I came across this recipe on David Lebovitz’s website, his blog is amazing & I have been lurking there for ages. Cooking something for the first time following a recipe can be nerve wracking but kudos to David for a really easy to follow recipe with pictures.

I made this ice cream by hand, because that was the only option I had, I don’t have an ice cream machine at home “yet”. Because I can’t seem find a non-industrial one in Nairobi, don’t know why. I would love to get a pacojet, I fell in love with the pacojet when I saw one in action in Sydney last year.

The recipe for the salted butter caramel ice cream is adapted from here, also available is tips on how to make ice cream without ice maker.

• 500 mls whole milk, divided in two. One part left chilled in a bowl in the fridge.
• 300 grams sugar
• 60 grams salted butter
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 250 ml heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

First thing up was gathering up all my ingredients, all the dairy was from Brookside. They make some really great butter & cream. I used some fine sea salt. I was a bit worried about the salt I used, in the recipe there is an explicit caveat placed on the salt to use. I didn’t have maldon or fleur de sel, but some stock standard looking sea salt, fine off-white sea salt.

Everything in place, it was time to caramelise the sugar. Dumped all the sugar into a saucepan over medium heat, it took a while to get the sugar melting. Once the sugar started melted everything moved quickly. The recipe stated that the caramel is to be cooked until it started smoking, I had never taken a caramel to this point, so I cooked the caramel until I saw what I thought was smoke. It looked like light water vapour.

With caramelisation done, I took the saucepan off the heat then stirred in the butter & salt, then the cream. Some caramel seized, but this was no cause for panic unlike when I did the Pineapple Chop, then I didn’t know I could melt away the seized caramel over low heat, which I did this time. After working away the seized caramel, I stirred in 250mls of the milk.

Moved on to whisk the 5 yolks in a bowl, poured in some of the caramel while still whisking. Poured the egg yolks back into the caramel, stirring constantly. Cooked over low heat until the custard thickens, to be on the safe side I used a thermometer & stopped cooking once custard was at 77 degrees celsius. With custards don’t go over 82 degrees celsius unless you want an eggy tasting custard.

Once custard was done, strained it into the bowl with the other 250 mls of chilled milk. Kept stirring until custard had cooled down. Covered the bowl with cling film loosely, making sure the cling film touched the top of the custard, this prevents a skin from forming. chilled it overnight in the fridge.

To make the ice cream, poured the chilled custard on to a large shallow dish. Placed it in the freezer. Then at 40 minute intervals, took out the dish and gave the custard a good stir to break up large ice particles. After the third stir poured almost frozen custard into a one litre container, covered & placed it in the freezer overnight.

This is the result, beautiful caramel flavoured ice cream. That I had for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

Making ice cream at home without a machine is not impossible, it may take a while long but it is worth it.

What is there not to love about this buttery & chocolaty pastry, when warm & served with coffee it is pure bliss. That said, if you keep buying this stuff all the time you will left broke & overweight but on the flip-side your baker’s bank stash will be ample. So it was for purely economic reasons that I had to figure out how to make this pastry for myself. I trawled the interwebs & my cookbooks for ideas, and adapted the recipe below from all the info I got. In the end, I saved some money, learnt that making a laminated dough is tedious work and satiated my sweet tooth.

“Quick” Recipe for Petit Pain au Chocolat

• 250 grams all purpose flour.
• 115 mls water.
• 125 grams unsalted butter.
• 25 grams caster sugar.
• 80 grams chocolate bar.
• 5 grams salt.
• 5 grams(1tsp) instant yeast.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, salt & yeast.
2. Add water to the dry ingredients, combine well to form a dough.
3. Cover the bowl & let in rise/ferment overnight in the fridge.
4. Next day, knock down the dough. Form into a ball.
5. Dust working surface with a little flour. Roll out four flaps, creating an envelope.
6. Flatten the cold butter by bashing it with a rolling pin, form the butter into a flat square.
7. Place the butter in the centre of dough envelope, close the flaps over the butter.
8. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough to seal the flaps together.
9. Roll out the dough into a long rectangle.
10. Fold the dough into thirds as if you are folding a letter. This is the first turn, cover the dough with plastic wrap & refrigerate for one hour.
11. After an hour, roll out the dough into a long rectangle then fold into thirds as if you are folding an letter. This is your second turn. Roll out the dough again into another long rectangle, fold into thirds like a letter and complete the third turn. Refrigerate the dough for another hour.
12. After an hour, roll out the dough into long rectangle, turn the dough 90 degrees so that the long edge is parallel to you.
13. Cut 6 cm strips of the dough, you should yield about 11 strips.
14. Break chocolate bar into 11 small pieces.
15. Place chocolate piece at the bottom of each strip. Roll the strips tightly, place on baking tray seam side down.
16. Brush with egg wash, made from one beaten egg & a pinch of salt.
17. Proof in oven with pilot light on for 90 minutes.
18. Take out the pain au chocolat from oven, preheat oven for 10 minutes at 220 degree celsius.
19. After the 10 minutes, place baking tray in oven & bake the pain au chocolat for 15 minutes.
20. Take them out from oven & cool on wire rack for about 15 minutes.
21. Enjoy!!!!

I love the citrusy fragrance lemon thyme imparts on to your fingers when you gently squeeze its leaves. I have not cooked with lemon thyme until now in Nairobi because the veggie store where I do most of my herb shopping does not stock it, recently in serendiptious circumstances I found myself foraging through the herb section at the supermarket looking for the other thyme. My last encounter with the herb in Nairobi was at Mediterraneo, the roast duck dish I ate then had a fresh herb garnish that included lemon thyme. I seriously thought of swiping the herbs & taking them home with me, the only thing that stopped me is that waitperson was always hovering around. He was doing his job too well. Back to the supermarket, I found lemon thyme & bought a bunch pronto.

The preparations of lemon thyme were inspired by flavour ideas I got from Karen Page & Andrew Dornenbug’s Flavor Bible, which is a favourite cookbook of mine because It has no recipes, only just a massive reference guide on flavour combinations. The other great thing about this book, you work with the ingredients you have and the techniques you want. In a conventional cookbook you have to work according to the recipe.

I decided to do a lemon thyme risotto with lemon thyme roasted carrots & lemon thyme roasted chicken. I wanted to do quick & hearty meal, with all cooking done simultaneously. It took about 15 minutes to prep, and 30 minutes to cook.

About the flavours, lemon thyme with the carrots really popped for me, also did the lemon thyme with the chicken. The rice was beautifully scented by the herb. Even though the herb was similar was the same across the risotto, chicken & carrots, the lemon thyme brought different flavour nuances to each item.

In my plain (kenyan)english, this one ingredient obsession meal tasted really really great.

The recipes are below. Give it a go & tell me how it goes….

Lemon Thyme Roasted Carrots

• 2 carrots, diced.
• 4 lemon thyme sprigs
• Olive oil
• Salt & white pepper

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Heat the olive oil in a hot saute pan.
3. Add the carrots & lemon thyme sprigs, saute for about 2 minutes.
4. Season with salt & pepper.
5. Transfer to oven and roast for 15 minutes.
6. Once cooked set aside.

Lemon Thyme Risotto

This recipe serves 4.

• 200 grams carnolli rice (arborio is alright too).
• 1 litre chicken stock or vegetable stock.
• 1 onion, chopped.
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped.
• 2 tbsp lemon thyme leaves only.
• 25 grams parmesan cheese, grated.
• Olive oil.
• Salt & white pepper.

1. You will need two sauce pans. Bring the stock to a boil in one of the saucepans, the reduce heat to a gentle simmer.
2. In the other sauce pan, heat the olive oil on medium heat then add the chopped onion & chopped garlic. Sweat them until they are soft.
3. Season with salt & pepper.
4. Add the rice and cook until the rice is slightly toasted.
5. Add a ladle of stock and cook by stirring frequently. When all the stock is arbsorbed add another ladle & continue stirring, repeat this until the rice is al dente, this will take about 15 – 20 minutes.
6. Stir in the roasted carrots & thyme leaves.
7. Check seasoning, add salt & pepper if needed.
8. To finish the risotto, turn off the heat. Add 4 tbsps of olive oil while stirring vigorously, then add the parmesan cheese & give risotto a few stirs.
9. Cover the saucepan & set risotto aside to rest for about 5 minutes.

Lemon Thyme Roasted Chicken Thigh

• 4 Chicken thighs.
• 2 tbsp lemon thyme leaves only.
• Olive oil.
• Salt & white pepper.

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius (you can cook the chicken simultaneously with the carrots
2. De-bone the chicken thighs & trim of any excess fat.
3. Lay the thighs skin side down, sprinkle the lemon thyme leaves into the centre of each fillet then season them with salt & pepper.
4. Roll the thigh fillets into cylinder form, then secure using kitchen twine. Season the skin side with salt & pepper.
5. Heat the olive oil in hot saute pan, sear the chicken thighs until they are golden brown.
6. On a roasting tray, make a bed with the remaining lemon thyme sprigs. Transfer the chicken on to it. You can also lay some lemon thyme sprigs on top of the chicken.
7. Roast in oven for about 20 minutes.
8. When done, take it out from oven & set it aside to rest for 5 minutes.

Assembly

1. Slice the chicken thigh fillets into 2.5 cm(1 inch) pieces.
2. Spoon the risotto on to your plate.
3. Add chicken slices on top of the risotto, drizzle a little olive oil on top of chicken.
4. Garnish with lemon thyme leaves.

As Gordon Ramsay would say, “Lemon thyme risotto with lemon thyme roasted carrots & lemon thyme roasted chicken, DONE!”

I cannot say no to a lovely, creamy, wobbly panna cotta. I made some for my brother & I, the flavour inspiration was a cup of coffee. In this panna cotta is instant coffee, cream, milk, vanilla extract & sugar. The lime syrup idea was from the Flavor Bible, according to the book coffee & lime go well together. Since I was serving the panna cotta the lime  syrup, I did not sweeten it alot. My brother totally loved this dessert, I did too.

The recipe below makes two small portions, you can scale it proportionally to suit the number of panna cotta portions  you would like. You could also substitute the instant coffee for a shot of espresso.

Coffee Panna Cotta

• 150 mls milk, full fat is best.
• 150 mls cream, chilled.
• 3 tsps caster sugar.
• 1 tsp granulated gelatin.
• 1 tsp instant coffee. I used Dormans, love their coffee.
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract.

1. In a small bowl combine the gelatin & a little water(about 4tbsp / 60mls). This is to let the gelatin granules bloom.
2. In small saucepan, combine the coffee, sugar, vanilla extract & milk. Heat the milk to a rolling simmer, stir to make sure that coffee & sugar are dissolved. Pour the milk into a bowl.
3. Add the bloomed gelatin to the warm milk in the bowl. Stir to dissolve the gelatin into the milk. Set aside for about 30 minutes or until milk is about room temperature.
4. Stir in chilled cream.
5. Pour into molds, and put into the fridge to set. This takes about 4 hours, I usually just leave it overnight in the fridge.

Lime Syrup

• 2 limes
• 200 grams sugar
• 200 mls water

1. Grate the zest from the limes, set the zest aside
2. Combine the sugar & water in a saucepan, bring it to a boil, then simmer for a minute. Take the syrup off the heat.
3. Add the zest & the juice of the two limes.
4. Set the syrup aside to cool.

Putting it together

1. Unmold the panna cotta on to a plate. If you having difficulty unmolding, dip the mold with the panna cotta into hot water for about 10 seconds.
2. Drizzle the lime syrup on to the panna cotta… Done!

Yet another puree soup, I love them. I bought some great cauliflower from my veggie guy, I was not planning to get some but he managed to convince me to buy some. What to do with it? I rummaged my cookbooks for inspiration.

This recipe is adapted from the Cauliflower vichyssoise recipe in the French Lessons Cookbook by Justin North. My version is vegetarian by virtue of using a great vegetable stock. The recipe for my vegetable stock is here.

• 30mls(2 tbsp) vegetable oil.
• 1 onion, finely sliced.
• 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced.
• 1 cauliflower, broken into small florets.
• 4 sprigs of thyme.
• 1 litre vegetable stock.
• Lemon juice.
• Chives, chopped .
• Salt & white pepper.
• Cayenne pepper.

1. Sweat the cauliflower, onion, garlic & thyme in the vegetable oil until onion is soft.
2. Add the vegetable stock then bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Remove thyme sprigs & bay leaf from the pot.
4. Spoon the cauliflower into a blender, cover the cauliflower with the cooking liquid, then blend.
5. You can obtain your desired consistency by controlling amount of liquid added to the blender. So, if you want a thicker soup add less cooking liquid to blender.
6. Season soup with few drops of lemon juice, salt & pepper according to your taste.
7. Serve garnished with chopped chives & cayenne pepper. This soup is great served hot or chilled.

• 400 grams leeks, coarsely chopped.
• 400 grams carrots, coarsely chopped.
• 400 grams onion, coarsely chopped.
• 1 fennel bulb, coarsely chopped.
• 150 grams button mushrooms, chopped.
• 1 bay leaf.
• 3 sprigs thyme.
• 3 litres of water.
• 50 mls vegetable oil.

1. Sweat the vegetables in the vegetable oil in a stockpot over low heat until vegetables have softened.
2. Add bay leaf & thyme sprigs, then cover with the water.
3. Bring to a gentle simmer, then simmer for 45 minutes.
4. Strain the stock. Use immediately or freeze.

Do you sometimes stare into your fridge when hungry, look at all the food inside whilst dreaming up all the great meals possible. Then the grim prospect of spending a long time prepping the food, stops you right there. You might then activate plan b, which is foraging around for quick junk loaded with sugar, salt & fat or look up the number for your local junk delivery place…… This happens to me way more than I would like it to.

So when lunchtime laziness struck me recently, the focaccia I made recently saved the day. The sandwich above took less than 5 minutes to prep.

• Started by slicing the focaccia into two sandwich halves, toasted the focaccia in a hot grill.
• While the focaccia was toasting, I mashed half an avocado with a fork in a bowl, seasoned the avocado with salt & cayenne pepper.
• After the avocado was done, sliced a tomato, set the tomato slices into a bowl, in the bowl was some balsamic vinegar, salt & black pepper
• The assembly started by spreading the mashed avocado on the toasted focaccia, added the tomato slices, then drizzled some extra virgin olive oil.

Done! Tasty lunch in 5 minutes……

Focaccia is a pizza-esque Italian bread enriched with extra virgin olive oil and usually herb flavoured. With focaccia you can experiment with lots of flavours, stuffing & toppings. When I was thinking about baking this bread, I intended to do a plain rosemary focaccia, but then I caught sight of some leftover olives in the fridge and decided to add them for a bit of flourish.

The recipe below is really easy to follow, you should give it a go….

• 500 grams all-purpose flour
• 350 mls water
• 2 tsp instant dry yeast
• 1.5 tsp sea salt
• 45 mls extra virgin olive oil
• 75 grams spanish black olives chopped
• 4 sprigs rosemary(finely chop 2 sprigs, the other 2 just remove the leaves)
• Salt & extra virgin olive oil

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, yeast in a large bowl.
2. Add water & olive oil to the dry ingredients, combine to form a sticky dough.
3. Cover the bowl and set it aside for about 30 minutes, during this time autolysis happens. During autolysis the flour absorbs as much water as it can, resulting in a dough that is easier to work with and requires less kneading.
4. Lightly oil your work surface & your hands with olive oil, turn out dough on to work surface. Knead the dough until its soft & elastic, this takes about 10-15 minutes. The oil on your hands keep the dough from sticking on to it.
5. Once kneading is done, set the dough aside in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl and leave the dough to rise for about 120 minutes.
6. After 120 minutes knock down the dough. Turn out dough on to your work surface.
7. Add the chopped rosemary & the chopped olives on to the dough, then lightly knead for about two minutes to combine the rosemary & olives.
8. Generously oil a large baking tray with olive oil.
9. Spread the dough on to the baking tray, whilst spreading you might find the dough springing back when you try pushing it wide. Don’t worry about this.
10. Cover the baking tray and let the dough prove for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius.
11. After 30 minutes, dimple the dough using your fingers. On this bread I also experimented with a fork.
12. Generously spread olive oil on top of the dough, followed by a few pinches of salt, some chopped olives & rosemary leaves.
13. Place the baking tray with dough in the centre of the oven and bake for about 30-40 minutes.
14. After baking, remove from tray and let bread cool on a wire rack.
15. Enjoy!

I made some pasta by hand in my kitchen recently, it was fun & easier than I thought it would be. The results of my hand-made effort tasted really good. I don’t know why I had not done this earlier, I think buying pasta off a supermarket shelf is just too easy.

One thing I learnt though is that a pasta machine would probably do a better & more consistent job of stretching the pasta. However you should trying doing it by hand just once for the sake of it.

With this basic pasta under my belt, I am going to try my hand at different pastas. I will probably will start with my favourite stuffed pastas, ravioli & tortellini.

Here is the recipe for the pasta dough.

You will need:

• 175 grams “00″ Flour sifted.
• 2 large eggs.
• 1/2 tsp salt.

1. Pour the sifted flour & salt onto a clean working surface, form a well large enough to accommodate the eggs.
2. Pour the eggs into the well.
3. Mix the eggs in the centre of the well, whilst keeping a ready hand outside the well to prevent eggs from overflowing.
4. Slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs.
5. When egg & flour mixture is thick, push all flour into the centre and gently mix until the dough has stiffened. Once dough cannot arbsorb any more flour. Scrape work surface clean.
6. Dust the work surface with a little flour, knead the dough with a steady firm motion.
7. Knead the dough until it is soft & elastic, this will take about 8 minutes.
8. Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest for 45 minutes before stretching.

For the Pappardelle

1. Dust the work surface with a little flour, unwrap the pasta dough on to the work surface.
2. Using a rolling pin, gently roll out the pasta dough making quarter turns occasionally. Do this until you have a round dough with equal thickness of about 3 mm.
3. Roll out the round dough in one direction to about 1 mm. The dough should be translucent.
4. Fold the dough into thirds, cut lengthwise at about 1.5 cm intervals to make pappardelle.
5. Lay the pappardelle on a clean dry tea towel, let it dry for about 30 minutes before cooking it.

Assembly

• Prepare the pomodoro(tomato) sauce as per the recipe in this other post.
• In a large pot bring salted water to a rolling boil, then add the pappardelle & cook for 5 minutes. Drain the pappardelle.
• Add tomato sauce to the pappardelle and toss to coat.
• Serve with grated parmesan cheese & freshly ground black pepper.

Enjoy!

Great title! This pineapple chop dessert is made up of oven roasted pineapple, fried pastry cream, caramel sauce & whipped creme fraiche. The twist in this dessert is in the way the pineapple is cut. It is cut to look like a meat chop. Chefs have a sense of humour….

In a previous post I told you that I got Thomas Keller’s French Laundry cookbook, the book has lots of great recipes and pretty pictures. After spending a lot of time looking at the pictures and dreaming about the food in it, the book left the coffee table and went into the kitchen. Great cookbooks by great chefs can be quite intimidating, most of these chefs have 20-30 years of experience in cooking, compared to my few years of bumbling around in the kitchen. Is it possible to replicate to replicate their cooking?

A Kakuzi pineapple & the French Laundry cookbook, let the bumbling begin……..

First task was to cut the pineapple into chops. Started by chopping off the head & the bottom, then cut the pineapple into halves & then removed the core. Once cored, I cut off pineapple “flesh” on one side but left the skin on. As you can see the in the picture above, the result is a pineapple “rack” which I then cut into four chops.

Browned the chops in butter for a few minutes, then transferred into oven to roast for about 40 minutes. The aroma of pineapple & butter from the oven was intoxicating….. lovely.

The nuggets above are made is frozen pastry cream/creme patissiere. The pastry cream is made from flour, egg yolks, sugar & milk, these ingredients are cooked into a thick cream. In the book, the cooked pastry cream is supposed to set solid in the fridge after a few hours, mine did not. That is why I froze it….. I don’t know what I did wrong. Anyway, I breaded & then deep fried frozen nuggets for two minutes. In the recipe Thomas Keller uses panko, I used bread crumbs. The spanish do a deep-fried pastry cream called Leche Frita

After the pineapples were done, I tried to make the caramel sauce for this dish. The way it was supposed to be done is that you caramelise sugar in a pan, then whisk in butter. But I messed it up, I got the sugar to caramelise then added diced cold butter, then walked away for a second. When I was back it looked like the sugar had seized up & the butter had clarified. FAIL!!! Well I said I was a bumbler, I should stop saying that & speak positive. With a positive attitude this won’t happen…….. Oh well.

I still dunked the cooked chops into this faux sauce, for a bit of colour & flavour. Also whipped some creme fraiche.

Four plates for my four guinea pigs. This is the final dish sans the caramel sauce, the garnish on the creme fraiche is the tip of a pineapple leaf.

So how did it taste? Beautiful! The pineapple is intense, sweet & buttery. The Fried pastry cream was brilliant & it went so well with the creme fraiche, what a revelation……

My brother tried to eat his plate real slow, to prolong the experience. I still have the other half of the pineapple, I could do this again tomorrow…

G’day!