Only_Oli (The O_Zone)

The best Garlic Mayo on the planet is the one I have at my brother-in-law’s place in the South of France…..

Check out his recipe….

So easy to do and super nice as an aperitif dish or as the main cheese dish.

Make some fresh bread or pitta bread to dip into the melted cheese.

Simply scoop a teaspoon or 2 out of the middle of the Camembert, put a bit of whisky into the hole, and then pick a few branches of thyme herb from the garden around the circumference.

Put into the oven at 180 degrees celsius for 10 minutes until melting in the middle.

Use a dish of the correct size so that the whole cheese does not pour out into your oven!

There is plenty of fun designs here!

Like a mini cheese fondue. Delicious…

Been cursing the bloody Virus again. Was looking forward to a nice family get together for this Christmas and it all fell apart.

The new Omicron variant is raging through London and soon will be everywhere in Europe etc…it is said to be mild but it crushes ours hopes for any get together with the grandparents or even parties of more than a few people.

Everybody is trying to protect their own families.

Jules got tested positive just before Xmas. Thankfully, his girlfriend was able to travel to her parents before and my parents had already decided not to come to the house anyway. So it was just a major bother for Jules really…

As we always do as a family, we made the most of it and had a lot of fun. Manu made sure that there were presents under the tree even if we could not go shopping. And she even. found a HAZMAT suit to make sure that Jules would be able to join us for the Xmas evening. There were a few tears here and there but more laughs about it all.

Obviously, there was a lot of cooking involved as well…with my dry-cured ham slowly getting ready. It has been a month and still only 50% of the way ready. It has nice white mould growing on it, but also a bit of Blue/green mould so I cleaned them up a bit and removed the muslin to help with the drying process.

It has been raining a lot this past 2 weeks and the humidity in the garage is a bit too high.

But the taste is very nice and it smells good as well.

Made some nice tempura of Asparagus and Onions. I cooked in Avocado oil on the new induction cooker using the frying function which is excellent to keep the oil hot but not burning…a really nice purchase. Keeps the temperature of the oil around 180-200 which for the avocado oil is OK.

The tempura pastry was very nice :

1 egg yolk

125g of Tapioca Flour/Starch (from the Chinese market)

125g of cold sparkling water

1/2 teaspoon of Salt

1/2 teaspoon of Baking powder

and some Plain flour to adjust the consistency until the batter is very runny but still sticks to the vegetables.

Cook in the pan with at least a couple of centimetres of oil in pan.

Want to make some egg benedict’s so need to learn to do the Hollandaise properly! I will use the Kenwood chef to see if can make the sauce quickly.

Ingredients:

• 125g Melted Butter
• 1 Tablespoon of Lime or Lemon juice.
• 2 egg yokes (or 3 for a thicker sauce)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

How to make :

• Put the egg yokes in a double boiler or warm them in the Kenwood at 65 degrees celsius. Fluff them up with the Lemon juice so they go a little pale in colour. This is an important step. The eggs need to be “whiter” and the sauce does stick to the whisk already.
• Melt all the butter in a separate pan making sure it does not go brown. Do it slowly.
• Add the butter to the egg yokes in small quantities like you would make mayonnaise.
• Keep stirring until all the butter is mixed and you have a silky sauce.
• Make sure you do not heat-up the sauce too much as it will curd if it is too hot. Mix constantly. If you need to “recover” a split hollandaise you add a little bit of water (1 or 2 tablespoons) and mix it to get the sauce back.
• Hollandaise sauce is not easy to master, if you get the creamy sauce as expected, take it off the heat to make sure it does not curd.

Can keep the sauce in a thermos for a couple of hours or keep on low heat (60 to 65 degrees Celsius). It is also possible to “flavour” the sauce by cooking separately some shallots for example and collecting the butter through a sieve, adding this flavoured butter to the rest of the butter.

Serve with a nice toast of bread and some poached eggs.

A typical Sunday must have….super easy to make and perfect to boost the early winter morale.

The only problem is that you need a special tray to cook them!

Ingredients:

• 100g Melted Butter
• 100g Flour
• 100g Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
• 1 Lime juice and its Zest.

How to make :

• !! Do not forget to butter and flour the tray….
• Fluff the eggs and sugar with a beater in the Kenwood. (the whisk one)
• Add the lime/lemon and lime/lemon zest. (I prefer lime taste but both are nice)
• Add the butter and flour and baking powder
• Mix until smooth mixture and then let it rest for 20 minutes. Note the consistency in the picture of the filled trays,
• Preheat the over at 200 degrees celsius.
• Distribute the mixture on the tray which has been buttered and floured. Do not overfill the tray pockets. This is important !…
• Cook for 8 to 10 minutes.
• The sign of a perfect madeleine is when there is a small volcano forming at the top…
• Let them cool on a wire rack for a few minutes but eat quickly as it is nicer very fresh

Perfect with a coffee after lunch or as a quick snack mid-day.