2May/100
Breast of duck with figs
Main course for Julie's birthday.
Ingredients:
- one duck breast
- one apple
- 6 figs
- 2 soup spoons of honey
- 2 soup spoons of soy sauce
- 2 soup spoons of balsamic vinegar
- some rosemary
- rose, white and black pepper
- some butter
Duck breast:
- Preheat a fryer.
- When the fryer is really hot, reduce the flame (it should be almost at the minimum) and put the duck breast into the flyer, grease on bottom.
- Leave it for around 30 minutes, removing the grease as it liquefies.
- Turn the duck breast around a few times so it browns a little.
Accompaniment:
- Pour the honey and soy sauce into a fryer, add the spices and rosemary, mix. Start cooking over low heat.
- Once the honey has melted, put the figs into the fryer. Let them cook for about 10 minutes, turning them over regularly.
- Remove the figs, add the vinegar and leave it on the flame for at most one minute. The sauce should boil, but it must not caramelise.
- Cut 6 slices from the apple, remove the pips.
- Put the butter into a frying pan, melt it, then cook the apple slices for a few minutes. Remove them and place them on kitchen paper.
Putting it together:
- Cut a few slices of duck breast.
- Place 3 apple slices in the plate.
- Place one fig on each apple slice.
- Pour some sauce over the figs and duck breast.
1May/100
Mille-feuilles d’aubergines à la provençale
Starter for Julie's birthday.
Ingredients:
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 rather big aubergine
- pine nuts et pistachios
- 2 shallots
- some basil
- quite a lot of olive oil
Preparation:
- Preheat the oven to 210°C.
- Slice the aubergine (slices should be about 5mm thick), add salt and pepper, and pour some olive oil. Put them in the oven for 15 minutes.
- Put the tomatoes into boiling water for about 20 seconds, cool them with water, then peel them and dice them.
- Put about 40mL of olive oil into a frying pan, add the tomato dices, sliced shallots, fine-cut basil, pine nuts and pistachios. Cook until you obtain some sort of paste (10 minutes, give or take). WARNING: near the end of the process, there's a high risk of projections!
- Use the aubergine slices from (1) interleaved with a tea spoon of paste (4) to create the mille-feuilles. With the ingredients above, it's usually possible to make 4 mille-feuilles with 4 slices of aubergine each.
- Leave it for a while then store it in the fridge.
Pour a tea spoon of olive oil on each mille-feuille just before serving.
1May/100
Tea creams
Dessert for Julie's birthday.
Ingredients:
- 180 g sugar
- 2 whole eggs
- 4 egg yolks
- 500 mL milk
- some tea
Preparation:
- Preheat the oven to 200°C.
- Boil up the milk, turn off the heat, then leave the tea to infuse in the milk for about 15 minutes.
- Mix the sugar, the eggs and egg yolks. Whip the mix.
- Coat the inside of 6 small recipients with butter.
- Mix the result of (1) and (2) while whipping profusely. Pour the mix into the recipients.
- Cook in the oven using a water bath for about 35 minutes.
- Wait until it cools.
