Spices4Sunsets

Chocolate salami

Chocolate salami

I know your thinking, what? Gross! But it’s really just a dark choc lately biscuit thing that looks salami like.

24 Spritz biscuits or some sort of butter shortbread type biscuits

350g of plain chocolate or half and half plain, milk if you prefer things a little less rich

225g of butter

60ml of amaretto

2 egg yolks

50g flaked almonds toasted and shredded lengthways

25g ground almonds

Grind the biscuits in a food processor, or if you don’t have one, do it the old fashioned way and put them in a bag and bang them with a rolling pin. Put the chocolate liquor and butter in a heat proof bowl and melt over some simmering water, stirring gently until it’s all dissolved together. When this is done add most of the biscuits leaving about a cupful spare and the flaked almonds. Leave this mixture for about an hour in the fridge until it is a little stiff.

Turn the chocolate mix out onto some grease proof paper, shape into a sausage shape, wrap it up and roll until it looks like salami and then freeze until it’s solid.

When ready to serve unwrap the salami and cover it in the rest of the biscuit mix with the ground almonds. Leave it out of the freezer for about an hour or until it is soft but not too soft and then cut into thin slices.

This is a very rich biscuit so thin slices are best, especially if you are going to serve it with something else, I would suggest putting it with a chocolate mousse infused with amaretto. (see recipe for chocolate rum mousse)

 

 

Duck with wasabi pepper sauce

 

Duck with wasabi pepper sauce and wasabi mash

Duck legs, 1 per person, this recipe would be for 4 people

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons of brandy

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

Salt and pepper

For the duck legs, put them in a roasting tin, you can add a few things to flavour it while it cooks, like the above. Cover the duck in the roasting tin with foil. Slow cook on about 140 C for a few hours. The duck will kind of cook itself in its own fat and come out so tender, but don’t forget to cover it otherwise the fat will evaporate and the duck will burn to the bottom of the roasting tin. Not speaking from experience or anything!!!

For the wasabi pepper sauce

1 tablespoon Soy sauce

2 tablespoons Brandy

Beef Stock

1 teaspoon Pepper

1 teaspoon Wasabi

½ tablespoon Sugar

1 tiny dash Gravy browning

½ a tablespoon cornflour dissolved in a little water

In a pan heat the brandy for a few minutes or until there is about half as much liquid as you started with, then add the soy sauce a little water and the beef stock. When the stock is all dissolved add the sugar, when this is dissolved you can thicken the sauce with cornflour, add the pepper, the wasabi, (you may want to leave less than 1 teaspoon or omit it entirely if you don’t like it) and last of all colour your sauce with a tiny bit of gravy browning, otherwise it may look a horrible colour of brown.

For the wasabi mash

3 potatoes

150 ml of Cream

50g Butter

1 teaspoon Wasabi

Salt as you like!!

Everybody knows how to make mash so I won’t need to explain.

 

 

Tartar of tuna with mint and cucumber sauce

Tartar of tuna with mint and cucumber sauce

500g of fresh tuna

Soya sauce

Sesame oil

Salt

Pepper

A few sesame seeds

Cut the tuna into small cubs about half a centre metre in diameter, toss in all the other ingredients. Leave in a bowl on the fridge with Clingfilm over it as the smell of the sesame oil will stink your fridge out, incidentally if you don’t like sesame oil omit this ingredient and use olive oil instead.

For the mint and cucumber sauce

About ten mint leaves

Half a large cucumber, (peeled and seeded and tasted)

1 lemon

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

To make this sauce add all the ingredients except the olive oil to kitchen aid and when they have becomes completely blended start adding the olive oil until you have a nice consistency.

For presentation engulf the plate in the sauce and then using a metal mould place the tuna in the middle. Garnish with a slice of lemon and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

 

Market

The undercover market in Cannes is one of the best even by French standards, in the morning it has a huge array of fruits, vegetables, seafood, spices and flowers but close to it are all sorts of other food shops, one of them being Petrossian Paris where you can buy the most expensive caviar in the world and top quality vodka and quality Fois Gras, but were talking more than the average persons monthly pay check for some of the stuff.

 

Cannes by Night

Cannes old port by night