Quay Po Cooks: french cuisine

Showing posts with label french cuisine. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Creme Brulee - A dessert I would die for!! - Featured in Group Recipes & Bakeolicious

I first tasted Creme Brulee during my trip to Rome and from that moment fell in love with it. Whenever I go out dining and if this dessert is on the menu, I will never fail to order, even if in addition to other new dessert I want to try. Since I love it so much, I decided to find the recipe and learn to make it myself. I have gone through several recipes but the following one is the easiest and the best. But to make this dessert, you have to invest in some special equipments; flameproof ramekins and a small kitchen blow torch.

Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

5 large egg yolks

1/3 cup powdered (icing) sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 tsp vanillin (ahi grade vanillin is quite good, but if you can, use vanilla from the bean

2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar such as Sugar in the Raw

Special equipment: 6 (4-oz) flameproof ramekins

Method:

Preheat oven to 120°C.

Whisk together yolks, icing sugar, and salt and vanillin in a bowl until combined well. Add cream to egg mixture and whisking until combined. Pour the mixture through a sieve in to the ramekins. Arrange ramekins in a roasting pan and bake in a hot water bath in middle of oven until custards are just set, 1 hour on 120 degree C. Transfer custards with tongs to a rack to cool, then chill, uncovered, at least 4 hours.

Now the fun part: Use a blowtorch to caramelize the sugar topping. This needs practise because it burns the sugar easily if you are not careful. Don't be afraid to get the flame close enough to do the job but keep it moving in a regular motion, until you have a golden brown top similar to the picture. Make a few of these for yourself and you family test subjects before counting on this to impress dinner guests. It won't take long and everyone loves this rich, creamy finish to a perfect dinner.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.