Cook-cena

Sunday night we organized a cooking-together dinner. We were 7 people (Yanli, Dazhong, Alina, Lina, JJ, Lucas and I). Yanli hosted it very nicely at her place. We chose the recipes from a French cookbook that Alina had (Cuisine d'ete), and we brought the ingredients at her place.
Here are the recipes and the pictures of what we made!

Salade de melon vert aux crevettes (Melon salad with shrimp)
1 melon
2 avocados
1/2 pound shrimp
Lemon
green onion
6 radishes
4 teaspoons mayo
2 teaspoons mustard
Salt, pepper

Cut the melon in half, and scrape (or cut) the pulp out (supposedly in little spheres, we made some cubes instead). Cut the avocados (again, supposedly in spheres, but we went for some easier shape), and pour lemon juice on them. Slice the radish and the green onion.
Peel the shrimp and sautee it in some olive oil. Put together all the ingredients (shrimp, melon, radish, onion, avocado). Mix the mayo, the mustard, some sault and pepper and add it to the rest of the ingredients. Serve it using the halves of the melon as bowls.

Cake aux tomates confites (cake with sun-dried tomatoes)
1/2 pound flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp milk
3 eggs
1/3 lb sun-dried (or roasted) tomatoes
1/2 cup olives, unpitted
1/4 lb colby cheese
basil
1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat the oven at 380.
Mix flour and baking powder. Add oil, milk, salt, pepper, mix. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring. Cut the cheese, the olives and the tomatoes in small pieces and add them to the dough. Put some anti-sticking paper in a baking pan (eg one that you would use to make bread loaves), and cook for 40 minutes.

Cannelloni d'aubergines aux cepes at au chevre frais (Eggplant cannelloni with mushrooms and goat cheese)
3 eggplants
2 cups mushrooms
1 roll fresh goat cheese
olive oil
green onion
salt, pepper

Cut the onion, mix it to the goat cheese, add salt and pepper and 1 tbsp olive oil. Slice the mushrooms and saute them in some olive oil. Add to the cheese mix. Chill.
Slice the eggplants along the length, grill them, salt them. Put some cheese mix in each grilled slice, and roll them, making some 'cannelloni'. Keep refrigerated before serving.

Peches farcies aux amarettis et au cacao (Peaches stuffed with amarettis and cocoa)
6 yellow peaches
8 amaretti cookies
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar

Wash well the peaches, cut them in halves, scoop most of the pulp out. Crush the amaretti. Mix the peach pulp with the cookies, squish with a fork, add the egg, mix. Add the cocoa powder and the sugar. Fill the peach halves with this mixture, and bake at 350 F for 40 minutes. Serve warm.

In addition, Alina prepared some wonderful sushi, so I finally learnt how to make it! She cooked some sushi rice until it was very sticky, added some rice vinegar in it, then let it cool down. In the meanwhile, she cut some avocados, cucumbers, smoked salmon and eel. When the rice was cold, she spread it on both sides of the nori sheets, leaving an end of the 'shiny' side of the nori uncovered. Then, she put pieces of salmon, cream cheese, cucumbers, or eels, avocado and cucumbers across the nori/rice sheets, and rolled tightly with the help of a sushi mattress. She covered the salmon sushi with red caviar eggs. They were absolutely delicious! You can see the eel sushi here:


And at last, Dazhong (Yanli's husband) prepared some wonderful chinese catfish, that I have to ask the recipe for.. I really loved it.

In conclusion, it was a very nice evening. It was nice to cook together, everyone contributed at least a bit to the cooking.. and the food was very good!