Cooking Class by Johana

You know by now that I have regular cooking classes with Johana La Nissarde, a French lady who gives marvellous cooking classes. You can find her on FB as well, see link here.

A few weeks ago we made Tomato Tatin, normally this recipe is done with apples and called Apple Tatin, but I must say this is just a delicious recipe, so I like to share this one with you. But especially I will share this for you my friend Ginster!!

So here comes a step by step tutorial... my first!

You need for 6 people:

- 1 roll puff pastry (thawed)
- a bit of flour to roll the puff pastry
- 1kg/2lbs tomatoes
- box of cherry tomatoes (to fill the gaps)
- 100gr/ 3/4cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
- fresh shaved Parmesan cheese
- Rocket leaves
- herbes de Provence
- salt & pepper

Cut the tomatoes in half (in the width) and remove the peduncle (core the inside).

First brown sugar slightly in a pan that you can also put into the oven later! Melt a few minutes and allow the caramel to be a beautiful red color, then add the balsamic vinegar. Once the caramel is very smooth, add the tomatoes. Season with herbs de Provence, salt & pepper.



Cook on medium heat for approximately 30 minutes, turning once or twice. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F.



Make sure you add the little cherry tomatoes in the gaps, the pan needs to be filled completely. You will see later why!



After about 30 minutes, and the liquid is almost completely gone, turn it down at the end, so it won't burn! You are done with this part. Make sure the tomatoes are turned with the cut side up. Because you will flip the pan later and then you want to see the nice round shapes on top.



Make sure you roll the puff pastry with a rolling pin just a bit bigger than your pan. And fold it over the pan with the tomatoes.



Cut the bigger ends off, but leave a bit to tuck underneath the side and flip the rest back, see my example. Make a small incision in the centre to let the steam out. Bake in the middle of the oven in a pre-heated oven for 25 minutes.



And voilà! This is the result, a nice golden dough.



Flip it over on a nice serving dish by putting the dish on top of the pan and quickly turn it over. Adjust the tomatoes that might have moved a bit.



Add a bit more herbs de Provence and salt & pepper if needed.



Add some shavings of fresh parmesan cheese and rocket leaves... YUM YUM!



We served it with home made rustic bread, just out of the oven as well, a fresh green salad and of course a glass of vino!



Here are we just before enjoying our home made lunch. Sandra, Johana, Mary and me.



We also made a roasted peach with honey, vanilla cream and nougatine. DELISH!!



Try this recipe, you will LOVE it!!

As always I had a great time with friends while having some good food and wine on a Friday afternoon!!
LIFE = GOOD!

Have a great weekend!
Mireille

Cooking class by Johana

2 Weeks ago we had our first cooking class by Johana. She did 4 years of culinary school in France and about 15 years of experience working in hotels in France. So there is lots to learn! Every week if there are enough participants we will have new and different dishes. The concept is that Johana cooks and we learn and eat later, but we host it in different kitchens, this time we cooked in my kitchen.

We made a classical South African dish; Bobotie, which is a spiced minced meat dish baked with an egg-based topping, and Lemon Mousse for dessert.

Dunke, Tehmina, Hyun and me were the students and Johana the teacher. We had lots of fun and the dishes were yummy!

First we started with the lemon mousse since we have to cool that for several hours in the fridge.



Finally I could use my new gadget, the lemon peeler :-)







Beautiful lemon mousse, but my camera ran out of batteries by the time the Bobotie was ready...



From L to R: Tehmina, Johana, me, Hyun and Dunke.



Here we are all enjoying the bobotie and a glass of wine.



We will be having more of these classes I hope because I truly enjoyed Johana's knowledge on cooking!

Today I actually gave a Thai cooking class, but we forgot to take some pictures ;-(

How about you, are you doing or liking cooking classes and learning new techniques?? Tel me about it!

Mireille