Ewrick's Rabbit Hole

See pic­tures here

Chocolate mousse

what you need

(there are many other vari­a­tions, but it’s basi­cally chocolate+eggs):

• 200g (7 oz) of dark half-sweetened chocolate (the one we took at the store was a good blend of dark/sweet, and we used the whole tablet, even if that was perhaps slightly more than 7 oz?)
• 4 to 6 eggs (depends on the size and your tol­erance to food richness; given the smaller size of the eggs we had, I think Jib used 6)

what you do:

- sep­arate the whites/yolks (bain-marie is best, if in a hurry, micro-wave can do it)
– gently melt the chocolate; once done, out of the fire, add the yolks and mix thor­oughly; you can then let cool at room tem­per­ature
– whip the cooled whites until stiff
– take a bit of the whites to mix with the chocolate so that the mix will be softer, and rest of the whites will incor­porate better, and con­tinue to fold in with the rest of the whites, very gently so that it keeps the lightness and blends
– put a few (3 at least) hours in the fridge before serving

Ratatouille (à la Vermontaise )

(there’s always a bit of impro­vi­sation when it comes to such dish with many ingre­dients, you can easily try and trust your own flavour

what you need:

• 1 big onion (a bit of fresh garlic is tra­di­tionally used also)
• 2 nice tomatoes
• 3 small to medium cour­gettes or equiv­alent (you can use egg­plants too, but it may give a too soft a texture)
• 2 red (or other colours of) pepperbells
• some fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary)
• tomato paste
• olive oil, salt pepper, lemon etc.

what you do:

- nicely prepare all the ingre­dients (for that you’d need a Jib but that isn’t found easily
– cook the onion (and garlic) in olive oil, then add the ingre­dients by increasing softness (zuc­chinis and peppers go first, so that they have a chance to take a nice brown colour before being put in the juices)
– add the “bouquet garni” (herbs) and cover the pan so that the water doesn’t evap­orate too much; you can add a bit more water if needed so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan
– put the fresh tomatoes last, and some tomato paste to thicken the broth (chicken broth can be used too in com­bi­nation) let it cook so that the flavours infuse (you can also add a few diced lemon zests, grated ginger, chives etc.)
And that’s about it… I think it takes at least 20 min cooking

The sauces

“sauce aurore” (usually it’s more creamy than the one I did, and it uses a lighter touch of tomato sauce for the “dawny” peachy colour, and there can be some small shrimps or mussels to enhance the flavour, but we went for some­thing fresher
light cream, tomato paste (adapt the pro­por­tions for a nice con­sis­tency), chopped chives, a drop of fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, and other spices as you like (I added a bit of paprika and some grated ginger too)

shallot sauce (usually best for fishes) put some butter in the pan, let it melt (but careful it doesn’t burn), cook the finely chop-chopped shallots in the butter, add some salt pepper (white pepper my favourite for this blend), you can add chopped chives too. Add half a glass of white wine and let it reduce a bit; add the cream

Lemon pie

I put the recipe here a few months ago

written by Yuki \\ tags: chocolate, ginger, lemon, ratatouille, sauce, tomato