CO2 emissions climb to all-time high! Let's start doing something!

In 2010, the worlds’ nations totally emitted a record 30.6 gigatons of carbon-dioxide, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency. In 2009, CO2 emissions were 5% above the previous record year in 2008 and had slightly dipped below 29 gigatons as a result of the global economic crisis. Because the economy has slowly recovered and more demands have emerged, the CO2 emission again breaks the all time record in 2010.

The IEA estimates that 40% of global emissions came from OECD countries in 2010, but these developed countries only accounted for 25% of the emissions growth compared to 2009. Those non-OECD countries, in particular China and India, accounted for the bulk of last year’s emission growth.

Right now the world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2ºC global goal agreed in Cancun is to be attained. Now, unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global target.

Therefore, as a individual, we should all start changing our behavior from now: turn off the water and lights when you don’t need them; only buy things that you need instead of things that you want; take bus or mass transit instead of driving car, etc. Let’s all do something to improve the situation and save this wonderful planet we live.

Let's make the all time classic Boeuf Bourguignon!!

Beef has always been my favorite meat on the dinner table, no matter steak, burger, traditional Chinese beef noodle, or all kinds of stir fry. But today what we are going to cook is also one of my favorite beef meal and is one of the classic--Boeuf Bourguignon! 

I am neither Julia Child or Julie Powell so don't expect this Boeuf Bourguignon anywhere near perfect. However, since I have never taste their dishes personally, I would say my version of Boeuf Bourguignon is quite good too! So here are the ingredients I will use (for 6 servings):

Beef: about 1.36kg and cut into 5cm cube. A lot of people recommend using the Rump Pot Roast saying that it is the perfect fit for the Boeuf Bourguignon. It's a little bit hard to find for me so I just choose the Sirloin tip as an alternative, and guess what, it just taste as good as the one made with Rump Pot Roast!

Red Wine: 3 cups(about 720c.c). I use Cȏtes du Rhȏne today ,but honestly, you can choose other type of red wine such as Burgundy or other that is much cheaper. The difference in taste is minor, especially for those who cook this dish for the first time. So my suggestion is, start with the wine that is cheaper and easy to get!

Thyme: 1/2 tsp
Bay leaf: one, crumbled
Tomato Paste: 1Tb
Bacon: 170g, sliced
Onion: one, sliced
Carrot: one, sliced
Garlic: 4 cloves, mashed
Olive oil: 1Tb
Salt: 1tsp

Black Pepper: 1/4tsp

Flour: 2Tb
Beef stock or beef bouillon or water: 2~3 cups

So here is how to make this classic, wonderful, and delicious dish:

1. Preheat the oven to 230 celsius.

2. Add the olive oil into the casserole and saute the bacon over moderate heat until brown. Remove the bacon out and set aside.

3. Dry the beef in paper towel before saute in the casserole. Saute the beef until brown and set aside.

4. Add the carrot and onion into the casserole and saute them until brown.

5. Add bacon back to the casserole. Add the beef back to the casserole and set it on top of the vegetables. Seasoned with salt and pepper, and sprinkle the flour on the beef (make sure to turn the beef up side down and sprinkle again).

6. Place the casserole into the oven without the lid for about 5 minutes to bring the crunchiness to the beef. After 5 minutes, take out the casserole back to the stovetop and turn down the temperature of the oven to about 160 celsius.

7. Pour in the red wine and the beef stock into the casserole. Make sure all the liquid cover the beef. Turn down to small heat and add the tomato paste, garlic,thyme, and bay leaf.




8. Next step is to put the lid on and bring the casserole back to the oven for another 3 hours. Here you can choose to leave the casserole on the stove to cook, but you have to constantly check the status of the dish and stir it to prevent burn. Remove the bay leaf before serving.


Serve the dish with mashed potato...mmm...delicious!!
If you are a rice lover then try it with rice...you will definitely love it!

"Poulet Sauté aux Herbes de Provence" (chicken with herbs, garlic, and butter sauce)

Provence is a region if southeastern of France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. The sunny. warm, and dry Mediterranean climate result in the special cuisine of Provence. The basic ingredients of this area are olives and olive oil; garlic; sardines, rockfish, sea urchins and octopus; lamb and goat; chickpeas; local fruits, such as grapes, peaches, apricots,strawberries, cherries, and the famous melons of Cavaillon.


Today I am going to make this traditional Provence poultry dish "Poulet Sauté aux Herbes de Provence", which is chicken with herbs, garlic, and butter sauce.


Here are the ingredients (4~6 servings):

Chicken leg steak: 1100~1300g

Butter: 110g
Thyme: 1 tsp
Basil: 3 tsp

Fennel: 1/4 tsp
Un-peeled garlic: 3 cloves
Dry white wine: 2/3 cups
Egg yolks: 2

Lemon juice: 1Tb
Salt
Pepper
Methods:
1. Heat the butter in a hot pan then put the chicken (skin down) in it for 3 minutes and turn, color them to slightly yellow.

2. Add in the thyme, basil, fennel, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Add the unpeeled garlic into the casserole. Cover the casserole and cook for about 9 minutes.

3. Uncover it, turning and basting the chicken, cook for another 15 minutes. Then the chicken is ready. Remove to a hot platter and then prepare for the sauce.




4. Mash the garlic and then remove the peel. Add the white wine in and bring to boil with high heat, scraping up coagulated juice during the process (for about 3 minutes).



5. Beat the egg yolks with the wire whip until sticky. Gradually add in the lemon juice, wine, and the reduced juice in the casserole (half spoon a time). Add 1 tsp of basil and fennel to season the taste and bring to the low heat setting to warm the sauce and thicken it. You can beat in some butter for a smooth taste if you like, it's totally optional. 

6. Spoon the sauce on the chicken then it's all set!







Try it and make any adjustments based on your taste. Cooking is a free art and you can make whatever you like! That's the beauty of it!

後記：
在最後階段調醬汁的時候
有再加入兩湯匙羅勒及茴香
但以台灣人的口味兩湯匙可能稍嫌太重
加一湯匙應該比較適合喔

而且真的要趁熱吃
如果冷掉的時候
醬汁裡的油就會慢慢分離出來
到時候真的會覺得很油喔

最後~最好配罐油切綠茶

下一週的flambo幸福灶腳
要烹煮哪一道呢?
1)普羅旺斯聖賈克扇貝
2)法式嫩煎豬排
Dutch!!!

Use & Care

For a better experience with Flambo products, please read this manual in advance.

Thank you for purchasing the Flambo products.

Please carefully read the instruction to use and keep your new friends aways in a good shape!

Before first use:

•Check the tightness of the lid knob. If loose, screw it tightly. Check it regularly for your own safety.

•Wash the cookware with a sponge and neutral cleaner; rinse and dry thoroughly.

•If you purchase the product with matte enamel cooking surface, the following three simple steps can help you to turn your cookware into a natural non-stick one:

1. Brush some oil on the cooking surface.

2. Heat the cookware until it reaches the smoking point. (Approximately 180ºC or 356ºF)

3. Turn off the heat when there's smoke emerging from the surface and wait until it cools down.

Just follow the same steps after 2~3 uses of the cookware, you now own a great performing, 100% natural non-stick cookware with no chemical coating!

During cooking:

•Do not heat the cookware alone or it will hurt the enamel. If that happens, turn off the heat immediately and cool the cookware down to room temperature.

•Always use oven mitt to handle the cast iron cookware.

•The porcelain enamel cooking surface is impervious to acid and alkaline, and is non-reactive to foods. The glass-based coating is worry-free of unknown chemicals.

•In order to protect the inner enameled surface, do not use any sharp or metal utensils on it.

•Phenolic knobs are oven-safe up to 190ºC/ 375ºF. You can select our stainless steel lid knob to handle the oven job.

•We suggest you to use low to medium heat settings; matching the base size of the cookware to the heat zone. This will ensure a better cooking efficiency, proper heat dispersion, and also the saving of energy.

•Never put the cast iron cookware in the microwave.

•In order to protect the tabletop, please put the hot cookware on a heatproof mat or cloth.

•For a better dispersion of heat in the cookware, we recommend to only fill the cookware 60%-70% full.
•Our cookware can be used on all kinds of heat sources and is dishwasher-friendly.

Clean & Care:

•Hand wash with sponge and neutral cleaner, rinse with warm water, and dry.

•If food residue is still present, fill the cookware with warm water and leave for 15 to 20 minutes. Proceed to wash it with neutral cleaner and warm water.

•Do not use metallic pads or harsh abrasive cleaning agents.

•Dry products thoroughly after washing. Do not drain dry or store away while still wet.

About Us

We are flambo cookware--the sexiest cookware in the world! It's our greatest pleasure to meet you and hope you enjoy reading our posts! You can also visit our website at www.flamboinc.com


Here we will introduce our brand, our products, our culture, and our value. We wish to connect with people around the world and establish a special relationship with them.


After knowing us, if you are interested in our brand and would like to introduce it to your country, we are more than happy to talk to you with more details. Simply click the "contact us" button on the top and we can start our conversation!

The Logo

Our logo is a flame-like figure inspired by the French word "flambé", a dramatic cooking procedure in which alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flame. 


The three colors on the logo each represent an important brand value: red as "joy", green as "health", and blue as "design".

The Brand

Flambo is a brand of passion, creativity and style.

Our brand means more than just making cookware. It is a promise of consistently offering stylish, qualitied, and affordable products to our customers.

Our ambition is to create a brand for everyone, striving to establish a lasting relationship with, and to create an enjoyble experience for our customers.

Our Brand Spirits

Cooking is a journey to your heart.

When you’re cooking, everything seems irrelevant. 

You touch, you sweat, you feel, you smile...

You are the center of the universe, the magician spreading love and joy. 

You don’t need anything now, just you and Flambo can get the job done. 

You don’t need a greasy hamburger to make your day. A pinch of love, a clove of confidence, and a well seasoning of care, together you can make a wonderful meal called healthy !
Besides that, you can rely on us to keep you away from toxic chemicals.

Place your most stylish Flambo into the local art gallery called “home”. The fashion design will never be cold and distant anymore.

How to choose a safe cookware?

It's pretty hard to select a cookware that is easy to use, multi-functional, and most importantly, safe. To be honest, I don't think there's any single cookware can handle all the kitchen tasks (if any of you know any, please let me know!). Think about it, you want to do a pot stew on Monday, a stir fry beef on Tuesday, a perfectly sauteed medium steak on Wednesday...you need different type of cookware to get the job done. However, after the Teflon crisis people are lack of confident in cookware somehow and there are lots of cookware on the market made of all kinds of materials. I've done some research and here are my analysis on different types of cookware materials:


Stainless Steel Cookware
Stainless steel is actually a mixture of several different kinds of metals, including nickel, chromium and molybdenum, all of which may leak into foods. However, on the bright side, unless your stainless steel cookware is dinged and pitted, the amount of metals likely to get into your food is negligible. So don't panically throw away all of your stainless steel cookware, they are still a good choice in comparison with those non-stick cookware you even don't know what their coating are made of...

Anodized Aluminum Cookware
The electro-chemical anodizing process locks in the cookware's base metal, aluminum, so that the possibility it get into food is lower than traditional aluminum cookware. However, this type of cookware is not very durable so you might need to change it often to avoid the leak somehow. 

Cast Iron Cookware
Another good choice is that old standby, cast iron, which is known for its durability and even heat distribution. Cast iron cookware can also help ensure that eaters in your house get enough iron—which the body needs to produce red blood cells—as it seeps off the cookware into food in small amounts.

Unlike the metals that can come off of some other types of pots and pans, iron is considered a healthy food additive by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But one thing everyone should beware, though, that most cast iron cookware needs to be seasoned after each use and as such is not as worry-free as other alternatives. Therefore, if you are not too lazy to season and to care the cast iron cookware, it should be your perfect choice in the world full of all kinds of chemicals that might potentially hurt our body in long term.

Enameled Cast Iron Cookware For those who like the feel and heat distribution properties of cast iron but dread the seasoning process, enameled cast iron cookware is a perfect choice. The smooth and colorful enamel is dishwasher-friendly and non-stick, and covers the entire surface of such cookware to minimize clean-up headaches.

Copper Cookware
One other surface favored by chefs for sauces and sautés is copper, which excels at quick warm-ups and even heat distribution. But beware, if you are using the full-copper cookware you need to be extra cautious to maintain and clean or the poisonous verdigris will be harmful. With proper care, copper cookware still be one of the best performing cookware of all.