2 Mousse madness, Nalen Gurr n Dark Chocolate Rum n other stories…

Two Amazing Egg less Mousse recipes, minimum ingredients, maximum flavor: Nalen Gurr Mousse, Dark Chocolate with Red Rum Mousse for the Valentine’s day n Saraswati Pujo

Winter days call for food that makes you warm, even if they are cold in temperature themselves and even if they are desert and sweet they will make you warm n cozy in the course of enjoying them. So when I think of winter I think of rum, especially the dark red rum, complex in flavor, almost like a candy with a lot of depth and its affinity with dark chocolate, yes that’s magical n sexy n yet subtle. So they come together in my mousse, hugging each other and dissolving into the whipped cream as I go beating the cream.

Yes the mousse is literally very simple, it is only made with whipping cream n dark chocolate n red rum and Nalen Gurr- Date-Palm Jaggery available in the eastern part of India, in the land of Bengal, only in the winter season and this is liquid gold in my food dictionary.

You can make a mousse with the combination of stiffly beaten egg-whites and whipping cream also, in that case the mousse becomes even lighter n airy as the beaten egg whites bring even more trapped air bubbles into the mousse, I decided to make them eggless this time because the people for whom I made preferred it without eggs. But let it not make you think that the eggless mousse will not melt you as you eat them-they will. They are not as light as it would be with eggs but still they are deliciously light n smooth, singing with the flavors of Nalen Gurr n Dark chocolate n rum.

A mousse literally describes the texture of a food, a food item that includes air bubbles trapped inside it to produce a light and airy texture is a mousse, they can be both sweet n savory. Now depending on the techniques of including the air bubbles into the mousse the final result can be light n fluffy while some can be thick n creamy n denser. The mousse I made is very creamy n thick, whereas if you add egg-whites to them they will be even more airy.

A savory mousse can be flavored with a vegetable or fish or eggs, cheese, herbs. We can attain the light texture by using egg-whites, beating them to get the light n fluffy or cream; sometimes gelatin can be used in stabilizing the foam.

The taste of the Nalen Gurr mousse is absolutely delish, the molten jaggery just dissolves in the cream n unifies itself; it has such a satisfactory sensation attached to it. Like I said Nalen Gurr is a jaggery which is made from the sap of the date-palm trees in the region of Bengal, when the simmering sap thickens at the end of preparing it, it has a flavor unmatched by anything, there is nothing quite like it, liquid gold I tell you.

For a good dark chocolate mousse you need a real good chocolate, the better the chocolate you have the better the mousse will be, I used the one with 50% cocoa content, you can use 70% for an intense dark chocolate experience.

There are so many whipping creams in the market, some are dairy-based while some are soy based, you can use whatever you love, it is only up to you, some of the creams are previously sweetened and flavored with vanilla, if you are using that cream remember that the gurr is sweet itself, so the resulting mousse can be too sweet, in that case adjust the proportion of the gurr in the recipe.

So now I will take you to a sweet n cozy n warm winter evening, I’ll give you the recipe.

For The Recipe:  You will need

For the Nalen-Gurr Mousse:

Nalen-Gurr- 100 gm, grated or broken into small chunks

Water- ½ cup

Salt- a pinch

Whipping cream- 250-300 ml

Lemon/lime juice- 3-4 drops

For the Dark chocolate Rum Mousse:

Dark Chocolate – 150 gm, grated or broken into small pieces

Red Rum- 3 tbsp

Salt- a pinch

Milk (full fat) or cream- 100 ml

Icing sugar-50 gm (if you whipping cream is pre-sweetened then skip sugar)

1. Begin by melting the gurr, for that place the broken or grated gurr in a wok or frying pan or saucepan and add the water, let the flame be on a medium, with a wooden spatula stir the mixture, the gurr will melt in 3-4 minutes, then the mixture will come to a simmer, let it simmer on a low heat now for 4/6 minutes and it will thicken slightly, you will see the whole mixture is filled with bubbles, put the flame off, add a pinch of salt and drops of lime n mix well,  let it come to room temperature.

2. Melt the dark chocolate in a bain-marie, make sure that the water is not touching the bowl of chocolate, stir the chocolate as it begins to melt, when all the chocolate has melted give it a good mix. Warm the cream or milk slightly, make sure that the milk/cream is not cold when you add it to the hot liquid chocolate , add the slightly warm milk/cream  and mix to a smooth consistency, then add the red rum and pinch of salt into it, mix again. Let it come to a room temperature.

3. For whipping the cream, if you are using a dairy based cream, then freeze the bowl into which the cream will be whipped along with the wire-whisk or pedal attachment of your stand mixer, in case you are gonna whip with your hands, open your hands from the elbow and freeze them too……NOOOO! Really! If you are using soy based whipping cream you might skip this part. One important thing is you are using a whipping cream which was frozen to a solid block in your freezer; you have to take it out n keep in your refrigerator for 12 -16hours at least, until it becomes liquid again. So now simply pour the cream in a big airy glass or metal bowl and whisk with either wire whisk, or electric hand whisk or like I did I whipped it all with my hands which took me 15 minutes of solid whisking, gosh I do believe in hard work!

If your cream is not previously sweetened, then you have to add icing sugar to the cream at the stage when the cream begins to transform from soft peaks to more stable peaks. You can always check by tasting if you want your whipped cream to be more sweet or not and you can adjust.

4. With a spatula draw a line over the whipping cream dividing it into two equal portions for the two mousse, then take one third from one portion and beat is vigorously into the chocolate rum mixture to lighten it up. Then add half of the remaining cream and fold it gently into the lightened chocolate mixture, do it by moving the spatula outwards and upwards beginning from the side of the bowl to the centre and rotate the bowl by one quarter with each fold. So in four fold you will rotate the bowl completely, work lightly and then add the remaining cream into the chocolate mixture and fold until combined.

5. Repeat the same process with the gurr. Now you can simply put them into beautiful small glasses or cups by spoon or you can put them in a piping bag and pipe them into small glasses, do whatever you feel like , then place them in the refrigerator to chill for a good 4 hours, yes they will taste better when cold.

So now take them out, sprinkle them with some grated chocolate for the chocolate mousse and for the Nalen Gurr mousse drizzle them with some liquid gurr, gosh look at them! Beautiful! Aren’t they? Delicious! Aren’t they? Now you must share them with everyone around, they keep well in the fridge, so save some for future good times, I know you will make them soon again, and guess what? Bon appétit.

A sweet sexy soufflé - The love affair with Gurr n how it got soufflé-d in love

                                                                                    Valentine’s Day is long over, thankfully so. I am not fan of Valentine’s Day in general, it’s quite commercialized and what is so special about a day when on that day red roses and every flower costs so much. Now in fact when it’s all over, now if you gift someone a red rose, yellow rose, or anything out of love it makes this extra special. There is no pressure of giving gift because it’s Valentine’s Day, so now it’s really comes from within you. I do believe in the power of sweet sudden surprises. If you want to express your love to someone make him/her this soufflé and you will touch him/her deeply. If that someone is a person you romantically involved with, try sleeping beside him/her without his knowledge while he/she is asleep, so when he/she wakes up, sees you. Now that’s something.

Forget about romance and all its lights and shadows and let me tell you about this soufflé. First things first this is a soufflé made with a type of Jaggery, date-palm jaggery. You know there are these date-palm trees and people collect the flavored sap from the tree by putting cut marks or incision at the top part of the tree and they make a way for the sap to come n get collected in a hanging earthen vessel tied to the tree. Now this sap has a distinct flavor and you can drink it fresh, when it is put on heat and reduced by simmering for long periods of time it develops an unique taste, more intensified. That’s the rough idea of how it is made, as for turning it into jaggery it is further reduced and then it solidifies as it cools down.

                                                                                                  Now for the soufflé I could have made it without the addition of crème patissiere, in that case it would have been even more light n puffed up, but then I thought I want it make it a little more rich so I made the crème patissiere with the melted Nalen gur, which gave it a pronounced flavor of that golden gur. And it does bring a touch of creaminess in the soufflé, however on another day I might make it without the special crème patissiere. Do you know that in French the word “soufflé” literally means “puffed up “? I read somewhere that day when we will make a soufflé of something it will mean to arrive at a texture, like airy, light, puffed up-now that is a way of looking at this word now. The word “soufflé” made into English vocabulary in the early nineteenth century, where it used to be described as an airy cooked confection of beaten egg-whites with the egg yolks with a savory and sweet flavoring.

                                                                 One thing about this special soufflé is that it tastes better the next day, as least that what I found out, I kept them in the freeze and next morning it was such a pleasure eating it, soft airy gurry goodness.  And I thought this is quiet it! So fit for the Valentine’s Day and in fact for any day when we want to make it special and we make this soufflé for the people we love and watch the smile on their face as they get soufflé-d.  somehow I ended up imaging this- I am little kid and my mom makes this soufflé sometimes, and I watch her at times curiously how she makes it, she beats the egg-whites, makes the pastry crème, pile them high on little ramekins and when she gets them out of the oven- woooo! They have risen like sweet monsters! And my anticipation makes them even tastier. So if you are a mom reading this having little kids, do make them this and they will have such wonderful memories.

                                                                                         By the way that morning was quiet eventful when I made this soufflé, first I was so cautious that there is no trace of egg-yolks in the egg-whites, not a drop fat in it and in this super-cautiousness  I tumbled the egg-whites on the table…errghhhh! Disaster! Disaster! And it was only the beginning. I fixed the egg-whites telling myself to calm down as I started making the crème patissiere and the point comes when it starts to get thick and you have whisk it all the time at that point for a minute, so there I was whisking madly and I checked my mobile too see if a minute is over and somehow in a sweet sleepery moment my mob jumped into the crème patissiere bowl! Lol! I couldn’t believe it, I snatched it out before it even submerged a bit into the crème since it was so thick...it all happened within some seconds-the fall and the rescue. But oouch ouch!  What an event! Ha-ha…I ended up laughing about it after that and even after these small disasters in the kitchen the soufflés puffed up like good boys. So V for victory and P for puffed up.

                               You can beat the egg-whites with a hand beater or a stand mixer or if you are like me young and energetic trust your hands. After making that mayonnaise, beating the egg-whites to soft peak was a Childs play to me, literally. And it’s fun, as I beat in with my hands I literally see the change I bring in, starting with the liquid egg whites as they absorb the air and become so airy and white.

                                      So now I will tell you the special recipe. Whisk whisk puff puff.

The recipe:  you will need

For the crème patissiere/pastry cream:     

 50 g shaved nalen gur/date palm jaggery

2 egg yolks

25g corn flour

250ml milk

25m unsalted/salted butter.

Begin by making the crème patissiere because it will take some time to cool off while you will prepare the egg whites. Whisk together the shaved gur, egg yolks and corn flour together in a bowl. Put the milk in heavy based saucepan n slowly let it come to a boil, just then remove it from the heat and whisk one third of the milk into the egg mix. Now quickly tip the egg mix back into the milk pan and keep whisking. Then put it back in the low heat, stirring constantly let it come to a boil, as it comes to a boil give it 1 min, don’t stop whisking. After that take it off the heat, add the butter, stir until it melts. So let it cool off to warm and then cover it with cling film and leave to cool it off. Remember when we have to fold the pastry crème with the beaten egg whites; we need it a little warm, not cold.

For the Nalen gur syrup: 

4-5 tbsp of shaved nalen gur, melt in a low heat with 1 tbsp of water, once melted keep in a low heat for 2 mins. Pour 1 tbsp or more each into 4 ramekins with base diameter of 2 1/2 inches (6cm), top diameter 3 ½ inches (7.5cm), 2 inches (5cm) deep, lightly buttered. Pour so that the base of the ramekins is coated with the syrup.      

 Pre-heat the oven to 170 Celsius, 325 Fahrenheit, gas mark 3.

 For the soufflés:   

3 large eggs

1/8^th of big lime or 1/4^th of a small lime or 1 tsp of lemon juice

2 tbsp of castor sugar

Separate the eggs, I find it to separate the eggs safely when they are just out of the refrigerator, then I let them come to normal temperature. Take a big airy bowl and make sure it is very clean and grease free, just to be sure take a little lemon or lime wedge and wipe the bowl with it. Next put the egg whites into the bowl and squeeze the lime or lemon juice into the egg whites. Start beating with a big wire whisk or with a electric hand beater, if you are using an electric beater, start slow, then to medium to high, beat the egg whites to almost stiff peak but the tip of the egg whites should bend down a little when you pick them up, so we don’t need stiff peaks actually, lower than that, slightly higher than soft peak, while your egg whites are getting to become fluffy as you are beating them add the castor sugar slowly. If you are whisking by hands like me add the castor sugar once you see the egg whites reaching the soft peak, first add 1 tbsp and after sometime add another. We are doing it just to give the beaten whites a little sweetness and to stabilize it also.

                            Now when you have reached that stage where it is almost stiff peak but the peak bends down a little as you put it up, so now it is time to fold the warm pastry crème into the egg whites. So take about 2 tbsp of the egg whites into the pastry crème and whisk it vigorously to light it up, then take about one fourth of the egg whites and still vigorously beat it in, then take half of the egg whites and gently fold it with a spatula by gently lifting it up along the circumference of the bowl and slowly folding it in the middle. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites.

                             Now spoon the mixture into the ramekins, pile it high if you want to, then run a finger into the inside rim of each one. Now place them in a baking sheet and put them in the middle shelf of the oven and bake for15-20 minutes or until the tops start to get golden. Then take them out and  you can see your soufflé is so puffed up, as you take them after 5mintues they will sink, that’s normal, don’t let your heart sink, let it rather sing a song because it is so delicious, even more on the next day. Why they will mostly sink is because we have folded the heavy crème patissiere into it, which is the reason. Enjoy them completely now whenever and however you like them hot or cold or normal. Bon appétit.

My delicious adventure with Ratatouille

Last evening when the setting sun was melting in the horizon, I finished making my ratatouille; my kitchen was filled up with the sweet savory smell of the red bell peppers, the aubergine, and the garlic.  An hour before was when it all started, lazily soaking the sun I was going through one of my dear cookbooks “Recipes from a Provencal Kitchen” by Michael Biehn, and my mind got stuck smelling the ratatouille from the book. Well it was not a logical cause n effect situation as you might think because I did make the ratatouille after reading it, the story is, prior to that evening while I was at the market my eyes met a young slender courgette and 1 sensational red bell pepper and 1 friendly yellow bell pepper and my mind uttered “Ratatouille! Ratatouille!” So how come I just walk away from such a scene but not end up carrying them home! I did.

Do you remember the film called “Ratatouille” by the studio of Pixar? What a beautiful and brilliant film! I can almost imagine when they decided to make that film, the animation director Brad Bird n Jan Pinkava might have inspired all the artists by saying perhaps…”we are going to make a film on cooking and food, I know it is a huge challenge, because the film is going to be animated but then how come we make a great film without a great challenge! So friends we are just not going to make a film on the passion of cooking and food, our film will be the best film ever on cooking and food… it must inspire people to cook and give anyone courage who ever seeks it, so let’s start cooking. ..Bon Appétit!”  Now the reality of my imagined part might have been different but it is no further in the spirit of it. My dear reader I hope you have watched that film, if you haven’t, I insist you to watch this film, you will cherish it.

                                                                                                                                                              Remy, The rat, the very talented rat who cooked with so much love n passion and his hands were the hands of the human Linguini! Quite something! Now my hands are of my own and I am yet to figure out what kind of rat I am?

      While I was going through the recipe in the book I tried to imagine how it will look like and taste like which is not a very easy thing to do. The recipe in the book calls for 2 hours of slow cooking, so I could imagine it will be like some kind of stew of all those lovely veggies and in its texture, it will be mushy and intense in its flavor. The thing is with any recipe , there exists many variations of it e.g. in the film Ratatouille it is done in different way, where the round discs of the veggies are arranged in a concentric circle over a base of tomato sauce, then baked which is visually pleasing. The version however I opted for is the more classic way, homely way and it tastes delicious.

                                                                                                               
  I remember while I was reading it, rerunning it in my mind, there was this breeze outside, playing with the leaves of the trees. My mind was filled up with ideas that I incorporated in my version of ratatouille! So in my version, there is use of cloves, long cumin seeds (“shahi jeera” in India), dry red chili, fresh coriander leaves, coriander power, turmeric and red chili powder and pink rock salt. With all these additions the resulting ratatouille is amazingly fragrant and very yummy! The interesting thing is it tastes even better when cold or the next day, so I literally found myself licking the spoon even eating it from my refrigerator.

                                                                                                                                                       

   Such a wonderful dish where all the vegetables have absorbed and shared the flavor of each other! intensifying in the process of doing so. There is use of little sugar which balances the slightly bitter flavor of the courgettte and the acidity from the tomatoes; it improves the taste of the dish to a great extent.  At the very end of cooking I added a little finely chopped garlic into it and no more cooking is needed after that, it is a little touch of garlic at the end. For someone who is a vegetarian, it will be a delightful dish for him and a meat lover would just crave for it with his meat. My mother who is very choosy about what she eats ended up loving this ratatouille, she had with it a soft white bread and I had it with white rice. Now talking of bread I think it will be so wonderful to use this as a spread  of a piece of toasted bread with a little drizzle of olive oil or melted butter, it will be sensational I tell you. I wonder why people don’t make ratatouille more often, I hear about it so less, it needs a revival and in my version it is so satisfying. Now  after making it I realize I have eaten  similar food in traditional Bengali cuisine, where they resemble this in terms of its texture completely, in a very general term in Indian cooking it will called “Mixed veg”, “Mixed Sabzi”, “Ghyat”- where different kinds of veggies come together and slow cooked for a long period of time.

      

   My dear reader  as you go through my words, there are many visuals created in your mind and they are now just waiting for you to get up, gather your veggies , chop them up, start the cooking and after  an hour it will be right there in front of you.  Bon AppétitJ

 

1 large aubergine                                                         ½ red bell pepper

1 courgette                                                                   ½ yellow bell pepper

1 ½ medium red onion                                               1 ½-2 very ripe medium tomatoes

4 medium cloves of garlic                                          1 bay leaf

1 small sprig of thyme                                                4 sprig of fresh coriander leaves

1 tsp shahi jeera                                                          2 cloves

Pinch of pink rock salt                                                ½ tsp of sugar

½ tsp of red chili powder                                           ¼ tsp of turmeric

½ tsp of coriander powder                                        ½ broken dry red chili

Olive oil or soya bean oil or mustard oil                                          salt to taste

The Recipe above

Begin by chopping the aubergine and the courgette into ½ inch cubes, no need to peel them, just tail them. For the bell peppers cut them in half, remove the stalks, de-seed, Core and cut into square pieces. Peel the ripe tomatoes by pouring over them boiling water and keeping them immersed in that water for 1 min, then plunge in cold water and peel them, remove and discard the seeds if you want to, I kept the seeds in and dice them in cubes. Peel the red onions, chop them up roughly. You will also need 3-4 of unpeeled garlic cloves. Chop the coriander leaves roughly.

In a cast iron pot or in a big pan, heat 3 tbsp of olive oil or soya bean oil, I used a mix of mustard oil and soya bean oil; I used mustard oil for its flavor. When the oil is moderately hot, reduce the flame and put the cloves, shahi-jeera, dry red chili (throw away the seeds) and bay leaf and give them 30 seconds, then add the onions, increase the flame to medium, make them go moderately brown, then add the red and yellow bell peppers, the aubergines and let them brown until they are a nice golden color. Now as you add the aubergine you will find they will absorb all the oil from the pot, therefore add 1tbsp of more oil. Add a pinch of sugar now as you are sautéing the aubergine and the bell peppers on a medium heat. Add the courgettes and allow them to brown a little, add another pinch of sugar, then add the tomatoes, the garlic cloves, thyme, and 1 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves. Give them about 5 mins on medium heat, add the rest of the sugar now, mix well, then add 2 pinches of rock salt, then the salt. Stir thoroughly and increase the heat to high until the vegetables reach simmering point, while I was doing it there wasn’t much juice left in the pan to reach simmering point, so I kept them on the move at times so they won’t catch the pan. Reduce the temperature, cover and cook gently for 5 minutes, meantime dissolve the red chili powder, turmeric, coriander powder in 2 tsp of water and add it to the pan, mix well and give it another 10- 15mintues, stir in between so that it doesn’t catch the pan.  After that time, remove the lid and continue cooking for 5-10minutes uncovered until all the excess liquid has evaporated. Stir occasionally while the mixture reduces, the flavor now has intensified, stir them in between so they don’t catch the pan, if you see brown bits in the pan, that means it is catching a little, there is nothing wrong, spring a tsp of water and the brown bits will melt away. Check for the salt to taste, adjust if necessary , just before putting the flame off, add a finely chopped garlic clove to the vegetables, put off the flame and cover it, give it 5mintues of standing time. Now you are ready to serve and serve it piping hot or it even tastes better when cold, I absolutely enjoy it eating cold.

This ratatouille is great in its flavor; the sweetness from the sugar and bell peppers, the heat from the chili powder, the flavor of the vegetables mixed together makes it an awesome dish to eat. If you are not comfortable with chili, you can reduce it according it to your taste. Dear reader I wish you happy eating.