Ooey, Gooey, Yet Somewhat Chewy, Mushroom Risotto

by Steve, Sydney (Australia)

This dish was brought to life in the year 1683 when the fussy King Solomon demanded his chef create “a healthy serving of poetry in a bowl”.
The chef was beheaded, and the dish initially considered a failure.But since, it was resurrected due to the high praise from Julia Child’s horticultural technician – who ironically claimed: “it’s a lovely limmerick of flavours”.
Though King’s Solomons chef may have included one ryhme too many, he did manage to create a dish of that is unquestionalbly ooey, gooey, yet somewhat chewy.

It’s rich creamy flavour, combined with fresh ingredients of mushroom, chicken, asparagus, parmesan, and pine nuts makes for a nice hearty autumn dish.

Serve with a nice glass Chablis and crusty bread, snuggled up close to the fire with your lover and/or cat. Follow this up with crême brulée and you will hear ‘purrrrrr’s” all around.

• Servings: 6
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 30 minutes
  • Cooking: 45 minutes
• Ingredients:
  • 500g of arborio rice
  • 1 medium onion
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 500g of sliced mushrooms
  • 20 spears of baby asparagus
  • half a bunch of celery
  • 1 large chicken breast (thinly sliced)
  • 400ml of white wine
  • 6 cups of chicken stock
  • 50g of pine nuts (toasted)
  • 80g parmesan cheese (grated)
  • parsley for garnish
  • sliced kalamata olives for garnish
  • 4 tablesppons of extra virgin olive oil
  • salt, pepper
• Steps:
  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot, on medium heat.
  2. Add chopped garlic.
  3. Chop celery and onion, fine.
  4. Add to oil and cook for 10 minutes until becomes translucent.
  5. Raise heat, add rice and cook for 2 minutes until rice becomes translucent.
  6. Add the wine and stir until fully absorbed, then lower heat to medium.
  7. Add 5 cups of the chicken stock, 1 cup at a time, until each is absorbed, stir frequently.
  8. In a seperate pan, cook mushrooms and asparagus; then set aside.
  9. In a seperate pan, cook the chicken; then set aside.
  10. Add chicken, pine nuts, asparagus, and mushroom to rice pot along with the 6th cup of stock.
  11. Stir frequently till liquid is absorbed.
  12. Add parmesan cheese to top, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.
  13. Serve in poetry bowls and garnish wish parsley and olives.
• Notes:
  • The more parmesan, the more ooey, gooey it becomes.
  • Olives are optional, but they do add a nice richness.
  • For a Canadian twist, cook with minute-rissotto, adding a can of cream of mushroom soup, grated cheddar cheese (Cheez Whiz optional) and microwave on high for 10 minutes. Add Frank’s Red Hot to taste. Serve with Labbatt’s Blue.

Ist es Sauerkraut? Nein Monsieur, ist Choucroute!

by Pam, Sydney (Australia)

For the whole world, Sauerkraut is the symbol of German food, along with the bratwurst. Indeed Sauerkraut is very much believed to be the base for all types of central European food, from the Baltic to the Alps, with its origin mainly in German cuisine. For the whole world… except the French…
For the French, Sauerkraut, or rather Choucroute, in its finest, most accomplished form as a full meal comes from Alsace. Alright weither Alsace was French or German has been much debated throughout History, but these days it is French, and so is the Choucroute!

Again I’ll admit that my recipe for the beloved kraut may not be the authentic one found in a proper Alsacian restaurant with enough meat in it to inflict a stroke to anyone who is brave (or big) enough to finish the plate.
Indeed here I make a heavy usage of speck and smoked pork.
(Hence the darker colour of the kraut on the picture, in case you’re wondering)

• Servings: 4
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 20 minutes
  • Cooking: 1.5 hours
• Ingredients:
  • 500g of sauerkraut
  • 4 smoked pork chops
  • a slab of speck (approx 5cm x 20cm)
  • 4 thin sausages (eg. Frankfurter)
  • 8 medium potatos
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 100ml of Riesling wine
  • approx 10 juniper berries
  • salt, pepper
• Steps:
  1. Rince the sauerkraut under cold water.
  2. Chop the onion and crush the garlic.
  3. Heat the oil in a large pot over low heat.
  4. Add the onion and garlic into the pot and stir gently until they become translucent.
  5. Slice the speck into 8 chunks.
  6. Add the speck into the pot and stir gently until it gets a nice brown colour.
  7. Add the sauerkraut in the pot.
  8. Add the juniper berries and pepper (possibly whole).
  9. Add the wine and some water until the food is all covered.
  10. Put the mix to low boiling temperature and leave it for 1 hour over low heat. The pot should be covered.
  11. In the meantime, cook the pork chops and sausages in boiling water and peel the potatos
  12. After an hour add the peeled potatos and pork chops on top of the sauerkraut.
  13. Add the water used boiling the chops and sausages into the sauerkraut up to sauerkraut level.
  14. In the meantime, cook the saussages in boiling water.
  15. Leave to cook for another 30 minutes.
  16. Serve together with a sausage.
• Notes:
  • This sauerkraut is not as bitter as the usual one.
  • Speck brings a very interesting smoky flavour to the kraut. I really like that but I don’t think I’ve experienced that in Alsacian cuisine. If anyone knows where it could be a tradition of, please feel free to comment.
  • Unfortunately, while speck brings in a lot of flavour, it also brings in a lot of fat… I don’t really mind a bit of fat, but if you dislike it you should cut it off the speck while slicing it.
  • Riesling makes a fantastic addition to the food. You can also use Sylvaner, or I think that any dry white wine could do.
  • If you feel like it you can add any other type of pork meat you like, bacon, knuckle, blood sausage, etc. One suggestion I have is to precook the meat in boiling water and later add it to the sauerkraut while it finishes its cooking to soak in the flavours. Sausages don’t need to be added to the kraut as it won’t absorb flavours as well.

My own Chicken Couscous

by Pam, Sydney (Australia)

As mentionned earlier, I went camping with friends a couple of weeks ago (see Soupe à l’oignon or the French onion soup story). Someone had brought couscous, a fabulous, easy to cook and all purpose, ingredient I unfortunately seldom eat except at Moroccoan theme meals. I have to admit my inner french side made me frown inside when I saw the couscous being mixed with quartered raw tomatos, diced avocado, lemon juice and so on (not even a Tabouli!). The salad happened to be very good so it was a bit like a revelation to me. After all, isn’t couscous yet another type of cereal (in this case wheat) based side to a meal? Just like rice, pasta or bread?

So I gave it a try: A chicken couscous, with a south-eastern French twist to it.

• Servings: 4 serves
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 30 minutes
• Ingredients:
  • 1 big carrot
  • 1 turnip (parsnip goes well too)
  • 1 big courgette (zucchini)
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 250 gram of chicken thigh, de-boned
  • 1 litre of water
  • 400 gram of couscous
  • thyme
  • rosemary
  • ground chilli
  • olive oil
  • salt, pepper
• Steps:
  1. Dice the chicken and vegetables into pieces of approx 1.5cm x 1.5cm x 1.5cm.
  2. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat.
  3. Add the chicken in the pot with the thyme, rosemary and chilli (up to your taste) and stir gently until the chicken is coated with the spices and gets a nice golden brown colour.
  4. Add the vegetables and water. Bring to boil and cook for about 15 minutes, with a cover on top of the pot.
  5. While the chicken and vegetables are cooking, mix the couscous with some olive oil in a large bowl.
  6. Check that the vegetable are cooked (if not, let it boil a bit more). Then remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.
  7. Use some of the stock obtained from cooking the chicken and vegetables (about 500ml) and pour it on the couscous.
  8. Mix the couscous gently with the stock and leave it to rest for 5 mins. By then the couscous should be soft.
  9. Stir the couscous for it to air a bit.
  10. Keep the couscous separate from the chicken and vegetable mix, until serving.
• Notes:
  • You can also use chicken breast for this recipe, but I find them a bit too dry.
  • This dish is fabulous if you’re on a diet. As you can see from the ingredients, it’s low in fat, low in GI, and also helps you achieve the 5 vegetables a day mark.

Basque Chicken

by Nancy, Paris (France)

Famous in South of France, this meal is one of my boyfriend’s favorite

• Servings: 6
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 20 minutes
  • Cooking: 1 hour
• Ingredients:
  • 1 Chicken, choped in 16 (or 2 chicken breast or fillet cut in 1 inch cubes, 2 Chicken wings, 2 chicken legs)
  • 4 green & red pepper, minced
  • 1 kilogram tomatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 2 onion chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves minced
  • 250 ml white wine
  • 1 bouquet garni or dried provence herb
  • olive oil
  • paprika
  • cayenne pepper
  • salt
  • pepper
• Steps:
  1. Heat the olive oil in a pot over medium heat.
  2. Add the chopped onions, the minced garlic cloves and the minced green and red pepper into the pot and stir gently for about 5 minutes.
  3. Add the chopped and peeled Tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cover the pot and cook at low for 20 minutes.
  4. In the meantime roll the chicken in the paprika and then have it stirred in a pan.
  5. Add the Chicken, white wine, the bouquet garni and little cayenne pepper into the vegetable pot. Cover again and cook for 30 minutes at low heat.
• Notes:
  • This meal can be served either with rice or pasta.

Soupe à l’oignon or the French onion soup story

by Pam, Sydney (Australia)

This week end, I went camping with friends on a beach of the New South Wales central coast. While the scenary was breathtaking and the adventure fantastic, for food, we resorted most of the times to the casual picnic snack. In particular, someone had brought a series of crackers, same crackers, different flavour: bbq, pizza, cheese & bacon and french onions. French onions?! I knew that Frenchs have a tendency of taking over anything which is good about food, but I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a particular french species of onions. A taste of the cracker gave the answer. It was a French onion soup flavoured cracker! Soupe à l’oignon!

Tossing my 2 cents worth of recipie.

• Servings: 4 serves
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 30 minutes
• Ingredients:
  • 2 big onions
  • 1.25l of water
  • 0.25l of white wine
  • half a baguette (or any other thick-crusted bread)
  • cheese, grated
  • butter
  • salt, pepper
• Steps:
  1. Pre-heat oven at 250 degres Celsius.
  2. Cut the onions into thin slices.
  3. Heat butter in a pot over medium heat.
  4. Add the onions in the pot and stir gently until they caramelise into a nice golden brown colour.
  5. Add the wine and water. Bring to boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
  6. While the soup is simmering, cut the baguette bread into 8 thick slices (about 3cm thick).
  7. After simmering, the soup should have a nice brown colour. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.
  8. In each bowl, place 2 slices of bread and pour the soup on top.
  9. Spread the grated cheese over each bowls. The more cheese the better.
  10. Put the bowls in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.
  11. If you have a griller in our oven, action it to termostat 5 for the last 5 minutes to give the cheese a nice golden colour.
• Notes:
  • I like the silkiness of thicker slices of bread in the soup. However, some people prefer thiner slices of bread.
  • Frenchs often use Swiss cheese such as Emmentaler for baking, however any firm mountain cheese (eg. Parmesan) could do.
  • You can turn the above recipie into a main course. It will then serve 2. It will go well with a salad and a glass of white wine.