Chocolate Éclairs Recipe • Delightful French Pastries | Club Foody

French Pastries… Oui s’il vous plaît!

My mother did quite a bit of baking when I was younger. She made many desserts from scratch. The odd time, she bought “prepared mixes” from the store. I liked the Chocolate Cake from Duncan Hines until I was old enough to make my own chocolate cake. She made some pastries and lucky for me, some were my all-time favorites… Chocolate Éclairs, Mille-Feuille and Cream Puffs!
 
When it came to other pastries, my mother was buying them directly from the pastry chefs at the boulangerie/bakery. I asked her once why she never attempted to make other pastries at home besides the Chocolate Éclairs, Mille-Feuille and Cream Puffs and her answer was – “They are too challenging!” – and I’m sure they can be…
 
Baking cakes, cookies, muffins and so on is one thing but when it comes to pastry, it’s a totally different story. It seems more complicated and more technical! To me, making pastries is like chemistry – a little too much or too little and you’re looking at a disaster. I’ve been baking pastries for a while now and it’s not always obvious at first. A few that are not complicated to make in my (pastry) book are Chocolate Éclairs, Cream Puffs, Mille-Feuille and Profiteroles.
 
Today I will show you how I make my Chocolate Éclairs. It is an easy and incredibly delicious French pastry recipe! After making Pâte à Choux, the rest is quite easy to achieve. Filled with a beautiful custard (crème pâtissière) and dipped in chocolate, these oblong pastries are sinfully delicious!
 
When you are having people over for dinner, how cool is it to say that these éclairs are “homemade”… right? The only technique that I can suggest to you is to relax and take your time because quite frankly, this is not complicated at all. So go ahead and try these yummy éclairs…
Bon Appétit!
 
Here are more dessert recipes you must try…
– Pumpkin & Spice Cream Cheese Muffins
– Bumbleberry Pie
– Tiramisu
– Chocolate Lava Cake with Caramel
– Maple Walnut Ice Cream
– Butterscotch Pudding
and for even more, click on this link… Recipe Category • Dessert
 
P.S. If you decide to change the chocolate icing to caramel icing instead, they are called Bâton de Jacob in French…

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit https://clubfoody.com/recipe/chocolate-eclairs/

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Triple Chili Wing Sauce Recipe • Perfect Tasty Sauce! | Club Foody

Wing night at home tonight?

Need a sauce?

There are so many great finger foods out there such as pizza, sliders, lumpia, cheese sticks, cocktail meatballs, focaccia, and much more. There’s one dish that we eat quite frequently and it is our Baked Chicken Wings. They are awesome as an appetizer or even as a meal. This is a great recipe to have for parties or game nights! I like to serve them with carrots, celery and bell pepper sticks along with a couple of dipping sauces.
 
Here are the links for my Zippy Ranch Dressing as well as my Blue Cheese Dressing.
 
Because we eat them often, I don’t want to have the same sauce on them all the time. I like to mix it up… it makes wings night more interesting. Years ago, David and I went on a cooking spree, creating new chicken wing sauce recipes. I have to admit, we did pretty good! We ended up with a delicious selection of sauces…
One of them is the featured recipe in this episode… Triple Chili Wing Sauce! It’s a beautiful blend of sweet and spicy. After cooking for a while and reducing the sauce down until it thickens nicely, to a syrupy consistency, you end up with a flavorful sauce for your wings and drumettes.
 
Like many sauces, this Triple Chili Wing Sauce is quite versatile as well as you can use it on grilled chicken breast, pork or as a dipping sauce for your chicken fingers. Give it a try and start building a wide variety of delicious homemade sauces for your wings. On wing night, we like to have at least 2 different sauces so here are a few more you can choose from below.
Bon Appétit!
 
Check out these succulent sauce recipes…
– Hawaiian Style Teriyaki Sauce
– Smoky Buffalo Sauce
– Mango Chipotle Wing Sauce
– Ethiopian Red Pepper Sauce
– Bacon Jam Wing coming in 2021
and for even more sauce recipes, click on this link… Recipe Category • Sauces & Marinades

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit https://clubfoody.com/recipe/triple-chili-wing-sauce/

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking on this link… Club Foody YouTube

Seafood Pizza Recipe • The Ultimate Pie! | Club Foody

For those of you who have been following me for awhile, you know I have a weakness for pastas, seafood and delicious sauces. Let me correct that… my weakness list might be longer. Burgers, pastries, salads… All right, I admit it… food is my weakness! Let’s try that again…

For those of you who have been following me for awhile, you know that FOOD is my weakness! Better…!

Years ago when I was still living in Montréal, there was an Italian chain restaurant that I quite enjoyed. The name of the place was Pacini which is still around after so many years. The concept was fun and different!

There was a Bread Toasting area where patrons had choices between different kinds of bread and a few different selections of butter. In the middle of that particular area was a grill to toast the chosen buttered bread and metal tongs provided to flip them over when one side was grilled. It was awesome!

Besides that cool toast concept, I really liked their individual pizza. I think they were one of the pioneers that began serving singular pies. The one I always ordered was the Seafood Pizza! Oh my, oh my! It was so good!

I haven’t been back to Pacini since the 90s’. A few years ago though while my mother and I were on the phone talking about restaurants we used to go, Pacini was brought up. I suddenly remembered my favorite pizza. When I hung up the phone, I knew that one day I would have to make a similar one.

That day has finally come and here’s my Seafood Pizza recipe!

The combination of prawns, scallops and crab meat in a beautiful Mornay Sauce gives this pasta dish a unique taste. My pie differs from theirs – I make mine on a thinner crust versus their deep dish pizza… too much dough! There weren’t any scallops in Pacini’s version. C’mon, a seafood pizza needs some scallops on it!

If you are a seafood lover then there’s no doubt you’ll love this pizza! It has the right amount of seafood in it – you won’t feel like you won the lottery when you find some – and enough cheese on it to not overpower the delicate flavors from the proteins. Overall the best way I can describe this amazing pizza is you just have to try it… you’ll be so happy you did.
Bon Appétit!
 

Tips & Tricks

It’s a labor intense recipe but if you decide to make everything from scratch like in the video, here are a couple tips you should keep in mind…

 – When pouring warm water for the yeast, do not exceed 105ºF otherwise if it’s too hot, the yeast will get kill
– When you roll your dough to the desired size, if it starts to shrink back, leave it alone and let it rest for a few minutes. The best flour to use is 00.
– If the Mornay Sauce is not use right away, place a wax paper on top, making sure it touches the sauce to prevent skin formation (it applies to almost every sauces)
– As I always mention, recipes are based on your liking so if you cannot stand scallops for an example, use something else that YOU like!

 

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit http://clubfoody.com/recipe/seafood-pizza/

Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe - Easy Delicious Condiment | Club Foody

There are so many great sauces out there… Most of them are easy but others can be slightly more challenging and Homemade Mayonnaise is one of them. With a little practice and when it’s mastered, this sauce is so incredible, you’ll never buy from the store…

My grandmother on my mother’s side was an excellent cook. She went to a private school where the nuns were the teachers. Yes she went to a Catholic school. She learned everything that any high society young lady should know; cooking, sewing, decorating, playing piano (she was amazing!), singing, nursing, accounting, and so on as well as being a great hostess with all the proper etiquette…

She made mostly everything “homemade” and it tasted so delicious! I remember as a kid when visiting her that she made the best sandwiches ever. How hard is it to make a sandwich? Of course, it’s not hard and I’m not basing her culinary skill on two pieces of bread with ingredients placed in between but there was something in hers that tasted better than my mom’s. It was only much later in life that I finally got it… There wasn’t anything missing in the sandwich making, it was just the difference in taste; one was a commercial ingredient while my grandmother’s was homemade!

If you’ve never made or tasted Homemade Mayonnaise before then you are missing out on great flavor. It is actually quite simple to make and the results are definitely superior to what you buy at the store although it’s not too shabby! This homemade condiment will make a huge difference in any dish you use it in.

Last month I shared with you my Sardine Cups recipe and I do use this Homemade Mayonnaise recipe… Wow what a difference in flavor let me tell you! Also till this day, I prefer making my own mayo when I have a sandwich because I want it to taste very good like my grandmother’s. Hey who said that sandwiches are underrated when there’s real homemade mayo in them?
Bon Appétit!

 

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit http://clubfoody.com/recipe/homemade-mayonnaise/

Hungarian Goulash Recipe - European Beef Stew | Club Foody

I like cooking dishes that simmer on the stove top for hours. The aroma floats in the air and it gives that “homey” atmosphere all through the house. It’s says – “Welcome, we’ll be serving great food soon…” –

When I was working as a food analyst for an American cooking website, some of the women in the Canadian division that were doing the same as I was preferred cooking in a pressure cooker. I don’t and refuse to because I love the smell of food cooking versus that sealed pot that captures all of the aroma. I also like to taste the food while it’s cooking as the flavors develop. Now try doing that when the pressure cooker is on… good luck! Please don’t even attempt doing it… you’ll be scarred for life!

There’s also the economical aspect when cooking stews… The cheapest cuts of beef are used in stew recipes. Although they are pretty tough cuts of beef, cooking them slowly for long periods of time breaks down the collagen and renders the meat which transform into tender pieces of meat. If you buy cuts of meat with less connective tissue they’ll get tough and be far from tender.

I love cooking stews and there’s one that dates back to Medieval Times that is one of my ultimate comfort foods… my Hungarian Goulash! The seasoning in this recipe is just awesome and blends so well with the other ingredients. I used to serve my goulash with mashed potatoes but a friend of mine from Toronto served hers on a bed of egg noodles and honestly, I really liked it! Is it the right way to serve it? Probably not but who cares… really! If you want to serve it with whole boiled potatoes nothing is stopping you for doing so as long as you’re happy when you eat it… now that’s the spirit you want when enjoying your goulash!

If I can describe Goulash in two words, simply put, it’s “comfort food”. It’s the kind of dish that you want to serve while the weather is still cool outside. Depending on the year, April can still be quite chilly so before the BBQ season officially begins and we start wearing open-toed sandals, this is a recipe you definitely have to give a try.
Bon Appétit!

 

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit http://clubfoody.com/recipe/hungarian-goulash/

Pickled Jalapeño Recipes - Homemade preserved food | Club Foody

When you go to any supermarket, there’s an aisle packed with pickled condiments. There’s a wide selection of pickled cornichons, mixed vegetables, beets, onions, jalapeño peppers, mushrooms, hot peppers and so on… Do I buy any? Nope! Do you want to know why?
 
The food manufacturers add aluminum to pickled foods, a little too much for my liking. Aluminum sulfate or potassium aluminum sulfate helps to add that crispness and firmness to pickles. Technically, ingesting a little is not harmful as our soil and water already contain aluminum. The problem is when consuming food with additive aluminum phosphate for an extended time or being exposed to high levels of it. I won’t go into detail but the repercussions can be quite serious to people’s health…
 
I always loved pickled foods because my mother was making her own from our garden. I slowly started making homemade pickles and when I realized how easy it was, I never looked back. Only years later that I found out about aluminum sulfate and the health damage that can occur over time – that alone was good enough for me to continue making my own… Now aluminum is not in all pickled foods but why take the chance. When it comes to canning, once you start, it can become very addictive!
 
As you probably realize, I like making Mexican recipes and although it’s not necessarily a Hispanic recipe, I still like to spice things up a little! One pickled condiment I use often is Pickled Jalapeños! They give such a nice “zippy” flavor to your dish. It’s “hot” but not overly. I have so many recipes that I use these little guys in. Check below for the list of recipes…
 
Now making Pickled Jalapeños at home is so easy and also more economical than buying the jar at the store! Yes I know… you have to invest in mason jars, lids and canning tools but after you buy all this, you open up a whole new world of culinary adventure by preserving foods. It’s a smart way to enjoy your favorite produce all year round. To learn how to do canning at home, click on this link… How to Do Home Canning
Bon Appétit!
 
Check out these recipes that I use Pickled Jalapeños in…
– Chicken Ham Sausage Jambalaya
– Jalapeño Bacon Cheese Dip
– Jalapeño Cheese Bagels
– Mexican Burgers
 
and here are more canning recipes for you to enjoy…
– Bread & Butter Pickles
– Sweet & Savory Homemade Ketchup
– Homemade Apple Sauce
– Strawberry Jam with Orange Zest

 

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit https://clubfoody.com/recipe/pickled-jalapeno/

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking on this link… Club Foody YouTube

Dakgangjeong Recipe - Sweet & Spicy Crispy Korean Chicken | Club Foody

Fire in the kitchen…

I don’t do too much frying at home. I find it extremely messy plus I can be quite clumsy in the kitchen. While filming this featured recipe, I started a fire on the stove top. Luckily I put it out very quickly. When there’s hot oil, everyone should be cooking with extra care and attention.
 
Although I might fry food on the stove top a couple of times a year besides using my CoolDaddy Deep Fryer (much safer kitchen tool for my clumsiness), I still have recipes that I insist on making because they are so scrumptious like Dakgangjeong – what? It’s Sweet & Spicy Crispy Korean Chicken…
 
When I was going to Ahuntsic College in Montréal, I started hanging out with this Korean girl. She was funny, smart and intriguing. I’ve always been attracted to other cultures and back in high school, I used to hang out with Mona who, if my memory is correct, was from Cambodia. I just love to learn about and discover new cultures , customs, traditions, and food…
 
Sadly I forgot my Korean friend’s name as we didn’t stay in touch that long because she moved back to Seoul for a job opportunity. Back in the 80s’, who really owned a computer at home let alone a cellular phone with a battery the size of a brick therefore it was easy to lose contact with someone… what a bummer!
 
Before she left though, she invited me over to her apartment and cooked a lovely Korean chicken dinner. It was fiery spicy as I didn’t eat any “hot” food at all back then – things have sure changed with time… lol! Besides the burning sensation in my mouth, I really enjoyed her dinner. She gave me a few gifts along with her recipe… Dakgangjeong!
 

Fire in your mouth…? Not really!

With some slight changes to this Korean chicken recipe, 35 years later I still enjoy it! Is it spicy? Not really! It has some zip to it but not as much as when I was a college student that wasn’t used to it. The flavors marry so well together; salty, sweet, and spicy… this is a match made in heaven!
 
There’s one ingredient though that brings the “heat” and it’s “gochujang” which is a hot pepper paste. If you can’t handle spiciness, reduce the amount of it and you’ll be just fine. This is one of those ingredients that are spicy at first but by the time you cook it with other foods , it has an amazing flavor.
 
These days we’re so lucky because there’s no reason not to stay in touch with friends and family. I really wish we could have half the technology of today back then because there are so many incredible human beings I met that I wish I could still be in contact with. The only link I have from her is her lovely Sweet & Spicy Crispy Korean Chicken recipe and the great memories of my time shared with her.
Bon Appétit!
 
Here are several other delicious Asian inspired recipes for you to enjoy…
– Singapore Noodles
– Quick & Easy Chicken Chop Suey
– Vietnamese Summer Rolls
– Wonton Soup
– Chinese 5 Spice Spare Ribs
– Thai Chicken Curry
and for even more chicken and poultry recipes, click on this link… Recipe Category – Poultry

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit https://clubfoody.com/recipe/dakgangjeong-sweet-spicy-crispy-korean-chicken/

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking on this link… Club Foody YouTube