Badiane is the fruit of badianier (“star anise tree”), Illicium verum, tropical tree of the family Illiciaceae.

Little History :

Description :

It’s origin :

How to use it ?

What benefits ?

- It has no colour, no odour, and no taste.
– It is suitable for vegetarian and all types of diets.
– It’s stronger than gelatine, it’s able to stay in jelly form at room temperature
- It’s better for health.

When we think of Mediterranean cuisine, the first three products that come to mind are the basil, tomatoes and olives. We will present next week the tomato, for now we look on the basil.

A Little History :

There are over 4000 years, the basil has gone to India to spread in Asia and to Egypt. From there he went back to Rome and spread to all of southern Europe. In the sixteenth century It reached England and America a century later with the first emigrants.

Description :

Rich in calcium, vitamins A and C, basil is also a good source of phosphorus

Fresh basil flavor particularly well in salads but can also marry with eggs and pasta, as well as vegetables such as zucchini, carrots and eggplants. It is also essential in the herb sauces like pesto and pizza sauces. It can be worked in brewing and for example replace the vanilla custard. Finally, the basil consistent with sage, garlic, rosemary and thyme.

Tips :
In India, basil is a sacred plant and is not used in food.

Ingredients :

- 300g sugar
– 3 vanilla beans

Fill a container of half the sugar.
Split open the vanilla bean.
Plant the vanilla in the sugar.
Add the remaining sugar.

What else ? Enjoy.

Tips :

Once the container is empty don’t throw your vanilla away, you can use it up to 3 or 4 times.

A little History :

The eggplant is a fruit of the nightshade family, as well as tomato and potato. It’s consumed before full maturity, because in point, his bronzed skin contains a bitter flesh.

Originally from India where we can still find all varieties of colors, in the 15th century it came in Italy. Only two centuries later it has spread to the south, then across France. It is now cultivated in those regions from May to October. The rest of the year we can find it in the Caribbean, Israel and Senegal.

Description :

The eggplant unless you fry it, is among the cheap low-calorie vegetable, it provides only 18 kcal per 100 g, as the tomato, endive or lettuce.

It is rich in water (92%), eggplant draws a remarkable abundance of minerals. Besides the interesting quantity of magnesium and zinc it brings, it has the advantage of being a diuretic due to its high potassium content (260 mg/100).

It is also well supplied with fibers. As long as you add a dash of olive oil and a touch of garlic, it will become a real healing food borrowed from the famous Mediterranean diet, so famous for his virtues on health.

Season : May to October.

Nutritional value per 100 g :

A little History :

The leek which  is a member of the onion family comes from central Asia and have been eaten since the dawn of time.
The leek was  likely cultivated in Egypt where it  had been known in earliest Biblical times. It was also planted  by the Indians as well as the colonists in America, by 1775.

Description :

The leek has a subtle flavor and delicate, softer and sweeter than onion.
Leek reached 50 cm to 1 m in height and it is harvested when the base is about 2.5 cm or more.

Season : Septemer to February.

Nutritional value per 100 g :

Energy : 61 kcal
Carbohydrates : 2.9 g
Sugars : 3.9 g
Dietary fiber : 1.8 g
Fat : 0.3 g
saturated : 0.04 g
monounsaturated : 0.004 g
polyunsaturated : 0.166 g
Protein : 1.5 g

Cocoa roasted beans

A little History :

Native to the rainforests of Central America, cocoa was cultivated by the Mayas and Aztecs.
These people consumed it as a beverage called “chocolatl” (bitter water).
This beverage was prepared using cocoa beans (cacahuatl) roasted and ground on hot rocks.
The resulting paste was heated and then mixed with water, in addition they put some vanilla, pepper, cinnamon, anise or other spices.
This beverage was known nourishing, restorative and aphrodisiac.

red cocoa pod

Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover cocoa in 1502 on the tiny island of Guanaja, but he attached no importance to these “almonds.”
In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico and began the conquest. The emperor Montezuma offered a beverage made with cocoa, Cortes appreciated and wrote: “drink that builds up resistance and fights fatigue.”
In 1524, he brought back cocoa beans to the emperor of Spain and his court. Since then, the chocolate became legend !

At that time, the preparation technique was primitive and remained close to that of Mexico. The worker was working on his knees and pounded the chocolate by hand with a cylinder on an inclined heated stone, but in 1732, Dubuisson brought the first improvement by inventing a heated horizontal table before which the worker worked up.

How do it comes in chocolate tab ?

Just after harvesting, the pod is slit with a machete, remains beans and pulp.  (The pulp is very sweety and refreshing).
The beans are dried for two weeks or so.

Then comes the roasting, as for coffee, the beans are roasted to enhance their flavor, this phase takes place after cleaning the seeds in a roaster.
They are then crushed using a grinder and turned into slurry.
Once the cocoa butter is separated from the cocoa paste.

Depending on the recipe, the cocoa butter is mixed with the cocoa paste and other ingredients like sugar, milk…
For example, dark chocolate is made from cocoa pasta and cocoa butter while white chocolate is composed only of cocoa butter, milk and sugar.

A little History :

We know that people were using cinnamon on their food  at least as early as 2700 BC, when Chinese texts first mention it. Cinnamon is more than a sweet treat. It is one of the world’s oldest healers.
And has been used for ages in many countries, in France, we could find this spice in the hypocras, a famous medieval drink.

Today, the cinnamon is predominantly used in cooking as a condiment and flavoring agent, in association with the apple in the preparation of chocolates and liqueurs, but also in Indian cooking. It is used by the pharmaceutical industry.

A little History :

The turnip was first sown in the New World by the French explorer Jacques Cartier  in what is now Canada but this root has been used as a vegetable for human consumption since prehistoric times.

Description :

Turnips are cheap, nutricious and easy to grow.

Season : Septemer to February.

Nutritional value per 100 g :

Energy : 20 kcal
Carbohydrates : 4.4 g
Dietary fiber : 3.5 g
Fat : 0.2 g
Protein : 1.1 g
Vitamin A equiv. : 381 μg
Folate (Vit. B9) : 118 μg
Vitamin C : 27 mg
Vitamin K : 368 μg
Calcium : 137 mg

Tips and tricks :

To store the turnip, simply remove the leaves and keep in the fridge, or in an other cool and dry place during a week or so.