Cherry clafouti

For the last few weeks now I have been eying the cherries that finally showed up in the stores. At first they cost an arm and a leg, of course, but now they are larger, riper and cheaper! I could not resist any more. I bought a big bag of them, we ate half of it upon my arrival home, and then I proceeded to remove the pits from the rest of it and use them for a nice batch of clafouti.



Today is the first day that it is not so hot and/or humid, yet by the evening it did get humid again and it looks like it is going to rain. Although it was really nice in the afternoon, I still decided to do the baking on the back porch, using our large toaster oven that has a convection mode, too.



It turned out very yummy! This is the recipe I used:

1 1/4 c. milk
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 c. flour
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 lb. cherries, pitted (drained, if using canned)
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar

To make batter, put the milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and flour with 1 tbsp butter in a food processor or blender and process until smooth, about 1 minute. Brush an 8-inch baking dish with the remaining butter and pour a very thin layer of batter into the dish. Put in a preheated 350 oven to bake for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, arrange the cherries over the top and cover with remaining batter. Return the clafouti to the oven for 30 minutes, until it is firm and golden. Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve warm.

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It is a neat idea to half-bake half of the batter before adding the cherries. I did not bother with this two stage version, though. I poured all the batter in at once and just scattered the cherries on top. Instead, I used an old family trick to keep the cherries from sinking. I sprinkled a spoonful of flour on them before spreading them on top of the batter.

Saving time!

I just discovered a website, waitless.org, dedicated to saving time by doing things smartly. Here is for example a neat trick for peeling boiled potatoes in mere seconds. There are other neat ideas there like quick peeling an egg or a surefire way of soothing a cranky baby instantly. But I doubt I will ever try to turbo park my car their way... :)

Two years of blogging!

Wow! Just after I posted this recipe I realised that today is the second anniversary of my blogs. I started exactly on July 5th two years ago. Although a small time blogger, I luckily installed ClusterMaps and I know that people do chance on my pages occasionally even if they do not leave comments.

But the raison d'etre of this particular foodie blog of mine is more personal. It helps me keep track of some of the stuff I cook, not necessarily the ones I am the most proud of, but the ones that I manage to take photos of. Even then I sometimes end up with stray photos on my desktop with no memory of what exactly went into the recipes, so they never make it to these pages.

But the most important part of blogging for me is the sense of connectedness, the sense that I am part of something bigger than the space enclosed by the four walls of my kitchen. I very much enjoy the free flow of ideas, the raw sense of almost touching each other, if only in a virtual way.

I believe that this ability to literally peek into other people's lives will eventually make it impossible to harbour the hatred that still permeates so much of our world. When our kids will have grown up playing video games online with each other, chatting daily with people from the four corners of the world, even cooking together - virtually eating at each others' tables, it will be increasingly harder to then go and blow each other up.

May we all have many happy anniversaries!!!

A cross between parathas, pupusas and lángos.

It started out by settling on a recipe for West Indian potato patties (I suppose, originally Aloo Parathas), but in the process of recipe searching I also looked at a video of how they make pupusas. So I ended up with another fusion recipe that can be varied with all kinds of fillings, possibly even dessert types, like berries or grated apples, in that case, of course, sprinkled with icing sugar instead of serving it with salsa.

But I am getting ahead of myself. This is what I made:
















Dough

* 2 cups flour
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 cup water
* oil

Filling

* 4 cups water
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 lb potato, cooked and mashed
* 1 small onion, finely chopped
* 1 green onion, very finely chopped
* 2 garlic cloves, crushed
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
* 1/2 teaspoon paprika
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 1 hot red pepper, seeded & minced
* 4 cups vegetable oil (for deep frying)


In a bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Add enough water to form dough and knead. Let rest while preparing the filling.

In another bowl mix all the filling ingredients. In my case, I waited with the hot red pepper, I made a few first for my MIL, then I went all out and made the filling fiery hot for the rest of the gang.

I rolled the dough first into a long rope, I sliced it into largish golf ball sized chunks, then I took each ball and with oiled hands I flattened them as a saw it in the pupusa video. (Not as skillfully, though...) Then I placed a little filling in it, pinched it together well, flattened it a bit in my hands, then placed it pinched side down on the table and patted it to about 1/3 inch (1/2 cm) thick disk. I slipped this into a pan of hot oil set to medium hot and let it turn golden, turning it over once, while I prepared the next patty.

Drain them on paper towels, and serve hot with a good fresh salsa and sour cream or yogurt.