Just Add Maple Syrup

Moist, green flecked breakfast bread with a nutty bite. Finding a good grainy flour really makes a difference.  I first came across zucchini bread years ago while working on Martha’s Vineyard for a summer. We would bike over to Morning Glory farm in the mornings just to get some of their zucchini bread for breakfast eaten while rocking on their front porch watching the pumpkins sprout. It just seemed so perfect to use courgettes in baking. Easily combined with carrots, chocolate, lemons…..

So I played around with recipes and used a nutty flour here – a multi-grain with various cereals. If you don’t find such a flour easily just add a handful of sunflower seeds, flax, quinoa or other cereals. As for the oils, nut oil adds a nice rich flavour.  For a sweetner, here I stuck to regular brown cane sugar but maple or agave syrup or honey could easily substitute for health and sweetness. The poppy seeds give great texture – just watch out for seeds in your smile afterward!

Ingredients

1 large courgette – finely grated (skin on)

2 eggs

200 gr sugar

125 gr vanilla yogurt

60ml sunflower oil

60 ml nut oil (walnut)

200 gr flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Butter for greasing the tin

Making

In one (big) bowl cream the eggs with the sugar. Then add the oils, the vanilla essence, the grated zucchini and the yogurt. In another bowl combine the flour with the other dry ingredients. Fold the dry mixture into the wet without over-mixing. Then pour the resulting batter into a greased loaf tin. Bake at about 190  for about 40 – 50 minutes depending on your oven.

If only to have an amazing bowl to lick clean these bite size chocolate treats are worth the very little effort they take to make and are a great gift if you’re going to dinner at a friend’s. The only time consuming part is waiting for them to set in the fridge. Just a simple ganache with some added ingredients – you decide what…. Roll them in toasted nuts, coconut, toasted sesame seeds maybe? Or add a little piment d‘espelette to the mixture before setting for a grown-up kick.

Chocolate truffles look like their earthy white or black namesakes, rough lumps of treasure rooted out by pigs and dogs to be sold for outrageous prices to restaurants and consumers around the world. The chocolate version is rather more accessible and a lot tastier in my book.

Ingredients

200 gr good quality chocolate – what you like to eat…not too bitter

180ml pouring cream

30 gr butter

zest of half a large orange

3 – 4 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder for dusting

Optional ingredients

Toasted chopped nuts, coconut, sesame seeds, liqueur…

Making

Chop the chocolate into small pieces in a bowl and set aside. Put the cream and butter in a pan and bring slowly to a boil. Pour the cream mixture over the chocolate and stir in the orange zest until the chocolate is melted and the mixture smooth. cover and put in the fridge for a few hours until the mixture is hard enough to handle. Prepare a sheet of parchment paper or a tray of mini cupcake cases. Then take a spoon and scoop out small balls of mixture. Use your hands to roll them into roughly hewn ‘truffles’. Then roll in the cocoa powder before placing in the cases or on the parchment paper ready to be refrigerated. They’ll need at least 4 hours in the fridge or better still leave them overnight before serving.

Moutabal’s no good without something to scoop it up with…..

Although pita breads work for this, it’s better to seek out a more traditional middle eastern flat bread such as lavash often available in larger supermarkets. Cut into triangles and rub with olive or nut oil. Dust with a few teaspoonfuls of fragrant zaatar and roast for a max of ten minutes until golden and crispy. Otherwise soft tortilla wraps could work well as an alternative. Just lay out flat, cut into pieces and oven bake. Let cool and serve with dips and drinks.

In Paris variations of ‘caviar d’aubergine’ are becoming ubiquitous. Any kind of aubergine dip is pretty amazing so the more the merrier. Traveling around Lebanon and Jordan recently meant a lot of it was consumed so I figured it was time to start working out what all the different mezze were and how they could be made at home.  The cuisine of the Levant is a favourite of mine. Its nutty, spicy flavours along with an approach to eating that is truly Mediterranean being wonderfully family oriented lazy, lengthy grazing.

A middle eastern favourite dished up  in one way or another from Greece to Israel to Beirut, moutabal is most often served as one of many cold mezze. Commonly referred to as Baba ghanoush, in Syria and Jordan this is almost always called moutabal and baba ghanoush is an aubergine salad not the smoky creamy sesame infused dip that is moutabal. In most other middle eastern countries it’s baba ghanoush. Many menus will have both listed to add to the confusion. Baba ghanoush is actually a salad of roasted aubergine flesh with lemon juice , tomato, hot peppers, garlic and onion.

The key to the moutabal flavour is  chargrilling the aubergines until the skin is about to fall off – otherwise you miss the amazing smoky flavour characteristic of this staple mezze. Nonetheless even oven roasting the aubergines will get you a garlic spiked dip that’s a great alternative to cheese and crackers…

Ingredients

2 medium/small aubergines
1/2 clove garlic (crushed)
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
250gr (2 small tubs) plain yogurt

Making

Roast the aubergines in tinfoil (prick them all over beforehand) for at least an hour until soft and mushy. Let them cool then take off as much of the skin as you can. While they’re cooling mix the tahini, yogurt and garlic together with the oil. Take the cooled aubergines and with the skins off mash the flesh up as best you can giving it a swirl with a hand mixer if necessary but no need to make it a puree. Mix in with you yogurt mix and add salt to taste.  Serve with warm flatbreads.

To make baba ghanoush, add one finely chopped tomato, hot green pepper and onion to the roasted aubergine flesh and stir in. Crush 2 garlic cloves with a teaspoon of salt and add to 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 of lemon juice. Stir the liquid into the vegetables with a tablespoon of finely chopped fresh mint and garnish with parsley to serve.

(Cookbooks and references – ‘Modern Mezze’, Anissa Helou/’Classic Lebanese Cuisine’, Kamal Al-Faqih/’The Petra Kitchen’, Jordan)

The reason for the lack of posting, the lack of cooking, the altered taste buds…the altered everything…..is here!

Nicely marinaded in maple syrup for 8 and a half months, he is already showing signs of being a serious gourmand…

A crunchy, dense, no-rise, no-fuss loaf that’s done and dusted within an hour.

Experimenting with different flours is always fun. In France, flours tend to have less gluten and so home bread making has a different dimension.  Seek out a strong bread flour for these kinds of quick breads, even if they are labeled for the machine you can still use them for baking by hand. Look for a high ‘T’ number – the higher the T the higher the gluten content. If you don’t find a flour with muesli already added use a combination of rye and wholewheat flours and add seeds, nuts, dried fruits as you wish separately. Dried cranberries and raisins are good plus the usual mix of sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

Ingredients

350 gr flour (rye/muesli/plain) – often half rye and half wholewheat or another multi-cereal bread flour works best

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds

250 gr natural yogurt (Greek yogurt or other plain yogurt..)

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons raw oats

3 tablespoons honey/maple syrup/agave nectar

1 tablespoon nut oil or olive oil

1 tablespoon corn flour or flour (for kneading)

dried fruits and seeds as wanted ( 1-2 tablespoons)

Making

Preheat your oven to at least 200°C.  In a large bowl, mix the flours, the seeds, the oats, the dried fruit and the baking soda. Separately, mix the yogurt, water, honey or maple syrup together.

Slowly, slowly fold in the liquid to the flour until it forms a breadcrumb like mixture.

Pull it together until a rough dough holds together then turn it out onto a floured surface (use the cornflour – scatter it onto your work surface). Knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball coating your hands in the olive oil while shaping the dough into an oblong loaf.  Using a knife score a few lines down the middle or cross-ways.

Bake in a hot oven (200°C) for about 30-40 minutes – you can check by tapping the base – a hollow sound indicates that the bread is done.

Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool. Keeps for a week in a dry airtight place. Excellent when toasted or served with hummus, cheese or marmalade.

Pear and almond tart is a classic dessert. Almond paste is easily located in supermarkets and poaching pears is a quick and easy way to several desserts, accompaniments and a breakfast or two.  Recently, I bought 200 grams of matcha tea almond paste and mulled over ways to use it…

Poached pears, matcha almond paste and good quality cocoa powder make for a sinful dinner party dessert.  Matcha tea is a Japanese delicacy and has been a darling of western baking scenes for years.  It has a subtle taste and while not overbearing definitely adds something to the tart and goes amazingly with the dark chocolate flavour of the cocoa powder.

Ingredients

One tart base – pre-baked

Filling

200 gr matcha tea almond paste (or regular almond paste)

3 tablespoons rich dark natural cocoa powder (good quality makes  a huge difference)

1 tablespoon flaked almonds

4 poached pears

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 egg

1 egg white

Making

Beat the almond paste with the sugar, syrup, flour and cocoa powder. The add the butter and egg and egg white forming a smooth paste.

Spread the paste onto your tart base and then place a layer of pears fanning them out evenly.

Sprinkle with almonds and bake for 40 – 45 minutes at 180°C

Poached pears are a simple staple. Something that can be turned into a dessert, a drink, a breakfast or a tart. Easily prepared and stored in advance of a dinner party or kept for a few days worth of breakfasts, they’re something to keep in mind for those last minute panics when people are coming for dinner and you feel like doing something impressive with those pears you forgot to eat….


Store the poached pears in the fridge for a few days to be used in desserts such as pear and almond tart or with vanilla ice cream or keep them for breakfast – tossed with a little honey, natural yogurt and maybe some muesli. Otherwise use in puree form to add to a glass of champagne or prosecco for a sweet and spicy aperitif.

What you’ll need

4 pears – ripe and firm so that they’ll hold their shape.

200 grams sugar

1litre water

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon

a few cloves

vanilla essence

Other spices and flavourings can be added as you see fit – star anise, tonka beans, dried fruits, orange peel, lemon…

What to do

Peel, core and quarter the pears. Heat the water until the sugar has dissolved. Add the pears and simmer on a low heat. Add the cinnamon and maple syrup and the spices you choose. Cover the surface of the water so the pears stay submerged (use some baking parchment as a layer for example). Simmer until the pears are soft but still firm enough to retain their shape. Test with a fork. Remove when done and let cool.

It’s been a while.  It seems that pregnancy and cooking are not always a good combination. Raging hormones have temporarily replaced my taste buds with those of a hungover university freshman and I had no inclination to cook or eat anything healthy or strange or exciting let alone write about it. No offense to college first years.. . But for the last few months I have wanted only simple starchy foods (preferably with ketchup).

Now I’m finally getting back to eating normally even coaxing the lentils out of the dark corner where they have been forced to hide with all the other remotely healthy foods in the pantry.

So as a transition, we have breakfast muffins. Amazing gooey, fruity, yummy muffins. These are sticky and so moist they keep for days. Relatively healthy with no butter they are a good breakfast treat and a great brunch addition.

Baking without using butter may seem entirely wrong to some people and let’s face it baked goods with real butter have a little bit of heaven in them so they have their place in the world. However, you can still have your cholesterol and eat it too…so to speak…

High cholesterol reared it’s ugly head recently in my family and I feel obliged to find ways of banishing le buerre from my parents household. Banish. Not substitute.There is a difference.

So, when baking there are lots of ways of not using butter. It’s just another way of baking. Vegetable and nut oils, fruit compotes, yogurts, buttermilk all can play a part. It just needs different measurements, a little experimenting and a lot of tasting. No problem really.

These muffins use nut oil and honey/maple syrup instead of regular granulated sugar and butter. Maple syrup is preferable for taste I find but both give a nice sweetness.

Fruity breakfast muffins

Ingredients

In one bowl :

2 x 125gr tubs of vanilla yogurt (or plain)

3 tablespoons nut oil

2/3 eggs

2 tablespoons dark rich genuine maple syrup (or 3 tablespoons honey or a mix of both)

200 gr fresh or frozen berries ( a full regular coffee cup will do either)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

In another bowl:

230 gr flour ( mix whole wheat, plain, spelt, rye…as you wish)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons raw oats (optional)

Making

Mix the wet ingredients  first. After mixing the dry carefully fold the dry into the wet – but do not over mix the batter.

Pour into muffin tin – makes about 12 medium size muffins (fill each almost to the top for generous sized muffins)

Bake for about 20 – 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean

December is here, root vegetables reign, and the pomegranate is back until end of January. Fast, after work suppers are hard to manage without relying on fast food or processed produce. Keep a few staples in the kitchen to back you up for when you feel like a healthy supper that doesn’t taste like a trip down diet lane. Dried algae are an affordable way of nutritionally boosting your dishes. Seaweeds are an excellent source of minerals in general and are easily added to soups, vegetables and stews.

Plus seaweed helps render pulses and beans more digestible. Just add a little to them as they are cooking.

An all-in-one bowl of smoky goodness – this veggie bowl is simple, filling and fast. One of my pantry staples has become a Mexican chipotle powder from the London Borough market that’s pretty fiery but a great way of livening up a lentil stew without adding fatty bacon or pancetta à la version française.

Extremely low in fat and high in fibre yet behaves like a potato, the celery root (celeriac) has a lot going for it nutritionally with a strong taste that is great for soups, purées or for making healthy chips.  Looking like a cross between a radish, a turnip and a potato, it’s a bit of an ugly duckling root vegetable that can stand up to cooking holding it’s shape and flavour well.

In this bowl the chipotle is nicely absorbed by the celeriac and the eventual sprinkling of feta at the end combats the strong flavours and adds a touch of cool creaminess.

Kombu, edible Japanese seaweed, is extensively used in and it can be traced back to the year 797. One of its benefits is to render pulses and beans more digestible. Often it is cultivated locally too, the kombu I use is from western France.

The feta is a nice creamy salty cooling factor that is best added at the last moment.

Ingredients

1 cup yellow lentils

1 cup chopped fresh celeriac

1 diced shallot

1 organic stock cube (optional)

Scant ½ teaspoon of chipotle powder

3 cups water

1 or 2 strands of kombu seaweed (optional)

1 teaspoon nut oil

2 tablespoons crumbled feta

Making

Peel and chop the celery root/celeriac. Heat the nut oil and lightly sauté the shallot before adding the lentils and the celeriac to the hot pan.

Add the chipotle powder and ensure the lentils and celeriac are well coated in the oil and the smoky powder.  If using, add the stock cube here, crumbling it slightly. The flavours will infuse here in the heat.

Then add the water, add the kombu, bringing everything to the boil, stirring well.  Then reduce the heat and simmer for about 35-40 minutes.

Serve with the feta crumbled on top.