Sakurabert, système D

A sakura cheese delicately flavored with cherry blossoms. Yes, I shown you one before :

It was really excellent, but too expensive to buy it often. So I thought of a way to make a slightly simpler sakura cheese, for less than 1/4th of the cost.

The base is a cheap cheese, quite neutral in taste.

The flavor comes from sakura blossoms and leaves preserved in salt. I have used them without rinsing.

I’ve put a leaf under, and a few blossoms on top. Reclosed the package and let it mature 2 weeks in the fridge.

Then, I tried it…. and that’s great ! The cheese has taken the sakura flavor. So try it someday.

Minute papillote ! Summer day camembert.

Our July 2012 Daring Cooks’ host was Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie! Sarah challenges us to learn a new cooking technique called “Cooking En Papillote” which is French and translates to “cooking in parchment”.

Snobbish cultural minute :
Unlike what English speakers believe, the word does not mean “in parchment”. Papillote comes from “papillon” (=butterfly). A papillote is something like a butterfly. There is verb too, papilloter (to “papillote”) usually meaning to sparkle and shine like butterfly wings.

That does not affect the recipes at all. I know, I know…

There will be 2 other new recipes (to be posted soon, visit again):

Steamed crystal papillote
Pêcher mignon en papillon

And there were old ones :
Papillote de poisson vanillée – vanilla cream fish papillote
Surprise present in the plate : papillote de poisson

So, take a small camembert. Wrap it in foil. Heat it about 20 minutes on a barbecue, a plancha or in a oven. Be careful from 10 to 15 minutes as it may burst if it’s over-cooked.

Remark : Yes, my camembert looks weird. But it’s normal for Japan. It’s a green olive camembert. That’s not a great invention, but that’s perfect to play with that type of preparations.

Prepare a green sauce in a juicer :

Prepare sticks of bread (semi-stale), toast and rub with garlic.

Bring onto the table the hot papillote, the sauce and the bread sticks.
Cut the top skin of the cheese with a knife, open a big hole and pour some sauce on it.

Dig into with the bread sticks.

Is a double flamiche still a flamiche ?

Cheese and leek flamiche with a local shopping basket. Flamiche, or flamique is a generic name for Winter savory tarts in the North of France, Picardie region, and of Wallon region in Belgium (that’s the same area, very close). There are cheese ones (Dinant style) that are more like a bread, leek ones (Picarde style) that are more like a pie. The recipes are quite different. Today is a hydrid version. The question is what you get when you cross 2 recipes ? Well, a good meal, for sure…