Moules Marinieres

As you may have correctly guessed, this was what we had on Valentine's Day. Mussels had a special place in our hearts (and stomachs) because we had the most amazing mussels in Aux Armes de Bruxelles in our first trip together in Brussels four years ago. Little did I know then how easy it was to cook mussels and how affordable it was to buy fresh mussels in the UK...

Serves 2 (as substantial main course)

Ingredients:

1. 1 kg mussels (I got mussels from Morrison's which in my humble opinion has the best fishmonger among supermarkets)
2. 2 cloves of garlic
3. 3 sticks of celery
4. 1 onion
5. 60ml wine
6. 20g butter
7. 60ml double cream

Method:

• Wash the mussles and discard any that are open and won't close when you tap it. Pull out the beards of the mussels and use a knife to knock off the barnacles. Rinse and drain on a colander.
• Finely chop garlic, celery and onion.
• In a large pot, put finely chopped garlic, celery and onion in with butter. Cook until the celery and onion are softened but not coloured.
• Add mussels and white wine and put on the lid. Let them steam for about 3-4 minutes. Give the pan a good shake every now and then.
• Add the cream, remove from the heat and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with crusty bread.

Macau Portugese Egg Tarts

Food goes in and out of fashion, particularly in Hong Kong. Right now, scones are all the rage. Echoing Hong Kong fast-paced spirit, the food that is popular at the moment will usually have a short life span of 6 months. Usually it is like this: one shop start selling novel food (usually the food is foreign, and the shop owner imports skills and raw materials from overseas); people start talking about it and queue for it; many more imitation shops open; and interest for that food starts to wane, and ultimately, everyone has lost interest in it, and the shops are closed and the food is gone. This has happened to countless food, like potato chips doused in various sauces; Japanese cuttlefish balls; cream puffs... and Macau Portugese Egg Tart was one of them. What is different is that instead of disappearing in the Hong Kong food scene altogether, we still have KFC who are selling it and we can easily go to Macau, which is just one hour away, to have the real McCoy.

I can find Portugese Tarts here in London, but apparently they are 'real' Portugese Egg Tarts (which are sweeter and has a denser and harder custard) and I prefer the Macanese version... So I resorted to create the Macanese flavours by researching on the internet.

For the pastry, I use Delia's 'cheat' flaky pastry instead of the usual puff pastry. It is drier, less oily and crunchier. Of course, you can make your own puff pastry or buy readymade puff pastry.

Makes 12 mini Portugese Egg Tarts (I used a 12 hole bun tin, you can use ordinary Chinese tart cases, but will only yield 6)

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

1. 55g butter
2. 85g plain flour
3. pinch of salt
4. 1 1/2 tablespoon icy cold water

For the filling:

1. 60g doublecream
2. 60g full fat milk
3. 25g sugar
4. 2 egg yolks
5. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

• Weigh out the butter for the pastry and wrap in a foil and put into the freezer for 45 minutes.
• Sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Take out the frozen butter and use a coarse grater to grate the butter into the bowl with the flour. Use a wooden spatula to scatter the butter among the flour. Add the icy cold water, continue stirring until the flour and butter come together. Use your hand to shape the dough into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.
• While the pastry dough is resting, make the filling by putting cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan in a pan on low heat until bubbles starts appearing. Bring it off the heat and add egg yolks and vanilla essence. Pour the mixture over a sieve and let it cool a while.
• Preheat oven to 200c and brush melted butter on the bun tray.
• When the dough finishes resting, take it out and roll it to 2mm thickness and use an appropriate round cutter to cut out 12 tarts and carefully place them on the buttered tray. Fill the tart with the custard mixtures to 2/3 full.
• Bake in the oven for 12 minutes in 200c and lower the temperature to 170c and bake for 8 further minutes. Best served while warm.

Grape, strawberry and rose mousse cake

For my Valentine

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, girls love making desserts for their guys. For girls who don’t cook for the rest of the year, they often resort to making heart-shaped chocolates. A few years ago, for our first Valentine's Day, I (at that time, I preferred chopping and washing up to cooking) made about a dozen heart shaped-chocolates. They looked pretty and one of my floormates adored them so much that she said I could open a chocolate shop! That was all very good until 2 months after Valentine's Day when I opened his fridge... The chocolates were still sitting there, apparently only 3 or 4 made the journey to his tummy...

So, a lesson well-learnt: whatever you make for a guy, make something that he likes to eat.

Y loves grapes in all forms (except the sour ones, of course =p). Therefore I made this sponge cake topped with grape mousse and strawberry mousse (flavoured with rose syrup). I hope this little creation of mine will appeal to his eyes and his tummy...

Serves: 2 (I have to say 2: it's a Valentine's cake...)

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

1. 2 large eggs
2. 90g self-raising flour
3. 20g cornstarch
4. 110g very soft butter
5. 110g sugar
6. 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

For the grape mousse

1. 200ml grape juice
2. 1 tablespoon lemon juice
3. 8g gelatine
4. 200ml double cream
5. 80g caster sugar

For the strawberry mousse

1. 100g strawberry
2. 1 teaspoon rose syrup
3. 1 teaspoon lemon juice
4. 4g gelatine
5. 100g double cream
6. 60g caster sugar

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180c. Sieve the flour, cornstarch and baking powder twice.
• Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and pale. Add in the eggs gradually. Lastly, sieve in flour into the bowl and fold until just combined. Pour in a lined 6' inch round baking tin and bake for about 25 minutes. Take out to cool completely. When it's cooled, cut out the top of the cake so that the cake is level. Put the cake back into the baking tin carefully.
• Make the grape mousse by soaking the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes. In a pan, heat grape juice and lemon juice gently. Before it comes to the boil, turn off the heat, squeeze out the water from the soaked gelatine and add the gelatine to the heated juice. Stir until gelatine is dissolved. Leave to cool completely. In another bowl, whip doublecream with sugar until peaks form. Use a spatula to mix the whipped cream and cooled juice together. Pour the mixture onto the top of the sponge (which should sit in the baking tin), with a heart shaped cookie cutter put in the centre, which forms a heart-shaped hole. Chill in the fridge to set (this takes about 1 hour).
• In the meantime, make the strawberry mousse. Use a food processor to puree the strawberry. Follow the same steps for grape mousse above, but also remember to add the rose syrup when you heat the strawberry puree.
• When the grape mousse is set, take out the cookie cutter carefully. Pour the strawberry mousse onto the heart-shaped hole. Chill in the fridge to set. When set, remove the cake tin carefully and serve.