Hurricane cocktail with a twist

The Boy suggested we make a Hurricane cocktail. Of course, I take the opportunity to turn anything I can into a frozen cocktail because that's what I like. This one turned out great and I love the frothy, frozen texture. It went down a treat too.

Grand Marnier souffle ... in the Thermomix

I have recently decided that I need to spend more time working on and testing dessert recipes as desserts seem to be the most lacking component of my cooking repertoire. As a result, we did a little shopping trip to my favorite bargain book store and picked up a heap of dessert recipe books.

Even before the recipe books, I decided that I would like to try my hand at a souffle because I wanted to focus more on individual serve desserts rather than big pies and cakes (plus I suck at baking!).

I had a few souffle recipes in the books I got but randomly found a Youtube video of a really corny American guy (you have to watch the video to get what I mean!) making a Grand Marnier souffle to impress a girl on Valentine's Day. Of course, if you want to make the souffle the traditional method, by all means, just do what the guy did in his video (with his freakishly small spatula!). I have also included links below to the written recipes.

I decided to study the recipe and convert it for the Thermomix because (1) I could not find a Thermomix Grand Marnier souffle recipe and (2) The Boy really wanted a Grand Marnier souffle. He's been talking about it forever.

It took quite a while to convert the recipe from a regular recipe to a Thermomix recipe and I worked on it for a little over an hour, researching other souffle recipes to compare and to make sure that I got the timing and settings right. I have to admit, going into making the souffle that I was quite stressed and anxious as I did not know if it would turn out, or rise, or taste good. (The initial batter was not tasty at all!!)

Here's the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grand-Marnier-Souffle/Detail.aspx 

• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 5 teaspoons butter, melted
• 5 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cold milk
• 2 egg yolks (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
• 1 tablespoon brandy-based orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier®)
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup white sugar, divided

Creme Anglaise (souffle filling): http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Creme-Anglaise-Sauce/Detail.aspx 

• 2 large egg yolks (room temperature)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon brandy-based orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier®)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

• Butter and sugar ramekins and set aside on top of baking sheet.  Butter the ramekin and use a brush with strokes going straight up the sides. It encourages the rise to work properly.
• Heat oven up to 180°C
• Add butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, orange zest, grand marnier liquer and vanilla extract into Thermomix. Cook on  7min/90C/speed 4. VERY IMPORTANT: Check it at 5 minutes and make sure that is has not gotten too thick. Add more milk if necessary. You can't just let it run for the full 7 minutes without checking it, as your batter will probably end up too thick and dense, and not creamy enough! It needs to be a thick, creamy consistency. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool.
• In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites and slowly add sugar until they form soft peaks. Insert the butterfly whisk and whisk the egg whites on speed 3 measuring cup OFF / 4 minutes. Add sugar slowly when it starts to foam. Continue whisking until soft peaks (the whites shouldn't be very firm).
• Pour grand marnier mixture into a bowl when it is lukewarm, add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and stir vigorously to loosen it. Then, add the remaining egg whites and fold them in gently in order to keep as much air in as possible.
• Bake in the preheated oven until risen and browned, 16-20 minutes.
• To serve, take out of oven, sprinkle with icing sugar. Then, make a hole in the middle of the souffle and pour in 3 tablespoons of the Creme Anglaise. Makes it very lush! Serve and eat immediately!!
  

Creme Anglaise (souffle filling):

• Add everything into TM bowl. Cook 8 min/80C/speed 3.
• Pour into a small gravy boat or a milk jug to serve.

This recipe makes 2 medium sized souffles. If you want to make more, just double or triple the recipe as required.

From start to finish, between prep and cooking time, this took between 45 - 60 minutes, so if you are planning on making this for dessert after a dinner party, be prepared for that. It could take a while between courses.

Also, I didn't slowly pour the sugar into the egg whites to slowly whisk to make soft peaks. I just dumped all the sugar in and whisked away. I did, however, stop and check while whisking and whisked a total of about 4 - 4.5 minutes. The meringue was quite soft (slighly liquidy but not runny) and very glossy in texture. I expect that if you didn't want to check it and just ran it for 4 minutes, you could be okay, but with meringues I like to be safe and check regularly. It's a fine line and a short time between just right and too much!

This was a two Thermomix bowl jobbie for me. I used the first bowl to make the batter. Then immediately switched to the second bowl to make the meringue. After that, I washed (okay, The Boy washed, not me!) the first bowl and set it aside to use to make the Creme Anglaise. If you do not have two Thermomix bowls, then you will have to quickly wash and dry between each step.

I got so darned excited when I checked (okay, stalked!) the oven to see if it had risen at all, and it had!!

I have to say, I am super happy with the way that this turned out. It was light, fluffy and delicious. Adding the Creme Anglaise in the middle made it super decadent. When you poke a hole in the souffle to pour in the Creme Anglaise, just bear in mind that your souffle will deflate somewhat because of you putting a hole in it.

The Boy was super pleased with the dessert (we had it for afternoon tea as I was recipe testing!) and even went so far to say that it was the best thing he had ever put in his mouth. :-) Of course, that compliment from him made me very happy!

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Slow cooked crock pot orange chicken

Last weekend, a friend of mine decided to go into a very industrious cooking frenzy and made a whole bunch of meals, slow cooked and otherwise to freeze for the week. One of the dishes that she made was a recipe for orange chicken which she found on Pinterest (doesn't every recipe come from Pinterest these days? or at least it feels like it?).

I was interested in the recipe since we hadn't had orange chicken in a very long time, and for that matter, not even lemon chicken. The reason for that is because being of the Chinese ethnic persuasion, orange chicken and lemon chicken was always the dish that the "kwai lows" (ie, foreigners) ordered when they went to a Chinese restaurant. Us Chinese would turn our noses up on them and the dish because, well, we'd eat more authentic dishes, of course!! Seriously, though, sweet and sour pork is one of my favorite Chinese dishes at a Chinese restaurant, so I really have no excuse about being a snob about orange or lemon chicken.

Snobbishness aside, this recipe looked tasty (the picture on the Pinterest post looked really nice and don't they say we eat with our eyes?) and I wanted to try it. It was time we had something slightly ethnic in our cooking repertoire and dinner menu rather than your usual pedestrian American or Italian fare. This one was at least Asian-ish and had different flavors from the tomatoey, cheesy, beefy or chickeny goodness I usually served up.

I'm going to serve this with brown rice and steamed broccoli.

Here's the very simple RECIPE for the orange chicken:

Ingredients:

• 3-4 boneless chicken breasts, chopped into small chunks
• 1/3 cup flour
• olive oil
• 1/2 Tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tablespoon ketchup
• 200ml frozen orange juice concentrate (thaw or throw it in the microwave for 45 seconds)
• 4 Tablespoon brown sugar

Instructions:

• In a bowl, mix the orange juice, brown sugar, vinegar, salt, and ketchup.
• Pour the flour in a small bowl.
• Cover the chicken breast chunks in flour and shake off the excess.
• Pour a small amount of olive oil in a skillet and brown the flour-covered chicken.
• The chicken doesn't need to be fully cooked since it's going in the crock pot.
• After the chicken is done cooking, pour the pieces into the crock pot.
• Then cover the chicken with your sauce mixture and give the pot a stir.
• Cook on low for 5-6 hours or on high for 2-3.
• Serve over rice and even add veggies if you want a healthier meal.
• Enjoy!

I bought a 500ml carton of the orange concentrate and didn't want to end up with too much of the orange concentrate on my hands so decided to be generous with it. I used about 250ml of it in the dish and that worked out really well.

My brown sugar had also hardened to almost a rock-like state (from not being used in a long time) so I ended up popping it into the Thermomix to blitz it up. I then just tossed all the ingredients for the sauce into the Thermomix and just mixed it up in there.

I think I've said this before, but I don't have a crock pot, so I used a cast iron pot and put it in the oven at 90dC for 3 hours.

This turned out to be super tasty. Orangey but not too orangey and the sauce was so good that I wanted to drink it (which I did when I was putting away the leftovers!).

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd