Papaya Brioche with cheese and farm eggs omelette and french tarragon bearnaise sauce

Are you promdi?

A few weeks ago, I got an eyebrow raising message from a friend telling me that I must be a "provenciana" now considering that I live in Provence which literally means province in french. And what is the big deal I just thought. It is so sad that the word province is often connotated with being naive, backward or ignorant. In Philippine lingo we have the term "promdi" to denigrate somebody coming from the province. I have been long time city dweller and somehow I understand this sort of rivalry. But honestly I really don't mind being coined as a "provenciana". Because this means living closer to the nature, breathing fresher air far from the hassle of the city and eating farm produced products. Yay isn't that better! Anyways I'm sure my friend meant no harm when she said that and besides France's Provençe isn't really that provincial.

And speaking of healthy food I just thought of conconting up this simple meal of fresh farm eggs omellette on home baked brioche with some tarragon bearnaise sauce for my Royal Food Joust entry.

My over burnt brioche......



My Papaya brioche before over burning ....

Papaya Brioche

Ingredients:
400 grams of flour
1 sachet of yeast (about 10 g)
85 g of sugar
one and a half teaspoon of salt
3 egg yolks
24 cl of milk
100 g of dried papaya
70 g of butter
1 egg yolk + some milk for brushing the brioche

In a bowl put the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and egg yolks and add the milk little by little and continue mixing until they become homogenous. Add the butter and continue kneading the dough until they dont stick to the hands. Let this dough stand for an hour. Flatten the dough to release the air and add your dried papaya. Continue kneading again and let it raise for another hour. Butter your brioche mold and put the dough inside. Brush it with egg yolk and egg mixture. Pre heat the oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 200° celsius.
Cheese and Farm Eggs Omelette

3 large eggs
half a cup of grated gruyere cheese
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Beat the eggs and fold in the grated cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Warm up the pan and pour in the butter and olive oil. Lower the fire. Pour the eggs and cheese and cook it slowly.

French Tarragon Bearnaise Sauce

1 tablespoon of chopped tarragon leaves
2 egg yolks
100 g of butter
2 cl of wine vinegar
2 cl of white wine
1 small shallots chopped

In a casserole boil slowly the white wine, wine vinegar, shallots and tarragon leaves. Let them infused until the volume reduced. Let it cool then add the egg yolks beat them vigorously. Put back into the fire and continue whisking. Avoid making the eggs coagulate. Add the butter and continue whisking the sauce.

Daube Provencal (Beef Stew in Wine and Olives)

Digesting a bad news

The thing that I hate the most on watching news is that most of the time its only about bad news. As if we do not have too much trouble to worry about. But then again the scenario turns into a different perspective, when the news you get are the ones coming from your loved one. How I despise bad news. Yesterday, I felt so devastated after learning about a heart-breaking news from the email I got. You know that I'm so far away from my family, and the Internet always makes me feel so close to home--sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's really bad.

The best thing to deal with problem is to be not too anxious about them! So to make me feel better, hubby had an excellent idea to bring us to to see the 40th celebration of Photography Festival in the historical city of Arles. It is one of the largest and the oldest in the region. Au rendezvous where numerous photo exhibits from the renowned photographers all over the world of all genre showcased all over the city. The guest of honor is Delpire the talented artistic editor of Nouvel Observateur. Of course it was forbidden to take photographs so I just took some snaps of this beautiful city.

(From top left to right clockwise; bull graffiti, the main plaza, the window of an eccentric house close to the Mayors office and the church of Arles.)

(From top left to right clockwise; signage of a yellow hotel, a serving of daube provencal, a door knob and a photographer's graffiti.)

And on times like this nothing beats a comforting dish of Beef Daube Provencal. It's a family recipe that hubby's Grandmother taught me. It's a typical provencale meat dish slowly cooked in wine and olives. I'm sending this off to Family Recipes an event of family well loved dishes hosted by the The Spiced Life.

Beef Daube Provencale

Ingredients:

1 kilo of boneless beef bottom round or chuck cut into bite size
half a kilo of beef short ribs or flanken
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of flour
1 teaspoon of melted butter
2 cloves of garlic chopped
2 big onions chopped
2 big tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed and chopped
one cup of green and black olives
one cup of white wine (or red wine)
one cup of beef broth
salt, pepper, bay leaf, fresh rosemary and thyme

Procedure:
Start by putting 1 tablespoon of olive oil on your meat, add some salt and pepper. Put the flour and toss it until the flour are evenly distributed. Heat the pan and put your melted butter and the rest of the olive oil. Fry briefly the beef to have that brownish golden color, add the garlic and onion. Continue stirring. Put the tomatoes, olives and deglaze it with the wine. Add the broth and cook it slowly on a crackpot. Add all the fresh herbes, salt and pepper.

Lemon, Rosemary & Honey Pork Roast

Lemon Rosemary & Honey Pork Roast

Yay, my internet connection is finally back! And another great reason to celebrate is that I'll finally have back my former nationality after long months of waiting; it simply means that I am officially of dual citizenship now. To celebrate moments like this (seriously I mean it’s a glorious day because you don’t imagine how bureaucracy is in embassies like ours that before you get what you want you’ll probably have three or more grey hairs added without counting all the wrinkles J whew I survived that) I could only think of having nothing special like a pork roast.

Despite the fact that there are some people who cannot eat it for religious or health reasons, pork still rest as one of my favorite meat for it blends perfectly with almost anything. And every time I feast on something with pork it always reminds me of those happy childhood days that my parents decided to raise pigs inside our house to make both ends meet. So that’s make eating pork twice the fun for me. Well honestly you have a lot of reasons for loving them once you take off their nasty smell and noise. Think about this; they are intelligent, they are cute and they eat anything (we fed them only with neighbors’ left-over food, which comes very economical). Anyways, on festive times like this I am actually craving more for a Lechon (that’s one whole roasted pig) but the closest I could have now is just a pork roast.

I’ll be sending off this Lemon Rosemary & Honey Pork Roast over at Jugalbandi for August Click, this month theme is citrus. If you love great food photography check out the round-up at the end of this month. And this recipe goes off at Sunita’s place too for her lovely event Think Spice that just turned one year old. Congratulations!!

Lemon Rosemary & Honey Pork Roast
about a kilo of Pork for roasting
fresh frigs of rosemary leaves
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
some salt and pepper
some olive oil

second part:
half a stick of butter
a quarter of glass of water
1 teaspoon of flour
some olive oil

In a bowl mix all the ingredients: lemon zest, lemon juice, salt,pepper,rosemary leaves, honey,vinegar and olive oil. Mix them well. Rub this marinade on your pork and let it stand on this for about thirty minutes. Preheat the oven at 180 ° celsius. The best way to cook pork is to roast it slowly on temperature that is not too strong. Heat a pan and put half of the butter on it and brown a little all sides of your pork (about 2 to 3 minutes at a high temperature). In your preheated oven roast your pork slowly for about thirty minutes. Putting some marinade and water from time to time to avoid drying up the meat. After the cooking time let the pork put it out of the oven and let it stand for about ten minutes before slicing them. During those time prepare the sauce; get all the juice and marinade in the pan, add some water witht the flour dissolved on it. Warm it up on the stove and stir it. As soon as it starts to thicken add the remaining butter. Pour this over your sliced pork.


Try my other meat recipes:
Beef Spicy Caldereta
Rolled Turkey Scalopes in walnut pesto
Beef Tagine in dry figs

Stir fry noodles: Noodle, noddle on the wok who's the fairest of them all?

Stir-fry Noodle

I have been absent for a while in the blogosphere world. I must admit that I tremendously miss all my favorite "food blog" I often hangout but Christmas and New Year holidays at our household are important occassions for our family to relax and do our "bonding". And that means no email and no blogging for the last 2 weeks. But nonetheless, Im back in the business.

I'm pretty sure that most people often spend the last day of the year writing or pondering about their "resolutions list". However, I grew up in the family that this day is reserved for undertaking all undone or half-done things. Believe it or not on the 31st day of December I spend the entire day cleaning the house and arranging my kitchen. And I was amazed to discover all the ingredients that have been sleeping for so long in my kitchen cabinet. Tons of spices, dried tomatoes, dried beans, different types of rice, canned goods, jams, some nori wrappers and lots and lots of noodles; all waiting for their turn to be used one day. And you guess it right, that night I cooked some stir fried noodles.

Some are thick, some are thin, some are soft, some are hard
Cook them anyway you want...

Stir-fry Noodles
Ingredients:
1 package of noodle (any type)
2 tbsps of olive oil
2 tbsps of Sesame Oil
1 tbsp of Oyster Sauce
2 tbsps of Soy Sauce
1 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of lime juice
half a cup of shrimps
one cup of diced vegetables (broccolli, carrots, haricot verts, etc)
1 onion chopped

In a wok start by stif frying the vegetables and onion in olive oil. After few minutes add the shrimps and continue stirring. Throw in sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Mix well. Add the pre-cooked noodle and continue stirring. Before serving put the lime juice.

No one escapes the power of my chopsticks!

For my french readers, the french version of this noodle recipe is here : http://www.lesfoodies.com/hilda/recette/nouilles-aux-crevettes-chinoise