Good-quality chocolate power to sprinkle on top of the cake
- 2 cups of cool coffee (I use expresso shots but Americano is fine)
- 1 pack of ladyfinger cookies (24 individual cookies)
Instructions:

*Making the cream

- Beat the egg yolks with all the sugar well until the sugar is evenly distributed.
- Add the mascarpone cheese in slowly and mix it at the same time with a wooden spoon until they completely blend. You will have a yellow cream mixture.

- Add 1 pinch of salt to the bowl containing the egg whites, whisk it well with the electric mixer for 10 minutes at maximum speed until stiff peak form (with the manual mixer, just keep whisking until it's foamy and a peak is formed when you lift the mixer out of the mixture). You will have a white foamy mixture.

- Using wooden spoon, slowly fold the white mixture into the yellow mixture. Be careful do not mix them otherwise they will become watery. (You fold it in the downward and upward motion).

Now you have the mixture ready for the tiramisu. Keep it in the fridge while you prepare the coffee. Pour the coffee into a wide-mouthed bowl so you can dip the cookie in it later. Let it cools to room temperature. We can start resemble the dessert.

* Resembling:

- Dip half amount of the ladyfingers in the cool coffee (one by one, do not let it soak for too long, about 2-3 second for each cookies which is only enough for dipping and lifting it out immediately). Once you lift the cookie out of the coffee, place it in the glass bowl so as to half of the cookies will fit in and cover the bottom of the bowl completely.

- Pour half of the cream mixture on top of the cookie layer. Even it out so it has the same thickness all over the cookies.

- Repeat the dipping and placing in the bowl with the other half of the cookies. And then pour the rest of the cream on top and even it out.

- Finish off by sprinkling coco power on top of the top cream layer evenly.

- Put the finish tiramisu in the fridge for 4 hours or more so the cream will be thicken and stay firmly.
- Cut the tiramisu in desired size and shape, place it in a plate.
Ready to serve. ^_^


Note: The quality of tiramisu is varied upon the quality of eggs (the fresher, the better)

Broccoli Cheddar Soup Recipe

http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2009/06/banh-mi-sandwich-recipe.html

Look for deeply green, tight heads of broccoli. I typically avoid any heads that have yellowing florets or seem died out. If you like a slightly creamier soup, stir in a generous dollop of creme fraiche after pureeing. You can easily make this soup vegan by using olive oil and omitting the cheese/creme fraiche, and you can make it gluten-free by doing something in place of the croutons.

croutons
5-6 ounce chunk of artisan whole wheat bread, torn into little pieces (less than 1-inch), roughly 3 cups total

1/4 cup butter or olive oil (I like 1/2 and 1/2)
1 1/2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

soup:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
1 shallot, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes (1 1/2 cups)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 1/2 cups light, good-tasting vegetable broth
1 large head of broccoli (12 ounces or 3/4 lb.), cut into small florets

2/3 cup freshly grated aged Cheddar, plus more for topping
1 - 3 teaspoons whole grain mustard, to taste
smoked paprika, more olive oil, creme fraiche (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350F degrees and place the torn bread in a large bowl. In a small saucepan heat the butter until it has melted. Whisk the mustard and salt into the butter and pour the mixture over the bread. Toss well, then turn the bread onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the croutons are golden and crunchy. Toss them once or twice with a metal spatula along the way.

While the croutons are toasting, melt the butter (or olive oil) in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the shallots, onion, and a big pinch of salt. Saute for a couple minutes. Stir in the potatoes, cover, and cook for about four minutes, just long enough for them to soften up a bit. Uncover, stir in the garlic, then the broth. Bring to a boil, taste to make sure the potatoes are tender, and if they are stir in the broccoli. Simmer just long enough for the broccoli to get tender throughout, 2 - 4 minutes.

Immediately remove the soup from heat and puree with an immersion blender. Add half the cheddar cheese and the mustard (a little bit a a time). If you are going to add any creme fraiche, this would be the time to do it. Now add more water or broth if you feel the need to thin out the soup at all. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Serve sprinkled with croutons, the remaining cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and a tiny pinch of smoked paprika.

Serves 4 - 6.

The best fig tart, ever (a recipe from The Foodie Handbook)

http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2009/11/the-best-fig-tart.html

I could also call it the easiest fig tart, ever. Really. It has an astonishingly small list of ingredients: a pie crust*, some luscious figs, with a hidden layer of frangipane, which, despite the fancy-sounding French name, is simply a concoction of toasted almonds, sugar, butter, and egg that you can make easily in a food processor.

The key to the magic here is the frangipane. It's one of those things that sound far more difficult and fancy than they really are. My frangipane recipe came from the one in Michel Bras fantastic Notebooks of Michel Bras: Desserts. It's basically equal quantity (by weight) of almond meal, butter, and sugar, with one egg to bind it all together. That's a truly fantastic recipe, and one so versatile I find a use for it in practically all my fruit tarts, from the summery stone fruits to the fall harvest of pears and apples. Right about now, with melting soft and tantalizingly sweet figs make an appearance all over the place, you can make a fig tart with a base of this frangipane and it will turn even the most ardent fig hater into a lover.

The slight problem I found with the original Bras recipe is the almond flour. If you bake all the time and have access to great almond flour from a professional pastry source, then it'll work just fine. But the rest of us, with access mainly to what's available at the supermarket, finding good (and fresh) enough almond flour to use in this recipe will be challenging. So, I adapted the recipe to use whole almonds which are readily available and generally far fresher than any almond flour you can buy.

Frangipane

75g whole almonds (about 1/2 cup)

75g sugar, you can use half granulated sugar and half confectioner's sugar, or just all granulated sugar (about 1/8 cup granulated plus 1/4 cup confectioner's, or just 1/3 cup granulated)

75g butter at room temperature

1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Spread the almonds evenly on a baking sheet and place them in the oven. Roast them for about 10 minutes, or until slightly toasted and fragrant. Transfer to a plate and let cool to room temperature.

Put the cooled almonds and the sugar into a food processor and process until fine. Add the butter and the egg and pulse until well-combined. If you don't want to use it right away, divide the frangipane into four equal parts, wrap each tightly in plastic. They will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, and up to a month in the freezer.

To make a 9" fig tart

1 9" pastry dough

about 10 large figs or about 15 small ones

1/4 the recipe of frangipane above

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C). Roll out your pastry dough to about 10-inch diameter - more or less won't harm anything. Spread about 1/4 of the quantity of frangipane on the dough, leaving about 1 inch parameter around the outer edge of the dough. Quarter the figs (only halve if small) and arrange them -pointy end up will be prettier- in concentric circles to cover the frangipane. Fold the edges in, pinching a little to make sure they stick. If you want, you can brush the dough with eggwash and give it a good shower of sugar. Bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until the pastry edges are golden brown.

Serve while still warm, and, if you want to be truly indulgent, with a scoop of my Brown Butter Ice Cream.

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*If you're afraid of pie crust, you can buy one pre-made, just make sure it's an all-butter crust. If you have a favorite recipe, just use it. If you haven't got one yet, I highly recommend the crust recipe from page 121 of the book. The technique might sound odd to you, but you'll only need to try it once before it becomes your basic dough recipe as well, I promise.