Here is a refreshing pudding for the summer, filled with fruits and exotic flavors. My lovely neighbor Rui gave me this mango pudding a couple of months ago and I fell in love with it. This is an Asian dessert, served in many Chinese or Indonesian restaurants. It’s usually topped with condensed milk. Of course, there are many recipes, some of them use condensed milk, some others coconut milk, some add mango pieces inside the pudding…so there are a lot of variations to this dessert. The last time I had one of those mango puddings was at a Chinese restaurant, and it was topped with condensed milk. What a delight!

This pudding is creamy in the inside, so if you like it more gelatinous and hard, add more agar-agar (or gelatin). Instead of condensed milk I poured coconut milk that I sweetened with a tiny touch of sugar. So for those who like coconut, please try it, it’s such a wonderful combination. I ran into so many people who don’t like coconut lately, how is that possible? I thought coconut was like chocolate, one of those things that is universally loved. I was wrong.

If you want to make this dessert vegan, instead of condensed milk, use coconut milk and agar agar instead of gelatin, it will work perfectly fine.

I am due for my bi-yearly trip to France visiting my parents. I will try to post something before I leave on June 8, if not then I will post new recipes while I am there. I am so excited to get all the new summer fruits, and hopefully get lots of fruity recipes.

Ingredients for 6-7

• 2 large and well ripe mangoes, peeled and cut in pieces
• 1 2/3 cups evaporated milk
• 3 packs of gelatin powder (or the equivalent of agar agar) dissolved in water
• 1/3 cups agave nectar
• 1 cup coconut milk (for topping) + sugar to taste
• 1 cup fresh raspberries

Preparation

Puree mangoes with a condensed blender and place in a large container. Mix condensed milk with agave nectar, and heat it up but do not boil. Dissolve gelatin powder in 4 tbs warm water. Add gelatin to the milk mixture. Mix well. Pour milk into the mango recipient. Mix well. If you want to add fresh mango pieces, add them at this stage.

Divide the mango mixture to small glass containers. Place in the refrigerator overnight.

Un-mold pudding in plates, pour some sweetened coconut milk on top, and decorate with fresh raspberries.

Who said that polenta only needs to be eaten in savory dishes? I was so excited about this dessert, that I have been thinking about it for days. Let’s also enjoy the peaches while they last, soon they’ll no longer be available. I cannot believe it’s already September.

In France, we have some semolina based desserts like this one (gâteau à la semoule) that the kids usually love (well adults too). So I somehow decided to play with polenta. You need a medium to fine grind. I don’t like to use the coarse kind that much. This polenta has such a fragrant vanilla and milky flavor, I could not stop eating it from the pot. The peach is roasted in honey and rum, which makes every bits a real delight. If you combine on your spoon some polenta cake, peach, mascarpone and run sauce, you might end up being addicted to it.

The peaches need to be ripe but still firm so they don’t overcook quickly while in the oven.

While I was playing with my dessert, I got caught on the phone for a short time, I did not realized that someone was stealing my crumbs. My dog Enzo is as obsessed with food as I am. Of course, a dog being a dog, his obsessions limit themselves too eating food rather than preparing it. I think if I were a dog, I would be just like him. While distracted on the phone, I did not see Enzo, open the kitchen cabinet, and steel the breadcrumbs jar. He opened the lid, left the lid laying on the kitchen floor, took the bread crumbs jar in “his room”, spreading the crumbs on the rug before eating them, and of destroying the jar in pieces. Then after his fight with the crumbs, he hid underneath the bed to hide, knowing he was in trouble.

When I saw his moustache I could not stop laughing, schnauzers have funky moustaches that get easily dirty.

Ingredients for 4

For the polenta cakes

• 200 ml milk
• 30 g heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean cut lengthwise and beans scraped
• 50 g sugar
• 65 g polenta
• 2 tbs golden raisins
• 8 dried apricots, unsweetened and cut in small pieces
• 3 tbs rum

For the roasted peaches

• 2 large yellow peaches, peeled and cut in half and seed removed
• 1 tbs honey
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tbs sliced almonds, toasted
• 4 tbs mascarpone

Preparation

For the polenta cakes

In a pot, combine milk and cream, sugar and vanilla bean. Bring to a boil. Add polenta gradually while stirring. Keep stirring for about 20 minutes (you can also use express polenta). Add extra milk if the polenta gets too thick. Add raisins and apricots pieces. Mix well. Spread in a flat surface keeping the thickness to about 2 cm. Let it cool. Using cookie cutters, or rinds, cut 4 circles.

For the roasted peaches

Grease a  baking dish with butter. Place peaches halves (flat part down). sprinkle with sugar and honey and cook in a pre-heated oven at 400F for about 15 minutes, then turn the peaches on the other side. Let them cook for another 10 minutes, then deglaze with rum (the soaking rum). Put peaches back in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven let them cool a little.

Place one polenta cake in a plate. Add half peach on top. Add mascarpone on the side and sprinkle with rum sauce.

I adore filo dough but never use it. Do you believe it? I can drool over appetizers and desserts made with filo dough but when it’s time to buy it, I always forget or buy something else. So people would say, then you just don’t adore it. It’s like saying I adore this friend but I never call her, then you don’t love her that much. In French we use the word adore quite often and is not as strong as its equivalent in English. It’s used as Americans would use “I love”. J’adore la nutella!!

It’s a shame not to use filo dough more often because it’s lighter than its cousin “Puff Pastry”. It has a very delicate crispy texture, and makes beautiful sweet and savory dishes. One sheet has 30 calories and I used about one sheet per crisp if you want to keep completely light, you can just omit the mascarpone cream, but I would not recommend it, it completes the crisp to perfection.

The particularity of this filo dough is that it’s wholewheat, so basically, you’ll get a light dessert, extremely tasty, warm and crispy that will satisfy any sweet cravings. My other “secret” ingredient is vanilla powder, which I adore, oui j’adore la poudre de vanille!!!! I almost use it in all my desserts. It’s vanilla bean ground that is perfect to replace the actual vanilla bean.

The combination of mango and banana’s textures complete one another, also pineapple adds a little extra exotic touch to the crisp. You need to select fruits that are not too ripe, or in the sauté process, especially the banana and mangoes will get mushy.

You can serve it warm at room temperature or lukewarm, then you need to serve it immediately or the cream will start melting.

Ingredients for 3 crisps

• 1/4 pineapple, cut in small sliced (1 inch size)
• 1 mango, peeled and cut in small slices (1 inch size)
• 1 banana, sliced
• 3 whole wheat filo dough sheets, cut in 6 squares
• 1 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs mascarpone
• 2.7 fl oz (or 80 ml) heavy cream
• vanilla powder
• 1 tsp powder sugar
• 1 tsp butter + 1 tsp melted for the filo dough

Preparation

Cut all the fruits, add sugar and saute in butter for about 5-7 minutes. remove from the pan.

Using a brush, apply melted butter in one filo dough sheet, then cut dough in 6 identical squares.

Place the 6 squares in a ramequin or small muffin trays (then insted of 3 crisp, you’ll make 6 due to the smaller size of the muffin trays). Divide fruits in each ramequin and cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 15-20 minutes or until the filo dough is golden brown.

remove from the oven and let it cool.

Whip heavy cream and add powder sugar at the end, add mascarpone and keep beating a little more. Add vanilla bean powder.

Serve each crisp with one tsp of mascarpone cream on top.

I have been back to the US since last Friday and one thing that I already start missing is the yogurt. If you haven’t tried homemade yogurts, you haven’t tasted the goodness of what a real yogurt can be. I have always been nostalgic about the wonderful yogurts you can find in France in the yogurt/dairy section in any supermarket area. There are about four full aisles of yogurts and dairy specialties of dairy and non dairy fresh desserts. I am in heaven. Yogurts in the US tend to be on the boring side and quite frankly not very good. I tasted all of the brands, and I always remain faithful to Strauss, their European called yogurt. It seems like all yogurts contain gelatin and taste artificial especially the flavored ones, so I stick to the plain kind.

Yogurt making is like bread making in France right now, two nationwide spread trends. So after going to FNAC, a bookstore/electronics store, and spending hours on the cook book section, I run into an intriguing book on making yogurts, and I decided to buy it.

After landing in the U S of A and going through customs with half a supermarket in my suitcase, I realized that I had no yogurt maker. Yogurts can be made in many other ways if you don’t have a yogurt maker, like using a pressure cooker, an oven, etc…but I just wanted a yogurt maker and not go through a few times of failing the yogurts, like it happened before. So on day 2, I went to buy a yogurt maker and if you are a yogurt “freak” like me, it’s a good investment. In a next post, I will explain how to make yogurts without a yogurt maker, in case you don’t have one since I suspect many people don’t have one. It’s a little more tricky but it does work.

I used approximately the recommended proportions I found on the book called “Yaourts” from Solar Editions, then I somehow flavored them according to my tastes. You can use any fruit you like.

The great thing about making yogurt is that you can play around with different milks, spices and fruits. For this first attempt, I used fat free milk, but next time I will use the 2% fat and see the difference. The only inconvenient is that it takes about 10 hours to have your yogurts ready, but then you get seven of them. You can use either a plain yogurt or yogurt ferments for your mixture.

Ingredients for 7 yogurts

• 2 kiwis, peeled and cut in small cubes
• 1/2 granny smith apple, peeled and cut in small cubes
• 4.4 oz (or 125 g) black figs, peeled and well ripe
• vanilla powder
• 2 tbs sugar
• 3.38 cups milk (or 800 ml) whole, skim or half-skimmed
• 6 tps evaporated milk (canned or in powder)
• 1 regular plain yogurt

Preparation

If you are using fruits at the bottom, I suggest to start preparing them beforehand. Peel figs and cut in small cubes, add sugar and let it cook until it becomes into a smooth consistency. Add vanilla and let it cool. Proceed the same way with the apples and kiwis (without the use of vanilla).

Remove milk from the refrigerator and keep it room temperature for a while. In a mixing container, mix milk and yogurt. Add evaporated milk. Mix well.

Place 2 tbs of fruit sauce in each jar, add milk mixture and place in yogurt maker as per instructions. Do not close jars with lids. I kept those for 9 hours in the machine since I used non-fat milk. If you are using regular milk, or half-skimmed milk, you need to leave the yogurts about 7-8 hours. When the machine has stopped, put lids on and place in the refirgerator for 3 hours.

I was reading a French Elle magazine, I like Elle because they always have a great food/recipe section at the end called “Elle à Table” with fresh and modern recipes and tons of flavors. I got stuck on a tapioca cream recipe picture with a raspberry coulis. It looked so beautiful that I felt like eating the paper. I got inspired by Elle’s recipe for this one, eventhough I did not use the same ingredients or quantities, they somehow gave me the idea to mix fruits and tapioca. It’s a fresh and light dessert, perfect as a little treat after a heavy dinner, because as we say in French, “il faut toujours laisser une petite place pour le dessert” (you always need to leave a little space for dessert) not matter how heavy your meal was. I am not really too much into desserts, but I love fruit based desserts like this one, with a little exotic touch you get with the coconut.

In France, we use tapioca in soups, it’s not very common to see it in sweet dishes but it works perfectly well with coconut in sweet desserts. You can use raspberries instead of mango, they both tastes equally delicious.

I finally bought a car, it’s funny how a car can give you this feeling of freedom, I realized that when I no longer had one. So finally I can go shopping at my favorite grocery stores not accessible to public transportation. In Paris, public transportation is great and you don’t need a car, but even though San Francisco has a decent public transportation, a car is somehow not a luxury if you work in some parts of town.

Ingredients for 2 verrines

• 2.82 oz (or 80 g) tapioca
• 7.4 fl oz (or 220 ml) coconut milk
• 1.7 fl oz (or 50 ml) milk
• 3 tbs heavy cream
• 2.82 oz (or 80 g) sugar
• 1 mango
• zest and juice of one lemon

Preparation

Peel mango. Keep 4 slices aside for decoration, and cut the rest in cubes, add 1 tbs sugar and lemon juice and cook for about 7 minutes until it becomes a compote. Set aside

Cook tapioca in boiling water for about 5 minutes, to remove all the extra starch, then drain.

Heat milk, coconut milk and cream, add sugar, then add tapioca pearls, let it cook until tapioca becomes transparent.

Add some lemon zest, keep some for decoration.

Place mango compote in a glass and top with cream of tapioca, let it cool and place in the refrigerator. Decorate with mango slices, and extra lemon zests.

I had this dessert at the Brasserie Lutèce in Paris after a huge plateau de fruits de mer (seafood platter), the carpaccio was served with a pineapple sorbet, and it was the perfect sweet touch to that wonderful dinner. I always kept it in the corner of my head, but there are so many things to try, experiment, that one year went by and I still haven’t made this carpaccio. I just didn’t want this to be left out. Now I have no idea how they made it, all I know is that it tasted like mint and rum. It is a simple way to serve pineapple but simplicity is sometimes worth a complicated and heavy dessert.

Of course, when I like a dish in a restaurant, I try to reproduce it from memory since I am not going to ask the chef for its recipe, I am wondering if they’ll think that is daring or if they’ll be pleased without disclosing the recipe. With time passing by, memory can play some tricks. Pineapple and rum are a match from heaven almost like banana and chocolate.

You need a well ripe pineapple and a great knife. The pineapple slices needs to be cut very thinly. Mine were sliced a little too thick for my taste. It has nothing to do with my knife but more so with my poor slicing skills. The slices are marinated in a light syrup infused with vanilla bean, mint and rum.

I did not remove the core of the pineapple, because I somehow like it. I like it’s fibrous texture. When thinly sliced, you won’t really notice its hard and fibrous texture, the slices are too thin.

For 3-4 people

• 1 large well ripe pineapple, very thinly sliced
• 2 tbs mint, finely chopped
• 1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise
• 2 tbs dark rum
• 3 tbs brown sugar
• 1/3 cup water

Preparation

Peel pineapple from top to bottom removing its skin. Cut pineapple crosswise in very thin slices and set aside.

In a pot, dissolve sugar with water and heat it up a low temperature, add vanilla bean and scrape beans. Let it infuse and boil for a little while until it infuses. When the syrup has reduced, let it cool. Add rum and mint.

Pour on top of pineapple and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours. Serve in cold plates with some coconut cookies or a slice of brioche.

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