Lobster Crepe on a bed of a ginger-carrot purée.

I've been freaking busy with my mid-term exams, it was a total nightmare. Anyway, this beautiful crepe is the result of my failure at trying to make Thomas Keller's Lobster Crepe with a ginger-carrots emulsion with a pea-shoots salad.

Since, I took the recipe, I can't really talk in detail about the recipe for copyright issues.

Where I failed in the recipe is at making the lobster demi-glace reduction and the carrot-ginger emulsion. The reduction was burnt while I was chopping carrots for the purée. I've simmered the lobster stock for like 1h30 and burning it made me feel like I've wasted the poor lobsters that I cruelly killed. The other fail was the emulsion, I just don't have a freaking juicer. So I've made a purée instead.

Basically the recipe is quite simple and taste better than dried lobster crepe that you pay for like 24-30$ in a restaurant.

So the equation is simple which sum up as = lobster filling+ crepe+ purée.

Only 3 elements!!

Yield for

1) Lobster filling

Note that the demi-glacé reduction was supposed to be mix in the filling, I didn't do it and it still taste very good! Will it taste it better? Maybe, but check your cost-benefit :p

Anyway, for the lobster, I followed Thomas Keller's method which is very smart and called: Steeping. Basically, the technic allow you to perfectly cook the lobster so the meat stays very tender instead being very tough. The way to cook lobster is simple, throw the lobster in a big casserole, fill it with water just enough to cover the lobsters. Then pour that water in an other casserole and boil it with a shot of vinegar in it. Then after reaching the boiling point, pour the water on the poor living creature and cover it. Wait like 2-3 min and then the tail is perfectly cook, so just rip off the tail and the pinces. Put the pinces back in the water for like another 5 min and don't forget to cover the lid. discard the body or do whatever you want with it.

Note: I really thought that they were going to die quickly, but not really, I had to watch them die in a painful death. Imagine someone is pouring boiling water on you :S

You'll notice how sweet, juicy and tender the meat is. Since not every part need the same time of cooking, throwing a whole lobster in boiling water or steaming pot will end-up having an overcook lobster. Thomas Keller also said that the biggest advantage of that method of cooking is that it's easier to put flavor in the meat, it's like manipulating raw fish.

So to remove the meat from the shell, for the tail, rip off the end of the tail by twisting it. Then you just need to push the tail through with your thumb. It's important to do it when the meat is still warm, it's easier. You can run a knife in the middle of the tail to remove the vein or the green thing :p

Anyway, just chop the meat and put it a mixing bowl. then add up like a heap of a big table spoon of mascarpone cheese, chopped chives, salt and pepper . I've added a little little amount of lemon juice to brighten the flavor. Add the salt at the end by the way, before serving, because the if you put the salt too soon before serving, it can draw out the water from the lobster and give you a soggy filling.

2) Crêpes

Basic crêpe recipe, 1 cup of milk + 1 cup of flour + pinch of salt+ 2-3 eggs.

I assume that everyone knows how to make crêpes.

To make it savory, you can add some chopped chives in the batter.

3) Purée

I took like 3-4 carrots and an inch of ginger that I sliced up. Just boil them in a small amount of water, when the carrots is tender, remove the ginger and purée it. Add up water to the desire consistency. Add salt and pepper + a little cube of butter. I like to have mine very smooth and I passed it through a sieve to make it smoother.

Presentation.

Put a heap of a tablespoon of the purée on the middle of the dish and with a circular movement make a circle.

Take a crepe and put a big heap of a table spoon of the filling in the middle of the crêpe, you want to be able to fold the crêpe, so go with the eye. With the tip of your finger, fold the border, little by little and put the crêpe on the purée. then you can brush it with melted butter to make a glossy look and u can put a little salad on the crêpe. ( very simple, like a baby spinach salade with a simple dressing like olive oil+ vingegar)

Bon Appétit.

The famous White chocolate tiramisu shortcake.

How did I come with an idea of combining a Tiramisu and a shortcake?? I think a saw a shortcake picture and the flash came up. Yeah, I'm always lost in my ideas and I'm always thinking about 1000 things at the same time and some of the ideas actually end-up being good ideas :D

So basically, for the tiramisu base, I took the idea of James Martin ( gotta give the credit) of combining a Sabayon to the mascarpone cheese.

Since this cake doesn't require any baking, I kinda went with the tumb :p.

I'm an accountant, so the equation of the cake is simple

(Sabayon + mascarpone) + melted white chocolate + folding whipped cream + dipped ladyfinger in a strawberry coulis = cake.

Sabayon

So I took 5 egg yolks, about 100gr of sugar ( 3/4 of a handful), a splash of Grand Marnier ( it enhances berries flavor) and whisk the mixture in a stainless steel bowl over steams ( bain-marie). Basically, you don't want your egg yolks to cuddle, so just whisk the damn thing continuously and vigorously for about 10 min. you want you mixture to tripple the size in volume by incorporating air.

this step is the first layer of flavor, you can add whatever you want, play with liquors ( kahlua, grand marnier, amaretto, whatever, vanilla essence, almond essence or even rose water ( not my personnal choice ))
Sabayon + mascarpone ( 474g)

Take a big spoon of the mascarpone and mix it in the sabayon to temper the mixture and it makes it easier to mix after with the rest of the cheese.
Melted white chocolate
Melt the white chocolate with a bain-marie, this way you don't burn the chocolat. To liquify it, just add a splash of milk. At this step, I melted 100g, it's up to you, I've tasted step one and it was already sweet.

Here is another layer of flavor, you can add whatever you want like melted chocolate, fruit coulis, whatever you want, be creative!

Whipped Cream
Since it was really sweet, I whisk 500 ml of cream (35%) till it has soft speaks, not totally whipped, because the cream will separate from the mixture. Then at this step, you ''fold'' the cream in the mixture, till it's homogenous.

Here you can add sugar if you want, but the mixture was already very sweet, because of the white chocolate. So just TASTE. When I do the classic tiramisu with coffee flavor, I like to dilute some instant coffee and add a shot of coffee liquor and a little bit of sugar.
Strawberry coulis

I took a box of 475g of fresh strawberry that was very sweet and not sour, and reduce it to a coulis in a blender with a shot of Grand Marnier, I didn't sweet it up, because the fruit was already very tasty. ( Let the ingredient speak by itself). After the coulis is done, I've passed it through a sieve to have a smooth coulis.
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THE BUILDING

I took a box of ladyfingers, I don't remember the size of it, it has like approx. 48? So take a lady finger, dip it quickly in the coulis and layer it in a big dish, pan, or whatever you want. Make a layer, then put a layer of your cream. Rinse and Repeat.

You can eat it right away, but I like to make the cake sit overnight so the ladyfingers absorb all the moisture and become very soft.

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So don't follow the recipe by the letters, try to create your own flavor like chocolate, mango, raspberry, lemon, whatever you want. Remember the basics and do whatever you want.

What's fun is that you CAN'T FAIL this recipe. The downside is that it cost a lot, like 30$ to make, but you will bring smile to everyone that eats it and that's priceless. An alternative for the mascarpone cheese is cream cheese with 31% fat, the one they use to make cheesecake. IMO, never compromise on the quality of ingredients hehe.

Bon appétit!

PS: FAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU FAT, CALORIES DO.

The Recipe for Success

After years of cooking and reading cookbooks, I still haven't got a clue about the recipe for success. My guess is that there's no such recipe. Like when you cook, you don't need a recipe to make things yummy, you just need quality ingredients and know how to maximize the flavor with them. So I guess that the most important ingredient for success is the HEART. Heart will give you the strength to persevere and walk through adversity and will ultimately open the door to success. I know it sounds cheesy and obvious, but sometime in life, we need a reminder on basic stuffs.

Today I've passed my '' Examen de stage'' which is the big exam that will allow the passage to the last semester. If You fail, you get another chance with the maximum score of C and if your GPA is below 2,7 you are out, so it's crucial that you don't fail. I've managed to pass it, not with the result I expected, but I'm still happy about it. I kinda choked up during the exam, but now I will have to step it up for the rest of the exams coming up.

By coming back to the CA program, I was hoping to get my redemption for getting kicked out because I didn't have the '' Heart'' to succeed unlike all my fellow collegues that are CA by now. Therefore, I came back for redemption. I could have moved on with my CGA, but I wanted to be a CA. I don't know if the redemption is about becoming a CA or proving to myself and to everyone that I could have done it if I had the '' Heart'' for it. So now, here I am, at the last step of the program, then the UFE. So what's the biggest change from me and then, it's STUDYING.... sounds obvious eh? But it takes '' Heart'' to study.

Funny facts is that I always keep telling myself that if I'm as good in accounting as in cooking, I will sure knock out the first place in Canada at the UFE hehe.

SO here's the recipe that I'm going to do for this week-end. I will use the tiramisu from the super british chef, James Martin, and add up a little twist on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWjExqjnK04 I put less sugar though.

The recipe is freaking fantastic, the sabayon makes all the differences in flavor.

So what I'm gonna do is to add melted white chocolate in the mascarpone cheese, like a bar ( 300g) to flavor it.

Then I'll make a strawberry coulis and dip the ladies finger in it and put a layer of the coulis on the cookie and then a layer of the mascarpone mix ( rinse and repeat) I'm still thinking about how to put the strawberries... like dice and folded in the mascarpone or thinly sliced and layer them? We will see this weekend hehe :p I don't like too much strawberry because I find them mostly acidic, but here it's kinda good to cut of the fat from the cheese. I will just sweet them up a bit with maple syrup and let them sit a bit. The idea came from a flash about how awesome would it be to combine tiramisu and strawberry shortcake hehe. Anyway, this is just an idea, the result will come out this week-end. Anyway, I'm pretty confident that it will taste amazing since I will put all my '' heart'' in it....

What I like about cooking, beside eating, is that when you know the basics, your imagination is your own limit. It's also a way to improve yourself. You pratice a recipe till you become good with it and then you bring it to another level and another level again, there's always home for improvement or flavor combination.

And for the tax exam coming up at the end of the month? I'm coming for you b*tch!

Stir-fried lobster in a ginger sauce for Mother's day.

So here is the story, there's a special of lobsters at Kim Phat ( best asian grocerie store) and my mom bought so many of them and asked me if I could do anything with it. So I decided to try to sauté them like they do in chinese restaurant. So thx to youtube and that old chinese madam, I've learned the basics of it.

So the first that came to my mind was what can I do to make it different. My guess is that usually in restaurants, they just dip the lobster in corn starch, fried them and sauté them. Then I decided to put some flavor in the dip with cayenne pepper for heat, garlic powder because it's so good and salt and pepper. So my twist was to put some flavors on the crisp.

So here's the result:)

I don't have a recipe so I kinda free-styled it.

In a big bowl put some flour, add about a tsp of cayenne pepper, garlic powder and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Then toss the lobster pieces in the bowl to coat them.

Then fry each pieces, I didn't time how long, but just go with the eyes :)

save the pieces.


Sauté

Get a wok ( cause it's chinese) or a sauté pan and put a couple of spoons of the frying oil

Add a couple of ginger slices and scallion to flavor the oil.

Sautée them till they are brown and remove from the pan or wok.

Then add the lobsters pieces.

Put a shot of sherry wine ( replaced the Shao Xing wine), a shot of oyster sauce, a shot of soy sauce.

Sautée them

Taste and add salt and pepper to season it.

note: To add some more flavors, I could have added a spoon of butter to the oil and after removing the ginger and scallions, I could added some diced green bell pepper and oignons.

Please enjoy lol

Tax exam!

Oh Gosh, I luv tax so much that I want to cry! Tears of joy!

To force us to study taxes, the program decided that the mid-term exam will be about our 3 tax courses together! OMG there is so much stuff to know, but I'm pretty confident that I'll get through!

This weekend is mother's day, so I should be cooking some stuff, more on that later ;)