Célerie gratiné

Celery isn't one of my go-to vegetables. I usually only need a stalk or two and then it sits in refrigerator until it turns into a putrid liquid. Not really. Well, maybe once. Anyway, this recipe is a great way of using up the rest of the celery before it transforms into compost.

1 bunch celery (1lb to 1lb 8oz), including leaves, chopped
1½ tsp salt
2 Tbsps (1oz/28gr) butter
2 Tbsps flour
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp pepper
2 cups milk
½ cup breadcrumbs (55g)
¼ cup (¾ oz/20gr) Gruyère cheese

¼ cup chopped chives or 3 chopped scallions (45 to 60g)
2 Tbsps chopped parsley

1. In a skillet combine the celery and salt. Add water just enough to cover. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, until the liquid is completely gone. The celery should be  totally cooked. Dump into a plate and set aside.
2. In the hot skillet, melt the butter and sprinkle in the flour, nutmeg and pepper, whisking until it starts to turn brown. Add the milk and whisk until it's smooth, then add the celery and cook until the sauce becomes creamy and thick. Taste and season with salt.
3. In a bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, chives and parsley. At this point, either leave the celery mix in the skillet or dump it into a gratin dish or casserole. Sprinkle the cheesy breadcrumbs on top.
4. Set the oven to broil. Put the dish in the oven and broil until the top is golden.

Velouté aux chanterelles - Wild Mushroom Soup

Our friend Lorenzo honoured us this weekend by bringing us to the spots where he picks wild chanterelle mushrooms. He informed us that it's a bit early in the season, but with his help we managed to harvest a little over a kilogram of the delicate flavoured beauties. Since they are specialty foods, and expensive, I've never cooked with them before, but I think this soup is a good starting place. It is mildly creamy, a little sweet, and gently mushroomy.

1 Tbsp (½ oz/14gr) butter
1 shallot, finely diced
2 tsps flour
2 cups chicken broth (veg broth for Vegetarian)
¾ cup white wine
2 Tbsps finely chopped fresh parsley
¼ tsp finely chopped fresh thyme
7 oz fresh chanterelles
½ cup milk
½ cup crème fraîche
¼ tsp salt
Pepper, to taste

1. In a soup pot melt the butter and add the shallot and flour. Cook until the butter bubbles and foams and the flour starts to go blond.
2. Add the chicken stock, white wine, parsley and thyme. Bring to a slow boil, then cover and gently simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, shred the chanterelle mushrooms. At the end of the 15 minutes, add the mushrooms to the broth, and cook another 5 minutes. Bring to a slow boil.
4. Low the heat to minimum. Add the milk, crème fraîche and salt. Gently simmer another 5 minutes.
5. OPTION - at this point, you can either run the mixture in a blender for a velouté, or serve immediately with it all chunky.
6. Before serving, grind some fresh black pepper on top.

How much pasta is a single serving?

Figuring out how much pasta makes a single serving depends on what course it's for and how hungry the diners are. I'm a little bit obsessed with my wonderful purple electronic scale and prefer to weigh everything, but measuring is just as good, but varies a lot depending on the shape of the pasta. You can also buy a contraption with holes in called a pasta measure where you fit long pasta like spaghetti through holes.

Single serving by weight:

• 2 oz (57 g) of dry pasta for a first course or side dish. 
• 3 to 4 oz (85 to 113 g) of pasta for a main course. 

Single serving by volume:

• 2 oz of spaghetti, fettucini, spaghettini, capellini, fedelini or vermicelli will fit in a ⅞" (24 mm) diameter circle between your thumb and forefinger, about the diameter of a Canadian quarter.
• A 2 oz (56 g) measure of elbow macaroni is a ½ cup of dried pasta.
• A 2 oz (56 g) measure of penne pasta is ¾ cup of dried pasta.
• A 2 oz (56 g) measure of ribbed lasagna is approximately 2½ pieces of dry lasagna sheets.
• A 2 oz (56 g) measure of egg noodles is 1¼ cup.

Ginger Citrus Soba Noodles

Part 1
4 oz soba noodles (100% buckwheat soba if gluten free - other types of noodles are ok.)
1 cup edamame

Part 2 - The sauce
juice from approximately 1⁄2 of an orange (about 1⁄4 cup)
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
½ tsp hot sauce (or to taste)
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsps minced fresh ginger

Part 3 - The rest
1 cup snow peas
Mild vegetable oil
2 to 4 oz mushrooms
¼ cup chopped scallions or chives (30 to 45g)
Extra orange & lime wedges to squeeze in at the end
a few teaspoons of sesame seeds, for garnish

1. Bring a small pot of water to boil and add edamame. Cook for 7 to 8 minutes, remove from the heat source, and let stand until the rest is ready.
2. While this is happening, start the water for the noodles. Throw in a pinch of salt. 
3. While the water for the noodles is coming to a boil, string the peas and slice the mushrooms.
4. Put a pan on the stove with a splash of oil and turn on the heat to medium high.
5. While the pan heats up, start mixing together the ingredients for the sauce, which all go in at once and get whisked together.
6. Once the pan is so hot that the first snow pea will sizzle when it hits, add all the snow peas and a pinch of salt, turn down the heat to medium and stir fry for few minutes, until tender and they get a slight char on both sides. Keep shaking the pan or stirring and flipping the peas to make sure they get cooked on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside. 
7. Do the same for the mushrooms.
8. Now, turn off the heat and let the pan cool down for a few minutes. Add the noodles to the boiling water while you wait.
9. The reason to cool the pan a bit is that it is relatively hot and dry. The next step is to add the sauce, and if you add it while it's too hot, it may spit dangerously. Regardless, stand back when you pour in the sauce. It should still be hot enough to bubble just a little bit. Stir continuously as it thickens, about 2 to 3 minutes. If it doesn't bubble a bit, turn the heat back on to low. The sauce should reduce to a light syrup. Don't let it burn or reduce too much.
10. Add the cooked noodles, snow peas, mushrooms and edamame to the pan. Stir to mix everything together with the sauce. Add a good squeeze of lime, and cook a few minutes more. Taste & adjust. If necessary, add more soy sauce, another squeeze of orange or lime, perhaps more hot sauce if you want more heat. Top with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil, scallions (or chives) and sesame seeds.

Socca

These are very quick and delicious snacks. The part of the recipe that takes the longest is heating up the oven. I've only read about socca, and know that it's a food commonly eaten in the region of Nice in France.

1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup + of water
½ to ¾ tsp salt
2 Tbsps olive oil + more for baking
1 Tbsp of finely chopped fresh herbs (your choice, have fun!)
OR 1 tsp dry herb or spice

1. Place the grate in the oven to the second-to-closest level to the broiler element. Pre-heat the oven to 375°F. Put an empty metal cooking pan to heat up. It should be about 10 inches wide (I use a stainless steel sauté pan, but a fry pan or cake pan or even pizza dish would do just fine)
2. Using a whisk, combine all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix until well combined. The desired consistency is of whole milk, which means it should be runny but with a bit of body - add water if it's too thick, or add chickpea flour if it's too thin.
3. Into the hot pan, put in 1 or 2 Tbsps olive oil, swirl to cover the pan, then pour in 1 cup of the mixture. You can tell the oil is hot enough if the mix sizzles when it hits the oil.
4. Put the pan back in the oven and cook for 2 minutes, then turn on the broiler. When you see dark brown patches form on top, it's done. In my oven it takes about 4 minutes.
5. Lift it out of the pan with a spatula onto a wide plate and eat it right away while it's piping hot. Wow!!!

Tzatziki

You can use a blender or food processor to make this, but I find it more satisfying to use simple kitchen tools. The result will be chunkier, but just as delicious and refreshing.

2 medium cucumbers, seeded and grated (see step 1)
1 Tbsp salt (for salting cucumbers)
3 cups plain Greek yogurt
3 Tbsps lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbsps fresh dill, finely chopped
Salt, to taste
Black pepper to taste

1. Peel the cucumbers, cut them in half lengthwise and scrape out seeds all the seeds to reduce the amount of water from the cucumber. Grate the cucumber and, in a colander sprinkle the Tbsp of salt over it and give it a good mixing; let this stand for about 30 minutes to sweat the cucumber to reduce the water even more. After 30 minutes, take handfuls and squeeze out as much water as possible and plop into a bowl.
2. Mix up the sweated cucumbers to loosed the bits, and add the garlic, lemon juice, dill, and some black pepper, then mix in the yogurt. Taste before adding any extra salt since you'll already have salt added from the cucumber. Let it sit for about an hour (two if you refrigerate) to allow the flavours to blend before serving.

Roasted Carrot Ginger Soup

This is such a comforting soup. I like to finely dice the gingerroot so that I get small bursts of ginger while I'm eating my soup. It is definitely warming and good for cold and rainy or wintery weather. Can be made with Olive Oil instead of butter.

2 lbs carrots, peeled and cut into 2" lengths
2 + 2 Tbsps. olive oil
1 onion, diced (6oz/170g)
2 large rib celery, diced (to yield about ½ cup) or a good pinch celery seeds
1" piece of fresh ginger, tiny dice (not grated)
8 cups chicken or veg broth
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
Chopped fresh chives or chervil for garnish (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 375°F.
2. Drizzle the carrots with the oil and place them on a baking dish in a single layer. Roast them in the oven until they start to blister and brown, about 30 to 40 minutes. Browning is essential for flavour.
3. Meantime, in a soup pot, start to cook the onion in butter until it's soft, about 2 to 3 minutes. 
4. Stir in the celery and ginger and and continue to cook until the onions start to brown, about 5 minutes. 
5. Add the roasted carrots, broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, and let vigorously simmer until the carrots are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. 
6. Let the soup cool before putting in the blender - hot liquid makes the air expand in the blender urn and the liquid can explode out of the blender and burn.
7. Purée the soup in batches in the blender (also, don't overfill the blender).
8. To serve, return the soup to the pot and reheat it over a gentle flame. Garnish with the chives or chervil.