Just Add Maple Syrup

Paris. The tenth arrondissement – foodies beware….The rue Faubourg Saint Denis holds a few off-beat treasures.  From Julhes with their cheeses, exotic mustards, gourmet deli and never ending wine tastings to the coffee bean man just up the street  (Brulerie Lanni) and his giant roasting machine passing by the Passage Brady and the Kurdish sandwiches, you could spend hours here snacking and discovering.

On a recent wander hunting cardamom pods and other random pantry staples, I picked up some lemon grass powder in the Passage Brady.  A key ingredient of Thai, Malay, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine this pale green grassy  powder has a long history and is potent, lemony, sweet and tart in your nose.

Here’s a basic flour-less chocolate cake with a playful side. Use agave instead of sugar for a more healthful cake and a different kind of sweetness.

The basil plant on the window-sill is inviting, demanding to be added to everything. I figure a solid chocolate cake can be played with, dark chocolate can always take a little flavouring. I recently had sesame chocolate and Darjeeling tea flavoured chocolate. Amazing. Especially the sesame. To be exploited in an upcoming dessert recipe – tea, dark chocolate and sesame…

Flourless chocolate cake with lemongrass and fresh basil

Ingredients

125 gr good quality dark chocolate
100 gr unsalted butter and some for greasing
half teaspoon salt
150 gr sugar – or 1 cup agave syrup
1 cup finely chopped fresh basil leaves
3 eggs50gr cocoa powder
1 generous  teaspoon of ground lemon grass powder (available in good spice stores or Asian good stores)

Making

Pre heat the oven to 180 c. Line and grease a cake tin. (about 8 inches – not too big or you’ll have a rather flat cake!)

Melt the chocolate and the butter over hot water stirring constantly until smooth. Add the salt and set aside.

Beat the diced basil into the sugar and add this to the chocolate mixture.  Add the eggs one at a time mixing constantly.  Then  fold in the cocoa powder slowly mixing until smooth. Stir in the teaspoon of lemon grass powder at the end.

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for about 20 minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool. Serve warm with a sprig of fresh basil.

Following up on Sunday’s flat bread dough.…use it also to make a healthy pizza. Once you’ve made  your dough and are ready to roll, brush the edges of the rolled out dough with maple syrup or honey or agave syrup should you have some on hand.

Blanch some fresh broccoli in a little boiling water with some fresh coriander leaves and chopped garlic for a few minutes until cooked but crisp. Let it cool.

Sprinkle the dough liberally with chopped tomatoes, feta, the cooled broccoli and some zaatar and black pepper. Bake in a hot oven for about 15-20 minutes. Done.

Itching to make some kind of pizza, comforting bread or just a floury mess in the kitchen I decided to attack the flat bread recipe in one of my favourite armchair travel cookbooks. This book is a homage to the Lebanese cooking that is integral to the heritage of Greg Malouf, one of the authors. Well over three hundred pages of mezze, meats and sweets. Recipes but much more. A simply written account of a journey back home but also an exploration of Lebanese culture and cuisine as well as those of Syria. There is a real sense of a humbling personal experience and genuine love of the food of the region whether it’s because it evokes childhood dishes served up by aunts or grandmothers at home in Australia or his palpable awe at the prospect of visiting the homeland. But more then that, the recipes are authentic, easy to follow yet challenging, a joy to cook, aromatic, comforting and elegant and a reminder of all the other ingredients out there and ways of making food there are. I judge cookbooks often more by how entertaining they are to read then how useful they are in the kitchen. These recipes are given in a cultural context, with detailed descriptions of each region, different local producers and methods so the reader can take the time to understand where a dish came from, the regional influences and nuances that led to the appearance of a certain recipe on a given page and if nothing else it will transport you to a sunny street in Damascus or a busy Beirut street cafe in a matter of pages.

- Manoushi bread dough – recipe taken from Saha – A chef’s journey through Lebanon and Syria by Greg and Lucy Malouf, published in 2005.

This kind of cooking is the real slow food movement, short cuts not recommended. We’re often talking ingredients not found lying around the kitchen and methods that require a bit of elbow grease. But no matter. Part of the fun is seeking out those ingredients and seeing if you can knead and slice and smell your way into producing something like Aleppo style lamb with a cherry sauce or roasted quail in flat bread with a pistachio sauce. Even just a good home made hummus or moutabel.

I enjoy making bread, kneading far more then is necessary but enjoying the therapeutic process required to make that smooth soft seamless ball of dough from the chaos and mess that is flour, water and yeast.

This bread is essentially a basic pizza dough and is a basic snack food of Lebanon and Syria served either simply with a scattering of sumac ansd  zaatar or used as the base for a hearty sandwich. Sumac is a rusty reddish coloured berry that is dried and ground to make a spicy flavouring for soups, sauces or meat. It is also an ingredient of zaatar which is another condiment made with a mixture of thyme, salt and toasted  sesame seeds, a salty topping for the traditional Lebanese galettes or Manouch’e….use it instead of salt to brighten things up.

When the dough is ready divide it up into about twelve small pieces. Or as many as you’ll need. The dough you don’t use you can freeze or refrigerate.

Here is their recipe, keep the dough in the fridge overnight if you’re not ready to use it. Cover it well in plastic when putting in the fridge so it doesn’t absorb any strange flavours or yeasts. Once ready to use, tear off pieces of dough to make mini pizzas in a matter of minutes if you so feel like it…or maybe make one big ‘pizza’….as you wish.

Ingredients
355 grams plain flour
1 teaspoon dried yeast
a half teaspoon salt
a quarter teaspoon of sugar
6 or 7 fluid oz. of warm water
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Making
Mix the flour, yeast and salt. Add the olive oil. Dilute the sugar in the water. Add the water slowly and pull the mixture together until it forms a sticky dough. Don’t worry if it’s a mess and stringy and difficult. Just tip it out onto a floured board and start kneading. Push and fold adding flour or a little water depending on how sticky the dough is.
When you have a smooth tacky but not sticky ball of dough, smooth a little oil around it, cover it and put it in a warm place to rise for a couple of hours.
Then, when ready to use, have your oven pre-heated and roll out and press a small piece of dough with the idea of making a mini pizza, throw it around until it’s thin and stretchy but not too thin.
Spread it with a little olive oil, salt, sumac and zaatar or whatever you wish and bake for about 8 minutes preferably using a pizza stone.

What to do with a small bottle of sirop de poivre de Penja?

Good for glazing pineapple, chocolate cake or meat, this sugary syrup is made from filtered white Penja peppercorns. Penja peppercorns get their flavour  from the volcanic soils in which they are cultivated, in Penja,  Cameroon. These fragrant special white peppercorns are in a category of their own and are fast becoming a hot culinary property around the world.

Something told me a rich gooey chocolate cake could take some seasoning. These mini mi-cuits take minutes and could easily take on a dash of cinnamon, chili powder or other flavours

Melty, chocolatey, chewy, easy to make, mi-cuit mini cakes

I found this recipe at Epicurious – I felt a layer of the sweet and savoury sticky penja syrup would be perfect for these easy melty fudgey cakes that are perfect for any cook who “doesn’t do dessert”. Top them with goji berries to make you feel more virtuous…

Ingredients

4 ounces dark semisweet baking chocolate
4 tablespoons butter
1 large egg
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon flour

Making

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a small saucepan.

Whisk the egg, sugar, and salt together until yellow and light. Fold in the melted chocolate batter. Mix in the flour until fully incorporated.

Lightly butter the cupcake tins. Pour the batter into the tins and bake for about about 12 minutes, just until the tops crack.

Remove the cakes from the oven. Using oven mitts, place aluminum foil on the top of the cupcake tins and seal on all sides. Turn over onto a flat surface and bang the bottom of the cupcake tins. Remove the cupcake tins to leave the cakes upside down on the aluminum foil. Carefully turn right side up and place on the plate.

Spoon some of the penja syrup over the top of each one and serve immediately with vanilla ice cream should you feel the urge. Here goji berries make a nice topping not to mention a great super food boost to an otherwise sinful dessert!

Angels or ghosts? Just go wherever the cookie cutter takes you. Inspired to make cookies for a Christmas film fest, I wanted to use up rye flour and then I figured the pine nuts could go in too.  Nothing like Home Alone and Charlie Brown’ Christmas Special to get you in the mood. Did you know the Charlie Brown Christmas Special dates from 1965?

Rye flour cookies with a sweet crunch – Just take…

Ingredients: 200 gr cream cheese, 3 tablespoons butter, 1 half teaspoon baking powder, 1 half teaspoon of salt, 100 gr crushed pine nuts, 1 third cup white sugar, 1 cup rye flour, 1 cup plain flour and a few teaspoons of honey to make them crackly and golden…

Cream the cream cheese and the butter until fluffy and smooth, mix the dry ingredients well before adding them to the butter mix. I crushed the pine nuts in their bag with a rolling pin before adding them to the mix.

It takes time and a little bit of faith but the crumbly mess will form a  lovely dough with the help of a few tablespoons of water…

Leave to chill for at least a half hour (if you don’t, it’s not a big problem) and the roll as thin as you can using  plenty of flour to prevent sticking and thus save your sanity.

Cut into whatever shapes you like and glaze with a little honey before baking them for about 8-10 minutes in the oven. I also stuck a few flaked almonds onto the angel’s tummies before putting in the oven.

Allow to cool so they become crispy. Leave for a bit longer in the oven to get the crunchy honey coating…

Don’t forget to sprinkle liberally with sugar before, during and after…