STOP Boiling Leeks! This 30-Minute Cider Recipe Changes Everything

Welcome back everyone. This week, as I mentioned last time, we're going to be creating a side dish that can go with a piece of salmon or any piece of fish, because fish, sometimes you have like a vegetable on the side of broccoli or anything like this. And I find it was a bit, you know, a bit boring and stuff like, and I think, you know, we need to have something a bit better. So look what I've got here. Leeks. We're going to be using leeks because leeks actually they're great when it's a winter coming, you can find them, they're not expensive. And sometimes you don't really know how to use these things away from soups. Like we've seen the last time, but here we're going to be using all of that to make creme leeks in cider, another special recipe. And I like the leeks, they look like they're kind of, you know, ninja baton, you know, but we're going to be using this. It's going to be super simple and super fast. And best of all, if you have a piece of salmon, you can grill or pan fried, you know, pairing with this. And trust me, it's going to change your life. Let's go. Now let's get started. And these creme leeks are very easy, but a good thing is that the flavors are a little bit different. So yes, we have the leeks, we've got some shallots, we've got some butter, and we're going to have some creme, of course. But in the element, we're going to have this very specific flavoring ingredient, which is cider. And a lot of you ask always, Oh, what is a cider? Is it a vinegar? Is it a beverage? Yes. So I don't know about other countries, but when we say about cider in France or cider, anyway, it's a, it's an alcoholic beverage. Okay. So this is it, right? This is in the section where you buy beers. This is like a beer. It's apple juice. It's fizzy with alcohol. It has got 4.5% alcohol. Sometimes it's called hard cider. Sometimes it's called strong cider. Sometimes it's called a dry cider. There's all kinds of names, but it is the alcoholic beverage. Okay. That we're going to be using. Now this one here is a final, um, ingredients we're going to have to flavor. I'll show you in a bit. And you, if you have one of those, you may wonder what on earth am I supposed to use a pestle and mortar with? Well, with what's inside there right now, I'll show you in a bit. Okay, let's go. And now the famous mise en place, which is a food preparation. Everything is thinly sliced. So all what you need to do is to slice some leeks and the shallots. That's not too much work. Last time I showed you a little bit about the leeks, but I fast forwarded. So when you have a full leek, the first thing in the trim of the side here, you're going to have some little, uh, little roots sometimes, uh, like another one I've got here. Let me show you the bigger one that I've got here. So you see this little, little thing. So you chop that off. So it's nice and neat. Okay. And then you need to clean it. So what I was saying, when you get a whole leek first off, you don't use typically the green part that much in a leek. So you're going to get rid of that and you keep it for something else. What I kind of use this for, I take this if I rinse them and I use this as a bouquet garni casing. So that's perfect. When you want to make a bouquet garni, you put two bay leaves, a few twigs of thyme, a bit of celery, some parsley stalks. You close the whole thing, wrap up with a, you know, with a butcher string and you got your bouquet garni. So you can keep this in your fridge. Of course, wash it first. Back to the leeks. Okay. So the leek, basically when you're here, there's a lot of dirt that's inside the leaves. So you've got the leaves. You see, you see here, it stops here. We just make a small incision, not too far, just enough to detach, you know, the casing. And what you discover in here is that there's plenty of little kind of dirt hanging around everywhere. So when the leek is not too big, you get rid of one of those. You can use it for maybe for a soup or something. If you do a pureed soup or anything like that. Okay. And for the cleaning, you can rinse this straight in the water. But the best thing to do is you simply do one incision like that. Sorry. It went a bit funny with the camera here. And then another one here. And we've got this kind of thing. And I'm going to go under the sink. I'm going to rinse this. The final step for the leeks. Okay. You open these little leaves like this and you go under. We're cleaning more. The most important is the leaves that are on the outside. You see any dirt, any grit, anything. You go everywhere. You check, you rinse, you clean and we're done. Okay. And you do the same for all the leeks. Perfect. So once your leeks are done here, the whole thing for that recipe is that thinly sliced. You don't want big chunks. You take your time and you're going to make this size. Okay. That's kind of size like this. It's enough. The shallots exactly the same thing. They are thinly sliced. Once you take your shallots and you do the same, I'm doing this kind of chop because it's like a Japanese style knife rather than the kind of swinging motion. And we've got these little slices and that's it. All the shallots like that. And to finish the little bonus, that little pestle and mortar you may think is just a decoration item, but in fact it can be used for that. Anything that's small. For instance, like if you want to grind a few peppercorns and something like something, these are coriander seeds and it is perfect. Just a teaspoon worth of very, very small quantity. You're going to be running, turning around, crushing these to release some of the flavor. We're not making a powder and jumping everywhere, but it will do the job. Okay. It's a bit of an emergency. A teaspoon worth of crushed coriander seeds. Once all the ingredients are prepared, this is how it looks like. Shallots, leeks with the coriander. We've measured the cream, the butter, and we're going to use only 200 ml of that cider here. Oh, I'm opening it and we're ready to go on the stove. Preparing the leeks is extremely simple. You're going to get a saute pan is ideal. Otherwise you have a frying pan. Make sure it's got some high edges, not very low profile. Okay. Medium heat. We're going to add maybe half a tablespoon of olive oil and all of the butter. And we're going to let this melt. Once your butter is foamy, we're going to start by adding the shallots and for about a minute or something, we'll leave them in the butter and then follow with the leeks. After a minute, we're going to delicately add all the leeks. So first, yeah, mix them with the shallots. Okay. And we'll add a bit more. And we'll go on and go in stages to make sure it doesn't fall over. It's a lot of leeks, but they will reduce. Okay. Put everything in. We're going to spend five minutes. And to cook that mixture, we let it sweat. As we say in France, we'll make the vegetables sweat like this to release the aroma and all the flavors. And we're not browning anything. So medium heat, maximum. After five minutes, the leeks have now reduced in size. And in French it's called faire tomber les poireaux, to let them fall. They were this height and then boom, look at this. That's only half the pan of all this French term. I think sometime I should maybe make one episode of the French cooking academy totally in French, you know, for the fun of it. Let me know in the comments if there's something you ever want to see. It could be a fun exercise. So leeks. And now after the seasoning, so we're going to have some salt, not too much because we want to keep the flavors of the leeks. And they're very nice and sweet leeks when they're cooked. So the coriander and a bit of black pepper. We can always adjust the seasoning later on. Okay. So I'm going to mix this gently, make sure it's all well distributed and then we're going to add the cider. Let's get closer to the pan. And now we're going to add 200 ml of cider. And the rest is going to be for the chef. It helps when you're filming. Oh, look at this bubbling away. And that is going to add a really signature flavor. I'm going to get apple flavor with the leeks. And it's all kind of sweet because the leeks when they're cooked, they can get very, very sweet. So very gently. We're going to leave this to simmer for 15 to 20 minutes because leeks they're excellent when they are properly cooked and you want them really cooked to really, uh, enjoy all, uh, all the flavors. And that's about it really to reduce the heat. I'm going to count 15, 20 minutes to make sure they are absolutely cooked. And then we're going to add the final touch of cream. So it's been 20 minutes. I'm checking my leeks and what I can see here, there's still some liquid, not much. You can see still some liquid. So I'm going to extend the cooking time for about five minutes or a bit more because what you want is to absolutely cook your leeks. They need to melt in the mouth. This is the most important factor. You want your leeks to be absolutely cooked thoroughly before you add the cream and you can serve them. Otherwise it's not going to be a real experience. So I'm going to keep on going until all the liquid is almost gone. I've now waited about seven minutes extra. So you can say it took me like 25 to 30 minutes max, I would say. And if you look now, see, I had a pond of juice before and look at this now. You see, there's no water on here. That's the most important. So now it's ready. We can add the cream. So the cream, just one word of advice, do it kind of the last minute when you're ready to serve. If you're not ready to serve yet, you can leave this to cool down a little bit. Okay. Make your salmon. And just before serving, you add a few tablespoons of cream to finish the dish off. I'll do it now to show you. So from here, when you have the right consistency, the dryness, we're going to add just, that's, that's up to you. Two to three tablespoons. I'm going to start with two on here. Okay. You mix that well. And we're going to continue gently to reduce. And the cream is really going to add that, that nice kind of silky touch that I think I want. I'm saying three or you know what? Might be indulgent with a heaped one. So three tablespoons, you can put more if you want. But you don't want something full of liquid. So I'm going to keep on reducing here and adjust to have that consistency, you know, mingle with the cream, but not a big kind of wet mix. We want it rather dry-ish. Once the cream is in, you count maximum three to four minutes and it should be ready. Mine's already in here. And when you try them, it's a fondue of leeks. It's like a leek smell. So if you have the tiniest of bites in there, that's fine. But you want the leeks to really almost melt in the mouth. And it's really kind of melty with the cream. Really, really nice. Very kind of gentle and sweet. And there's the tiniest of bites left in the leeks, which is really nice for the texture. But that's about it. I'm going to turn my heat off. And if you can hear the sizzling on the sides, I'm preparing a piece of salmon and we're going to put this on the plate and serve straight forward. Once your fondue of leeks, is ready, you can serve it. And for the presentation, that is just an example of how you can serve it. It's a mound of these beautiful cooked leeks and with the salmon on top and then some decoration. So just to show you this, I'm going to get rid of the little julienne. Typically it's cooked. I'm just putting it there for the, you know, for the demonstration, but this is really important bits on here. And this goes very well. I've tried to grill the piece of salmon on here. It goes very well with salmon. So I'll still have a big try. I've tried it before. It really marries, you know, the kind of the sliced fattiness of the salmon mixed with the cream. And the leek is surprisingly very sweet. It's a very, very sweet type of vegetable. It's really nice and a nice balance because that subtle flavor of salmon and the subtle flavor here of the leeks and a tiny bit of cream on here. Really, we add something. It's a bit juicy as well. Typically with these sides for fish, it's just a vegetable or anything like this. That's kind of a little bit boring. Look at that. Nice salmon, you know, and it's healthy as well. Plenty of leeks. I think that is really a classic pairing. Absolutely must try. Anyways, that completes the video. And this is how you can reuse any leeks you have in your fridge. Or if there's a promotion, it's a great way of using them because as you can see, two, three, four, five leeks, they will reduce and you get that beautiful fondue of leeks that is really, really subtle. Like I said, the taste is almost sweet and it is really surprising. If you haven't had leeks cooked like this before, honestly, try it out and let me know what you think in the comment section. That's it for the video guys. I will leave you with this picture. And I will see you of course, next time for another video on the French Cooking Academy. Take care. Bye-bye.