Fleischnakas - Meat rolls from Alsace

After a pot-au-feu, usually we get a lot of leftovers of meat. How to use them? Making Fleischnaka is a yummy recipe! The direct translation would mean "snails of meat", but acutally it is much more like "meat rolls".

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:

Leftovers of Pot-au-Feu meat (cold)

For 500g of meat:

2 eggs

2 shallots

parsil

salt and pepper

For the noodle dough:

500g of flour 

5 eggs

10g of salt

a little bit of water

For the cooking:

A nut of butter

1l. of beef stock or the stock of the pot-au-feu

First prepare the noodle dough. Mix all the ingredients together to get a firm, smooth dough. And keep refrigerated for 2 hours.

Then, prepare the stuffing: Take off the fat from the meat and mince it with the shallots, the parsil.

Mix all together with the eggs, salt and pepper.

After 2 hours, roll out the noodle dough very thin and spread the stuffing on. Then roll it and slice it (3 to 4 cm wide).

 

 

Fry each side in butter and then boil into the stock for 20 mins.

It is then ready to eat with the stock as a soup or without just with a salad. Enjoy !

 

With the remaining dough, you can make noodle: just roll out the dough very very thin and cut very thin noodle. Cook into boiling salted water for 10mins. It is yummy with a stew or just with a nut of butter!

A traditional French stew: the Pot-au-feu

The Pot-au-feu is a popular winter dish in France. It is composed of a tasty veggie-beef stock, various beef cuts and veggies. The secret is a very slow, slow cooking... for at least 3 hours.

Ingredients (for 6 servings):

- 3kg beef: brisket, chuch steak, shin, gravy beef and/or blade; use 2 to 3 different cuts (this time I used brisket and shin)

- 6 marrow bones

- 5l. water

- 1 big onion picked with 4 cloves

- 2 garlic cloves

- 4 carots

- 1 or 2 turnip

- 1 white gabbage

- 3 leeks

- 8 potatoes

- 3 baie leaves, thym

- salt

Method:

Wash the meat under cold water and put into a large pot. Cover with cold water. Add the onion, the garlic and the green part of the leeks. Put on the low heat (lid on). Let cook slowly for 2 hours. Every 30 mins, remove the foam.

Salt after one hour. Do not salt the meat or the water before, otherwise the stock will be bland.

Prepare the veggies: peel off the carots and the turnips and chunk them. Chunk also the leeks and the gabbage.

After 2 hours, take the leek out. And add the baie leaves, a pinch of thym and the carots.

10 mins later, the turnips,

10 mins later, the gabbage and the leeks (only the white part). Check the seasoning.

Let cook for 30 to 40 extra mins until the veggies are all cooked.

10 mins before the end of cooking, add the marrow bones.

Boil the potatoes separately.

And now?

As an entry, eat the soup with or without veggie

As a main course, drain the veggies and the meat and serve onto a plate with mustard and/or horseraddish. The marrow is delicious spreaded on a slice of bread with some mustard or just coarse salt.

The leftovers are even tastier (but remove the grease when cold) and can be eaten as they are, warm or cold with a vinaigrette (1 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp oil, 1.5Tps red wine vinegar, salt, pepper).

The leftovers of meat can be used in a shepard pie, in a potato salad, in Fleischnaka  (kind of meat rolls)... many possibilities!!
The stock is very tasty and can be used for your future dishes. I make ice blocks of it so that I can use as much as I need when ever I need (rather than buy stock with preservatives...).

I hope you will enjoy this winter stew! Let me a comment whether you have any question!

Vanilla-Caramel Flan: as simple as that!

I miss some French deserts, especially the most common like the Flan. Here is my recipe for Vanilla-Caramel Flan, very easy and delicious for all the family!

Ingredients (for 10 ramekins):

For the Flan:

1l. of milk

6 Tbsp of sugar

6 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean, it is even better!)

For the caramel:

1/3 cup of water

3/4 cup of sugar

+/- 1 Tbsp of lemon juice

Preheat the oven at 200°.

Mix the milk and the sugar into a pot and heat it on a medium heat. Stop before it boils.
When the milk is being heated, mix the 6 eggs into a large bowl.

At this stage, you can start preparing the caramel, put the water and the sugar into a pot and bring it to boiling on a hot heat. Stir frequently and stop when the caramel takes a nice brown color and remove from the heat. Add immediately the lemon juice while stirring.

Place the ramekins into a oven pan or a lasagna plate, and add hot water in the pan (the flan will be baked into a bain-marie).

Back to the flans: Gradually pour the hot milk into the fresh eggs. Do not stop stirring energically to avoid your eggs get cooked. When finish you should see some bubbles on the top of the preparation.

Add the caramel into the ramekin first. And then add the Flan preparation.

Put into the preheated oven and bake for about 30 mins. Check the flans are cooked with the blade of a knife, which should be dry.

Let cool down and enjoy !!!

Variant:
- chocolate flans: add cocoa powder or dark chocolate into the warm milk
- cinamon flans: add 2 cinamon sticks into the milk (when still cold)

France or Belgium? The Carbonade Flamande

Pic from here

French and Belgian people are always kidding each other, but they really like each other, maybe just like kiwis and Aussies (?) ... Well, humour is just a way to show affection, isn't it?

Grand Place of Bruxelles, Belgium (Pic from here)

Anyway, to avoid some huge debate about the origin of the dish that I am going to introduce to you today, let's say that Northern France and Belgium share at least one famous dish: the Carbonnade Flamande. This is a beef casserole cooked in a beer sauce that is lovely with fries and a pinte of beer, of course! A very easy but tasty dish to make for family or friend events!

Grand Place of Lille, France (pic from here)

Ingredients (6 servings):

1,5kg beef, e.g., blade steack, gravy beef, chunk beef (you can even mix various cuts of the beef)

5-6 onions

40g of butter

3/4 cup of soft brown sugar

3/4 cup of flour

1 liter of blonde beer, e.g., leffe (the better the beer is, the better the dish will be)

6 slices of ginger bread (pain d'épice)

French mustard of Dijon

salt, pepper, baie leaves, thyme

Preparation time: 20 min
Cooking time: 2h30 (the longer it cooks, the better it is!)



Method:

Cut the beef into cubes (4 cm).
Slice the onions.
Heat the butter into a large pot and fry the beef briefly on each side. Then take the meat out of the pot and rest it.

 

Fry the onions into the rest of the butter. When gold, add the soft brown sugar and caramelize a little bit. Then stir the flour in and pour the beer gradually. Do not stop stiring to get a smooth sauce.

Slow down the heat and add the meat, salt, pepper and herbs. Stir and let cook on a very low heat for 45 minutes.

Spread the mustard onto the slices of ginger bread and put them on the top of your casserole after the first 45 minutes, and let cook for 90 minutes, at least. Sti occasionnally, when the slices of ginger bread will be wet enough, they will dissolve into the sauve, giving it a great flavour.
Remember, the longer you let the casserole stew, the smoothest the meat will be. It's even better when reheated the next day.



Serve with french fries or pasta. Enjoy this very friendly dish with the same beer you used for the sauce or with a red wine!

Sorry for this awfull picture! I have messed up my photos ;-)

I'll download a new one the next time I do this recipe! Click here to see nice pictures of the Carbonnade Flamande.

Red cabbage and beef casserole

Automn is here in NZ, sunny as ever but winter is coming. It's time for dishes that warm you up! Let's go around the Franco-German border, the Rhine Valley, the Vosges and Alsace in France and the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) in Germany.

Farm in the Schwarzwald, Germany (pic found here)

Riquewihr, medieval village, Alsace, France (pic found here)

Farmhouse Ostein, Alsace/Vosges, France (pic found here)

Roasted chestnuts (pic found here)

Around there, automn brings a lot of delicious food that can bring you some comfort during the hard winter time... Chestnuts, which are rosted in the streets, are particularly enjoyed to warm up your hand.



 

Pic found here

Automn is also the time eat various pork deli food freschly made, e.g., bacon, blackpudding sausages, wieners, pâté... In France, we name it the "Cochonnailles". This is fat but delicious food that gives you everything you need to face the cold winter time.

Pic found here

Today, I propose you to use these ingredients in a red cabbage and beef casserole perfumed with chestnuts and smoked bacon and wieners.

Ingredients (5-6 servings):

1 big red cabbage

1 onion

1 big apple

1+1/2 bowl of fresch chestnuts (or 1 can)

2 smoked wieners (facultative)

250g pieces of bacon (off cuts are very good, but streaky bacon also work)

1kg of chuck steak

25cl of red wine (preferrably Pinot Noir)

15cl of water

1+1/2 Tbsp sugar

3 baie leaves

Thym

Coarse salt

Pepper

Method 

If you are using fresch chestnuts, start preparing the chestnuts. This is a long and fastidious work, so it's preferrably you use a can of already prepared chestnuts, if you can. I have been unable to find one here in NZ, so I used fresch chestnuts. Here is the preparation method:

1. Incise the shell of each chestnut (make a cross)
2. Put them into boiling water for at least 20 min
3. Peel when still warm.

• At this stage, the chestnuts are only precooked. They will cook with the cabbage later.

 Precook the red cabbage:

Raw cabbage

• Slice the red cabbage as thin as you can, or it may be better to use a food processor
• Wash it
• Put it in a large pot and add water (to cover the cabbage) and 2 pinches of coarse salt
• Bring it to boil and let it boil for about 20 min. The color will change from flashy purple to dull purple, but the cabbage is still a bit hard.
• Drain it
• At this stage, the red cabbage is preccoked.

Precooked

The casserole:

• Slice the bacon, the onion and the wieners
• Cut the apple into quarters
• Cut the steak into 2 or 3 large pieces
• Heat a large pot with a little bit of oil
• Stir fry the bacon, the onion and the wieners into. Add some pepper.
• Add the apple when the onions are brown (not black! hehe ;-))
• Then add the meat but do not allow it to fall on the bottom of the pot, let the bacon, onion, wieners and apple; 4-5 min each side. Add 2 pinches of coarse salt

• Add the precooked red cabbage, the herbs, the sugar, the water and the red wine, mix together
• If using fresch precooked chestnuts: Stew on a low heat for about 20 min, then add the chestnuts and let stew for 40 more min
• If using a can of chestnuts: Stew on a low heat for about 40 min, then add the chestnuts and let stew for 20 more min
• Stir occasionnaly and make sure it does not sitck on the bottom of the pot. Add some more water if too dry.

Serve when still hot and enjoy with a glass of your favorite Pinot Noir!

Personnally, I like to eat the meat with a pinch of coarse salt on the top or with some horseradish condiment. But some other people like it with mustard.

Note that the red cabbage can be cooked the same way but without the beef that can be replaced by a roast beef or pork.

The French Baguette

 Just think about France, then French food... what's so special and also so basic in French food?

The French Baguette!! This is the French favourite snack, with butter, cheese, pâté, ham, meat or whatever else... to dip into a nice sauce or just because you like it for its punchy crust followed by the soft crumb! 10 billions* of baguette are eaten each year in France, that means about 27,6 millions baguettes each day!!! In short, this is very common food in France, but most people just buy it in the bakery every morning. I have to say, this is much easier than making it by yourself! But here in New Zealand, it's not so easy to find a French baguette, so today I have decided to make it by myself! This is not so difficult, but it's a very technical work that has to be followed meticulously to make the perfect baguette you want!

Preparation time: 4 hours (variable)
Baking time: 20 min

Ingredients:

500g flour

350ml warm water

2 teaspoon dry yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

Just as simple as that!

Method:
Dilute the yeast into 50ml of warm water and rest for 20 min. Prepare the flour and the salt in a big bowl and make a hole where to put the diluted yeast, and mix together. Add the rest of the water gradually and mix. The dough will be sticky but don't add more flour. Knead the doug for at least 20 min, and then make a ball. Cover and let rise for 20 min.

After 20 min

Then, raise the dough delicately while turning the bowl. This manipulation aims to loosen the dough from the bowl and thus strengthen it.

Before the manipulation

After the manipulation

 

Repeat this manipulation every 20 min, 5 times (about 1h30). You should see some bubble on the surface of the dough.

Then let rise for one more hour.

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts and make 3 balls very delicately, not to break the bubbles. Wait for 20 min and then lengthen each ball from left to right to make the baguettes (kind of sticks) and let rise for 20 min.

During these last 20 min, preheat the oven to 230° with a cookie pan filled with water on the bottom of the oven.
Make several incisions on the baguettes (for a nice crust), moisten sligthly the uncooked baguette and put in the middle of the oven. Turn down the temperature to 210°, let the cookie pan with the water and bake for 20 min. You can easily bake up to 2 baguette a time.

Don't wait too much to eat your fresch French baguette as they are even better whel still warm! Enjoy, you are just in France!

*source: http://www.planetoscope.com

First stop: my native region in France - a traditional baking recipe of brioche

Because I am a French native newly settled in New Zealand and because I miss some of our French baking specialities, my first recipe will be a French baking recipe: the "brioche tressée".
The dough I use is from a traditional recipe from east of France, my native region, Alsace, that we usually bake for Saint Nicolas dinner on the 6th of December. Saint Nicolas is particularly well celebrated in Nancy in the French region of Meurthe-et-Moselle, as well as in the region of Alsace.

Saint Nicolas

Le palais des grands ducs, Place Stanislas, Nancy

Mannele d'Alsace

For this occasion in Alsace, we bake little men (called "Mannele" in the local dialect) with the dough as shown on the picture below. But I love using this recipe to make a "Brioche tressée" which is also a delicious kind of sweet and soft bread appreciable for the breakfast or snack tea, nature or with spreaded butter and/or jam.




I made one brioche few days ago to share with some kiwi women of the playgroup where I take my son every week. I served it with some homemade guavastrawberry jam. Out of the 20+ slices, no one left!
So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

- 500g flour

- 110g sugar

- 100g butter

- 25g baking yeast

- 2 eggs

- 200g milk

- 5g salt

- 1 yolk

- 80g icing sugar

- 2 teaspoon of hot water

Preparation time: 3 hours+
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

Method:
Prepare the sourdough with 100g of flour. Mix with the yeast previously diluted in 100g of warm milk. It is very important the milk is not too hot because it would kill the yeast power and your dough would not blow up. Cover the sourdough with a clean teatowel and let rise 20 minutes.

During these 20 minutes, put the remaining 100g of milk in a pot with the butter, the sugar and the salt. Cook gently. Make sure you do not boil the milk and the butter. Let cool.


Then add this preparation to the sourdough and knead. Add the two eggs and the rest of the flour, and knead for at least 15 minutes. It is very important you work the dough energically. Cover the dough with a clean teatowel and let rise 1 hour at least. it is better if the temperature of the room is warm, or you can let it rise in a warm oven (do not forget to turn it off before you put the dough in).

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts and roll them before you "plait" them. Let rise it one more hour in the oven. Then glaze the brioche with the yolk.
 

Bake in the oven previously warmed up to 180° for 20-25 minutes. The crust must be soft and brown.


To finish, mix icing sugar and the hot water to get the icing and spread it on the brioche when still warm.
It's ready to eat when cold. You can serve it nature, with your favorite jam or simply butter. Enjoy with a cup of nice coffee, tea, or even better with a hot chocolate, like if you are a winter afternoon/evening when the sun has already set in East of France!

Brioche tressée