Crab with Mixed Herbs, Creme Fraiche and Phyllo Napoleon with Tomato Vinaigrette

Earlier tonight, I made dinner for my folks.  I made them Pork chops with apples and onions sauce.  Bleh!  I didn't like it at all but my parents said that it was really good.  That made me scratch my head.  Were they just being nice?  Maybe.  Eventhough I confessed to them and said, "I don't like it and I'm going to throw it away unless you guys want it", they gave it a try and they loved it. 

They must be just being nice to me.  I love my parents.

Here's a dish I did on Tuesday.  Saw it in one of my cookbooks that I've purchased.

Crabmeat
Basil
Cilantro
1 very ripe Tomato
olive oil
Frisee
1 sheet Phyllo Pastry
2 Avocados
1/3 cup of Whipping Cream
1 spoonful Sourcream
Lemon juice
Salt and Pepper

1.  Preheat oven to 300F
2.  Cut out 2.5" diametre circles from your phyllo sheet.  Place it on a bake tray lined with a baking sheet.  Bake for 3-5 minutes.
3.  Chop up your crab meat and mix it with a chiffonade of basil and some chopped cilantro and toss it in olive oil.  Season to taste.
4.  Dice your tomato and squeeze out the juice through a fine sieve.  Mix this with a few drops of lemon juice, a 1/4 cup of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Mix well.

5.  This will become your pseudo avocado creme fraiche.  Whip your cream until soft peaks have formed.  Fold in your sour cream.  Add your avocados and puree.  You should end up with a mascarpone like consistency.
6.  Serve and enjoy.

Pan Fried Prawns with Almonds, Thyme and Browned Butter and Garlic Puree

So on monday, I woke up quite early after sleeping for almost 12 hours.  I decided to go to SuperStore(this is the equivalent of a smaller Costco) at 8am and do some grocery shopping for my next "projects". 

I've been reading a couple of cookbooks and saw 3 recipes that caught my eye.  Each dish had a similar ingredient in them, namely phyllo and prawns.  I thought to myself that this might be a great idea to kill 3 birds with 2 stones and save a lot of money on ingredients.

Here's what you need for this recipe:

Jumbo Prawns
Thyme
Sliced Almonds
4 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 a cup of Whipping Cream
Olive Oil
Butter
Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper

Note:  Everything else doesn't have a measurement and is done to taste.

1.  Place your crushed garlic in sauce pan of cold water and boil.  Once it boils, discard your water and cover your garlic with cold water again and repeat.  Do this 3 times.  This will help mellow down that strong garlicky taste(boiling it in milk once also works too).
2.  After discarding your water, add your 1/2 cup of cream to the pan and let it reduce on medium-low heat.  Season to taste.
3.  Once reduced, take it off the heat and let it cool.
4.  Onto the prawns.  Season it with salt and pepper.
5.  Heat your pan and add olive oil.
6.  When your pan is hot, add your prawns.  Cook it for about 30-45 seconds.
7.  Add your almonds and thyme leaves and cook it for an additional 1-2 minutes the most.  Be careful not to overcook your prawns or burn the butter.
8.  Serve and enjoy.

English Onion Soup with Sage and Smoked Gruyere Cheese

I made this soup 2 weeks ago and thought that I'd share it to you guys(it's sunny outside so I decided to go out and be under the sun after 2-3 months of winter darkness, instead of staying at home and cook).  This isn't your typical French Onion Soup.  The ingredients are different from the traditional soup.  I used chicken stock instead of beef stock(I think it's better with the chicken stock), different types of onions(red, yellow, white, pearl, and shallots), smoked gruyere cheese and just regular toasted bread.

It's quite easy to make but it takes a hella lot of time to cook.  I think it took me around an 1 hour to cook over 1kg of onions and if your thinking of using homemade stock, then it'll take you 2-3 hours to cook it(unless if you're a rebel like me and make a stock within an hour....LOL!).

Here's what I used:

English Onion Soup with Sage and Smoked Gruyere Cheese

1kg of Onions(as many different type of onions as you can...didn't know there was such a thing as a white onion)
Sage and then some for garnishing
Olive Oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Stock(Your choice of beef or chicken.  If you wanna go completely vegan, use vegetable stock.)
Any type of bread(toasted or stale bread, which is apparently better.)
Smoked Gruyere Cheese (or whatever is available to you)
Garlic, crushed
Worcestershire

1.  Heat your pot and place your olive oil, butter and garlic.  Sweat it.
2.  Add your onions and sage and salt it(this will draw out the moisture from the onions faster).  This is the longest part of cooking onions, which is caramelizing it until it becomes soft and sweet to the taste.
3.  Once your onions are caramelized, add your choice of stock and let it simmer for a good 15 minutes.  Adjust your seasoning at this point.
4.  Preheat your oven or even your toaster to 400F.  Ladle your soup into ovenproof bowls.  Top your soup with toasted bread and grated cheese.  Place in the oven and let your cheese melt(around 1-3 minutes).
5.  After the cheese has melted, take your bowls out of the oven and garnish it with sage leaves and a dab of Worcestershire.
6.  Serve and enjoy!