My Friend’s Julia mom, Florence a delightful lady from Paris came for a visit to the Bay Area during the holidays. She is an attorney in Paris but cooking is her hobby when she has time to spend in the kitchen. She wanted to learn some new tricks and recipes she could use while having her large family and friends for dinner (she has six children and and seven siblings).

While in San Francisco, I took her shopping to Berkeley Bowl and then spent the rest of the day preparing a four course meal for the rest of the family who joined us for dinner. I promised that my next recipe would be just for her, I wanted to make something easy, that could be a perfect canape, or appetizer for her large gatherings. Et voilà, c’est fait! Florence je pense que vous apprecierez ces canapés faciles à faire, goutûs et avec une pointe d’originalité.

Florence had all the qualities to be an excellent cook, she is curious, has lots of energy and is an excellent listener, so maybe good attorneys are great cooks after all!

These crostini can also be served an appetizer with a small side of green salad, you can of course adapt their size to the occasion. For canapes use, make them a slightly bit smaller than if you would serve them as an appetizer.

For an easy process, use express polenta, the one that cooks fast.

Recipes for me are versatile and are just ideas, you don’t need to replicate them exactly. For example here if you prefer to use roasted red peppers, you could. I like to combine different textures, so that’s why I made a coulis, just to complement to grainy texture of the polenta, the leafy spinach and crunchy and sweet shrimp.

If you read French, La cuisine du marché avec Silvia is a little note written by Florence to describe her little cooking experience in San Francisco. Lovely isn’t it?

Ingredients for 12 canapés

• 1 pint water (or 500 ml) salted water
• 4.4 oz (or 125 g) pre cooked polenta
• 12 shrimps, uncooked
• 12 slices pancetta, thin sliced
• 1 garlic clove, diced
• 1/2 bunch kale, stems removed

For the roasted red pepper coulis

• 1 large bell red pepper
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1 tbs olive oil
• cayenne pepper to taste
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the polenta

Bring a pint of water with salt to a boil. Pour polenta gradually, and stir well for about 3 minutes until the polenta thickens. Remve from heat and spread over a flat food surface in about 1/2 inches (1 cm) thick circle. Smooth the surface with a spatula. Let it cool and refrigerate for about one hour until the polenta is hard. Using a round 2 inches (or 4 cm) cookie cutter, cut polenta disks. Sprinkle with olive oil and broil under broiler or grill until the top is golden brown.

For the kale

Remove stems from kale and cut in about 2 inches pieces. Heat olive oil in a pan, add garlic clove and stir, add kale and cook until it wilts, adjust with salt and pepper

For the shrimps

Wrap one pancetta slice around each shrimp. Saute in olive oil until both sides are golden brown.

For the coulis

Place pepper under broiler, and char broil until the skin darkens. Proceed the same way on all sides. Remove from oven, let cool. Peel and remove seeds. Cut in small pieces and mix in a blender with garlic, oil, cumin and cayenne pepper. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Place one kale leaf on top of polenta, then add shrimp and top it with pepper coulis. Serve hot or warm.

A good friend of mine is half Basque, so one day, while browsing through her cookbooks, I found a very interesting book on Basque cuisine, written by Gerald Hirigoyen, an amazing Basque chef who owns a few restaurants in San Francisco, among which Bocadillos and Piperade.

One particular recipe really caught my attention just because I never saw lychees in Basque cuisine; Litchi (or lychee) is an Asian fruit, mainly grown in China and is considered a tropical fruit for us. In France, you can find lychees almost anywhere and we eat a lot of them, but only as a fruit; it’s mainly sold during winter time, and I have never really seen it incorporated into a main course.

The natural sweetness of scallops blends beautifully with fruits, and I could not stop thinking about this recipe…I finally decided to give it a try, but twisting things around a little, changed a few ingredients and added some cayenne pepper, it  gave the dish a little kick and I love it. I will definitely serve it again when I have a dinner party.

The gazpacho is slightly fruity but not too sweet and very smooth, when combined with the crunchiness of the cucumber is a perfect harmony of textures.

The scallops need to be very fresh, I used the jumbo ones, make sure to pat them dry, to remove all excess water, so they are able to brown well.

Ingredients for 4

• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 English cucumbers, peeled
• 12 lychees
• 1 large tomato, peeled, cored and diced
• cayenne pepper
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil + 2 tbs
• 8 large scallops
• 1 tbs mint chiffonade
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Bring balsamic vinegar to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for about 10 minutes, until the vinegar has reduced to a syrup consistency. Set aside.

Cut half of the cucumber in half lengthwise, remove seeds and chop one half. Using a mandoline, julienne the other half to form some spaghetti strands with the cucumber. Throw away the seeds. Place julienne in a bowl and sprinkle with salt, toss to coat and set aside for 15 minutes.

Peel lychee and remove the seed. In a blender, combine lychees, tomato, chopped cucumber, lemon juice, cayenne, olive oil, salt and pepper. Process to obtain a smooth consistency. Cover and refrigerate.

Rub scallops on both sides with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat a griddle or cast-iron skillet and saute scallops over high heat, for about 1 to 2 minutes or until golden brown.

Divide lychee gazpacho among 4 plates. Rinse julienne cucumber with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Toss with mint and place some in the center of the gazpacho. Mount with two scallops in the center and drizzle with balsamic reduction.

]]> http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2010/07/an-exotic-gazpacho-scallops-with-lychee-gazpacho/feed/ 27 http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/do-you-know-alain-carro-artichokes-with-squid-from-alain-carro/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-you-know-alain-carro-artichokes-with-squid-from-alain-carro http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/do-you-know-alain-carro-artichokes-with-squid-from-alain-carro/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:04:14 +0000 silvia http://www.citronetvanille.com/blog/?p=5605 Vous connaissez Alain Carro? – Artichauts et calamars d’Alain Carro

I got a beautiful book for my birthday called Culina Mediterranea, the book must weight about 10 lb, is 4 inches thick, I can only read the book if it’s laying on a table, it’s too heavy to carry and impossible to be reading it in bed. This pavé (=rock) gathers the best recipes from some top chefs in the Mediterranean countries, such as Southern France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Marocco. There is not one recipe to throw away, they’re all so inviting, creative and delicious. I simply love that book, so from now on, I will dig maybe once every two weeks a recipe and just post it. This one is a recipe from Alain Carro who is a restaurateur in Provence. Do you know Alain Carro? Probably not, not sure he is famous in the US, but he is in France. He is not as popular as Alain Ducasse, Paul Bocuse or Joël Robuchon, but he still managed to get one star at the Michelin for his restaurant Le Castellaras located in Fayence. He himself got inspired for this dish by the creation of another famous chef Roger Vergé who lives close to Cannes.

I loved that recipe right away, I get tired of stuffed squid with crumbs, garlic and parsley, and this one was very appealing, the combination of artichokes, Pastis, white wine and squid convinced me to make it, and I knew it would be delicious. I don’t know about you, but most of the time, I know right away if I will like the recipe or not. I did not change anything to the recipe other than I used only olive oil instead of a combination of butter and olive oil. I am giving you the original recipe, you can substitute the butter with olive oil if you wish. Pastis adds a wonderful final touch of anis/fennel taste, and who can complain about the quantity of garlic? Certainly not me.

Squid remains a very popular dish in Mediterranean regions, and easy to prepare. My favorite part are the tentacles, they always remain a little hard on the bite but I love their texture. Artichokes we have in France are called “poivrade” and we eat the stem too, the are elongated and a little more purple that Californian artichokes. This dish has all the ingredients and flavors of Provencale cuisine. So if you want to take a trip to Provence, just start here.

Ingredients for 4

• 16 baby artichokes
• 1 lemon
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut crosswise in 1/4 inch think slices
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 1/4 baby squid
• 1/8 stick butter (or 10 g)

For the parsley butter

• 1/4 stick (or 20 g) butter
• 1 bunch parsley
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp Pastis or pernaud
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Start with trimming the artichokes, remove the hard part, and the top of the leaves. Place artichokes in water with lemon juice to prevent them from discoloring.

Heat butter and olive oil in a pan, add squid for 1-2 minutes until firm and the water evaporated. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in a skillet, add carrots, onions, garlic and bouquet garni (mixture of herbs, such as thyme, marjoram, parsley, etc…). Saute all the vegetables and bouquet garni for a few minutes, add salt and pepper.

Drain artichokes and add them to the pan of vegetables. Saute until the vegetables are golden brown. Sweat the vegetables on low heat for 15 minutes.

Deglaze the skillet with the white wine, and saute the vegetables for 5 minutes. Add bouillon cube and stir until it has dissolved.

Mix butter with parsley and garlic, add pastis. Add this mixture to the squid. Deglaze the pan with pastis. Season with salt and pepper and arrange in a plate, garnish with some chervil.