Skytte's Kitchen

Tandoori Chicken w. Mango

2012-01-24T21:13:00.000+01:00

It's been ages since I posted something last, I know. But good things come to those who wait. At least that's what they say. This dish is one of my favorite Asian dishes for various reasons. First of all, it's dead-simple to make. Secondly because it's so packed with flavour which balance each other perfectly. It's sweet from the mangoes, bitter and sharp from the onion, spicy from the chicken and mild and citric from the lime-yogurt sauce. You can prepare it in advance and assemble it and bring it out at the last moment. It's sure to impress.

Ingredients:

Chicken Tandoori

1-2 chicken breasts (or equivalent in thigh meat)

Tandoori paste

or make it yourself:

1/2 tsp. Salt

1 small jar of Greek-style yogurt

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

Juice of 1/2 lime

Freshly ground pepper

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp ground fenugreek seed

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp Tumeric

Salad:

1 ripe mango

1 red onion

A small handful of fresh cilantro

1-2 tsp Sambal Olek (or other chili paste)

Juice of 1 lime

Yogurt dressing:

1 small jar of Greek yogurt

Juice of 1/2 or 1 lime (to taste)

Salt to taste

Papdums

Start by cutting the chicken meat in bite sizes and marinate them with the tandoori paste and a bit of yogurt for 4 to 12 hours.

Peel the mango and cut it in to small cubes of about 2 cm. Slice the onion and finely chop the coriander leaves. Add the chili and squeeze the lime fruit over it.

When ready to eat, fry the marinated chicken over high heat. If you have a grill, even better. Just put the meat on a skewer. Grill marks only add to the flavour.

Fry the papadoms according to the instructions. I usually fried then in a centimetre of neutral oil until the swell up. If it starts to bend weirdly, just press the sides down the a fork. Turn once and place on a rack to drip off.

Mix the yogurt with the lime and taste for salt. Serve the tandoori chicken on top of the salad on top of the papadum. Splash a few dollops of the yogurt on top and enjoy.

Christmas Frikadeller

2011-12-19T11:46:00.000+01:00

This is just a quick recipe for Frikadeller which are Danish pork meatballs. I've given them a slight Christmas twist by adding a tiny bit of cloves. I've seen people calling out for the best frikadelle recipe but as these little buggers are so heavily steeped in tradition and "how-my-mum-used-to-make-them", I'm not even gonna try claiming that. These are just simply good frikadelles, but with the best sauce in the world (oh no, I see trouble brewing)...

Ingredients:

500g Pork mince

1/2 Onion, very finely chopped or shredded

1.5 dl Cream (Or milk if you're on a diet)

1 egg

3-4 tbsp of breadcrumbs

Pinch of powdered cloves

Pinch of cayenne

Salt and pepper (Go on, don't be shy)

Butter for frying

Sauce:

1 cup of beef stock

Something sweet and fruity like a jam. I used a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette I had. About a teaspoon

1 dl of cream

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Stir it well (use your hands if you like) until it starts sticking together like one big ball. Add a little more breadcrumbs if it's too loose. You'll have to be able to form small balls. On the other hand, don't add too much breadcrumbs as they might get dry.

The easiest way to shape the balls is to use wet hands. If you don't like getting your hands dirty, you can use two spoons. Melt the butter over medium heat and wait for it to finish bubbling. Fry the meatballs on both sides until done. How long is that? Well, depends on how big you're making the balls and hot hot your frying pan is. I Start turning them over when I can see the mince turning greyish a bit over half way up.

Remove the meat balls and set aside somewhere warm. Add the beef stock to the pan to deglaze it. This basically means using all the meat bits and flavours from the frying to make this wonderful sauce. Let it reduce and thicken. Add the jam or whatever fruity stuff you're using.

Add the cream and turn off heat. The residual heat will be enough to cook the sauce through.

Serve and enjoy your holidays.

No-Name Chocolate Spread

2011-12-19T11:16:00.000+01:00

Now, if I were a food manufacturer I could probably get in to all sorts of problems calling this a chocolate spread as it doesn't actually contain any chocolate. But it would probably be less trouble than if I called it Nutella which would clearly infringe the brand name. So I'll stick to chocolate spread and let you decide what to call it. However, I'll dare say that it's way more delicious than the one you buy in the store, and as taste is something individual they can't sue me for that. I'll let you be the judge. Is it healthier? Hey, if you're so concerned about health, don't go putting on chocolate spreads on your bread. Eat an apple. But if you want to indulge and leave the diet for January, try this out.

Ingredients:

Equal amounts of toasted hazelnuts and butter. I used about 150g of each

2 dl of icing sugar

4 tbsp of cocoa powder (the dark intense stuff, not the sweetened)

Pinch of fine salt (if you use unsalted butter)

Start by chopping and grinding the roasted and peeled hazelnut until you get a fine flour. It should be almost like a paste as it starts to release the oils in the nuts.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until you've got a homogeneous paste. I used a food processor which really makes this so much easier to make. But you can do it by hand and feel proud of your effort afterwards.

And that's it. Couldn't be simpler. Now you just need some toasted bread and to dig in.

White Truffle Butternut Squash Veloute w. Pecorino Crisp

2011-11-06T17:51:00.006+01:00

Behind this extremely posh sounding name is a rather simple recipe which gives the butternut squash, the chubby ginger kid of the autumn season, an MTV style make-over and turn it into an unctuous and velvety superstar of a dish. I've just returned from a small vacation in Rome where I picked up a bottle of white truffle oil which seems to give this dish that extra layer I was looking for. If fancy sounding recipes make you cringe and bring out your worst kitchen phobias, this might be a first step in overcoming those fears as it's as good as fool-proof. And this way you can wow your next dinner guests with something fanciful, making them believe you've turned into some kind of super chef overnight. Truffle oil is becoming easier to find nowadays, mainly because it's mostly chemically produced and has never actually seen any truffles. Some chefs frown upon it, but for the rest of us who can't afford to buy a real white truffle, we'll have to do with this.

Ingredients:

Veloute:

1 onion

1 kg butternut squash, peeled and cubed in about 2x2 cm

1 small twig of rosemary

about 0.5-0.75 l of water

2 slices of sandwich cheese

50ml cream

about 1 small tsp of white truffle oil

Salt

Pecorino Crisps:

50g of grated Italian pecorino cheese, or parmesan

Pinch of dried oregano and thyme

Start by frying the onion at medium heat in a large pot for about 8 minutes.

Add the cubed butternut squash, the rosemary and enough water to nearly cover. The more water you add, the runnier the veloute will be. You can always add more if it gets too thick. Boil until the butternut squash is tender and falling apart. I used a pressure cooker to speed up the process.

Meanwhile, grate the pecorino cheese in small mountains on baking paper, sprinkle a bit of dried herbs on top and grill them until they become golden brown around the edges. Set aside to cool off completely and you should have small, crunchy cheese crisps.

When the butternut squash is cooked, remove the rosemary and blend the lot until smooth.

Now for the wada-woom. Add the cheese, cream and white truffle oil and stir until the cheese is completely melted. Taste for salt and add a bit more truffle oil to taste. But be careful, it's quite pungent and you only want a hint of it.

Serve with a good rustic bread, the pecorino crisp and a bit of cut chives for decoration.

Half-fried Savoy Cabbage w. Bacon and Apple

2011-10-19T14:40:00.002+02:00

Up until last week we've had 30 degrees and lots of sunshine in mid October. This is not really typical autumn weather and my cooking has reflected this. Still haven't made my pot of judiones beans yet which is usually happens when the weather change. This, however, is probably my first more wholesome dish after a long summer of light food and cold soups. My in-laws have a vegetable garden with some highly fertile soil and have had an abundance of fresh produce. I'm not a big cabbage eater (apart from the occasional coleslaw), but as they gave us a couple of homegrown savoy cabbage heads, I thought I'd try and cook something different with them. Here's the result, trust me, it's delicious:

You need:

1 savoy cabbage, or any other cabbage will do. Sliced.

150g bacon

1 apple for cooking (also from their garden)

1 tbsp rice vinegar (or a bit less of white wine vinegar)

1-2 tbsp crème fraîche, or just normal cream

2-3 tbsp sunflower seeds

Salt, pepper

Start by frying the cut bacon at medium temperature to release some of the fat.

Add the sliced cabbage, fry it for a couple of minutes.

Cut the apple into smaller cubes or sticks. Add to the cabbage. Fry for 5 minutes.

Add crème fraîche and salt and pepper. Heat the dish through, but don't overcook the cabbage. You still want it to have some bite to it.

Finally, taste for salt and add some sunflower seeds on top. Great autumn side dish.

Blackberry Pie

2011-10-19T14:16:00.003+02:00

Hold on, no wait. Not the phone, the actually berry (or rather an aggregated fruit). This is from a harvest I made of wild blackberries on an outing during the summer, which I quickly paid the highest honor these berry can receive by baking them in to a pie. I think I picked some 200-300 grams but I'm not sure. If you still have blackberries on your blackberry tree/bush, don't pick them now, because according to old folktales the Devil has pissed on them after the 11th of October. The dough is my standard dough which you can see how to make on my (quite similar) blueberry pie recipe. You'll need:

Pie dough:

280g flour

1tsp salt

150g cold butter

5-5 tbsp ice cold water

Filling:

Your harvest of blackberries (let's say +/- 250g)

5 tbsp cornstarch

1/2 cup of sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla powder

Juice of 1/2 a small lemon

Here's my harvest, not too much but someone had beat me to the tree so I had to do with what was left. Put the oven at 220º.

Mix the berries with the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon. Crush about half the berries with a fork and mix it well together so you don't have any lumps of cornstarch. Set it aside while you prepare the dough. This will allow the sugars to dissolve and mix in with the juices of the berries.

Use about 2/3 of the dough for the base and prick some holes at the base of the pie and pour the filling in. Shake it a bit to make sure it's well distributed.

Roll out the remaining dough and make a "lid" for the pie. Prick some more holes in the lid.

Bake at 220º for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 170 and continue baking for about 20-30 minutes or until the crust is golden. Let it rest for at least half an hour before cutting into it. This will allow the starches to set and your filling won't run out. Serve warm, for example with a bit of ice cream on the side.

Potato Roll

2011-08-25T14:10:00.002+02:00

Hi, today just a quick recipe - or actually, more like an idea. Basically, you just make a portion of mashed potatoes and flatten it out, add some filling and roll it up. That's it. I won't tell you how to make the mash, because I guess you can figure that out. Just make sure it's not too thin or runny. The filling I made was simply mixing canned tuna, baked red peppers, chopped green olives and a couple of boiled eggs which were all mixed together with a bit of mayo and tasted for salt and pepper. Once you have the filling and the mash, you're ready to go.

On a piece of oven paper you just pour out your cooled-off mash and then with your hands or a spatula you start flattening it until you have a rectangular shape about 1 cm thick. I'm sure your kids will find this task exciting. Get them helping. Then spread out the filling on top but make sure you don't put it all the way out to the edge or it will spill out when you roll it.

Carefully roll it by lifting up on the oven paper. It's not hard at all. Trim the ends for a prettier result or close them off with some extra mash. Place in the fridge until you need to serve it and enjoy it cold with a bit of mayo on the side or spread out in a thin layer over the roll. Enjoy

Woodshade Organics

2011-08-23T12:33:00.003+02:00

You can't bribe me... except with food! And that's just what my sister did. She's working for an organic confectionary in Denmark called Woodshade Organics. They produce filled chocolates, raw marzipan, soft nougat and lots of other sweets and candy related products - all 100% organic. And every now and again she sends me some samples of their products to taste. So why not share my thoughts with the readers of this blog and do a bit of shameless promotion for their amazing products. Hopefully, that way she'll keep sending me stuff (But don't think I'm only praising them for personal reasons. They have actually won several prizes for their product).

I'll start out with a few products I received some time back and which are long gone. The first was a small box of mixed filled confectionery. Each handmade piece was a treat. In fact, they were so delicious that they had disappeared before it even occurred to me to write down my opinion about them (Sister, if you read this, you'd better send me a bigger box next time so I can give you a more detailed opinion... he he).

Also, she sent me a small bag called RAW Cacao Nibs containing 75g of raw, dried cocoa beans, crushed into small bits. The first taste of the raw bean was quite strange as I expected it to taste more like chocolate. Instead it was quite bitter and earthy at first, almost like coffee beans. But then a taste of a fruity cocoa too over the more I chewed it, and left a strange desire to have some more. I'm sure it's an acquired taste, but most people I offered to try it all agreed it was quite unusual at first but then all asked me for more. I read up on it and it turns out that raw cocoa beans are very healthy and good for you, and it should be mentioned that it's also a stimulant like coffee. Just a few nibbles are enough to give you a boost. My final verdict: It's a keeper!

Here are some of the other products she sent. I haven't opened the cocoa powder on the left yet, so I can't really comment. The box on the right contains (or at least what's left of it) 'nougat', a praline mix of chocolate and hazelnuts. I'm not really a big fan of nougat, or at least until I tried this. I usually associated the nougat I had in Denmark with a inferior kind of overly sweet and fatty chocolate which was used as a cheap filler in cheap chocolate pralines. But this nougat seems to have stricken a fine balance of sweetness and the nuttiness of the hazelnuts. The almost empty box speaks for itself.

And then their marzipan. Marzipan is a big thing in Denmark. We love it and put it in pies, cakes, ice cream and the traditional Scandinavian birthday/wedding/funeral cake, Kransekage, is made of baked marzipan rings stacked on top of each other to make a tall cone. And come Christmas and the Danes just go wild in marzipan, making small eatable figures with their children of the raw marzipan. And I'm a big fan of marzipan, so my expectations were high when I received Woodshade's award-winning organic marzipan. And I wasn't disappointed. Again, top products are all about getting a very fine balance right. And I think that's what Woodshade's Raw Marcipan manages just that. It's not too sweet like some marzipan I've tried but has a very full well-rounded flavour of almonds (65%). Perhaps because they use a mixture of cane sugar and honey to sweeten the Italian almonds. The result is a less synthetic and sharp sweetness which you find in some cheaper brands, but a more complete experience which carries, but doesn't dominate, the flavour of almonds. The taste seems to be wider and lingers more pleasantly in the mouth. They have also got the consistency just right. It's soft and moist like playdough but when you bite in to it you feel the crunch from the almond flour. I can't really speak highly enough of this product. Not just because I got it for free. But this product really is worth the money you spend.

Now, just this morning I received a new product: Their licorice marzipan. I've noticed that licorice is now popping up in all kinds of products from ice cream to chocolate. Some times with great success, other times not so much. I was a bit worried that licorice marzipan would fall in the latter category. In my mind the two flavours just don't seem to mix. But now that I've tried it I might have to rethink it. Admitted, the first bit was rather confusing. When you have certain preconceptions about how some food is suppose to taste you sometimes need a bit of convincing before you see the point. And this was perhaps such a case. Cutting a small bit off, it had an almost smokey smell to it. Then you bit into it and the first impression is one of reassurance as your brain tells you that it's just normal marzipan. The texture and the first hit of sweetness is very similar to Woodshade's regular raw marzipan. But then it transforms into something quite unfamiliar. More than licorice I'd describe the second wave of taste closer to that of walnuts, perhaps with an undertone of pepper. Then finally you get the licorice coming through. It's quite a ride and hard to explain. I guess you'll just have to try for yourself. It's very good, but if I should have one tiny objection it's perhaps that I don't yet see it's application for other than just eating it raw as it is. Perhaps it's just because I'm used to marzipan being quite versatile, because there's absolutely nothing wrong in eating it just as it is.

If you want to know more about Woodshade Organics, I recommend you visit their homepage http://www.woodshade.dk/ . It's in English, Danish and German.

Tortillitas de Camarones - Shrimp Pancake?

2011-08-22T20:47:00.002+02:00

This recipe is one of my girlfriend's favourites. It's a dish from the South of Spain where they excel in frying all kinds of fish and seafood. It's really nothing more than a pancake with some baby shrimp mixed into the batter. Here's what you need:

1 small onion, spring onion preferred.

1 small cup of flour ( the original recipe calls for chickpea flower, which makes the tortillita more crunchy.

1 egg

1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley

1 small pinch of saffron

Salt to taste

Pinch of cayenne

200g cooked baby shrimp

1.5dl. milk

Frying oil

I didn't have spring onion so I decided to finely chop and lightly fry a small normal onion for a few minutes, just enough to take the edge off its sharpness.

Mix the rest of the ingredients with the fried onion.

Add the baby shrimp and milk. Stir to a batter.

Heat up a frying pan, add the oil and fry the tortillitas as you would fry small pancakes. You can make one and see if you need to adjust for salt.

Leave the on a paper towel to absorb some of the excess grease. Try a bite and dream away to the south of Spain...

Lemonade - when wife gives you lemons...

2011-08-22T20:14:00.003+02:00

Madrid is so damn hot these days so you're constantly looking for ways to refresh yourself... and I think that with this lemonade I've found the formula. I went and bought the best sun-ripened lemons I could find and then went home and made this refreshing lemonade. There're no tricks really. It's lemons, brown sugar and water. That's it. Well, of course there are always a few tricks, but this is really straight forward.

Ingredients:

6 sun-ripened lemons, the sweeter the better

3-6 tbsp brown sugar (muscovado for example). Really, you need to "add to taste"

Water to taste

Ice cubes when you want it really fresh

Press and roll the lemons with the palm of your hand before squeezing them. This makes the process easier.

Pour the lemon juice through a strainer into a jar or a bottle. Add the brown the sugar.

Shake well until all the sugar is dissolved.

Crush some ice and dilute the lemonade with water to taste. Ahh... refreshing!!!

Fried Zucchini Flowers

2011-08-16T08:54:00.002+02:00

Summer time and the zucchinis are in full bloom. I'm so lucky that my girlfriend's parents are zucchini fanatics. Not so much because I like zucchinis (which, to be honest, I find a mildly boring vegetable), but because I have access to all the zucchini flowers I can pick. Zucchinis have two types of flowers: those which have a thick stem and which will turn into zucchinis, and those with a thin stem which are the "male" flowers and are only good for pollination... almost! Because you can also eat these. It's apparently a big thing in Italy, where apart from just frying them like I did, they also stuff them with cheese and herbs. Try it for yourself:

some 12-20 zucchini flowers

1 egg

1 dl. of water

1 dl. flour

pinch of salt

pinch of cayenne

Some neutral oil for frying

Start by mixing the batter (all the ingredients apart from the flowers). Leave it to rest in the fridge while preparing the flowers.

You can either wash them and leave them to dry if you aren't sure how clean they are. I picked mine directly from their organic garden so I just brushed off any small insect I might come across. Then gently open the flowers and remove the stamen as it's quite bitter (I've read). It snaps off easily. Trim the stem back to a centimeter and break off those green leafs from the base of the flower.

Heat up a good amount of neutral oil on a non-stick frying pan. Dip the dry flowers in the batter and place them directly into the hot oil.

Fry them for a minute on one side then or until they look golden and crispy, then turn them.

Place on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil. Eat while warm and crispy.

Rabbit's Liver Snack

2011-08-07T10:03:00.003+02:00

I bought a rabbit recently to use in a Paella and it came with these two good-looking chunks of liver which I thought would be a shame to throw away. So I decide to make a small tapas to start the meal. Here's how:

Ingredients:

Rabbit's Liver

1 -2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Pinch of thyme

Salt, pepper

Olive oil

Baguette

First, marinate the livers in lemon juice, thyme and a pinch of salt for about 20 minutes. Then slice them.

Heat up the oil in a frying pan until it's very hot (when you start to see the first whisk of smoke), and then just fry them very fast. Add freshly chopped parsley and be generous with the black pepper. You might also want to add a little flaky sea salt. Slice the bread, place the liver on top and drizzle with the oil from the frying pan. Absolutely delicious...

Summer filler

2011-07-25T23:17:00.002+02:00

My aunt sent me this picture of a can of sausages they found in The Czech Republic. I'll let it speak for itself.

Asian Style Wings That'll Make You Fly

2011-07-01T15:39:00.004+02:00

Summer time - time to be outdoor, go to the park, spread out a blanket and open up that picnic basket. What better to bring than a bowl full of delicious chicken wings? The following recipe is so simple, yet takes simple wings and lift them to another level. The following recipe includes an Asian style glaze but they are equally great without the glaze. You could also whisk up a honey and mustard glaze, a barbecue sauce (see my ribs'n'slaw recipe), or mix in my fajita spice mix at the beginning.

Ingredients:

1 kilo of wings (serves 4-6 hungry people)

Chili sauce (optional)

Vegetable oil

1 cup of flour

Salt, Pepper

Asian Glaze:

2 tbsp Ginger- garlic paste

100 ml Rice vinegar

100 ml sticky brown sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

Chili sauce to taste

Start by seasoning the wings, add a good squirt of oil and chili sauce.

Put the flower in a bag, add the wings and shake it well (don't forget to check first if the bag has any holes!)

Remove the excess flour and place the wings neatly (with out touching one another) on a greased baking tray. Spray some oil on the wings. Put in a 190º oven, 30 minutes on one side, turn and give them another 10-20 minutes on the other until they are golden brown.

Meanwhile, prepare the glaze by mixing all the ingredients and bring it to a boil. You should cook it 10 minutes at low heat so the sharpness of the vinegar will disappear and the whole thing reduces a bit.

Pour the glaze over the wings in a bowl and mix it in well (careful, both the glaze and the wings are hot). Leave to soak for 10 minutes.

And there you go, mouthwatering chicken wings with an Asian touch.

Moroccan (inspired) Meatballs w. Fennel

2011-06-14T10:44:00.005+02:00

I'm just back from a quick holiday in Marrakesh with a bag full of spices and a head full of inspiration from the Moroccan cuisine. It's a highly recommendable city to visit for any food lover as their cooking is something quite unique. As you probably know, most of their dishes are cooked in a tanjine, an earthenware pot with a kind of chimney lid on. But although they sold them in almost every second shop, I got tired of haggling in the end and never got round to buying one. But you can easily cook with out it. Here are some meatballs with fennel and chickpeas. I don't know if it's an original recipe, but it's delicious nonetheless and already takes me back to the food stalls in Jamaa el Fna.

Ingredients:

400g. minced beef or lamb

1 tsp. tumeric

1 tsp. harissa (or chili powder)

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. Ras el Hanout (North African Spice mix, a bit similar to Garam Masala)

Small handful of fresh parsley

2 medium sized onions

1 fennel bulb

3 carrots

1 can of precooked chickpeas

1 can of peeled tomatoes

1/2 cup of water

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the spices and add 1/3 of it to the minced meat. Add a bit of the parsley. Mix it in well (best done with the hands). Form small meatballs 3-4 cm in diameters.

Fry the meat balls in olive oil and set a side when brown all over.

Chop and fry the vegetables in the same frying pan with the oil from the meatballs. Add the rest of the spice mix and a teaspoon of salt. Fry at medium temperature until all the veggies are soft and translucent.

Then drain the chickpeas and add them to the vegetables along with the can of tomatoes (I like to blend my tomatoes first, but that's up to you). Let it simmer 15 minutes at low temperature.

Finally add the meatballs, and the fresh parsley. Keep a bit of the parsley for sprinkling on top. Heat the meatballs through and serve.

Tarta de Santiago (Dedicated to my sister)

2011-06-05T08:57:00.004+02:00

Hi. It's been a while. I've been setting up a new computer and working quite hard lately so I haven't really had much time to blog. But I'm back with a very easy cake recipe dedicated to my sister. Whenever she's in Spain to visit me she usually asks for Tarta de Santiago which is a traditional almond pie from Galicia in the North of Spain. We've usually bought it but one day surfing the net I came across the recipe which turned out to be really dead simple. And not only that, it's also an officially regulated recipe by the Consejo Tarta de Santiago, which provides the one and only acceptable way to make it. For example it states that you have to use 1 of 6 sorts of Spanish almonds for it to be a true recipe. The only "free choice" you have is about the seasoning and how coarse you want your almonds.

Here's what you need:

250g sugar

250g almonds (ground finely to a flour. You can do it n a food processor)

5 eggs

Optional:

Shredded lemon zest from 1/2 a lemon

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

A bit of butter for the form

Icing sugar for decoration

A cut out Santiago cross (click the link and print)

Preheat the oven at 200ºC. Mix the sugar and the ground almonds with the lemon and cinnamon. Just use a fork to make sure all the sugar is evenly distributed.

Mix in the 5 eggs until it's homogeneous. No need to over mix or blend.

Grease a spring form with a bit of butte and dust it with flour. Pour the cake batter in. Bake at 200ºC for 40-50 minutes until the top is golden brown.

Take it out and let it cool down completly before cutting the sides loose.

Place the cut-out Santiago cross on top and sprinkle it with icing sugar.

Carefully remove the cross and enjoy.

Roscón de Reyes (Out of season cooking 2)

2011-05-02T11:21:00.003+02:00

For the Three Wise Men celebration in Spain it's the tradition to share a ring shaped cake, the roscón de reyes, with a small figurine or a bean in side. Who ever finds it is crowned king for the day (at least within the family and as long as they don't break their teeth) but will also have to pay for the cake next year (no one ever seems to remember this though). As the cake can be quite expensive for what they are, I thought I'd dabble with it myself and found the home-made version far superior to any one I'd ever tried. So here goes:

Ingredients:
650g Bread flour (high percentage of gluten)
250 ml. milk
25-30 gr. fresh yeast
120 gr. sugar
120 gr. soft butter
2 eggs
1 extra egg yolk
2.5 tbsp. orange blossom water (the secret ingredient which gives the roscón its special taste)
3 tbsp. contreau or rum
Shredded peel of 1 lemon and 1 orange (not the white part, only the outside)
Decoration:
Candies fruit
Sugar
1 egg
A heat resistant figurine or bean
Filling:
Whipping cream
Sugar
Vanilla

In a bowl, add 50 ml of lukewarm milk, 3 tbsp flour and the crumbled fresh yeast. Cover it and set aside for 1 hour for the yeast to get going.

After an hour, add the rest of the ingredients with the soft butter at the end.

Knead well, and by well I mean 10 minutes. Add a little flour if too sticky, but remember it should be rather wet and just slipping off your fingers.

Place it in the bowl, cover and set aside to rise for 2 hours. It should have doubled by them. Punch the air out and knead it lightly. this will prevent bubbles from becoming too big inside the bread.

Flatten it and make a whole in the middle. Stretch it out evenly and form a ring. Remember to make the centre whole big as it will keep growing during the final rise and baking. Stick the figurine in some where from underneath so it isn't seen. Cover for 1 more hour to rise. Beat the extra egg and brush it on the cake. Decorate with candied fruit and sugar.

Bake in the middle of the oven at 180ºC for 20-25 minutes or until it's golden brown on the outside. Take it out and place it on a cooling rack for at least 20-30 minutes. The cake is still baking on the inside.

Whipp some cream with some sugar and vanilla. Cut the roscón open and add the cream.

Panna Cotta with blueberries

2011-05-02T10:36:00.003+02:00

Almost as easy as going out to buy a dessert. Panna Cotta (which sounds a lot more appetizing in Italian than when translated to 'cooked cream') is really dead simple. You just need to boil some cream, add sugar, vanilla and gelatin. The hardest part is waiting for it to set. It's often accompanied by fruit or berries but can easily be enjoyed on its own. I had some frozen blueberries left over and thought I'd add them to the mix. I also used a siphon to make the mixture a little lighter and more like a mousse, but it's absolutely dispensable. Give it a try, you can thank me later...

Ingredients:
300 ml cream (I used whipping cream)
200 ml semi skimmed milk (you can vary the amounts according to your diet)
4 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 sheets of gelatin
1 handful of frozen blueberries (optional)

Start by leaving the gelatin in cold water to soak while preparing the rest. This allows it to 'bloom', i.e. absorb some water and become malleable. Mix the milk and cream, heat it to a light simmer (I use the microwave, but you can use a pot). Add the vanilla and sugar. Stir it in until dissolved. Remove the excess water from the gelatin, which by now should be soft, and add a bit of the hot cream. Stir till it dissolves and add it to the rest of the cream. Stir it in well. Set aside to cool down a bit.

To make a layer of blueberries, I put the frozen berries at the bottom of a bread form and pour just enough cream over to almost cover them. As they are frozen they will make the cream set faster. Put them in the freezer to speed the process up a bit further. If you just pour all the cream over they will float to the top and when turned out on a plate they will be at the bottom.

When the blueberry part has become all stiff after 5-10 minutes pour the rest of the cream on top. I used a siphon to make it a little more like a mousse, but I know that only the kitchen freaks have one of those, so don't worry. Let it set in the fridge for about 4 hours.

The final panna cotta with a blueberry layer on top. Great dessert when you've got a lot of other things to do...

Octopus Stew as seen on Ramsay's F-Word

2011-04-24T10:47:00.004+02:00

I love cooking shows. Master Chef, The F Word, Kitchen Nightmares (The British version for sure), In Search of Perfection, Good Eats, Jamie Oliver, the lot. Great inspiration for the kitchen. In the recent edition of the F Word, Ramsay had local restaurants battle it out in the kitchen to become the best locale restaurant. He had divided the contestants into categories according to their cuisine. In the best Italian restaurant episode Ramsay went to Italy to catch some Octopus and ended up making a little octopus stew. From what I could see, this is how he did it.

Ingredients:
1 octopus
Splash white wine
salt, pepper
Bay leaf
1 red chilli
1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 plump tomatoes
Olives
1 tbsp. Capers
Fresh Parsley
1 to 2 cups of fish stock
Olive oil

Bring a big pot of water to a boil, add plenty of salt, a bit of white wine, and 1 or 2 bay leafs. Rinse the octopus and boil it in the water 10 minutes under lid.
Meanwhile, fry the chilli, onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil at medium heat until it's soft and translucent.
Take out the octopus, remove as much of the skin as you can. Cut the tentacles in bite sizes, and use the meaty part of the head. Discard the rest.

Add the octopus to the onions, along with the chopped tomatoes, chopped olives, capers and parsley.
Add fish stock and a bit of olive oil. Let it simmer without lid 30-35 minutes until the stock is reduced and thickened.

One tasty octopus stew coming up.

Asparagus Soup

2011-04-24T09:10:00.004+02:00

Spring is here, asparagus season has just started, so there's no excuse not to go and make yourself a big bowl of soothing asparagus soup. Here's my version.

Ingredients:
2 bunches of green asparagus
1 litre of chicken stock (vegetable stock can be used if vegetarian)
1 tsp butter
1 tsp flour
1 egg yolk
Salt to taste

Cut the dry end off the asparagus and cut then in to smaller pieces. Bring the chicken stock to boil, add the asparagus. I usually add the tougher parts first, simmer then for 10 minutes before adding the much more tender top parts and let it simmer for a further 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, I mix the flour and the softened butter into a ball.

After simmering the asparagus, blend them with a stick blender.

Stir in the butter/flour ball. Make sure it dissolves completely. Bring it back to a simmer so it thickens a bit. At this stage you can pass it through a sieve. This way you won't find pieces of stringy asparagus fibres in your soup.

Put your yolk in a cup, add a spoonful of the soup to temper it. Stir it back in to the warm soup and stir. This adds a bit of extra creaminess and taste. Just don't bring it back to a boil or the egg will coagulate.
Serve with bread.

Hot Chocolate (Out of Season Cooking)

2011-04-10T23:10:00.003+02:00

Today it was 25ºC outside and not the ideal weather for a cup of steaming hot chocolate drink. Nevertheless, that was our breakfast with freshly made churros (Spanish doughnut sticks for the uninitiated) from down the street. It's probably one of the last chances before the weather turns really beastly hot, so why not. For the same reason we're eating hearty stews to clear out space in the freezer and cupboards. Anyway, to the recipe. Dead simple really, but lifts your average chocolate drink up a few nudges.

Ingredients:
200ml cream
200ml milk
1 vanilla pod, cut lengthwise
1/2 chilli cut lengthwise
Small stick of cinnamon
2 pieces of orange peel
150g good quality dark chocolate

Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla pod, add them along with the pod itself, the chilli, cinnamon and orange peel. Bring to a simmer, turn off the heat and let it infuse 10 minutes. Meanwhile chop the dark chocolate finely.

Fish out the chilli, orange peel, cinnamon and vanilla pod. Add the chocolate to the still warm milk. Bring it back to a near simmer while stirring. You don't want it to boil, just enough to make all the chocolate melt.

Drink on its own if you can't find any churros.

Leek Soup w. Bacon Bits

2011-03-21T22:23:00.004+01:00

Just happened to have come in possession of lots of leeks. So how do you quickly get a handful of them out of the way? Make leek soup.

Ingredients:
5 Leeks
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 l. chicken stock
1 squirt of sherry
Salt, pepper
Bacon for the non-vegetarians

Start by removing the outer leaves and cut the leek open lengthwise, stopping just before the root end. Rinse them thoroughly.

Chop them and sweat them in butter. Add a bit of salt to draw out the water from the leek.

When they are all soft and cooked, add the grated nutmeg and the flour. Stir it in and let the flour cook a bit. Make sure you keep stirring. The Flour will start to stick to the base and make the leek lump together. Don't worry, it's all part of the plan.

Add the chicken stock and stir. The flour will thicken it.

Fry the bacon, or place it between two pieces of kitchen towel and blast it in the microwave for aprox. 2 minutes. It'll be crispy and have less fat and less cleaning to do. Set aside.

When the soup has simmered for 5-10 minutes, blend it with a stick blender.

Add a bit of sherry for effect, taste for salt and pepper.

Cut the bacon in small pieces and sprinkle them into the soup.

Grandma's Warm Potato Salad

2011-03-20T22:49:00.002+01:00

This is my grandmother's recipe for warm potato salad. It's a sweet and sour side dish which goes great with pork, sausages. Simple to make and a good everyday dish, but not sure why she calls it a salad, though.

Ingredients:
Potatoes (as many as you'd normally make, depending on how many you are)
1 onion
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
Salt and pepper

Start by boiling the potatoes. Better a bit overcooked than undercooked.

Meanwhile, slice the onion finely and fry the in the butter with some salt until they start going translucent. Then add a cup of water and the sugar. Let it simmer 10 minutes.

By then the potatoes should be about done. Drain the water, slice or cut them into chunks. Add them to the onions and stir. The starch will thicken the liquid. Add the vinegar, pepper and taste for salt. You might want to add extra vinegar according to taste.
Serve warm.

Blueberry Milkshake in 10 Seconds

2011-03-20T22:36:00.003+01:00

Super-fast, delicious and probably quite good for you. We were short of a dessert after a lovely lunch at our new balcony, so while rummaging round for any forgotten ice cream at the base of our freezer, I came across a bag of frozen blueberries. 'I'll make my own ice cream,' I thought and proceeded to blend the berries with some sugar, vanilla and a glass of milk. It wasn't as much of an ice cream as I had hoped, but more like a cool blueberry milkshake. But 'oh, boy' was it delicious. I know what I'll be drinking throughout the summer now. Try it, it's great.

You'll need:
1 glass of frozen blueberries
1 tbsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of vanilla sugar
1 glass of milk

Just blend and enjoy.

Broccoli Soup

2011-03-01T11:55:00.002+01:00

I'm not the biggest fan of broccoli, but, somehow, I've become a big fan of broccoli soup. And it's so easy to make. You don't need anything apart from broccoli, water and a bit of salt. If you want to make it fancy, you can spice it up with some walnuts, almonds, bits of fried bacon, parmesan, or my favourite, blue cheese. Of course, it's healthier on it's own. High in vitamin C and lots of nutrients with anti-cancer properties. I'll show you how to make it.

Wash your broccoli, turn it upside down and cut off the florets. Cut the stalk into thin slices.

Put it in a big bowl of boiling water. At plenty of salt. The trick is to cook them as fast as possible. Put a lid on and boil for 4-5 minutes or until a knife goes through the broccoli.
Put the broccoli in a blender. Fill it up with halfway up to the height of the broccoli with the same water you boiled it in.
By holding a kitchen towel on top of the blend and giving it light pulses to begin with, you will avoid it explodes and scolds you. Blend till smooth.
Serve with a slice of toasted bread and any of the aforementioned fillings. I've used walnuts and Cabrales blue cheese.

5000 Visits - Best cheesecake ever to celebrate

2011-02-22T10:01:00.004+01:00

As I'm about to have my visit #5000 I thought I'd celebrate with my favourite cake - Cheesecake. I know 5000 might not be that much (and half of them are probably myself), but for a small independent blog that started just as an extension to some recipes I posted on Facebook, I'm quite content. And to say thank you to everyone who has ever visited Skytte's Kitchen, I'd like to invite you for a slice of cake... if you make it yourself, obviously. I have tried various recipes for cheesecake, all good, but some a bit heavy, others a bit flavourless. But then I tried making a cheesecake I saw on Alton Brown's programme Good Eats, and bam! there was the perfect combination: Light (in texture, not in calories), creamy, flavourful. Try it out, you won't regret... Start by turning on your oven at 150ºC.

Ingredients:
Base:
35 Biscuits (Graham's, Marie, or Digestives)
120ml Melted Butter
1 tbsp. White Sugar
Cake:
350ml Sour cream
570g Philadelphia Cream Cheese
240 ml Sugar
80ml Cream
1 tbsp Vanilla
3 Egg Yolks
2 Whole Eggs
Topping:
Any jam of your liking

Start by crushing the biscuits finely. I used to put them in a plastic bag and hammer them with a rolling pin. The result is what you see in the picture: lots of big chunks. It's OK, but since I've got a food processor, It seems to do the job even more finely and leaving less a mess. Mix it with the sugar and the melted butter until it has the consistency of wet sand.

Get out your spring form, fold up a piece of baking paper and cut it at the radius of the form.
Unfold it and stick it to the base with a bit of water or butter. Cut a long strip for the sides. This will make it so much easier to remove the cake once done.

Put the biscuit mix in, hammer it down with the base of a glass so it's firm and equally thick all over. Bake it for 10 minutes at 150ºC.

Meanwhile, pour your sour cream into a bowl. Mix it for a minute at mid speed just by it self. this will help loosen it up.

Add the cream cheese and the sugar. Mix it well, first at slow speed, then at medium until smooth. Scrape down the sides and mix a bit more.

In a second bowl, mix the cream, vanilla, yolks and eggs. If the eggs are small, add another yolk. Beat well until smooth, light and creamy.

Pour half of the egg mixture into the cheese, mix and scrape down the sides. I keep insisting on scraping down the sides and bottom as you might have lumps of unmixed cheese. Then add the rest of the eggs and mix.

Pour over the baked biscuit base. Tap the whole thing lightly against the table so the bubbles will flow to the top. Reduce the heat of the oven to 120ºC. According to the original recipe you have to place the cake in a bain-marie. I don't have another recipient which is big enough to hold the spring form. If you do, great. Just make sure your spring form is water proof, or you'll have a soggy base. Bake at 120º for 1 hour. Then turn off the oven but leave the cake inside for an hour more. If you're a perfectionist the centre should have reached (but not surpassed) 65º. Take the cake out and let it cool down completely! It might seem a bit soft but that should all be good once it settles.

Spread out any jam of your liking on top, remove from the spring form, peel off the baking paper on the side and cut it with a clean knife. To get perfect slices every time, clean the knife and dip it in warm water between each cut. The result should speak for itself.

Remebering Bulgaria

2011-02-20T09:41:00.004+01:00

If food is one of your criteria when choosing your holiday destination, Bulgaria is not to be missed. As I haven't been on the net, really, since last summer, here's a little post with some of the wonderful dishes we enjoyed on our gastro-holiday there last July. We flew to Varna, rented a car and drove all over eastern Bulgaria. Our first stop was the central town of Veliko Tarnovo. Here we ate better than anywhere else. If you go, do visit the Shtastlivetsa (Lucky Man) restaurant. Really good food, at the same low prices as anywhere in Bulgaria. Later we returned to Varna, which is turning into any other touristy beach destination. For the authentic Bulgarian cuisine, go inland. Here's some of what we had:

As a general trait, the menus are page after page of seemingly similar dishes. Expect to spend 15 minutes just going through the choices (e.g. one salad comes with egg, the next one is identical but without egg and has a different name). But the best way to start is to order a salad. They are base of any meal we had, and we've never tasted better tomatoes in our life. Living in Spain, that's something. I tried to copy it here.
In all the guides it says you have to try the shopska salad. We did, and it's fine. But they just had some many other interesting salads on offer. Many of which, like this with bacon, a poached egg, roasted red pepper an dbread, were a meal in themselves.
Shopska salad with roasted aubergine
Shopska with eggs.
Deep-fried potato cakes.

Croquettes
A selection of starters. We always ended up ordering much more than we could actually eat. As the salads are quite substantial, and all the starters really tempting, it's so easy to overdo your orders.
Chicken and asparagus salad. Great for the children.
Different dips. Tomato and spices, red roe, and yoghurt and dill if I remember right.
The main courses are really good as well. They are often cooked in small earthenware pots called sash. I wanted to buy some, but only found them in high-priced tourist shops.
My beautiful girlfriend enjoying stuffing herself. Even the local wine was surprisingly good.
Mushroom and potato 'yobaché' (sorry, if I don't spell the words correctly)
Chicken and cheese guyvetch which tasted a whole lot better than it sounded and looked.
Enjoying fish on a pirate ship (!) at the seaside town of Burgas.

Even the local fast food restaurant chain Happy Bar and Grill served pretty tempting dishes.

Luckily, the Bulgarians are not big on dessert. There's simply no space left after dinner. They do, however, have lots of ice cream stands everywhere for those afternoon strolls.

Pork tenderloin stuffed with dates and hazelnuts

2011-02-20T08:45:00.003+01:00

The pork tenderloin is in itself a wonderful little piece of meat, but with this simple recipe you'll turn it into something truly spectacular. It's a great autumn or winter dish, and apart from tying the piece together (which isn't hard at all) the rest is really dead-simple. Here's how:

Ingredients (3-4 people):
1 pork tenderloin
A handful of hazelnuts
A handful of pitless dates
A couple of twigs of fresh parsley
1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan (not the pregrated stuff, please!)
Salt and pepper
Olive oil for frying
For the sauce:
1 tsp flour
Worstershire sauce
1 cup of cream

Turn on your oven at 180º. Start by removing the silvery line of connecting tissue and any excessive fat. Cut off the thin end, so you end up with a regularly sized piece of meat.

Place the cut-off end piece in a food processor along with the rest of the ingredients. Add a little pepper. Remember the parmesan is already salty, so don't add too much salt at this stage. Whiz it until you have a paste. You can add an egg white if it seems very dry. Don't have a food processor? Get out the old chopping board and start chopping.

Cut the loin down the middle but stop a couple of millimetres from going all the way through. Open it up like a book. Cut into each side of the opened piece of meat, to open it even further. You can now give it a couple of superficial, diagonal slashes, place a piece of cling film on top and hammer it flat with the base of a pan or any other heavy piece of kitchen equipment. This will do two things; 1) the meat will extend more and 2) it will become equally thick all over which allows for an even cooking time (one of the golden rules of cooking).

Turn it over and place a "sausage" of the filling down in the middle. Roll it up. Don't worry if stuffing comes out the ends - it almost always does. Make a loop on a piece of kitchen twine. Tie one end of your rolled up meat together and then just, carefully, tie the rest of the meat together. If you're a fancy chef, there are elaborated ways to do this, but trust me, even the simplest of knots won't affect the taste. You just want to prevent the meat from opening up.
Season the meat well and sear it until its brown on all sides in a frying pan. Finish it off in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 180º, depending on the size of your piece of meat. If you have a oven thermometer, the internal temperature should reach 72º. When finished, take it out, wrap it in tinfoil, while making the sauce. The sauce is made by simply adding a teaspoon of flour to the pan the tenderloin was cooked in, add a bit of extra oil if it's very dry. Don't worry about any stuck pieces of meat, this is all part of the fond. Fry the flour for a minute until it starts sticking to everything. Then pour in splash of worstershire sauce, and a cup of cream. Stir constantly while heating it slowly. Taste for salt and pepper.

Remove the twine and cut the end bits off. Cut the rest into 3 or 4 pieces. Serve with the sauce, rice or potatoes and a nice, fresh salad.

Short recipe for short bread

2011-02-11T10:06:00.002+01:00

Keeping it simple --- and delicious. A quick and easy recipe for short bread. I'm using Dulce de Leche as my caramel filling, which is a reduction of sweetened milk. It has a very nice toffee taste and you'll probably be able to find it in your supermarket. If not, check out if there's any Latin-America food shop in your area. They will have it for sure. If not, you can try and make your own toffee by melting sugar, adding butter and cream, or boiling a can of Condenced Milk (pinch the seal, place in bain marie for 60-90 minutes, the whisk it), but that's an entire different post. The rest is very easy.

Ingredients:
Base:
170g butter at room temperature
50 grams sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
210 white flour
1/8 tsp table salt
Topping:
400g Dulce de Leche
170g Dark chocolate
1 tsp butter

Beat the softened butter with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour until it just sticks together like a ball.

Roll it out on a piece of lightly floured baking paper. It should be about 0,5cm thick. Bake for 20 minutes at 170ºC.

Let it cool down for a few minutes. Spread out a layer of Dulce de Leche.
Chop and melt the chocolate slowly with the teaspoon of butter. Microwave is good for this, if you do it in short intervals, stirring it between each blast. Careful not to over heat the chocolate. You just need it to melt, no more. Spread it out over the Dulce de Leche. Let it cool down. Before the chocolate hardens too much, cut it in squares with a sharp knife.

Keep them in the fridge so the chocolate is nice and crunchy when you bite into them. But be warned: They are highly addictive.

Frozen Yoghurt - As simple as 1, 2, 3...

2011-02-07T11:08:00.003+01:00

When I did a bit of investigation into how frozen yoghurt was made I came across a lot of quite elaborate and time consuming recipes for something, which by it's very name should be nothing more than just that... FROZEN yoghurt. Luckily, it's actually as simple as that. So time to get your ice cream churner out and start making a delicious, tangy alternative to ice cream. Whereas you can make this recipe simply by freezing the yoghurt, it tends to get hard and crystalize more if you don't use an ice cream maker. Using the ice cream maker improves the crystalisation process of the water in the yoghurt with a smoother texture as a result. If you haven't got one, get one. They are quite cheap and your kids will love you for it.

Ingredients:
Yoghurt: (about a cup per person), preferably greek which is creamier
Sugar: (depends on how sweet the youghurt is and how you like it, maybe 1/2 tbsp. per person)
Flavour: I used vanilla, other options; jam, shredded chocolate, finely chopped or mashed fruit.

First of all, put the frost bowl for the ice cream maker in the freezer at least 24 hours in advance. Mix the sugar and flavour into the yoghurt. Let it sit for 20 minutes in the freezer. This will do 2 things: 1) Let the sugar disolve. Remeber to stir again. 2) It will churn faster.

Pour the very cold yoghurt into the ice cream maker while the blade is moving. Churn for about 10-20 minutes or until creamy as soft ice.

Serve as is, or place it in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to firm up a bit more.

Arriba Arepas! (Back to blogging, finally)

2011-02-02T16:17:00.007+01:00

Hello again!!! I've finally got back on the Internet after months of only having some awful mobile connection. So it's time to start posting recipes again. We moved out of our old flat back in November and, after much renovation, we're slowly beginning to think of our new place as a home. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the kitchen is probably my least favourite part of our new flat. I still can't find things when I need them, we've got a vitro-ceramic cooker in stead of the old faithful gas stove and there's a serious lack of table space for chopping and preparing food. On the upside, I love the oven where I can finally controle the temperature beyond warm, hot and extremely hot.

Well, time to get cooking. I'll start off with a recipe for Arepas which I made ages ago. If you don't know what arepas are, they are a kind of corn bun from Venezuela and Colombia. You can fill them with anything you'd normally put in your buritos or tacos. I'm terrible sorry I can't remember the exact measures, but I think I usually go by feeling anyway. The dough should bind together without being neither too dry, nor too wet. That probably doesn't mean much, but you can always look at the bag of flour. It has the ratios.

Ingredients

Precooked corn flour (Harina P.A.N.; not the fine kind, but the one that resembles sand in texture, in a yellow bag)

Milk

Butter

Fresh sweet corn (Optional)

Chopped scalion (Optional)

Salt

Shredde cheese (Optional)

Filling according to taste

Warm up the milk untill it just stats to simmer. Add a spoonful of butter into the milk and lt it melt.
Mix the flour and the rest of the ingredients.

Pour over the milk, mix it and press it together to a ball with your hands. Leave it to rest 10 minutes. Remember the flour will absorb the liquid, so better add a bit too much than too little.

Shape the dough by hand into flat patties the size of hamburges. Wet your hands a bit to smooth ot the edges and any cracks in them.

Fry them in oil. Don't touch them straight away or they will stick to the pan. Let them form a crust.

Flip them over once they are golden.

Tap them with a bit of kitchen paper to remove any excess grease. Cut a pocket in them and fill them with chicken, cheese, lettuce, guacamole or whatever you desire.

Zebra

2010-10-06T16:18:00.005+02:00

At my local market, one of the meat vendors has all this exotic meat on display which I have often glanced at. So back in September, for my birthday, I decided it was time to try some of it out. Ok, you do pay premium price, but often can you tell your friends that you're frying zebra, crocodile or kangaroo for dinner? And it's only my birthday once a year so I treated my girlfriend and myself for this package of zebra loin. I had no idea of cooking it so I asked the butcher for a suggestion. He said just to fry it for a minute or less on each side, to eat it no more than medium cooked. I decided just to make a some potatoes in the oven and a bit of exotic ketchup to go with it. And the verdict? It tasted gamey with a hint of liver (in a good way), but it wasn't strong at all. Quite mild in the flavour. Though it was good, I won't be rushing out to get more unless the price goes down. As an experiment it's well worth trying though.

Ingredients:

Zebra meat

4 potatoes

2 tomatoes

1 tbsp ginger flavoured jam (or fruit jam + some ginger)

Thyme

Olive oil

The meat, take it out so it's at room temperature.

Fry the tomatoes with some jam and a bit of ginger in some oliveoil

Add a bit of thyme

Slice the potatoes, season them with salt. Toss them with some olive oil. Put them in the oven for 20 minutes. Turn them, sprinkle them with a bit of paprika. Give them another 20 minutes or until they are crispy.

On a hot grill or frying pan, fry the meat for one minute or less. Add a bit of quality salt. Turn. I use a grill as it leaves nice stripes on the meat (guess why...)

Serve and eat while warm.

A close-up of the meat. Nice and juice...

Sneak preview and Bulgarian Salad

2010-08-30T10:20:00.004+02:00

How complicated it is to maintain a blog when you don’t really have access to the old Internet. But I’ll give you a small teaser/taster of what is to come once I return to the 21^st century. I’ve been making a great paella, frying up some arepas, meddled with some falafels, and not least will there be a photo tour of our gastroholidays in Bulgaria. The picture below is from an amazing salad we had in Veliko Tarnovo in one of it’s best restaurant called Shtastlivetsa (Lucky Man). And then I tried to copycat it in the picture below.

Ingredients: Lettuce, tomatoes (the best tomatoes I’ve ever had were Bulgarian, without a doubt), cucumber, red onion rings, olives, crispy bacon, chicken pieces fried in paprika and oregano, white bulgarian cheese (similar to feta, but not as salty), jalapeños instead of chilies, and a paste made of mushed red pepper with white cheese. Before serving it’s given a quick shot of olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and dill. It brought us back to Bulgaria if not for longer than the duration of the dinner.

Original version...

My copycat version.

Apologies for poor maintenance of this blog

2010-08-05T18:26:00.002+02:00

Hello dear reader of this blog,

I just thought I needed to explain why this blog apparently has gone dead all of a sudden. We were about to buy a house when the owner suddenly pulled out at the very last minute. We had already packed everything, cancelled our monthly bills and were ready to move out. Luckily we could stay in our rented apartment, but they cut the phone bill and thus the Internet connection. So until further notice, I will be cooking away (as soon as all my kitchen tools are unpacked), taking lots of photos and, as soon as I'm back up again I will work my way through new recipes and post them here bit by bit. Not least from the inspiration I've picked up from travelling through Bulgaria this summer. The food there is superb and dead cheap. You'll hear more when our Internet Provider decides to give us our line back.

Until then, happy cooking to all!

Yummy Sourdough Buns with Oats, Sunflower and Flax Seeds

2010-06-28T18:12:00.003+02:00

I wonder how many have made the sourdough starter I published about a month ago. Well, I thought not, so you are already hopelessly behind and will miss out on these babies. Ok, you can substitute the sourdough with regular yeast, but, come on, it's not really the same experience. My starter is still alive and healthy and I feed it regularly whenever I'm baking bread (about once a week). And if you haven't got a sourdough culture going, you can't really call yourself a food nerd yet, can you? Furthermore, you might want to check out my recipe for strawberry jam as well. Read on to find out why.

Ingredients:
350 ml lukewarm water
3-4 tbsp sourdough starter
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
100g whole wheat flour
150g + 250g white flour
25g flax seeds
75 g sunflower seeds
100g oat flakes
50 ml olive oil

Dissolve the sourdough starter in the fingerwarm water. Add the salt and sugar.

Add the wholewheat flour and 150g of white flour. Set it aside somewhere warm and wait for this "sponge" to come alive. It's active when it is quite bubbly and frothy. It took about 1 hour in my case but might depend on your sourdough starter and room temperature.

Add the seeds and oats. Mix them in.
Stir in the oil. Add the rest of the flour.

Knead the bread for about 10 minutes. No, not 3 or 5 or 15 minutes... 10 minutes!

Form the dough to a ball. Rub it lightly with olive oil and set it aside covered until it has doubled in size. Again, this depends on so many things, so just keep an eye on it. When it's doubled in size, it's ready.
Punch down the dough and divide it into 10-12 balls, which you shape in the palm of your hands. Cover them and let them rise one last time. It took me about 45 minutes. Sourdough is quite slower than industrial yeast.

Bake in a very hot, preheated oven at 220º for about 16 minutes. It's always a good trick to add a tray with water in the oven and/or spray water into the oven with a vaporiser. This raises the humidity in the oven and makes the buns puff up more. Transfer to a cooling rack once they are done. Don't cut into them right away, but way at least 20 minutes.
And then you will be rewarded with these goodies which are actually really healthy and good for you. That is until you spread them with butter and add a dollop of homemade strawberry jam.

My favourite Pizza Sauce

2010-06-28T17:43:00.002+02:00

This is not the first time I publish a pizza recipe. But I'd like to elaborate a bit on the key topping; the tomato sauce. I've been further experimenting and have now reached what I personally think is the perfect pizza sauce. I've borrowed ideas from left and right and will now pass on my idea to you. It's always dangerous to talk about the perfect recipe because taste is so individual and tied up with experience and memories. But give it a try and let me know how it turned out.

Ingredients:
2-3 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, smashed, not crushed
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 a cayenne pepper, whole
2 tomato vines
1 can of quality tomatoes, chopped
1/2-1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Start by warming up the oil and throw in the dry herbs, the garlic and the cayenne. Stir constantly for 1 minute. You want to heat up the spices, not burn them.

Add the tomato and the vine. I usually freeze the stalks whenever I buy tomatoes on the vine. There is so much flavour in the vine, but apparently they contain a very small amount of a poisonous alkaloid called tomatine. However, the amount should be so small that it is virtually harmless. But just in case you are pregnant, best to avoid this step. I then cook it in a preasure cooker for 10 minutes. I guess you can also slow cook it at a low heat for longer.

Then, remove the vines and blend the sauce.

Add sherry vinegar to taste (depends on how sour the tomatoes are). Add the sugar and taste for salt.

Let it cool off before spreading it onto your pizza.

Quick Butter/Flour Dumplings

2010-06-18T11:27:00.006+02:00

This is just more like a quick idea than an actual recipe. I was making a simple stew yesterday and was kind of short on veggies to add to the dish, so I remembered these flour dumplings people used to make as a filler. I don't know if it was during war time, recession or whatever, but I thought 'why no give them a try'. It's really simple, cheap and not at all as floury as I expected. You need 2 parts flour (I mixed half corn flour/half wheat flour) to one part butter, some salt and pepper, a splash of water and that's it.

Mix the flour with salt and pepper and the butter until it has a sand-like texture. I wizzed it quickly in my foodprocessor.

Add a bit of water until it starts binding together. I used perhaps 1/2 dl. Put it on the table.

Roll it into a sausage, cut it into small lumps and shape them into balls. I'm sure that if you have children, they will love to help you with this.

Make sure there is plenty of liquid in the stew as the dumplings do absorb quite a bit. Boil them for about half an hour. Make sure they are fully submerged.

Final result...

Coconut and Lime Ice Cream

2010-06-08T10:56:00.002+02:00

It's summer and the temperatures are finally on the rise after a long and wet spring. And with the sun comes the craving for ice cream. I've bought a motorised ice cream churner and is thus set for whatever may come my way. Last year I posted various recipes for home made ice cream (banana, strawberry, vanilla, cheese cake and a fail attempt at mint flavour) and now I'm back with a more exotic flavour: Lime and coconut. It's really simple and sooo refreshing. You should give it a try.

Ingredients

1 can of coconut milk

1 cup of sugar

Juice of 2 limes + the zest of one of them

Pinch of salt

Slowly heat up the can of coconut milk, add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the lime juice and the grated zest of one of them. Let it cool down and then place it in the freezer for 1 hour.

When the mixture is really cold (almost freezing) add it to your ice cream maker. If it's not cold enough it will take a long time to make. Churn until it has the consistency of a sorbet and transfer it to a container. Freeze further to harden the ice cream.

Here's the final result. It get's quite hard in my freezer, so I needed to take it out 10-20 minutes before serving. Hope you enjoy it.

Semi-wholewheat Sourdough No-knead Bread

2010-05-30T10:21:00.006+02:00

No-knead recipes are now everywhere and is quickly becoming the most popular bread baking method around. I first heard about it through NY-Time's food journalist, Mark Bittman, where he showed the simplicity of this method stating that even a 4-year-old could make a better bread than your typical baker. That was quite a statement. (Un)fortunately, I'm not 4 years old but I had to try it for myself anyway. First time was a success. I then saw my food guru, Chef John Mitzewich, from foodwishes.com do a Italian ciabatta with the same recipe, and later pizza dough. The road was open to experimentation...

The key to this bread is making a dough which isn't too dry or too wet in a flour/water ration of aproximately 2:1 with a very small amount of yeast and a teaspoon and a half of salt. For any good bread you need to deelope the gluten in the dough, which is basically two proteins which makes the flour elastic. This elasticity alows the dough to expand around the tiny bubbles made by the yeast fermenting. As a result the bread will rise and become more chewy and not be flat and crumbly. In traditional bread baking, gluten is developed by kneading the bread for about 10 minutes. Larger amounts of yeast is also needed to speed up the rising process.

In this no-knead method, however, the the mount of leavening is reduced and the kneading step is skipped, hence the name. A small amount of leavening agent is used which creates a slower rising, up to 18 hours. This in turn, not only helps developing the gluten by itself, it also makes the bread more flavoursome. I'd sofar only used yeast, but since I made my sourdough starter I've been experimenting with this. Here's the recipe I came up with:

Ingrediets:
120g wholewheat flour
340g bread flour
1.5 tsp salt
330 ml purified water
aprx. 60 ml sourdough starter
Alternative recipe - Ingredients 4-year-old method:
4 cups flour
2 cupswater
1.5 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast

Start by mixing the dry ingredients, flour and salt.

Whisk out the bubbles of your sourdough starter and measure out about 60 ml. Dissolve in the water. Add it to the flour.

Mix it together until you have a ball of dough. It shouldn't be too sticky, but likewise not to dry. This is where a bit of practice will help. Now you are done. Leave it covered at room temperature. Originally, they say you need 18 hours but I've found that it depends a lot the temperature. The last I made I left only 10 hours, as we're starting to get warmer nights now here in Spain.

When it's risen to a bit over double and starting to look wet on top, it's about ready. The dough is now very sticky and elastic as you will see when you pour it out on a well-floured table.

Spread more flour on top and on your fingers. Punch the dough a bit and stretch it and fold it over itself. Shape it into a ball. Place in a well floured proofing bowl and leave it covered with a tea towel for 1-2 hours.

Heat up your oven to 230º. The original recipe now call for using a dutch oven (cast iron stewing pot) which should be place in the oven so it's smoking hot. I'd just like to say I've made bread with out it which turned out fine as long as you remember to add a bowl of water into the oven to increase the humidity. Anyway, when the oven is hot, quickly transfer the bread to the pot. Score it on top with a sharp knife. Put a lid on and bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes or when the internal temperature of the bread hits 93ºC (yes, you can use and oven thermometre for bread making as well).

Here's the final bread. The last crucial step is not to cut into the bread for the first 30 minutes. At this time the bread is still baking. What you can do to make this time g faster is put your ear close to the bread and enjoy the small crackling noises it makes when cooling down.

Sourdough

2010-05-24T14:03:00.004+02:00

It’s wild, it’s fungi... its’ sourdough. Ok, so you want to bake bread, but you haven’t got any yeast. On the other hand you’ve got 4 or 5 days to spend. Why not try and make your own sourdough starter. Sourdough is a wild yeast culture, where instead of using industrial yeast, you take advantage of the wild yeast flying around in the air and in the flour. I’ve been trying a couple of times to get a soughdough starter going, but haven’t really been successful sofar. Everytime it started bubbling a bit and then just went flat and died. Yeast is a living organism which needs the right amount of care and attention plus good conditions for living. If it’s too hot they die, if there isn’t enough stuff to feed on the stop reproducing, and (which I think is why I didn’t have much success previously), you your tap water has chlorine in it it might also kill the little germs. So, yes, you will be growing your own small bacteria, which is why it’s so fun, and if you’re further interested in the science behind it I recommend looking it up on wikipedia. The method which finally brought me a good healthy sourdough starter was one posted on Breadtopia, a great page for the homebaker in you. And should you have any doubts about how to do it, look up his much more elaborate video guide on how to make this starter.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 + 2 + 5 1/4 tbsp + 120ml wholewheat flour (apparently recently milled flour is not as good as older flour)

60 + 30 ml unsweetened pineapple juice

3 tbsp + 60 ml purified water (i.e. bottled water)

On day one, start by mixing 3 1/2 tbsp wholewheat flour with 60 ml. pineaple juice. I used some from a can, just make sure there is no sugar added.

Then you have to leave it for 48 hours at room temperature, mixing it well 2 to 3 times a day. This will mix in the yeast forming on the surface.

W ater will gather on top, which is perfectly normal. Just mix it in.

After 48 hours, add 2 tbsp of whole wheat flour and 2 tbsp of pineapple juice. Set it aside for another day or two.

You should start to see small bubles forming on the surface. This is the fermentation going on. It should also start to smell a bit of yeast or beer. It's all good. If there is no fermentation after 2 days, and/or if it starts smelling strange or grows any kind of mold, discard it and start again.

Provided all is well, feed it 5 1/4 tbsp of wholewheat flour and 3 tbsp of purified water (I used spring water from a bottle). Mix it in and leave another 24 hours at room temperature, stirring 2 to 3 times.

It should now have risen a bit and gone frothy or bubbly, this means your sourdough is almost ready. Notice how the starter is now thick with bubbles.

In a larger container mix 120ml of wholewheat flour with 60 to 80 ml of purified water. Add your sourdugh starter to this. Stir well and leave it another 24 hours before you start using it.

If all has gone right, you now have an active, living yeast organism. Put the mixture in the fridge until you're going to use it. This will slow down the process of fermentation. Take it out of the fridge 24 hours before using it to re-animate it. It's also recommendable to feed it 1 or two days before use by adding equal amounts of water and flour. This will strenghten the culture. If you are not using it, keep it in the fridge but pour away half and add a fresh mixture of flour and water once a week or every two weeks. But reportedly, it will even last up to month even if neglected completely. Good luck.

Mother-in-law's Lemon Sponge Cake

2010-05-22T09:08:00.003+02:00

This recipe has been handed down through my girlfriend's family for generations and is a one tasty sponge cake with a hint of lemon and olive oil. What I particularly like about it is the simplicity of measuring everything. You start out with a cup of yoghurt and then the same cup is the measuring cup for everything else. I guess you can also substitute the olive oil for neutral oil, and/or the lemon for vanilla, cocoa powder etc.

Ingredients:
1 cup of youghurt
1 cup olive oil, mild in flavour
2.5 cup sugar
2.5 cup flour
3 eggs
1 sachet bakingpowder (16g)
Peel of one lemon, finely shredded or chopped

Here's the end result, so you know what to look forward to.

Mix all the ingredients by using the yoghurt cup as measure.

Add the flour, sugar, eggs, lemon (I tried with lime, which wasn't as good) and baking powder.

Blend the ingredients together until you have a smooth dough.

Wipe a springform pan with a bit of olive oil, then dust it with flour. Pour the dough into the form and bake at very high heat for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake for another 10-20 minutes. Check if it's done by inserting a toothpick in the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean it is done.

Let the cake rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting into it. It will deflate a little. Enjoy

Strawberry Jam Session

2010-05-15T08:14:00.003+02:00

Although the temperatures aren't exactly springlike this year, my local market is now starting to overflow with big, fat, juicy strawberries. If you have ever bought a strawberry during winter you know how disappointing they are to eat, how bland and indifferent an experience it is to bite into an importet berry. Strawberries need to be sun ripened, picked, packed and shipped to your store in a rush, which is quite hard when they come from the other side of the globe. So now, in this all too short window when sweet berries are abundant, it's time to try ad capture some of these spring delights and store them for more dreary winter nights. And what better way of preserving than by making jam.

Ingredients (5 jars):
1 kg strawberrries, not too over ripe
1 kg sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp butter

Clean and cut the berries in half (cuarter the really big ones) and mix with half the sugar. Leave it overnight for the juices to run out.

On the day of making the jam, start by bringing a large pot to boil and completely submerge your jam glasses. Boil the only the glasses for 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat and add the lids and let it all sit for nother 10 minutes. Take out and let them dry. If you are recycling like me, make sure the lids are not bent or damaged in any way or they wn't stay tight. Also, place a small plate in your freezer. I'll explain while later.

Meanwhile in a lage pot with a thick base, mix the strawberries with the other half of the sugar. Add the lemon juice.

Bring it to a boil. Make sure you have plenty of space for the jam to rise. It will more than double. Just to be warned. Let it simmer at mid low temperature while strirring now and then. Skim off the foam after about 20 minutes. You want to let it boil slowly until it reaches its setting point. This might take up to an hour. How do you know when it's set? Read on...

First of all, while it's boiling, cut a small disc of waxed paper by folding it around the same point and then placing it with the point in the centre of the lid. Cut a bit further in than the rim of the lid.

When the jam has set, you want to stir in a teasoon of butter.

How do you know the jam is setting? This is where the plate in the freezer comes in. Take it out a drop a bit of jam on it. Leave it to cool off for a minute. Turn the plate and see if it's still runny. If it's thickening up, you're almost ready to go. Turn of the heat and let it sit in the pot for 10 minutes to firm up a bit. This way the pieces of strawberry won't sink to the bottom when you put it into jars.

Final part is getting the jam into the still warm jars. If the jars have cooled off too much, the sudden change of temperature might crack the glasses. Fill the jars and place the disc of waxpaper on top to minimize the jams exposue to air. Microbes and fungus need air. Seal up and let the jars cool down. When fully cooled the jar lids should have been sucked in a created a vacuum. If you hear a clicking sound when pressing the lids, use this jar first as it's not airtight.

Rape me! Monkfish with safron and thyme

2010-05-11T15:32:00.005+02:00

One of the less charming fish swimming around the oceans is probably the monksfish. But as ugly as it might be, it's a real delicacy on when it's served up on a the plate. It's meat is very soft and tasty. If you haven't tried it, I recommend keeping an eye out for it next time you're at the fishmonger. As to get the head as well as it makes a splendid soup. In Spanish the fish is knownas "rape" (ra-pai), hence the cryptic title of this post. I cooked a nive safran and thyme sauce in which I then poached the fish.

Ingredients:
1 tail of a large monkfish
2 carrots
1 stalk of celery
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
Pinch of safran
Pinch of curry powder
1/2 l. quality fish stock (click here to se how to make your own)
Salt and white pepper
1 portion of mashed potatoes

Here's the cute, little fish smiling at you.

Clean and chop the vegetables finely.

Fry them in some olive oil until they are soft. Add the dried thyme.

Add salt and some more dried thyme to the monkfish. Mine was cut in chunks, but you can also fry the tail whole and cut it out later.

Fry it lightly for about a minute on each side in a bit o olive oil. Let it rest on the warm pan.

When the veggis and thyme has fried for a couple of minutes, add the curry powder and safran.

Add the fish stock (or fumet as it's also know as).

Pour in the juices accumulated from frying the fish.

Let it reduce to about half, then blend it slightly with a stick blender. You just want to thicken the sauce, so it's not necessary to blend it finely. In fact, you want it a bit chunky.

Place the fish into the sauce, turn off the heat and let it rest in the sauce for about 5 minutes.

Serve with mashed potatoes and sprinkle some parsley on top.

Fab Lamb Korma

2010-05-10T12:00:00.003+02:00

After Chicken Tikka Masala, the Korma has to be my second favourite Indian dish. I've tried out many different recipes and think I've finally cracked it. I started out with Mr Ramsay's Lamb Korma fromhis Indian cook book I've mentioned in an earlier post. But I found it a little on the dry side, so I made a few adjustments. Here's hat you need:

Ingredients (4 people)
500g Lamb cut into cubes
1 red chili
1 whole dried cayenne, crushed
75g Almonds, lightly toasted
75g Cashew nuts, lightly toasted
3 cloves of garlic
3 cm of fresh Ginger root
150 ml water
Ghee (clarified butter) or oil frying
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
1 bay leaf
2 tsp ground coriander
2 cardamom pods, pinched
2 onions, finely chopped
100 ml natural yoghurt (preferably greek, as thick youghurt tends to curdle less)
pinch of safran soaked in 1 tbsp of hot water
1 tsp tumeric
1 tbsp sugar
1 can of coconut milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Start by toasting the nuts and blend them into a fine paste along with the ginger, garlic, chili, cayenne and water.

Season the lamb and brown it on all sides for a couple of minutes in the ghee or oil. Remove and reserve for later.

Wipe away some of the excess fat, but don't clean the pan. Fry the cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf and ground coriander for a minute until it starts getting fragrant.

Add the chopped onion. Fry at mid-heat until they turn soft and lightly brown around the edges.

Meanwhile add the yoghurt and the safron to the almond paste.

When the onions are ready, add the almond paste. Fry it for about 5 minutes before adding the lamb from before along with any accumulated juices. Add a bit of extra water if too dry. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn't catch. It's still quite dry at this moment, so don't leave it too long unattended.

Prepare the rice (Fry a bit of cumin seeds, some cardamom pods and a whole star anise, add 1dl of basmati rice per person, fry the rice for 3 minutes while stirring. Add 1.5 dl water per person, bring to a boil and cookat low heat for 15 minutes under lid. Turn off heat and leave covered for 10 minutes).

After 30 minutes of cooking the lambs in the amond sauce, add the cream of the coconut milk, i.e. remove the more solid/thick part of the coconut milk with a spoon. Provided you haven't shaken the can of coconut milk it should separate into a thicker part on top and a more watery part at the bottom. At least the brand I'm buying does. Save the watery part for adding later if still too thick.

Add a tsp of tumeric. Let the dish cook for another 15 minutes.

Just before serving, add the lemon juice and about a tsp of salt or to taste.

Serve with aromatic basmati rice. I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did.

Greek Stuffed Hamburgers w. Potato Wedges

2010-05-08T08:34:00.003+02:00

This is an old recipe I had photographed last year after coming back from summerholidays in Santorini. I'm not sure it's an original recipe or what, but these stuffed hamburgers are delicious and ral simple to make. To accompany them, I made some potato wedges in the oven, a simple green salad, some flat bread and tzatziki. For the recipe for the latter click here.

Ingredients (4 people):

2-3 potatoes per person, skin on, washed carefully

Sea salt, dried basil, dried oregano, crushed garlic

600g ground beef

1 egg (per 4 people)

4-5 cloves of garlic

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried mint

3 tbsp bread crumbs

Small handful of fresh parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Greek feta cheese

Cut the potatoes into wedges, leaving the skin on as it adds extra flavour and vitamins. Spread them out on a baking tray on top of a baking sheet so they won't stick to the tray, sprinkle them with a bit of olive oil, salt, some basil and oregano. I also added the garlic before baking them, which turned out to be a mistake as the garlic started browning too fast and ended up burnt. So leave that for later. Mix them with your hands so everything is well distributed. Make sure they don't lie on top of eachother. Bake at 200ºC for 25 minutes, them turn them over individually, add the crushed garlic and bake for another 20 minutes or until crisp.

Use your fingers to mix the ground beef with the rest of the ingredients.

Oops, forgot to add the parsley.

Divide the mince into two, then each part into two again and each part finally into two small balls so you'll end up with 8 balls in total. Shape them into small balls. Place the first ball on top of cling film or baking paper. Then place another piece of film or paper on top. Squeeze the ball with the base of a heavy pot or pan until it's quite thin (about 1/2 cm). Strip back the top piece of paper/film and set aside. Repeat with the next ball. Place some thinly sliced or crumbled feta on top of one thin beef patty.

Place another thin patty on top. Squeeze the side together and repeat with the rest, so that the eight small balls become four stuffed hamburgers. Grill or fry as you would with normal hamburgers.

Serve with some salad (using the left over feta), tzatziki, and the potato wedges.

Setas con Jamón (Oyster Mushrooms)

2010-05-04T14:52:00.004+02:00

This quick tapas is incredible easy and fast to make. All you need is a good handful of oyster mushrooms, some cured Spanish ham serrano, a few eggs and off you go. You can substitute the mushrooms with any other typ,e or use prawns instead of ham.
Ingredients:
500g Oyster Mushrooms
200g Serrano ham cut into small bits
3-4 cloves of garlic
2-3 eggs
1 tbsp sherry
1 tsp dried (or fresh) thyme
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Prepare all the ingredients. Clean and cut the mushrooms into bite-sizes, peel and crush the garlic, beat the eggs in a bowl.

Fry the mushrooms at medium to high heat. Add salt and wait for them to release the water they contain. Once the liquid is gone they will start browning. Once they start browning, add the garlic and stir occasionally.

After about a minute of frying the garlic, add the sherry and thyme. Let the sherry evaporate.

Add the ham and stir it in for about 2-3 minutes.

Pour over the eggs, stir and turn off the heat. The residual heat will be enough to finish cooking the eggs. Keep scrambling until the all the egg is cooked. Don't over-cook them or they will go watery. Grind some pepper and add salt to taste.

I've served it on a slice of spelt bread I made yesterday, with a bit of mayonnaise.

Delicious Blueberry Pie

2010-04-30T10:00:00.005+02:00

It's a bit redundant to call a blueberry pie delicious, but it really is one of those great culinary treats where everything just seem to fit together so perfectly. And to improve on the perfect dessert, I've added a scoop of homemade vanilla icecream which just slowly started melting all over the pie. This is what they will serve in dessert heaven.

Pie dough:
280g flour
1 tsp salt
150g cold butter
5-6 tbsp ice cold water
Blueberry filling:
2 trays of blueberries
5 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch of all spce
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp lemon juice

The dough is a quite straight forward pie crust dough. Mix the flour and the salt. Then cut the butter into the flour but make sure it stays very cold all the time. If the butter starts melting it absorbs the flour and becomes less flaky. Keep mixing until it has a "sandy" texture. A food processor is perfect for this. Then add the water and quickly press the dough together. Leave it to rest in the fridge for an hour.

Crush about half of the blueberries with a fork.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Leave it to rest for the sugar to dissolve and the juices to mix.

Turn on your oven. Roll out the dough on a well floured table. You can do this on top of a sheet of oven paper to make it easier to mover into the pie mold.

Place it in your pie mold.

Trim off the edges and pinch the base with a fork. Roll out the trimmed off pieces and cut them into strips.

Pour in the blueberry filling.

Weave the strips on top. Crimp the edges of the pie.

Bake at 15 min at very high temperature. Then bake it anohet 30 minutes at middle temperature or until the crust is golden. Should it start browning too much you can cover it with tin foil.

The final result, the perfect slice of blueberry goodness.

Pork Shreds (Carnitas)

2010-04-30T09:14:00.003+02:00

A simple pork snack with a hint of Mexican spices. It goes great as a filling in wheat tortillas. Again, the technique is borrowed from my guru, Chef John at Foodwishes. If you still haven't visited his www.foodwishes.com, then I strongly recommend paying him a visit (after having read this blog, obviously).

Ingredients:
1 kg pork shoulder
1 small onion
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp cumin powder
1 tsp black pepper
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 l. chicken stock
Water

Chop the onion and add it with the rest of the ingredients to a large pot or dutch oven.

Place the pork on top and pour over the chicken stock. Add water until the pork is covered. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat and let it simmer under lid for 3 hours.

Remove the meat and break it into large chunks. It' so tender and moist that it will almost fall apart by itself.

Ok, here's where I made the mistake of breaking it up into too small pieces. As a result it got quite dry. So leave it it rather chunky and cut it later, after roasting. Put the chunks in a preheated oven at 230º C for 20 minutes until it's golden and crispy on the outside but still moist on the inside.

As said, mine turned out a bit on the dry side. But it was very tasty nonetheless.

Doughnuts pt.2: from Spain to Finland

2010-04-26T14:11:00.003+02:00

My girlfriend's cousin is on an Erasmus exchange programme in Finland. She saw my dougnuts recipe and got inspired to impress her fellow students at a barbecue with some homemade goodies. They turned out to be such a success that in the time it took her to run back to her dorm to change the battery on her camera they had all vanished. She says she's already planning to make her next batch.

Doh! Doughnuts

2010-04-18T10:23:00.006+02:00

I strongly recommend any food lover to look up Alton Brown's Good Eats (I found it on youtube) where he goes through all the history and chemistry behind most typical American dishes in fun and easy-to-follow recipes. Watch it if you want to learn. Recently I watched an episode where he made doughnuts and thought it didn't look too complicated. A word of warning. This recipe yields some 40+ doughnuts, so unless you're having a party at the local police station or going out with Homer Simpson, you might want to half or even use only a cuarter of the amounts indicated here:
Ingredients:
240 ml milk
70g vegetable shortening (I used margarine)
2 packages instant yeast
80ml warm water
2 whole eggs
60ml sugar
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1.5 tsp salt
650-750g flour

Heat up milk with the margarine in until the margarine is completely melted.

Mix the yeast with the warm water in a separate bowl.

And mix the flour with the salt and the nutmeg.

Make sure the milk is not too hot by testing it with your finger. Then pour in the yeast.

Add the sugar.

Add the eggs and mix well.

Add half the flour and stir it in well.

Then add the rest of your flour and use some kind of doughhooks for kneading this very sticky dough. The recipe calls for only 650g of flour but I found that the dough was almost liquid still, so I added about another 100g. Mix until he dough starts letting go of the sides. It'll probably take from 5 minutes and upwards. The more you mix, the stronger the gluten (up to a certan point).

It will be very sticky, but should just let go of your fingers. If you add more flour he doughnuts won't be as soft and light. Cover and leave to rise for a hour or until doubled in size.

Flour your table very well. Pour out the dough and sprinkle it with plenty of flour. It's still very sticky. Fold the dough over it self 3 times and pad it down with out punching all the air out. Roll it our with a rollingpin to about 1cm thick.

Cut the dougnuts. I used a metal mold I'd made from an old can of tomatoes plus the lid from a small tube. Let them rise for 15 minutes.

Deep fry them until golden brown, then flip them over. You should only fry a couple or three at the same time or the temperature of the oil will drop and the doughnuts will start to absorb more fat.

As you can see I also fried the holes (separately). The leftover dough can be mixed, left to raise again, rolled out and then cut into more doughnuts.

I then made a simple sugar glaze, by mixing some icing sugar with vanilla and a bit of warm milk.I added it before the doughnuts were completely cooled off, which as you can see was a mistake as the icing started running. but they were delicious none the less.

Kinda Clam Chowder

2010-04-18T09:36:00.009+02:00

I usually try not to throw too much food away. And especially all sorts of bone go straight to my freezer for later being tuned into stocks and soups. And thus I had some frozen fishbones and heads which have now been converted to the base of this chowder.

Ingredients:
Stock
1 spring onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
Fish heads and bones (about 500g)
1.5 glass of white wine
1/2 lemon, sliced
5-8 pepper corn
1 small bunch of fresh parsley
2 l. water
Chowder:
100g bacon
1 small onion
1 medium potato
1 tbsp butter
1.5 l of the fish stock
500g of any white fish (I used whiting)
200g frozen prawns
250g clams
100g soup pasta (optional)

Start by slowly sweating the vegetables in a bit of olive oil.

When they are soft, add the fish bones and heads (eyes removed) and the white wine. Let the wine reduced to half.

Add the lemon, pepper and parsey. Pour over the water. Bring to a simmer. Simmer at low heat for 20 minute.

Remove all the big pieces of bones. Filter the stock through a sieve or a cloth. Set aside. Use within 3 days or freeze in smaller portions for up to a month.

Now for the chowder. Fry the bacon until brown but not crisp. Remove.

In the same pot where you've just fried the bacon, add a table spoon of butter and the onion and potato cut into fine cubes. Fry until the onion is soft. Then add the bacon again.

Pour in the fish stock and boil the potatoes for 12 minutes.

Cut your fish into smaller pieces. Add them to the soup and boil for 5 minutes or until the fish is nearly done.

Add some peeled, raw prawns, I also added some thin pasta, specially for soups, but you can leave it out. Cook for 3 minutes.

Add the cleaned clams and cook until they start opening up. Discard the ones which don't open up. As you might have noticed, I haven't used salt up til now. So, go ahead and add salt to taste. I added about a tablespoon full. Start with less. Stir it in, taste and adjust.

Serve with a good slice of bread with a crunchy crust.

Chef John's Beef Satay

2010-04-12T14:23:00.004+02:00

As part of a dinner I hosted this Saturday, I made some thai spring rolls (recipe already posted, search for it), skewers with teriaki chicken, and Chef John from Foodwishes.com' s beef satay:

You need thinly cut beef, cut against the fibres and for the marinate:

1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tbsp brown sugar
1.5 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp pureed lemongrass
0.5 tsp cumin
0.5 tsp turmeric
0.5 tbsp ground coriander
0.5 tbsp fresh lime juice

Mix all the ingredients for the marinate.

Slice the beef thinly against the fibres.

Marinate for about 5 hours.

Place the meat on skewers previously soaked in water

Grill or fry the skewers.

I've sprinkled them with a bit of finely chopped peanuts.

Casadielles Fritas - An Asturian Speciality

2010-04-12T13:00:00.006+02:00

When in Asturia, I bought a cookery book on typical Asturian dishes. It was quite old, which I thought was a good sign when you're talking traditional dishes. No fancy nonsense, measures are more or less by intuition and the pictures (or drawings) are all very retro. It alo contains some local history, poetry and a guide to the local produce which is a help as many of the fish and sea food have the original Asturian names. I chose to make this typical dessert, Casadielles, following the traditional way of preparing the dough. Most of the ones we found in Asturias today were made with puff pastry, but here's the original method:

Ingredients:

Dough
1 cup of neutral oil
1 cup of white wine
1 egg yolk
100g butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
As much flour as the dough can take without getting dry
Filling
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
1 shot of anís liqueur*
1/2 cup water or butter
* Anís liqueur, or anisette tastes a bit like licorice. It's suggested that you can substitute it with white wine or cognac

Start by mixing the white wine, oil and salt until it starts emulsifying. Then add the baking powder, the yolk and the butter. Mix it well.

Add the flour bit by bit until you have a homogenous dough which doesn't stick to the fingers. Don't over knead the dough.

Roll out the dough thinly, using plenty of flour so it doesn't stick to the table. Place it between two pieces of cling film and place it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Meanwhile, chop the nuts and mix it with the rest of the ingredients until you have a chunky paste.

Cut the dough into squares.

Place a teaspoon of filling on each square and roll them. Use a bit of water to make the ends stick. Squeeze the ends together so the filling doesn't come out while frying.

All shapes and sizes, evensome broken (the dough was quite hard to work with): True sign of a home cook.

Deep fry them until they are golden, turning the now and then. Let them drip off on a cooling rack. One of mine broke while frying and all the sugar and nuts started caramelising and turned the oil useless for further use. So handle with care.

The final casadielles.

Gastro-Holiday in Asturias

2010-04-05T16:33:00.006+02:00

I'm back from an all-too-short visit to the North coast of Spain. We stayed a couple of nights in a small hostel in Cudillero, a small, picturesque fishing town in a natural bay at the jagged coastline of Eastern Asturias. With the rugged, green mountains as a backdrop, the pastel coloured houses fan out and up the hills around the main square, tightly packed with terrace restaurants and bustling with tourists seeking out the menus of freshly caught fish and sea food.

For only €60, you'll get 1 lobster, 1 crab, 2 velvet crabs, 2 scampis, 8 mussels, 8 razor clambs, 8 clams, 12 tiger prawns, all grilled and for sharing between two people.

We settled for a more modest mixture of various raciones (portions for sharing) of the best Mejillones a la marinera (mussels) I've ever tasted. They were steamed in and served with Sidra, the local type of a flat apple cider (see below), and it was hard to say if it was the alcohol or the taste in general which went straight to the head, but they were heavenly.

We also had some pate de cabracho (scorpion fish) which was velvety smooth and rich. Apart from that we had some chorizo a la sidra which were fine but not really up here with the seafood.

Here I am trying out my luck with the Spanish sidra. As said before, it's flat so it's poured from a straight arm above your head in a fine stream, splashing into the glass and then consumed immediately while it's still cloudy from the airing. First of all my arm wasn't straight, and secondly most of it went everywhere except inside the glass. Luckily, the waiters came and poured for us.

On the second day, we went out to a hamlet called Paredes, lost in the mountains of time. They had a special farmers' market for Easter and had set up a tent where you coud eat fresh pulpo (octopus). Again, never before had I sunk my teeth into such a soft and succulent tentacle. It had been drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and paprika, nothing else.

Here's the big cobber pot where they boiled it.

Then it was cut with a pair of scissors and served. Amazing.

They also had a barbecue with sausages and spareribs. But it was the pulpo that took the price.

In another place we had a lobster bisque. Again, very tasty although too salty after the first few spoonfuls.

And the little brother off the famous fabes asturianas: Fabes con almejas (clams).

On our way back we stopped in Oviedo and had a look at the food market. Asturias is notorious for their great variety of cheeses and dairy products.

For example, you could buy a glass bottle for 50 cents and then fill it up with fresh milk for 2 euros.

A selection of goat, sheep and cow cheese.

And of course, as in the rest of Spain the fuit and vegetable stalls are always abundant and the produce neatly displaced.

I highly recommend anyone to visit the North coast of Spain in order to change their perspetive of Spain as much more than the stereotypical beach, paella and sangria. I haven't posted any pictures of the landscape, but just google Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country or Galicia and have a look for yourself. If you want to combine your holidays with gastronomic experiences in amazingly idyllic settings, this is the place for you.

Sin-namon Buns

2010-03-29T17:27:00.006+02:00

It's been more than 10 years since I last had a cinnamon bun. I remember perfectly when I tried to make them. For some reason they didn't rise (I suspect that the yeast was from the back of my cupboard). As a result they were small, hard stones. I think I even managed to burn them to top it off. So I did a bit research to find out how to make the perfect cinnamon bun, and found most people agreed that a recipe from a well-known Danish cookery book was pretty awesome. So I tried it and this is the result:

Ingredients:

2 dl milk
1 satchet of dried yeast
100 g of soft butter
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground cadamom
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp coarse salt
9 dl flour
Filling:
150g very soft butter
1/2 dl white sugar
1/2 dl brown sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon

Start by heating the milk and butter up in the microwave oven until it's luke warm. Add the yeast. Stir and leave it for 10 minutes.

Add the sugar, salt and the ground cardamom.

Add the two eggs and mix well.

Add the flour. Mix it well and transfer it to a well-floured table. Knead it for some 10 minuts.

The dough should be so sticky that is sticks to the table, but at the same time you should be able to pull it clean off. Add too much flour and the dough will be heavy and dry.

Cover with a humid tea towel and leave to dry in warm place until the dough has doubled in size. I like to turn on the oven for a few minutes, then turn it off again and leave the dough there. After about 30-45 minutes, punch the dough down and let it rise a second time until double.

Meanwhile, mix the sugars with the cinnamon. Make sure your butter is rather soft.

Cut the dough in two. On a well-floured table, roll one half out to a square about 2/3 of a cm thick. Spread the butter over the surface (easiest done with a clean hand). Go all the way out to the edges. Sprinkle the suggars and cinnamon over the butter. Roll it into a sausage.

Cut the sausage into about 12-15 pieces.

Take the end and fold it in under the bun like the two buns on the right. Otherwise they might start undoing themselves while they bake. Press them down a bit.

Brush with egg wash (egg mixed with little water). Bake for about 12-15 minutes at 200ºC. Meanwhile, repeat the process with the second half of the dough.

I took them out when they still look sligtly undercooked. Put them on a cooling rack. If you like them a litte darker leave them a bit longer. But this way I can freeze them and defrost a couple, put them in the oven for a few minutes and have ready-made cinnamon buns whenever I fell like it.

To serve, I've made a simple sugar icing. Definitely worth waiting ten years for.

Dal, dhal, daal whichever way you want them

2010-03-21T09:28:00.003+01:00

Once again I've dipped into my newly acquired Indian cookbook and tried out this recipe for dal, or lentil soup. Albeit a bit on the spicy side, it was very tasty so feel free to add a bit less chili:

Ingredients:

225g red split lentils, washed
2 cloves
1/2 cinnamon stick
4 black pepper corn
1 l. water
2.5 cm fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 tbsp butter
2 onions
3 tomatoes
2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp hot chili powder (or less)
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt to taste
Fresh cilantro

Prep the ingredients.

Start by rinsing the lentils very carefully to get rid of any dirt and dust. Add them to a pot with the cinnamon, cloves and pepper corn. Bring it to a boil.

Once boiling, cut a cross at one end of your tomatoes and put them in the boiling water for 10 seconds. This will help you peel the skin off. Remove any foam on the lentils with a spoon. Cook partially covered for 25-30 minutes until soft but not yet falling apart.

Melt the butter. Add the mustard seed. When they start crackling, add the cumin seeds.

Fry the onion in the butter until golden brown.

While the onions are frying, finely chop or grate the garlic and ginger. Blend them with the tomatoes.

When the onions get some colour, add the tumeric, chili and garam masala. Fry for about a minute.

Pour in the tomatoes. Cook for a couple of minutes.

Then pour the tomatoes into the cooked lentils. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add a handful of fresh, chopped coriander. Serve with some naan bread or chapaties.

Simplest of Recipes - Fried Pineapple

2010-03-20T09:06:00.002+01:00

Recently, BBC had an article on the rise of lazy food. Basically it's about the increase in sales of prepared vegetables such as peeled potatoes, diced onions or mixed salad in a bag. After reading it I thought about why people would make such short cuts. One part is probably because they have arthritis or similar limitation in their use of their hands. This group is pardoned, of course, but I doubt that illness alone counts for the 17-40% sales increase in a year. The argument is that peole don't have time to cook. Yet, the time spent at Internet or watching television at home is ridicolously high. Priorities, I say... And peeling a potato doesn't really take that long, now does it? Which leads me to why I think people are being lazy: I think they simply don't like getting their hands dirty. After all, when peeling a potato you might get soil under your nails, yuk! Or even worse, you'll get sticky fruit juice on your fingers, or god forbid, you'll have to wash a knife and cutting board. Seriously, if you can't prepare your own vegetables, what has the world come to. But for those few poor souls out there, for whom cooking is an ordeal, I offer my service with this simplest of simplest dessert. I've seen you can buy chunks of pineapple (although I sinned and bought a real one, with sticky leaves and all), and apart from that you just need Malibu (lazy cooks are probably drunks anyway) and a dollop of ice cream (again, sorry I made my own).

Fry your chunks of pineapple in a bit of butter on high heat. This can also be done on the grill, in which case you should probably use a whole slice.

Turn the pieces when golden brown. Fry for another minutes then add some Malibu or normal rum. Let it evaporate.

Serve warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top.

Red Snapper with Rice

2010-03-15T12:52:00.003+01:00

I love Indian cooking, there's no way around. The combinations of spices, sauces and generally healthy dishses (take-away not included) just seems to hit all the right notes. So almost a month ago, I ordered Gordon Ramsay's Great Escapes (click link to see/order it on Amazon), but it somehow got lost in the post and was delayed for a couple of weeks. Now it's finally here, and I can't wait to work and eat my way through it. I'll post this recipe here as a teaser and recommend you to check out the book if you are interested in Indian cooking. Although there is a recipe for lamb korma and butter chicken, the focus of the book is more on the traditional Indian cuisine rather than the standard take away. The first recipe that came to my attention was this grilled red snapper dish which I combined with another recipe in the book for aromatic rice.

Red snapper:
4 red snapper fillets (or any other firm white fish)
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp paprika
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tbsp neutral veg. oil
Rice:
300g basmati rice
2 tbsp butter
3 g raw cashew nuts
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
4 black pepper corn
1 cinnamon sick
3 cloves
1 onion, chopped
400 ml water
1 tsp salt

Prepare two red snappers by removing, scales, fins. the head and spine, but leave the skin on. Alternatively you can get your fishmonger to do it. This should leave you 4 nice fillets. Set aside for the moment.

For the rice, melt the butter and slowly toast the cashew nuts in it until lightly brown. Remove and reserve.

In the same pot, add the cumin seeds, bay leaves, black pepper corn, cinnamon sick (broken in two) and the cloves. Slowly toast it until it starts smelling all wonderful.

Add the chopped onion and fry for a few minutes until translucent.

Wash the basmati well and add them to the onion. Stir and fry the rice. This will make them more aromatic. I use a similar technique when making risotto or paella. Careful they don't stick or burn.

Pour in the water and add salt to taste. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes under lid. Then turn off heat and let it stand for 5 minutes.

Fluff up the rice with a forl and add the cashew nuts. It's ready to serve.

For the red snapper, start by slowly roasting the cumin seeds, cilantro seeds and fennel seeds on a dry pan. Keep stirring now and again so it doesn't burn. It's ready when they start giving off a wonderful smell.

Meanwhile, mix the sugar, garlic powder, paprika and salt.

Add the lemon juice and oil. Mix well to combine to a paste.

Add the dry roasted spices. Stir.

Brush the colourful paste onto the fish fillets on both sides.

Now, the original recipe calls for 5 minutes under the grill skin side up, but my grill is broken so I went ahead and fried them for 2 1/2 mintes per side in a bit of oil, just until the fish was done.

Finally, I served the red snappers with some lemon, the rice and a nan bread on the side.

Flan - Crème Caramel

2010-03-13T09:17:00.003+01:00

Two Spanish desserts in a day. This is the flan, a slowly heated egg custard with a caramel sauce. It's really simple to make. Just remember, don't burn the caramel and don't pour all the hot milk into the eggs at once. the rest is child play.

Ingredients (4 flans):
Caramel
1.5 dl sugar
1 dl water
Flan
300 ml whole milk
2 eggs + 1 yolk
60ml sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix the sugar and water. Slowly heat it until it starts bubbling.

The second it turns light brown, remove it from the heat and stir it lightly while the residual heat will finish it off. Pour it into 4 ramekins. Be careful, it's burning hot.

Mix the sugar, milk and vanilla. Slowly heat it to a light simmer. Remove from heat.

Beat the eggs together.

Pour just a little of the warm milk into the eggs while stirring constantly. This will adjust the eggs to the warmth slowly so they don't coagulate and make scrambled eggs. Once you've added about a third of the milk, pour the eggs into the rest of the milk.Yes, back again while stirring.

Sift the custard in case some egg has coagulated.

pur the custard on top of the carame sauce. Don't worry if the caramel seem too hard at this stage.

Place the ramekins in bain-marie, that is boiling water up to just below the top of the custard (not the ramekin). Put them in a pre-heated 175º oven for 25 minutes.

Check the flans are done by inserting a knife between th centre and the edge. It should come out clean. Cut around the edges to losen the flan. Place a plate on top.

Turn it round and the flan should come out. Otherwise tap the whole thing lightly against table. There it is, flan...

Leche Frita - Fried Milk - Now how is that possible?

2010-03-13T08:35:00.004+01:00

How can you fry milk you might ask yourself. So did I, but then my girlfriend showed me this Spanish recipe for Leche Frita. She asked me to put it on the blog, which I agreed as long as she made it. So here is my special guest chef doing her mother's version of this Spanish dessert.
Ingredients:
2 cups of milk (aprx. 0.5l)
3 tbsp Cornstarch (Maizena)
3 tbsp Sugar
Shredded peel of a lemon
1 stick of Cinnamon
Flour
1 Egg
Neutral oil

Finely grate the yellow part of the lemon skin and add it to the cold milk. If you see green on this picture, there's nothing wrong with your screen. She just used a lime instead.

Add the cornstarch, sugar and the cinnamon stick. Slowly bring it to a boil while stirring constantly.

Once it reached a light boil it will thicken. Keep stirring so it doesn't catch let it boil for 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick.

Then pour it on to a flat tray and let it cool off completely.

Cut it into squares of about 5x5 cm. It should now have thickened and become gelatinous.

Heat up about a cm of oil in a non-stick frying pan. Turn the squares in the flour and tap them lightly to remove excess flour.

Beat the egg and turn the flour dusted squares in it.

Carefully slip the squares in to the hot oil. Fry for about a minute or two. Them flip the over.

Fry on the other side until they are all golden.

And there you have it, fried milk or leche frita. Some people them dip them in sugar mixed with a bit of cinnamon powder. But that's up to you.

Guest blogger on Gastromand.dk

2010-03-12T09:40:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to say I've had my Judiones recipe published on a fantastic blog about food specially aimed at men. It's in Danish, but maybe you could have a sneaky peek using google translator:

http://gastromand.dk/david-skytte-tapas-spanske-k%c3%b8kken-judiones-de-la-granja/

Keep up the good work, Gastromand.dk, and I'll be back with some more recipes soon.

Øllebrød - Danish bear bread porridge

2010-03-09T10:29:00.002+01:00

This is perhaps one of the more bizzare recipes you'll find on my blog and you might think I've lost my mind, but bear with me a second and let me explain. Øllebrød, which translates to 'beer-bread', was a traditional part of the Danish diet up until the 1800s. There are two competing theories of the origin of this dish. One claims that it originated in the monasteries where bread would be dipped in beer to soften it and the leftover beer mixed with crumbs would then be eaten the next day. The other theory have the peasant Danes throwing their leftover bread and beer into a large port above the fire. This would then slowly cook and eaten throughout the next day, morning and afternoon. I was introduced to it by my grandparents who used to cook it for me as a substantial breakfast during my summer holidays. And maybe because I've been raised on this stuff I don't find it as repelling as most of the people I've shown it to. It definetely won't be for everyone, but those who dares will be rewarded with one of the most solid breakfast I know. In fact, I've been eating this almost every morning for the last 6 or 7 years and notice a huge difference throughout the day the days I've had a different breakfast. Trust me, this is good for you. No more sugar coated cereals or white bread breakfast.

For the brave, you'll need:

500g dark, whole grain rye bread

1 can of beer (preferably dark beer, and don't worry, the alcohol will evaporate. It's perfectly safe for children)

2 tbsp sugar
Enough water cover it

Start by crumbling the bread in a pot with a thick base.

Add the sugar and pour in the beer. Pour water in until the bread is completely covered. Then cover it with a lid and leave it to soak overnight.

Heat it slowly while stirring now and again so it doesn't catch. You'll see the bread starting to disintergrate and form a paste. When this happens stir until it all has the consistency of porridge and you're done. It's that simple.

Some people prefer to eat it like it is, others with cream or whipped cream. Personally, I have it with cold milk as I love the contrast of warm and cold, bitter (bread) and sweet (milk).

Chili con Carne - It's in the mix!!!

2010-02-28T12:09:00.002+01:00

Just when I was able to continue my blog taking pictures with my new mobile instead of my old camera (which fell to the floor) my new mobile too is experiencing technical dificulties and has been sent off to repairs due to a faulty speaker. So I've dug up some old photos from my harddrive of a nice chili con carne I made last year. This is emergency cooking at its best. When you have nothing but minced meat and a can of beans, what do you do but make a nice soothing pot of chili con carne. The key to a good chili is the spicemix. Try out this one:

500g minced meat
1 tbsp oil
1 onion
1 can of tomatoes
1 can of beans (precooked)
Chile (after taste)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dry oregano
2.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
Sour cream

Mix all the spices together.

Fry the onion and the meat. I'm using onions that came already in the tomato sauce. When the meat is browned, add the spices.

Add the tomato. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add the beans. Heat them through for 5 minutes.

And there you have it. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and some bread on the side.

Ginger-Garlic Paste

2010-02-26T09:07:00.003+01:00

If you are in to cooking Indian food, you've probably noticed that many recipes call for ginger-garlic paste. While you can go and find it in Asian food stores, why bother paying the extra money for a product with limited shelflife when you can make a product at home for virtually no money and in no time which will last you at least a year. All you need is:

50g peeled garlic

50g ginger, washed and chopped in smalled pieces
250ml water

Peel the garlic and chop the ginger in smaller pieces. You don't need to peel the ginger, just wash it well and cut off any dodgy parts.

Put it in blender, pour the water over.

And blend it until there are no big chunks left.

Now here's the clever part. Get one of those plastic bags for making ice cubes. Use a funnel to carefully pour it in (this might be a bit messy, but you'll get there). Then freeze the batch and take out as much of the (almost) fresh ginger-garlic paste as you need whenever you need it. It'll last at least a year in the freezer.

Fish Soup

2010-02-16T15:17:00.005+01:00

So I tried to make fish soup. Something I had never tried before. And it was so much simpler than I thought it would be and is quite tasty if I may say so myself. I was going through my freezer and found the prawn shells from the other day when I was making pad thai. So I thought I'd give the old fish soup a try. You obviously don't have to go out and buy lots of prawns just to peel them. It just gave and extra dimension to the soup. The fish I'm using is hake but any white meated fish will do. My local fish monger said the best piece for a soup would be the area around the head where the jaws are. So that's the one I bought.

Ingredients:
Empthy, raw prawn shells (optional)
1 clove garlic
1 cup of water
2 carrots
1 leek
2-3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 glass of white wine
1 l fish fumet (stock)
400g hake
200 g raw prawns, peeled
150 g peas
Mini Pasta (Optional)

I fried the prawns in a bit of olive oil. Crushed a clove of garlic under a heavy pot and threw it in without removing the peel.

When the shells had changed colour I poured in the water and let it simmer for 5 minutes, turned off the heat and let it cool off a bit.

Then I strained it and discarded the shells.

I chopped the veggies finely.

I threw them all in the pot except the garlic. Sweated it until the leek and onion started to get translucent. Then I added the garlic, fried that for a minute and poured in the white wine. I let the wine reduce to half.

Then I added the stock made from the prawn shells.

The chicken fumet.

While I waited for the stock to reach a boil, I prepared the fish and prawns. As soon as the stock started simmering, I added the fish.

After about 10 minutes I added the peas, which were frozen. So I waited for the soup to come to a simmer again...

... before adding the prawns.

Then I added the mini pasta and let it all simmer without reching a hard boil for about 5 minutes.

And there it is, my very first fish soup.

Beef Stir Fry

2010-02-14T11:39:00.002+01:00

This recipe is a quick stir fry which you can whip together in 20 minuts. So please don't give me that "I haven't got time to cook"-excuse and start chopping. Ok, there is a bit of preparation in chopping the ginger, garlic, chili and coriander, but even slow cooks can do that in 5 minutes. It's taken from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food campaign. If you're not familiar with that, his philospohy is that you should learn a simple recipe, master it and then pass it on to a couple of friends or family, so they can learn to cook it and pass it on to their friends. This is my bit then, passing on the recipe. Cook it and impress your friends. Then teach them how to cook it. This is, in fact, what I'm trying to do with this blog in general - showing recipes for you to cook and pass on. Give it a try, it's easy, fast and even quite healthy. Read more about The Ministry of Food here : http://www.jamieoliver.com/jamies-ministry-of-food/

Ingredients (4 pers.):
2 cups of basmati rice
3 cups of water
Salt
Small bunch of fresh cilantro
3 cm of fresh ginger
1/2 chili
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 spring onions
350 g beef
1 tbsp sesamo oil
2 tbsp neutral oil
1/2 jar of Oyster sauce or black bean sauce (from an Asian food shop)
1/2 lime
1 large egg
Soy sauce

Before you start, put your rice to boil. Peel the garlics (easier by crushing them with your hand or a pan first) and the ginger. Remove the seeds from the chili if you don't want it too hot. Wash and dry the cilantro. Cut the top half off and reserve for later. The fresh ingredients are key to this recipe.

Chop everything, including the cilantro stalks, fine (use a food processor if you have one).

Cut your beef in fine strips against the fibre. On this picture you see the fibres clearly as the straight lines on the meat below. By cutting the fibres you won't end up with chewy balls of meat in your mouth.

Slice the spring onion. Mix the meat with the onion and chopped ginger/garlic/cliantro.

Add the sesamo oil. This oil has a nice nutty flavour which adds a nice asian dimension to everything. You can find it in Asian food shops. You can prepare all this in advance and leave the meat to marinate for a couple of hours in advance. Just remember the meat shouldn't be too cold when you fry it.

When the rice is done, rinse it under cold water. This will remove some of the starch on the rice so it won't clog together when you fry it.

Get a large pan or work smoking hot and add a bit of neutral oil. Throw in the meat and keep stirring. It's important the pan is as hot as possible. Don't remove from heat while frying. Keep stirring until the meat is cooked. Should take no more than a couple of minutes. Add the oyster or black bean sauce and heat it through. Squeeze the half lime over it and remove from heat. Pour it in to a bowl and reserve.

Without cleaning the wok or pan, add a bit of more oil. Crack the egg into the wok and scramble it. Add soy sauce to taste.

When the egg is scrambled and coagulated, add the rinsed rice. Stir and fry it for a minute or two.

Serve the rice with the meat on top. Decorate with some fresh cilantro reserved from the beginning and a small wedge of lime.

Valentine Chocolate Cake

2010-02-13T16:04:00.007+01:00

Valentine... chocolate, romance, and some more chocolate.... here's how I plan to seduce.
Ingredients:
Sponge cake:
3 eggs, separated in whites and yolk
40g of dark chocolate
65g caster sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
Filling:
150 dark chocolate
250g mascarpone cheese
1 tsp instant coffee
1 banana
Icing:
100 g dark chocolate
1 dl cream
1 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp butter

Prepare the ingredients for the sponge cake.

Beat the egg whites until they become white and stiff. Make sure they are not too cold (whipping cream should be very cold, egg whites should not) and that the bowl and equipment are totally clean. A little amount of grease and you won't be able to make the whites stiff. Be careful not to over-whip as well. Set aside.

Beat the yolks and caster suger until white.

Add the cocoa powder.

Melt the chocolate and add it. It shouldn't be too hot, but not too cold either. Quickly whisk it in before it hardens.

Finally, turn a bit of the beaten egg whites in order to lighten it. Then a bit more and a bit more. Don't over stir it. It should be light and airy.

Grease your form very well. I just happened to have a heart shaped one. You can always make a bigger portion, bake it and then cut it out in a heart shape later.

Pour in the dough.

Bake at 180ºC for 20 minutes. When you take it out it will probably deflate a bit. That's normal.

For the filling. Melt the chocolate, add the coffee.

Make sure the mascarpone cheese is room temperature before you mix it in or it will solidify the chocolate and you'll have a lumpy mess. Should it happen, you can always heat it very carefully in a microwave to dissolve it and then let it cool down.

Once the base is cooled down, cut it through with a serated knife and carefully lift the top part off.

Slice the banana and spread it over the base.

Spread the filling over the banana. Leave a centimetre at the edges, so that when you put the top part on and apply a little preasure, it won't run out.

Carefully put the top part back on.

For the icing, mix the cream and the finely chopped chocolate and heat it carefulle in the microwave or over bain-marie. Stir to dissolve the chocolate.

Add the butter and coffee.

Apply a bit of pressure on top to squeeze out the filling and make an even surface.

Pour the ganache over the cake and spread it carefully. Let it cool of for 30 minutes minimum. Happy valentine!

Quesadillas

2010-02-13T09:15:00.003+01:00

Quesadillas are to Mexico, what the hamburger is to America. It's the fast food of the nation. They are simple, fast and delicious. They are a great starter or party snacks for any Mexican themed party or dinner. I'm using my standard mexican fajita spice mix (click here to see it) but you can also buy premade mixes. The trick is to heat them slowly on a dry pan, or they will burn before the cheese melts.

Ingredients:
1 onion
1 red pepper
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 chicken breast
1-2 tbsp fajita spice mix
Olive oil for frying
Salt
Any meltable cheese (I used gouda, because that's what I happened to hav)
Jalapeños
Wheat tortillas

Start by slicing the onion and red peppers finely and mix them with some fajita spice mix. Add a little salt and fry them in a bit of olive oil. Cut the chicken into fine strips and mix them with some more spice mix in a separate bowl. Set it aside while frying the onions and pepper.

When onions and peppers are soft, move them out to the side of the frying pan. Add a tbsp of tomato paste in the centre and fry it a bit before mixing it in with the rest. This will cook it a bit and remove the sharp taste it has.

Set the peppers and onions apart, but don't clean the frying pan. Simply add a little more oil if needed and fry the chicken. Add a tiny pinch of salt (the spice mix might alrady have enough salt). Once fried, mix in the onion and pepper.

Put some shredded cheese on one half of a open tortilla. Add some chicken, onion and pepper and a few pieces of jalapeño peppers on top. Make sure it doesn't go all the way out as it may spill when you fold it.

Fold it over and press down on top to make sure the filling spreads out to the edge. Put the frying pan at low heat and wait for the cheese to melt. When the bread is lightly brown, flip it over and brown it a bit more on the other side.

Cut the quesadillas into triangles and serve while warm.

Fresh Thai Spring Rolls

2010-02-09T11:33:00.003+01:00

Another simple Thai dish. Fresh spring rolls... which means they haven't been fried. This is actually one for the weight watchers amongst you.

Ingredients:
100-150 g chicken breast
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 cucumber
2-3 carrots
1 handfull of bean sprouts (or any other sprouts)
Fresh cilantro
Rice papers (find them in Asian food stores)
Hoisin Sauce (also from the Asian food stores)

Boil the chicken meat in lightly salted water. Break it into small pieces, marinate with the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil for about and hour in the fridge.

Peel and shred the carrots, cut the cucumbers into fine sticks. Rinse the bean sprouts, wash and dry the cilantro.

Soak the rice papers in cold water for about a minute or so. It should only just start to get soft and managable when you start with the filling. The water will keep softening them as you work. If you leave it too long they will become too soft and break easily. You'll see, it' might take a couple of tries before you get the timing right.

Add some cucumber sticks, carrots, chicken, sprouts and a couple of cilantro leafs. Don't add too much or you'll have trouble closing the roll. Again, you'll get the feeling for it after the first couple.

Start by roling it half way as tight as you can without breaking the rice paper. Fold over the sides.

Finish the roll, making sure it's quite tight. And then patience as you keep rolling the rest.

Cut the rolls in half diagonally (because it looks cool).

Serve with hoisin sauce for dipping.

Pad Thai

2010-02-09T10:51:00.006+01:00

Back again after a long absence due to a broken camera. Meanwhile I've bought a new mobile phone which takes pretty decent pictures and will be using that for he moment. I'll start out with a simple pad thai dish. I'm making the pad thai sauce from scratch but you can find pre-mixed sauces in most asian food stores. I'm making it here with egg noodles though the original pad thai is made with rice noodles. When Thailand was going through tough economical times after the Second World War, the government tried to revive the economy by distributing instructions on how to produce and prepare rice noodles. Ever since, rice noodles have been a key part of the Thai cuisine.

Ingredients:

Pad Thai Sauce:

1.5 dl water

1-1.5 tbsp tamarind paste

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tsp sambal olek

5-6 tbsp brown sugar

Pad Thai:

3 tbsp neutral oil for frying

1 tsp minced garlic

1/4 kg fresh king prawns

300g chicken breast cut into small strips

2 eggs

300 g rice noodles

Pad Thai sauce (see above)

Chopped fresh chili

3 tbsp chopped peanuts

1 handful bean sprouts

1-2 spring onion

1 lime

Fresh cilantro

To make the pad thai sauce, bring the water to a near boil (I do this in the microwave), remove from heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well until the sugar is all dissolved.

Peel the king prawns by first removing the head, then break the underbelly apart (where the feet are) and pull out the prawn meat. Make a small inscision on the top near the tail end and pull out the intestine which is often full of sand. You can eat it, but it might crunch which isn't very pleasant.

Freeze the prawn shells for making a fish stock or lobster soup later.

Bring water to boil, add the pasta. Boil according to the directions on the bag. Better a little too undercooked than too much.

Add the oil to a wok or a large frying pan. Add the garlic but don't turn on the heat yet. Leave to infuse while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

Clean and finely slice the spring onion, chop the chili and the peanuts.

Turn on the heat under the wok to maximum. As soon as the garlic starts sizzling, add the chicken. Fry for a couple of minues while stirring constantly.

When the chicken is fried on all sides, add the prawns. Fry a minute while stirring.

Push the chicken and prawns away from the centre and crack the two eggs into the whole. Scramble them.

When the egg is just starting to coagulate, add the drained nooldles. Fry for a minute or two while stirring.

Pour the pad thai sauce over.

Add the peanuts, chili and spring onions. Stir fry for a minute.

Add the sprouts and fresh, chopped cilantro.

Serve with a lime wedge on the side.