Lemon Pudding

20 lady fingers
Juice of I lemon
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. pistachios

For Custard

5 egg yolks
2 cups of milk + 2 Tbsp. milk
1 pinch of salt
¼ cups of corn starch
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp. cold butter
Zest of 1 lemon

Heat the milk until it is warm in a saucepan. Mix egg yolks with starch, salt, and sugar. Add the eggs slowly, bit by bit, while continuously whisking the liquid to the mixture so that the eggs do not scramble.

Pour the custard in the saucepan and keep whisking until mixture feels heavy. Should take 3-5 minutes.
Add lemon zest and butter. Refrigerate overnight.

Mix the lemon juice with sugar and water. Dip the lady fingers in the juice and add to the glass. You can layer the bottom of a wide glass or lay them out like petals in a martini glass. The lady fingers will absorb the lemon juice and acquire the flavor. 5 lady fingers per serving.

Add the custard on the top. The pistachios should be roughly ground and added to the custard for texture.

Menu

Roasted Tomato Soup


Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Roasted Tomato Soup

Roasted Tomato Soup

6 Roma Tomatoes split in half

1 red onion quartered

5 cloves of garlic

Heat oven to 375 degrees and roast the above ingredients for an hour. Sprinkle with some olive oil and roast. Keep the garlic in a small parcel made of foil wrap and roast with the rest of the vegetables.

Blend all the above when cool. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

When serving, bring to a boil and add a dollop of crème fraiche and croutons.

Banoffee Pie

Banana + Toffee pie…English, rich creamy and utterly decadent. The essential ingredients of a banoffee pie are a pastry base (a biscuit base or a pastry crust), cream, banana, and toffee. This pie was invented in a restaurant called Hungry Monk in West Sussex. The original recipe is as follows

http://www.hungrymonk.co.uk/banoffi_pie/

First of all, the base. There are a couple of alternatives here. A graham biscuit crust, a digestive biscuit crust, or a pie crust. For a nine inch pie, that would be 9 graham crackers, 4 tbsp. butter and 2 tsp. sugar turned into a crumb base and baked for 15 minutes. The original recipe uses a shortbread pastry crust.

Then, the toffee. I thought the toffee part is daunting where you boil a tin of condensed milk in water for two and a half hour and you have to make sure that the tin of milk is always covered by water. That was too much of a hassle, like thinking about the milk for two and a half hour! So at the local store I found a 14 oz. tin of dulce de leche in the Mexican food aisle. There are other ways to caramelize condensed milk. Other ways include baking the condense milk in a water bath for 1 and ½ hours. On the other hand, here is Curtis Stone’s recipe, where you make a toffee and add condensed milk.

To make the toffee sauce: Place a medium-heavy saucepan over medium heat. Combine the sugar and 3 tablespoons of water in a medium-heavy saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil without stirring until the color is deep amber, occasionally swirling the pan and brushing down the sides with a pastry brush dipped into water, about 5 minutes. Stir in the condensed milk and butter. Continue stirring for 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly. Remove the toffee sauce from the heat and spread 1 cup of the sauce over the prepared crust and refrigerate for about 1 hour or until the caramel is semi-firm. Keep the remaining caramel sauce at room temperature.

My recipe

I used a pie crust and pre baked it at  350 degrees in a 9” pie dish for 15 minutes, till golden.

I took a tin of dulce de leche, added 3 eggs, and 1 tbspn butter. I added it to the pie cust and baked it for another 17 minutes. I found no recipe where the toffee was mixed with eggs and baked. I thought it would lessen the sweetness of the toffee. It actually works out fine.

Cool the pie. Now slice 1 banana and stick all over the pie.

 Whip one cup of cream with 2 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar. Slather all over the pie. You could flavor the cream with instant coffee or vanilla, or even add chocolate shavings on the top. I did none of these things.

Key Lime Pie

I am on the lookout for citrusy desserts. I have never been a fan of chocolate desserts; in my mind chocolate takes over the flavor completely and nothing else shines. Therefore, I made a key lime pie yesterday. The big debate was where to get the key limes. Now key limes are hard to find and you need 10-12 key limes for ½ cup of lime juice. Some suggest using lemon instead, but there is a big difference in flavor. That would be lemon pie and not key lime pie. I ended up buying bottled key lime juice and the flavor was delightful. You can find the same recipe all over the internet and I was wondering what interesting variations could be done next time; maybe some pistachio on the top. I am wondering what pairs with lime besides ginger in a dessert.

Crust
9 graham crackers
4 -5 tbsp. butter
2 tbspn sugar
Crush the crackers with the sugar. Add melted better and pat down like a crust in a 9” pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

In a blender mix the following-
3 eggs (every recipe suggests using egg yolks, but this turned out fine)
1 - 14 oz. tin of condensed milk
½ cup 2tbsp of key lime juice
1 Tspn zest of lemon
Add to the shell and bake for 15 minutes.

Cool and top with whipped cream.
1 cup of heavy cream, 2 Tspn confectioner sugar, and vanilla essence. Chill overnight.

Cajun Pasta

I went to New Orleans two weeks ago. I started eating sea food a few months ago and I was on a food quest in New Orleans. I tried it all – seafood jambalaya, gumbo (at Mother’s), Cajun shrimp, shrimp and crawfish etouffe, beignets (at Café Du Monde) etc. I had two great versions of shrimp and grits – one was at Café Amelie’s and the other at some restaurant in Bourbon Street. The first dish was shrimp and grits served with a spicy corn maque choux. The second dish was a combination of fried green tomatoes, grits, and shrimps served in a spicy butter sauce. The tomatoes and grits were layered over each other, in a pool of buttery sauce, with the shrimps at the side. Another great meal was a brunch at John Besh’s Luke where everything was cooked to perfection. I ordered an omelet with a filling of crabmeat, mushroom, peppers, and fromage blanc. Served with lacy potato chips called gaufrettes.

I bought some Cajun seasoning from an obscure store. The woman at the counter asked me to smell it and added that her partner made the blend. It was divine. So here I am back in San Francisco with this liovely Cajun seasoning and a quest for recipes, which will bring out the best of this spice blend.


1 pound of fettuccine
3 Tspn Cajun seasoning
Black pepper
1 cup of heavy cream
Parsley
Vegetables
1 large red pepper
1 large green pepper
1 red onion
5 cloves of garlic
3 Roma tomatoes
Meats
1 breast chicken
1-2 sausages

Boil the water, add salt, and cook the fettuccine. It should take 10-11 minutes.
Cut the onions and bell pepper into strips. Dice the tomatoes. Mince the garlic.
Cube the chicken and sprinkle Cajun seasoning on top of it. In addition, slice the sausages.
Heat the oil and brown the chicken and sausages. Remove the meat.
The flame should be on high. Add the garlic, pepper, and onions. After a few minutes, add the tomatoes. Add 2 Tspn Cajun seasoning and salt.
When the vegetables are soft, remove them from the pan.
Add some water to the pan and boil, to concentrate the flavors of the vegetables and meat in the water.
Now add the cream. Add loads of black pepper. Add the vegetables. Stir the sauce.
Add pasta to the sauce and cook it for a while. Let the pasta rest for at least 5-8 minutes after cooking to absorb the sauce. Garnish with parsley.