Elegant Culinary Photography

The Elegant Cook Notes

Low-Carb Green Chile Burger

Posted on February 20, 2012 at 8:45 AM


Shape and fry hamburgers (I use a Green Pan from Belgium), then array them in a baking dish. Spread a light layer of mayonnaise over the burgers. Cover them with chopped green chiles (Hatch or Old El Paso brands, for example). A few shreds of chopped pickle may be added to the chiles. Bake for fifteen minutes. Remove from oven and top with shredded cheese (I used Colby-Jack blend here). Bake again until the cheese atop your green chile cheeseburgers is melted, or browned if you prefer. These green chile burgers are so sumptuous that they are edible without buns, making them a low-carb main dish.

Beefsteak strips are seasoned (combine your choice of chile powders, comino, seasoning salt and/or onion and garlic powders; shake in a bag to coat meat bits) and fried in olive oil, then served on a sautéed flour tortilla, accompanied by yellow pear tomatoes and sliced avocado.
©M-J de Mesterton 2012

M-J's Spinach and Artichoke Casserole

Posted on January 29, 2012 at 6:50 PM

Assembling an Elegant Spinach and Artichoke Casserole: Line Bottom of Baking Pan with Butter. Spread with Artichoke Pieces and Fresh Spinach Photo_Copyright_M-J_de_Mesterton_2012

Spinach and Artichoke Casserole is Topped with Cream Cheese and Mayonnaise Mixture, then Sprinkled with Grated Parmesan

M-J's Elegant Spinach and Artichoke Casserole is Topped with Cheese Mixture and Ready to Baked

See ELEGANT VEGETABLES for M-J's Elegant Spinach and Artichoke Casserole Recipe

Sweet Potatoes and Yams

Posted on January 20, 2012 at 7:45 PM

Our friends at Paleo Works in Yorkshire have written a wonderful essay about a dietary marvel known as the sweet potato. Read it HERE, and while on their page, you can read about the sensible, successful Paleo Diet. Below, please find a recipe for a health-promoting salad that I devised using yams and beets.

A refreshing way to eat health-promoting vegetables, this elegant cabbage and yam salad is also a nice thing to serve your friends: red cabbage is sliced as thinly as possible, and marinated for several hours in the vinaigrette of your choice, then mixed with yams that have been cut into match-sticks and cooked in water with a bit of honey until slightly soft.
Recipe and Photo©M-J de Mesterton

Home-Made French-Style Bread

Posted on December 30, 2011 at 2:30 PM

Elegant_French_Bread_Copyright_M-J_de_Mesterton_2011

M-J's Home-Made French Bread

American flour is very soft, even the unbleached variety. So, authentic French-style bread in the U.S. is difficult to make. If you can locate unbleached white flours from France or Italy, they are perfect for making baguettes. To make French bread or baguettes like the ones shown in my photograph, I use my own starter for the dough, let it rise twice before I form it into loaves, and place a small pottery bowl of water in a very hot oven while the baguettes are baking. This moisture creates a crispy crust.

Here is a good recipe for home-made French-style bread, by King Arthur Flour company:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/french-style-country-bread-recipe

For more elegant bread recipes, please visit M-J’s page, The Elegant Cook's Bread Recipes.

©M-J de Mesterton 2011

Pollo con Penne al Alfredo

Posted on November 19, 2011 at 11:50 AM

Elegant Taco Salad

Posted on October 28, 2011 at 3:05 PM

AN ELEGANT LUNCHEON DISH COMPOSED OF THE FIVE FOOD GROUPS

Seasoned ground beef, shredded cheese, lettuce, avocados, tomatoes, sour cream and tortilla pieces are arranged into an elegant, low-carb luncheon dish.

©M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Home-Made Hamburger Buns

Posted on September 19, 2011 at 8:45 AM

See M-J's Original Recipe for Hamburger Buns at The Elegant Cook Bread Page

Elegant White Cake

Posted on September 8, 2011 at 9:55 AM

Elegant Salad Dressing: Ranch Style

Posted on August 24, 2011 at 1:10 PM

For an elegant salad design, dress the lettuce first and then decorate with tomatoes and peppers (capsicums).

I make a tradional western ranch-style dressing with the following ingredients, and never from an over-priced packaged mix:

Mayonnaise

Buttermilk

Sour Cream

Parsley

Onion Powder

a dash or two of D.L. Jardine's Texas Five-Star Ranch Rub (or Lawry's Seasoning Salt)

A squeeze of lemon and a bit of freshly-ground green or white peppercorn

©M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Late-Summer Salad

Posted on August 21, 2011 at 1:20 PM

Grape Tomatoes, Home-Grown Italian-Style Parsley, Mozzarella Cheese, Olive Oil and White Wine Vinegar Make an Elegant Late-Summer Salad ©M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Home-Garden Radishes

Posted on July 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM

Home-grown radishes and their greens, ready to eat with soft butter or vinaigrette, look lovely on a plate.

Elegant Mini-Tacos

Posted on June 28, 2011 at 9:40 PM

Taco seasoning by Tone's, chopped tomatoes, onion, celery, yellow capsicum (a sweet pepper), New Mexico red chile gravy, and ground beef, cooked together about an hour and mixed until very fine, makes a perfect taco filling in combination with grated mild cheese.

Miniature tacos are made with sautéed Guerrero corn tortillas, which are filled with a ground-beef-vegetable mixture and colby jack cheese. The bowl contains shredded Romaine lettuce and small strips of avocado, dressed with lime juice, cilantro (coriander leaf) and salt.

©M-J de Mesterton

M-J's Brioche Recipe in Pictures

Posted on April 30, 2011 at 12:25 PM

M-J de Mesterton's Original Brioche Recipe in Pictures

©Copyright April 30th, 2011

Click on photos to enlarge images.

Six eggs plus one egg-yolk, five or six cups of unbleached flour, one teaspoon of honey, one tablespoon of sugar, one half-teaspoon of salt, one half-cup of warmed buttermilk, one heaping teaspoonful of yeast, and two sticks of butter are M-J's ingredients for brioche. Her recipe makes six brioches à tetes and eight full-sized hamburger buns. If you don't want burger buns, the recipe will make twelve brioches à tetes in two silicone pans made for this purpose, available at Amazon.com. You will need a stand-mixer with a dough-hook to make M-J's brioche recipe, since brioche dough requires a long period of vigorous beating. Also, for the traditional finishing egg-wash, you will need to mix a seventh whole egg with a half-teaspoon of water.

Mix warmed buttermilk with yeast, add one egg, one cup of flour and the teaspoon of honey. Mix well and cover with another cup of flour. Let rise uncovered for thirty or forty minutes, until the sponge is two or more times its original size and its surface resembles cracked earth.

Adding brioche ingredients is a gradual procedure.

Begin adding flour, eggs, egg yolk, sugar, salt and room-temperature butter cut into small sections, in alternate measures, gradually, in the bowl of a stand-mixer. The amount of flour you will add varies. Sometimes it only requires five cups total, including the two initial ones for the sponge. Here is how you can tell when enough flour has been added: beat the brioche dough with your dough-hook attachment until it pulls away from the side of the machine's metal bowl. Turn off the stand-mixer motor now and then to let it cool off a bit. Mind the mixer as it goes through its paces, because with this vigorous dough-beating it will inevitably move across the work-surface. Ideally, you will beat the brioche dough for thirty minutes. The name "brioche" refers to this process.

This is the proper texture for brioche dough. This batch is almost finished being beaten after twenty minutes. Notice the sides of the bowl; they are almost cleaned of sticky dough by the slapping motion of the process. The dough is allowed to rest for a few minutes while the stand-mixer motor cools off a little. Ten more minutes of beating will follow.

It is now time to unplug the stand-mixer, raise its head, remove its dough-hook, and then, grabbing the machine to stabilise it, bump the stationery bowl out of position with the heel of your hand against its handle. Your brioche dough can now be left to rise in this stainless steel bowl, covered loosely with plastic-wrap.

M-J's Brioche Dough Rising

After the brioche dough has risen to two times its original size or larger, you may punch it down and form it into shapes. M-J usually lets hers rise a second time before finally shaping the brioches à tetes and hamburger buns. Allow your brioche dough, once shaped into your desrired form, to rise until it is about twice its original size, and brush them with egg-wash (yet another egg, mixed with a half-teaspoon of water and applied with a pastry-brush) before putting them into the oven.

Because of brioche dough's high butter-content, greasing pans will not be necessary. Bake the brioches in their respective pans on the center-rack a medium-hot oven (375 Fahrenheit) for about twenty minutes. The time and temperature of baking will depend upon the conditions where you live, and the phase of the moon, therefore you must keep a close-eye on the brioche while it is baking. Lower the heat to 350F if their bottoms or tops begin to darken unevenly. Serve the brioche after it has cooled for at least ten minutes. If you are serving them the next day, these gems will benefit from being warmed in the oven first. Keeping the dough for more than one day in the refrigerator will sour its taste considerably in an undesirable way. However, brioche dough freezes well. Some other posts by M-J, about brioche, can be seen here.

Radishes with Soft Butter

Posted on April 10, 2011 at 11:25 AM

Radishes with Soft Butter, a French Breakfast Favourite

Konnyaku Stir-Fry

Posted on April 7, 2011 at 5:24 PM

Few calories and lots of taste go into this elegant stir-fry, made with celery, onion, ginger, coconut oil and shirataki noodles. ©M-J de Mesterton

Shirataki Noodle or Konnyaku are Stir-Fried with Vegetables

A Japanese chile, soy sauce and peanut dressing will be just the thing to add a pleasant piquancy.

Elegant Japanese-Style Salad

Posted on April 2, 2011 at 12:48 PM

This refreshing and elegant cucumber-radish salad is dressed with a rice wine vinegar-honey vinaigrette

Elegant Fairy Cakes

Posted on March 28, 2011 at 8:14 PM

Ground almonds and coconut cream are mixed with egg-whites, vanilla and sweetener for a high-protein, low-carb tea cake that is also a perfect end to a ladies' elegant luncheon.

Baking Brioche

Posted on March 28, 2011 at 6:41 PM

Elegant, Traditional Brioche in the Oven

M-J's Method for Making Brioche, with Photos

Elegant Lemon-Coconut Pudding

Posted on March 28, 2011 at 6:39 PM

The Elegant Cook

The Cuisine of M-J de Mesterton