Mayonnaise au crabe

On Sunday I bought 7 medium size crabs at the Harbour for the price of £3. Worth going, especially that the fishing season is ending.

I cooked all 7 seven and put 5 in the freezer for later purposes.
I prepared a Salade chinoise (see earlier note) and in it added the crab flesh (most of it is in the legs).
In a bowl I put flour, chili, ginger and pepper. Mix in it prawns and lay them in a pan with a little little bit of oil. Fry, once ready, add a little bit of rum and wait for everything to dry out.

With the creamy parts inside the crab, I prepared a mayonnaise to eat with the prawns.

In a bowl, take the creamy bits and 2 yolks. Mix well and add seasonning. Pepper, a little bit of salt (not much because the crab is already salty). Add a teaspoon of mustard. Mix. Add oil until bit by bit until you have a mayonnaise.

Saucisses de porc au miel nappées d'une sauce béchamel aux olives et aux tomates

Béchamel is maybe one of the easiest meal that one can do. The most expensive items were the sausages. In overal the price of that meal was roughly £1.3.

Take 50g of butter and melt it in a pot, very small fire. Then add 60g of flour on top and mix well until homogenous. Then add half a litre of milk bit by bit. Like, only add 1/5 of the milk and mix until it gets kind of sticky, then add another 1/5 and so on. Always keep mixing.
With a your second and third hand cut your sausages in bits and fry them in a little oil, until cooked and a bit coloured. Add 3 tomatoes cut in pieces.

Once ready, put all this in the bechamel and mix a bit more (since the addition of oil and water (from the tomatoes) will make the bechamel a bit liquid. Add some grated cheese in it, according to your taste (the more the better it is said). And.... olives, Olives are great, olives are good, it is like wine, tasting them is so good. Eat a few and put the others in the pot before eating them all.

Mix more and make sure the béchamel is thick enough. If not mix more and push the gas up. (normally it should take 15-20 minutes only to get the normal thickness).

Serve on its own or on pasta if you are very hungry. This recipe was enough for us three. We just needed a piece of fruit to finish the dinner.

Crêpes au levain

Leaven crêpes recipe, very light and soft and great for 6 people 25-30 large crêpes

Ingredients:
1 l of milk;
400g of flour;
yeast (fresh or not);
8 eggs; butter;
rum;
salt

Preparing the leaven:
take 100g of flour and 0.4l of milk and mix, then add the fresh yeast into it. If you don't have fresh yeast, buy some dried active yeast, awaken (0.1l of warm water, 1 small teaspoon of sugar and 2 teaspoons of yeast) and use 0.3 of milk instead of 0.4.
Mix very well, then let it wait for an hour at 40° Celsius. the leaven should double its size.

Preparing the crêpe mixture:
Put 300g of flour in a large bowl, mix the salt in, create a well in the flour and pour slowly the milk while mixing (avoid blobs of flour), add the leaven with the same technique. beat the eggs separately and add to the bowl while mixing. Then add 30g of melted butter and the rum (as much as you want). Mix well.

Let it rest for 4 hours at 40°C (temperature at which yeast is active). Mix every hour.

For savoury crêpes, I add some oregano in it, some more salt (one pinch per half litre of mixture and pepper.
For sweet crêpes, add 100g of sugar per half-litre (after the mixture has rested for 4 hours), some vanilla, some cinnamon and rum.

To cook, put a ring to 4 or 4.5/5 let the pan heat up. when it is put a little bit of butter in it, once melted spread it through the pan with a twist of the wrist. Then add some of the mixture and try to make something circular and thin. If the mixture is too heavy, add some water in. If the first crêpes breaks while you turn it, either it was too early or else you need more flour in the mixture

Cake aux poires, au chocolat et au rhum

That is a cake, said cake in French.

In a large bowl, put 250g of flour, 150g of sugar, salt (only a pinch) and a sachet of yeast (can get some in the Meal Shop, Rodgers& Rodgers, on South Street). Mix everything well so that it is about evenly proportioned. Then dig a well in the centre of the mixture.

Take 2 yolks (keeping the egg white aside for later use) and mix them with 0.1l of milk. Add the pears, rum and little bits of chocolate. Pour all of this in the well in the flour and start stirring until you there is no liquid left.
Melt 150g of butter and add carefully in the bowl (might have some weird things happening if the butter is too hot). Stir everything. Now take the egg whites and whip like for meringue (in snow). Add into the salad bowl and … stir again. Once everything is not quite solid but not that liquid either, pour into the cake pan (about 30cm by 5 cm) and put in a preheated oven at 160ºC for an hour and a quarter.

The cake is good when fresh but is also very nice after about a week or more waiting in the fridge which is very handy for parties as you can start preparations a week before and have less stress during the day.

Crêpes, Crêpes, Crêpes, salées et sucrées

What is more easy than doing crêpes? Easily done, easily cooked and opened to any kind of stuffing. We were 8 eating. I did about 30 savoury crêpes and 30 sweet ones. The price is ridiculously small, less than £2. What costs is what you want inside.

For roughly 30 crêpes:

Prepare a basic batter. Pour in 1l of milk in a large salad bowl. Add a little bit of melted butter. Take the yolks of 4 eggs, mix them with some milk in an aside bowl and pour in. Keep the whites in a separate bowl.
Add roughly 400g of flour, very slowly, always mixing. It avoids having bits in it. Actually there will be some, so do not panic too much if after 30 minutes you still see some flours not very well mixed.

Transform the eggs' whites into snow (not sure how you say that in english). You can whip it by hand (takes a long while) or use a machine. To check if they are ready, put the whip in it. When you take it out if must contain some of the snow, like if it was a solid and no more a liquid.

Add a pinch of salt in the milk, mix and then add the snow and mix very well to get a homogenous batter.

Let it rest for about an hour and mix again.

Then you can prepare it as you like. For savoury crêpes, add more salt, some pepper and spices you like or herbs. For sweet crêpes, add sugar, some vanilla, rum and cinnamon if you feel like it.

The cooking:
warm a pan and put a little bit of butter in it. If it boils immediatly, then the pan is at the right temperature (should not be too much either, beware). Pour some batter in it and do a motion of the pan to spread it through the pan. Let it cook a bit and when the border start getting brown, turn it around.

Advice:
you can prepare them long in advance and then just warm them in a pan.
For savoury crêpes, warm the crêpes, and put what you want on it. Ham, cheese, egg (maybe prepare it in a separate pan), tomatoes, peppers, whatever.
Once it is finished (eg the cheese is mellted or the tomato is hot), fold a bit the crêpe over the stuffing and serve.