Mendiants au Chocolat

We are on the final day of cooking French Cuisine. I know I picked up a simple dish, which practically didn't look like cooking at all to me. However I have been want to make this shape and prepare exactly this way that I decided to make it for this theme.

Infact this was the first one I made when I decided on French Cuisine. My kids do not like dry fruits or nuts other than cashew nuts. So even in a chocolate, if its fruits and nuts, its not touched. Since I do not like cashews, most times those chocolates stay for a while.

However since we thought we should get them try these, we decided to get Konda initiated into the dry fruits. She said she won't mind if I make the chocolates with these. So hubby dear that it was my task to get it done and that's how this came into picture.

I was lucky that I remembered that this is a French specialty and I searched for it.

So wiki tells me that Mendiant is a confectionery originated from France. It has just two ingredients, chocolates and dried nuts and fruits.

Traditionally it was a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or monastic orders of the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and Carmelites. Each of the nuts and dried fruits used refer to the color of monastic robes with tradition dictating raisins for the Dominicans, hazelnut for the Augustins, dried fig for Franciscans and almond for Carmelite.

Now this confection has moved away from the traditional combination of nuts and fruits to other combinations incorporating seeds, fruit peels and other items. And I could see recipes using so many different combinations.

When I made this at home, boys didn't even touch it, while the entire batch was enjoyed by Hubby dear and Konda. I used Dark chocolate along with roasted almonds, raisins, walnuts and cashews.

Mendiants au Chocolat

Ingredients Needed:

Dark compond - 1 cup
Cashews, Raisins, Almonds, Walnuts for topping.

MW chopped dark chocolate for 30 secs in two spurts. Temper well and drop a teaspoon of melted chocolate on parchment paper.

Place each nut on top and refrigerate.

Croque Provençal | How to make French Grilled Cheese & Tomato Sandwich

We are starting the second week of BM#55 with a tour around French Cuisine. I didn't have enough time to read through all the courses, so I was looking out for specific course of meal and decided it was best to start with a sandwich.

I have quite an affinity towards French, it was my second language for four years, starting with school and continued in college. However the only words I seem to remember right now is Bonjour and Mademoiselle. Of Dame, from le dame sans merci, which seem to have struck in memory forever!  Would you believe if I say I rather wanted to write pages and pages on my memories associated with French and finally as it seem to happen offlate with me, I ended up working on this post the night before?

Well you got to believe! Life has suddenly become very hectic. Athamma has left for her daughter's place and everything has been even more tightly wraped to manage! Anyway with all things apart, I didn't want to delay writing this post and with a moment's free, which has become quite rare, I sat down to cook myself this sandwich and write about it right away!

Trust me, the steps are so simple that I felt it was not worth bothering to do a step by step.

The sandwich for the day is based on Croque-Monsieur. Its a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, topped with bechamel. It was popular in French cafes and bars as a quick snack. The cheese typically used is Gruyère, however I used processed cheese slices. As with any recipe, there are many variations to this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croque-monsieur

I decided to make croque provençal or with tomato. This sandwich is made with toasted bread, cheese, sour cream and tomato slices. Its grilled till crispy. Additionally one can add eggs as well.

I kept to sour cream/mayo, tomatoes and cheese.

Croque Provençal

Ingredients Needed

Wheat Bread Slices - 2
Tomato Slices - 4 nos
Cheese Slices - 2
Pepper powder to taste
Sour cream / Mayo - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 1 tsp

How to make French Grilled Cheese & Tomato Sandwich

Spread the bread mayo/ sour cream. Put slice of cheese on one piece of bread.

Add tomato slices. Sprinkle with salt, pepper.

Cover tomato slices with other slice of cheese, then cover with other piece of bread.

Heat pan with butter, spread butter on top of each side of bread.

Grill until sandwich is brown on both sides and cheese is melted.

Omelette au Fromage | How to make French Style Cheese Omelette

We are continuing the second day of cooking French Cuisine. While I had gran plans of making dishes like Pissaladiere, Bugnes, Gratin Dauphinois and Flammekueche. Only I didn't get around making any of these above mentioned dishes, though I must have spent many a day drooling over the delicious pictures these names conjured on.

Before going into the recipe, let me share something first. For many years now, I must have watched that "Being Positive" tape at office. While the gist of the tape ever stayed with me or not, one point that struck with me is where the author says we should not use But! He says we should ban the word from our vocabulary.

I have made ardent efforts to somehow remove this word from my usage. No I am not saying I am so good in never saying no to anybody. Just that I have replaced that word with something else or I manage to say no in a different way!

This also reminds me of what Dad keeps telling me on many occasions. Never give excuses! Of course the situations that made him give me this gyan was more dire. Still its something that struck for life and I make an effort never to give excuses for not having done something.

I simply expect the other person to accept that I didn't do!

So you see the critical situation I find myself in right now? I can't use but and can't give excuses as well. Whats left out is the simple brain wave that struck me at about 8.30 pm when I was thinking  about what to cook for Hubby dear for dinner. Parents had taken kids for Dad's birthday treat and it was just two of us left to feed ourselves.

It was just then that Padma pinged me on whatsapp, asking how many dishes did I cook through the day. Knowing that I seem to be cooking about 6 -7 on a weekend, she was shocked when she heard I hadn't cooked any. And on top, I had two more dishes to be cooked and clicked for the French cuisine.

She was very sure of my capability to cook up something and just to ensure my image to be infact, I decided I ought to do something. I am not sure what prompted me to type in Omelette and I was shocked to realize that Omelette is of French origin! Imagine that!

Anyway I was thinking if I could get hubby dear to have Omelette for his dinner. He came back from his walk and I gingerly asked him if he was game to try some Omelette au Fromage. He said what??. Then I explained that I had to cook something french and this Omelette au Fromage seem to be the quickest dish I could make right then. The only thing he asked was, will it be spicy?

So I said even if it wasn't I will ensure he gets his chilies. Of course I added more pepper and not chillies to ensure I keep true to the recipe and not indianised it.

I found this recipe and wanted to ensure I replicate it myself as much as possible. I was missing Konda and I know I will make this for her soon.

Omelette au Fromage

Ingredients Needed

Eggs - 2 nos
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, grated - 1 tsp
Butter - 2 tbsp
Gruyere cheese, grated / processed Cheese - 2 tbsp

How to make the Omelette au Fromage

Break the eggs into a bowl.

Season to taste with salt, pepper. Add Parmesan cheese.

Beat the eggs with a fork until mixed well.

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat.

Add the butter and allow it to melt and color slightly. It should almost be like turning to ghee. Add the beaten eggs.

Drizzle some oil on the sides and and leave the eggs to cook.

Add the cheese over the surface.

Fold the omelette into thirds and flip it onto a heated serving plate.