Ingredients

• 1 pounds carrots peeled
• 1 pounds of daikon radishes, peeled
• ½ red cabbage
• 1 cup plus 4 teaspoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 cups warm water
• About 3 pint jars

 Recipe

Julienne the carrots, the cabbage, and the daikon radish. Cut them into thin slices with a mandoline. If you don’t have one, just cut them as thin as you can and about one inch long.

Transfer the carrots, cabbage  and daikon to a colander, rinse with water and drain. In a small sauce pan, mix together one cup of sugar, the vinegars and the warm water. Bring the pickling juice up to a simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Prep clean jars. Put the daikon, cabbage and carrots into the jars.

Pour hot pickling juice over the pickling liquid to cover. Seal. Refrigerate.

The pickles should sit at least overnight before eating because their flavor will improve with time. They should last 4 to 6 weeks without opening them in the refrigerator and enjoy!!!

Adapted from Simply Recipes 

Vanilla beans, which kind of look like little baby alien fingers can be a bit intimidating when you don’t know how to prep them correctly. The pulp, which looks like tiny black specs has all that magical flavor! Here we are going to learn how to get open and get the pulp correctly:

The beans have a flat side.

Lay the bean on its flat side on a cutting board and make sure it’s fully stretched. Insert a paring knife into the top of the bean and and start spitting it by half.

Once you are finished, you will have two sides of the beans! The goodness is in those tiny little specs! Use the paring knife to remove the pulp.

You can use the seeds in making delicious desserts like this persimmon creme brule.

But wait! Don’t throw the empty beans away! You can use them to naturally flavor sugar.. or create you own vanilla extract by macerating    the bean shells on a nice vodka!

Pomegranate is simply the most user-unfriendly designed fruit. All those stupid little, yet delicious seeds stuck inside a cavernous shell, glued by a white web that are  just so hard to get out without making a HUGE mess. Unfortunately, I love it and I have had many embarrassing moments trying to eat the seeds of pomegranate. At work, picture a seed flying across the office and hitting my coworker in the face! After that incident, I decided to find the best, mess-free way of getting the seeds out of a pomegranate. Here it is:

First, cut the pomegranate in half and fill a bowl with water.

Inside the water, remove the seeds and the white membrane.

Once you remove all the seeds from the shell, the seeds are going to fall to the bottom of the bowl and the white membrane is going to float.

Skim the white membrane with a small stainer or slotted spoon. Then, strain the water out from the seeds.

Enjoy your mess-free pomegranate and also save money by not having to buy those expensive pre-seeded pomegranates!

Now, you can make many recipes like this delicious Champagne Pomegranate Jelly Shots!

Photography of Champagne Jelly Shots by Madame Croquette

The year 2012 has been a wonderful experience for me! I started this blog in an effort to document the recipes I made at home for my family and friends, but thanks to your kind comments and positive feedback, it has turned into so much more! As of today, Madame Croquette has had over 25,000 views from 115 countries and over 1,500 comment, which is so much more than I expected and it was all thanks to you!

To celebrate this NYE 2013 let’s recap the top 7 recipes of 2012! Please enjoy and have a wonderful New Year’s Eve!

7. Pan-Fried Salmon Asparagus & Faba Bean Pure

6. Fennel, Apple Sausage, & Onion Pizza

5. Steak Heaven for Meat Lovers: Santa Maria Tri-Tip Roast

4. Roasted Leek & Golden Potato Cream

3. Persimmon Crème Brûlée

2. The Secret to Amazingly Crunchy Sweet Potato Fries!

1. Delightful Hawaiian Ahi Poke

Champagne Jelly Shots by Madame Croquette

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup Champagne 
• 1 cup Pomegranate juice
• 1/4 cup Rum
•  2 packets of gelatin and 3/4 teaspoon

Directions

In a small sauce pan, sprinkle the Knox and pomegranate and stir until completely dissolved.

Over medium heat, mix the gelatin and juice until it’s disolved, about 5  minutes. Let sit for 1 minute, then stir in the champagne. In a small, nonreactive baking dish or loaf pan, pour a few drops of cooking oil (grapeseed works well) and wipe out with a paper towel, coating the entire vessel with the barest layer. Pour jelly mix and set to chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to overnight.

Trim edges with a sharp knife and cut into 1 inch squares and ensamble your shots with spoons and a tray. You can garnish them with  lime zest and a blackberry.

Ingredients

• 4 cups Heavy Cream
• 2 teaspoon Cinnamon
•  Ginger 3 pieces, peeled and sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 1 Vanilla Bean
• 12 large Egg Yolks
• 1 large Ripe Persimmon, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees F. Place eight 6-ounce crème brûlée dishes in a roasting pan; set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and 1/2 cup sugar over medium heat just to a simmer and remove from the heat.
3. Cut vanilla beans and get the seeds. Stir in vanilla and cool to room temperature.
4. Whisk the egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl.
5. The only tricky part about doing creme brulee or any custard for that matter is the process of tempering. Bringing an egg mixture to a high temperature is a problem because, well you are going to end up with scrambled eggs, gross!  This is what would happen if add the egg and sugar misture to the simmering cream. To prevent that we follow the process of tempering, where we bring up the temperature of the eggs slowly, so they won’t scramble! To temper, add a ladle full of the simmering cream TO the bowl with the eggs and mix with a whisk. Repeat the process until you have a beautiful pastel yellow custard!

6. Pour the custard into the dishes and transfer to the oven’s middle rack. Pour hot water into the roasting pan until it reaches halfway up the side of the dishes. Bake until set but still jiggly in the center — about 50 minutes.
Brûlée the tops: Heat the broiler or prepare a kitchen torch. Place a persimmon slice on each crème brûlée and sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar over the top of each. Place dishes on a baking sheet and broil, watching carefully, or use a torch to melt the sugar until bubbling and golden brown. Let rest until the sugar hardens to a crisp shell. Cool completely. Cover and chill up to 2 days.

Adapted from: Persimmon Creme Brulee – Country Living

]]> http://madamecroquette.com/2012/12/26/persimmon-creme-brulee/feed/ 30 http://madamecroquette.com/2012/11/05/yes-on-prop-37-quick-rant-realfood-nogmos-stopmonsanto/ http://madamecroquette.com/2012/11/05/yes-on-prop-37-quick-rant-realfood-nogmos-stopmonsanto/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2012 07:01:44 +0000 madamecroquette http://madamecroquette.com/2012/11/05/yes-on-prop-37-quick-rant-realfood-nogmos-stopmonsanto/

Hi all,

I know I have not been very active on my blog lately, but my new job/life situation has kept me away from my favorite place in the world, the kitchen. This quick and highly political rant is about voting yes on Prop 37 for the California elections. The truth is Genetically Modified Organisms are not only disgusting but also really bad for the human health as well as the health of the planet and its other inhabitants. The only people who benefit from these type of crops are industrialized agriculture giants – think Monsato- that with their monocrops have devastated the diversity while poisoning our food supply. Now before you start calling me a communist, I wholeheartedly believe in the free market, but I don’t believe that corporations should genetically modify the food we eat. PERIOD. It has worked for most of society’s history and it should be left alone ….. or we might just will start growing three eyes.

GMO salmon anyone?? As of right now, you might be buying this mutant and have no idea!

We can either have GMOs or we could have a wide diversity of crops like in Bolivia:

Source: http://goo.gl/iV0GV

Here is a few examples of a county I admire a lot for their progressive thoughts and legislations regarding food and the environment.

• Mcdonald’s Closes All Their Restaurants In Bolivia: Http://Goo.Gl/T4hin
• Bolivia’s Law Of Mother Earth Would Give Nature And Humans Equal Protection (Video):  Http://Www.Huffingtonpost.Com/2011/04/13/Bolivias-Law-Of-Mother-Earth_N_848966.Html

Ingredients
One salmon fillet
Ground ginger
Salt and pepper
For the marinade
4 cups of soy sauce
5 tablespoons honey
1 cup of sugar
½ ginger root, chopped
5 garlic cloves
1 cinnamon stick
½ bunch cilantro

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes.

Marinate the fish with the mixture for 30 minutes

Remove the herbs from the marinade and season with salt. The reason we remove the herbs and old marinade is because the marinade will make the fish soggy and the herbs don’t withstand cooking very well, so it is better to add the fresh herbs at the end.

Pack the fish in a really cute aluminum foil envelope. I poke holes on the envelope, so that the smoke from the BBQ can flavor the fish better!

Let’s BBQ this bitch baby!

Cook the fish for 1:30 to 2 minutes on each side. To take it to the next level, I’m going to grill some limes on the side. The juice from the grilled lime is going to add an extra layer of BBQ goodness to the fish, making it taste lovely.

Squeeze the limes on the fish and serve with fresh cilantro. Enjoy!!

Inspired by Alton Brown’s recipe

Ingredients

• 1 pound leeks, cleaned and dark green sections removed
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Heavy pinch kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
• 14 ounces, approximately 3 small, Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced small
• 1 quart vegetable broth, preferably homemade
• 2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 2 English muffins or any type of bread
• Parmesan for sprinkling
• Ramekins for serving the soup

Directions

Preheat  at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Chop the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. Roast the potatoes until they are crispy in the outside and tender in the inside or for about 1/2 an hour. The point of roasting the potatoes is to add an extra layer of flavor and complexity to the soup as well as giving it a rustic touch.

Chop the leeks into 1/2 inch cubes. In a 6-quart saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the leeks and a heavy pinch of salt and sweat for 5 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium-low and cook until the leeks are tender, approximately 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the cooked potatoes and the vegetable broth, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cook for  approximately 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and puree the mixture with an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in the heavy cream, buttermilk, and white pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning if desired.

Place the soup into the ramekins and top with one half of the english muffins top with cheese and broil until the cheese is crispy!

Enjoy!

Ever now and again we are confronted with a culinary conundrum. What to do with too many lemons? To let them be or to let them bake? Ok, enough with lemon poetry and here is what happened. I went to Costco and got large quantities ingredients to make several dozens of these cute little goat cheese berry tartlets.  I needed the lemons to make the zest bows for the pastries, which also meant I needed only a few. After two days of baking the tartlets for an art show, I was left with too many lemons and not enough baking momentum to make say a lemon cake. But I came up with a better idea: to get all my baking frustations out by squeezing large amounts of lemons! In case you were wondering, yes I did feel relieved.
Ingredients 

• (Hella) lemons

Directions 
Squeeze the lemons. If you have one of those lemon squeezers that is great too, but using a tea strainer and a fork works just fine!

Repeat the process until you have collected all the lemon juice.

Once you have collected all the juice, use a tablespoon to spoon out the lemon juice into an ice tray.

The main point is that you know how many tablespoons each lemon juice ice cube has, so you can use the ice to have fresh lemon juice available all the time. For example, I used the lemon ice cube for this tilapia recipe. You can even just add a few cubes to a glas of water and have instant, fresh lemonade!  That way you can STOP buying that gnarly fake lemon juice!