Galettes de pommes de terres accompagnées d'une compote pommes-oignons nappée d'une sauce au vin et au miel

It has been quite a while. I have been a bit busy and althought eating was not stopped, creativity was put a little on hold and when it managed to emerge, I did not have the time to record it. The meal here was an improvisation, once again, and I suppose was quite costly since it required a fair amount of wine.

Cut onions and make them fry slowly in a pot. Cut 5 apples in bits and add them with the onions once they look cooked.
In the meanwhile, grate 6 potatoes and mix with some grated cheese. Pour 2 eggs in a bowl, add salt, pepper, paprika and herbs. Mix well.
Now take some of the potato-cheese mixture and make little cakes out of them (5 cm in diameter). Pour into the ball with the egg solution. Take the liquid out and make sure the galette is kind of solid. Store them in a plate. Once they are all done, cook them in a little oil in a covered pan. Do not forget to cook both sides.

The sauce. In a bowl, mix honey, wine, crême fraîche, ginger, paprika, salt and pepper. In a pot, melt some butter, Add some cornflower and mix well. Then add the mixture just prepared. And mix well. When it looks thick, add milk. Mix thoroughly. If it is too liquid, wait longer. You must boil the sauce one, to help the spice reveal themselves and to help the cornflower to thicken the sauce.

When evertyhing is ready, serve the galettes, add the compote and the sauce on top of it.
A good addition is to add ham bits in the pan with the galettes as they finish cooking.

Salade Chinoise composée à la vinaigrette Nahiz

A big salade can feed quite well a few people, be very good, tasty, spicy and good for the line. The price for that one is kind of ridiculous. I suppose, it cost around £1, maybe £1.50. Again, this is a recipe invented on the spot. The vinaigrette has a base recipe, but all the flavouring was decided from what the lettuce tasted like and what I was going to have in it.

Cut the chinese lettuce and wash it. Dry it.
In salad bowl, put one dessert spoon of vinegar, a teaspoon of mustard, salt, pepper, Espelette chilis (red dry chilis), ground ginger, oregano, curry and 2 teaspoons of honey.
Mix well.

Then had two dessert spoons of olive oil and mix very well to create an emulsion (a very interesting metastable state of matter, could do a physics lecture with a simple vinaigrette. (Aaaah, Gibbs free energy).

Cut some cheese in little cubes, add some bits of ham, an avocado cut in bits and a boiled egg per person.
Add the chinese lettuce (it has a taste of its own, very good with ginger-chili-curry-honey).

Mix, it is ready.

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.