Only_Oli (The O_Zone)

This is quite an undertaking but it is worth the effort. It is originally south of France dish made out of a whole bunch of “extra” fish from the day’s catch. However, it has evolved over the years as a very sophisticated dish and many recipes can be found on the internet with everyone claiming to be the original.

Mine is not the original…it is my version or more accurately a patchwork of things I found on the internet…

It is a fish stew but it is “assembled” at the end so that all the fish and shellfish are cooked just right.

You will cook most of the fish in one pot but keep the cooked fish separate until the assembly of the dish at the end.

Ingredients :

• Fish: Monk Fish, Cod, Red Snapper, Seam Bream
• Shellfish: Mussels (pre-cooked as bland as possible) / Tiger prawns / Octopus (very small quantity) / Squid
• 8 Carrots / 1 Fennel / 2 Onions / 3 Leeks / Small potatoes
• 1 tin/dollop of Tomato concentrate and a can of chopped tomatoes.
• 3 cloves of Garlic / A little Curly Parsley for garnishing
• SAFFRON / bouquet garni / Salt / Pepper / Olive oil for cooking / butter
• White wine to deglaze / Pernod (optional for extra anis taste)
• Rouille (spicy mayonnaise) / Bread Toasts

How to make :

• First, boil the peeled potatoes in salty water with a little bit of Saffron to give the potatoes some colour. Once cooked, keep potatoes in a separate bowl and keep the water of cooking as it will be part of the broth later. Better to under-cook a little here, as we will warm them later and finish the cooking then.
• Chop the onions and garlic, cook in the dutch oven with a fair bit of olive oil and a dollop of butter. Give a bit of colour but not dark.
• Chop carrots / Fennel / Leaks but keep some pieces for steaming separately. Try to ensure that all plates will get a couple of pieces of carrot and a couple of pieces of the leak.
• Steam the reserved vegetables and keep in a separate bowl until assembly at the end.
• Put carrots and leeks and fennel in the dush oven with the onions etc…and stir over strong heat. Let some colour develop and olive oil coating the vegetables. Add pepper and a very little salt. (salt will come with the fishes as they cook later so do not over salt here)
• Add the Tomatoes concentrate and the can of tomatoes and deglaze with the white wine. Keep stirring over strong heat.
• Add the reserved broth from the cooking of the potatoes.
• Add some Saffron to the soup. Keep the heat going.
• Chop the heads off the tiger prawns and put the HEADS in the soup. (THe true recipe would have also all the other parts of the fishes and in some recipes, the fishes are cooked “whole” in the soup. I prefer to use filets and skinned fish. The prawns are perfect to give the extra fish taste and make the blending a lot easier.
• You should now have a large casserole of boiling soup in which you are going to cook/poach the fishes.
• I make 5 to 7cm pieces of monkfish and cod. I keep the sea bream and the red snapper in filets.
• Cook, in the same way, the tiger prawn tails. Keep all of the fishes and tails in a large ovenproof container until final assembly.
• Now remove the bouquet garni from the soup but leave the tiger prawn heads and blend everything to a very fine creamy soup.
• I cook the Octopus and Squid in olive oil with a few spices/herbs de Provence in a frying pan.
• I re-heat the mussels in a saucepan with a lid. (mini steaming)
• Cut some large pieces of bread and toast.
• Re-heat the fish / Potatoes / Carrots / Leeks either with a steamer or in the oven covered with aluminium.
• Once everything is hot you can assemble back into a plate.
• Pour the blended soup over all of the fish pieces and mussels etc…. garnish with the Bread toast with a good dollop of rouille and some curly parsley.

A true effort but all worth it at the end…..make large quantities so you can have leftovers because you will want to eat some again tomorrow…

Too easy to make ….to not make it from scratch…

Ingredients :

• 250 g Plain flour
• 110g Butter / 2 to 3 Tablespoons of water for pastry
• Pinch of Salt

• 3 Eggs
• 200g Pancetta or smoked bacon cubes (be careful so it is not too salty)
• 40 cl Cream (a UK sized small pot is fine)
• 100g (or more !) of Gruyere Cheese or Mild Cheddar.
• Nutmeg / Pepper

How to make Pastry :

• Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and add the butter cut in small cubes.
• Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly so that it does not become greasy. Add a few tablespoons of water to make a fairly tight dough.
• Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 10-15 minutes before using.

How to make the Quiche Lorraine :

• Put the dough in a cooking tray / make holes in the pastry with a fork
• Cook Pancetta separately in a frying pan
• Mix eggs / Cream / Cheese and Bacon in a bowl
• Add Pepper / Nutmeg (avoid salt)
• Cook for 45 minutes in the oven at 180c in the fan oven, but close to the bottom to help cook the base. Or even better, use the bottom heat function of the oven.

Been a long time coming, bought the kit to make cheese probably 18 months ago….found the time and patience to try my first Mozzarella.

I am very pleased with my first go, however, it is quite fiddly and definitely needs a good thermometer to get the cheese to behave as expected.

I was inspired to make some for myself by Alex.

Ingredients :

• 8 Pints or 5.5L of Whole Milk (the blue bottles in the UK)
• 11g Citric Acid (on amazon / might try Lemon Juice someday)
• 1/4 Rennet Tablet (Check with tablet manufacturer but this would be plenty enough)
• Salt for seasoning and optionally Herbs to give a different flavour

How to make :

Put the cold milk in a large casserole and put on medium heat to avoid burning the bottom of the milk.  (use Fresh whole milk (pasteurized))

I use 2 UK size jugs of milk of 4 pints each for a total of 8pints or 5.5Liters

As the milk is heating up put the citric acid into the casserole. The dosage is 2g citric acid for each litre of milk. Dilute the citric acid into / 1/4 cup water.

Warm the milk on a soft flame to 32 degrees celsius mixing gently to avoid hot spots

Once you reached the target temperature,  a quarter of a tablet of rennet diluted in water. Stir the liquid into the milk gently for 30 seconds.

Time to wait. Let the milk/curd rest for 30 minutes until you can create a clean break with your finger in the curd that has started in the casserole. You can wait 45 minutes if  a “clean break” does not happen immediately. Ideally, we want the milk to stay warm at 32 degrees so do not leave the casserole in a cold place.

Cut some criss-cross through the curd, approximately 3 cm apart from each other. Then put back on the medium heat and bring the curd up to 43 celsius. Stay at 43 degrees for 5 minutes. All the curd should separate nicely. Spin the curd gently for an even heat distribution but do not break the curd pieces to avoid a big mess.

Using a slotted spoon transfer the curd to a colander to drain the “petit lait” (weigh). Be gentle try to work the colander in circles to remove the “weigh” from the curd.
This technique will be used again later when the curd is super hot (82 degrees) from the microwave.

Slide the “dry” curd and transfer into a wide container which can go in the microwave.

Put curd in the microwave oven on full heat and heat up until the curd is at 82 degrees. This is the temperature were the curd will be warm enough to make elastic strands and will accept to be shaped like kneading bread dough. I tend to split the main curd into smaller batches (4) to make it easier to heat-up and handle.

This is very hot to handle so have running cold water for your fingers. Knead the cheese as you would do with bread dough. Gently. Try to roll into a ball with a tuck-in technique. Some people use gloves for this part to avoid getting burns on their fingers. I find the cold running water method simple. If the curd is at the right temperature it will go stringy and make a shiny ball. This is the point you add the salt or other spices to give a taste to the mozzarella. I prefer just salt.

If you do not get to a shiny ball, it is because you did not heat-up enough the curd in the microwave. Try again. All is not lost yet…

Once you have the balls shaped, put into the fridge. BUT !…make sure you wrap each one in cling film to avoid them going to dry….made that mistake….

Enjoy!

Update :

Although the first Mozzarella was nice and tasty, I think I should have stretched it a lot more. I should have brought the temperature of the cheese higher (a proper 82 degrees) so that it would “really” stretch and create those stringy lines within the Mozzarella. Also, putting the balls into cling film is a must to avoid the drying off.

I use this recipe but I do not use cinnamon and I used red port instead of the white one recommended in the recipe.

This is a recipe that used to be the “standard” at weddings and other large family occasions. Over the years it has disappeared from the chefs’ menus to be replaced by a lot simpler chicken dishes to optimise costs and profit.

It requires a little bit of preparation time but it is very nice and can still make a big impression on the plate for a friends dinner.

Ingredients:

• Chicken legs and/or tights as you prefer
• bechamel
• Mushrooms (with shallots if wanted)
• Chicken stock cubes
• parsley
• butter

How to make :

• Cook the chicken legs/tights in a chicken stock pot.
• Once cooked take all the meat off the bones and discard any cartilages and skin
• Keep some of the stock for the next steps
• Chop the mushrooms and add some parsley and let simmer (use a bit of the chicken stock for this0
• Make a fairly thick bechamel. (melt butter, then add a bit of flour, then add water to reach required thickness)
• Mix all the ingredients and add to the Vol au Vent cases.
• Finish in the oven before serving.

Optional, get all men out of the kitchen and get them to do “manual” tasks such as taking out weeds from the grass in the garden…

This is for reference only :

Fresh yeast quantities are usually 2.5X to 3.0X the equivalent in dry yeast.

17.5-21g fresh = 7g dry

30-35g fresh = 10 – 14g dry