Watch out, fabulous entrée recipe coming out! Ok, there are a lot of weird ingredients involved but they can easily be replaced. Kumatoes are a brown kind of tomatoes. They taste a little sweeter than regular tomatoes but f you can’t find any, you’ll be fine with tomatoes. Same story for the purple basil, any fresh basil leaves would do the trick

It’s fresh, tasty and full of vitamins. Perfect for spring time!

Preparation time: 15 minutes    –   Cooking time: 2 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

7 oz (200 g) of cooked shrimps
4 oz (120 g) of fresh baby spinach leaves
8 green asparagus
2 tomatoes kumato

Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar (you can also use balsamiq if you like)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of honey
1/2 teaspoon of crushed cilantro seeds
10 to 15 purple basil leaves
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Fill 2/3 of a large pan with water, add some salt and get it to a boil.

2/ Wash and dry spinach leaves thoroughly. Pinch off the stems.

3/ Pour asparagus into boiling water and leave them in for 2 minutes.

4/ Peel shrimps. Set aside.

5/ Rinse and dry tomatoes kumato. Take off the hard part curving with a knife. Slice them.

6/ In 4 individual plates, share out spinach leaves, kumato slices and shrimps. Top each plate with 2 asparagus.

7/ Rinse and dry purple basil leaves. Cut them into thin stripes with scissors dropping some on each plate.

8/ Prepare vinaigrette: In a small bowl, pour vinegar, oil and honey. Stir energetically until vinaigrette is homogeneous. Add crushed cilantro seeds, salt and pepper and stir again.

9/ Sprinkle a pinch of salt and dash vinaigrette on top of each plate. Serve right away.

Making chocolate truffles was a big first for me. It’s so easy, I’ll definitely try this recipe with different fruits… Raspberry is next on my list. The original idea is from Pierre Hermé. But I’m pretty sure my version is quite far from his as I adapted a recipe from the French magazine « Cuisine et vins de France » which had already been adapted from Pierre Hermé’s passion fruit and chocolate truffles! If you want to find out, you can always check out the famous Chef’s chocolate desserts dedicated book (Click here).

Now, I said it was easy but I must admit I had a texture problem on my first attempt. The recipe I originally followed was asking for much more honey and I ended up with a sticky ganache impossible to roll between my hands.
So I melted and added more chocolate to get it a more convincing texture… and it worked

Preparation time: 45 minutes – Cooking time: 5 minutes – Refrigeration time: 3 1/2 hours

Ingredients (for about 40 truffles)

0.6 lbs (300 g) of milk chocolate
1.7 oz (50 g) of dark chocolate
10 passion fruits
1.7 oz (50 g) of butter
2 tablespoons of acacia honey
1.7 oz (50 g) of unsweetened cocoa powder

Instructions

1/ Place a sieve on top of a saucepan. Cut passion fruits in half, take pulp with a teaspoon and pour it into the sieve.

2/ Get the juice to run into the saucepan mashing the pulp and seeds with a wooden spoon. (It may take a little while, but you’ll end up having almost only seeds left in the sieve.)

3/ Add honey to the passion fruit juice and slowly get to a boil stirring continuously.

4/ Break chocolate (milk & dark) in a small salad bowl and pour the hot passion fruit and honey mixture on top of it. Let chocolate melt.

5/ Gently whisk chocolate mixture until it has a smooth texture and a shiny color.

6/ Cut butter into small pieces, add it to the chocolate and let it melt. Once butter is totally melt, whisk gently. (Butter has to be perfectly combined but the less you whisk it the better.)

7/ Let chocolate ganache cool down. When it’s cold, cover with a plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

8/ Sprinkle cocoa powder in a plate.

9/ Take a small amount of chocolate ganache with your fingers and roll it between yours hands into small balls. Roll truffles in the cocoa powder. Cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

10/ Right before serving you can roll truffles again in cocoa powder in order to give them a nice look.