Banana tarte

So good and so light! prepare your dough, shape it and put tarte mould in fridge.

Cut your bananas

Put bananas over dough; add some noix de muscade, butter, caster sugar and rum. 45 minutes at 180°C that’s it!

tiempo de clamato

Este bebida en Mexico es muy popular.. para hacerla sigue las instrucciones por favor!

1) juice of a lime

2) add Worcestershire sauce

3) add pimientos, go go!

3) add valentina, hot sauce manufactured by the Salsa Tamazula company of Guadalajara in western Mexico

4) add clamato, tomato juice flavored with spices, clam and celery

5) add mexican beer

tonight my mexican friend Thania came with a bag of pimientos! she taught me how to make a mexican clamato, now I could open a clamateria in Cancun!

Tropical cake

Banana, pineapple, cinnamon, vanilla, walnuts… in one cake ? there are not too many flavors in only one slice? No no no.. believe me this combination is perfect. It makes me dream about a Caribbean beach with white sand and fresh bananas and pineapple still on their trees.. cream cheese frosting gives that Anglo-Saxon touch that I love so much!

Tarte au chocolat

This tarte is just delicious. Dough is crunchy, filling is soft and perfumed with grounded coffee.

For the crunchy effect you have to put your shaped tarte in fridge for 1 hour before baking, and you need to bake it at least 30 minutes before adding the filling (chocolate filling needs to cook only 10 minutes!)

Pancakes

Between Pancakes and me there is a love story.. I eat my first pancake in Boston in 1996 (wow!) This “frittella” (Italian translation) is good, is fat (a little just because is fried!), is soft and you can eat many without getting bored of it! After U.S. I learned how to make my own pancakes thanks to wonderful recipe of Chef Jamie Oliver and every time is a big success!

You can eat it nature or with icing sugar and some fruits, but my favorite version is “pancake drowned in maple syrup” I love this natural sweetener, it has a wonderful taste and when I eat it I feel that is good for me! (mi mangio una frittella ma la innaffio con lo sciroppo d’acero quindi alla fine mi fa pure bene!)

Where does it come from this precious liquid?

Maple syrup is usually made from the xylem sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in the spring. The basic ingredient in maple syrup consists primarily of sucrose and water, but we can find also organic acids, potassium, calcium, zinc, manganese and amino acids. When you buy it follow same rule of honey: don’t save money, just choose the best one!

Banana cookies

Banana works so well in cakes! you can smell aroma in all your apartment when baked, they should be chewy inside and crunchy outside, that’s why is very important to bake cold cookies (the dough should rest 1 night in the fridge!) in preheated oven 170°C

How to do: beat 260g soft butter, 280g caster sugar and 2 eggs until smooth. Add 400g flour, 1/4tsp vanilla, 1/4tsp baking powder, 1/2tsp marine salt and mix. Add 250g chopped dried bananas. Shape dough like a salami, film and rest in fridge overnight. Cut it in slices and bake for 15 minutes.

Postcard from Argentina

Blog’s family is growing, now I have also a foreign correspondent from Argentina! My friend Giorgio went to Bragado, a small town in the province of Buenos Aires, and discovered a great restaurant called “El Cabrito”… he tested all specialties and nosed around in kitchen of restaurant.. outcome is so inviting that I really want to go to “El Cabrito” to have dinner tonight.. unfortunately last flight from Paris already left.. next time:)

Empanadas de carne is a bundle filled with meat, onion, spices (even raisin sometimes!). Dough is made with corn flour but both filling and dough change a lot from a region to another. Shape is an half moon and can be baked in the oven or fried. In this case is fried and we have also the view of empanada’s Jacuzzi!

Meat is great in Argentina.. here a vision of grill.. lomo Argentino, beef cutlets and sausages.. nam!!

Dessert is Dulce de leche bañada de chocolate, kind of caramel cake with chocolate (all information that I got!) seems good anyway..

I can’t forget wine of course! Giorgio savored a Malbec 2010, a grape variety from France who found in region of Mendoza his dimension.. velvety, dense, with a fruity aroma is generally robust and usually appreciated young, good job Giorgio!