Chinese Style scrambled eggs

I thought it apt to share one of my favourite dishes with you for Kitchen Exile's 12th birthday. I came across this dish while travelling around China many years ago. It's not a complicated dish, but the marriage of tomatoes and soy sauce with the eggs is delicious. It's become one of my favourite breakfast/brunch dishes. I used to call it "Chinese train eggs" as I was on a train the first time I had it and had to know what the recipe was, luckily the guide managed to find out for me. 

To those of you who have been following my food journey all these years, a huge thank you! I hope you are enjoying the trip and the recipes. 

Serves 2 people, I usually aim for 2 eggs and 1 tomato per person

4 eggs beaten

2 tomatoes, hulled and roughly chopped
2 spring onions, whites finely chopped and green cut on the diagonal 
15ml dark soy sauce
10ml oil for frying

In a pan on medium heat, add the tomatoes and the whites of the spring onions and cook until they have softened and have dried out a little

Turn up the heat and add the eggs and mix well with the tomatoes in the pan

Add the green from the spring onion and the soy sauce and continue to cook for a further five minutes, stirring constantly

All that's left for you to do is plate up and enjoy

Roast sardines with tomato and piment d'espelette

Celebrating the last of the tomato season which was much extended this year. This is a great simple dish which is easy to put together and place on the grill, without the worry of the fish sticking to it. You will however need a perforated vegetable grill tray. This makes it easier to cook the dish on the barbecue. If you are using your grill in your interior kitchen then use a baking sheet with oiled tin foil.

4 sardine fillets

2 tomatoes sliced thinly

1 small red onion thinly sliced

5g piment d'Espelette powder

Salt and pepper to taste

20ml olive oil 

Set your barbecue up for direct cooking at 200c or set your indoor grill to medium

Oil the bottom of the vegetable tray (or tin foil on the baking sheet if cooking indoors) 2- 3 tomato slices on the tray or sheet depending on the size of your sardine fillets

Place the sardines on the tomatoes skin side down, and season with salt and pepper

Sprinkle over the piment d'Espelette, the oil and the onions 

Cook for 10 minutes and enjoy

Tomato, ginger and chilli Ketchup

This year, I decided to grow tomatoes and chili peppers in my garden, and of course, I'll have plenty of them. I like to make my own ketchup and I wanted something different. The ginger adds a delicious touch of heat, and the chili pepper enhances the flavour. I use Espelette pepper for its mildness, sweetness and pleasant spiciness, which doesn't overpower the ketchup.

1 kg roughly chopped tomatoes

3 cloves roughly chopped garlic

2 Espelette peppers roughly chopped

100 g fresh ginger, peeled and grated

2 red onions roughly chopped

300 g jam sugar

50 ml cider vinegar

2 g salt (I use Maldon salt)

4 sterilized 350 g jam jars

Spice mix

4 whole cloves

5 g allspice berries

2 cinnamon sticks

5 g coriander

5 g cumin

Toast all the spices in a pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes, let cool, then grind to a fine powder.

Method

Place all the ingredients in a pan and stir.

Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Preheat the jars in the oven at 50c

Pour the ketchup into the jars and close the lids.

The ketchup will be ready to use within a week. 

Once opened, store in the refrigerator.

Brioche pain perdu with fig leaf

Taking pain perdu up a notch with a rich brioche version. I use the fig leaves to infuse the base egg and milk mix, they have a wonderful "toasted coconut" like flavour. 

10 slices brioche (Stale is better for this recipe)
2 eggs
100ml milk
10g caster sugar

Pinch of Salt

30g unsalted butter

5 slices nectarine

5 fig leaves stem removed and roughly crushed to bring out the aromatics

Beat the eggs together in a bowl, add the milk, salt and sugar, stir to combine

Add the fig leaves and place in the fridge overnight to allow the flavours to infuse

Next day, remove the leaves

Heat the butter in a heavy bottomed frying pan

Soak the slices of brioche in the egg and milk mix and add to the pan

Cook in a medium heat for 3 minutes each side or until nice and golden

Chermoula

 This is a great accompaniment to grilled or fried fish such as mackerel or sardines. It has a fresh vibrant flavour that cuts through the oiliness of the fish. There are many different versions of chermoula, depending on the country or region it comes from. I like to keep my version as fresh as possible with lemon juice, rather than vinegar.

1 clove garlic
10g fresh coriander
10g fresh parsley
1 red chilli (de-seeded)
Half a red onion finely chopped
Juice of one lemon
50ml extra virgin olive oil
5g cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Place the clove of garlic in a small bowl and pour over just boiled water to cover, leave for 2 minutes before removing and finely chopping

Finely chop the parsley, coriander and chilli

In a pan over medium heat, toast the cumin for 1 minute before roughly crushing ( either with the flat of a knife or with a mortar and pestle)

Place all the ingredients except the salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well to combine, allow sit for an hour to allow the flavours to infuse

Season to taste before serving

Scallop and mushroom brochette

 One of the joys of moving to a new country is learning the language. When it comes to French, it's a relearning process. After 11 years in the Netherlands speaking Dutch, I lost a lot of my French, which is annoying because I used to speak it quite fluently. One way to learn a language is to watch cooking shows; I find it helps a lot. That's actually where I discovered this recipe while watching Top Chef. Here's my interpretation of a Paul Pairet recipe, a simpler and more accessible version. It's still just as delicious. I replaced the teriyaki marinade with an oyster sauce, soy sauce, and mirin marinade. The trick is to cook it over direct heat, not on the griddle.

10 ml soy sauce
10 ml oyster sauce
10 ml mirin
2 g freshly ground black pepper
10 medium sized scallops
5 mushrooms
2 large metal skewers (I used these for cooking and not the wooden ones featured in the picture)

Cut the scallops in half to obtain 2 rings

Cut the mushrooms in the same way, so that you get round slices that match the shape of the scallops. Make sure there are no holes in the slices; they should be whole.

In a bowl, mix the mirin, soy sauce, oyster sauce and black pepper.

Place the scallop slices in the marinade and let stand for 15 minutes

Begin threading the scallops and mushroom slices onto the skewers, alternating between the scallops and mushrooms. Make sure they are threaded evenly and centered on the skewer. You'll want to leave some space at each end so you can rest the skewer on the edge of the grill.

Prepare your barbecue for direct cooking at 200°C

Remove the griddle and place the skewers on the edges over the coals (make sure you wear heat-resistant gloves when doing this!)

Cook the scallops for 30 seconds on each side, basting them with the marinade as you turn them over. Continue cooking for about three minutes to cook them thoroughly.

Banana parfait

This is my recipe for Kitchen Exile's 11th anniversary. Banana ice cream was a childhood favourite of mine, so it's a great way to celebrate with one of my favourite desserts. This recipe is a grown up version of the ice cream I used to have and is a great way of using up over-ripe bananas. The more over- ripe, the better as the flavour is more intensified. 

Once again I'd like to thank all of my readers and followers for supporting me over the many years. This year brings a big change to Kitchen Exile's website. I've begun the task of translating all my 400+ recipes into French, so for those of you viewing the site in English, you'll start to notice that there are two versions of recipes. In time I hope to provide the ability to select your language (French or English) when viewing the site, so you'll just see your preferred language. This will take some time, so please bear with me. 

 
3 very ripe bananas peeled and pureed
2 egg whites
Pinch of table salt
100g sugar
50ml water
100ml cream lightly whipped


Mix the cream and the banana puree together using a stick blender and place in the fridge
In a clean pan pour in the sugar and water and start to bring to the boil until it reaches 120c
At the same time the sugar is on start to whisk your egg whites until firm
Once the sugar has reached temp, continue whisking the eggs and pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites, try and avoid getting it on the whisk
Continue whisking until the egg whites have cooled down
Mix the egg whites with the banana and cream
Set your ice cream maker up and select the ice cream function and set the paddles going, pour the mixture into the bowl and start to churn