Truffle part 7: Mushroom, Egg & Cheese Pastry with truffles and Salad with lemon mayo honey dressing

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almonds, appetizer, brunch, cheddar, cheese, Egg, egg and cheese pastry, egg and cheese pastry with truffles, healthy, light meals, lunch, mushrooms, pastry, Puff pastry, salad, Snack, starter, truffle oil, truffles

Almost finished with the truffle series! Here I made two simple dishes with the truffles, a puff pastry and a salad. Really easy and yummy stuff.

Puff Pastry Ingredients (for 1 pax)

1. A quarter of ready made puff pastry (I used Jus-rol, the 500g packet)
2. Grate a good handful of your favourite cheese (I used cheddar)
3. Sliced mushrooms (about 3 fresh swiss brown mushrooms)
4. 1 teaspoon of truffle oil
5. 1 egg
6. 1 egg white to glaze
7. Black pepper and salt

Salad Ingredients (for 1-2 pax depending on how greedy)

1. 7-8 almonds sliced (If you can buy them pre sliced, that’s even better
2. Handful of cranberries
3. Juice and rind from half a yellow lemon (omit the rind if you don’t like it)
4. 3 tbsp mayo
5. 1-2 tbsp honey
6. Enough salad leaves for 1-2 pax

Instructions

1. Roll out the ready made pastry into a square and trim off the sides so that it’s nice and neat. 
2. Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C for fan assisted ovens). You should follow the instructions printed on the wrapping, oven temperatures and timings may differ.
3. Cut a little more of the ready made pastry and roll it out to make 4 strips, you will need to place each strip at the edge of the pastry square so it holds the ingredients (and egg) in.
4. Arrange the cheese and mushrooms in the pastry, leaving space in the middle. The egg will be added here later on. In the meantime, brush the pastry with the egg white for that golden brown colour
5. Bake the pastry for about 12 minutes (this would depend on the total time you need to bake the pastry. If you need to bake it for 20 minutes, add the egg 3-4 minutes before completion). If I remember correctly I baked it for 15 minutes, so I slid the egg into the middle after 12 minutes. You can add more cheese around the egg after that if you wish. Then drizzle the truffle oil over the pastry.
6. Once the pastry is golden brown and the egg is cooked, remove from oven.

1. While the pastry is cooking, wash and drain the salad leaves, slice the almonds and fry them til golden in color. Pat the excess oil off almonds with a kitchen towel and set aside.
2. Mix the lemon juice and rind, mayo and honey together in a separate bowl.
3. Place salad leaves in a salad bowl and toss with the honey lemon and mayo mixture. Add cranberries, sliced almonds and shave some of that black truffle on top. Serve.
4. Season pastry with black pepper (and, if you chose a mild, not-so-salty cheese, some salt) and add some truffle shavings. Eat!

You can add other things to your salad, I added cherry tomatoes to mine.

If you like your egg less cooked then just cook it for 1.5-2 minutes before removing from the oven. For me, as long as the whites are cooked I’m all good.

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Egg and Bacon Salad with honey mayo mustard dressing

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appetizer, bacon, brunch, eggs, hard boiled eggs, healthy, honey, light meal, lunch, mayonnaise, mustard, parmesan cheese, romaine lettuce, salad, Snack, starter

I saw this in one of Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks and had to make it! I love green salads with eggs. Caesar salads for one =p. The recipe in Nigella’s book calls for mustard, vinegar and worcestershire sauce for the dressing but I used honey, mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. It was as I liked it 😉 sweetish sour with a slight kick from the mustard.

Ingredients (Serves 4 as a starter, or Serves 2 as a full meal)

1. 4 eggs
2. 1 head escarole or frisee (I used Romaine lettuce, you can use other leaves of your preference)
3. 1 teaspoon garlic oil
4. 200g smoked lardons or smoked streaky bacon cut into chunks (I just cut up some sliced bacon)
5. small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
6. For the dressing: 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 4 tsp cider vinegar, a dash of Worcestershire sauce
7. Parmesan cheese (Optional)
8. 1 Chicken fillet (Optional)

Instructions

1. Put the eggs into a saucepan of water, bring to the boil, let boil for 1 minute, then turn off the heat and let the eggs sit in the pan for 10 minutes (the egg would come out still golden in the centre and not hard boiled all the way, and the whites would be silkier).
2. Wash, drain and tear the salad leaves into bite sized pieces and place it into a bowl.
3. Heat the garlic oil in a frying pan and fry the lardons/bacon until crisp.
4. Drain the water from the egg pan and run cold water on the eggs. Once they are cool to the touch, peel them.
5. Transfer the lardons/bacon with a slotted spatula onto some sheets of kitchen roll.
6. Add Dijon mustard to the juices in the bacon pan and whisk to mix, then add the vinegar and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, whisk again and pour this over the salad leaves, tossing to mix. (Here, I just mixed honey, Dijon mustard and mayonnaise together until I liked the taste. No extra bacon oil here)
7. Now add the bacon to the salad and toss again. Then quarter the eggs and add them along with the chopped parsley, before giving the whole salad a gentle mix to combine.
8. If you’re adding chicken, brush the chicken with olive oil, then sprinkle salt, pepper other herbs of your choice. Place in a baking tray and bake at 190 degrees celsius and roast for 15-25 minutes depending on the breast size until the juices run clear. Remove from oven, let it rest for 15 mins before slicing/shredding to add into the salad

Result… a very filling and satisfying salad! Omit bacon and cheese to make it healthier 😉

 

 

Truffles Part 5: Cream of Mushroom soup with creme fraiche and truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffle, brown mushrooms, cream, cream of mushroom soup, creme fraiche, dinner, hand blender, mushroom, mushroom soup, Soup, starter, truffles, western, white truffle oil

I love mushroom soup. Even though I’ve been eating canned Campbell mushroom soup for most of my life, nothing beats freshly made cream of mushroom soup. I attempted it for the first time as part of my truffle menu and used portobello and those nice swiss brown mushrooms. Other recipes call for er… wilder varieties of mushroom but since its just me and my helper, I decided to just use mushrooms that I’m used to. The end result should be a creamy thick soup of mushrooms and enhanced just by some chopped parsley, truffle shavings and perhaps a drop or two of truffle oil.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

100g butter

500g mushrooms (I used 250g portobello and 250g swiss brown mushrooms)

350ml chicken stock

400ml water

100g cooking cream

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp of creme fraiche per bowl of soup (you can adjust this if you like)

Fresh truffle shavings

1 tsp chopped English parsley per bowl

Salt and black pepper for seasoning

Instructions

1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and drain.

2. Slice the mushrooms to the same thickness (otherwise you’ll get inconsistencies in texture after blending)

3. Melt the butter in a sauce pan large enough to hold 2 litres of water. I used a wok as I’m more comfortable with it.

4. Fry the garlic and mushrooms together for 5 minutes. The mushrooms will release some liquid.

5. Add chicken stock and water and bring to the boil before turning down the heat. Cover with the lid and let it stew for about 30 minutes.

6. Add the cream and let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Blitz the soup with a hand blender. Be careful when you do this as you don’t want the hot liquid to fly all over the kitchen and onto you! 

I transferred the mixture into a mixing jug for blitzing.

8. Blitz until your desired consistency. I like mine slightly chunky

9. Ladle into soup bowl and top with creme fraiche, truffle shavings, parsley and a little white truffle oil if you like.

Serve with bread! 

Truffle Part 4: Foie Gras and fried onions crostini with truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffles, bread, brunch, crostini, foie gras, foie gras pate, onions, starter, truffles, western

I’ve previously tried a foie gras pate and fried onions combinations. I just thought I’d try something one step further and use foie gras lobes and top everything with my beautiful winter black truffles ❤

Ingredients (Serves 2 pax)

4 slices of french baguette bread

2 lobes of foie gras at room temperature

1/2 a large onion

Black winter truffle shavings

Fleur de sel and black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat some oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onions. Fry until golden brown and caramelized.

2. This is where I made a mistake, I used the same pan to fry the foie gras and didn’t wash it. The pan should have been dry and hot as foie gras is already oily as it is. But as I reused the pan there was some residual oil and bits of fried onion T_____T. Not that it makes much difference to the taste, it just looked bad afterwards.

3. Sear the foie gras for about 45 seconds on each side.

4. Remove from the pan and slice thickly (see above).

5. Lightly toast the baguette slices 

6. Assemble your crostini! Place some of the caramelized onions on the toasted baguette, arrange the foie gras slices on it and season with fleur de sel and black pepper. For the finishing touch, just go crazy shaving the truffles all over the plate! 

Its a little hard eating the crostini as bits of onion tend to fall off but its totally worth it. The fatty rich foie gras with the sweet onions and delicate aromatic truffles truly make a heavenly bite!

Truffles Part 1 – Carpaccio with trio of truffles

Tags

black truffle, black winter truffle, canned truffles, carpaccio, carpaccio with trio of truffles, carpaccio with truffles, fusion, sashimi, starter, tai, truffle oil, truffles, white truffle oil

So I decided to indulge in my newfound love for truffles. I ordered two black winter truffles and it arrived today! Super excited. Its now stored in rice in my fridge, and accordingly I placed eggs in the same container just to maximize the use of the truffles. My fridge smells like truffles now mmmm.

This is a dish I had at Aoki, a japanese restaurant in Singapore, and its pretty easy to replicate. It is also foolproof and perfect as a starter. The chopped canned truffle adds a little bite to the dish and the fleur de sel not only makes the dish look aesthetically pleasing, it also gives a briny crunch to the fish that, on many levels, is so different from your ordinary table salt.

Will be putting up several truffle-themed posts, this is just the first 😉

They’re pretty big aren’t they?

Ingredients

1 tbsp Truffle oil

Tai (sea bream) sashimi grade sliced thinly

Fleur de sel

1 summer black truffle from a jar

Generous shavings from a fresh black winter truffle

Instructions

1) Chop up your summer truffle into little chunks. Don’t mince it too finely as we want some texture to this dish.

2) Arrange the fish on the plate

3) Sprinkle the chopped truffle on top of the fish and drizzle the truffle oil.

4) Add shavings of black winter truffle on top and season with fleur de sel.

Enjoy the heady rush of truffle!