Chocolate Tart with Lavender Cream and Churros con Chocolate

Chocolate Tart with Lavender Cream

We're on our 10th lesson in our desserts unit/module. For tonight, we made Chocolate Tart with Lavender Cream and Churros con Chocolate.

I won't be describing these desserts too much and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 😉

The Chocolate Tart with Lavender Cream has three elements: the shell/crust/base, the ganache, and the lavender–flavoured cream. A ganache is a sweet creamy chocolate mixture used especially as a filling or frosting. Below is the recipe that we followed. I just noticed though that I had excess pastry trimmings while I was lining my pie tin, so you might want to reduce the pastry dough recipe a little bit. Also, there were no lavender flowers available to decorate my tart, so I just made chocolate filigrees and used them instead.

🍫 Chocolate Tart with Lavender Cream 🍓

(Makes 1 pie [diameter (⌀) ≈ 23 cm (9″)])

For the pastry shell/crust/base:
240 g flour (plain)
160 g butter
10 mL (1 – 2 tsp) water
pinch of salt

– Preheat the oven to 180°C.
– Place the flour, butter, and a pinch of salt in a bowl and rub in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add 1 – 2 teaspoons cold water and mix in until the dough just comes together. Tip out onto a lightly floured board or clean bench and form dough into a disc. Enclose in cling film and refrigerate for 30 – 60 minutes.
– Roll pastry out to about 3 – 5 mm thick and then line a pie dish or pie tin with this pastry. Prick the base with a fork, then place back in the refrigerator to rest for about 20 minutes.
– Blind–baking step: Line the pastry case with baking paper and pastry beads or uncooked rice/beans. Blind–bake for about 7 – 10 minutes, then remove baking paper and beads/rice/beans and bake for another 5 – 10 minutes or until just golden in colour.
– Press down any bubbles that have risen up and allow to cool.

For the ganache:
150 mL cream
40 g butter
250 g dark chocolate

– Place the cream and butter in a pan and stir over medium heat until butter has melted.
– Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl, pour over the warm cream–butter mixture, then stir until the chocolate has melted.

For the lavender cream:

300 mL cream

15 g sugar (castor)

1 mL lavender essence

– Whip cream with sugar until soft peaks and then stir through lavender essence.

– Cover with cling film and refrigerate until needed.

Assembly:

– Pour the chocolate ganache into the tart shell. Spread evenly with the back of a spoon or a palette knife.

– Top tarts with lavender cream and decorate with strawberries. Decorate tarts with extra lavender flowers.

My benchtop while preparing the chocolate tart 😊


A churro is a Spanish and Mexican pastry resembling a doughnut or cruller (a sweet food made from a piece of dough that has been twisted and fried) and made from deep–fried unsweetened dough and sprinkled with sugar (Merriam–Webster). The dough used in churro is pâte à choux or choux pastry.


Churros con Chocolate

Here's how we made them tonight:

🍫 Churros con Chocolate 🍓

For the pâte à choux:
250 mL water
100 g butter
150 g flour (plain)
pinch of salt
3 eggs
vegetable oil (for deep–frying)

– Preheat deep–fryer to 180°C.
– Combine water and butter in a saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 – 4 minutes or until butter melts. Remove from heat.
– Add the flour and salt and stir with a wooden spoon until well–combined and the dough comes away from the sides of the saucepan. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 15 minutes or until cool.
– Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until well–combined. Spoon dough into a piping bag fitted with a fluted/star nozzle.
– Deep–fry at 180°C for 1 – 2 minutes or until golden brown. Use a slotted spoon or a spider to transfer churros to a plate lined with paper towel. Repeat with the remaining dough.

For the chocolate dipping sauce:
200 g dark chocolate (coarsely chopped)
250 mL cream

– Combine the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.

Serving:
icing sugar (sifted) or cinnamon sugar powder mixture

– Dust churros with icing sugar or cinnamon sugar powder mixture.
– Arrange churros on a platter and serve with chocolate dipping sauce.


My benchtop while preparing the churros 😊


...Now tell me, who needs romance when you can have these desserts? 😉

International Chefs Day 2016 / Crisp–skinned Barramundi on Saffron Risotto with Asparagus and Lemon and Capers Butter

😊 Today (20 October) is International Chefs Day! This special day for all chefs worldwide has been started by the World Association for Chefs Societies. More information about this event can be found on their website.

So, to all of our great cooks and chefs out there, we salute you on this special occasion! Happy International Chefs Day!




I just got home after our biweekly restaurant service training at Pavilion Restaurant tonight. We had about 20 people booked and I was assigned to cook one of the main courses: Crisp–skinned Barramundi on Saffron Risotto with Asparagus and Lemon and Capers Butter. It was my first time to prepare it, since we recently changed to a new menu for this school term (October – November). Some of the elements of this dish has already been precooked by one of the previous student teams, so that was less work for me.

Barramundi is a type of fish which is popular here in Australia. In fact, the name of this fish was borrowed from an Aboriginal word which means "fish with big scales". To know more about this fish, you may visit these pages:

          Australian Barramundi Farmers Association:
          → http://www.abfa.org.au/barramundi_name.html
          
          Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide
          → http://www.sustainableseafood.org.au/fish.php/1/16/barramundi
          
          FishBase – the world's most comprehensive electronic encyclopedia on fish
          → http://fishbase.org/summary/346
          
          Government of Western Australia – Department of Fisheries:
→ http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/recreational_fishing/fact_sheets/fact_sheet_barramundi.pdf

          → http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/species/barramundi/Pages/default.aspx



(top) Postage stamp picture source: http://australianstrampcatalogue.com/images/1754-1-1.jpeg
(bottom) Barramundi illustration source: http://fishbase.org/images/species/Lacal_u1.gif


Here's the recipe for this delicious fish dish:

🐟 Crisp–skinned Barramundi on Saffron Risotto with Asparagus and Lemon and Capers Butter 🍋

(Makes 10 portions)

For the barramundi:
2 kg barramundi fillet (skin on)
≈ 100 mL olive oil
≈ 80 g butter
salt and pepper

– Portion barramundi into about 150 g portions with the skin on. Season with a little bit of salt and pepper.
– Put some olive oil into frying pan. When hot, add some butter and then place the barramundi skin side down. Cook until the skin is crisp.
– Turn over fish and cook until fish meat becomes opaque.
– Rest well before plating/serving.

* The fish can also be cooked in a preheated 180°C oven, but the skin should be seared on a pan first.

For the saffron risotto:
≈ 30 mL olive oil
≈ 120 g onion (finely chopped)
≈ 400 g Arborio rice
≈ 50 mL white wine
10 pieces saffron strands
≈ 1.1 L chicken stock
≈ 40 g butter
≈ 50 g Parmesan cheese (grated)

– Heat up the olive oil, sauté finely chopped onion, and add the rice. Sauté until rice becomes translucent.
– Add the white wine and saffron. Let the wine evaporate.
– Add a bit of chicken stock at a time and stir. Cook risotto until all of the stock is used and until it becomes al dente.
– Finish with butter and Parmesan cheese.

For the lemon and capers butter sauce:
5 pieces lemons
≈ 200 g capers (remove them from the brine solution)
≈ 100 g butter

– Segment lemons and extract juice from the trimmings. Combine them together and reserve for later use.
– Heat butter and toss capers, lemon segments, and juice together. Cook until butter becomes golden brown.

For the asparagus (≈ 3 spears per plate):
– Blanch the asparagus in boiling water then refresh in cold water.
– When serving, heat in butter on a frying pan.

To serve:
– Arrange on a plate with risotto, fish, asparagus, and topped with the lemon and capers butter sauce.

At Pavilion tonight, we served it up like this:



😊 Bon appétit! 🍽

Prelude

🥄 G'day guys! Salut tout le monde! 🌞

Bienvenue! Welcome to my blog—my first ever blog after a lot of months and weeks of contemplation and hesitation. I first thought of having my own blog early this year (2016); those moments when I've been thinking of switching careers and I thought a blog would help me document my parcours culinaire and share it to my family, friends, and to all my other friends–to–be (whether virtual/online or in real) who actually care. I've been always a timid person—and I still am today—and I reckon I'm better at writing than speaking. So I believe a blog would be a good medium and a handy journal to express myself.

Why such blog title? You may have guessed it: my blog would dwell mostly about food. Some of you would probably think that this would be just one of those for–all–I–care seemingly pretentious foodie blogs again. Each one is entitled to his/her own opinion and I greatly respect those. But for me, my blog would just be my own personal outlet to write down my own anecdotes, thoughts, and experiences. Who knows if I ran out of brain cells to store enough memories or even become forgetful later on because of my old age? hehe... Simply put, this blog would be my own personal journal—love it or hate it.

What's the thing about "closet" in my blog title? I've always like food—who doesn't? I enjoy watching cooking shows both online and on TV, though I'm not really keen on those competitive reality TV shows which sprouted up like champignons in recent years. Apart from animé and other cartoons during my primary school age period, I also grew up watching Wok with Yan, those Del Monte Kitchenomics segments at Eat Bulaga!, and Heny Sison on TV, among many others—and bien sûr, not to forget the "cooking shows/demonstrations" of my very own mother and grandmother in our homely "TV studio" (i.e. scullery and home kitchen) 😁. I still fondly remember collecting recipes ✂️ from labels of tinned Del Monte products 🍍, from various newspaper and magazine clippings 📰, and from free recipe cards (given away by supermarkets) for my mama. I've also come to admire several celebrated chefs and culinary personalities such as Stephen Yan, Doreen Fernández, Sandy Daza, Heny Sison, Rika Yukimasa, Harold McGee, Julia Child, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, Rachel Khoo, and Georges Auguste Escoffier throughout the times that have passed 👨‍👩‍🍳. Even then, I still highly esteem our unsung culinary heroes: such as our hardworking agricultural and livestock farmers (my late grandfather is a proud rice farmer), fisherfolk, cheesemongers, and other market vendors who diligently produce, rear, harvest, catch, and sell the food and ingredients for our nourishment and pleasure—as part of my upbringing, I've been my mother's aide whenever we go to the palengke (farmers' or "wet" market) every weekend; the cook who prepared my comforting hot bowl of savoury goto ("rice porridge") sprinkled with saffron–like kasubha and chopped scallions at the now defunct Goto Park in Marikina; the humble street peddler in our neighbourhood back home who entertainingly whips out a glassful of taho ("sweet soybean curd") topped with tapioca pearls and a generous swirl of panutsa syrup in seconds; and the panaderos (bakers) who painstakingly but lovingly kneads dough at the wee hours of the morning just to create those hot and soft pan de sal bread rolls that you spread with either mantequilla, Star margarine, coconut jam, Cheez Whiz, or Reno liver pâté. In short, I've grown up learning and loving the pleasures of even the simplest of foods from the home kitchen, to the streets, and to the numerous eateries, bistros, and restaurants back in my homeland and in the many places abroad where I've set my foot onto. 🍽 However, I only keep these thoughts and feelings for myself, perhaps out of my social awkwardness, timidity, and/or my tendencies to be taciturn (in addition to my conflicting idiosyncratic frugality), unless I'm asked—excuses, excuses, excuses, hehehe... Errr, did I even answer the question thrown at me at the beginning of this paragraph? 🤔

If I had to choose who my greatest inspiration is for all of my interests about food and cuisine, one would be my grandmother (from my mother's side). But my foremost inspiration is my very own mama.

I pause here meanwhile before even my first blog entry becomes too lengthy for a prelude. Certainly, I look forward for the brighter side of things. 🌈 The Philippines may be my original hearth, but I've now embraced the Land Down Unda 🐨 as my new home—at least for now.

À plus and stay tuned!

😊