Christmas Starters

What’s cooking in Pauline-Cuisine ?

Nearly at Christmas, my head is full of ideas for cooking an unforgettable Christmas dinner for my three guests. I have already bought in France a Foie gras, and now I am looking for a nice way to present it, but one more time I have a lot of ideas and I can’t decide which ways is the best… one more week to decide…. but can’t wait for a magic Christmas :)

For this countdown to Christmas, I will share with you two nice starter with salmon. Salmon again, yes of course, since I go to the fresh fish market every month, I cook a lot of salmon. These two starters are easy and quick to prepare. There are beautiful in a table display.
The first starter is a simple smoked salmon canapé with soft cheese and drill or lump roe. The second starter is a verrine with salmon and the greek preparation Tzatziki, that is really fresh and the fact to add lump roe in it add a nice color touch. I really enjoy these two starters, try them and don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

In another background, a daily recipe, because yes we are going to Christmas really quickly but we still need to eat on a daily basis, here it is a quick soup recipe: courgette soup, a nice green color with a tasty soft taste.

I wish you a happy Christmas, see you on the 30th for a new recipe of homemade yogurt.

Have a nice weeks.

Risotto with cabbage

What’s cooking in Pauline-Cuisine ?

This week, I share with you a new Lunch box: Risotto with cabbage. That is a really tasty and quite easy to do.  Try it and add a comment to the page.

When I was a child and I lived in the North of France, usually on December 6th, we celebrated Saint Nicolas, it is quite similar as Santa Claus. For celebrating him, we offer each other chocolate and a typical brioche: a coquille. So, this year, I wanted to recreate this party atmosphere at home, but I didn't find any coquille in various French bakeries, so I decided to do mine. I took my usual brioche recipe and when the dough was ready, I formed the brioche. It was delicious :)

In another topics, I want to share a cooking experience that I had few weeks ago. I am always curious about what’s new and I discovered the Gousto offer. That is a grocery bags that you can receive each week and it contains all the ingredients for making 3 selected recipes. The concept is really nice, a little bit expensive if you have already the habit to cook. I have enjoyed my cooking experience with this Gousto offer: an easy way to prepare fresh dish, learning tips and discovering new recipes. I let you discover this offer with my article and pictures of my homemade dishes.

Have a nice week and see you next week with a tasty soup: soup of Courgette.

Bread with chestnut flour

What's cooking in Pauline-Cuisine?

This week I would like to share with you a delicious cooking experience. As you probably know, I love doing my bread. Bread is an important part of my food, I was disappointed when I arrived in London by the bread, and when I have finally found “real” bread the prices are far too expensive for eating my everyday baguette.  I have taken the habit to make my bread two times a week but sometimes I fed up of the routine recipes. So last week, I have tried bread with chestnut flour. The taste was really great, I ate it for breakfast with some Nutella, in order to underline the delicious taste of chestnuts and nuts. The chestnut flour was a great discovery. I hope you will enjoy the recipe.

The chestnut flour was really new for me and I have no idea to buy it until…. I received my “Recreation Gourmande” box. What is that? It is an attractive and new concept of cooking box. I enjoy the concept of receiving monthly surprise box filled with new or unknown products. Moreover, I love receiving parcel and discovering products, so I was instantly attracted by “Recreation Gourmande” box.

 

I took the opportunity to come back to France for my honeymoon for ordering one box. I was so excited when I received the email that said that I am going to receive it. My parents received it few days after the email. For me, it was like Christmas when I arrived in France: a white parcel waited for me. I opened it quickly and I discovered a lot of different products. I was surprised to find chestnut flour, curry salt or figs chutney… and tasty little biscuits: “les petits mulots”. These biscuits were smooth and on the middle of them there are pieces of creamy gingerbread. It was nice to eat them when I was continuing to discover the products. I have appreciated to find recipes in order to help me to use some products. But as I like to cook, I have tried to use the products on my cooking experiences; it was on that way that the chestnuts flour arrived on my bread last week.

For this chestnuts bread I share with you a new shape, crown bread.

Have a nice week and see you next week with a lunch box recipe: cabbage risotto.

Mini Chocolate mousse

What’s cooking in Pauline-Cuisine?

I was a bit late in my weekly edito, but I am quite busy for the moment.

Last week, one of my trainee at the office had finished her time at the company, so I wanted to cook something for her goodbye “party”. I had no idea at the beginning because I wanted to do something pretty and convenient to travel because I need to take the underground everyday for going to work. So, I opted for mini chocolate mousse. For a nice presentation, I used disposable shooter glace and add some sugar sparkles on the top of the chocolate mousse. Everyone at the office enjoys it. It was the right size and the strong chocolate taste was really good. Try it and add a comment to the post.

Another cooking experience was last Sunday; I have done my Sunday feast with Carib Gourmet. It took a long time to prepare but it is worth it and it was a success. We have welcomed 14 guests and it was enough for having a good ambiance at the table. Our guests were happy about the food even if there are too much food to eat. I have enjoyed this experience and I am proud to have done it. At the end of the feast, each guest received a goodie bag which contained tasty Congolais. They brought them at home like a little present. I was happy to receive the next day some text (from friend) which said there were delicious. If you want to try to cook some Congolais, don’t hesitate to try my recipe on the website and leave comment.

I wish you a nice week.

See you next week with the recipe one my main dish at the Sunday Feast: Tartiflette “à la mode” Créole.

Sunday Feast on November 18th

What’s new in Pauline-Cuisine?

A big and really important event will arrive in a few days on my short Pauline-Cuisine life. I will cook a full of flavour dinner with Carib-Gourmet, on November 18^th at the School of Wok (London). We have worked hard to find some typical dishes and high quality ingredients for preparing this 6 courses feast.

The last two months were entirely dedicated to find high quality products. For my smoked salmon starter, I went to the fish market early on the morning (at 4.00 am, really early :)). I have tasted various smoked salmon and took in consideration the large offer of fishes. Now, I have stayed with the idea of a smoked salmon starter but I let me the choice to add something to my starter regarding to what I will find on Saturday 17^th. At the Sunday Feast, you will eat fresh and tasty fish, so book your seat.

For my new style Tartiflette, I went to France for buying delicious and creamy strong mountain cheese: Reblochon. I have tasted an unknown Christmas ham that comes from Caribbean islands. I have discovered this amazing ham thanks to a friend. It is like a smoked gammon with a spices taste and it is quite difficult to describe this full flavour ham. That adds a huge value-added to the traditional taste of the Tartiflette. Are you curious? , come and feast at the school of Wok on the 18^th.

If you are sweet teeth like me, I will serve a delicious dessert: tasty crêpes with exotic filling as pineapple or guava jam. For an even tastier dessert, I will serve a homemade mango whipped cream. Do you have taste something like that before? Your stomach would like to taste, don’t wait and book a seat to the French Carribean Sunday Feast.

Join the French Carribean Sunday Feast, an unique event where Traditional French Cuisine will meet Créole Cuisine.

Book your seat here.

Lunch box: fresh salad with prawns

What's cooking in Pauline-Cuisine?

This week, I will share with you my last salad lunch box. Indeed the days become colder and colder and I caught the flu this weekend, so I am not in mood to create salad. This week, I give you the recipe for doing a colourful salad with prawns for your lunch box.

I created this lunch box because I was fed up of salad with chicken or bacon and I wanted to innovate a little bit with seafood. In fact, when I went to the fish wholesale market two weeks ago, I was really surprised by the good quality of the fish for such a small price. That encourages me to do more things with seafood.

Talking about the wholesale market, I tried with a friend this weekend, the fruits and vegetables fruits market but I was really disappointed. First of all, it was quite far from the underground. Secondly, it was really dangerous to walk on this wholesale market because of the pallets trucks that they went everywhere really fast for transporting huge amount of fruits and vegetables in order to put them into trucks for supermarkets. I suppose, you have already guessed what is the third point, we can’t buy under 4 or 5 kilograms of fruits or vegetables, so it is too big for us. And sometimes, the fruits are not really fresh so we need to use them quickly if we buy it.  

Finally, we have only bought cherry tomatoes and pineapples. With pineapples, I used one part for doing my multi exotic fruits dessert and with the other part, I tried to do my first jam but it is not a really success. The taste is really good but the texture is not what I want, so I will try it again before sharing with you the recipe.

This weekend, I have also organised a little diner and I have tried to do new things. I tried to do an exotic whipped cream. In fact, since I discovered the exotic fruits, I want to incorporate them in a lot of my traditional French recipes, in order to change a little bit the taste and add sun at the table. I will share with you this recipe of mango whipped cream this week (just let me time to take the picture and create the article).

I wish you a nice week and see you next week with an amazing recipe: French Chocolate Macarons with Guava filling.

Recipe of the week: Multi-exotic fruits dessert

What’s cooking in Pauline’s Cuisine?

This week, I would like to share with you one of my new favourite dessert. I am actually a very sweet teeth and I enjoy eating desserts. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t have enough time to elaborate them thankfully for my waist :).

So, I took the decision to read my various cook books and magazines in order to try to find quick and healthy desserts to do after my working day. I am not easy to satisfy so usually I take a recipe on a book and I amend it when I do it. Sometimes it is a success such as my new exotic recipe: Multi-exotic dessert, and sometimes it is a disaster as this weekend with a pear ice cream with chocolate chips without ice-maker. Let’s forget this disaster and focus on this tasty new recipe: Multi-exotic fruits.

It is a delicious mix of Mango, Pineapple and Passion fruits. But it is not a simply compote, I add some congolais in the bottom of the ramequin (it was an idea of the cookbook). The coconut flavour adds another tasty and delicious touch to this dessert. I served it two weeks ago to my guests, and they were glad to eat it with congolais and vanilla ice-cream on the side.  Try this recipe and don’t hesitate to let a comment.

I realised this recipe for my business partner: Carib Gourmet. The one with I will cook the Sunday feast on the 18th of November. For this occasion, she created a nice cartoon of us. I let you enjoy this funny drawing.

If you are like me, you enjoy dessert and colourful dessert is like a bonus for your dinner, I encourage you to try my little exotic range of dessert recipes: Panna Cotta with Exotic Fruits, Mango and coconut dessert and Passion Fruits cheesecake….

I wish you a nice week. See you next week with another lunch box recipe. I suppose that will be the last one because it is a cold lunch box with prawns, and the weather will become cooler and cooler.