Samurai Viking Cuisine

Four Cheese Naan with Fresh Cilantro, Crushed & Toasted Cumin Seeds and Garlic

2011-09-21T10:47:00.008+02:00

I was watching a Swedish cooking show where a Swedish chef visited an Indian restaurant in NYC. During the program, he made a naan stuffed with cheese, cilantro, cumin and garlic. We never figured out what kind of cheese they used or whether the cumin was whole or ground, but it looked very good and we decided to try making something like it.

I left one ball of dough in the refrigerator overnight and made the one in the photo above this morning. It appears that the naan come out more like naan when you leave the dough to mature overnight, so I have modified the steps taken in making naan accordingly.

To really make naan you need to have a Tandoori Clay Oven. Manjula suggests using a pizza stone. I had neither. The logic is similar to making pizza in that the oven should be as hot as you can make it and the surface that you place the dough on should be ultra-hot. If you have neither of the above like me, all you can do is crank your oven up to maximum heat and then slip the naan on a board, quickly onto the baking hot oven tray.

I have to say that the cilantro was a little disappointing. I would suggest making it without the cilantro and sprinkling some of it on top after it comes out of the oven.

Four Cheese Naan with Fresh Cilantro, Toasted Cumin Seeds and Garlic

Naan - Manjula's Kitchen

Makes 6 Naans

Ingredients

2 Cups AP Flour

5.5 g Dry Yeast

1 Tsp Salt

1 Tsp Sugar

Pinch Baking Soda

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Heaping Tbsp Yogurt

1/2 Cup Water (or as much as you need)

Filling

Ingredients

1 Cup Fresh Cilantro Chopped

2 Tsp Toasted Cumin Seeds (Grind them a bit)

200g Shredded Cheese (Mozzarella, Cheddar, Samsoe, Emmental)

6 Cloves Garlic Chopped

Step 1: In a big plastic bowl, mix the yeast with 2 Tbsp of lukewarm water, 1 Tsp sugar and 1 Tsp flour and leave until frothy. This will take around 10 minutes.

Step 2: Add some more of the flour, the salt, baking soda and oil and mix it.

Step 3: Add the rest of the flour and mix it until crumbly, and then add as much water as you need to form a smooth dough. I kneaded mine on a lightly floured surface.

Step 4: After coating the ball of dough with more extra virgin olive oil, return it to the bowl and cover with plastic and let it rise for 6 hours. At this point you can knead the dough thoroughly until elastic and smooth and divide it up into 6 portions. Wrap each individual portion in plastic and store inside the cold compartment of your refrigerator.

Next Day:

Step 5: Take out as many balls as you are going to make and let them warm to room temperature.

Step 6: Preheat the oven to 250C or the highest you can make it go. Leave the tray inside the oven. Knead each portion before rolling them out. Kneading will also help them warm-up so you can start when they are still a bit cool to the touch.

Step 7: Flatten the dough out into a circle, sprinkle with cheese, cilantro, cumin and garlic and fold the naan in a similar way to making Chinese Beef Pies. See Manjula's video.

Step 8: Let these balls of dough rest for 5 minutes, and then flatten them with a rolling pin.

Step 8: Place the naan on oven paper on top of a flat board so that you can slide them onto the baking hot oven tray. If you have a pizza stone use it by all means, but I don't have one.

Step 9: Bake for 3-4 minutes. The baking time will depend on your oven and whether you have a pizza stone. It was around 4 minutes for me. The naan is ready when it is still snow white, but has some golden brown patches on top.

Step 10: Brush the naan with butter and sprinkle with some fleur de sel (and fresh cilantro).

Step 11: Let the oven reheat for 5 minutes before putting the next batch inside the oven. You can bake 2-3 in one go depending on the size of your oven.

We had ours with Garam Masala chicken and a salad.

Steamed Lotus Buns

2011-09-16T14:05:00.011+02:00

I still had some leftover lotus paste and Ann of Anncoo Journal suggested I make steamed lotus buns with them. I didn't want to waste any of it as Ronny and I nearly became crippled making it. It was really hard work. Please refer to my previous post for the lotus paste recipe.

I followed a recipe from Smoky Wok, modifying it a bit. I only used sugar to activate the yeast and omitted the rest of it. I also used cake flour as I read that it was better to keep the protein content low.

These were delicious and much healthier than the mooncakes as the wrapper only had a small amount of butter in it. If you have any kind of paste lying around (Azuki, white bean, lotus, etc.) it's very easy to make and wonderful to have with some nice Chinese or Japanese tea.

Steamed Lotus Buns

Ingredients

5.5g Dry Yeast

1/2 Cup Warm Water

1 1/2 Cup Cake Flour + more for kneading

1 Tsp Baking Powder

2 Tbsp Melted Butter

1 Tsp Sugar

Step 1: In a large bowl, mix the yeast, sugar and 1 Tsp of the cake flour and leave it until bubbly for around 15 minutes.

Step 2: Sift all the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Step 3: Mix the dry ingredients into the yeast mixture adding the butter.

Step 4: Knead for around 10 minutes.

Step 5: Transfer to a clean oiled bowl and let it rise for 60 minutes or until it has at least doubled.

Step 6: Start boiling the water in the steamer* when the dough is ready for another kneading.

Step 7: Knead the dough for another 5 minutes until it is smooth and pliant and then divide it into 12 portions.

Step 8: Roll a small ball of lotus paste and wrap it up. See this.

Step 9: Cut oven paper so that they are bigger than the buns and place the buns on top of the paper.

Step 10: Steam 3 at a time for 15-20 minutes.

Step 11: Serve warm.

*I used a couscoussier.

Making Chinese Mooncakes in Spain: A Study in Surrealism

2011-09-12T14:43:00.007+02:00

This is a documentary of me attempting to make mooncakes in Spain without the correct ingredients and without a mooncake mold. The arduous process and results were a study in surrealism.

What on earth is this?! It doesn't...look...like a moon cake, but what the hell. I spent three days slaving over this thing!

Anyhow, I don't suggest you follow my modified 'recipe' as the lotus paste came out way too soft. I am guessing there was too much butter in comparison to the starch content, and hence it tended to spread all over the place.

The other issue was that the dough did not seem to have the resilience it should have had and was not stretchy and soft and tended to crack, resulting in a surface that kind of looks like the drought hit areas of the earth.

I would say that the only useful part of this blog is how to prepare the dried lotus seeds. The rest is a work in progress.

So here goes...

Preparation of the Lotus Seeds

I used dry lotus seeds as this was all I could find.

I purchased 150 g x 6 packs of dried lotus seeds. After I soaked them in water overnight and seeds that had changed color and so on were removed, this converted to around 1.9 kg of lotus seeds. This means that a 150g pack of lotus seeds will convert to roughly 316 g of usable hydrated lotus seeds.

Step 1: Soak the lotus seeds in water in a big bowl for a few hours.

Step 2: When the lotus seeds have softened sufficiently for handling, check each seed to make sure the germ has been removed from the center as this is very bitter. Also throw away any seeds that look discolored.

Step 3: Soak the lotus seeds in water again overnight.

Step 4: Measure the desired amount of seeds. In my case I needed 1.332 kg lotus seeds to make 3 kg of lotus paste. Put the rest inside a tupperware in water and store in the refrigerator.

Step 5: Boil the lotus seeds for more than 5 hours until soft. Remember that you want a smooth paste. The softer they are the less likely they are to get gritty.

The recipe I followed for making lotus paste was this from Amanda:

Amanda's Recipe

200g Lotus Seed
180g Sugar (120g recommended by author)
160 ml Peanut Oil (100 ml Olive Oil recommended by author)
1 Tbsp Honey
1 Tbsp Condensed Milk
1/8 Tsp Salt

The author noted that this made around 450g of lotus paste and I needed 3kg. This meant I needed around 1332 g of lotus seeds. I modified the recipe proportions using fresh cream instead of condensed milk:

1330g Hydrated Lotus Seeds
800g Sugar
670g Butter
17 Tbsp Honey
14 Tbsp Fresh Cream
1 Tsp Salt

This is the lotus paste paste I made...or should I say Ronny made. Frankly, without his viking brute strength, it would have been impossible to stir more than 2.5kg of this paste for a few hours. It was insane. Now I think I can understand how Leif Erikson managed to get all the way to the Americas on his man/wind powered boat.

*This recipe yielded 2640g of lotus paste. Don't know what happened to the 360 g, but maybe we took too many spoonfuls out of it to 'taste it' as we were making it, and as I mentioned earlier it tasted good but was too soft.

I used several references for making my moon cakes and will link to them where relevant. In the end I chose to go with the formula on Anncoo Journal.

Anncoo's recipe:

600g Hong Kong Flour
360g Sugar Syrup
12g Alkaline Water
150g Peanut Oil
3 kg Lotus Paste

I compared this with another recipe on House of Annie.

Annie's recipe:

300g Superfine Flour (600g)
240g Mooncake Golden Syrup (480g)
1/2 Tbsp Alkaline Water (1Tbsp)
75g Cooking Oil (150g)
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda (1 Tsp)

A few questions arose at this point.

1. What is Hong Kong Flour?
2. What is Mooncake Golden Syrup?
3. What is alkaline water?

Hong Kong Flour turned out to be a fine bleached flour although I was never able to find out the percentage of its protein content. In the end, I opted for using 300 g AP flour and 300 g cake flour.

Mooncake Golden Syrup can be substituted with corn syrup or Golden Syrup, but if you really want to make it from scratch you need to let it sit for around a year before using it. See this. I opted for using a mixture of syrup and honey used in making Arab confections as this is all I could get.

Alkaline water according to some references is what is referred to as lye water in the west. However some say that it is simply alkaline water and you should do a litmus paper test to determine the pH of your tap water. Pure water has a pH of around 7.0. If the pH is more than 7.0, it is alkaline, if it is lower it is acidic. If your water isn't alkaline, adding baking soda to it can make it alkaline. The water in my area is very hard and alkaline so I just used tap water.

The other question is the baking soda in Annie's list of ingredients. As the dough has to sit for 3 hours to 1 day in her recipe, we can assume that it's not there for its raising properties. I am guessing that it is there to ensure that the dough stays alkaline.

Annie also uses a lot more syrup, which suggested to me that her dough would be softer. hmm....

In the end this is what I did:

300g AP Flour
300g Cake Flour
360g Syrup with Honey
10g Tap Water with an alkaline pH
150g Melted Butter

Anncoo's recipe says to let it sit for 20 minutes, but I decided to let it sit for much longer while I made the lotus paste. I might also add that if you have any doubts about whether your tap water is alkaline and don't want to do a litmus test, add 1 Tsp baking soda to the water.

This is what the dough looked like when it was put into the refrigerator:

The morning after making the lotus paste (and it had cooled down), it was time to shape and bake the moon cakes.

Shaping and Baking the Moon Cakes

Step 1: Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it warm-up to room temperature or at least until it is soft and pliable.

Step 2: Knead the lotus paste well and make 80g balls (or 150g if you think you can do it) . I had difficulty wrapping 150g of paste as my paste as very soft in comparison to my dough. I reduced the amount and decided to wrap them in the same way as I wrap Chinese beef pies - which is not the way to wrap moon cakes, but if you have trouble wrapping it the correct way, I suggest you do what I did!

Step 3: Knead the wrapper dough well and make 50g balls with it.

Step 4: Flatten out the dough into a circle with your hands and wrap the lotus paste ball with it completely.
See this. I didn't put an egg in the center, but put some walnuts and almonds candied with honey in the center.

Step 5: If you have a mold, then lightly dust the ball with cake flour and press it into the mold and remove. If not flatten it with your hands so that you have circular mooncake (with no fancy designs on it).

Step 6: Preheat oven to 180C.

Step 7: Bake 10 mooncakes or so at a time for 7 minutes. Remove them from the oven, cool them and bake the next batch for 7 minutes. Basically the mooncakes will need to cool for 10 minutes.

Step 8: Dial down the oven temperature to 175C and let the first batch rest for another 3 minutes at least.

Step 9: Paint the surface of the first batch of mooncakes with egg wash and put 10 of them back in the oven and bake them for 20 minutes.

Step 10: Repeat the process until all the mooncakes are baked.

Note: I used a well whipped egg yolk + 1 Tsp water for my egg wash.

I was talking to a friend of mine while making these and she mentioned walnut mooncakes, which made me want to make some candied walnuts and almonds.

I just coated a handful of walnuts and Marcona almonds with dark honey from Galicia and roasted them in the oven preheated to 175C (350F) for around 12 - 15 minutes, stirring them around a bit at the 7 minute mark or so. I incorporated these into a few of the mooncakes.

Let me end this by quoting Annie:

"Honestly, if you live in Asia where the filling ingredients are easy to find and buy pre-made, and most of the other ingredients for the skin are also prepared for you, it's not really hard at all. If you live in the West, where the ingredients may be more difficult to find and you'd have to make everything from scratch by yourself, then yes, I'd say it would be tougher."

No kidding!

The last and perhaps most important question is how they tasted. Well, my crust turned out to be like a soft pie crust and the lotus seed paste was very aromatic because of the Galician honey and home made vanilla essenceI used. They were definitely palatable, but they just were not....Chinese mooncakes. Please consult my original sources when making yours.

Addendum 1: The mooncakes need to be made at least 2 days before consumption. After 2 days the wrapper will soften and the cakes will become very fragrant. I left mine out on a cooling rack for the rest of the day and them stored them in an airtight container. Whenever I open the containers the aromatic scent of dark honey from Galicia, caramelized sugar, vanilla, butter and fresh cream spill out of the container and it's a real pleasure to take one of the moonakes out and eat them. Mine may look awkward, but they taste fabulous.

Addendum 2: I used 100% cake flour to bake another batch, and let the dough sit for 20 minutes. This appears to yield a more elastic dough. However, when I baked them the wrappers seemed to crack. This could be because I did not wait until the lotus paste had warmed-up to room temperature.

Addendum 3: If the lotus paste is soft, let it harden in the refrigerator and take them out and make the balls right before they are ready to be put into the wrapper. Then let them soften inside the wrapper before you put them into the mold or shape them with your hands.

Buttermilk Cluster Rolls - Revisited

2011-09-01T11:35:00.015+02:00

I made Michael Ruhlman's Buttermilk Cluster Rolls back in February 2010. This is a standard recipe in our household now and I thought I'd share the few modifications I have made to the original recipe.

Instead of baking it inside a cake pan to make that gorgeous looking cluster roll, for practicality's sake, I bake it inside an IKEA bullar loaf tin (27.5 cm x 8.5 cm x 6 cm), and make a few small buns on the side with the leftover dough. If you have a bigger bread loaf tin, you can make bigger balls of dough and bake everything in one go. Some modifications have been made in the recipe because buttermilk is difficult to obtain and expensive in Spain. I use a mixture of yogurt and whole milk.

This is Ronny's sandwich bread these days and he likes to melt Gouda or Cheddar cheese on it, but I love to have it with a generous slathering of marmalade made from bitter oranges from Seville (Mermelada de Naranja Amarga, Angel Camacho Alimentacion, S.L.).

Here's the modified recipe.

Yogurt & Milk Loaf with Blue Poppy Seeds - Adapted from Michael Ruhlman's Recipe

Ingredients

800g AP Flour

125 g Yogurt

445 g Whole Milk

5.5 g Dry Yeast

1 Tbsp Spanish Sea Salt

2 Tbsp Honey (I use Miel Multifloral de Galicia)

Butter (for greasing the tin)

Coarse Corn Flour (for sprinkling in the tin and on the oven paper)

1 Egg

1 Tsp Blue Poppy Seeds

Step 1: In a big mixing bowl, combine the flour (saving maybe 1/2 cup for the kneading), yeast and salt and give it a few whisks to make sure it is well-blended.

Step 2: Add the yogurt, milk and honey and mix and mix it until it's blended enough and you can move it to a floured kitchen surface.

Step 3: Use the remaining flour and knead the dough until smooth and resilient for about 10 minutes, gradually incorporating all of the flour.

Step 4: Put it back in the bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Let it rest for around 2 hours.

Step 5: Butter the bread loaf tin and sprinkle with coarse corn flour.

Step 5: Once the dough has risen, punch it down and knead it well releasing all the gases and then make 4 balls weighing around 300g each (the size of my fist aka the size of a 12 year old boy's fist) and put them into bread tin like you would when making a Brioche.

Step 6: Roll the remaining dough into small balls (100g x 4) and put them on oven paper that has been sprinkled with coarse corn flour.

Step 7: Cover both with tea towels and let them rise for 60 minutes.

Step 8: Beat the egg until it's a uniform smooth yellow.

Step 8: Preheat your oven to 190C (375F) and when the bread has risen, brush the surface of the loaf with the egg wash, sprinkle some blue poppy seeds on top and bake for 30 minutes, then cover with aluminum foil if the top is very brown and bake for another 10 minutes (Total Baking Time: 40 minutes).

Step 9: After removing the baked loaf from the oven, slide in the buns and bake these for 15 -20 minutes or until they are nice and brown on top.

Further Notes: My bread often cracks on top or on the sides and although this doesn't bother me I know it might bother some of you. I found this note on which is helpful.

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

2011-08-10T14:41:00.009+02:00

This isn't a photogenic recipe, nor is it extra special, but it is a nice basic recipe that you can make with very few ingredients. The flavor and texture of oatmeal and coconut is pleasant and the cookie is soft and slightly chewy. This recipe makes around 52 cookies. The numbers of cookies will depend on how gigantic you make them. Mine were small to medium sized.

I used home made vanilla essence made from vanilla pods and vodka. Here's the recipe I followed.

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies - Adapted from Darlene's Recipe at allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 Cup Unsalted Butter (227g)

1 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Cup Refined White Sugar

2 Eggs

1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Essence

2 Cups AP Flour

1 Cup Coconut Flakes

2 Cups Rolled Oats + as much more as you think you can add to it.*

1/2 Tsp Sea Salt

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1 Tsp Baking Powder

*I probably used 1/4 - 1/2 cup more. Stir in a little bit at a time, making sure you can still make balls out of the batter. You don't want to add so much more that the batter is dry and falls apart. The amount of extra oatmeal you can add will probably depend on the size of your eggs.

Step 1: Preheat oven to 175C (350F).

Step 2: Mix butter and sugars. Then add eggs and vanilla essence until thoroughly mixed.

Step 3: In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking power and baking soda. Whisk vigorously so that everything is mixed and sifted. Then add the oats and mix some more. Then add the coconut and mix lightly.

Step 4: Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients 1 cup at a time and blend. Try to do this as quickly as you can.

Step 5: Make small balls with your hands and press them down a bit to flatten with the palms of your hands.

Step 6: Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Floating Loaf - Adapted from Maria Speck's Recipe

2011-07-20T12:42:00.012+02:00

The author of Taste of Beirut suggested I look into this very interesting bread that requires minimal kneading and rises inside a vat of water. I was pretty sure it would work, but wanted to know more details, so I looked for a few more sources.

I found a source that had pretty detailed step-by-step photographs, i.e. Bread Experience.

Anyhow, I'm going to share my experience with the Floating Loaf.

Floating Loaf - Adapted from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals by Maria Speck

Ingredients

2 Cups AP Flour

1/2 Cup Spelt Flour

1 Cup + a little more luke warm water

2 Tbsp Sesame Seeds

1 Tsp Coarse Sea Salt

2 Tsp Brown Sugar

5.5 g Baker's Yeast

Corn Meal (for sprinkling on the oven paper)

Step 1: Mix all dry ingredients except for the sesame seeds.

Step 2: Add 1 cup water and mix and add more water if you think it needs more. The dough should be pretty wet and sticky but you should be able to make a ball with it.

Step 3: Roll in flour.

Step 4: Put the ball of dough into a vat of water. I used tap water, but if the water is heavily chlorinated in your area, I would let the water sit in the vat for a day to let chlorine evaporate a bit. Wait until the ball of dough floats to the surface. In my case, it took 8 minutes for this to happen, but the time can vary.

Step 5: Now knead it a bit on a floured surface and then put it on top of oven paper that you have sprinkled with corn meal. Cover it with a tea cloth/dish towel and let it rise for another 15-20 minutes or so. When it has risen, wet it with your fingers (fingers will warm the water a bit) and then sprinkle the sesame seeds on top. I used a brush during winter once and my loaf caved in. It's going to be baked anyway so why worry about fingers touching the dough?

Step 6: Preheat the oven to 220C (425F).

Step 7: The oven should be pre-heated by the time the bread rises so slide it onto the hot baking tray inside the oven and bake it for 20-30 minutes or until it is golden brown. I baked mine for 30 minutes.

We had aged Manchego cheese with fresh basil and rosemary inspired by Jana's display from Jana Around the World , green Spanish olives, and Cannellini Bean Spread from Steamy Kitchen with our freshly baked loaf of bread. It was a pretty nice lunch.

The beauty of this loaf is that the cooking time is relatively short. You can basically make freshly baked bread in around 60 minutes.

Beef Boregi with Herbs and Pine Nuts from Elra's Cooking

2011-07-17T12:52:00.002+02:00

This was my first attempt ever, at using filo pastry and as I tried to separate the layers of filo from the package, Elra's words came to mind.

"You might not use the whole package, but always nice to have extra just in case you tear some."

And boy did I tear some...

In the end, I cheated by using bits of the torn pastry to patch-up holes in the rolled-up filo in the pan. It took 65 minutes before the top of my Boregi was nice and brown.

For the recipe, please go here.

I totally recommend this recipe and really loved the filling!

Blue Poppy Seed Sourdough Dinner Buns

2011-07-14T22:07:00.005+02:00

I feed my starter once a week, and when I do this I pour everything into a plastic bowl and add 1 cup AP flour and 1 cup water and let it proof. This used to take more than 10 hours, but these days my starter is ready in a few hours.

When my starter is ready, I put half of it inside its container and feed it with 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup water. I use the rest of it to bake bread.

Now, this week I wanted something different. I wanted something different but not difficult or complicated since I had been dealing with some annoying things related to my water purifier for two days.

So I just made bread according to S. J. Ross's recipe adding around 1 Cup spelt flour into the mix and divided the dough up into 16 parts and topped them off with blue poppy seed.

The result was warm wholesome sourdough buns that tasted great with garlic parsley butter.

Here's the recipe.

Blue Poppy Seed Sourdough Dinner Buns

Ingredients

2 Cups Sponge

1 Cup Spelt Flour

2 Cups AP Flour*

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

5 Tsp Brown Sugar

2 Tsp Coarse Spanish Sea Salt

1 Tbsp Blue Poppy Seeds

*Approximate amount. Depending on the state of your sponge and other conditions, you may need more or less.

Step 1: Add the spelt flour to the sponge and mix it.

Step 2: Add the sugar and oil and mix some more.

Step 3: Add the rest of the flour and knead it until it is more or less mixed.

Step 4: Let it rest for 30 minutes and then knead it around 100 times.

Step 5: Let it rest for another 30 minutes and then knead it around 100 times.

Step 6: Let it rest for another 30 minutes and then knead it around 100 times.

Step 7: Let the dough rest until it has risen to around twice its original size. If you create an indentation with your finger and it does not spring back your bread is risen.

Step 8: Divide the dough into 4. Roll these into thick logs and then divide these into 4 again. This will give you 16 buns.

Step 9: Cover your baking tray with oven paper and put some coarse corn flour on it.

Step 10: Place the balls of buns on the paper and cover with a kitchen cloth and let them rise for 1-2 hours.

Step 11: When they have risen, dampen the tops of the buns with luke warm water and sprinkle blue poppy seeds on them.

Step 12: Put a steaming tray of boiling water on the bottom of the oven and put the oven tray in place. Close the oven and turn it on. The temperature should be set to 175C (350F).

Step 13: Bake for around 30 minutes.

Step 14: Serve warm with dinner!

Osakaya in Mita, Tokyo

2011-06-09T15:03:00.006+02:00

I've been remiss about blogging lately even more so than usual, because I've been spending a lot of time back in Japan. It may be difficult for some of you to imagine this, but this Japanese household did not even have one camera until recently and my sister's iPhone is currently on its way to the Apple Graveyard.

Anyway, I didn't make these. I wish I could say that I did.

These are Nerikiri from a wonderful Japanese sweets shop called Osakaya in Mita, Tokyo. Osakaya is a family business that has been around for 17 generations spanning a period of around 300 years.

Nerikiri are made from ingredients such as Shiratama Flour (processed glutinous rice flour), glutinous rice flour, sugar, Mizuame (starch syrup), Azuki bean paste, white bean paste or boiled egg yolks.

A good quality Nerikiri will have a very smooth texture and will have a subtle sweetness to it. Osakaya appears to blend their Azuki bean paste with white bean paste so that the flavor of Azuki does not dominate and become overpowering, but I don't really know what they do to achieve this effect.

I do however recommend that you pick-up some sweets at this shop if you are in the neighborhood. The quality of their sweets are really exceptional.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Christina Mohseni's Estate

2011-03-10T12:58:00.004+01:00

I was at a Rotary Club dinner on March 9, 2011. I flew in to attend it, as I had had a craving for Lebanese food for quite some time. To my delight, my friend who accompanied me won a bottle of extra virgin olive oil in the raffle, and I was even more delighted when I found out this special bottle of olive oil was produced on an estate owned by Christina Mohseni, one of the members of the Rotary Club of London. The label has stains on it as it wasn't bottled industrially and was presumably hand carried from the estate in Bibbona to London.

The olive oil had a fresh spicy smell that brought back memories of a trip I made to Tuscany more than a decade ago. I drizzled some of it onto a plate and mopped it up with some focaccia I had just made. It was heavenly.

Thank you, Christina!

Sourdough Ciabatta

2011-03-07T11:47:00.015+01:00

Ronny was going to make some sourdough Ciabatta this weekend, but upon examination of the recipe he was going to use, I saw baking soda in the ingredient list and I was turned off by it. We still wanted to make Ciabatta so I had to quickly find an alternative recipe and I turned to Elra and sure enough, Elra had made some.

The first step is to ascertain if you have the ingredients for making this.

You will need the following ingredients:

540g AP Flour or Strong Wheat Flour

17g Sea Salt

26g Extra Virgin Olive Oil

610g Proofed Sourdough Starter (If you don't have enough, you can add extra water.)

355g Water (Use less water here if you add more water to the starter.)

I didn't have exactly 610 g starter. I only had 500g of it, so I just added 110g additional water. If fed, yeast will propagate and experience told me this wouldn't be an issue, and it wasn't. I added less water. Instead of 355g, I used 300g.

The original recipe uses some whole wheat flour, but my starter is fed on 100% whole wheat flour all the time so I just used unbleached wheat flour. Strong Bread Flour is better but you won't fail if you use AP Flour.

Mix all these ingredients for about 5 minutes making sure it's thoroughly mixed, and then mix it for another 5 minutes a little more vigorously this time. Let it sit for 30 minutes inside the bowl and prepare a clean oiled bowl while the dough is sitting.

Then next step is to fold the very wet dough on a heavily floured surface. Please see this video on how to do it. If your dough is very very wet, I suggest using two spatulas to fold it more than a few times until some of the flour is incorporated into the batter, making it more manageable.

Let the dough sit for another 60 minutes inside the oiled bowl, and repeat the above procedure. By now the dough should be more manageable and you can just fold it over horizontally, then vertically, like folding a letter. Return the dough to the oiled bowl.

Let the dough sit for 120 minutes this time. While waiting, clean out the other bowl and oil it. When the 120 minutes is up, fold the dough again and put it into the newly oiled bowl, cover it with plastic and fasten the edges with duct tape. This is to prevent any weird refrigerator smells permeating your dough.

I pretty much followed Elra's recipe even about the part where she left her dough lying in the refrigerator for 18 hours. This is because when you start making the Ciabatta on a Saturday afternoon, it's around 4 p.m. by the time it's ready to go into the refrigerator. Then you resume at around 10 a.m. the next day, if you're lazy like me. I believe the important thing here is to leave it in the refrigerator to mature for at least 9 hours and it shouldn't matter too much if you leave it there for a few more hours. It's probably not a good idea to leave it there for more than 24 hours though.

The morning after...

I don't have a couche, and I just used a heavily floured IKEA tea towel, sprinkled flour on the bread and covered it with cling film. I think covering them with a floured tea towel would have been better as the dough can stick to the cling film if you're not careful, but unfortunately the rest of my tea towels were in the laundry basket at the time. Here is a video by Susan from Wild Yeast on how to cut and transfer the dough to the floured tea towel or couche.

I let it rise for 1 hour and then started preheating the oven at 250C (475F). As soon as the oven reached this temperature, I placed an oven paper on a flat board (or any hard flat item) and carefully transferred the ciabatta dough with the side that was facing down, facing up this time. This is so that you have those nice artistic looking patterns on your bread when they are finished.

Then, I put a dish with boiling water onto the bottom of the oven. I use a pyrex casserole dish for this. I put the casserole dish in place and then pour boiling water into it, because it's less dangerous this way.

Remove the baking hot tray from the oven, and slide the dough onto the hot tray. This is much easier of course if you have a hard flat board underneath the oven paper. Put the tray back into the oven and shut the door.

Dial down the oven temperature to 230C (450F) and bake it for 20-30 minutes. If the loaves look anemic, bake them for another 5 minutes.

I'm also going to list Elra's references here and here. When you follow the link, it will lead you to Wild Yeast, and since this bread was very photogenic, I've decided to make an entry to Yeast Spotting.

Baking Soda and Baking Powder

2011-02-20T15:10:00.007+01:00

Have you ever had problems with cakes and muffins that did not rise?

There are a few things you should keep in mind when baking, depending on what kind of leavening you are using.

Unlike yeast which takes time to make the dough rise and the most common reason for bread not rising is because you didn't wait long enough, baking soda and baking powder act quickly, and you really shouldn't leave the batter lying around. Joy of Baking estimates that baking powder can be left lying around for 15-20 minutes, but a batter with baking soda has got to go into the oven immediately.

First rule: Turn the oven on before you start mixing and weighing things and making the batter. That's why good cookbooks will tell you to preheat the oven to xxx at the very beginning.

Baking soda is four times stronger than baking soda and has a faster reaction time than baking powder, which means that there's more urgency to putting the batter into the oven faster.

Second Rule: Baking soda needs an acidic environment so that it can activate. If you're making a recipe with baking soda, don't replace acidic ingredients with those that aren't. For example, if it calls for buttermilk, don't replace it with plain milk unless it's gone sour and nobody wants to use sour milk in their baking. You can however replace it with milk mixed with lemon or yogurt which are acidic.

Acidic Ingredients: Honey, Natural Cocoa (not dutch processed), Sourdough*, vinegar, Citrus Juice, Sour Cream, Honey, Molasses, Brown Sugar, Fruit, Maple Syrup, etc.

Third Rule: Last but not least, make sure you whisk all the dry ingredients or sift them so that the baking soda or baking powder gets distributed evenly.

For more detailed information, please refer to Joy of Baking.

*When I made the Sourdough Chocolate Cake from King Arthur Flour, I used cocoa that was probably Dutch processed. Although the recipe tells you not to do so, I pretty much counted on my sourdough being acidic enough, and it was. However, should you make a chocolate cake without sourdough and the recipe calls for cocoa that is not Dutch processed, I'd make sure the cocoa is the right kind as there would be no sourdough to make the batter acidic. That, or you can replace some other ingredient with yogurt or sour cream.

Focaccia with Moroccan Oil Cured Black Olives & Herbs (Non-Sourdough Version)

2011-02-19T15:27:00.013+01:00

This is a variation of Ilva's Sweet Focaccia recipe and it's a savory recipe similar to the Sourdough Foccacia I made. Aside from being careful about how much salt you sprinkle on top since the oil cured black olives are already quite salty, this bread was delicious. The proportions of herbs to dough was just right versus previous attempts.

Focaccia with Moroccan Oil Cured Black Olives & Herbs

Ingredients

1 Packet Dried Yeast (5g)

4 Tsp Brown Sugar

1 Tsp Sea Salt

3 dl Finger Warm Water

5 dl Bread Flour*

4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 -2 Tbsp Fleur de Sel or Escamas de Sal

20 Oil Cured Black Moroccan Olives (pitted and chopped)

1 Tsp Rosemary

2 Tsp Thyme

2 Tsp Oregano

*Harina de Fuerza or any wheat flour with a high protein content.

Step 1: Warm the water and pour it over the yeast. Add the sugar and salt and let it stand until it's a bit frothy.

Step 2: Add the flour. Do this 1/2 cup at a time. You may need more or less than 5 dl. This is because the absorbency of the flour can vary from region to region, brand to brand and due to weather conditions. Then knead this until you have a nice elastic dough.

Step 3: Cover and leave for 1 hour.

Step 4: Roll out the dough on a floured surface and spread the herbs and olives all over it. Then roll it up and knead it a bit.

Step 5: Oil a 21.5 cm x 21. 5 cm baking pan and then flatten the dough into it so that it is 1.5 - 2 cm high.

Step 6: Set the oven to 200C and turn it on.

Step 7: When the oven is preheated, drizzle on more olive oil and sprinkle the top with as much fleur de sel as you wish.

Step 8: Bake in the oven for 15 - 25 minutes or until it's golden brown.

A Guide to Blending Flour

2011-02-14T10:06:00.010+01:00

The best source I've found online is Joy of Baking. This article gives you a good idea of the percentage of protein you need to have in your flour to get the desired results in specific recipes. It's a site primarily made for Americans, which means that they give you volume measurement equivalents to grams. The site basically gives you all the information you need to calculate how to blend flours yourself, should the country you are currently living in not have certain kinds of flours, e.g. AP Flour (All Purpose Flour).

I thought I'd write a post about this as people travel a lot these days. If you're a single working expatriate you may not cook, but if you are moving around with a family the person staying at home might be doing some baking.

I've heard time and again about how 'the recipe doesn't work with the local flour', but haven't you noticed that no matter where you are, there is that lady or man who doesn't seem to be having problems with baking and is churning out all these amazing things? Why doesn't my cake rise? Why does her cake rise? What is wrong with my cake? There is usually a good scientific explanation as to why one person failed and the other did not. There is no need to engage in any superstitious rituals and there is no need to import flour from your home country.

According to Joy of Baking:

All Purpose Flour: 10-12% protein content

Cake Flour: 6-8% protein content

Pastry Flour: 8-10% protein content

Bread Flour: 12-14% protein content

Now, the country you're in may not have flour categorized in this manner. In Japan for example you will be able to find 2 types of flour: Hakuriki and Kyoryoku. Although Hakuriki flour is generally known as 'cake flour' and Kyoryoku flour is known as 'bread flour' I sent an email to Nissin asking them about protein percentages. They gave me their numbers for their most popular brand 'Camelia':

Hakuriki Flour: 8%

Kyoroku Flour: 12%

Remember basic algebra?

Hakuriki Flour=X

Kyoryoku Flour=Y

You know that this is what you have and now you need to figure out in what proportions you should blend these two bags of flour to get the desired results.

All Purpose Flour: 10-12% protein content

We'll take the median or the average, which is 11%, even though if you wanted a high percentage AP Flour you could presumably use Camelia Kyoryoku Flour as it's within the range of AP Flour. I have found from past experience that since the Kyoryoku Flour was formulated not for making bread, but for making 'Udon', it's easier to handle when you mix in some Hakuriki Flour which was formulated for making cake and French style butter cookies.

(8X+12Y)/2=11

8X+12Y=22

Let X=1 *Let 1 portion of flour=100g

(8*1)+12Y=22

12Y=22-8

12Y=14

Y=14/12

Y=1.16

This means that you should mix 100g of Hakuriki flour with 116g of Kyoryoku flour to get a flour with an 11% protein content.

For a 10% AP Flour in Japan:

(8X+12Y)/2=10

8X+12Y=20

Let X=1

8+12Y=20

12Y=20-8

12Y=12

Y=1

This means you should mix 100g of Hakuriki Flour with 100g of Kyoroku Flour to get a 10% AP Flour. This is the formula I use and so far I've had good results with this. However, I know that should I want more texture, I could increase the proportion of Kyoryoku to Hakuriki.

If you need a 12% AP flour, just use Kyoryoku Flour, although I've found that since it is formulated for making 'udon' it can benefit from a little 'cake flour' blended into it.

To get the desired results, I've found that blending these flours at a 1:1 ratio (10% protein content) works well for me.

As for pastry flour, the 10% blend can work, but if you feel you'd like the crust to be a little more delicate, you need to blend slightly more Hakuriki flour in proportion to the Kyoryoku flour.

Pastry Flour: 8-10% protein content.

For a 9% Pastry Flour

(8X+12Y)/2=9

8X+12Y=18

Let X=1

8+12Y=18

12Y=18-8

12Y=10

Y=0.83

This means that you should blend 100g of Hakuriki flour with 83g of Kyryoku flour.

For an 8% Pastry Flour, just use Hakuriki flour.

I have however found that the 9% blend gives the desired results.

Remember that each manufacturer in each country has formulated their flour to meet the demands of their consumers and you are a minority as a foreigner. If you find Japanese cakes to be too soft, well, unfortunately, this is the way the Japanese like their cakes to be. But this doesn't mean that you have to suffer eating these cakes. Just blend your flours a bit, using the formulas I've provided you with, and you'll get a cake that's more to your liking.

If you want to take this one step further, write your manufacturer back home and ask them for the exact percentages of protein they have in that specific brand of flour you used. I've already done that bit for you on the Japanese end so you can recalculate everything to make sure your blended flour will have the exact same percentage as the flour you were using back home.

If you don't live in Japan, you'll have to do the homework on both ends, but I think I've provided you with enough of a basic guideline so that you can manage to calculate the right proportions no matter where you are in the world.

Note 1: I've found that when I'm in Spain and I blend their regular flour (AP Flour) with their Cake Flour to make Pastry Flour, I need more water for the dough to come together. I am however not sure whether this is due to the protein content or whether their Cake Flour absorbs more water.

Note 2: The most common flour in Germany is Cake Flour. This could be due to the fact that in the past few decades (at least), the Germans bought their bread whereas they baked cake in industrial quantities at home. This means that a lot of foreigners who thought their most common flour was AP flour didn't have enough protein in their flour and ended-up baking different types of things with what's known as Cake Flour in America.

Note 3: When blending your own flour, it's easier to calculate ratios in grams rather than by volume. Doing this by volume means using a more complicated mathematical equation and I'm just not that good at math!

BLT with Sourdough Focaccia

2011-02-12T12:37:00.008+01:00

The BLT is an American pleasure that appears to be widely unknown among certain demographies. The first time I made this for Ronny with regular bread, he loved it. This was my lunch today and I have to say that it was pretty damn good.

After slicing the Sourdough Focaccia which had Moroccan oil cured black olives, rosemary, thyme and oregano baked into it, I toasted the slices. Then I spread a luxurious amount of Spanish cream cheese onto one side and piled on the iceberg lettuce, two thin slices of tomatoes, thin slices of red onion and two crispy pieces of bacon.

Even though the English invented the sandwich, the Americans have elevated sandwich making into an art form with their different types of bread, toasted or not toasted, and the wide variety of ingredients they use. Unlike the English, the Americans weren't shy about being innovative and we have them to thank for the BLT.

Certain sources like to trace back the origins of BLT to Victorian times and attempt to hand over the credit for this invention to the English by saying that 'Recipes are not invented, they evolve', I think we can pretty safely say that BLT in its current state is American cuisine.

Anyway, who cares? Let people who want to take credit for things argue forever. I'm going to eat another sandwich!

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

2011-02-09T15:29:00.002+01:00

This the aftermath of the disaster involving the Sourdough Chocolate Cake from King Arthur Flour. I'm posting this for you, Lori.

Sourdough Herb & Olive Bread

2011-02-08T11:59:00.026+01:00

When I fed 'Zlatan' this weekend, I kept separating his children into different bowls and making more and more 'Zlatan' and ended-up with too much sourdough bubbling all over the place, so I made a Sourdough Chocolate Cake which turned out to be a delightfully moist cake, but we were impatient and took it out of the bundt pan too quickly and guess what? It became unsuitable for photography. However, I can tell you that it tasted great and that I'd make it again. I also baked a loaf of bread and made two medium sized buns yesterday with some spelt flour thrown into it but I still had more sponge.

So as I write this, I'm making more of Jim Lahey's No Knead Baguettes and am trying out a new recipe from Sarah's Musings: Sourdough Focaccia.

Sourdough Herb & Olive Bread - Adapted from the Sourdough Focaccia recipe from 'Sarah's Musings'

You start out by mixing these together:

1.5 Cups Sponge (a starter that has been proofed)

1 Cup Finger Warm Water

1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Dark Honey

1 Cup AP Flour

This mixture was fermented for 1 hour.

Then, I mixed in:

1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Tsp Fine Sea Salt

...and more AP flour.

It should be noted that when using yeast, I prefer to mix in some AP flour first before I put in any oil or salt which the yeast do not like. I am not sure this makes much difference, but if you have had experiences with your bread not rising, this might help. Yeast feast on flour and this will help them multiply, but salt and oil will hinder them from propagating.

Now, Sarah's recipes says 4 cups flour, but flour varies in absorbency and starters/sponge can have more or less water in them, so although this gives you a very rough idea of how much flour you might need, the rule of thumb is to always trust your eyes and hands more when making the dough. I used around 4 cups + a little more flour, but you might need more or less.

So I put in as much AP flour was was necessary to make a smooth elastic dough.

I kneaded it for 5-7 minutes until it was smooth and elastic.

Then I put it back in the bowl to rest.

Sarah used a clean oiled bowl, but I have found that if you're a lazy and messy cook like me, your bread will not die if you just put it back in the dirty (dirty with yeast and flour) bowl you used to ferment the sponge. I guess this is why she's presumably a good homemaker, and I'm not - but I digress...

I covered the bowl with a cloth and let it rise for 1.5 - 2 hours as stipulated.

I then mixed in some herbs: 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp thyme and 1 tsp rosemary.

I also mixed in 100g of oil cured black olives (pitted and chopped up).

I then lined a pan with more extra virgin olive oil and pressed the dough into the pan just like I did when I made Ilva's sweet focaccia. I wondered about letting it rest for another hour as Ilva's recipe did not require this additional step, but then I thought: It's sourdough and it will rise more slowly than the dried stuff I use.

So I let it rest for 60 minutes.

I was going to brush the dough with more olive oil, but like Sarah's, mine spilled over from the bottom of the pan on top of the dough too, so all I did was sprinkle some fleur de sel over it before I put it into the preheated oven.

Unfortunately, my biggest rectangular pan wasn't big enough and the thickness of the dough was more like 3 cm rather than 1.5 - 2 cm.

I baked it at 230 C (450 F) for around 25 minutes. I had a feeling it should bake for at least 30 minutes, but the top had become quite brown so I took it out of the oven.

...and here it is - a bread baked along the lines of a focaccia bread, but more robust. It is sinfully delicious when you have it with herb & garlic butter. Whatever you decide to call this bread, the crust is crisp and the inside of the loaf is lovely and moist. Don't forget to let it rest for 20 minutes before cutting it.

Summary of ingredients used in this recipe:

1.5 Cups Sourdough Starter

5 - 8 Cups AP Flour*

1/4 Cup + 1/2 Cup + 4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

1 Tbsp Honey

2 Tsp Fine Sea Salt

2 Tbsp Fleur de Sel*

2 Tsp Oregano

2 Tsp Thyme

100 g Oil Cured Black Olives

*These are approximate portions. Use more or less depending on what's needed. The amount of fleur de sel you will sprinkle on top of your focaccia for example is really up to you.

Note: I don't watch football, but Ronny does. Guess who named the starter? On a more serious note, when you bake bread with salt sprinkled on top, it will make your bread damp. You either need to consume everything right away or if you have leftovers, you can preheat your oven to 200C and warm the bread for about 10 minutes. I like to sprinkle more fleur de sel over the bread when reheating them.

A Sweet Focaccia from Lucullian Delights

2011-02-05T11:37:00.008+01:00

If you ever have a craving for ever so slightly sweetened rustic bread, this is the recipe. I urge you to read the original post Ilva made as her photograph is much better for one, and there's just something delightful about the way she writes.

To make this recipe you don't need many ingredients. All you need is yeast, flour (AP flour), sugar, salt, milk, almonds and some olive oil. Ilva used a wet yeast, but I used dry yeast. I used marcona almonds and some sweet olive oil from Riviera Ligure.

These were lovely fresh out of the oven and were still very nice the next day.

Sweet Focaccia with Almonds - Lucullian Delights

Ingredients

1 Packet Dried Yeast (5g)

2-3 Tbsp Sugar + some for sprinkling on top of the focaccia

1 Pinch Sea Salt

3 dl Milk

5 dl AP Flour +

50g Marcona Almonds (blanched & chopped)

4 Tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Riviera Ligure

Step 1: Warm the milk until it's slightly warm to the touch and pour it over the yeast you have put into a preferably plastic bowl. Add the sugar and salt and let it stand while you chop the almonds.

Step 2: Chop the almonds and then put them into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.

Step 3: Add the AP flour. Do this 1/2 cup at a time. You may need less or more flour than 5 dl. I used maybe 7dl or more flour. The absorbency of flour can vary from region to region, brand to brand and weather conditions (humidity) can change how much flour you need to get a nice elastic smooth dough. Always trust your eyes and fingers more than amounts noted in recipes.

Step 4: When you have a nice smooth elastic dough, cover it and leave it for 1 hour.

Step 5: Put enough olive oil inside a 21.5 cm x 21.5 cm baking pan and make sure it is covered with a light film of oil.

Step 6: Press the dough into the pan so that it is 1.5 cm - 2 cm high. Cover it and turn on the oven to 200C.

Step 7: When the oven is preheated, drizzle some more olive oil over the dough and sprinkle a generous dose of sugar. The sugar you have put into the dough will not really be apparent so if you want a sweet cake, make sure you sprinkle enough sugar on top.

Step 8: Bake in the oven for 15- 25 minutes or until the focaccia is a golden brown.

Note 1: The amount of yeast is not that important. Don't freak out if your packet of yeast is 3g or 7g. Yeast given the time and right environment will propagate and increase. If you feel the yeast hasn't increased sufficiently, then leave it to rise for longer than 60 minutes.

Note 2: Ilva used a bigger pan, but it worked fine with a smaller pan, i.e. 21.5 cm x 21. 5 cm. If your pan is a little bigger or smaller, don't freak out. Just don't use anything drastically bigger or smaller.

Note 3: Because this is a sweet focaccia, I would choose a mild tasting olive oil with a sweet flavor for use in this recipe. I opted for the extra virgin olive oil that Samuele sent me rather than the local olive oil for this reason. I would use local Spanish olive oil for a savory focaccia.

Cranberry Oatmeal Bar Cookies

2011-02-01T18:45:00.006+01:00

Perhaps because Spain has a lot of local produce, fresh fruit and vegetables are a lot cheaper compared to their dried, frozen or canned cousins. When it comes to dried fruit, there also isn't a great deal of variety available all year round. You mostly see the supermarkets and stores saturated with dried or candied fruit during the months leading up to Christmas and after that they just kind of disappear.

Mercadona, however sell 90g packets of cranberries and so I made a batch of these delicious Cranberry Oatmeal Bars. For the recipe, please go here.

These were very good just as they were, but I'd like to experiment a bit with this recipe some time soon and increase the amount of oatmeal and add some omega-6 rich walnuts so that I can kid myself that the bars are good for my rheumatism.

Wasabi Snacks from Hokkaido

2010-12-27T05:21:00.011+01:00

Ikeda Shokuhin are located on the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido. They have some innovative snacks made from cashew nuts and different kinds of soy beans. The wasabi flavored black soy beans are my favorite. They have other funky flavors like barbecued shrimp, barbecued calamari, toasted soy sauce and sesame seed salt.

Their line of nut products have a smooth crisp crunchy coating and also come in various flavors. They have cashew nuts, walnuts and pistachios that come in different flavors. If you love wasabi, you might check out their wasabi flavored cashews.

They send samples to my mother every year, and I've consistently been amazed at the quality of their products and the attention to detail they pay to flavor, quality and packaging.

Ikeda Shokuhin

Fax: ＋81-11-811-2214

Email: info@ikeda-c.co.jp

Note: I don't have my camera with me and the photographs were taken with an iPhone.

David Lebovitz's Chocolate-Almond Buttercrunch Toffee Recipe

2010-12-03T16:08:00.003+01:00

We're in that period leading up to Christmas now and the supermarket is full of Dulces de Navidad. I bought a whole array of dried fruit, including Spanish Fig Bread, French truffles and other things and stuffed them in a box to send to Sweden. Then, I went home and decided to make Chocolate-Almond Buttercrunch Toffee.

I did some research but in the end decided to follow David Lebovitz's recipe because his recipes always work, and I can tell you I wasn't sorry I did. It was very easy to make and as long as you have a candy thermometer and didn't fail chemistry (and it's not one of those bad candy days) I think you'll be fine.

I used 100g of hazelnut and 100g of almonds in mine. Other than that I followed the recipe to a tee.

For the recipe please go here.

Pain d’épices - Honey Spice Bread from Burgundy

2010-10-26T09:51:00.018+02:00

I found this recipe on Elra's Baking. Elra, unlike me, is a masterful baker. You can see real skill in her creations. Usually her recipes are somewhat complicated, time consuming and/or take real skill, but this time she had something pretty easy to share with us mere mortals, so I decided to try making it. If you're interested in reading up a bit more on this kind of bread you might visit David Lebovitz's page here. It may not be the most informative article about this kind of bread, but I like his story telling skills. He can make just about anything sound interesting and relevant to you.

Unlike Elra's gluten free version, I used regular AP flour and whole wheat flour. I bought 6 oranges and spent yesterday afternoon slaving in the kitchen, making candied orange peels. I'd have to say this was the hardest part of this recipe. However, as I have learned, home made candied orange peel or lemon peel is just so much nicer so I went the extra mile. Not only that. In Spain where I live, the cost of 6 oranges is under 2 euros and 1 kg of sugar is something like 0.70 euros. Basically, if you choose to slave in the kitchen instead of taking the easier way out you get about 2 cups of beautiful candied orange peel bursting with flavor for under 3 euros. In the spice bread, I used raw brown sugar instead of 'molasses + brown sugar' as I couldn't find any of the former, and I omitted the orange flower water as I felt it was an artificial flavoring this mix didn't really need.

Since Elra noted that you needed to let the bread sit overnight or if you can manage to restrain yourself, for 3 days, I made the loaf late last night so that I could have a slice this morning.

Perhaps because I didn't chop the orange peel finely enough, they appeared to sink to the bottom of the batter and created gaps at the bottom of the loaf, but this didn't detract from the wholesome spicy aroma of the bread. When I bit into the loaf, the burst of the spices and freshly made candied orange peels made all the slaving worth it. I still have more than 1/2 cup home made orange peel left so I'm definitely going to make this again.

Pain d’épices - Honey Spice Bread from Burgundy - Adapted from ~ Elra ~

Ingredients

1 Cup AP Flour
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Baking Soda
Pinch Salt
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Ginger
1/2 Tsp Cloves
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
1/2 Tsp Anise
1 Cup Honey*
1/2 Cup Raw Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Cup Whole Milk
1/2 Cup Candied Orange Peel

*I used a thick dark honey from Galicia. I suggest using orange flower honey to enhance flavor, if you can get this in your area.

Step 1: Warm the milk, honey and brown sugar over low heat until everything has dissolved. Set it aside to cool

Step 2: When the liquid mixture above has cooled, preheat the oven to 176 C (350 F).

Step 3: Mix all the dry ingredients except for the orange peel. Put everything in a big bowl and use a beater to beat it all up if you are lazy about sifting ingredients.

Step 4: Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix it just so that you don't have any clumps of flour in the batter.

Step 5: Stir in the chopped orange peel and pour into a buttered, paper lined baking mold.

Step 6: Bake in the oven for 45-55 minutes.

Step 7: Leave in the mold for 10 minutes then remove from the mold and let it cool to room temperature.

Step 8: Wrap it with the paper still on in aluminum foil and let it mature overnight or for 3 days.

Step 9: Make yourself some coffee or tea and enjoy!

Note: Speaking of candied orange peel this guy has really made beautiful ones.

Braised Cauliflower with Tarator Sauce (Lebanese)

2010-10-21T14:43:00.011+02:00

Lebanon.

What do you think of when you hear this word?

When I hear this word, my mouth waters ever since I found Taste of Beirut. I never realized how much I loved Lebanese food until I found this blog. Everything I've tried has been divine.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a big vegetable lover and I'm always looking for new recipes that will make me say: Ooooh I love this and I want to eat more! This is such a recipe. Need I say more?

I have listed the ingredients and given you a quick version of how to make it, but please go here for further details. I also recommend you visit Taste of Beirut, because there are so many other mouth watering recipes to be discovered there. One of my absolute favorites is the Shrimp in Cilantro & Garlic Sauce.

Braised Cauliflower with Tarator Sauce Lebanese Style - From Taste of Beirut

Ingredients

1 Head of Cauliflower

3 - 4 Lemons = 1/2 Cup Lemon Juice

1/2 Cup Tahini

1/2 Cup Water

6 Cloves of Garlic

Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Parsley

Step 1: Cut the cauliflower into florets and then braise them in olive oil until golden brown, lightly salting them as you braise them. Leave them to cool to room temperature.

Step 2: Put the lemon juice, water, garlic and Tahineh into a food processor and blend until it's a nice soft cream the consistency of mayonnaise. Salt to taste.

Step 3: Serve the cauliflower with the sauce. Dip and eat.

Butter Mochi

2010-10-11T14:49:00.012+02:00

I still remember with fondness those days when I had just been married in my mid-twenties, and my sister was Director of Japanese Programs at the Sheraton Waikiki. If I close my eyes I can almost see the sunlit Surf Room of the Moana Surfrider with their lovely lunch buffet of a myriad delights, and I can almost hear the low din of happy people on holiday, with waiters and waitresses weaving through the tables neatly covered in pink and white cloths, with their pitchers full of iced tea with pineapple juice, the ice cubes lazily clunking around inside them.

The Waikiki area is a perfect beach resort, almost like a chapter in Disneyland. It's very rarely that you see things tourists don't want to see. Everything is clean and well-ordered and panders to the perfect holiday on a tropical island without some of the more unpleasant 'reality' of the tropics. You don't really notice the presence of mosquitoes or fungus growing in all manners of places, and you don't see the telltale signs of bad maintenance like chipped tiles and broken fences that you often see in many tropical areas.

The other day I was looking for a recipe with glutinous rice. This was because I had purchased some to make Puto, a Filipino steamed rice cake, and then after finding out that the recipe didn't really produce the results I wanted, I decided to look for other ways to get rid of the rest of the glutinous rice flour. This was when I came across the word 'Butter Mochi'. Someone mentioned it in the comments of a blog explaining how to make Mochi, saying that it tasted nothing like Butter Mochi and that she was terribly disappointed.

I don't think I've ever had Butter Mochi. Even though when I'm in Hawaii, the locals think I'm a local (Japanese American) who has had a 'mainland education', I don't know that much about Hawaii, and I really don't think I've ever had Butter Mochi.

I kept the recipe lying around for days unconvinced whether I should try making it, until finally I thought: What the hell. I might as well make it, because this bastardized version of Mochi is kind of like a Japanese American and kind of like me. Although some sources speculate that Butter Mochi is a bastardized Bibingka (another Filipino rice cake) meets Portugal, I don't think it's anything like Bibingka. Whatever Butter Mochi is, I feel it's more like an accurate representation of the Hawaiian brand of East meets West. I mean if a lot of the immigrants had glutinous rice flours lying around their homes, wouldn't someone there have just come-up with this one day when they suddenly needed to bake a cake for some guests, but didn't have any ordinary wheat flour lying around? Let's just throw in the rice flour and lots of eggs and butter because rice flour isn't going to get fluffy!

So here it is. The original recipe is from here, but these are the proportions for a smaller baking pan.

Butter Mochi

Ingredients

312g Glutinous Rice Flour

342g Sugar

1 Tsp Baking Powder

81g Melted Butter

486 ml Whole Milk

4 small-medium eggs (3 if large)

1 Tsp Vanilla Essence*

Nearly 1 Cup Dessicated Coconut Flakes

23 cm x 23 cm Baking Pan <---Turned out to be too small. *I used my home made vanilla essence made with vodka and vanilla beans. I followed this recipe.

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 175C (350F).

Step 2: Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl with a beater so that it's well-mixed.

Step 3: Beat the eggs in a smaller bowl. Add the milk and vanilla essence.

Step 4: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Step 5: Pour in the melted butter and dessicated coconuts.

Step 6: Pour the batter into a buttered baking pan and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Step 7: Remove from oven after 60 minutes or when the top of the Butter Mochi is golden brown, and cool completely before cutting into squares and serving.

Step 8: Enjoy!

While this was baking, my apartment was filled with the sweet aroma of sugary coconuts and vanilla. I'd say it's a happy smell. The best part about the Butter Mochi is contrast of the crispy coconut crust on top and the chewy layer of Mochi beneath it. I think when I make this again, I'm going to use a much larger baking pan so that there's more crispy coconut.

Notes: Around 35 minutes into baking this, I walked over to the oven and took a peek to see how things were coming along. It turns out the baking pan was too small and the Butter Mochi had puffed up like Yorkshire Pudding or Dutch Babies. Lesson learned. Please use a larger baking pan than 23 cm x 23 cm. I'll give this another go and post the ideal size.

Besam Paare (Spicy Indian Crackers)

2010-09-08T13:16:00.007+02:00

This is my first attempt at making Besam Paare (Spicy Indian Crackers). For the recipe, please go here.

I have memories of eating very delicious spicy home made crackers at a neighbor's house when I was little, and I had a craving for them. I'm not sure if Manjula's recipe is exactly the same, but I think these are similar to the ones I remember eating. It could be the flavor of carom seeds and lentil flour that bring back memories.

I had a nice relaxing afternoon with a teapot of sweetened cardamom tea, eating these and just staring at the Mediterranean sea.

Chinese Fried Beef Pie

2010-09-05T11:27:00.006+02:00

This isn't the greatest photograph of these delicious treats, but I'm going to post it anyway because I have been very remiss about my blog.

The recipe comes from Yohana's Culinary Journey and we made the wrappers and filling pretty much according to her recipe with only one omission. In her blog, these are called: Fried Beef Stuffed Pie.

We had these with home made Hong Yu (Chinese Chili Oil). We made the kind of sauce used for certain kinds of boiled dumplings in Chengdu and modified it a bit. Normally I would have garnished them with fresh cilantro, but it's way too warm in Spain now for cilantro which is after all a winter crop, so we had to do without them.

Basically we made the wrappers according to Yohana's instructions and made the Hong Yu according to Chef Wang (?)'s recipe. We cheated a bit. I didn't use a thermometer.

1. I let the oil heat-up, then transferred it to a pyrex bowl.
2. I put the pieces of crushed ginger in and waited for the furious bubbling and sputtering to calm down.
3. I put the star anise in there.
4. I put the 1/3 cup ground chili flakes in there.

This is supposed to mature for a few days but we used some a few hours later. The oil does improve over the course of a few days so if you really want to get it right, I'd make it in advance. I don't bother transferring it to any bottles but keep it in a pyrex bowl with saranwrap strapped over it. It will keep at room temperature for a few weeks.

We then made the filling and wrapped them up and steam fried them according to Yohana's instructions.

Do please go to her webite for details. I am just going to note the changes we have made in her recipes or Chef Wang (?)'s recipes below. If I haven't noted anything, I followed the recipe to a tee:

Our Adapted Version of the Sauce:

1 Tbsp Chili Oil
2 Tsp Soy Sauce
1 Heaping Tsp Brown Sugar
(2 Tsp Chicken or Pork Stock)*
1 Small Clove Garlic (crushed)
Roasted Sichuan Peppercorn (hua jiao) (Ground)

*Omitted. We didn't have any home made pork or chicken stock available and did not want to ruin it with commercial bouillon cubes.

Our Adapted Version of the Stuffing for the Fried Beef Stuffed Pie:

1 Portion Hot Water Blanched Dough
250g Ground Beef
1/4 Leek (Chopped Finely)
1 Small Piece Ginger (Grated)
50g Celery (Chopped Finely)
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Dry Sherry (Alfonso Oloroso Seco Palomino)
(1 Tsp Chicken Broth Extract)**
Salt (to taste)
1Tbsp Dark Sesame Seed Oil

**Omitted for the same reason as the sauce.

I would suggest you garnish the pies with chopped leeks (or scallions if you have them) and cilantro if you have any. It's way too warm in Spain now for cilantro.

NOTE: Please be very careful when handling hot oil and chili flakes. Make sure you have good ventilation and people and pets are out of the way. I couldn't stop sneezing for a minute even though I was careful. Also, remember to keep an eye on the oil when it's heating-up. Do not answer telephone calls or door bells when you are heating up oil.

Pirog

2010-07-18T01:11:00.010+02:00

Ronny is on summer vacation now and he decided to make these. It's one of those things about being an expatriate. Sometimes it's not that easy to buy foods you used to eat at home so you learn to make a lot of things from scratch!

Pirog originate in Ukrania and are popular in Sweden. Most people buy them frozen, but there's nothing like the wonderful aroma of a freshly baked pirog. Spelt flour is used in making them commonly, but we used rye flour in ours.

Pirog

Ingredients

Pastry

50 g Unsalted Butter
5 dl Whole Milk
25 g Dry Yeast
1 dl Rye Flour
11 dl AP Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Sugar

Egg Wash

1 Egg

Filling

250 g Ground Beef
200 g Mushrooms (Chopped)
1/2 Onion (Chopped)
1 Rib Celery (Chopped)
2 Carrots (Chopped)
1 Clove Garlic (Chopped)
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
2 Tsp Cumin
Shredded Cheese

How to Make the Pastry

Step 1: Put the yeast in a plastic or glass bowl.

Step 2: Melt the butter and add the milk and when it's finger warm, add it to the yeast. Mix this together to blend.

Step 3: Add the salt and sugar and blend.

Step 4: Add the wheat and rye flour and mix it until it resembles a soft sticky dough and let it rest for 40 minutes. Cover the bowl with a clean towel or wrap.

Step 5: Knead the dough for a few minutes on a floured surface.

Step 6: Roll out the dough and cut it into circles with an inverted bowl around size of a rice bowl.

How to Make the Filling

Step 1: Heat-up the olive oil and braise the meat for awhile.

Step 2: Add all the other ingredients and braise them until the mixture is dry.

Assembly

Step 1: Put some of the meat filling and cheese onto the wrapper and fold it over sealing it.

Step 2: Take a fork and seal the edges tight.

Step 3: Brush them with the egg wash.

Step 4: Bake then in an oven preheated to 225 C on the lowest rack for 14-16 minutes until they are golden brown.

Dutch Baby Pancakes with Orange Cointreau Sauce

2010-06-05T13:44:00.009+02:00

To those of you unfamiliar with US English: No, I have not turned into a cannibal and made pancakes with Dutch babies. I am not sure what these are called in Europe but they are commonly referred to as 'Dutch Baby Pancakes' in the US.

I was going to make the recipe from CHOW when my friend Christina Busch gave me a simpler alternative.

Christina squeezes fresh lemon over the Dutch Baby Pancakes to deflate them and recommends serving them with peaches. I have served mine with an orange sauce made from fresh Spanish oranges.

Dutch Baby Pancakes - Christina Busch

Ingredients - The Pancake

1 Cup Flour

1 Cup Whole Milk

4 Eggs

100 g Unsalted Butter

Ingredients - The Sauce

3 Oranges (peeled, sliced and seeded)

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

60 g Unsalted Butter

2 Tbsp Cointreau

Step 1: Preheat oven to 220C or 425F.

Step 2: While it's preheating beat the eggs and then pour in the milk.

Step 3: Mix the sifted flour into the mixture and let it sit.

Step 4: Once the oven is preheated put your pan into the oven and let it heat for at least 5 minutes.

Step 5: Melt the butter in the pan and then add the batter and put it back in the oven for around 20 minutes. If it's still pasty white after 20 minutes, leave it in for a few more minutes, no more. Once it starts browning it goes fast!

Step 6: While the pancake is baking, make the orange sauce. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and then add the brown sugar and wait until bubbly.

Step 7: Add the orange slice and sprinkle Cointreau over them and simmer until the pancake is ready occasionally turning the orange slices in the pan carefully so as not to break them.

Step 8: Pour the orange sauce over your pancake and serve.

Rice Salad with Taggiasca Olives and Ligurian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2010-05-22T14:10:00.009+02:00

I am officially a fan of Ligurian olive oil and Taggiasca olives.

After eating a rich, tasty, hearty rabbit for dinner yesterday, I wanted something light for brunch and made rice salad with leftover Jasmin rice.

The thing is, when I drizzled some of the Ligurian extra virgin olive oil onto the rice, tossed it around a bit and tasted it, it was...wonderful! It felt like a violation to put anything else into it as a matter of fact.

I hesitated to add any other ingredients for fear of corrupting the lovely flavors which for some reason reminded me of stepping onto a layer of virgin snow.

I added some Taggiasca olives first and some salt, and tasted it again.

So far so good.

Then I added some ripe red cherry tomatoes I picked-up at the market yesterday as well as some thinly sliced red onions.

Then I added some chopped basil.

Still really nice.

Then I got more daring and added some tuna, because this is what goes into these kinds of salads usually.

It was tasting all very good and then I wondered about adding lemon juice.

Would this be too strong?

I only added a few drops and tossed the salad around.

Got more daring and ground some black pepper on top.

To be a purist, you'd need to procure tuna packed in Ligurian olive oil, but even with this shortcoming, the rice salad still tasted great.

Jasmine Rice Salad with Taggiasca Olives & Ligurian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ingredients

Leftover Jasmine Rice
Ligurian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Taggiasca Olives
Red Onion
Tuna
Cherry Tomatoes
Fresh Basil Leaves
Lemon Juice
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

This is a leftover recipe and there are no steps to be followed, but I would suggest tossing the rice with the olive oil first, and then adding the other ingredients. I prefer to put the basil in last because it can get bruised and discolor. The amount of each ingredient is left to the discretion of the cook as some people prefer a stronger onion flavor, stronger lemon flavor and so on. However, if you want to retain the lovely taste of the olive oil, it's advisable to use as little as you can (except for the Taggiasca olives of course!).

Coniglio alla Sanremasca (Ligurian Rabbit Recipe – Sanremo Style)

2010-05-21T18:48:00.012+02:00

This is a typical Ligurian recipe. Water or clear broth is more commonly used rather than wine. Vermentino wine is used only in western Liguria. According to Samuele, there are two different schools regarding what kind of wine should be used: Vermentino (white ) or Rossese of Dolceacqua (a young red wine similar to the Pinot Noir). This recipe is known as "Coniglio alla Sanremasca" (Sanremo-style Rabbit) and is very well-known in the Riviera di Ponente (western Ligurian Riviera). I used a dry white Spanish table wine in my first attempt, but will be experimenting with other dry whites in the future. Since we're talking about reducing half a liter of white wine, the taste of the wine isn't a hidden flavor but comes to the fore in this recipe.

Last but not least, fresh thyme is mandatory for this recipe, and more important than rosemary, as these herbs grow wild in the Sanremo hillside and are used abundantly in local cuisine.

Does this look right, Samuele?

Coniglio alla Sanremasca (Ligurian Rabbit Recipe – Sanremo Style)

Start: 15:30

End: 18:00

Total Cooking Time: 2.5 hours

Ingredients

Serves 2- 3

1 - 1/2 Rabbit

1/2 Medium Sized White Onion

1 Rib of Celery

1 Carrot

2 Big Cloves of Garlic (Do not peel!)

2 Sprigs of Fresh Rosemary

3-4 Sprigs of Fresh Thyme

600 ml Vermentino Wine* or Dry White Wine

2 Tbsps Small Dark Taggiasca Olives**

1 Tbsp Pine Nuts

1 Glass of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (preferably made from Taggiasca olives too)

2 Big Potatoes (Roasted in Foil)

1 Cup Home Made Beef Broth (Optional)***

Serve with: Diced Roasted Potatoes Flavored with Rosemary, Garlic, Salt & White Wine.

*Preferably from West Liguria or Sardinia. However a dry white wine should work.

**Olives should be small and sweet. They should be the kind that you find preserved in brine and not the oil cured type. Samuele says he uses about 25 olives which is much more than 2 Tbsps. I used 25 olives in mine.

***If you don’t have home made beef broth, use more wine. Commercial bouillon cubes will ruin the delicate harmony of flavors.

Step 1: Ask your butcher to chop the rabbit up into 8- 10 pieces and cook half or it or however much will fit into your clay pot. I am assuming most of you will not have the courage to do this yourself….or you might not have the kind of knife that can do this. Remember to ‘save the liver’ (I am quoting Dan Aykroyd impersonating Julia Childs here)!

Step 2: Braise the rabbit pieces over high heat in a non-stick frying pan for about 10 minutes. The objective here is to cauterize the meat on the outside to seal some of the juices in whilst getting rid of any excess meat juices. The meat should look somewhat ‘compact’ when they’re done.

Step 3: In a food processor, mince the onion, celery and carrot...or chop it up manually like I did.

Step 4: I was told to smash the garlic cloves (still in their skin) with my fist, but I did it with the sides of a knife because I have small delicate hands. If you have nice big fists, by all means please do this with your own fist.

Step 5: Put the extra virgin olive oil with the rabbit meat, onion, celery, carrots and garlic, in a clay pot and braise them on your stove top. I’m guessing that unlike in the first stage where you need to seal the meat juices in, we want to do this now over a slightly slower fire. However, do not lower the heat yet. Keep the heat reasonably high until the morsels of rabbit are golden brown. While the rabbit meat is browning, chop up the rosemary and thyme finely.

Step 6: Lower the Heat. Remove the garlic and add the rosemary and thyme as well as the dry white wine and the liver. Add some salt, cover the clay pot and keep it simmering for about 40 minutes, slowly turning the meat sometimes.

Step 7: Add the pine nuts and olives. Continue simmering and turning the meat for awhile. If the white wine has evaporated you should add some home made beef broth. If not, add more white wine.

Step 8: Remove the liver, chop it up and then return to the clay pot. You won’t be covering the terrine or frying pan after this point and you will be continuously stirring it so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the clay pot until all the wine has evaporated and there is a nice glaze on the meat.

Step 9: Remove from heat and let it rest for about 5 minutes before you serve it with some diced roasted potatoes flavored with salt, olive oil, rosemary, garlic and white wine.****

****Peel and cut the potatoes and dice them up. Toss them in extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, rosemary, pieces of garlic with their skin on and crushed, and put them in a casserole lined with oven paper. The temperature depends on how crispy you want them, but I prefer to cook mine at 250C for 45-60 minutes. After roasting the potatoes for 30 minutes add some dry white wine (the same one you’ve used to cook your rabbit) and then roast them for another 30 minutes or until they look right to you. For more tender potatoes reduce the cooking time to 30-40 minutes. Add the wine after 15-20 minutes. For crispier potatoes I suggest you cook them for a full 60 minutes.

This was my first try and I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the results, but I can say wholeheartedly that it tasted very nice even though I haven't mastered this recipe yet.

A few notes...

First of all, this takes 2.5 hours to prepare so don't start roasting your potatoes until the rabbit is simmering gently inside your clay pot. You can even start preheating the oven at this point and the potatoes will be done well before the rabbit is.

I used half a rabbit as a whole rabbit would not fit into my clay pot. If one person isn't a big eater, half a rabbit will be enough for two people. The recipe will work for a whole rabbit.

I also needed to get the clay pot heated up slowly as I was cauterizing the rabbit in the frying pan. You need to heat these things up slowly or they can crack!

I threw all the ingredients into the clay pot carelessly, but I think it would be better to braise the onion, carrot, celery mixture first, and then add the pieces of rabbit and garlic to the clay pot.

I used 600 ml wine which was a little too much. It took a long time to let it evaporate and glaze over. Adjust the amount of white wine you use depending on the size of your clay pot. There should be enough to keep the rabbit simmering but there is no need to cover the rabbit with white wine. Samuele's original recipe says the cooking time is about 1 hour. I really used too much wine.

The Package from Italy

2010-05-06T10:27:00.003+02:00

I have to admit, I'm quite excited.

I have been remiss with my blog because I was learning to be a Game Operator, but when I was chatting with my supervisor we decided that although our work was important, there was nothing more important in life than food.

The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you can talk to people who don't even live remotely close to you. Samuele currently lives in Pisa, but he hails from San Remo, that lovely little city on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria. Anyway he saw in my profile that I liked to cook and he told me he and his wife were really into cooking too.

We started discussing how to cook rabbit since rabbit is something I haven't quite mastered cooking. You see - even though rabbit is almost a staple in Spain and you can buy it in any old supermarket, it's not something they eat anymore in Japan. If you tried to find rabbit at a butcher in Tokyo these days, I'm not sure you could find any.

I'm not sure when they stopped eating rabbit in Japan, but in the days when there was a ban on eating anything with four legs due to religious (Buddhist) reasons, they made an exception for the rabbit and categorized it as a 'bird'. In Japanese you have special words for counting different types of things, so you wouldn't count pencils and paper in the same way. Horses and sheep are counted in a different way and so are birds. To this day, even though the Japanese don't eat much rabbit anymore (maybe they do in the countryside, but I have never seen rabbit being served there), they are still counted in the same way as birds, even though children would count them in the same way as other small four legged creatures such as dogs and cats.

There's of course the reservation about eating rabbits. I don't believe my mother ever cooked rabbit. The reality is that when you have a pet rabbit, you don't really want to think about eating any other rabbits and I used to keep them as pets. That said, I used to have a pet rooster, but that didn't stop me from eating chicken. In fact when I was a kid, fried chicken (the way my mother used to make it, marinated overnight) was one of my all time favorites.

Anyhow, I digress.

I told Samuele I didn't have much experience cooking rabbit and wasn't really impressed with the one attempt I made a few months ago. He then told me about his favorite rabbit recipe. I told him certain ingredients were impossible to get in the small coastal city of Spain where I lived. His recipe required Vermentino wine,Taggiasca olives and extra virgin olive oil from the same kind of olives. He explained that these olives produced a sweet and aromatic oil very different from the spicier oils produced in Southern Spain and I just couldn't use Spanish olives and olive oil and he'd send them to me.

Was I going to say no? No way!

When he went back to San Remo for Easter, he purchased the goods in his home town and after the busy period following the holidays calmed down a bit, packed them in a box and sent them to me. It took awhile, because for some reason post between Italy and my area of Spain have bad karma and things sent from there have almost always not arrived. I think it helped that this was sent registered mail. For example, Ilva from Lucullian Delights was kind enough to send me a packet of Creme of Tartar, but it never arrived. I think someone thought it was cocaine and stole it. I sure hope they enjoyed snorting up Creme of Tartar because the thief deserved to have Creme of Tartar up his nostrils.

I'll be cooking the rabbit dish as soon as I can find time and hopefully it will be soon.

Oatmeal Pancakes

2010-03-07T13:58:00.009+01:00

I've always wanted to try one of Lori's recipes from Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness, but never really got around to it for a dozen reasons. However, this morning I was looking for a good pancake recipe and I found it right on her blog. Lori wrote that these were the best pancakes she'd ever had and that was enough to convince me to go through the extra hassle of pulverizing oatmeal.

This recipe for Oatmeal Pancakes comes from the book 'King Arthur- The All Purpose Baking Cookbook, Countryman' and you can see the full details for this in her post here.

Even though she wrote that the 'mix' would keep for 2 weeks at room temperatures, I still thought it was way too much for two people so I made half a batch of the original recipe. The recipe I've written below is the half recipe version.

Oatmeal Pancake Mix - From King Arthur- The All Purpose Baking Cookbook, Countryman

1 3/4 Cup Oats
2 1/2 Cup AP Flour
1 1/2 Tbsp Sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tbsp Salt
1/2 Tbsp Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil (I used sunflower oil)

Step 1: Put the oats in a food processor and pulverize them.

Step 2: Mix in the dry ingredients and mix in the oil.

Step 3: If you grab some of it and you can make dry balls of them in your palm, it's about right. Otherwise you need to add more oil.

Step 4: Take 1 Cup of this mixture and mix it with 1 egg and 1 Cup buttermilk (or a mixture of yogurt and milk).

Step 5: Let it sit for 10-15 minutes and make your pancakes!

I've really simplified this so if you want to read Lori's post, click here.

*The mix is supposed to keep at room temperatures for 2 weeks, though I'm not sure I'd do this in tropical climate. You can also keep it in the freezer or refrigerator in an air tight tupperware. 1 Cup of the mix + 1 Cup buttermilk & 1 egg makes 4 medium sized pancakes.

Jim Lahey's No Knead Baguette Revisited (Wild Yeast Version)

2010-02-26T13:04:00.012+01:00

If you've already tried making Jim Lahey's No Knead Baguette, and know how the dough should look during the different stages, you can easily make it with wild yeast.

If you keep your 'starter' in the refrigerator, chances are you take it out once a week and throw away half of it, and feed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup luke warm water.

Why not make Jim Lahey's No Knead Baguettes with that half you throw out?

This is what you need to do:

Step 1: Put the starter that you would normally throw away into a plastic or glass bowl during the day and feed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup lukewarm water. Cover it with a towel and let it get bubbly.

Step 2: Before you go to bed, add flour, sugar, salt and water just like in the recipe. The amount of flour and water you need will depend on the wetness of your starter and the absorbency of the flour. Add 1/2 cup at a time and try to achieve the same consistency you achieved before when you followed the recipe with measured ingredients. You should use the exact amounts stipulated in the recipe for sugar and salt. Basically, you want to add enough flour and water until you have got the same consistency as you did when you made it with the commercial yeast and followed it to a tee. Don't be too concerned about small details though of how many grams of flour you have got in there, because I have tried making it this a few times and the baguettes always seemed to turn out right.

Step 3: Leave it out overnight like the recipe says and in the morning you'll notice that the dough has bubbled up so that there is a flat plane of dough inside your bowl. Flour your counter very generously and fold it 3 times with a spatula (I use 2 spatulas) and put it into a lightly oiled (I use extra virgin olive oil) bowl. Brush the top with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle good quality salt over it. Cover it with a towel and leave it for 1-2 hours like the recipe says.

Step 4: Divide the dough up into 4, stretch it out just like the recipe says and embed them with goodies (cocktail tomatoes, garlic cloves, walnuts, Marcona almonds, olives, etc), brush them with more extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle them with Fleur de Sel.

Step 5: Bake them in a preheated oven at 500F (260C) or however high your oven will go. My oven's maximum temperature is 250C and they turn out fine. I baked mine for 20-25 minutes. Baking time will depend on your flour quality and oven, so watch them and bake them until they are at least a bit brown.

*This is my second entry to Yeast Spotting.

Spicy Black Bean & Sweet Potato Soup

2010-02-23T14:28:00.014+01:00

It's a warm sunny day here on Costa del Sol after days and days of wet, dark, stormy days and floods. In fact, it's like Swedish summer. It's one of those breezy days filled with sunlight. There are yellow flowers blooming in the verdant fields and the sky above you is a perfect shade of blue. It's one of those nearly perfect days when you can simply enjoy the weather and be happy that you are in this place and have the time to take a walk.

It's perhaps not the ideal weather for a piping hot bowl of spicy soup, but since I already had some black beans soaking in some water in a bowl, I thought I'd go ahead and make soup anyway.

Some people like their soups devoid of texture or fiber and always use a blender and sieve, and although I do use the blender from time to time (depending on the soup), I prefer a chunky wholesome soup where the ingredients have managed to retain some semblance of their former glory.

If you're vegetarian or freaked out by bouillon cubes, just omit the beef bouillon and I'm sure it will still be fine. If you or someone in your family is freaked out by texture, you can also put the soup through the blender before serving it. Remember to remove the bay leaves and dried chilies if you're blending it, and if you are afraid that 2 chilies might be too much, use 1 chili. Well, you know the drill?

Spicy Black Bean & Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 Cups Black Beans (soaked overnight and cooked for 1 hour or until soft)

1 Large Sweet Potato (peeled and diced)

1 Medium Potato (peeled and diced)

4 Medium Tomatoes (diced)

1/4 Onion (chopped finely)

2 Cloves Garlic (chopped finely)

2 Bay Leaves

1 Tsp Cumin Seeds

1 Tsp Coriander Powder

Pinch Nutmeg

2 Whole Red Chilies (Dried or Fresh - Seeded)

1 Tsp Smoked Paprika Powder

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Whipped Cream (1 spoonful on top of each serving)

Fresh Cilantro (chopped and sprinkled on top, a sprig for garnishing or none if you hate it!)

1 Beef Bouillon Cube*

Salt & Black Pepper (to taste)

Whipped Cream (unsweetened)

*Optional. I used half a cube.

Step 1: Heat up the oil in your soup pot and when the oil is hot enough throw in the cumin seeds and let them pop a bit before putting in the garlic and onion. Sautee a bit and then add the rest of the spices to help them release their aroma.

Step 2: Put in the rest of the ingredients and blend them with the oil and spice mixture well first, and then add the tomatoes.

Step 3: Add enough water to cover the ingredients and lower the heat to simmer it for 1 hour. Add the bay leaves and beef bouillon if you wish.

Step 4: After around 60 minutes taste the soup and add salt & black pepper to taste.

Step 5: Serve with a dollop of whipped unsweetened cream on top and enjoy!

Badam Burfi (Almond Candy) from Manjula's Kitchen

2010-02-21T18:14:00.010+01:00

I have memories of eating this sweet in our neighbor's home or at least something like it and this is the first time I've ever attempted making it myself. Not sure if the Burfi I ate was made from almonds or some other nut like cashew nuts, but I do believe it was called Burfi, and to me it was this special sweet that I rarely ever got to eat. When I was given a piece, it was like magic!

Although you can get good Marcona almonds in Spain, I used almond flour because I happened to have some on hand. I mixed the flour with sugar and milk and let it sit for 15 minutes and followed Manjula's recipe for Badam Burfi.

Badam Burfi from Manjula's Kitchen

1 Cup Almond Powder

1 Cup Sugar

1/3 Cup Whole Milk

2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter or Ghee

Pinch Cardamom Powder

Step 1: Blend all the ingredients except the cardamom powder and unsalted butter or Ghee, and let it sit for 10 - 15 minutes.

Step 2: Over a medium heat, melt the butter and then put the almond paste mixture into the pan and keep stirring until it pulls away from the pan. Manjula has a video that will show you what she means by 'pulls away from the pan' if you are in doubt. It will take about 10 minutes for this to happen.

Step 3: Once the mixture starts doing this, take it off the heat, put in that pinch of cardamom powder and keep stirring for another 2 minutes.

Step 4: Pat it out flat onto a buttered dish and embed whole almonds into it if you wish like I did. Then let it rest for 20 minutes. Cut it up into pieces and enjoy with cup of steaming hot tea with lots of milk and sugar in it preferably!

*I guess this is kind of gluten-free?

NOTE: Ramya is right about the sweetness. The original recipe says 1 Cup whole almonds. This means that if you use 1 Cup powdered almonds the proportion of almonds to sugar was more and hence it was not as sweet as a normal Burfi should have been. In short, I'd say reduce the amount of powdered almonds or increase the amount of sugar if you want a more authentic tasting Burfi, but if you prefer less sweetened confections, these proportions will suit you just fine.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

2010-02-08T14:22:00.010+01:00

I have really been slacking off here. This is mainly due to financial constraints. It's kind of difficult to experiment with interesting ingredients when your household budget says: -3000 euros for January. Never mind 'interesting'. Even buying a few extra chocolate bars makes me cringe, so basically it's just been too restrictive to bake or cook anything that would be good enough for posting. Anyhow, now you know why I've been kind of quiet.

Well, today I was browsing through my Facebook page when I saw David Lebovitz post a link to a recipe for Buttermilk Dinner Rolls by Michael Ruhlman. I decided to give it a go even though I didn't have buttermilk and had to substitute it with a mixture of milk and yogurt. Packets of yeast are 5.5 grams, not 7 grams here and I used 1 packet. I didn't have a thermometer either, so I had use my baking instincts to know when it was ready. I baked mine for 40 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven. Other than this, I pretty much followed the recipe to a tee.

Anyway, here it is. I measured all my ingredients on the scale as stipulated in the recipe, but there is more flour in this as I kneaded the dough on a counter with flour on it. I don't have mechanical kitchen aids so I really do have to do everything with my own two hands. If I make this again I'm going to withhold putting in flour during the first stage and try to use the leftover stuff to knead the dough on the counter.

Taste wise I can't complain. I thought there was a lot of flavor. There was just the right hint of sweet and salty and the texture was a bit doughy, but I won't really count that as a negative. Some people like their bread better if it's a bit doughy, like my sister for instance. Poppy seeds complimented the rolls perfectly. I supposed white sesame seeds or nigella seeds would work, but I really loved it with poppy seeds.

In other words, I have to say that this recipe works out fine.

By the way, my electricity bill for December/January was horrendous. It has been a cold winter, but I probably have been baking way too much!

Jim Lahey’s No Knead Baguette (Stecca)

2009-12-23T11:14:00.017+01:00

This is from Jaden Hair's blog Steamy Kitchen and the original recipe, I believe, is from here. Christmas is just around the corner, I have no money to squander on shopping and I already have ginger cake, caramel cookies, Ourson Guimauve (chocolate covered marshmallow bears), a box of Crema Catalana and some French pralines lying around. Since everyone else is busy with Christmas preparations and their families, I have nothing better to do than bake or watch reruns of 'Wallander' in Swedish with English subtitles - so what am I going to do?

Bake something savoury!

This was pretty interesting because it was like making a fake sourdough starter and when I woke-up in the morning my sticky ball of dough had swelled up pretty high, had completely lost its shape and I saw a horizon of bubbly exquisitely soft dough sitting inside my plastic bowl. I guess I should have taken a photo of this, but I didn't want my yeast to catch a cold because it's pretty cold indoors in Spain in the winter and so I went right ahead and folded it three times as Jaden instructed and put the dough (which firmed-up nicely) into a clean oiled plastic container for its second rise. I used a spatula instead of wet hands though. It's a technique Ronny uses when making his sourdough bread, which has a much sticker and softer dough than the kind I make.

Did I mention it's been raining pretty heavily here?

Costa del Sol does not have the infrastructure for heavy rain, so when it does rain, it's wise to avoid going outdoors to avoid the floods. Let's not even mention all those careless drivers who do not have rain tires who skid around on the wet streets. Some of these cars used to have tires that could handle the rain, but they're in bad need of getting new tires and they haven't done this because the economy isn't good and the Mediterranean Carpe Diem culture does not entail spending your money on 'safety' first, because it's not really a fun way to spend your money.

To add insult to injury it's Christmas season, so you see - money gets spent on presents and feasting rather than on new tires and it's pretty damn dangerous going outside in the rain here.

Anyway being a glutton I threw caution to the wind and hiked to Torremolinos to buy supplies and took the taxi back as my backpack was laden with kilos of food. It was worthwhile though because I managed to find some pretty nice green olives* at the grocer.

I wasn't too keen on oiling my oven paper, so I dusted it with corn flour instead. After all, the dough was already swimming in extra virgin olive oil during its second rise. Thing is, the oil that I painted the sides of the plastic bowl seems to have drizzled down to create a pool on my dough. Next time I'm going to be careful about using as little oil as possible when 'oiling the sides of the bowl'.

Everything went as Jaden said. The dough was soft and stretchy and I laid them out and embedded them with the goodies and sprinkled them with 'Sal en Escamas' (salt flakes) then...I realized my oven's highest setting was 250C when the recipe called for 260C (500F). Oh well. Next time I buy an oven, I guess I'll just have to buy a better one.

Anyhow they went in and I set the timer on for 15 minutes first to see how they were doing and baked them for a total of 30 minutes. We had these for brunch with some Brie cheese and they were delicious!

I delivered two of the loaves to our neighbor when they were still fresh out of the oven and said 'Feliz Navidad' to them and was rewarded with the lovely smiles on their faces.

*Green olives with pits in them. They come in these plastic containers with yellow handles and I have only ever seen them sold in olive producing countries like Spain. I prefer these to the canned or bottled varieties which you can get in any part of the world these days. I of course removed the pits before I embedded them into my Stecca.

Quiche with Broccoli, Goat's Cheese, Mushrooms & Chorizos

2009-12-22T11:49:00.005+01:00

We are really having a wet winter - and I'm not complaining because my memory isn't that selective and I do remember what it was like to have been in a drought for 5 years. The constant fear of running out of water wasn't very nice at all, so I welcome the rain.

Anyhow I made this really easy quiche with frozen puff pastry I bought from Carrefour. I got the recipe from my friend Pierre who is in La Reunion as we speak, scuba diving in the deep blue tropical seas away from all the damp and cold.

Although I mentioned 'a recipe' - there isn't really one. He just gave me very vague instructions like: 5 eggs, goat's cheese, chorizos (isn't that what you get in Spain?), bell peppers (or some other vegetable) cream and/or milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg, thyme and follow the instructions on the box of the frozen puff pastry.

Anyway I did a little research on how to make quiche as I had never made one before - just to get a feel for it. It seems some people like to bake the crust for 10 minutes and take it out and put the ingredients in and then bake it, and other people just go right ahead and put the ingredients inside and bake it for 20 minutes or more.

Quiche with Broccoli, Goat's Cheese, Mushrooms & Chorizos

Ingredients

1 Sheet of Frozen Puff Pastry (or make it from scratch if you wish)

5 eggs

1/2 Cup Heavy Cream

5 Mushrooms (sliced)

1 Cup Broccoli (par boiled & chopped)

Emmental Cheese (grated and enough to line the bottom of the quiche)

90 g Goat's Cheese (cut into bite sized pieces)

1/8 Onion (thinly sliced)

Iberico Chorizos (sliced and diced - as many as you think is right)

Salt, Black Pepper, Chili Pepper*, Nutmeg, thyme

*Do not put too much of this. It's meant to be a hidden flavor and should not come out to the fore!

Step 1: Preheat oven to 200C (or whatever the instructions tell you to do). Butter your pan and line it with the puff pastry dough. Trim off edges.

Step 2: Line the bottom of the puff pastry with a layer of emmental cheese.

Step 3: Put the goat's cheese, mushrooms, chorizos, broccoli in there.

Step 4: Beat the 5 eggs and mix in cream and/or milk, nutmeg, salt, pepper, chili powder - and pour this mixture into the quiche. Put the thin slices of onion on top.

Step 5: Bake the quiche for 20 minutes at 200C, then lower the heat to 165-170C and continue to bake for 25 minutes or until firm. Voilà!

Note: My apologies for the bad lighting and out of focus photo, but you get the idea!

Lemon Squares

2009-12-18T20:07:00.012+01:00

It's really close to Christmas and I don't have any money to squander this year. I've had to get new blinds installed in my other apartment and paid 90 euros for this, and I had to get a new faucet for my kitchen sink and this cost me 159 euros. I also bought some Christmas presents to send to my family and Ronny's and sent them off and this ended up totaling to over 300 euros (including postage). No wonder I'm short on cash.

Anyhow I've been trying to keep up the holiday cheer by baking lots of things, i.e. cinnamon rolls, brioche, honey cake, saffron sweet buns, etc...and today I made some lemon squares. It's amazing how none of this costs much when you make it all from scratch.

This is a far cry from my life back in Tokyo when I was still working in advertising (and didn't bake or cook at all), but I have to say I kind of like this lifestyle. I like having the time to surf the Internet for recipes, go shopping and bake all these nice things. It's also nice to have a partner to share them with.

Anyhow the lemon squares were quite nice. The recipe is here.

I'm going to post the conversions here in grams, because I have just remembered that I went absolutely crazy trying to figure out what the various conversions were from milliliters to either cups or grams.

The metric measurements are a work in progress. I'm not sure how I managed to make these properly the first time, but they did not turn out quite right with the measurements below. I will experiment a bit more and revise this until I get it right.

Crust

120g AP Flour
40g Confectioner's Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt (I really don't feel it's necessary to measure these small quantities in grams because unless your scale is accurate, you'll get the wrong amount anyway)
125g Butter (Even though the correct conversion seems to be 113g it does not work. I think I used 125g butter the first time and I'd add more butter if the crust doesn't seem to come together properly. The second time I added 1 Tbsp ice cold water and this did not seem to work as well, and I had to put the lemon squares back into the oven for another 10 minutes because the crust came out soggy.)

Filling

4 Large Eggs
200g Granulated Sugar
30 g AP Flour
170 Milliliters Lemon Juice
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt

Note: I baked mine for exactly 40 minutes at 160C after baking the crust at 175C for 20 minutes the first time. The second time with these metric measurements, I had to put it back in the oven after baking it for 40 minutes, for an additional 20 minutes.

Lussekatter (Swedish Saffron & Cardamom Sweet Buns)

2009-12-15T11:37:00.005+01:00

Lussekatter are slightly sweet, incredibly soft and fluffy buns spiked with saffron and cardamom. They normally have raisins in them (or are at least decorated with one or two) and are glazed. I was going to glaze mine, but as you can see I forgot!

These are normally baked and consumed on December 13 (St. Lucia Day) which coincides with the darkest days of winter in Scandinavia. The saffron is supposed to symbolize fire (light) to help ward away evil (darkness).

For the recipe, please go to Lucullian Delights. Ilva hails from Sweden and I would consider her recipe to be very authentic. The only thing I deviated from was the amount of yeast I used. As I've mentioned before, don't be too fussy about the original amount of yeast you use. I used 5.5 x 2 = 11 g of dried yeast versus Ilva's 25 g of fresh yeast and it turned out fine.

Unless you are a baking fanatic, remember that yeast is bacteria and when you feed it, it propagates. A slightly lower dose or higher dose of yeast may only mean that it may take slightly longer or shorter for your dough to rise.

My reward for slaving in the kitchen making these? When Ronny came back from the gym and these were baking he said: It smells like my mother's house! Before he went to the gym, he did help me do the last stretch in kneading the dough, by the way - he's like my Kitchen Aid.

Brioche

2009-11-21T17:59:00.007+01:00

I often have a craving for brioche when Christmas is near, and this year, I decided to make my own because in my part of Spain, bread isn't all that great.

I'm not really a baker and have never made Brioche before, so I looked for something simple and easy and here it was at La Tartine Gourmande.

I had to add some flour to get the dough feeling right, but this is pretty normal when making bread or pastry. You just have to use your common sense and add enough flour until the dough isn't a sticky mess.

Her instructions are very straight forward and she has helpful photographs that reassure you you're on the right track if you're making this for the first time.

I think I needed to lower the temperature a bit or bake it for a slightly shorter period of time, as the top of the brioche came out slightly browner than it should have been. Aside from this, the crust was nice and flaky and the inside was buttery and soft. I have to say I was pleased with the results.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

2009-11-16T12:10:00.004+01:00

These were soft, fluffy and not too sweet. Last but not least they were very easy to make. I'd definitely make them again. The recipe's here.

I made mine without any lemon rind because I didn't have any organic ones lying around, but the icing with the lemon juice sure gave it enough lemon flavor. I also used almost twice as much yogurt. If the batter seems too hard, I'd add more. If the batter seems soft I'd go easy on the yogurt. Basically you can make your final adjustments on the consistency of your batter with the yogurt.

Multi-Seed Spelt Sourdough Bread

2009-11-09T13:26:00.013+01:00

My bread baking so far has been very limited by my inability to procure different ingredients, but a visit from a friend from the UK and my discovery of a Finnish grocer in Fuengirola has made it possible for me to do a few more variations. Further to this I was down for a week with a muscle injury, but now I'm back to my weekly bread baking now.

I used 1 cup of organic whole spelt flour in today's loaf. The starter was 'whole wheat flour heavy' because I mostly fed it on whole wheat flour for weeks. I also kneaded poppy seeds, white sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and caraway seeds into the dough. The result was a pretty nice looking flavorful bread!

Multi-seed Spelt Sourdough Bread

Ingredients

2 Cups of Sponge (Proofed Starter)
1 Cup Organic Whole Spelt Flour
1 Cup AP Flour + add more flour depending on how wet your dough is
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 Tsps Brown Sugar
2 Teaspoons Coarse Sea Salt

2 Tbsp Caraway Seeds*
2 Tbsp White Sesame Seeds*
2 Tbsp Poppy Seeds*
2 Tbsp Pumpkin Seeds

*Note: I toasted all the seeds with an asterix separately and mixed them. I did not toast the pumpkin seeds. Maybe they should have been toasted too.

Step 1: Mix 1/2 cup AP flour into your sponge to make the yeast happy. Add the sugar and mix it. The very wet dough should be very bubbly and look 'alive'.

Step 2: Mix in all of the spelt flour and then add the olive oil and salt. Keep adding AP flour as you mix it until you've reached the desired consistency. Remember that the wetness of your sponge and flour varies in absorbency, so trust your instincts on when to stop adding more flour. I tend to work with a soft wet dough in the beginning, because I end up sprinkling it with more AP flour as I knead it anyway. Once the dough is thoroughly mixed and is somewhat solid (not a liquidy mess), let it rest for 25 minutes covered with a cloth. At this stage you haven't done any hardcore kneading yet, but have just 'blended' the ingredients.

Step 3: Knead/fold the dough 100 times or so and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Step 4: Repeat Step 3.

Step 5: Repeat Step 3 again.

Step 6: After kneading the dough for 3 rounds, let it rest covered with a cloth until it doubles in size. This may take 2 hours or longer. It depends on how strong your starter, how warm your room is and how humid it is. So, again, trust your eyes. If the dough has doubled in size, it's time for the next step.

Step 7: Punch the dough down and mix in the seed mixture minus 2 Tbsps of it which you will use to decorate your loaf later.

Step 8: Roll the dough into a loaf and set it on a sheet of oven paper dusted with coarse corn meal and cover this with a cloth and let it double in size.

Step 9: When your loaf is nearly double in size, pre-heat the oven to 230 C.

Step 10: Right before your loaf is about to go into the oven, brush the top with water and sprinkle the remaining seeds on top of it.

Step 11: Bake at 230 C for 20 minutes with steam and then for another 25 minutes at 210-220 C. I use a casserole dish filled with boiling water to create steam.

Sources:

Sourdough Baking by S. John Ross

100% Spelt Levain Bread

Multigrain Seeded Bread

Scalloped Lemon Dill Potatoes

2009-11-01T18:14:00.006+01:00

Today was an unusually overcast day and the photography session on my kitchen counter did not go well. I guess if the lighting is bad enough, not even Photoshop can salvage it. I was going to show you how lovely this looked before it went into the oven, but I guess we'll just have to be satisfied with the final results.

This is a very simple recipe you can make with an extra boiled potato that you had leftover from yesterday...because you boiled too many of them...or you can boil on afresh if you really want.

Scalloped Lemon Dill Potatoes

Ingredients

1 Big Potato Boiled with its Skin On

Fresh Dill

2 Cloves Garlic

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Lemon Salt (You can make it with fresh lemon rind and salt if you wish)

Black Pepper

Chili

Coarse Spanish Paprika

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 250C. Get your biggest casserole dish and line it with oven paper.

Step 2: Slice the potatoes as thinly as you can and then lay them in one layer in the casserole dish.

Step 3: Sprinkle with lemon salt, black pepper, fresh dill, chili and paprika.

Step 4: Make another layer on top and do the same thing.

Step 5: Drizzle extra virgin olive oil and place 2 garlic cloves on top.

Step 6: Roast in oven for 30 minutes or until the top layer has browned a bit and looks crispy.

This would make a nice side dish for a lot of things but I have to be honest. I just had this with eggs & Kalles on the side. This was my Sunday morning brunch!

Turkish Delights

2009-10-30T13:01:00.012+01:00

This week I didn't make my sourdough bread because I'm still suffering from a stiff neck due to some strained muscle from kneading too much dough. I can't turn my neck to the left without feeling pain in a (pulled?) muscle in my neck connected to some muscle in my back/chest - so this really wasn't the best time to try making something I'd never made.

Thing is, the recipe seemed straight forward enough with a little corn flour and a little sugar, etc. I didn't think this little experiment would turn into something that would remind me of what they made Oscar Wilde do in prison!

Anyhow the recipe I used wasn't perfect as it failed to mention some crucial instructions (or omitted something) and if you didn't put the candy batter through a sieve (or so something that was unmentioned), you ended-up with solid lumps of corn starch inside your soft candy. I put some of mine through a makeshift sieve aka a tea strainer - but seriously it was so hard to do I gave-up after I'd done this with less than half of it.

The candy sat in these oil lined small containers with wrap in them overnight and then I cut them and dusted them with a mixture of corn starch & sugar the next day. After I tried some exactly the way they were supposed to be, I tried adding a small amount of green tea powder into the dusting mixture and this turned out to be a very nice thing to do, because it offset the somewhat cloying sweetness. For some reason, when you dust Turkish Delights (flavored with lemon and orange flower water) with green tea powder - the flavor of the green tea really comes alive - more so than if you painted some vanilla cookies with green tea frosting. It wasn't such a bad combination with the lemon and orange flower essence either.

Anyhow I'm not posting the recipe as I believe it was an incomplete recipe that needed some more details. For those of you who would like to try - I suggest you consult a Turkish friend who has a grandmother who still makes these at home!

Addendum: I found this recipe just now. This recipe tells you to boil the mixture until all the lumps are gone, and uses more water. I'm not sure this will work, but it does make sense as your mixture will be much more diluted so you'd be able to boil it more and let all the bits of starch dissolve.

Escapade Philippine à Paris

2009-10-28T13:49:00.016+01:00

Recently I was invited to an event in Paris with my dear friend Victor Magsaysay cooking.

The venue was:

La Cuisine Paris
89 Boulevard Saint Michel
75005 Paris

He played with some provincial Filipino recipes and refined them to make some stunning presentations using all these lovely fresh ingredients purchased in the markets of Paris.

The execution was decidedly eastern, with a nice western polish to them.

What can I say? I'm sorry I missed this event because I was still waiting for my residency permit authorization to come in.

Read more about this event and Victor her e.

Special thanks to Yusuke Kinaka for allowing me to use his photographs in my blog.

Menu

Inspirée d’authentiques marchés philippins

Entrée

Beruyà ng Arayat
Papaye verte, taro et crevettes croquantes en beignets
vinaigre épicé de noix de coco

Plats

Pinakbet ni Paras
Papillote de légumes exotiques

Pusò ng Saging at Isdâ
Salade de fleurs de bananier rôties et rouget grillé

Bistek Tagalog
Carpaccio de boeuf sauce soja,
oignons confits et calamansi

Tous les plats sont servis avec du riz au jasmin
en papillotes de feuilles de bananier

Dessert

"Dirty Ice Cream" et Confit Dàgani
Glace au lait de Chèvre avec jeunes noix de coco,
kombava et muscovado en confit

Spelt Flour Sourdough Bread

2009-10-19T15:04:00.016+02:00

This is my attempt at incorporating spelt flour into my weekly sourdough baking.

I've been looking at incorporating different grains and seeds into my bread because when you have bread around the house all the time, it can get a bit boring to have the same bread week after week. A German friend had suggested using spelt flour and I happened to find 500g of it at a health food shop in Torremolinos so I snapped it up and it was there sitting in my cupboard waiting to be used.

It was a good thing I did some minor research before I embarked on this attempt as it seems spelt flour has different properties from regular wheat flour. Although it has a much higher protein content which is nice, it apparently has weaker gluten which means that you have to modify your bread baking a bit. Apparently you can overknead spelt whereas this isn't easy to do with wheat flour. I suggest you stop kneading the bread when you think the dough feels good rather than sticking to a fixed time or number of folds any recipe stipulates.

As usual I prepared my bread according to S. John Ross's recipe, but I also incorporated some elements from The Fresh Loaf. Shiao-Ping's baking is very precise and I'm sure that if you followed her instructions to a tee, your bread would be stellar, but I just pulled out easy to incorporate elements into my routine because following every detail was a bit too overwhleming for me.

The only modification I made to S. John Ross's recipe was that I let the bread rest and knead/folded it 3 times before I molded it into a loaf for the final proofing. I also wet my hands when I kneaded/folded the somewhat harder dough (due to the spelt?) to keep it from sticking to my hands. I did this alternately with dusting it with a bit of AP flour.

Anyhow, my spelt flour seemed to absorb water more readily than AP flour (even though spelt is supposed to be less absorbent), so I only added 1 cup AP flour and 1 cup spelt flour to the starter to form my dough this time. The type of spelt flour I used was organic and unbleached.

Further to this, I thought I'd try baking this loaf with a preheated oven and used Shiao-Ping's baking temperatures and times. This meant baking the bread with steam for 20 minutes at 230C and then baking it for another 25 minutes at 220-210C. Before the loaf went into the oven, I dusted it with a bit of AP flour.

The result?

The bread had a much thicker, crunchier crust with a lot of flavor.

However, as a result of introducing too many variables, I'm not sure whether it was the repeated kneading/folding, the preheated oven, the spelt flour or a combination of all of these that created this nice thick pleasantly crunchy crust.

Maybe someone can enlighten me.

Note: I feed my starter sometimes with whole wheat flour and sometimes with AP flour. Sometimes it's half and half. Because I fed my starter with 100% whole wheat flour last week, the starter itself was already pretty thick and dark when I started.

Sweet Potato & Rucola Salad with Fresh Valencia Orange Juice & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2009-10-12T07:30:00.004+02:00

Sweet potatoes are standard fare in Japan and some other parts of the world, but they are really not a favorite in Europe. They are difficult to come by in some countries and are compared with regular potatoes and snubbed at. I've heard people say:

"I prefer potatoes."

But hey, it's not like you're going to marry one of them so you can surely eat one without giving-up the other?

To me, potatoes and sweet potatoes are two different things that can be appreciated in different ways.

I'm quite happy roasting sweet potatoes with their skin on and eating them, but I came-up with this recipe because I thought there had to be other ways of enjoying this nice tuber.

Sweet potatoes are much more nutritious than regular potatoes and loaded with beta carotene and also contain a healthy dose of vitamin C, manganese, copper, dietary fiber, vitamin B6, potassium and iron. You can compare the nutritional value of sweet potatoes with potatoes here.

I used a Valencia orange but it's not really relevant where your oranges come from. Any nice juicy orange will do. The flavors marry very well and you'll notice that each flavor like notes in good music will come alive, enhancing each other to another level of goodness.

Sweet Potato & Rucola Salad with Fresh Valencia Orange Juice & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ingredients

Rucola aka Arugula or Rocket

1 Medium Sweet Potato - thinly sliced

Onion (Red Onion if you have any) - sliced thinly

30 g Manchego Cheese (or as much as you wish)

1/2 Valencia Orange

Black Pepper

Coarse Sea Salt

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sunflower Oil

Step 1: Thin the sweet potato very thinly and deep fry it in sunflower oil. Lay them on paper to remove excess oil.

Step 2: Wash the rucola and put them in your salad bowl, tossing in the sweet potato crisps.

Step 3: Toss the salad with salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil and the juice of 1/2 orange.

Step 4: Garnish with shavings of Manchego cheese and thinly sliced onions.

Note: I used white onions but if you have red onions, use these for more color.

How to Control Pesky Bugs in your Cupboard

2009-10-10T11:16:00.005+02:00

I've been browsing the Internet for reliable sources on how to do this and finally found something here.

Some guides tell you to clean your cupboard with bleach or even use insecticides, but I didn't really think using poison in a place where you keep food was a good idea and had some serious doubts about bleach. The Department of Entomology of Iowa State University states that it's not a good idea to use insecticides in an area where you store food and that "washing shelves with detergent, bleach, ammonia or disinfectants will not have any effect on insect pests". They recommend "freezing for 1 week or heating in a 140 degree oven for 15 minutes" and vacuuming your cupboard and getting rid of the vacuum bag which could turn into another colony of insects. Store everything inside airtight containers.

For more detailed information, you might browse here.

Bugs in food freak out a lot of people (and to be honest they freak me out a bit too), but try to look at the bright side. If bugs can survive in your flour, dried fruit or herbs, it means your flour/dried fruit/herbs are not so pesticide laden that no larvae could possibly survive.

I've seen more bugs inside flour and other food, than I ever have since moving to Spain and guess what? It was really easy to make sourdough starter with the flour here.

Swedish Cocoa Balls with Amaretto

2009-10-05T09:08:00.007+02:00

I don't know if these are really Swedish but Ronny says so, and the part where they put oatmeal into the mix seemed Swedish enough to me.

The original recipe uses coffee and not Amaretto. It's something Swedish moms make with their kids and since the kids end-up eating most of it, and kids have this amazing ability to be able to binge on sweet things, they probably didn't want the kids to get too 'high' on both sugar and alcohol. After all, it's supposed to be healthier when you're eating stuff you made with your mom than when you just buy packaged junk food.

I'm sure people have different rules about alcohol in food for their kids, so I leave it to your discretion what you feed your own children, but for the sake of propriety, I'll say that this recipe is for adults because it has Amaretto in it.

When Ronny first made these (with coffee), I thought they were like 'Rum Balls'. My recipe was an American one but having talked to a German friend about these, it seems they make 'Rum Balls' in Germany too. He tells me the ingredients are rum, chocolate and sugar...woohoo! Anyhow I just had to remake these with some kind of alcohol in it because although I don't drink much I do love using alcohol as a ingredient in cooking.

Anyhow, here's my modified recipe for Swedish Cocoa Balls 'for Adults'. I loved the use of oatmeal as it's the only somewhat healthy ingredient in the mix. The rest is almost pure butter and sugar!

Ingredients

150 g Butter (at room temperature)

2 dl Sugar

3.5 dl Oatmeal

1 dl Dessicated Coconuts + some extra for coating the balls

1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Sugar

4.5 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

2-3 Tbsps Amaretto (or Coffee if it's for kiddies)

Step 1: Set the butter in a bowl and let it melt down to room temperature. Mix in the sugar until you have this nice creamy sugar & butter mixture.

Step 2: Add the rest of the dry ingredients, then add in as much Amaretto as you think is necessary for the mixture to hold together. I used 2 Tbsps Amaretto.

Step 3: Roll the balls in dessicated coconut and coat them evenly. Put them inside a Tupperware in a neat row.

Step 4: Cool the Cocoa Balls in the freezer until they are firm. Enjoy!

Spicy New Potato & Green Bean Salad (Warm)

2009-10-04T13:16:00.012+02:00

I guess this is a standard, but I've revised the basic recipe to suit my own taste buds. I wanted something with a crispy, crunchy texture and bursting with flavor....so here it is:

Ingredients

20 Unpeeled New Red Potatoes (halve the bigger ones)

20 Green Beans (cut into bite size lengths)

Onion (a few very thin slices will do for flavoring)

1 - 2 Big Garlic Cloves (crushed)

2 Tsp Coarse Sweet Paprika Powder

1/2 Lemon (the juice of)

2 Tsp Parsley (chopped)

Rosemary

Parmesan Cheese

3 Tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil (you don't have to measure this, but you get the idea)

Chili Powder

Black Pepper

Coarse Sea Salt

Step 1: Preheat oven to 250C.

Step 2: While the oven is heating-up slice the bigger new potatoes into two. The smaller ones can be whole. The whole point of this is to make all your cute little potatoes uniform in size.

Step 3: Coat the potatoes in salt, pepper, rosemary, olive oil, chili powder and coarse sweet paprika. Put the crushed garlic into the casserole dish with the potatoes, and roast them in the oven for 60 minutes or until nice and crisp on the outside.

Step 4: Chop a handful of parsley and slice your onion. Use very little onion as you just want a touch of onion flavor and you don't want it to dominate.

Step 5: When you think your potatoes are almost ready, bring some salted water to boil and parboil your green beans. I put the beans into the water and when the water comes to a boil again, they're ready.

Step 5: Toss the roasted potatoes and green beans together with the rest of the ingredients. Grate some Parmesan cheese into the salad and squeeze some lemon juice.

You'll find that the tang of the lemon juice along with the flavor of roasted garlic, chili, sweet paprika, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil and salt will deliver that nice feeling of 'bursting with flavor' and be a perfect compliment to the crispy skin of the roasted potatoes and the crunchiness of the green beans!

If you have some fresh rucola, you might try garnishing the salad with them.

Sourdough Bread with Nigella, White Sesame & Fennel Seeds

2009-10-01T20:57:00.004+02:00

I bake bread once a week when I do 'starter' maintenance and this one was sprinkled with nigella seeds, white sesame seeds and fennel. I toasted everything separately prior to sprinkling the dampened loaf with the three types of seeds. I did this right before my loaf went into the oven.

The basic sourdough bread recipe I use is here. I, however used brown sugar instead of white sugar this time*, and put a casserole dish of boiling water in the oven for the first 15 minutes and then removed it. I baked the bread for a total of 50 minutes.

Looks nice doesn't it? The combination of the 3 types of seeds worked beautifully and I'd definitely make this again!

*I've been using honey as it imparts a more complex flavor to the bread than refined white sugar and this time I tried using brown sugar which works beautifully.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal & Walnut Cookie Bar with Maple Syrup

2009-09-15T11:30:00.025+02:00

I've been wanting to do a variation of one of Trish's very tempting cookie bars for sometime, but didn't get around to it until now because I had trouble finding very basic ingredients like graham crackers or some other item that was pretty integral to the recipe. Check-out what Trish has done with her Peanutty Oatmeal and Pecan Cookie Bar which was adapted from a recipe from My Baking Addiction.

I really liked Trish's idea of making cookie bars out of this cookie recipe and though her modifications were good just as they were, I made further modifications due to the unavailability of certain ingredients. I used maple syrup instead of molasses and chopped up pieces of dark French chocolate instead of using peanut butter chips. Note that I only used 100g of dark chocolate, whereas the original recipe calls for 1 cup.

I didn't reduce the amount of chocolate because I was trying to be healthy here, but thought that 1 cup was too much - and believe me the bars were sweet enough with only 100g of dark chocolate in it. As for the other ingredient substitutes versus the original recipe, let me say that the cookie bars were most likely enhanced by the use of 100% brown sugar and whole wheat flour. I'm pretty skeptical about brown sugar and whole wheat flour being that much healthier anyway so if I thought AP flour and refined white sugar would have made it taste better - believe me - I would have used the latter.

I 'heart' Trish for her adaptation of this recipe. It was just one of those moments in life where someone had a moment of 'genuis' and managed to make something that was already good even better.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal & Walnut Cookie Bar with Maple Syrup

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Butter (115 g)

1/2 +1/3 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Peanut Butter

1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Tbsp Maple Syrup

1 Egg

1/2 Cup AP Flour

1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1/4 Tsp Sea Salt

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

100g Chopped French Dark Chocolate*

25 Walnut Halves

Step 1: Preheat oven to 175 C (350F).

Step 2: Cream the butter and brown sugar.

Step 3: Stir in the egg, vanilla extract and maple syrup with a wooden spoon. Add the peanut butter. The batter will be quite firm so a flimsy beater won't really do the job.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt and mix this into the batter.

Step 5: Stir in the oatmeal and pieces of dark chocolate.

Step 6: Line a baking tray (23 cm x 23 cm) with baking paper and pat the dough into the tray so that it's evenly distributed and evenly place 5 x 5 walnuts. Press them in firmly.

Step 7: Bake in the oven for 26 minutes.**

*Any dark chocolate you like will do. I don't like Spanish chocolate at all so I try to buy chocolate that's made in France.

**The baking time may differ depending on your oven. Estimated baking time can range anywhere from 20 - 28 minutes.

Brie, Mushroom & Ham Pizza

2009-09-10T10:00:00.003+02:00

Since I'm slacking off, I'm going to keep it simple. This isn't really a recipe, but just a winning combination of toppings for a pizza!

I first brushed the pizza dough with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled some coarse sea salt sparsely over it, after which I made a nice layer of Brie cheese. Then I put sliced button mushrooms over this, followed by pieces of ham and thinly sliced onions. I topped this off with some mozzarella cheese.

That's it - and Ronny loved it. I'd say this is definitely 'guy' food...unless your guy has issues with Brie cheese or mushrooms.

Yogurt Pancakes

2009-09-08T14:56:00.004+02:00

I've been seriously slacking off on writing posts in my blog and I'm going to blame the hot weather as well as the fact that I'm in the middle of renewing my residency permit right now. I guess I've just been too worn out from the heat and stressed out to be inspired to cook.

Here's a very simple pancake recipe. It's based on a recipe for old fashioned pancakes which was scribbled on a cooking card belonging to Dakota Kelly's grandmother, and I've modified it a bit and used yogurt in it.

Yogurt Pancakes

Serves 2-3

1 1/2 Cups Flour

3 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Sugar

1 Cup Milk

1/2 Cup Yogurt

1 Egg

2 Tbsp Butter (Melted)

Step 1: Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl and make a well in the center. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Step 2: Use a ladle to make the pancakes on a hot griddle.

Step 3: Enjoy!

Note: If the batter seems dry add milk or yogurt to desired consistency.

Tianshui Inspired Chinese Stir Fry with Pork, Italian Peppers & Onion

2009-08-28T09:32:00.010+02:00

I have been reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms since I was 27 or so and in my mid-30s, I visited China to see the birthplace of a certain general who I especially admired. He came from the north western area of China - from Tianshui - which was a gateway to the silk road in those days, and as we neared his home town - we saw restaurants sporting Halal flags.

The market stalls, unlike those we saw in Beijing or in Inner Mongolia did not have solid roofs but had rough linen awnings, and they served a smoky flavored tea with rock sugar and dried fruit in it - and you knew that the culture in this area had been touched by something from a culture further west of the Taklamakan desert.

I was more focused on history than culinary pleasures at the time, but luckily my mother and our wonderful guide who we called 'Kee' were food obsessed, and Kee found a little restaurant in the little town in Gangu County where they served this delicious stir fry of bitter melon and pork. Kee being from Xian was a snob and apologized for the 'country' cooking and said this was the best he could do, but it was wonderful country fare and more delicious then some of the food we were to have later on in Cheng Du. This was served with a bowl of freshly cooked rice and a Cilantro Salad. The Cilantro Salad was nothing more than fresh cilantro tossed in dark sesame oil and salt - but Key told us it would help restore our appetite in the sweltering hot summer weather and it did the job.

We asked him how to make this salad and Key informed us that the important thing was to toss it with your bare hands, which some of you may find appalling, but he said it was integral that you do this as the warmth from your hands would help the flavors blend properly.

Anyhow, I never got the recipe for the pork stir fry with bitter melons and have not encountered this dish outside of this area. I mean you will find pork stir fry with bitter melons in Chinese restaurants, but I have tried them and it's not the same dish as the one I had in Tianshui.

The recipe I'm going to share today is a recreation of this dish, made with Italian peppers and onions instead of bitter melon which I can't get easily in Costa del Sol. There used to be a store that would order bitter melons for me but sadly the owner had to go back to China because of family issues and with her went my supply of bitter melons.

Tianshui Inspired Chinese Stir Fry with Pork, Italian Peppers & Onion

Serves 2

Ingredients

3 - 4 Fatty Pork Chops

1 Onion

1 Italian Pepper

1 Tsp Sichuan Peppercorns

3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil or White Sesame Seed Oil or Dark Sesame Seed Oil*

For the Marinade:

1 Tbsp Soy sauce

1 Tbsp Dry Sherry or Shaoxing Wine**

Sea Salt

For the Sauce:

3 - 4 Tbsp Chili Bean Paste

1-2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce

1 Tsp Soysauce

1 Tsp Dry Sherry or Shaoxing wine**

1/2 Tsp Sweetened Soybean Paste

1/2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

Step 1: Dice the onion and peppers into bite sized pieces and put them into separate containers ready to throw into your Wok or frying pan that can heat-up to really high temperatures. Do not use a frying pan that won't heat-up to higher temperatures because you can't make stir fry with these kinds of pans.

Step 2: Cut the pork chops into bite sized rectangular pieces and marinate these inside a bowl with soy sauce and dry sherry/shaoxing wine. I've written approximate amounts of this above but only use enough to dampen the bits of pork. The amount of soy sauce, wine and salt you need will depend on the size of your pork chops. Sprinkle some sea salt on the pork and blend it a bit with your hands (or with a kitchen utensil) and let it sit for 30 - 60 minutes. If you don't have time to do this - 15 minutes will do. This step isn't critical so I wouldn't worry about it so much.

Step 3: Put the ingredients of the sauce into one bowl and have it ready for use. This is important as speed is integral to stir frying which is done at very high temperatures. Do not start frying the ingredients and try to put the sauce together later - because your stir fry will be ruined.

Step 4: Before you start stir frying anything make sure your rice will be ready in 15 minutes or so. Basically your rice has finished cooking already at this stage and is sitting there absorbing moisture and settling down already. I let mine sit for 30 minutes with round grain rice so this means the rice has been cooked and has been sitting there for 15 minutes already. This is when I start cooking the stir fry.

Step 5: Now put your wok or frying pan on the stove and max out the heat. Put the oil in and let it heat-up until it's smoking and then throw in the Sichuan peppercorns until the aromas have been released, then put in the pork and stir fry them until they're nicely browned. When the pork is done remove these to a bowl or plate.

Step 6: In the same pan (and add more oil if needed - but if you do this let the oil heat-up again before frying the onions) stir fry the onions first until they are a bit brown or a bit caramelized on the outside layer. If you are using the right kind of frying pan and do this at max heat, the onions will still be crisp even though they are a bit browned and this is what you're aiming for.

Step 7: Throw in the diced peppers and stir fry this until they are coated in oil. These don't really have to cook so as soon as they are glistening with oil and you can put the pork back into the pan. Quickly put the 'sauce' we have prepared into the pan.

Step 8: Now stir fry this until the aroma of the raw sauce changes to a more pleasant aroma and all the bits of vegetables and pork are glistening in the caramelized sugar (which was inside the sauce).

Serve immediately.

Let me reiterate here that your stove should be at max heat the whole time and that you should prepare all your ingredients before you start stir frying anything. The key to making a good stir fry is speed. If your ingredients stay in the pan too long the vegetables will wilt and lose their crunchy texture and the pork will become dry.

Notes:

*In Japan I used to use a mixture of white sesame seed oil with a touch of dark sesame seed oil for flavor. Again, I'm using extra virgin olive oil here which isn't something one uses in Chinese cooking frankly, but I live in olive oil country and the quality of olive oil is exceptional - so I use this rather than the inferior varieties of sesame seed oil I can get here.

**The quality of dry sherry in Southern Spain is exceptional and has an aroma similar to good quality Shaoxing wine which is why I opt for this instead of the real thing. Use which ever is easier to procure in your area. Don't use a sweet sherry for this.

Grilled Salmon Steak with White Wine Saffron Sauce with Prawns

2009-08-16T10:58:00.007+02:00

Yesterday was my birthday and because I was kind of lazy about going out - Ronny cooked dinner for me instead. The warm weather tends to take away my appetite and yesterday was one of those days when I felt like eating something light like shrimp or prawns. What you see is much heavier than a shrimp cocktail and I only ended-up eating half the salmon steak...but it was delicious.

Ronny tells me it's quite common to serve salmon with a white wine sauce in Sweden and decorate it with shrimp or prawns boiled in dill to give it a nicer flavor, but Ronny likes to put the prawns inside the sauce and he spiced it up with some fragrant Spanish saffron to give it more depth in flavor.

I'm going to share his recipe for the sauce because I'm assuming you all know how to grill salmon steaks and cook rice.

Ronny's White Wine Saffron Sauce with Prawns

Ingredients

3 dl Fish Broth

2 dl Cream + 1 dl Whipped Cream

1 dl Dry White Wine + more to taste

125 mg Spanish Saffron

30 g Unsalted Butter

2 Tbsp Flour

1/2 Lemon (the juice)

400 g Boiled Peeled Prawns (500g with their peel on)

Sea Salt

Step 1: Put the fish broth, cream and wine in a saucer and simmer until it's been reduced to half its volume.

Step 2: Mix the butter and flour in a bowl until it forms a thick paste.

Step 3: Add the flour paste into the sauce and blend thoroughly.

Step 4: Add the whipped cream and saffron and blend.

Step 5: At this point make sure the sauce is smooth and add salt and more wine to taste, then add the boiled prawns. Add the lemon juice bit by bit to taste. We used the juice of half a lemon but yours might be bigger and have more tang.

Pseudo Sushi & the Avocado

2009-08-11T11:50:00.004+02:00

I don't understand why there is even a debate about a substitute for traditional Sushi ingredients when we already have the avocado. Since Ichiro Mashita the Sushi Chef at The Tokyo Kaikan tried substituting avocados for Toro, the avocado has become standard fare for Sushi...outside Japan.

Since the basic premise for Japanese cuisine is using the freshest ingredients in season - why even think about eating raw fish in inland areas faraway from the ocean? During my days as a production coordinator for television commercials I remember how the Japanese staff from Tokyo would cringe at the thought of eating Sushi deep in the mountains somewhere in some rural town. I guess the American crew just thought they should be eating Sushi since they were in Japan because it was the vogue in those days to do this, but well....fresh saltwater fish deep in the mountains where the hotel didn't even have decent toilet paper? Then after not heeding the advice of the Japanese coordinators that it wasn't a good idea to eat Sushi at all, the American crew would invariably complain that the Sushi wasn't good as the Sushi in New York.

I'm sure it wasn't and they put way too much sugar in the rice and I thought it was disgusting.

People from Tokyo are awfully proud of their Sushi, but if you ask the fishermen in the small fishing villages, they'll turn their noses up in disgust because the fish is 'half-rotten' according to them. These people are used to fish as fresh as can be you see.

Anyhow what you see in the photograph is not Sushi because the rice needs to have vinegar in it to be called Sushi and I don't like vinegar. It's just glorified rice balls rolled in toasted sesame seeds, garnished with a slice of ripe melt in your mouth avocado marinated in lemon juice and drizzled with a mixture of Wasabi and soy sauce. The green stuff you see on top of the avocado are chives.

I often eat what the Japanese call Temaki Zushi (which is pretty much DIY Sushi at the table), and I just use freshly cooked rice. Avocado, wasabi, soy sauce and toasted sesame seeds is a golden combination that makes an excellent substitute for real Sushi and this is how I get my Sushi and Sashimi fix when I need it.

Oriental Rucola Chicken Salad

2009-08-07T02:57:00.005+02:00

I've had a craving for Japanese food these past few days and have been eating odd things like avocado seasoned with Wasabi and Soysauce wrapped in seaweed paper with toasted sesame seeds, finely chopped leeks, cucumbers and fluffy freshly cooked round grain rice.

This salad is what I have when I need a quick fix of something that tastes 'Japanese'. You can pretty much put any vegetable in it although peppers are a bit too strong and may clash with the Wasabi Soysauce dressing.

Oriental Rucola Chicken Salad

Serves 2

Ingredients

Rucola

1/4 Cucumber (thinly sliced)

1 Ripe Red Tomato (diced)

1/4 Red Onion (thinly sliced)

1 Ripe Avocado (diced)

4 Small Chicken Fillets (fried and shredded)

3 Tbsp White Sesame Seeds (toasted)

2 Tsp Wasabi

3 Tbsp SoySauce

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt

Black Pepper

Step 1: Fry the chicken filets seasoned with salt and black pepper in extra virgin olive oil until they are golden brown. Set them aside.

Step 2: Toast the sesame seeds inside a pan.

Step 3: Assemble the ingredients in a salad bowl. Toss the diced tomatoes and avocaod with the Rucola and then put the cucumber slices on top.

Step 4: Pour the dressing over it. I pour a nice glug of extra virgin olive oil over the salad, and then pour a mixture of Wasabi and soysauce over it.

Step 5: Decorate this with the red onions and top it off with chunks of shredded chicken. Sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds and serve.

*Rucola=Arugula=Rocket

Transplanted Baker

2009-08-01T10:54:00.011+02:00

I found this cute little parcel in my mailbox today from Transplanted Baker. Siri had asked her readers to post their favorite summer dessert and she was giving away a Bjorklund Soft Cheese Slicer. It's quite common to do 'giveaways' in food blogs these days but since this is the first time I've won anything I thought I'd post it. Don't we all love getting presents?

Siri is "A pie-lovin', bread-risin', apron wearin' expatriate living the good life on the west coast of Norway". I've been reading Siri's blog for quite some time now, and I think she's a great writer. She comes across as a sincere person and she always manages to make me smile, or even laugh. As a person who has been 'transplanted' more than once myself, I guess I can also relate to a lot of her thoughts.

Roasted Stuffed Tomatoes with Tuna & Spinach Pesto

2009-07-28T16:04:00.009+02:00

I love pesto but have only been able to make it once from scratch because I usually can't get enough fresh basil leaves. The 'pesto' you see in the photograph isn't really pesto. It's made with a similar technique but with different ingredients. I wasn't sure how good it would be but the handful of fresh basil leaves I added at the very end seemed to bring it all together and it turned out to be quite delicious.

So long as your children don't have an aversion to 'green food', this is a great way to hide spinach as they won't taste it. The trick is to put enough garlic, parmesan cheese and basil leaves to mask the flavor.

Natural ingredients vary so trust your own tongue and add a little more of whatever you think is necessary as you make this. The recipe isn't that fussy so long as the nuts are ground down properly, so if you feel you need to add a little more parmesan cheese, garlic or basil leaves, go ahead and do it.

Spinach Pesto

Makes approximately 1 Cup

Ingredients

2 Cups Fresh Spinach Leaves

A Handful of Fresh Basil Leaves

1/3 Cup Marcona Almonds*

1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese

1/2 Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2-3 Garlic Cloves

Salt & Black Pepper to taste

Step 1: Pulverize the marcona almonds first and then add the spinach, basil, garlic, parmesan cheese and pulse.

Step 2: Add the olive oil, salt and pepper and pulse. Add more oil, salt & pepper if necessary.

Basically, even though more precise directions are given in making pesto normally, you can just throw everything in and let the food processor do its job. The only thing I was careful about was making sure the almonds were pulverized properly because you don't want bits of almonds ruining the texture.

So now you've got your Spinach Pesto ready but what is that tomato?

Roasted Stuffed Tomato with Tuna & Fresh Spinach Pesto

4 Servings

Ingredients

4 Medium Sized Tomatoes

1 Can Tuna (80g)

Salt

Black Pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Step 1: Slice the tops of the tomatoes and use a spoon to remove everything inside. Set the contents inside a bowl.

Step 2: Mix the tuna with the tomatoes and season this with salt, black pepper and extra virgin olive oil.

Step 3: Stuff the tomatoes and top them with the mixture in the bowl, top them off with emmental cheese, and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for about 30 minutes or until the cheese on top is nice and golden.

Step 4: Put a generous mound of the spinach pesto on top and garnish with a sprig of fresh basil.

*Use pine nuts if this is an option. Pesto should be made with pine nuts, but although I can buy Marcona almonds easily in Spain, pine nuts are very expensive and not of very good quality usually.

Sesame Sourdough Bread

2009-07-22T09:51:00.003+02:00

Is it too warm for baking bread? The wild yeast don't think so. They were very happy yesterday and when I was proofing the sponge I was pretty excited about the rise I was going to get from the dough already.

To make this bread, I pretty much followed S. John Ross's basic sourdough recipe but improvised a bit and before I put the bread in the oven, I brushed the top of the loaf with cold water and sprinkled sesame seeds on it. I also put a casserole dish filled with boiling water at the bottom of the oven and removed it after 15 minutes.

Reminder: Do not preheat the oven. Turn the oven on to 176C/350F, after you put the bread in.

Baking time was longer than usual. It took 55 minutes for this loaf.

This was an interesting lesson for me because I found out why baguettes have those slits on top. It's to control where the breaks happen instead of letting it happen randomly like I did.

Mushroom, Spinach & Blue Cheese Pizza with Caramelized Bacon

2009-07-21T13:18:00.006+02:00

This isn't really a recipe. It's just a combination that worked pretty nicely so I'm going to share.

Mushroom, Spinach & Blue Cheese Pizza with Caramelized Bacon

Ingredients

Pizza Crust Dough

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Mozzarella Cheese

Fresh Spinach Leaves

Onion (thinly sliced)

Blue Cheese

Button Mushrooms

Bacon (chopped up into bits)

Brown Sugar

Red Chili Powder

Black Pepper

Step 1: The only preparation is the part where you fry the bacon in its own oil and you season it with copious amounts of freshly ground black pepper and a liberal dose of red chili pepper. When it starts looking pretty nice and crisp, sprinkle this with brown sugar and toss it until it's glistening in the caramelized brown sugar.

Step 2: Brush the pizza dough with extra virgin olive oil and make a layer of mozzarella cheese on it.

Step 3: Put two layers of baby spinach leaves on it and then sprinkle this with the caramelized bacon bits.

Step 4: Put the sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced onions and slices of blue cheese on top and bake.

This obviously is not a good idea for anyone on a low sodium diet for obvious reasons, but those of us who aren't fussed about sodium also need to pay attention to the amount of bacon and blue cheese we use because it can get pretty salty - so use both ingredients sparingly. It's integral that you spice-up and caramelize the bacon because the spicy sweetness is what makes this combination work.

Boiled Chinese Dumplings & Deep Fried Goat's Cheese Dumplings

2009-07-20T11:00:00.010+02:00

Shui Jiao or boiled Chinese Meat Dumplings are really mid-winter fare and not something you really want to eat in the summer - but we turned on the air conditioner and made them anyway. We had some leftover wrappers so we wrapped some goat's cheese in them and deep fried them.

Shui Jiao (Boiled Chinese Meat Dumplings)

Ingredients

Wrapper - Buy some ready made ones or make your own like we do. We use Yohana's recipe.

300 g AP Flour

3/4 Cup Boiling Water

1/4 Cup Cold Water - but you probably won't be using all of this!

1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil - we use extra virgin olive oil because we're in Spain

Filling

250 g Ground Pork

2 Leeks (finely chopped)

4 Cloves Garlic (crushed)

1.5- 2 Inch Knob of Ginger (grated)

Sea Salt

Black Pepper

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Dry Sherry* or Shao Hsing Wine

1 Tbsp Dark Sesame Seed Oil - if your pork is very lean add more

Condiments

Chili Bean Paste

Soy Sauce - I prefer Japanese soy sauce

Cilantro (chopped)

*I use ALFONSO Oloroso Seco Palomino from Gonzalez Byass, because this contains the right notes in it similar to Shao Hsing wine.

Step 1: Put the AP flour into a bowl and then pour the boiling water over it. Stir vigorously until it's all blended. Mine always looks like when I'm making pie crust or something. You'll see lumps of dough. It won't have a smooth consistency nor will it be gluey.

Step 2: Add a little cold water (but not all of it!) and mix some more until you think it's cooled down enough to handle with your hands.

Step 3: Knead the dough with your hands a bit and add 1 Tbsp oil and keep kneading it until it's a smooth resilient ball. If you absolutely think the dough needs more water add a little bit again. You have to be careful about the amount of water you add, because if you add too much water, it will increase kneading time exponentially. I once had to knead the dough while watching Prison Break because I added too much water and you don't want to do that. This is the only part of this recipe where you need to exercise good judgment. The rest is really easy.

Step 4: Once you have a smooth ball of resilient dough, wrap it up in plastic and let it sit for at least 30 minutes. I usually let mine sit for a few hours. This means you can make this a few hours in advance so that you have less work to do later on in the evening.

Step 5: When you're ready to start boiling the dumplings, use the big pot you use to boil pasta in normally and fill it up with water and put the heat on. While waiting for this to heat up you can start preparing the filling and rolling-up the wrappers.

Step 6: In a medium sized bowl, mix the ground pork, chopped leeks, crushed garlic, grated ginger, soysauce, salt, black pepper, dry sherry and dark sesame seed oil. Mix this using a kitchen utensil or your hands if you're brave. If your ground beef is very lean add more sesame seed oil. Go easy with the soysauce and sherry because you don't want the filling to be soggy. Set this aside.

Step 7: Now roll the wrapper dough into a log (4cm diameter) and cut it up into 35 or so portions. Basically each piece of dough when rolled out should be the size of a commerical dumpling wrapper. You don't have to be too fussy about the wrappers not being perfect circles because freshly made wrappers are much easier to handle and you can pull them into shape as you make your little dumplings. Here's a tutorial on how to do it on Jaden Hair's site.

Step 8: When the water is boiling I like to throw in leftover pieces of leftover ginger (from when you grated the ginger - you know how you end-up with a piece you can't grate without grating the skin off your fingers?) in the water to flavor it nicely - you can boil your dumplings. Boiling time is supposed to be shorter than with commercial wrappers but I'm paranoid so I boil mine for 15 minutes. If you think the raw pork will cook faster, then you can shorten this time to 5-10 minutes.

Step 9: Remove them and serve with Chili Bean Paste, soy sauce and chopped cilantro (and maybe thinly sliced scallions or leeks if you want).

We had the deep fried goat's cheese dumplings as a starter. These are great for cocktail parties because they make great finger food.

Shrimp Pesto Pizza

2009-07-19T09:47:00.007+02:00

It's been hot in Costa del Sol, and when the temperature closes in to 40C there is this strange sensation of sitting near a wood stove during the winter, because of this omnipresent scent of something like burning wood or pine needles in the air, and you can feel the heat in your face, except that you're walking outside in the open air and it's not cold at all and just mind blowingly hot. I'm not going to be ridiculous and even use the word 'warm' because who is anyone trying to kid in this kind of weather? It's not warm anymore at 39C. It's damn hot...so hot that when I walk indoors again I feel like I don't even have to turn on the air conditioner because the coolness radiating from the marble floors of my home is soothing enough. That's how hot it is these days.

This is pretty much my excuse now for being remiss about cooking. I do bake sourdough bread every Monday and make tomato sauce and do other basic things to ensure I'm eating well, but I really don't feel like doing much more than that.

So here's something nice and easy for those of you who are also wilting in the heat. Nothing special and I'm sure many of you have made some version of this before, but it's a delicious classic nonetheless, and very easy to make.

Shrimp Pesto Pizza
1 Pizza - Serves 2

1 Portion Pizza Dough

500g Boiled Shrimp/Prawns (shelled)

Pesto Genovese

Mozzarella Cheese (shredded)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Cloves Garlic (Crushed)

1 Dried Red Chili

Step 1: Marinate the boiled, peeled prawns in extra virgin olive oil, crushed garlic and dried red chili for at least 30 minutes.

Step 2: Roll out the pizza dough and put a layer of basil pesto on it.

Step 3: Put the marinated shrimp all over the pizza.

Step 4: Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the pizza and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or however long it takes your pizza to bake.

We used the recipe we always use from the old Cook's magazine and purchased boiled shrimp, which we peeled and then marinated, and Buittoni's fresh pesto (the kind that needs to be refrigerated), but if you have fresh basil growing in your garden, pine nuts and parmesan cheese - by all means - make your own pesto. Unfortunately in my part of the world, it's not easy to come by large amounts of fresh basil leaves, so making pesto would require that I grow my own basil in huge quantities on my sunbaked balcony first!

Some people have suggested putting other things on this pizza but if you're a shrimp/prawn lover believe me - you'll love it just the way it is....and this is why we've put 500g of shrimp on one pizza.

Got Any Leftover Mashed Potatoes?

2009-07-08T09:36:00.005+02:00

If you have a vat of leftover mashed potatoes in your refrigerator, there are lots of things you can do with them, including this.

All I did here was mold the cold mashed potato into a round cake, brushed it with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled it with some oregano and baked it in the oven at 225 C for 10 minutes. At this point, I took it out and put a very thin slice of tomato and some emmental cheese on it, then baked it for another 7 minutes or so.

If you have sprigs of fresh oregano, garnish them with these and they can either be a starter or served on the side with some roast.

If you really want to get fancy with this humble leftover, I'd make a variety of potato cakes seasoned with different kinds of herbs (dried) and all garnished with a fresh sprig of each type of herb. Imagine what this would look like served on a tray at a party.

You can also change the topping. It doesn't have to be a thin slice of tomato. Maybe it could be a thin slice of grilled zucchini. What about braised leeks? The cheese could be goats cheese, Camembert cheese, Brie cheese, Manchego cheese, Cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese....use whatever you fancy...or whatever you happen to have lying around at the time.

Note: If you wish to make these from a fresh batch of mashed potatoes, you need to cool them overnight so that they can easily be molded. Of course by then they won't be fresh - but you get the picture.

Easy Sourdough Bread

2009-07-06T10:51:00.023+02:00

Now that Ronny's back working and I've already got a sourdough starter, I thought I should learn to bake bread myself since it's not fair to expect him to spend an entire day baking bread over the weekend. There are lots of fascinating recipes available on the Internet these days but since I'm a novice baker I thought I'd try out the easiest one I could find and this was S. John Ross's recipe.

It's very warm in Costa del Sol now and it was 29C at 9:35 a.m. this morning and was getting progressively warmer so I didn't proof the sponge overnight but took it out in the morning. Even though each starter may behave differently one variable that will make any yeast happier is the temperature and I felt that this variable was in my favor.

I put 1 cup warm water and 1 cup flour into a bowl with my starter which totaled to 2 cups of sponge, but then thought I'd better add another 1/2 C each as the recipe calls for 2 cups of sponge and I'd need to put 1 cup of the sponge into my bottle again. So like an afterthought I added 1/2 C water and 1/2 C flour more to the sponge after about 30 minutes.

I washed and sterilized the container in which I normally keep my starter as recommended by S. John Ross.

Because of the additional flour and water I added, I decided to give my starter more than 2 hours and left it for 3hours.

When my sponge was ready, I first put 1 cup of this into my glass container again and fed it with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and put it back into the refrigerator.

Before you start, please note that you must not preheat the oven in this recipe. Not sure why this is the case, but I think it might be a way to get one last rise out of your bread.

S. John Ross's Sourdough Bread

Ingredients

2 Cups Sponge

3 Cups AP Flour (add 1/2 cup at a time and you may not use all of it)

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 Tsp Sugar

2 Tsp Salt

Step 1: Mix the sugar, salt and extra virgin olive oil into your sponge and then start mixing in the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. This is because flour varies in absorbency and the wetness of your sponge will vary too. The amount in the recipe is only a rough estimate and you should stop adding flour when you have a nice flexible dough.

Step 2: Let the dough rise in a warm place until it's doubled in bulk. Cover loosely with a cloth when doing this. One way to check whether the dough has risen is to poke the dough and see if it springs back. If it doesn't it has risen.

Step 3: Punch the dough down and knead it again. Then make a loaf and put it on oven paper on your oven tray. Cover the loaf and let it rise again until it's doubled in bulk.

Step 4: Put the tray into your oven set at 350F/176C. Do not preheat the oven. Bake your loaf for 30-45 minutes or until its crust is a delicious brown and it makes a hollow sound when you hit the bottom side of it with a wooden spoon.

Step 5: Let the loaf cool on a rack and wait for 1 hour before slicing it.

So was this easy or what? To be honest, I never would have become a sourdough baker had it not been for S. John Ross's site. This is because the recipes on the other sites were too complicated and precise for me and S. John Ross's site was a no nonsense, no frills version of sourdough bread that even a baking dummy like me thought I could handle. His explanation of how this whole thing works was so concise, clear and simple that I had a good idea of what I could do and could not do to keep the yeast alive without following everything to a tee. He kind of gave basic guidelines that sounded more like a elementary school chemistry experiment and I liked it.

I think that once you're comfortable with how to bake basic sourdough bread, you can become more daring like those Daring Bakers or all those wonderful bakers featured in Yeast Spotting and try to make something fancier, but I personally feel it's important to keep things simple when you make your first baby steps in the art of baking bread so that you don't get scared and not bake at all.

Note: The proofing took about 3 hours. The first rise needed 3-4 hours and the last rise needed 3-4 hours. However, the time required depends on your starter and temperature variables so making sure that your dough has doubled in bulk is the only way to know when it's ready.

Paper Chef #42 : Chicken with Almond Sauce with Gremolata & Crispy Corn Kernels

2009-07-03T22:28:00.013+02:00

Well, here's my Paper Chef Entry for this month. The ingredients were chosen by the lovely blog owner of Former Chef and were: chicken, almonds, corn and fish sauce.

Despite my familiarity with all 4 ingredients I was at a loss as to to what to do with them and spent a few hours surfing the Internet and leafing through some cookbooks and then I knew what I was going to do....but not entirely. So I admit to changing a few things while I was cooking.

Chicken with Almond Sauce with Gremolata & Crispy Corn Kernels

Serves 2

Ingredients

The Almond Sauce - Adapted from 'Cooking in Spain' by Janet Mendel

25 Marcona Almonds (blanched and skinned)

1 Slice Bread (25 g)

2 Cloves Garlic

3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

10 Black Peppercorns

2.5 g Saffron Powder

Dash Clove

1/2 Tsp Salt

100 ml Dark Sweet Vintage Sherry

1/4 liter Water

Other Ingredients

2 Chicken Thighs

1 Bird's Eye Chili

Fish Sauce (sprinkle this onto the chicken when marinating)

1 Lemon (the juice goes into the marinade - the skin is used to make Gremolata)

Rosemary

Salt

Black Pepper

Parsley (a bunch of it)

Maiz Frito (Crispy Corn Kernels aka Corn Nuts)*

Step 1: Marinate the chicken legs inside fish sauce, lemon juice, 1 bird's eye chili, rosemary, salt and pepper. Leave for about 30 minutes.

Step 2: Fry the blanched marcona almonds, bread and garlic in extra virgin olive until toasted, and then put them inside a food processor.

Step 3: Add the black peppercorns, saffron, clove and salt and pulverize everything.

Step 4: Add the sherry to make a smooth paste.

Step 5: Braise the chicken in a pan until golden brown and then lower the heat and make sure they're thoroughly cooked, then set aside. Use a strainer of some kind to remove some of the excess rosemary inside the pan because the sauce won't look pretty with too much rosemary in it. You also should remove the bits of chili in there.

Step 6: Add the almond mixture into the remnants of the juices and oils from braising the chicken along with the water and let it cook until it's nice and thick.

Step 7: Put the chicken back into the pan with the sauce and let it cook for 10 minutes or so and then serve.

Step 8: Make the Gremolata without the garlic - lemon peel and parsley only.

Step 9: Serve the chicken with rice. Sprinkle the plate with crispy corn kernels and sprinkle Gremolata all over to make it look pretty.

Note 1: I didn't make Maiz Frito but bought them. You can make them but my kitchen already looked like a war zone.

Note 2: This tasted good and I'd make it again except I'd roast the chicken next time. It was too much work frying it inside a pan. Then I'd use the juices from the casserole dish to make the sauce.

Note 3: You will have leftover almond sauce, because this part of the recipe is for 4-6 people. I've saved my lovely sauce in a container now and will use them with some meatballs that I'll be making later today. The sauce is absolutely lovely with rice.

Warm Green Bean & Potato Salad with Tuna in a Wasabi Soy Sauce Dressing & Toasted Sesame Seeds

2009-07-01T06:27:00.005+02:00

Sesame seeds are an important ingredient in Japanese cooking which is generally very simple and uses very few herbs or spices. And because the composition of ingredients is very plain it's important to pay attention to detail to get that flavor really out there.

First you've got to toast the sesame seeds in a pan. When they start smoking and popping a bit they are ready - and then you've got to grind them in one of these to really release their aroma and flavor. My grandmother used to hand me the mortar and pestle and ask me to do this while I watched TV.

In the most basic vegetable dishes it's customary to then pour some soy sauce and sugar (brown sugar will do) into the mortar and pestle and mix it all up with the sesame seeds (Goma-Ae) and use this as a dressing for boiled spinach or boiled green beans. Another very basic dressing is made in a similar manner but with the addition of Tofu (Shira-Ae). It's ridiculously simple isn't it?

What I've made today isn't really typically Japanese as I've added some extra elements that aren't normally mixed together. I combined the flavors of Wasabi, Soy sauce and toasted ground sesame seeds together and added some canned tuna (I prefer leftover roasted Sichuan chicken or any type of roasted chicken, but there wasn't any today!).

Warm Green Bean & Potato Salad with Tuna in a Wasabi Soy Sauce Dressing with Toasted Sesame Seeds

Serves 2

4 Medium Sized Potatoes (or as many as you think you can eat)

12 Green Beans

4 Tbsp White Sesame Seeds

4 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Wasabi (or however much you dare to use)

Leftover Roast Chicken or Canned Tuna

Step 1: Peel and boil the potatoes until they're cooked and then cut them into bite sized pieces. Do use floury potatoes because this is how potatoes should be in this type of a recipe.

Step 2: While boiling the potatoes, toast the sesame seeds in a pan until they're smoking and popping a bit and then grind them inside a mortar pestle like this one to release its flavor and aroma.

Step 3: Prepare the green beans by snapping off the hard ends and then cut them into bite sized pieces.

Step 4: When the potatoes are done, remove them from the water and then put the green beans in there and parboil them until they turn into that nice bright green. Don't let them get mushy!

Step 5: Put the potatoes, green beans, leftover roast chicken (or tuna) into a bowl and toss with your Wasabi Soy Sauce Dressing and garnish with the toasted ground sesame seeds. If you omit the roast chicken/tuna it's pretty much suitable for vegans.

Note: The basic ratio for Goma-ae is 3:1:1 (Sesame Seeds: Soy Sauce:Sugar).

Japanese Cold Noodles

2009-06-25T13:33:00.008+02:00

During those hot steamy Japanese summers, people naturally lose their appetites and the entire nation ends up eating lots of cold noodles. There are many different types of noodles all eaten with Dashijyoyu (soy sauce with fish broth), and these are most typically consumed with chopped scallions, Wasabi, Shichimi (Japanese 7 spice) or grated ginger.

I tried to find Soba here but the only one I could find was made in China and when I looked at the ingredients it said 100% wheat flour so I put it back． Even the lowest grade Soba should at least contain some buckwheat flour and a good one should be made from 100% buckwheat flour or close to it. I didn't feel like eating some artificially colored noodles made to look like buckwheat.

I did have some mung bean vermicelli noodles lying around so I just had these with some Dashijyoyu and freshly grated ginger. I also sprinkled it with my own mixture of 3 spice (chili, sesame seeds and sichuan peppercorns) and some thinly slice leeks. It tasted good enough and I guess I'll be having this and some other types of non-Japanese noodles until I run out of my Dashijyoyu.

Note 1: My favorite brand is Kamada. This brand is now available in the US and Canada.

Note 2: It's not customary to eat mung bean vermicelli noodles like this but well, I was desperate!

Chinese Scallion Pancakes with Sourdough - Yes, I'm crazy!

2009-06-24T14:08:00.025+02:00

I have been wanting to make some Chinese Scallion Pancakes from Appetite for China and maybe I should have just gone to the supermarket and bought some dried yeast, but it was really warm out there and since I haven't recovered from my knee injuries entirely, I needed to give them a rest today in preparation for my long hike into town tomorrow morning.

You see - tomorrow is the day Torremolinos gets its cargo of fresh fruit and vegetables and since they keep these in a very natural state at room temperature - the sooner you can get to them the better. In fact, it's critical for certain things like peaches on Thursday morning, which are nice, fresh and juicy the day they arrive but are half rotten the following day.

Right now Paraguayos or Flat Peaches are in season and I want to get to the fruteria in Torremolinos before the others do and buy as many of these as I think I can humanly carry back home.

But I digress...

I first gave-up making the Chinese Scallion Pancakes when I found out I didn't have any yeast, but then I thought - hey, I've got to feed my starter today and isn't that...yeast?

Anyway I'm crazy. I put half the starter into a bowl which turns out to be 1/2 cup very conveniently, so I fed it with 1 teaspoon sugar and left it covered in an unairconditioned room for an hour. The original recipe tells you to dissolve some yeast in 1/2 cup warm water and add the sugar so I'm not totally off my rockers right?

Well, I am off my rockers because with wild yeast you're supposed to let it rise with more flour and you need to let it prep for hours. You can't just throw in some sugar and leave it in a warm room. But anyway I decided to follow through with this anyway because the Chinese Scallion Pancakes don't have to rise that much and it wouldn't be a total disaster if the yeast didn't 'activate' too well.

I also did worry about the flavor of the pancakes because making American pancakes with sourdough is one thing but Chinese Scallion Pancakes with sourdough? hmmm......

If you're Chinese and freaking out already, please bear with me.

Chinese Leek & Sesame Seed Pancake with Sourdough
(Adapted from Chinese Scallion Pancakes from Appetite for China)

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Sourdough Starter

1 Cup AP Flour + some additional flour for rolling it out and making adjustments

1 Tsp Sugar

1 Tsp Salt

1/4 Cup Toasted White Sesame Seeds

3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Cup Leeks (finely chopped)

"Sift flour into 2 equal portions into separate bowls. In the first bowl, slowly add the yeast- water, mixing with a spatula, until a dough forms."

The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups AP flour but I used 1 cup because the starter wasn't exactly watery. I mixed 1/2 cup flour into the starter and made a ball of soft sticky but not too sticky dough first.

"In the second bowl, sprinkle the salt into the flour. Slowly pour in 1/2 cup of the boiling water while vigorously stirring. Add more water and keep stirring until a rough dough forms."

I made some 'blanched dough' with the other 1/2 cup flour in another container, pouring 1/2 cup boiling water over it and then stirring it vigorously using a wooden spatula. I didn't add any additional water but added some flour to make it more firm. The recipe says you can do this.

The recipe then tells you to mix in 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, so I added 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil into the 'blanched dough'. I don't recommend you use olive oil and perhaps canola oil would be a better choice, but in Spain oil=olive oil.

I rolled both balls of doughs out on a heavily floured surface versus the lightly floured surface in the recipe (as the texture of both my dough balls was soft) and kneaded them together.

I covered this with a damp cloth and left it in an uncomfortably warm room for 40 minutes.

The question was: Would the dough rise?

After 40 minutes the dough wasn't looking too good so I decided to leave it for another 2 hours. I did use a sourdough starter that I didn't prep, so this wasn't too surprising.

So 2 hours and 40 minutes later, I rolled out the dough that had risen ever so slightly and made it into a 1-inch thick log and sliced them into balls about the size of Ping Pong-balls.

I then rolled each of these into 4 - 5 inch circles, brushed the top of each of these with oil and chopped up leeks (instead of scallions) and toasted sesame seeds, and then rolled them up - like you roll-up a jelly roll.

When you have this roll, you need to roll-it up again. Think about a snake making a tight coil.

The author has taken excellent photographs of how to do this step-by-step, so please take a look at her post.

Flatten these coils with a rolling pin and they're ready to be fried in oil in a non-stick frying pan. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes on each side until golden brown.

These apparently freeze well so just cook as many as you wish to have, because they always taste better fresh.

So how were my Chinese 'Leek' Pancakes with Sourdough?

They were a bit brown because my starter contained whole wheat flour but the flaky layers were delightful, and the flavor of the sesame seeds and leeks was absolutely divine.

I do urge you to make these things normally according to the original recipe in Appetite for China, but I'm quite pleased that not having commercial yeast in the house didn't stop me from satisfying my cravings for these Chinese Scallion Pancakes.

I've decided to submit this to Yeast Spotting as suggested by Elra.

Dried Shrimp Pilaf with Tongue Numbing Sichuan Peppercorns & Iberico Pork Sausages

2009-06-22T09:50:00.012+02:00

Like many of my original recipes, this one's definitely a crossover that uses the techniques of making a Pilaf and Maze Gohan. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that I'm a TCK (Third Culture Kid), and although I can be a purist about authentic recipes in the beginning, once I feel I have 'ownership' of it, I will use certain elements of these recipes in creating new ones. As a result, my original recipes can be eclectic.

On Saturday evening, after our mid summer's celebration down by the beach, we got a bit hungry and Ronny decided to make Gambas al Pil Pil which is a typical Spanish dish in this area. Basically it's shrimp or prawn cooked inside a nice dose of extra virgin olive oil flavored with Guindillas, salt and lots of garlic.

Anyhow after we had this with some of our sourdough bread, we had a lot of this delicious shrimp/prawn flavored olive oil left, which is normal, since the shrimp/prawns are always swimming in it. Instead of throwing it away like I normally do, I put the oil away in a covered container and stored it in the refrigerator so it wouldn't go bad and decided to make some Pilaf the following day. It's 37C here on warm days now so a lot of things go bad if you leave it outside the refrigerator, including fruit!

Dried Shrimp Pilaf with Tongue Numbing Sichuan Peppercorns & Iberico Pork Sausages

Ingredients

1/3 liter Rice

3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (from the Gambas Pil Pil)

1/2 Cup Dried Shrimp

1 Iberico Sausage

Soysauce

Sea Salt

1 Knob Ginger (grated)

Dry Dark Sherry (Alfonso Oloroso Seco)

2 Tbsp White Sesame Seeds

1 Tbsp Sichuan Peppercorns

2 Tbsp Dessicated Coconuts

Cilantro (a handful - chop it up)

1/4 Leek (thinly sliced)

Step 1: Wash the rice and then set it out in a colander to dry for about 30 minutes.

Step 2: Put the dried shrimp inside a bowl and let them soak in sherry.

Step 3: Before you start frying the rice in the oil, make sure you have the same amount of liquid in volume as the rice standing by. The liquid will be a combination of the sherry the dried the shrimp was soaking in (the broth) and water.

Step 4: Heat up the oil (from the Gambas Pil Pil) and throw in the grated ginger and fry a bit. Then throw in the rice and make sure they are all nicely coated in this oil. Add the sherry marinated dried shrimp. Salt a bit and add some soy sauce maybe 2 Tbsp.

Step 5: Add the mixture of sherry and water you've prepared and then put on the lid and let it come to a roiling boil on high heat, at which point you need to lower the heat to low.

Step 6: Set your timer for 17 minutes.

Step 7: When the timer rings, remove the rice from the heat and set it aside and put either a clean cloth or kitchen paper under the lid so that it absorbs some of the steam. And yes, it's ok to lift the lid and let the steam escape at this point.

Step 8: My grandmother would have wrapped this up in a rice cozy and let it sit around for 45 minutes, but since most of us don't have a rice cozy (you know - like a tea cozy?) I would just let it sit around for 20-30 minutes no more.

Step 9: While the rice is sitting there you can start chopping up the leeks and cilantro. You also need to toast the dessicated coconuts, sesame seeds and Sichuan peppercorns. The Sichuan peppercorns need to be put through the food processor in addtion to being toasted....so you have quite a bit to do during this period!

Step 10: Chop up the Iberico sausages into bite sized pieces and sautee them in a non-stick frying pan until they're cooked. No need to add additional oil as they are already very oily. You can substitute this with Chinese sausages as well. Set these aside.

Step 11: Put the rice into a nice big bowl and season it with the sesame seeds, sichuan peppercorn, dessicated coconut, cilantro and leeks and add the sausages. Toss it all together and serve...and enjoy the tongue numbing experience.

Note: If you don't have leftover oil from making Gambas al Pil Pil, I'd just add some crushed garlic, chili (if you don't have Guindillas), parsley into the olive oil before you add the rice. It won't be flavored with prawns but you're using a dried shrimp sherry broth anyway so I think it should be OK.

Heart of the Matter - The Best of June's Produce

2009-06-12T15:28:00.007+02:00

Heart of the Matter is a food blogging event that promotes 'heart healthy' food. This month's theme was 'The Best of June's Produce'. For more information on this event please refer to Ilva's post in Lucullian Delights.

Where I live in Costa del Sol, all kinds of melon are in season now and there are lots of people on the beaches in their bikinis.

So what could be more delightful than an icy smoothie made from any kind of melon? Depending on how frozen your fruit is it can come out pretty solid like a sorbet or more watery and drinkable. When the fruit is very frozen you'll need a spoon to drink it!

Frozen Melon Smoothie

1.5 Servings

Ingredients

1 Cup Frozen Fruit (Buy fresh fruit, cut them into cubes and freeze them overnight!)

1 Cup Fruit Juice (Grape Juice, Pineapple Juice, Guava Juice work very nicely)

3 Ice Cubes

Just put everything inside a blender and wizz around until smooth. If the motor stalls, turn it off and move the liquid around a bit by tilting the blender and then wizz again. Repeat until it's all lovely and smooth.

The frozen melon smoothie in this photograph was made from honeydew melon, but my favorite is water melon & banana mixed with guava juice, with some lime juice squeezed into it. The proportions would be roughly 2 Cups frozen water melon, 1 banana, 2 Cups guava juice and the juice of 1 lime. Serves 2.

If you're taking certain kinds of medication for your heart and I've heard certain fruit are good for this like grapefruit and bananas - I'd make this smoothie using these fruits or fruit juices.

Sake

2009-06-08T14:03:00.007+02:00

This is a photograph of Sake offerings made to Meiji Shrine.

I've posted this because Jaden has done a great post on Sake in her blog. It's pretty useful information for anyone, but even more if you live in North America because she talks about brands you can purchase there.

My favorite has always been Mizubasho. Just as she's mentioned, quality Sake is always consumed cold. It's cheap Sake that's warmed and nice to drink in cold weather - like what you do with mulled wine. Nobody in their right mind would make mulled wine with vintage Chateau Haut-Brion if you know what I mean.

Paper Chef #41: Tuna, Artichokes, Asparagus & Vodka

2009-06-07T11:25:00.010+02:00

The ingredients for this month's Paper Chef wasn't an issue for me. The cost of the ingredients was very interesting though: 75 centimos for 6 artichokes, 99 centimos for a bunch of asparagus and 15 euros for 850 g of tuna. Vodka? Well we have it lying around in here so I just used some of this.

Based on the cost of the ingredients, I decided that 'tuna' was going to be the star of my show. After all, it cost exponentially more than the other ingredients.

Other than that it could be the increasingly warm weather but I haven't had much of an appetite these days, which is maybe why I've been less inspired to cook. Warm weather just drains energy out of me and to be productive I need to keep the temperatures in my room under 24C. I guess this is why in Asia, the offices have pretty strong air conditioning to make sure people are working during the horribly humid and hot months of July, August and September instead of dozing off on their desks and being unproductive.

Enough of my excuses for being uninspired - and uninspired my executions were. Yes, I tried out three different ones and Ronny said they were all good, and I felt they were all kind of OK but nothing fantastic.

Anyway here they are:

The first one was very straight forward. I just braised the artichokes and asparagus in some olive oil with salt, pepper, guindillas and garlic, and served them with tuna braised in more of the same stuff. I used the juices from braising the tuna to make a sauce with vodka, sugar, soy sauce and wasabi.

In the second execution, the ingredients were braised in olive oil, with salt, pepper and guindillas again, and it was served with pasta. The tuna was marinated in vodka, lemon juice, salt and pepper prior to cooking.

The third execution was just watered down Japanese cooking. The artichokes and asparagus were braised in olive oil and seasoned lightly with salt only and set aside. The tuna was braised and then cooked in something similar to Teriyaki sauce, except instead of Mirin, I used vodka with lots of brown sugar, seasoned with soy sauce and spiked with freshly grated ginger. This was served with a nice portion of thinly sliced leeks on top to give it an additional zip. What was surprising about this last execution was how delicious the artichokes tasted with this sauce. The tuna flavored Teriyaki sauce spiked with ginger seemed to bring out all the good flavors in the braised artichokes more than before.

There's still time to send in your entries. Please go here to the Alison's lovely blog: Local Lemons.

Ronny's Cabbage Rolls

2009-05-28T16:10:00.003+02:00

I'm sure everyone has their version of cabbage rolls, it's such a universally popular dish. My mom had her own version which came with some kind of a tomato sauce and I loved it as a kid. Anyway I thought I'd share Ronny's version with you which uses agave syrup, soy sauce and long grain rice - which is a somewhat 'leaner' version of this age old dish. The combination of agave syrup, soy sauce and butter in his sauce (did I ever mention that Ronny puts soy sauce in a lot of things?) were a perfect match for the cabbage rolls and although I didn't have much of an appetite when dinner started, I think I ate six of them! He served his cabbage rolls with what he calls 'garlic mash', which is mashed potatoes spiked with crushed garlic.

Ronny's Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients for the Cabbage Rolls

Serves 4

1 Cabbage

3 dl Long Grain Rice

4oog Ground Beef

1.5 dl Whole Milk

1 Egg

Salt

Black Pepper

4 Tbsp Agave Syrup

50 g Butter

Ingredients for the 'Garlic Mash'

4 Big Potatoes

Whole Milk (enough to give the mashed potatoes a soft consistency)

8 Tbsp Cream

1 Medium Garlic Clove

Salt

Black Pepper

Ingredients for the Sauce

Juices from the Cooked Cabbage Rolls (as much as you can get)

Whole Milk

Cream

Soy Sauce

Step 1: Boil water in a big pot (big enough so that an entire head of cabbage can fit in it). Put salt in it when it comes to a boil.

Step 2: Core the cabbage and immerse in the boiling water, with the gaping hole facing-up for a few minutes until the leaves start falling off and remove them one by one on another plate with a cloth to dry.

Step 3: Cut off the hard parts of the cabbage (to make wrapping easier).

Step 4: Preheat the oven to 200 C.

Step 5: Mix cooked long grain rice with the ground beef, milk, the egg and some salt and black pepper.

Step 6: Wrap this mixture with the cabbage leaves and put them inside 2 buttered casserole pans.

Step 7: Drizzle agave syrup evenly over the cabbage rolls and put bits of butter on top of them. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Step 8: While the cabbage rolls are cooking in the oven, make your mashed potatoes the way you usually make them, and then mix in one crushed garlic clove, milk, cream, butter, salt and pepper.

Step 9: When the cabbage rolls are ready, use the juices in the casserole dishes to make a sauce.

Step 10: In a sauce pan, simmer the juices with a bit of cream, milk and a dash of soy sauce.

After I wrote that this was a 'leaner' version of cabbage rolls some of you might be thinking: cream and butter?! Well, what did you think? It's cabbage rolls - so there's a limit to how 'lean' it can really be, right? Let's just say Ronny's version uses cream and butter in a restrained way and lets the combination of the sweetness of the agave syrup, soy sauce and butter dominate.

Chickpea Cookies

2009-05-27T16:08:00.006+02:00

This is a modified recipe of the Sneaky Chickpea Mounds from Just Call Me Marta. Because cooking is all about learning new techniques, I just had to make this once so I could get a feel for what it was like to use pureed chickpeas in a cookie batter, and hopefully I'll be able to apply this technique on some other recipe one day - probably in some round of Paper Chef when we have some impossible combination of ingredients.

Without chocolate, these cookies taste like something you've bought at the health food shop. With chocolate...well, they taste much better.

If I were to make this again, I think I might replace the whole wheat flour with corn meal to give the cookies some crunch. I don't know if this is how they were meant to turn out since I didn't have quinoa flour and replaced this with AP flour, but mine were as soft as cake.

In either case, it's an interesting idea on how you can feed your children pureed chickpeas without them knowing it. Sneaky, eh?

Marta's Sneaky Chickpea Mounds (Modified Version)

Makes 47 Cookies

Ingredients

400 g Cooked Chickpeas

1 egg

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1/3 Cup + 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/4 Cup AP Flour*

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1 Tsp Coarse Sea Salt

*Original recipe uses Quinoa flour.

Step 1: Preheat oven to 176C/350F.

Step 2: Process the chickpeas, egg, sugar and olive oil in a food processor until creamy and smooth.

Step 3: Mix this with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Don't be afraid to use your hands and knead until it's this nice smooth ball.

Step 4: Roll into logs and cut them and reshape them a bit so they are round.

Step 5: They won't spread out much so you can let them sit pretty close to each other. Bake for around 10 minutes.

Step 6: Let the cookies cool down and then dip them in melted chocolate. Feed them to your kids!

Note: I've been told that cardamom, saffron and rose water nicely complement cookies made with chickpea flour so it might be a great idea to use with pureed chickpeas as well.

Raggmunk (Swedish Potato Crepes)

2009-05-26T15:38:00.007+02:00

Ronny tells me this is Swedish farmer's food and very popular with senior citizens, but I think that most children would like this. Next time we have house guests I think this might make a nice brunch served with crispy Jamon Serrano and Lingonberry sauce. If you can get fresh Lingonberry it will even more tantalizing. In this photo you see crispy Spanish Pancetta which we didn't slice too thinly so it's not looking too hot. I think that Jamon Serrano would definitely be a better choice so long as you're living in Spain, but crispy bacon or prosciutto would definitely work!

Ingredients

Serves 4

2 dl All Purpose Flour

1 Tsp Sea Salt

4 dl Whole Milk

1 Egg

600g Thinly Sliced Potatoes

1/4 Onion (finely chopped)

Step 1: Mix flour, salt and some of the milk until you have a nice batter.

Step 2: Add the rest of the milk, add the egg and then mix it well so that you have something that looks like a pancake batter (but a bit more watery).

Step 3: Peel the potatoes and shred them into the batter.

Step 4: Add the chopped onions into the batter.

Step 5: Mix it well and then put a skillet on the stove top at maximum heat (if your pan is the type that doesn't ever get too hot). If not, set the dial to medium heat.

Step 6: Melt a generous knob of butter in the skillet and then start making your crepes. When the top looks dry it's time to turn it over.

Step 7: Serve with Lingonberry sauce and fried salted pork. I recommend serving it with fried prosciutto or Jamon Serrano.

Chickpea & Peanut Butter Vegetable Stew

2009-05-24T15:05:00.004+02:00

I felt like having chickpeas so I started soaking them in water yesterday and as I was cooking them this morning, I hunted for something new to do with them, and I found this.

I modified the recipe a bit and made long grain rice garnished with thinly sliced leeks and toasted coconut flakes.

Ingredients

2 Cups Cooked Chickpeas

1/4 Large Onion (chopped finely)

1 Celery (chopped finely)

4 Garlic (I used the garlic press)

1 Little Fresh Red Chili Pepper

1 Chicken Bouillon

4 - 5 Tbsp Peanut Butter

5 Tomatoes (from a can and the liquid that was in the can)

1 Tsp Cumin

1 Tsp Coriander

1 Tsp Turmeric

1 Medium Sized Potato (diced)

1/2 Red Bell Pepper (diced)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Step 1: Chop the celery and onions finely and cook until soft in a pan with extra virgin olive oil.

Step 2: Add the spices and stir a bit, then add all the vegetables and cook for a few minutes.

Step 3: Add all the other ingredients. Add extra water if necessary to make a stew like consistency.

Step 4: Bring to a boil and simmer for at least 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.

Step 5: Serve with freshly cooked rice (I used long grain) garnished with a liberal sprinkling of toasted coconut flakes and thinly sliced leeks.

I used chicken bouillon because we're not vegetarian. If you don't like peanut butter this might be a nightmare, but if you do, the combination of the sweetness from the peanut butter and fresh red chili marry very well. I'd definitely make it again.

Pizza Featuring Caramelized Onions

2009-05-22T08:43:00.009+02:00

My head is still spinning from my online gaming. Why? What? Where?

Well, if you've taken a look at my profile, it does say that one of my hobbies is online gaming - so no surprises there.

Anyhow yesterday was one of the first days in a long time that I could peacefully read food blogs without worrying about enemy attacks on my cities and the recipe that caught my eye was a pizza recipe by Justin Schwartz of Justcook NYC.

Those of you who have ever been neck deep in the culture of online gaming will know what I'm talking about, but when you are involved in an intense war, the pantry starts to empty out like the rations in your virtual cities (because you can't leave the computer for long and go buy real life rations).

Justin's recipe was perfect as we already had the ingredients: Yeast, flour, onions.

And I will be honest. Ronny made this pizza from beginning to end and I didn't do a thing! Actually this isn't true. I did the easy part, i.e. making the caramelized onions.

In fact, it was Ronny who made sure I was eating properly throughout this recent gaming escapade. I think he understands because we used to do hardcore gaming together and that's how we met.

Anyhow here's Justin's recipe for his pizza featuring caramelized onions.

Ronny used a different pizza dough recipe. The one Ronny used is from the May/June 1988 edition of 'Cook's'. I can't really reprint it here because I don't have permission, but it's a recipe by Steven Connolly who was chef at Manhattan's Mezzaluna restaurant at the time. It's a thin, crisp type of crust and Steven Connolly has modified the recipe to work in home ovens. I've been using this recipe since my twenties.

What did we do different besides the pizza dough?

Well, we made a layer of mozzarella cheese, sprinkled chunks of blue cheese instead of Fontina cheese over this, covered this with a layer of fresh thinly sliced Spanish tomatoes (make sure your knife is sharp!), then topped it off with the caramelized onions.

This combination works for me as the tomatoes add a 'freshness' that's lacking from the other ingredients. Might I add that my favorite type of pizza usually only has vegetables, cheese and herbs on it. On the other hand maybe you feel like indulging in the thrill of the pure richness of cheese and caramelized onion heaven. If this is the case, follow the original recipe!

Hardcore Online Gaming

2009-05-21T18:15:00.004+02:00

I have no excuse for my hiatus other than that online gaming is a main hobby of mine and I got caught-up in a full-fledged war which consumed me during all my waking hours. I know, I know - I'm too old to be playing games...but since I don't have kids of my own I guess I'll always be a kid in some way!

It just wasn't possible to leave the computer and bake, because what if someone razed my city to the ground while I was trying to separate egg yolks from egg whites? Or what if someone pillaged one of my unguarded cities while I was cutting cookies?

Will start posting again soon...

Paper Chef #40: Heart Shaped Floury Potato Croquettes Dressed in Sesame Seeds & Thyme, Served on a Bed of Crispy Jamon Serrano

2009-05-09T14:51:00.012+02:00

The ingredients for Paper Chef #40 were:

1. Floury Potatoes

2. Thyme

3. Prosciutto

4. Mother's Day Theme

So here's my entry. I used Jamon Serrano instead of Prosciutto as I live in a provincial city of Spain and good prosciutto is very difficult to come by. I also struggled with the 'Mother's Day Theme' since I've had a difficult relationship with my own mother. That said I I have to say that even though my mother and I have 'differences' and we don't exactly get along too well, she has played a major role in my education and she still does love me...in her own way, or she would have killed me when I was being a difficult child!

Since my mother's passion in life is herbs and any edible plants (she has published more than 16 books mostly about these) - I've decorated my heart shaped croquette dressed in toasty white sesame seeds with fresh sprigs of flowering thyme. Hope this is enough to qualify for the 'Mother's Day' theme.

Ingredients

3 Large Floury Potatoes

1 Egg

1 Cup White Sesame Seeds (more or less)

Sea Salt (to taste)

Black Pepper (to taste)

Dried Thyme (to taste)

3 Cups Sunflower Oil (for deep frying - the amount will depend on the size of your pan)

100g Jamon Serrano (thinly sliced of course)

16 Sprigs of Flowering Fresh Thyme

This recipe makes 8 hearts.

Step 1: Boil the potatoes for around 60 minutes and peel them and mash them inside a bowl. Add salt, black pepper and thyme to taste.

Step 2: Shape them into hearts either by using a cookie cutter or with your hands.

Step 3: Beat one egg in a bowl and then dip the hearts in the egg.

Step 4: Transfer them into a bowl with a liberal amount of sesame seeds in them and coat them.

Step 5: Heat up the oil in your pan. Make sure there's enough to cover the croquettes.

Step 6: Lower the croquettes into the oil gently and just leave them in there for a minute or so until the sesame seeds are toasted. Everything is cooked so there's no need to leave them in there for longer than this.

Step 7: Remove the pan from the heat and then put the Jamon Serrano in the oil for literally 1 - 2 seconds and then make a bed of them on your plate with these. The purpose of this is to make them crispy to add a different texture to the mushiness of the potatoes.

Step 8: Very carefully, lay your heart shaped croquette down on the bed of crispy Jamon Serrano or Prosciutto and garnish with flowering fresh thyme, freshly picked from your garden.

Now you have something a little different to serve before your main course on this special day for mothers. The combination of flavors are somewhat exotic and the texture interesting with the toasty sesame seeds and crispy Jamon Serrano juxtaposed against the soft moistness of the mashed potatoes.

Paper Chef #40

2009-05-06T22:54:00.002+02:00

It's that time of the month again. This month Paper Chef is being hosted by Bron Marshall. The ingredients were picked by her lovely daughters from a little white bucket and they were:

1. Prosciutto

2. Floury Potatoes

3. Thyme.

There is no 4th ingredient this round but we have a theme which is:

Mother's Day

I'm guessing there will be lots of entries and I hope some of you will join in on the fun!

Heirloom Empanadas from Argentina

2009-04-28T00:59:00.018+02:00

I have been looking for a recipe that would recreate the empanada that I ate at a birthday party of one of the Filipino kids who lived in my neighborhood when I was a child. The Filipino parents always threw very generous birthday parties where we'd get to take a swing at a brightly colored piñata and there were roasted piglets (lechon), puto bongbong and lots of other delicious food. And yet what has stuck in my mind through years was the delicious empanadas.

When I first arrived in Spain someone asked me if I'd ever had an empanada and I said: yes. Anyhow this guy went ahead and ordered some for me and I was in for the biggest disappointment of my life.

In my mind an empanada should look like this, but the empanadas here look like this.

A few years later, my life style had changed immensely and I was cooking everything from scratch at home and I had started food blogging - and I thought to myself: Why don't I look for a recipe that is similar to the empanadas I used to have at those wonderful birthday parties?

Easier said than done.

When I looked-up several empanada recipes, they just didn't seem quite right. You know when the ingredients just don't match the details in your memory?

Anyhow while I was still dragging my feet, unable to find the right recipe, Paul Paredes (yes - he's the guy picking the ingredients for Paper Chef in the video) said he'd give me his grandmother's secret recipe! So was I concerned whether this was the same empanadas I ate when I was a kid? No! I knew these were going to be delicious so I started making plans to make his grandmother's mouth watering empanadas right away....and here they are.

Paul has been gracious enough to give me permission to reprint his recipe here so I'll give you the original and will insert notes on what I actually did.

Ingredients

For the Filling

600 g Ground Beef

600 g Onions (peeled and chopped finely)

30 g Rendered Beef Fat

1 Tsp Dried Greek Oregano

1 Tsp Ground Cumin

1 Tsp Spanish Sweet Paprika

Fresh Black Pepper

Sea Salt

2 Hard Boiled Eggs (chopped)

A Handful of Green Olives (pitted and chopped)

The Wrappers

600 g Flour

70 g Rendered Beef Fat*

2 Tsp Fine Sea Salt

1 Tsp Sweet Spanish Paprika

500 ml Warm Water (I used only 3 dl water!)

100 g Unsalted Butter (melted)

Corn Starch (for dusting)

1 Egg (for glazing)

Step 1: Mix flour, paprika and salt and put the rendered beef fat or other animal fat on top. I used Manteca de Cerdo Iberico. Use your fingers to blend the animal fat into the dry ingredients.

Step 2: Once you've blended this nicely, add water. From my other experiences making wrappers (Beijing dumplings and Samosas) it's all too easy to end-up with a dough that's too wet and unless you have a Kitchen Aid to do the mixing for you it will be a nightmare! So add a little water at a time. I first poured in 2 dl water and then added another 1 dl - so a total of 3 dl. From my experience, I always end-up using a little less water than designated in the recipe so I'm guessing it could be something to do with some inaccuracy in my measurement devices or the quality of flour and their moisture content in Spain. If you've made other kinds of wrappers - use your common sense when adding water.

Step 3: Knead this to work with the gluten until you have a smooth pliant dough. Put it back inside a bowl and cover with a dampened fabric. According to Paul this needs to sit there for at least 1 hour. His grandmother used to leave it overnight by the way - so if you want to bake first thing in the morning, I'd prepare the dough last thing at night.

Step 4: While the dough is resting you'll want to make the filling or 'picadillo' as it's called in Spanish. Get yourself a nice big frying pan and melt the animal fat. Depending on the nature of your frying pan, the stove setting will differ because my Spanish pans heat-up to high temperatures really fast and are great for making Chinese stir fries whereas my pans from IKEA tend to never heat-up to very high temperatures no matter what your stove setting is. The idea is to slow cook your ingredients so make adjustments according to the characteristics of your frying pan.

Step 5: Add the chopped up onions and stir fry them for around 30 minutes. You do not want them to become very brown according to Paul and they should be soft and just beginning to color when they're done. I had a 'blond moment' and only chopped up 300 g of onions by the way. This was a mistake on my part and not intentional and because there was less onion, it took me about 15 minutes in an IKEA low temperature frying pan to reach this stage.

Step 6: Paul suggests adding spoonfuls of water should your onions get too dry. Spanish onions are very wet and hence I didn't have to add any water. Again this will depend on your onions.

Step 7: Turn up the heat a bit, add the ground beef and stir frequently to make sure you don't end-up with mini-hamburgers rolling inside your pan. The meat should stay in the same size it was when it was ground. Do not brown the meat or you'll end-up with a very dry filling. Try to picture a nice juicy moist filling and remember that that's where you want to go! Add the oregano, spices and salt during this stage.

Step 8: Finish this off with a couple of tablespoons of water at the very end unless your filling is already swimming in liquids although this shouldn't be the case if you've managed to get it right so far. The filling needs to be cooled before it is put into the wrappers so imagine what it might look like after the animal fat has congealed.

Step 9: I left out the olives and eggs completely because I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of boiled eggs and olives in my empanadas. The traditional way is to put a slice of boiled egg and a slice of green olive with pimiento stuffing on top of this when you wrap the empanadas. Paul said he chopped up both the eggs and olives and mixed them into the beef. It's your choice. Do what you think is best!

Step 10: Once your dough has rested for at least 1 hour, you can start preparing the wrappers. The first thing you'll want to do is divide the dough into 2 and then make sure the other half is covered with a damp cloth immediately so that it doesn't dry out. For those of you with small counters, I suggest you divide the dough into 3 or 4 balls to make rolling them out easier. I think Paul mentioned that Mike used a pasta roller for this, but the traditional way is to use a rolling pin to roll them out. Do it whichever way you wish. I don't have a pasta roller so I used a rolling pin!

Step 11: Flour your surface with corn flour first, then roll out the dough to a thickness of 1 mm, then brush it all over with melted butter, then fold it. Rotate it 90 degrees then roll it out again to 1 mm then brush it with butter again, etc. Roll at least 3 layers of butter into the dough in this manner. Corn starch really makes handling the dough easier so I recommend this.

Step 12: Preheat the oven to 220 C. Roll out the dough to 1 mm again and use a cookie cutter or whatever you have that's around 12 cm in diameter to cut circles out of the dough. My choices were either 10 cm or 13 cm and I went with the 13 cm so my empanadas were pretty big manly looking ones. Paul has told me that he and his grandmother use espresso saucers to do this. I used an inverted little bowl (about the size of a rice bowl) from IKEA.

Step 13: Moisten the edges of the wrapper, put the filling in the center and then fold them over in a half circle and seal the edges meticulously. Then, fold the edge over and seal the whole thing in tightly with a fork. Paul used a daintier technique of creating these lovely wavy patterns but I took the easier way out. The method I used is easier for people who don't have a lot of experience wrapping up empanadas or Chinese dumplings because it allows for a much bigger margin of error during the folding process. The fork marks will cover-up any messy folds so you can fold them over casually instead of being worried about creating a work of art.

Step 14: Brush these with the beaten egg and then bake them in the preheated oven on oven paper for 15 minutes or so. Some of mine ended-up in there for nearly 20 minutes but some were ready to go at 15 minutes exactly. Just make sure they are nice and brown on the surface.

*Paul mentions oiled and lined trays. I forgot to oil mine.

So were these empanadas similar to the ones I remember? No. But they were delicious and a great starting point for me to start exploring empanada recipes, and one day I hope I'll figure out what exactly were in those empanadas I had when I was a kid.

The most interesting thing about Paul's grandmother's recipe is undoubtedly her method for making puff pastry. Kneading paprika into the dough is a great idea and gave the flour a lovely warm color and her method of making puff pastry was quick and easy.

I'd like to extend my thanks to Paul Paredes again for his generosity in sharing this heirlooom recipe with me. It has been a real privilege getting to make his grandmother's secret recipe!

Other References:

Empanadas Mendocinas : The author gives step by step directions with photographs on how to go about making empanadas.