Fanning the Flames of Passion - Crêpes Passion

It's that time again. The BakeSpace International Taste Tour is traveling through the Wonderful World of Crêpes. This was kind of serendipitous for me, since I was already on a Crêpe binge anyway. So you know the Crêpes Sucrée that I made about 2 weeks ago....? Well I stored them in the freezer until I was ready for this dish.

I was REALLY excited to make this dish. I had it all planned out, as I have been toying with this, in my head, over the last year. Then I ran into a snafu. I was unable to obtain any ripe passion fruit. Luckily, I had Passion Fruit juice, Ceres brand, in the cupboard to use as my last resort.

Sadly it's "laced" with apple and pear juices for sweetness. Granted, it's great that it's 100 percent juice and contains no high fructose corn syrup, but it played down the exotic tartness that IS passion fruit. Which kind of bummed me out. Of course, I now had to drop the sugar from my original plan and try to reduce the juice to intensify the flavor. Still too sweet... So, I added Key Lime juice to brighten the acidity a little without modifying the flavor too much. Then, I figured, since I had already adulterated my (already adulterated) passion fruit with lime juice, that a few Wild Lime leaves would add a nice perfume to the dish; especially if I tossed in a hint of Canton (Ginger Cognac).

Flames of Passion

1 recipe Crêpes Sucrée
1 1/4 cup Passion Fruit juice
2 oz unsalted butter
3 leaf lobes from Wild Lime (Makroot), fine chiffonade
1 TB Water
1 TB Key Lime juice
2 TB Canton (Ginger Liqueur)
1/4 cup Light Rum

Make crêpes and set aside. (or thaw some out)

Place 2 Lime Leaves on a cutting board and fold them over.

Cut out the stem. (you only need 3 of the lobes)

Then Chiffonade thinly.

Place 1 cup of Passion Fruit juice in a small sauce pan, and reduce too 3/4 cup.

Melt butter in a small skillet, add passion fruit reduction, lime leaves, water and key lime juice.

Bring mixture to a simmer for 3 minutes, then carefully dip each crepe in the sauce,

and fold crêpes into quarters and arrange in a chaffing dish.

After all the crêpes have been dipped, folded and arranged, carefully add rum and Canton to the sauce, stir to combine, try to not let it catch fire yet, but bring it back to a simmer.

If your chaffing dish has a heat source underneath, ignite it now. (I used another skillet on the stove)

Carefully pour the Passion sauce over the Crêpes,

let the mixture simmer again, then ignite, just like you would for Crêpe Suzette.

Let the flame die on it's own, then kill the heat source underneath the chaffing dish.

Serve while warm with a sprinkling of Passion Fruit Seeds. (I used green Passion Fruit seeds just for a visual)

Alternately, you can skip the rum/Canton step, and arrange crêpes in a shallow oven proof dish, pour sauce over crêpes and broil for 4-5 minutes before serving.

Verdict - I don't think it was passion fruity enough. The Makroot lime made for an exotic fragrance... which was nice. But it REALLY needs real passion fruit pulp. Then I think it would have been completely awesome!! (sigh) Next time.

And NOW on with the Tasty Tour...... See what all my Beeps (BakeSpace peeps) have been up to as they take you on a tour of the wonderful world of the Crêpe in all it's form.

(Sorry, this iframe plugin malfunctioned)

Thank you for joining us on out International Taste Tour of the wonderful world of crêpes.

Mangia!!
~~

A Word Writes a Thousand Pictures - My Cookbook and Some Seared Scallops

Hi, my name is Shane, and I am a food geek. Yes, I admit it. Some of my "foodie-ness" has moved beyond the realms of "normal" eccentricity. Although I have been informed, on several occasions, that only the rich get to refer to themselves as eccentric, thus I must refer to myself as just plain strange and/or odd.

Be that as it may, my obsessions ARE many, so I will only touch on a few...
I am a pyro-ceramic glass nut (Old CorningWare), I love storing things in odd containers (ie. Cinnamon bark canisters with Sugar and Fleur de sel). I have 5 different implements for brewing coffee... Cause one cane NEVER have too much GOOD coffee. Don't get me started on the matcha bowl with bamboo whisk or Yixing tea pot and tea canister, specifically for Earl Grey.

See... I am a total obsessive food geek...

But the one thing that I obsess about the most is this.....

This is my cookbook. All scrawled with my chicken scratch. Only my most favorite recipes go in this book... HA HA, and if you have read my more recent blog posts, you will recognize this one...

Linguine alla Carbonara, Green bean Casserole from Scratch, Risotto alla Gorgonzola, Lasagna, Passion Fruit Cheesecake, Kibbeh, Aushak, and Pork Tenderloin in Huckleberry sauce are also in there, just to name a few.

Oh, I have recipes stashed everywhere as well. I have been collecting and printing stuff off the internet for 12 years... Sadly, most of what I collected in the beginning was simply cut and pasted into miscellaneous word documents, never knowing at the time that SOMEDAY I would be sitting here at 11:00pm writing a blog post about something I had collected 10 years ago. What isn't in the stack on the floor of the bedroom, is located on my Mac, or on a CD of stuff that was lifted from my PC before I left my previous company.

All this technology is fine and dandy. But there is something about creating a handwritten cookbook. The feel of the pages, the pen scratching across the surface leaving the marks of dinners past. It's just aesthetically pleasing to me. I find it extremely grounding to flip through the pages of this self created tome looking for a recipe instead of having my nose buried in my computer screen. In all honesty, this is part of the reason that my blog template looks the way they do... To give that same feeling of a very old book.

But I am obsessing on the cookbook and not it's contents..... Enough babbling....

Tonight I had scallops that were in desperate need of cooking. So I grabbed my trusty cookbook to look up a recipe I adore... It's from the movie No Reservations and it's absolutely divine.

I recommend Kashmir saffron, and not the Spanish.

Spanish Saffron is a little more bitter than Kashmir.

I cut this recipe WAY down, I have it written for 4-6 people in my cookbook depending on whether it's a starter of a main. This is the cut down version... For only 4 scallops, not 16

Lemon Pepper Seared Scallops in Saffron Sauce

Searing the Scallops:
2 TB AP Flour
1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
1/8 tsp Marjoram
1/4 tsp Thyme
Pinch of Coriander
1/2 TB Lemon Pepper
4-5 Sea Scallops, rinsed and drained
1 TB Olive oil
1 TB Flat Leaf parsley, Chopped fine
1 TB Lemon Juice

In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, marjoram, thyme, coriander and lemon pepper.

Roll scallops in the flour mixture until lightly coated on all sides.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat
Add four scallops and sear on both sides (About 1 1/2 minutes for each side)

Remove scallops and place on a plate in a low oven to keep them warm until ready to serve.
Toss with parsley and lemon juice.


Saffron Sauce
2 TB shallots, finely minced
1 Makrut (Kaffir or Wild) lime leaves, chiffonade fine
2 TB Pinot Grigio Frizzante - Although Dancing Bull Sauvignon Blanc is better
small pinch of Saffron Threads
1/2 TB Heavy Cream
3 TB unsalted COLD Butter, cut into 1/2 TB pieces
1/2 TB Fresh Lemon juice
Kosher Salt
Finely ground white pepper to taste

Fill a saucepan with water and set to simmer
In a heavy saucepan, combine shallots, lime leaves and white wine; reduce to 1/2 TB of liquid.

Add Saffron threads and heavy cream; Stir until desired color is reached. (bright yellow, not orange)

Strain into a clean stainless steal bowl, place bowl over simmering water.

Begin whisking in the butter one piece at a time, adding the next just before the previous one melts completely; do not stop whisking or the emulsion might break.

Also, work with the simmering water, you may not need to leave it there, just keep placing it over as the sauce cools from the cold butter, then remove again once the sauce is re-warmed.

After all the butter has been incorporated, add the lemon juice and the salt and pepper.


Mangia!!
~~

The Key To My Addiction - Key Lime Curd

In case ya haven't noticed at this point. I love citrus curd. And once I made the Meyer Lemon Curd, followed shortly by the Blood Orange Curd. Well, it has now officially become an obsession. So last night, WAY past my bedtime, I was bitten my the Key Lime bug. I had originally bought Key Limes to make a pie. Well, so much for pie, although lemme tell ya. The curd, with a little creme fraiche on a scone, is JUST like eating a Key Lime pie.. :) Awesome!!

Some people may not be familiar with a Key Lime. They really do come from the Florida Keys and they definitely taste different than the normal Persian limes that you purchase from the store to make margaritas and squeeze into your Corona. Oh yes. These teeny tiny little key limes are much less "Bitter" and more acidic. Thus the sugar content is a little higher in this recipe.

I urge you, to try Key Limes if you can find them. They are quite delicious, although a lot of work is necessary to obtain the precious juice, mainly because you have to squeeze SO many to get 2/3 of a cup. (I had to squeeze a grand total of 32 Key Limes, to get the same amount of juice as in 4 Persian Limes.) But it is TRULY worth the effort. For a Key Lime is to a Persian Lime what a Meyer Lemon is to a Eureka Lemon. A cut above...

One thing that I need to own up to. My curd is unnaturally green, and I find it slightly disturbing really. But, I did not want to mix up my curd in the refrigerator. Key lime juice is not green, it's actually about the same color as Lemon juice. So stupid me, I added 1 drop of sky blue food coloring to the mix. I will never do it again! It became GREENER as it was cooking, which is odd because most food color degrades with cooking. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, I never dye my Key Lime pie, so WHY I thought was a good idea to dye my Key Lime curd is beyond me. I chalk it up to the late hour...

So without further babbling, here is my recipe (basically an altered version of the Meyer Lemon one) and only 1 photo, since I have already done this process twice, and it was the wee hours of the morning when I did it. Yes, I know, how sad am I..?? I use to be "out" having a rip roaring good time... Now.. I am at home making Key Lime curd at 2:30 in the morning on a Saturday night, or rather a Sunday Morning. ;)

Key Lime Curd

4 oz (113g) Unsalted Butter (1 stick)
2/3 cup (156ml) Key Lime Juice (about 32 Key Limes)
1 cup (200g) Granulated Sugar
Zest of 3 Key Limes
optional 1 Makrut (kaffir) Lime Leaf; (both lobes) Sliced thin
pinch of Kosher Salt
2 large Eggs, separated
4 large Egg Yolks
(WAY optional) 1 drop of sky blue food coloring (in fact, this is so optional, you should just forget that I even mentioned it)  :)

Melt the butter in a bowl over simmering water and set aside to cool slightly.
In a separate bowl place Sugar, Key Lime Zest, Key Lime Juice, Makrut Lime Leaves and Salt. (Those little green strips floating are the sliced Makrut Lime leaves; It kind of gives it a Thai flair)

Separate the eggs, placing 2 of the Whites in the bowl with the Sugar and Key Lime juice.
Place the yolks into the bowl of melted butter.
Whisk the ingredients in both bowls until homogeneous,
Then add the Sugar/Lime mixture to the Yolk/Butter mixture and place over simmering water.
Cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 172 degrees, or until it thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Strain through fine mesh into a clean bowl, to stop cooking.
This will also remove the spent zest and overcooked egg specks from the curd leaving it smooth.
Cover on the surface with plastic to prevent any crusting and leave to cool to room temperature before refrigerating.

As with all Citrus Curd, Best when served with Creme Fraiche or Devon Cream on a scone.

Mangia!!!
~~