Green Tea Satine

This satine is a variation on a recipe from Pichet Ong's cookbook "The sweet spot" which a friend Colin Haydu (an elf in the house we live in...) introduced me during while cooking for one of our Chinese New Year teas. I love the delicate flavors in asian deserts and they are a welcome break from the overpowering sweetness of most state-side deserts. I'm a tea lover and anything with matcha is bound to make its way into my list of favorites. I adapted Ong's recipe to make his green tea pudding softer...more like Pierre Herme's famous satine. Unexpectadly the matcha particles settled at the bottom of the antique serving bowls my mom gave me forming a lovely sauce at the bottom...
Although it takes time to set, this is one of the easiest desserts I've ever made and takes little over five minutes to cook. To keep your matcha tea fresh, try keeping it in the refrigerator.

Green Tea Satine
2 1/2 tsp gelatine(powdered variety)
4 tbps boiled water
2 cup milk
4 tbsp high quality matcha
2 tsbp granulated sugar


Boil milk on stove top and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Temp the gelating by pouring the 4 tbsp of water into a small cup and stirring in the gelatin until dissolved. Add the matcha to the boiling milk with a whisk and beat until no more clumps are visible. Add gelatine and stir until incorporated....pour until serving dishes and let it cool for a couple of hours in the fridge.

Italian Bread Soup

I have a fond memory of sitting in the sun room at my great aunt's little house in the north of Denmark with my sister, mother and grandmother (and of course my great aunt)...I must have been young at the time and remember being fascinated by the little strawberries she grew in the garden and the frozen bananas she kept in a large refrigerator in the attic.
While we sat at the table and enjoyed the sun, my mor-mor and her argued about the recipe for a danish dumpling soup and could not agree about how their mother made the dumplings... I want to recreate their recipe someday....I have always loved starchy soups whether they contain dumplings, or some kind of bread... its comfort in a bowl, especially when its April and Boston still feels like winter. I had a left baguette left over from dinner two days ago as well as some kale from a lentil and coconut soup recipe my friend Zach shared with me a few months ago and decided my fridge needed a bit of clearing up so I decided to whip up the following recipe:

Italian Bread Soup

Half a dry Baguette or other country bread
1 quart of cherry tomatoes
1/2 large onion
6 cloves of garlic
a handful of fresh kale
2 cups of chicken stock
Basil
Olive oil
2 cups of boiling water
Pepper
Salt
Chilli flakes

Chop up the onion and garlic finely and heat up a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a soup pot. Cook the onions until golden and fragrant then add the entire quart of tomatoes (you can chop these in half but dont have to). Cut up the bread roughly and heat up the chicken stock in the microwave. Put the bread in a bowl and cover with the chicken stock allowing it to soak up the juices. In the mean time wait until the tomatoes let their juices out and become soft then add water and season with pepper, salt and chilli flakes. Add the kale and the bread and cook for about 20 minutes until the bread ressembles baby food. Keep adding water until the soup has the right consistency. Chop up some fresh basil for garnish and serve with a green salad or.... a cheddar cheese and hazlenut souffle........