Beignets de maïs & bananes servi avec des haricots verts aux amandes

Beignets de maïs & bananes servi avec des haricots verts aux amandes mean

Corn & Banana dumplings served with Green beans cooked in almond milk

 Serves 5

 

Ingredients for the beans

Ingredients for the beans:

• 400g frozen green beans
• 100g raw almond flakes
• 1 onion
• 1 red scotch bonnet (optional)
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 stock cubes
• Salt
• Sesame oil.

Read the whole recipe before starting.

the almond cream sticks to the sides

Prep: Cover the almonds with cold water and leave aside for 1 hour in order to rehydrate them. Once rehydrated, pass through the food processor to blend very finely with about 200 ml water. Set aside.

Take the sliced beans out of the freezer and leave them to unfreeze, then rinse and put on a colander to remove the extra water. Set aside.

Dice onion, Butternut scotch and garlic set aside.

Method: Pour in the liquidised almonds in a pan, add onion garlic and the stock cubes. Add 3 tablespoons of sesame oil (this will add more nutty-ness to the dish). Stir and leave to simmer for 5 minutes. We want some of the water to evaporate and leaving behind a creamy texture. The onion will have lost its crunch by then and the cream should stick to the sides of the pan.

Now add the green beans and chilli, mix well continuously for 3-5 minutes until the beans soften to your liking. It is done.

Note: if you intend to reheat, just switch the heat after adding the beans.

 

Now onto the dumplings

 

Ingredients for the dumplings:

• 2 over-ripped bananas (about 300g)
• 300g fine corn flour
• 200 self-rising flour
• 20g sugar (I don’t like sweet stuff much)
• A pinch of salt
• 200ml water

Banana & Corn batter

Method: In a bowl, crush the bananas with the corn flour… Because the corn flour is so grainy, it is ideal to use it to mash the bananas.

Once that is done, add water, salt and sugar. Mix well to melt the sugar especially, then add the flour. Mix until you obtain and homogenous wet batter. Leave to rest for about 30 minutes to allow the corn flour to soften.

Heat about 500ml of vegetable oil in a deep pan. The oil has to be really hot and to test it, drop a small amount of the batter in it. If the dough rises up to the surface immediately, your oil is ready.

Yum... Golden and well formed

Using a table spoon and a bowl with cold water. Scoop the batter and drop into the hot oil. In order for the batter not to stick to the spoon, deep the spoon quickly into the cold water and scoop again… so forth and so on.

Given how hot the oil is, it should take about 1 minute and half for the dough to cook through. Make sure to turn them so all sides will be golden.

Just like when frying chips, remove the dumplings from the oil and place on a tissue paper to remove the extra oil.

The dumplings cannot really be reheated unlike the beans above and they are best served hot if for dinner as served below. The left over can be used for breakfast too.

Tuck in! Serving suggestion

I love these dumplings and do them often. I forgot half way to take pictures, but you’ve got the idea.

Hope you like it.

Send me your comments. x

:-)

 

2 tones banana cake Chilli -choco and ginger

So, yesterday my colleague left earlier because she wasn't feeling well then she sent me a message letting me know that she’d gone home, but that I could take the banana on her desk. Which I did. I didn’t fancy eating it there and then and by the time I got home it was slightly mushy. I didn’t want to throw it a way and that’s how I decided to bake this treat.

Most ingredients for this dessert where already in my larder so I didn’t need to go shopping.

All the ingredients

Ingredients for the cake:

·         1 ripe banana (about 100g)

·         100g flour

·         75g dairy free butter

·         25g sugar

·         A pinch of salt

·         1 teaspoon chilli flakes

·         1 teaspoon of dark coco powder

·         1/2teaspoon baking powder

·         75ml of water (or rice milk)

·         4 ramekins

Ingredients for the syrup:

·         25g fresh ginger

·         50g sugar

Method

Preheat the oven at 200C before starting.

In a blender, place the peeled banana and melted butter, salt, sugar and 75ml water. Blend. Transfer all into a mixing bowl. Sieve in the flour and baking powder. Mix well until you obtain a lump less batter.

Ramekin ready for the oven

Now, split the batter in two bowls. In one half, incorporate the chilli flakes and in the other, add the coco powder. Now you’ve got a chilli banana batter and a coco banana cake.

Butter the ramekins that you are going to use for the baking. On the bottom of each ramekin, pour the chocolate cake mix, then on the top gently place the chilli mix. By doing this gently, the cake mixes will remain separated in the ramekin.

Now place the ramekin on the tray on the centre of the oven and leave to bake for 25 minutes at 200C.

Meanwhile, peel chop and blend the ginger with 25ml water. Sieve the mix in a sieve lined with paper towel to obtain a clear ginger essence.

The syrup... still bubbling

Do not throw away what you have recuperated in the paper towel as it could be used in

soups or stir fries.

Those are chilli flakes

Back to our syrup. In a milk pan, melt 50g of sugar until it look clear and golden. This should take 2 minutes. Now add the ginger essence in the pan slowly stir and try now to burn yourself. The content of the pan will froth very much. Just keep an eye on it and pull it away from the stove from time to time. Slowly stir the content of the pan until the water has evaporated and all that is left is a ginger flavoured syrup. This should take 5 minutes in total from the moment you add the ginger essence onto the sugar. Remove the syrup from the pan and place it in a serving dish.

When the cake is ready, allow 5 minutes to cool down then serve by cutting each individual cake and covering them with the syrup.

Serving suggestion

This dessert is hot as in chilli hot literally but it surprising in flavors.

Let me know what you think of it. Tweet @hjulienne

Compote au riz rouge de Camargue

Ingredients for the dessert

Rice dessert:

·         6 medium strawberries
·         2 apples (any would do)
·         1 banana
·         2 tea spoons of sugar (optional)
·         50grs red Camargue rice
·         Rice milk
·         A hand full of dry currants (for serving)
 

Method: Peel the apples and cut in small quarters, peel and cut the banana the same, cut the strawberries and rinse. Also rinse the rice and place all the above in a small sauce pan with the sugar and rice milk. Put enough rice milk to cover the content of the pan. Cover and leave to cook on medium heat for 30 minutes.

Just ensure that the rice is well cooked before removing the pan from the heat. Do not let your pan dry or run out of liquid. This will help when blending the content of the pan.

So, once the rice is cooked, transfer the content of the pan in a blender and liquidize the lot. Leave to cool down and place in the fridge for an hour before serving topped with few currants.

Enjoy!

Serving suggestion