French Fridays with Dorie - Potato Chip Tortilla

A simple and fun recipe this week, we got to make Potato Chip Tortilla for French Fridays with Dorie. Just as the name clearly states, we had to use potato chips, the very kind that comes out of a bag! I don't know about you, but that to me was thrilling not because of the processed chips but because of the unexpected element and creativity of whoever first thought up the recipe. 

All we had to do was open up a bag of chips, crush them with our fingers (yummy!) and stir them into an egg mixture before frying it into a tortilla. Or rather, a loaded omelette tortilla. I bought myself a bag of crinkle-cut potato chips flavored with Sweet Thai Chilli... seriously delicious on its own but even better in this tortilla. Yes, trust me.

Dorie suggested several herbs such as basil, parsley or cilantro be included in the egg mixture, but I only had fresh purple basil, oregano and spring onions from my garden so I simply used those. And a mild red chilli pepper that I deseeded completely was also added to offer a burst of color to the tortilla. This makes a quick and easy appetizer and is a definite feature in our upcoming dinner parties. The other great thing about this recipe is that you can use more than one type of flavored potato chips (salt and vinegar, mesquite BBQ, hot and spicy, sour cream and chives, etc) which allows you to set up several tortilla stations in your buffet according to the different flavors. Or even have a mix of them in one big serving platter. The boring hostess you certainly will not be!

Our cooking group does not publish any of Dorie's recipes but if you're keen on joining our weekly cook-along, you can get yourself a copy of Around My French Table here. For other versions of this potato chip tortilla, please check out the group's attempts here.

I'll have something beautiful, something festive for you on Monday so watch out for that. You'll want to make it even if you don't celebrate Christmas. Well I did, and gave these away to friends! :)

In the meantime, I wish everyone a brilliant weekend!

French Fridays with Dorie - Matafan

So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living.

~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I returned home from my foot massage session to this. Fluffy. Mashed potatoes. Pancakes. Don't these four words sound really good to you? Put them consecutively together in one sentence and you've got the perfect thing to start off or complement your meal, or simply to patch up those pesky hunger pangs. Matafan, that's what they're called in France and this is our French Fridays with Dorie recipe this week. 

You would make these savory pancakes not by way of a regular pancake batter. The potatoes need to be roasted with salt for just over an hour and passed through a sieve or potato ricer. I admit I did neither, instead I boiled little slices of potatoes and mashed them with my old-fashioned potato masher. In fact, preparing the matafan batter only took me a mere 20 minutes or so to do. The photoshoot session might have taken longer to orchestrate.... :).

As I bit into the first matafan, I was expecting a pancake-y texture but it wasn't like that at all. In fact, it tasted a lot like mashed potatoes contained within a pancake! Or perhaps more accurately, a mashed potato fritter. I made mine as blini-sized appetizers, topped with creme fraiche and basil-roasted chicken strips. According to my food-obsessed brain, they were totally delicious and matafan definitely needs to be on our regular rotation from now on.

I bet the other Doristas had their own revelations about matafan, and if you'd like to be in on what they are, have a look here.

Foot massage was great... but these fluffy potato pancakes were even better!

Have a fab weekend, everyone!

Crazy Cooking Challenge - Mashed Potato Spring Rolls

Sometimes we will hit the target but miss the self. At other times we will miss the target but hit the self. Our purpose, though, is to hit the target as the self and hope that the sharp sound of arrow penetrating paper will awaken us from the so-called 'dream of life' and give us real insight into the ultimate state of being.

~ Hideharu Onuma sensei, Japanese Kyudo archery

It seemed like I had simply disappeared over the past week or so, but in reality, I am still here. Just holding off on blogging while tending to my (rather neglected) life. That's the trouble with passion sometimes, you can get so thoroughly consumed by it at the expense of everything else in your life. Okay, when I write "you", who I'm really talking about is myself. I went off to tend to my garden because the weeds had started to overrun my beautiful patches and it was time to pull them out and discard them. Yes, metaphorically speaking :-).

So to start off this week, I'm back for another Crazy Cooking Challenge, this time sharing a recipe from Momofuku for 2 blog. Tina of Mom's Crazy Cooking, as host of the challenge declared this month's theme to be "Mashed Potatoes" and I thought....wow, what a breeze! Well, I couldn't be more wrong because there are thousands (if not more) mashed potato recipes out there and it proved really hard to decide which one to showcase for this post. 

In the end, I settled for this Mashed Potato Spring Rolls recipe posted by Steph of Momofuku for 2. In case you haven't come across her blog, this is a woman who has cooked and eaten her way through all of David Chang's Momofuku Cookbook and this recipe was adapted out of that book. Steph has no official association with the Momofuku brand, chain or David Chang, but she'a a huge Momofuku fan and enjoys cooking their recipes at home for her and her husband (who's the 'for 2' person).

I, on the other hand, chose this recipe not because it was created by food Sifu, Chang but due to a variety of other reasons which I shall list here:

1. It contains mashed potato (right on theme).

2. It includes bread (we all know carb on carb = sinful, but oh-so-irresistible!).

3. There is frying involved (I know, it's starting to sound bad but bear with me).

4. There is 'spring roll' in the recipe title (although I just realized that mine looked more pop-tartlike than cylindrical).

5. It contains some heat and a green vegetable (which to me negate 1-3 above).

In case you're wondering, yes, it does taste as lovely as it looks....great as a snack or appetizers. Although after you've finished two, you probably won't want to eat anything else because of the thought that it'll take roughly 200 hours on the treadmill to work all this off! 

For a mashed potato overload, head over to the blogs listed in the linky below. Go on, show them some love and oh, don't forget to vote for your favorites.

Mashed Potato Spring Rolls
(recipe from Momofuku For 2)
Serves: 2

4 slices white bread
1/4 cup mashed potato
2 green beans, cooked and sliced in two
pinch shichimi togarashi
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg yolk

oil for frying
sriracha for dipping

1. Trim the crusts from the bread and using a rolling pin, roll out each bread slice to a thin 3-by-5-inch rectangle.

2. In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes and togarashi; season with salt and pepper. 

3. Brush the edges of 4 bread rectangles with the egg yolk mixture. Shape 1 tablespoon of the potato mixture into a log along a long edge of a rectangle, leaving 1/2 inch on each end. Top with half a green bean. Tightly roll up the bread to form a cylinder; press the ends together to seal. Repeat with the remaining bread and potato mixture.

4. In a skillet, heat the oil on medium high. Add half of the rolls and fry, turning occasionally, until well-browned, about 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer to paper towels. Repeat with the remaining rolls. Serve with sriracha.

French Fridays with Dorie - Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar

I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means that I'm alive.
~ Brene Brown

There's a certain amount of excitement and dread experienced in the French Fridays with Dorie camp in connection with this week's recipe - Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar (well two jars, actually). The feeling for me was akin to the thrill of jumping off a bridge knowing full well that the only thing that determines whether you experience the exhilaration of an upwards tug or plunge down to a massive splat on the ground is that elastic cord attached to your body. Okay, perhaps that bungy jumping analogy is more drama than is called for but to be honest, I've never cured anything before, let alone raw fish, so I was really looking forward to the challenge!

 My first time - I'm no longer a 'savory-food-in-a-jar' virgin!

Bruce Lee and the Amazing Technicolor Gratin

Update: This gratin made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz. Thank you for all the love-buzzes and more importantly, for stopping by with your kindest words about the loss of our Bruce Lee. I have the best friends, readers and followers!

The plan was to make this gratin completely potato-filled, but I couldn't get hold of regular (orange) sweet potatoes so I added carrots instead. Then the dilemma came up as to whether I should call this a potato gratin because of the presence of the carrots. Well, at least I can call it pretty, yes, that's it... a pretty, colorful sidekick to any entrée on a plate.

When I made this, I also ran out of fresh herbs (yes, it was one of those blaaah, bland days in the pantry), but if I'd had some, I would've sprinkled oregano or thyme along with the cheese and imagined this creamy gratin would've tasted even better than it already did.

Anyway, I do have to warn you that the hardest part about making this dish is the slicing involved. If you don't have a mandoline and you plan to make this, perhaps now's the time to invest in one! The vegetables have to be thin enough for the layers to sit together comfortably and elegantly. I alternated rows of carrots, regular potatoes and purple sweet potatoes until I reached the end of the baking pan. The pieces of chopped garlic at the bottom of the dish, hidden underneath all the potatoes, carrots, cream and cheese, provided the lovely savory flavor.

As soon as the dish came out of the oven, it dawned on me that the color of the purple sweet potatoes had surrepticiously seeped out and tainted the whole gratin slightly lilac. Oh well, it was still pretty and more importantly, tasted pretty darn good!

I know that the kids in this house will read this blog someday and because of that, I wanted to give a special mention of our beautiful, white cat. He died last night after a bout of illness, leaving the kids (and adults) distraught. He had only been with us for a little less than six months but even when we'd first brought him into our household, he was already a sickly little fellow. The kids adored him completely and on his good days, he eagerly awaited their return from school so they could play with him. Other than that, he was my constant companion in the kitchen, curling up quietly in the warmest spot on the rug. He was such a well-behaved cat, a complete anomaly in our experience with felines so far.

We named him Bruce Lee, perhaps subconciously wishing that he would be as strong as his superstar namesake. Like his namesake though, his passing was untimely. A million trips (it was a lot) to the vet couldn't fix what was raging inside his tiny broken body and when he finally took his last breath, he was wrapped in warm blankets, ironically, in the kitchen. This morning we buried Bruce Lee in our garden, under the shade of one of our many fruit trees. Before they left for school, the children picked some colorful tropical flowers to place carefully upon his burial site.

The house suddenly seems so quiet today. Yes, we're totally missing him.

Our beautiful Bruce Lee, RIP.

Technicolor Gratin with Potatoes, Carrots and Purple Sweet Potatoes
Serves: 4 to 6 people
Ingredients:
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
Unsalted butter, for baking dish
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
1 large purple sweet potato, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
1 large carrot, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
Sea salt and pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Handful of shredded Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Butter the inside of an ovenproof dish, around 12 x 8.5-inch, and at least 6cms deep. Rub dish with 2 halves of one garlic clove. Dice the garlic and place them at the bottom of the dish; set aside.

2. In a pot, heat the milk and heavy cream. Add the pinch of nutmeg and remaining garlic, which has been finely diced. Bring to a simmer and then turn off the heat.

3. Tightly arrange the potato and carrot slices inside the dish, alternating between 1 layer of potatoes, purple sweet potatoes and carrot. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

4. Pour the milk/cream batter over the vegetables – mixture should cover the vegetables. Season with sea salt and pepper. Top with the grated Parmesan cheese.

5. Bake the gratin for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until the top is a golden color. When the mixture bubbles while it is being baked, purple color will seep from the purple sweet potatos and the gratin will take on a lilac hue. Serve warm as a side dish.

Eggs On a Cloud

My second International Incident Party - the theme this month is *Eggs* and the party's co-hosted by Penny of  Jeroxie and and Trix of Tasty Trix. Wonderful, the culinary intepretation of this theme is greater than our outer galaxy (custards, souffles, cheesecake, French toast, creme brulee, bla, bla, etc), so how do I go about this? Thanks Penny, the egg theme has really made me think... hard.

Okay, so this is it. I decided to depict the humble egg in as narrow an intepretation as I could muster - it still looked very much like an egg. Have you ever tried the breakfast dish, Eggs On A Cloud? Not the French version of oeufs à la neige (snow eggs or floating islands on crème anglaise), no, that's way too hard/early for breakfast. Mine is an easy, breakfast eggs-on-toast version and it looks... interesting.  And more than a little pretty. I mean, can you just imagine cutting through a runny, half-baked egg yolk sitting amidst an airy, cloud of egg-white? Mmmmm.... I definitely can.

Eggs on a Cloud with Tomato-Pear Stack topped with Buttered Mashed Potatoes

I started with the bread, and reckoned that since the egg was going to be light, the base has got to be quite sturdy and filling. Multigrain wholemeal bread seemed to fit the bill, so I went ahead and baked a lovely loaf. What can I say? I had time to kill.

I lurrrve my bread fresh!

Tomatoes usually feature in this type of breakfast dish, so I sliced some, coated them in white rice crumbs (gluten-and-everything-free; it's my recent great find!) and toasted them under a grill. There was this pretty Forelle pear sitting forlornly in the fridge and so like a fairy Godmother-wannabe, I decided it should join the Eggs party. Skin on, cored and sliced, I stacked the pear up alternately with the tomatoes and topped it all with some (very runny) mashed potato. Not even an oil drop in sight, and if that's not a healthy breakfast, I don't know what is.

If you're wondering what Eggs on a Cloud tastes like, well, it tastes very much like egg. LOL, well what did you expect? Saying that, texturally the airy egg cloud feels much like cotton candy does in your mouth! That's the best description I can think of. Thanks again to Penny and Trix for being the perfect hosts of this eggstraordinary party. Now go and check out what the other participants did with their eggs (scroll right down to the bottom for the links).

Tomato slices encrusted with white rice crumbs

Tomato-Pear Stack

 

Before and after

Eggs On a Cloud

Serves: 4
Ingredients:
Eggs
4 slices bread
4 large eggs, separated
salt and pepper, to taste

Stack:
4 tomatoes, sliced thickly
2 large pears, cored and sliced across
2 large potatoes, sliced, boiled and drained
2 tablespoons butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

2. Prepare the stack first. Dip the cut sides of the tomatoes in white rice crumbs and toast under a hot grill for about 10 minutes until the crumbs turn golden. Remove from the oven and stack the pears in between the crusted tomatoes.

3. Blend the hot, boiled potatoes with the butter and spoon on top of the stack. If it is still hot, it will be runny. Cool slightly if you want it to stay on top of the stack.

4. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a mixing bowl until fluffy and stiff peaks have formed. Spoon egg whites and shape into pretty "clouds" on each slice of bread, forming a dent in the center. Slide an egg yolk into the center of each egg white well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to season or if you want, some grated Parmesan or chilli powder for a bit of spiciness!

5. Place bread and egg slices on a baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until the egg whites are lightly golden and egg yolks are just set. Remove tray from oven and using a large, sturdy spatula, plate Eggs on a Cloud immediately. Serve warm with the tomato-pear-potato stacks.

Battle Strategy: Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing

Vote for ME!

As soon as I found out last week that I was to compete in the next Foodie Fights battle, I went searching for my dusty Battle Cap, already long ago discarded to a distant corner of my memory. Preparing to go into battle, I was reminded of the heart of the message contained in Sun Tzu’s Art of War – “To thine own self be true”. Hell, I even own a ring bought from The Barber’s Daughter that depicts this phrase, so convinced was I that Shakespeare had penned this line just for me! Whatever. I shall be true to myself and push the envelope for this battle.

After having a rather restless night, I started strategizing about what dish I was going to push forward to the frontline. The two ingredients that are a must: Cucumber and Black Pepper. Cool and hot. The two extremes, so far so good.

Whipped out my notebook and began brainstorming up something I’ve never made before (and hopefully, have never been made by anybody else, although I would never really know. Even Google has its limitations!). This process is called “Learning how to make a meal without looking at a cookbook". LOL. 

After working the chemistry out in my head, I’d decided on a Smörgåsbord of flavors packaged into a deliciously comforting appetizer called (brace yourself!) : Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing. A mouthful certainly, but I really wanted to showcase the main ingredients in it!

  The star players.

Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing
Makes: 16 “Towers”

Ingredients:
Cucumber-Mascarpone Layer
1 cucumber
1 teaspoon salt
125g Mascarpone cheese
1 egg-white

Lemongrass-Chicken Layer
3 pieces boneless chicken breasts, sliced
2 sticks lemongrass, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2 shallots, sliced
1 egg
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

Potato-Capsicum Layer
1 red pepper
4 medium potatoes
100g butter

Black Pepper-Lime Dressing
4 limes
2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
5 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt

Method:

This is a relatively easy and tasty appetizer to make and truthfully, it really helps if you’re organized and seasoned at the biz of multitasking. I say this not to put you off but the preparation process for the three layers are staggered and everything only comes together at the end for the baking part. This is the order of the baking process: Lemongrass chicken first, Potato layer second, then all three layers together. Hope you’re still with me! *grins*

First things first - preheat the oven to 200°C, then prepare the layers as follows:

Lemongrass-Chicken Layer

1. Place the chicken meat, carrots, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, egg and olive oil in a food processor and mix until it becomes a paste. Season with salt and pepper and process further. (Note: For the lemongrass, slice thinly towards the root end and discard the green leafy end).

2. Press a tablespoonful of the mixture into the bottom of a muffin cup and push down lightly to flatten. Cook the chicken patties in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

3. Turn the patties out of the muffin tray, set aside and go cook the potato layer.

Lemongrass-Chicken patties, good enough to eat on their own. That lemongrass flavor is so seductive, the chicken has no choice but to feel (and taste) sexy around it!

Capsicum-Potato Layer

1. Roast the capsicum under a hot grill/broiler until the skin chars and splits. Let it cool slightly, then peel off skin and dice the capsicum.

2. Peel the potatoes, cut into chunks and boil until cooked. Drain the water and place the potatoes in a bowl.

3. Add the butter and diced capsicum to the potatoes and blend everything together with a potato-masher. There will still be chunky bits of capsicum in there, and that’s ok, it’s part of the masterplan.*winks*
4. Press a tablespoonful of the potato-capsicum layer into the bottom of a muffin cup and bake for 10 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven, place a chicken patty on top of the potato layer and set aside while you prepare the last stage which is the cucumber layer.

The act of mashing was good, cheap therapy. I thought of all the people who'd ever been rude to me and oh, how wonderful it would be to just squish them like so!

Cucumber-Mascarpone Layer
1. Peel the cucumber and slice into thin strips along its length, discard seedy core. My favourite way to produce these thin strips is to use a potato peeler. Add salt to the cucumber and leave in a bowl for 15 minutes to draw the moisture out. Squeeze cucumber, drain the water and set aside. (Do this part while the potatoes are boiling and the chicken patties are in the oven – Multitasking, see?).
2. Just before baking, beat the Mascarpone lightly to soften it. In another bowl, whisk the egg-white into stiff peaks and fold gently into the Mascarpone.
3. Take the muffin tray with the potato and chicken patty layer already in it and place a few strips of cucumber on top of the patty. Spoon the Mascarpone mixture on top of the cucumber julienne and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and puffy. Leave in the tray to cool for 10 minutes before turning out carefully. Serve with black pepper-lime dressing to bring out the different flavours.

Black Pepper-Lime Dressing

1. Squeeze lime juice into a small bowl. Add olive oil and salt.

2. Crack black peppercorns in a grinder or using a pestle and mortar. Add this to the lime dressing and drizzle over the cooked "tower" just before serving.

Cracked black peppercorns in a tangy lime-olive oil dressing. Sizzle, Crackle and Zinggggg!

Oh, you're still here? Thought I'd lost you at the first layer! Anyway, you can serve and enjoy the dish like this but if you're a masochist like me, then you'll go on and make the phyllo "wings" to embrace this dish. It's easy, just take a sheet of phyllo pastry and rub olive oil on both sides. Cut into 1-inch wide strips and drape into the muffin cups (below). Bake at 200°C for about a minute, keep an eye as it burns fast!

Carefully insert a tower in between the wing, garnish with some more cucumber strips and finally drizzle some dressing on top.

PS. Hope you enjoyed the post, and apologies if it was starting to read like an epic. I wanted you to feel the pain. LOL! Don't forget to go to Foodie Fights and vote for me... Heart ya!