Post your breakfast, lunch or dinner

[Markit]

@Markit "but you are French and never believe anything anyone says"

Can I add "and stubborn" ..... and it ain't gonna change !

Of course - French = Stubborn as feck.

One final question and I'll let you live in piece - mentioning paella got my juices flowing and I discovered I don't have any saffron to make a paella - everything else but no saffron.

Does anyone recommend an indo source of saffron? Toko and Shopee have hundreds but they all look the same.

 

[sakumabali]

use turmeric instead - works great

 

[Balifrog]

use turmeric instead - works great

Hopefully no Spanish chef reads this, he would have a heart attack....

https://thrivemarket.com/blog/turmeric-vs-saffron

2 completely different products.

Same as you can substitute quality butter by cheap margarine.... The result is not the same.

"Turmeric is usually used in place of saffron in Paella when the traditional saffron threads aren’t used. Although the flavors are not the same - turmeric being much more bold and peppery - the turmeric will provide the traditional yellow color found in paella."

i.e. you will have the color but not the taste...

https://blog.amigofoods.com/index.php/spanish-foods/how-to-make-paella-without-saffron/

"While there are several substitutes that can be used instead of saffron, many paella fans note that it is near-impossible to recreate the flavor of saffron.

When using a saffron substitute, it is important to note that the main element you will be mimicking is, in fact, the color, and not the flavor"

=> and cooking is all about flavors, not colors...

 

[Balifrog]

Winter is here, perfect timing to prepare a Minestrone soup !

Quite a lot of ingredients as you can see, and don't think you can toss them all in a liter a water and sit back.
As always there is a process.....

Ingredients : Onion, potato, carrots, celery, leek, turnip, garlic, Italian beans (Cannellini or Borlotti, don't use the horrible Heinz stuff in tomato sauce !), Parsley, fresh basil leaves, herbes as per your taste, thyme, pasta, peeled tomato, tomato paste and vegetable stock (in my case I used chicken stock as I didn't have vegetable stock in the house)

You start with the "Sofrito" which will be the base and gives the flavor to your soup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofrito


Mise en place :




When serving each guest will add "Pesto" to give it an additional touch.




On the side you can serve toasted baguette slices with a parsley / butter / garlic mix

 

[Markit]

My question on saffron was about the taste, not the color, although with all the other things you throw in a paella I suspect the delicate taste of saffron would not be noticed if it were (horror!) substituted with turmeric. I would like to have some but am not sure where to get them here. Oh well, turmeric will have to do.

 

[Balifrog]

I think I have seen Saffron in Grand Lucky, at a spice rack on a pillar near the deep freeze area.
Maybe Papaya has some ? Never been there, will give it a try next week.

The problem is that you're never sure about the origin.....

 

[Balifrog]

Dinner at the usual place yesterday.

Baramundi Meuniere style (see menu..)

The fish was perfect, mash potatoes very nice (very smooth texture), ratatouille was OK but it is not my favourite food.

And of course, a Pastis as aperitif followed by a glass of red wine !

 

[Balifrog]

A few recent dinners at home

Leftover of pork in cream, served with mashed potatoes.



Spicy chicken with spaghetti aglio e olio (our version with mushroom, chili and bellpepper)




And last but not least I found some proper baguette, nice taste and crispy even with the humidity. Located inside Plaza Renon, near Papaya supermarket. The best baguette ever was from Carrefour on Sunset Rd (french baker) but that is gone now. Can find some edible ones in 2 places in Sanur, all the rest doesn't even deserves the name "baguette"

 

[Balifrog]

Organized a small cocktail party at home yesterday. Guests were mainly a few regulars from our favorite French restaurant, all members of the "Poet's table". Total 10 person, including us.

The idea is one organizes, and all the guests bring something, most will bring drinks, but those with cooking skills may bring some "specialites francaises"

I prepared a "quatre quart" (called pound cake in English), made with equal weight of egg, flower, sugar and butter. You weight 4 eggs first and adapt the weight of the other ingredients accordingly.

I also made an apple pie, rather easy.

A novelty was making a variety of puff pastry "snacks". Easy to find frozen puff pastry (Hardy's and Grand Lucky), after that for the shapes and content it's all up to one's creativity. Plenty videos on Youtube on the subject.

Note that the puff pastries were ALL made by the Miss, under close supervision of course, but she did a great job, especially as it was a "premiere" for her.

A few pics :







Some preparation views :









A first lot of drink, much more followed..... Note that Bintang was not allowed !



And finally the chef's "kitchen monitoring and control center"




A good time was had by all, but my morning swim was a bit painful today .....

 

[Zimbo]

Just a little brai

 

[Shadrach]

Today's lunch : Paesant omelette, at least that is what I call it.

3 eggs, thin sliced pre fried baby potatoes, mushroom, ham, chives, and some baby carrots from the above can .
Of course some cream in the egg mix !
Served with toast and salted butter. Should have been some mixed salad as well, but I had none in the home....

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Salad with an omelette sounds strange to me. Must be a French thing. Everything else looked delicious! Does Pepito's carry chicken and beef broth?

 

[Balifrog]

Salad with an omelette sounds strange to me. Must be a French thing. Everything else looked delicious! Does Pepito's carry chicken and beef broth?

Salad as side dish for an omelette is rather standard.

Yes, Pepito / Popular have chicken / beef broth, both in cubes and in powder.
Sometimes you can find vegetable broth as.well (Grand Lucky sure)

 

[Balifrog]

A simple dinner a few days ago.

Pork served with baby potatoes, baby carrots and (imported, canned) green beans.

No sauce, I simply improve the meat cooking juice with some beef stock.



Next big day in the kitchen will be Christmas evening !

 

[Markit]

Looks great but can't understand your fixation on canned veg when the fresh are so much tastier and easily available here?

 

[Balifrog]

Looks great but can't understand your fixation on canned veg when the fresh are so much tastier and easily available here?

Local beans are hard as wood.....We use them only in fried rice or beef in oyster sauce.

The ones I use is this :


Just warm them up in a pan with (imported) butter.
And even the Miss agrees there is a huge difference in taste...

 

[Markit]

It must be a generation thing - my missus prefers canned rubbish too. Biologically she's younger than me but mentally generations older and she grew up in Duschland where canned muck was king.

 

[Balifrog]

It must be a generation thing - my missus prefers canned rubbish too. Biologically she's younger than me but mentally generations older and she grew up in Duschland where canned muck was king.

The above brand / type sure is way better than the fresh local stuff.
Not even speaking about the chemicals that they use very generously here !

 

[Balifrog]

Remember the above vegetables that went with the pork ?
Well, we had some left over, so it went in an omelet for today's lunch, with of course some additional stuff (chives, Emmental, ham, mushroom, bell pepper)

Served with toast and salad.

Mise en place :



My version :



The Missus version (note the Harissa, as it is never spicy enough for her...)

 

[Balifrog]

Christmas dinner....
As we are not used anymore to eat lengthy multi course dinners, going to a 4 or 5 star hotel restaurant is not worth it.

And anyway, we prefer Christmas at home, just the two of us.

So, the "chef" has been torturing his brain since a few days to come up with a decent Christmas dinner. Note that 25th is the Missus birthday, so there will be again something to prepare....

Starter : I went for scallops "Brittany style". Main reason is I lived there for a long time in my first life, and I loved it. I found Scallops at Grand Lucky, US origin, frozen.

Sear / Brown the scallops in butter and reserve. In the same pan prepare the sauce : onion and garlic, add mushroom (very small cut), deglaze with white wine, add cream.
Put the scallops in a ramekin, I slice them in 4 to make it easier to eat, add the sauce, add breadcrumbs on top and some butter. Oven for about 15 minutes.
Result was very nice, the Miss loved it, I was happy as this was a premiere for me.







Main course : Bouchee a la Reine. The tricky part is to succeed to make the puff pastry "container" nice brown and crispy. Worked out pretty well.



The filling is about the same as you would put in a chicken and mushroom pie. For the French touch, add white wine and cream of course...

Served with "Duchesse potatoes" and white asparagus.





For the dessert I went the easy way and ordered a "Buche de Noel" from Daily Baguette. Not cheap, but decent quality.









And it's Christmas after all, doubled by a birthday so we went for a nice bottle of Prosecco.




All in a nice evening, and the chef as well as his assistant were quite happy with their performance.

Took of course a few hours in the kitchen .....

 

[Markit]

All looks very 1980s my friend but I'm guessing that's where we come from isn't it?

The formative years...