The last couple of months I’ve been working on the dessert menu for a restaurant, La Coccinella within the VW complex Autostadt in Germany. The concept of the restaurant is in house made fresh pasta with delicious cakes baked fresh every day. It’s been a change from the Christmas pâtisserie concept I’ve worked on for the last four years (although that’s coming up very soon).
It was role reversal for me on my first visit to Marrakesh (it was also my first visit to North Africa) where I attended some cookery classes. Normally I’m the one teaching.
The cookery class took place at a Riad in the Medina which was almost impossible to find. An hour and half late and after going round in several circles we finally arrived at this stunning Riad. It was like walking onto a set for a glossy interiors magazine. Anyway after a glass of freshly pressed orange juice (one of the best things about Marrakesh was the abundance of freshly pressed orange juice) we got down to some serious business by making some morrocan biscuits.
Tags: Cookery classes, cornes de gazelle, Dar darma, gazelle horns, marrakesh, morrocan pâtisserie, Riad
Ask first © 2010 R Khooks, Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved.
Last week I started to dabble in with sourdough. I got a crash course in sourdough bread baking but was still a little dubious as my track record with looking after living things isn’t that great. Maintaining a starter felt all too much like having to take care of a plant or a beer smelling tamagotchi. My last attempt of growing rosemary and thyme ended up in the bin. Luckily Clotilde from Chocolat & Zucchini has been doing a great job writing about sourdough with plenty of recipes.
Ask first © 2010 R Khooks, Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved.
Sourdough or a natural starter is a combination of fermented flour, water, wild yeasts and friendly bacteria which is used to leaven bread. It’s a tradition to name your starter, so I decided to baptise mine “Lucca” as I’m testing and researching sourdough bread recipes for some culinary workshops I’ll be doing in Tuscany near the town of Lucca.
I went about feeding my starter every day (organic white flour and filtered water). I accidently put it in the fridge and it froze but I managed to bring it back to life. It’s quite warm in Paris (Spring has finally kicked off) which is just the kind of temperature Lucca likes. A week of feeding and I thought it was about time to put Lucca to a test. I used the 1 2 3 sourdough recipe which is pretty fool proof. I went for a mix of wholewheat and white flour with a sprinkling of seeds. I made my sponge early in the morning, gave it 6 hours and then made the dough in the afternoon and left it to rise for a further 6 hours and by 10pm I had a fresh loaf. I must say I’m very impressed with the crust which is made by putting the dough in a oven proof dish with a lid to bake. The water evaporating from the bread creates steam and makes a very crunchy crust. Another plus with sourdough is the bread keeps really well. Even a week later toasted it still tastes great. More beer smelling tamagotchi tales to follow…
Ask first © 2010 R Khooks, Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved.
Check out Clotilde’s well documented basic sourdough recipe for further information.
Tags: healthy, homemade, natural starter, retreat, sourdough
On the 6th October 2009 a Pie Party was circled on my social calender. I headed down to La Cocotte to show everyone how to make them. Lemon meringue, Banoffee, Apple & Cheddar and Pumpkin pie, plus a delicious pie crust were head lining the event. Recipes were all easy as pie 
Special thanks to Djoukaze for the photos.
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Tags: American pies, Pies
On Saturday 26th September 2009 it was off to the School of life in London where I conducted some taste experiments and cocktail & a canapé workshop as part of the Voyage of Epicuriosity holiday.
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Many thanks to the school of life for the photos.
Tags: the school of life
