PAPILLES EN EVEIL – Déjeuner - And, here's the rest of the story...

I've had this written and ready to publish ages ago, but I was waiting for Brigitte's photos before I actually published it.  However, no photos, yet.  So, here's plan B:  I'll publish this and send the photos (with captions) when I get them.
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Lunch was great fun and a huge success !  There were eight of us, 2 Japanese, 1 Brazilian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Chinese, 1 French, 1 American/French, and me.  Quite the international mix!

My sundaes were a big hit.  We made the hot fudge sauce and caramel sauce, and I brought bananas, strawberries, pineapple, walnuts, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries.  It was fun watching each person build her own sundae!  I think the caramel sauce was the favorite sauce – mainly because it seemed to be new to most of the women in the group.  And, everyone seemed pleased to take some of each sauce home.

I’ve included my rough English translations of recipes.

 Sueli, our Brazilian, was in charge of the entrée (appetizer). It would make an excellent dinner salad on a hot day and is quite impressive in presentation! 

Here’s the recipe:

SALPICÃO DE CHICKEN
 Ingredients
3 chicken fillets
3 carrots grated
2 apples (crunchy)
50 g of raisins
1 sm can of corn
1 sm can of green beans
1 sm can of peas
10 cl of light cream
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Parsley, salt, olive oil
1 lemon
Straw potatoes
4 pineapples

Method

·         Cook chicken fillets 10 minutes chicken fillets with a little bit of salt water, when the chicken is cooked and cold, pull it apart into small pieces.
·         Grate carrots and add a few drops of lemon juice
·         Cut apples into small pieces and put a few drops of lemon juice (to keep them from turning brown).
·         In a dish, put all the ingredients and mix everything.
·         Season with mayonnaise, light cream, parsley, salt, olive oil
·         Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
·         Before serving  the salpicāo, cut the pineapples in half, remove the contents of the fruit.
·         Put the Salpicāo in the pineapple halves and at the last minute add a handful of straw potatoes.
·         Garnish with pineapple bits and serve.

 

Misa, our hostess, chose a sort of Japanese stew for the plat.  You’ll find the flavor is a little different from what we’re used to in a stew but very yummy! Here’s her recipe:

Nikujaga (Mijote de-de-potatoes with meat)

Ingredients (for 2 people):
100 g of beef (or pork) chopped
3 potatoes
1 onion
1-2 carrots
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sake (rice wine)
200cc of dashi (fish stock)
a little oil
salt, pepper

Preparation:

• Peel vegetables and cut into pieces.
• In a saucepan, make Brown the meat, add the vegetables and sugar. Mix well.
• Dilute the broth and Moisés meat/vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil and add the sake and soy sauce.
• Remove the foam with a spoon if necessary.
• Simmer over medium heat about 20 minutes.
• Put in a bowl and add a few cooked green beans to give color.
• Serve with rice.

And, here are my recipes for the dessert sauces.  They are both very simple to make, but you’ll do a LOT of stirring!

Hot Fudge Sauce

1 c white sugar
2 tbs flour
1/3 c cocoa
2tbs butter
1 c milk

Mix ingredients together in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Boil until sauce thickens.  (Hot fudge sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.)

 

Caramel Sauce Recipe

Cook time: 10 minutes  Yield: Makes a little over one cup of sauce.

1 cup (210 g) of sugar

6 Tbsp (85 g) butter
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy whipping cream

1. First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go - the cream and the butter next to the pan, ready to put in. Making caramel is a fast process that cannot wait for hunting around for ingredients. If you don't work fast, the sugar will burn. Safety first - make sure there are no children under foot and you may want to wear oven mitts; the caramelized sugar will be much hotter than boiling water.

2. Heat sugar on moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. As the sugar begins to melt, stir vigorously with a whisk or wooden spoon. As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring. You can swirl the pan a bit if you want, from this point on. Note that this recipe works best if you are using a thick-bottomed pan. If you find that you end up burning some of the sugar before the rest of it is melted, the next time you attempt it, add a half cup of water to the sugar at the beginning of the process, this will help the sugar to cook more evenly, though it will take longer as the water will need to evaporate before the sugar will caramelize.

3. As soon as all of the sugar crystals have melted (the liquid sugar should be dark amber in color), immediately add the butter to the pan. Whisk until the butter has melted.

4. Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat. Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan and continue to whisk to incorporate. Note than when you add the butter and the cream, the mixture will foam up considerably. This is why you must use a pan that is at least 2-quarts (preferably 3-quarts) big.

5. Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass mason jar and let sit to cool to room temperature. (Remember to use pot holders when handling the jar filled with hot caramel sauce.) Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Warm before serving.

Here’s The Reader’s Digest version of the directions:  1-melt sugar, stirring contstantly 2-when melted sugar comes to a boil, add butter (continue stirring!) 3-when butter is melted, remove pan from heat and stir in cream (keep stirring!) 4-when the caramel sauce is fully mixed and looks smooth, you’re done.

 
So there you have it!  Bon appétit!  (Pictures of all of the above to come...)