Since today was my family’s weekly dinner, I decided to put the chestnut cream to good use and be creative with it. One thing led to another and so the chocolate and chestnut tart was created.

To recreate, you will need:

Crust:
100 grams cold butter
170 grams flour
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons salt sugar
2 tablespoons ice water mixed with 1 egg yolk

In a food processor, pulse the flour with cold butter until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Add salt and pulse again. Sprinkle the water mixture and pulse a few times. Continue working with dough on tabletop, sprinkle more water if its too dry. Make sure not to overwork it. Form the dough into a disc and cover with plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 1 hour or until firm.

Remove from fridge and roll pastry to fit a 9 inch buttered tart pan. Line the pan with the pastry dough and fridge for another hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Line the tart crust with parchment paper and baking beans or uncooked rice and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and beans and bake for additional 10 minutes, until light golden brown. Leave the crust to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 170 degrees Celsius.

For the filling:

• 500 grams of chestnut cream
• 200 gram good quality dark chocolate, chopped
• 200 ml whipping cream
• 1 egg
• vanilla extract
• fresh chestnuts
• simple syrup*

Bring to boil the whipping cream and add to the chocolate. Mix until velvety smooth. Cool for 5 minutes and then add the egg and vanilla extract and mix.

Once the crust is cool add half the chestnut cream and half the chocolate mixture, and then add the rest of the chestnut cream and end with the chocolate mixture. Bake for 30-35 minutes until firm around the edges but slightly jiggles in the center.

Leave to cool completely before removing from tart mold. Meanwhile, make the candied chestnuts. Bake the chestnuts until their done in a high oven, for around 30 minutes. Peel and add to a small sauce pan. Add enough simple syrup to cover the chestnuts and cook until the syrup is thickened and the chestnut has absorbed the syrup. Leave to cool completely and then chop roughly.

Decorate the cooled tart with the chopped candied chestnut and icing sugar. Slice and enjoy!

* To make simple syrup bring to boil equal quantity water and sugar for 15 minutes and then remove from heat to cool completely.

On my first day of unemployed life, I woke up early in the morning and went to Sultan to grab a fresh salmon fillet. Look how beautiful it looks!

I wanted to bake the salmon with fresh herbs and lemons.

What you need:

• 1 salmon fillet
• half a bunch (the bunch you get from the supermarket) of mint leaves, dill and parsley, chopped
• 4 lemons
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 220 degrees Celcius.
Get a large baking tray and line with wet newspapers or sandwich paper, then line it with parchment paper. Place the salmon fillet on the parchment paper, add the chopped herbs, drizzle olive oil and squeeze 4 lemons and throw them in. Generously season with salt and pepper.

Add another layer of parchment paper on top of the salmon and then again another layer of wet newspaper or sandwich paper.
Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to steam for another 15 minutes. Transfer carefully to your favorite serving plate and enjoy!

Suggestion: Serve with a potato dill salad with sour cream dressing.
To make: Boil potatoes and cool. Cut into cubes and season with salt and pepper. Mix  one tub of sour cream (250 ml) with some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. Dress the potatoes and serve with the salmon.

Last Friday for my uncle’s futoor gathering, I created a kanafa with a creamy semolina filling.

This is the easiest kanafa with the shortest prep time.

All you need is:

• 1 shredded kanafa packet (500 grams), defrosted
• 1.5 sticks butter (150 grams), melted
• 1/2 cup fine semolina
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup thick cream

I always thought they looked weird and very unappetizing. The first time I tried figs was this summer in the cutest bakery in Toronto. We had a savory fig tart and it was amazing. I fell in love and gave myself such a hard time for not giving them a chance earlier in my life!

When I returned to Kuwait, I grabbed  a container of fresh figs and had no idea what to do with. They stayed in the fridge for two weeks until they rotted and had to be thrown away. I was determined the other day to make something with figs so I bought another container.

And this is what I came up with:

a maple fig tart

Rye Pastry recipe taken from Good to the Grain (only my favorite baking book ever)

• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1.5 sticks butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tablespoon apple vinegar

In a food processor, pulse the the flours, salt and sugar together. Add pieces of the butter, one at a time, pulsing between each addition. Add the apple vinegar and 8 tablespoons of ice cold water until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a round disc and put in the fridge for an hour.

Remove the pastry dough from the fridge and roll to an 8 by 11 inch rectangular shape on a lightly floured surface. Fold the dough three times like a letter. Roll again until you get an 8 by 11 inch shape and fold again like a letter. Repeat this one more time. Place in the fridge for at least an hour.

When you’re ready to bake the tart, remove the dough from the fridge and divide the dough in half. You will only need half of the dough, the rest save it for another tart.

Roll the dough to fit a 9-inch buttered round or square tart pan. Place in freezer until your oven preheats to 175 degrees.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

• figs, as many as you can fit the pan, quartered
• zest of 1 orange
• maple syrup
• half stick of butter, cut into small pieces
• a handful of walnuts, chopped

The maple syrup

I still have a lot of whole grains and alternative flours stored in my fridge so I wanted to use them before they go bad. The only thing I can think of that was quick and used both flour and maple syrup is to make pancakes! 

I also found a bowl of dates in the kitchen so I decided I should experiment with date pancakes and chose the four grains flour to complement the flavor. I used a basic pancake recipe to work with and substituted the flour, the sugar and of course added dates.

You will need this:

• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cup milk
• 5 tablepoons melted butter
• 1 1/4 cups four grains flour (which you can buy fresh from AlRaha Stone Mill)
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon mascobado/muscovado sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 dates, chopped

I just received a copy of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi and it’s just moutwatering. I decided to use 2 recipes from the book, the sweet potato wedges and the surprise tatin, which is a savory tarte tatin made with potatoes, onions, goat cheese and oven-roasted tomatoes instead of the traditional apples.

We all fell in love with the sweet pumpkin wedges!

This sweet potato wedges recipe is by far the most interesting and flavorful that I’ve seen. I omitted a few things from the original recipe as it had chili and nobody liked chili that night except for me!

To create the best sweet potato wedges you will need:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes

ground coriander

sea salt

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Wash and cut the sweet potatoes into small wedges.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and brush with olive oil. Scatter the wedges on the prepared baking sheet, making sure they are in a single layer. Brush the wedges with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with ground coriander and sea salt.

Bake for 25 minutes.  Cool for a few minutes before attacking them!

They are wonderful alone; the book suggests a dipping sauce with it. I don’t think it needs anything. The seasoning (salt +coriander) is such a an exciting flavor that you wouldn’t want to change that flavor in your mouth

To accompany our dinner, I made a light salad out of sliced avocados marinated in a mixture of olive oil and lemon, Rocca leaves and chopped tomatoes. A very refreshing salad!

And here comes the Surprise Tatin!

Apologies for the horrible lighting! We were too hungry by the time the tart came out of the oven that I had no time to photograph it properly. It was such a satisfying dish that I would definitely make again but with some tweaking. I’ll post the recipe once I’ve done my tweakings.

To end our dinner, we indulged in some mini cupcakes and oreo cookies from November…

And this concludes our Saturday dinner. Can’t wait until next weekend!

Enjoy!

There was a small outdoors food market next to our hotel that was open almost everyday, which was quite convenient. One stall was dedicated to mushrooms and truffles. It smelled heavenly and also like dirt. The salesperson’s hands were black from all the dirt but we overlooked this and grabbed as many dried porcini mushrooms bag as our hands can handle and most importantly, our already exploded luggage can take.

I had no plans last night and decided it was finally the time I use these mushrooms, as I was quite intimidated by them. I later found out, I had no reason to!

So what do you need to recreate this dish?

Serves 1.5

• pasta (whichever you prefer, I chose spaghettini)
• a handful of dried porcini mushroms, around 1/4 cup
• 1/5 onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• parmesan cheese
• chopped parsley
• 250 grams (1/4 stick) butter
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• truffle oil (optional)

Add a cup of boiling water to the mushrooms and set aside for 20 minutes.

Boil salted water for the pasta and cook pasta as instructed. Meanwhile, melt butter in a pan with a drizzle of olive oil on medium-low heat and add the onions. Fry for a few minutes, around 3-4 minutes, until soft and a little browned. Add the garlic and fry for 1 minute.

Drain the mushrooms and save the stock for later. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook until tender, another 3-4 minutes. Add 2 ladle-fulls of the mushroom stock and cook until it thickens slightly.

Season with salt and pepper. You need to be quite generous with the salt. Drizzle some truffle oil to taste.

Once the pasta is done and drained, bring it back to the pot and add the mushroom sauce and mix over low heat. If it’s too dry, add more mushroom stock.

Sprinkle with the parsley and shaved parmesan cheese and you are ready to serve.

Enjoy!

The next morning, back in Kuwait, I recreated this drink. The moracchino. You see I thought I took a picture of it in Milan and whatsapped it to my cousin but I think that was all in my head?

Well I’m experimenting with a new kanafa recipe and haven’t perfected it yet so I diverged and made many kanafas!
Also work has been crazy busy!

Kanafa with khashkawan cheese – perfect texture but still on the salty side

Pistachio kanafa bil smeed (my experiment) with ricotta cheese – strange after taste

Pistachio kanafa bil smeed with akawi cheese – something happened to the cheese! I need to rework something there.

Kanafa with creamy ricotta filling (adapted from a book) with honey sugar syrup – loved it and will post its recipe.

So here’s a slideshow of some of the kanafas I made