Birthday Crème Brûlée

Some people want carrot cake. Some people want banana cream pie. My mom asked for crème brûlée.

Anthony Bourdain's Crème Brûlée

from his Les Halles Cookbook*

Ingredients

1 quart/900 ml heavy cream

1 vanilla bean

6 ounces/168 g sugar

10 egg yolks

6 tb/84 g brown sugar

This makes six 8oz ramekins. I halved the recipe to make five 5oz crème brûlées, still using one whole vanilla bean.

Method

Put the heavy cream in large pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise- scrape the insides into the cream. Put in empty pod as well. Add half of the sugar to the cream, stir well. Bring to boil.

Preheat your over to 300 °F/150 °C.

Whisk egg yokes and remaining sugar, until pale yellow and slightly foamy. Remove cream mixture from the heat and SLOWLY, gradually, whisk it into the yolk mixture. Make sure to whisk constantly to prevent the hot mixture from curdling your eggs. Remove the vanilla bean and discard.

Place ramekins in the baking pan and fill the pan with water so it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Divide the custard evenly among the ramekins and cook them in the oven for 45 minutes or until the top is set but still jiggly. Remove ramekins from the oven and let cool to room temp. The custards can be placed in the refrigerator overnight- cover in plastic.

When you are ready to serve, sprinkle 1 tablespoon of brown sugar over the top of each custard. Carefully run the propane torch's flame over each custard to caramelize the sugar. Wait a minute then serve the custards with spoons.

Happy 73rd birthday, Mom!

Yeah, we didn't bother to put candles. 

Enjoy!

 




* Disclaimer:  This is an affiliate link.  I will earn some small change if you buy after following this link*

Boiled Crawfish in Kuala Lumpur!

We ordered the little critters from a farm in Johor on Wednesday, paid the money (RM31 per kilo) into the farmer’s bank account and then picked them up well-packed and all alive (!) on Saturday morning from the courier’s office.

We cooked them in two batches in my big stockpot on the stove since we only had 15 kilos, well-seasoned - with potatoes, corn on the cob and loads of garlic butter to go around. And cold beer!  Gotta have the ice cold beer!

It was so good and easy to do that we are already planning the next order.

Borlotti cream sauce with pasta

Once again, my visiting photographer (my mother) took the photo. Unfortunately, she only remembered her duties after eating a few bites. Tomato and cucumber salad with two types of tomato and Japanese cucumber (probably grown here in Malaysia though) with a simple dressing of thinly sliced onion, vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Plus a lovely cream sauce over whole wheat pasta.

Ingredients
1 can of rinsed borlotti beans
1 onion, finely minced
6 cloves of garlic, finely minced.
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 -1.5 cups of low fat milk
1 cup (8 oz) cream
2 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
500g (16 oz. pasta)

Method
Rinse the beans and mash 2/3 of the can.
Sautee the onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent and tender. Add the flour and stir to make a roux.  Add 1 cup milk, stirring quickly so as to avoid lumps. Add more milk if necessary.  Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the mashed beans and the stock cube. Add a little water if mixture is too thick. Cook for a few minutes and then puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Return to the pot and then throw the whole beans in. Cook another few minutes until thickened sufficiently, then add the cup of cream. Salt and pepper to taste. Then add parsley. Make sure it is warmed through then it is ready to serve.

Serve with a generous helping of grated or shaved Parmesan cheese over freshly boiled pasta. Serves five generously.

Optional for non-vegetarians: Top each serving with crispy bacon bits and pan-fried Italian sausage sliced thinly. You don’t need much - treat these like a garnish.