Autumn begins

Well, it's once again Sunday and since it has been rather chilly over the last week, I thought it's time for a soup. Also I was in a highly experimental mood and this is the result:



Ingredients

750 g potatoes
5 - 6 carrots
3 small parsnips
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp dried thyme
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 l water
1 tsp vegeta
black pepper
9 Polish kabanosse sausages

Method

1. Wash, peel and slice the carrots and parsnips.
2. Place on a tray lined with aluminium foil, add the honey, thyme and oil and mix them round, so the carrots and parsnips get a good coating.
3. Wash, peel and dice the potatoes, then steam for 10 minutes. Take out about a third of the potatoes and mix in with the carrots and parsnips. Leave the remainder of the potatoes to finish steaming.
4. Place the tray with the vegetables under a medium-high grill, stirring occasionally, should the vegetables begin to burn.
5. When the potatoes are ready, move them to a deep pot and blend them, adding the water gradually. At the end, add the vegeta and black pepper.
6. Slice the kabanosse sausages.
   
7. When the other vegetables are ready, add them along with the sausages to the soup and bring to the boil.

This was quite nice and very filling.

Pan Fried Trout Fillet

Well, when I saw the trout fillets in the shop, I just couldn't resist buying them, even though I'm not really a fish eating person. Not at all in fact. But during our visit to Bulgaria in August, we had freshly caught river trout, pan fried with mashed potatoes, so I thought I'd give it a go.

And it definitely worked. I found this recipe for the trout and it sounded as good as it was simple. I actually made bread crumbs to use for the fish, rather than flour.

I had some spuds left over from last week, so I steamed them to death and made Delia's perfect mashed potatoes. This is the second time I make this recipe and it was once again very delicious, despite that I swapped the crème fraîche with extra thick double cream. I think that this, combined with the potato variety (possibly Vivaldi), that made it rediculously sticky and shape-defying.

I'd bought some runner beans especially for this, but sadly they were way past their best and turned out leathery and tough. What I worked out is that peeling the skins revealed a bright green and creamy innard, so all was not lost.

And once again I couldn't resist getting a couple of boxes of fresh chantrelles, which I just stewed in butter.



All in all a very yummy meal, even if it looks a bit colourless in the photo. This is a definite repeat candidate. It even didn't take too long to do, so quite good for after work as well.

Beans with chilli and garlic

The other day we went to a nice Italian restaurant and some of the vegetables we had were French beans with chilli and garlic. So I tried it out today, to go with our barbecued lamb and turkey.

I tried it out, I steamed the beans, then sautéd them along with the chopped red chilli and finely sliced garlic. Sadly I used walnut oil for this and it was a mistake, it didn't taste nice at all, though it wasn't completely inedible. I'll try this out with toasted sesame seed oil or butter next time.


This concludes this busy, but highly enjoyable week-end.

Lundulph's Birthday Cake

Well, I was reminded of this type of cake on my holiday at the beginning of August, I'd made it at uni and completely forgotten about it.

This is what it looked like when it was ready for show:


This is what it looked like 5 minutes later:


Vertical stripes! Yay! This is basically a huge swiss roll and when you cut it, you get vertical striped pieces. Here are step by step instructions in photos. Start with the sponge base for the swiss roll (now you see why I made swiss roll the other day - dry run). This cake ended up 33 cm diameter and used up almost 2 swiss roll sponges. Bake the swiss rolls and leave to cool completely. Then cut each sponge into 4 strips:


The fillings I'd chosen were raspberry jam and chocolate mousse. I managed to get hold of seedless raspberry jam and mixed up two satchets of Angel Delight with single cream instead of milk. First I spread a thin layer of raspberry jam, then the Angel Delight:





Actually you could do the whole sponge in one go, I just did it in steps for the instructions. Mind you, it's quite messy, don't be tempted to lick your fingers! Now roll up the first strip.


I used the removable bottom of my large cake tin, as I couldn't find a suitable cake base (not to mention a fancy doily). Then just keep adding to the spiral, here's the cake in the final round:


Note that on the last piece, I cut a wedge edge to form a smooth end. The left over Angel Delight, I piped in to the holes between the sponge strips and leveled out the top. In hindsight, I should have made a carton strip to use as template, because there was too much variation between the strips and I ended up using quite a lot of Angel Delight to level out the top. So I had none left for the sides. What I did was to whip extra thick double cream with some icing sugar. Then mixing in chocolate powder to get the same colour as the Angel Delight. I piped some to cover up the edges.

Also I had the chocolate Swedish horses (Dalahäst). Sadly the dark ones have a white surface here and there - the reason for this is that I stored them in the larder and that is a bit too warm for dark chocolate and this causes the fat to move to the surface of the chocolate, it hadn't gone bad in any way.

I made most of the cake late last night and kept it in the fridge. The sponge soaked up some of the moisture from the jam and Angel delight. I really like moist cakes, I don't care much for the English type, they tend to be so very dry and with all the icing and marzipan on top, they are extremely sweet. But maybe that's a good thing, because you don't eat as much of them. Either way, I'll continue to make moist cakes.

This was great fun making.

Caraway bites

Well, I ended up cooking and baking to midnight last night, but today was quite a success - everything got eaten.

Still, here are the caraway bites I made after my break.

This is a really cheety one, as I bought ready made short crust pastry. I hadn't realised that it was ready rolled, so I had to mash it up and re-roll, as these need to be a bit thicker, but that's all.

I cut up in bite sized strips and brushed with the left-over egg from the garlic horns, then sprinkled caraway seeds on top and baked at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Here's the result, and despite I managed to burn the first lot, they all disappeared quite fast.

Cooling Down

Yesterday Sainsbury's had British strawberries. I guessed they are the last of the season and they looked rather nice, so I bought a couple of punnets. The plan was to eat some after dinner last night, but we forgot.

Today as I was cooking, I got thinking about what they do in Sweden with lingonberries - they are sometimes layered with sugar, left to stand for a bit, then stirred and used together with game or Swedish meatballs.

So I thought, this layering should work with the strawberries too, as I had a suspicion that they might not be too sweet. So in between watching the garlic horns baking, I diced the strawberries and layered them with granulated sugar. 1 punnet of 500 g with 3 tbsp of sugar. I stirred it in and left it on the side, while I prepared the dough for the broccoli pie.

Some 20 minutes or so later, the strawberry bowl looked very nice, a lot of juice had been released and the pieces glimmered in the sun. So a scoop of dairy ice cream topped with these red jewels was mine and Lundulph's treat for today.

Now I've had my break and will continue with the kyopoolu and the birthday cake. Hopefully will also have time to prepare some browned onion puree - a very useful ingredient for korma that I freeze portion wise.

Vitlöksgifflar

Dish number two is a savoury snack that I want to use as a nibble, instead of the usual crisps. It's a very old Swedish recipe, my Mum used to make these a lot in the past. Even Lundulph tried one.

Ingredients

100 g butter or 1 dl grapeseed oil
3 dl full fat milk
1 ml garlic granules
0.5 tbsp salt
50 g fresh yeast or corresponding amount dry yeast
8 dl strong white flour
100 g grated cheese, e. g. Cheddar
1 egg
sesame seeds, poppy seeds

Method

1. If you are using butter, melt it. Add the milk, salt and garlic and heat up to just over finger temperature.
2. If you are using fresh yeast, dissolve it in the liquid, if you are using dry yeast, mix it in the flour.
3. Start adding the flour to the liquid and stir in to make a dough. I used my kitchen machine for this. The dough should not be soft, but if you can't incorporate all the flour, carefully add a little more milk.
   
4. Stir in the cheese.
5. Leave to rise to double it's size at least.
6. Sprinkle flour on a surface and on a rolling pin.
   
7. Divide the dough into 4 and roll each part to a circle, about 0.5 cm thick.
8. With a sharp knife, cut the circle in 4, then each quarter into three wedges.
9. Roll each wedge from the wide side up to the pointy edge.
10. Place on a baking sheed with baking paper.
11. Leave to rise for another 30 - 40 minutes covered under a tea towel.
12. Preheat the oven at 225 degrees C (electric) or gas mark 6.
    
13. Whisk up the egg lightly, then brush each carefully as not to let all the rising gases out.
14. Sprinkle poppy and sesame seeds on top and bake in the middle of the oven for about 15 minutes.
15. Take out and cover with a tea towel until the horns have cooled down a bit.

They can be frozen and reheated in the microwave when needed. Quite tasty when eaten hot with butter. But oh so unhealthy.

The name vitlöksgifflar consists of two parts: vitlök which means garlic and gifflar, which originates from the German word Gipfel, which means peak as in a mountain peak. I think they'd be called horns in English. Not sure how they remind you of a mountain peak, but interestingly enough, a similar type of horns but from sweet kozunak-like pastry and filling made of rose hip marmalade is made in Bulgaria and they are called "kiffli" (кифли) and the word has the same origin.

Bean and Red Onion Salad

Today is a major cooking day, mainly because we're celebrating Lundulph's half past life tomorrow and the whole clan is turning up. Also I made up a new dessert on the fly. I'm half way through the day's tasks and thought I'd blog while having a break.

The first thing I made today was to process fresh ginger with a little bit of water, fill up the ice cube trays and freeze. Each cube is about 1 tbsp in size, so making curries is very easy whith these. The big chore here is to peel all the ginger, I bought about 1 kg yesterday. On the other hand this'll last me for months.

Today's first dish is thus

Bean and Red Onion Salad

Ingredients

2 cans of butter beans (each is gross 410 g/ net 235 g)
2 smallish red onions
2 - 3 tbsp olive oil
2 - 3 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt to taste

Method

1. Drain and rinse the beans well.
2. Peel and coarsely chop the onions.
3. Place the beans and onions in a bowl and sprinkle the olive oil, vinegar, parsley and salt.
4. Stir well.

The flavours usually come out better if you make this on the day before. Oil, vinegar and parsley should also really be to taste. If you don't like parsley, dill works just as well.

If you feel that the red onions taste strong, I recommend that, after chopping, you sprinkle generously with salt and rub it in with your hand. Very quickly, the onions will release their liquid and begin to feel a bit softer. Rinse well over a sieve. This should take out the sharpness. Alternatively shallots or spring onions can be used.

This is a traditional Bulgarian Winter salad, but I make it quite regularly throughout the year. Of course, since I'm expecting lots of people tomorrow, I used 3 cans of beans.

Turkey Satay

We had a very lazy Sunday, to the point that I didn't make the planned satay turkey. I made it on Monday, but since it's quite a fiddly and time consuming thing to do, by the time it was ready we were so hungry, we ate like we'd never seen food before and then it was bedtime.

Besides, it's not my recipe, it's Delia's but it's ever so good. It has nothing to do with the stuff they serve at restaurants, it's way beyond them and is worth the whole effort. I have yet to try out the recommendation to prepare the marinade and sauce in advance.

You can find the recipe here.

I used turkey instead, as we had two packets of turkey steaks that I cut up in thin strips and didn't bother with the skewers at all. I was also a bit generous with the ginger and didn't have fresh chillies, so used crushed ones instead.

Lundulph said finger-lickin' good. Oh, I also tried it out on the paneer I did the other day and it worked OK, would probably be better with tofu.

Second attempt on the paneer

I read about making paneer in another book, the recipe was slightly different there - use more lemon juice and 4 layers of cheese cloth and that really made the difference - the milk curdled a lot better and the cloth was strong enough to be squeezed out properly. The paneer is a lot firmer and I'm looking forward to cooking with it.

Also I had to do a new batch of yogurt. The previous one was made from milk that I'd frozen before we went on holiday. And now I know that this is fine for cooking, but not for yogurt making. Never again, no, no.

Rulltårta

Yet one of those things that I haven't made in many years - Swiss roll. Today was not really good for making it, mainly since we're barely half way through the pear crumble, but I had eggs about to go out of date and there's already far too many eggs in the freezer.



Ingredients

Base
3 eggs
2 dl caster sugar
2 dl plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
0.5 dl milk or single cream
granulated sugar

Filling suggestions:
thick, but fairly smooth jam
custard
whipped cream with fresh berries

Method

1. Line a shallowish baking tray (approx. 30 x 40 cm) with baking paper. If you're using an electric oven, preheat it at 250 degrees C. If you have hot air option, use that instead and preheat to 200 degrees. For gas ovens, gas mark 6.
2. Whisk the eggs and the sugar white and fluffy, with an electric whisk, start on the lowest setting and gradually increase to maximum. The whole should take about 2 minutes.
3. Mix the flour and the baking powder, then sift gradually into the egg-sugar mixture and whisk in on the lowest setting.
4. Finally add the milk. Just whisk enough to get it incorporated.
5. Pour out the mixture onto the tray, level out and make sure the mixture goes into the corners.
6. Bake in the middle of the oven. For the electrical - 5 minutes only and keep an eye on it! In hot air/gas, bake for 8 - 10 minutes until it goes golden brown.
7. Sprinkle some granulated sugar onto another baking sheet, take out the roll base and flip it onto the sugary paper.
   
8. Immediately remove the paper it baked in. If it's a bit sticky, paint some water with a brush and try again. It'll still be hot and quite flexible, be careful so it doesn't rip.
9. If you're using jam or custard as filling, spread it immediately and roll it up, place it so the edge is hidden at the bottom. Don't make too thick a spread or it'll be awkward to roll up. If you're using whipped cream, the bottom must be cold, so the cream doesn't melt. So cover the base with a tea towel and leave to cool.

It is important to have smooth and thick jam/cream and not spread too much. I used almost a whole jar of the chunky quince jam I made last year and I did wonder if I should have whizzed it with the blender before spreading it and decided against it. So when I rolled it up, I got a large lump of jam in the middle, the whole roll became quite thick and the only thing holding it together is probably the gel-effect of the quinces.

Pear crumble

Last Friday I bought a new pie dish especially for making the lemon meringue pie that I've been hankering for in the last three weeks. But due to an extremely busy week-end, I still am planning to make the lemon meringue pie. In fact, I'll probably have to throw away the lemons, they are looking rather sad now.

But on Saturday, my dear neighbour gave me some of the huge pears that both Lundulph and I have been longingly looking at - small tree with huge pears. Lundulph even dared to go and check to see if they are real, or some sort of decoration.

And last night I cleaned them and we were going to have them for dessert. Well, they were a bit tart and dried out our mouths, so we left them and tonight I made pear crumble to inaugurate my fancy new pie dish:


Today was also Mix-A-New-Batch-Müsli-Night, along with Make-Yogurt-Night and also Pizza-Night, so I was way busy and got Lundulph to help me out. He made the crumble while I was making the yogurt and here's what he did:

Ingredients

2.5 dl porridge oats
2 dl plain flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
100 g margarine
4 - 5 large pears
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
margarine for the dish

Method

1. Mix the porrige oats, flour and caster sugar with the margarine into crumbles. If it all comes together into one big lump, just add more flour and oats, until crumbles form.
2. Peel and cut the pears into smallish pieces.
3. Mix the caster sugar with the cinnamon. I put both in a jar, closed the lid and shook it for a bit. Also good to store in, if it's too much.
4. Grease the pie dish and put the pear in it. Sprinkle generously with the sugar and cinnamon mix, stir the pears around so all pieces get a little of the mixture.
5. Level out the pears and cover with the crumbles. Level out again, to make sure it'll bake evenly.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6 (220 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

Today we had the crumble with dairy ice cream and the pear flavour really came out. And idea for next time is to add chopped hazelnuts to the crumble.

Now this recipe is slightly different from the apple crumble one from before. The reason for this is that I asked Lundulph to look in my old recipe book and what he found was the recipe I learned at school many years ago. It is also originally meant for apples, but these pears worked ever so nicely. The pie dish is 29 cm (12") diameter.

Oh, and here's a photo of today's pizza, lots of tomato sauce and I remembered the jalapenos:

Pesto for Lundulph

I've been thinking of making my own pesto for a long time and also to work out an alternative for Lundulph, one without parmesan and last night I finally got round to making some.

I spent some time browsing for recipes and this one seemed ever so good. Besides, I'd recently managed to make my way to La Fromagerie and had managed to get hold of some pecorino sardo. Yummy! So my plan was to make one lot for Lundulph without the precious pecorino and one with for me.

But, since I also made paneer, just to try it out, it seemed so easy on telly, I only made the Lundulph pesto.

I also cheated, as I used the hand blender and whizzed it all together. The "couple of handfuls" of basil leaves came to 55 g. Instead of the parmesan and the pecorino, I used plain Philadelphia. And I reduced the garlic to 1 clove as it's a school night.

Overall, it was very creamy and tasted strongly of basil. I should have used the full amount of garlic and also added more salt. We had it with pasta of course, Lundulph had ravioli with chicken and mushroom filling (no cheese!) and mine were mushroom and ricotta and I added a generous amount of Spanish black olives and pecorino sardo.

The paneer sort of worked, it was fascinating to watch the milk curdle. But I didn't manage to get enough of the liquid out of it, so it was still quite spongey when it was ready. I think I'll make a Korma tomorrow and use it in there. Out of a 4 pi (2.25-ish litre), the resulting paneer is just about enough for two people. After a chat with my Mum today, the way a similar cheese is made in Sweden is by using the Swedish live "yogurt" which is called filmjölk as a souring ingredient and actually add it to the milk even before bringing it to the boil.

Pottering around the kitchen however, I spotted my knobbly rolling pin, that I specifically asked for last Christmas and that my Sister Bip searched through Stockholm to find for me. It's used in Sweden to make Swedish tunnbröd and knäckebröd and it's definitely time to dig out a recipe or two to try out.

One last comment on the pecorino sardo. My parents discovered this last year, along with pecorino romano and are completely converted. The main reason being that both taste surprisingly similar to Bulgarian kashkaval (Kашкавал). Lately it's particularly precious as the quality of the kashkaval has fallen dramatically and nowadays is not ripened long enough to taste of anything beyond plastic. Also it seems a lot less greasy than normal. I was so happy to find out that there is a place in the UK that sells these cheeses and I'll be doing many more trips to La Fromagerie, not the least to get hold of the World's stinkiest cheese - Vieux Boulogne.

Kavarma - Koprivshtitza style

The other week, I braved the crowds of Italian and Japanese tourists in Covent Garden and went to the market there. Rumour had it it did late nights in August, so that had to be checked out. I was a bit disappointed, despite not being really sure what to expect, but there was a French stand that had dried sausages and I just couldn't resist - wild boar, venison, garlic and choritzo - so to be on the safe side, I got one of each and parted with a substantial amoun of money. And we've been nibbling away at the venison one for a few days, but very little at a time, as it was very greasy. So I'd decided to cook the others or they'd go out of date.

So I made kavarma (stress on the last of the a's). Or "Каварма" in Bulgarian. And in the way they do it in Koprivshtitza (Копривщица), according to wikipedia. Basically it's a gyuvetch - but with salami. And the Koprivshtitza style is to crack an egg on top.


Today's ingredients were

3 onions
4 cloves of garlic
0.5 dl grapeseed oil
3 tbsp water
1 kg potatoes
3 tbsp sweet paprika
1 dl water
5 smallish carrots
3 courgettes
3 green peppers
3 handfuls of green beans
250 g fresh chestnut mushrooms
2.5 French sausages
4.5 dl water
1 can (400 g) tomatoes
salt, pepper
dill
thyme
savory
parsley
mint
eggs

What I did:

1. Peeled the onions, potatoes, carrots and courgettes. Cut all up fairly small.
2. Cleaned the peppers and beans and diced. Peeled the mushrooms.
3. Placed the oil in a large non-stick pan, added the water, onions and pressed in the garlic.
   
4. Fried on medium heat, added the potatoes half way through and fried, stirring every few minutes, until the potatoes started changing colour as they were taking up the fat.
5. Added the paprika and about a dl of water and stirred in well to get the paprika to dissolve, then turned off the hob.
6. In my 9 fancy clay pots, I put 4 - 5 mushrooms in the bottom, then about a handful each of carrots, courgettes, beans and peppers.
   
7. Added also salt, pepper, thyme and dill and stirred to get a bit of a mix.
8. Sliced the sausages, about a third of a cm thick and put 4 - 5 in each clay pot.
   
9. Divided up the potato/onion mix between them, added a bit more salt and pepper and 0.5 dl water.
   
10. Put the lids on and placed in the oven and turned it on on gas mark 2 (130 degrees C) for about 15 minutes, then increased to gas mark 4 (170 degrees C) for another 5 minutes, then increased again to gas mark 5 (190 degrees C) and left to cook for 30 minutes.
11. Then swapped the pots around, as I had to place them in two levels in the oven.
12. In the mean time, I liquidised the can of tomatoes along with savory, parsley and mint.
13. After a further 30 minutes, I took out the pots, distributed the tomato/herb mixture as evenly as possible, stirred as well as I could, then cracked an egg over each pot. Replaced the lid and put back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Well, it was rather tasty, could have done with a bit more sausage, but I wanted to save the choritzo for a pizza later on in the week. Also should probably only have baked for about 5 - 6 minutes after adding the egg, it went a bit hard, would have been nice to have the gooey yolk.

Dammsugare

These are one of many sweet bites that are so popular in Sweden along with coffee or tea. It's called fika and corresponds roughly to the British afternoon tea. However it can be taken at any time of the day, the drink is usually coffee or tea, and is accompanied by a variety of sweet pastries or bites.

The following is called dammsugare, which literally means vacuum cleaner. The reason for this is that it does indeed resemble the old-fashioned vacuum cleaners used in Sweden a few decades ago (here's a picture, second from the top).
This is the second recipe I've tried and it's a lot better than the first one. The original is here for those who speak Swedish, there's a lot more there, so watch this space, as I work my way through the lot.

This time, I made one change and completely not on my own accord, but the Swedish liqueur punsch is just not readily available outside Sweden, but dark rum is a good substitute.

Ingredients

Inner part:
400 g finely grated digestive biscuits
100 g finely grated marzipan
1 dl apricot preserve/jam
50 g melted dark chocolate
3 tbsp dark rum

Cover:
200 g finely grated marzipan
2 dl icing sugar + some for rolling
2 tbsp liquid glucose
1 tsp water
green food colouring

Finish:

150 g melted dark chocolate

Method

1. As stated in the ingredients, grate everything finely.
2. Mix the ingredients of the inner part into a dough. I used my electrical mixer with the spirals for dough - worked very well.
   
3. Mix all ingredients for the cover. This I did manually and it took a while. Also I had to add additional food colouring, as it was a bit pale. Green is traditional, but any colour can be used. And yes, my fingers were green afterwards.
   
4. Now, roll the inner part into long strings, about the thickness of your thumb and place on sheets of greaseproof paper. The above quantity was quoted for about 35 dammsugare, I got 41 out if it.
5. Next divide up the cover part into the same number of pieces as the number of strings of the inner part. Using a bit of icing sugar, roll out with a rolling pin, the same length as the strings and wide enough to wrap around them fully.
6. Do just that, place the inner part string on the rolled out cover part and roll so that it is completely covered.
7. Cut up the strings into bits of about 5 cm.
8. Melt the finishing chocolate over a waterbath (bain marie if you want to get technical) and dip each end of each piece, then put back on the greaseproof paper and leave to cool and solidify. I used a teaspoon to scrape off some of the excess.
9. Store in the fridge.

Now, if you've been to IKEA and their Swedish food shop, they sell these dammsugare there under the name punch rolls. Now the English "punch" is nowhere near the Swedish "punsch". The rolls are very tasty though.

After having made the above, I have the following observations to make. The inner part is very tasty and also quite close to the shop bought ones.

The cover part was not very good, as it kept "sweating" in room temperature. Maybe I rolled it too thin, but it wouldn't have been enough otherwise. So this'll need some experimentation. The first recipe I tried only had marzipan and that was very difficult to roll, so this is a definite improvement. I wonder if it would help if I added some corn starch or skipped the glucose. Lundulph will have to eat a few batches of these, until I get them right.

Last, the chocolate finish looked very nice immediately after dipping (hence the photo), but after it cooled down, it went white-ish. Now this happens to all chocolates that are stored in room temperature - it's simply too hot and the fat mixed into the chocolate percolates to the surface. So I should probably have put them in the fridge right away.

Of course none of the above stopped us eating far too many today.

Upside-down greengage cake

Today we were invited to a barbecue at some friends' house and as we're getting swamped with juicy sweet greengages from the tree in our garden, I thought I'd make some sort of cake and take along. The following is for a 13'' tin (just over 33 cm).

Ingredients

butter for the tin
18 greengages
170 g butter
170 g caster sugar
3 large eggs
340 g plain flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 dl apple juice

Method

1. Butter the tin, then line with grease-proof paper, then butter the paper.
2. Preheat the oven at gas mark 4 (180 degrees C).
   
3. Wash the greengages, cut in half and remove the stone, then lay them out at the bottom of the tin.
4. Melt the butter on low heat. Lightly whisk the eggs in a bowl. Mix the flour and baking powder in another bowl.
5. Whisk the butter and sugar light and fluffy.
6. Slowly add the eggs, while still whisking.
7. Add the flour a little at a time. When it feels like it's a bit too thick, add the apple juice.
8. Pour the mixture over the greengages and level it. Give the tin a tap, to make sure the cake mixture covers the greengages well.
   
9. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for about 50 minutes. The cake is ready when you push a skewer through the middle and it comes out clean.

I made this yesterday and left it to cool down overnight. This morning I turned it out of the tin, the greengages were indeed juicy and had been dripping. I should have turned out the cake earlier to allow this juice to sink back into the cake. It worked mostly and the cake was quite nice. Served it with Waitrose's fresh vanilla custard.

One thing I forgot to mention is that this is the first time ever I sifted the flour as it's been in the packet for a while. I have vague memories of my Mum sifting flour for all her baking in the old days, haven't seen her do that in the last 25 years though. Still, it was interesting to try, visually the sifted flour had a lighter colour and definitely increased in volume a bit. Hopefully it also improved the taste of the cake too.

Slow cooking

When I posted my recipe for Bulgarian bean soup a while ago, I mentioned that I'd try the slow cooking method. Well I did last week. I soaked the beans for some 16-17 hours, then I cooked them for about 14 hours and although it tasted rather nice, I now know what the "bean effect" is. I've never had that before, so this is definitely a method I won't be using again on this recipe. Pressure cooking only!

As an attempt at getting a feeling of Summer, Lundulph and I have been eating a lot of salad over the last couple of weeks, so there hasn't been anything interesting to write about.

Kisses

Last night I made meringue, something I haven't done for 15 years. In Bulgaria meringues are called "целувки" which translates to kisses. Swedes call it "maränger". The idea of meringues on top of walnuts may not necessarily be Bulgarian, but that's the only place I've encountered it in the form below. And because they are so small, it's so easy to eat too many.

I followed the recipe for a Pavlova in Delia Smith's big book, but I discovered an inconsistency in my edition - the recipe says 6 oz (175 g) caster sugar, but looking at the conversion table at the beginning of the book, 1 oz = 25 g. This would put the recipe out by 25 g. In fact 1 oz is 28.34 g. A search on the internet for more information on meringue, it perspired that actually it's the proportions between the two main ingredients - egg whites and sugar that matter. It should be 1 part egg whites to 2 parts sugar per weight.

Traditionally in Bulgaria only icing sugar is used, but the recipes I found called mainly for caster sugar. Also there was talk of French meringue, Swiss meringue and Italian meringue. The ones I made are the French variety.

Ingredients

3 large egg whites
175 g icing sugar
pecan and/or walnut halves

Method

1. Make sure all utensils and the bowl used are clean and dry as any amount of grease will ruin the meringues. Whisk the whites to soft peak stage. I. e. when you pull out the whisk, the peaks the form will slowly fold down, but if you turn the bowl upside down, the foam will stay.
   
2. Add the sugar a little at the time, while whisking.
3. Preheat the oven at gas mark 2 (electrical 130 degrees C).
   
4. Cover a baking sheet with baking paper and lay out the nut halves, flat side down. They can be placed fairly close to each other, as the meringue doesn't rise.
   
5. Pipe the meringue mixture over them - not too much to completely cover them, though.
6. Place in the oven and turn down to gas mark 1 (electrical 110 degrees C) and bake for 1 h.
7. When done, turn off the oven and leave until the meringues cool and dry out completely. Delia is right in doing them in the evening and just leaving overnight.

I wasn't too sure about the soft peak stage and didn't whisk long enough before starting to add sugar and so my mixture was a bit softer than planned and didn't stay in shape after piping it.

For the piping, I always mean to buy a proper piping bag and never get around to do so. Instead, I've saved the different piping caps that come with the colourful icing tubes I use for my gingerbread houses. Then, I take a regular plastic bag for food storing, cut a small hole on one corner at the bottom and put the piping cap through. I place the bag in a tea mug and drape the top edge over the mug, then transfer the meringue mixture into it and pipe away.

I'm keen on trying out the Swiss and Italian meringues, so watch this blog.

Here are some of the links that I found interesting:
Description with pictures and explanation of the science behind meringues
French meringue
Swiss meringue
Italian meringue

Update 15 July 2007: Needless to say these disappeared alarmingly quickly - they were so fluffy and light, it's was easy to just keep eating from the tin. I'll make more next time!

French Toast

Today we had French toast for breakfast. In Sweden it's called "fattiga riddare" which translates to poor knights. In Bulgaria it's called "пържени филийки" translating to fried bread slices. I've done this a couple of times before, but then I'd only dipped the bread in lightly beaten eggs and ended up with two slices heavily infused with egg and 3 with barely any on them. Lundulph is great and never complains. But today I followed a recipe from my Bulgarian cook book and it was delish!



Ingredients

1 tbsp plain flour
0.5 dl milk
3 large eggs
1 tsp caster sugar
1 pinch of salt (optional)
2 dl milk
9 - 10 slices of white bread
grapeseed oil for frying


Method

1. Stir in the flour in the half decilitre milk, then whisk in the eggs, sugar and salt. This should be done in a bowl big enough to dip your bread slices.
2. Put the rest of the milk in another bowl.
3. Brush a little oil on a flat frying pan and heat up on low medium heat.
4. Dip a slice of bread briefly in the milk, then in the egg batter and fry for 1 - 2 minutes until golden brown, then turn and fry for another 1 - 2 minutes.
5. Take out on a plate and spread a little caster sugar on top.
6. Do the other slices, remember to brush with more oil every now and then, or the toasts will burn.
   

We had ours with jam - white cherry that my Mum made last year, my quince jam and my blackberry jam. They can also be served with just caster sugar and a little bit of ground cinnamon.

In Sweden and Bulgaria at least, the idea with this dish is to use up bread that has gone a bit stale. We don't have any stale bread as we slice and freeze ours, so I bought a small loaf of thickly sliced bread from the shop. It was very soft and fresh and worked just as well.

Chewy crumbly biscuits

I've been meaning to bake for a long time, and today I got a chance. I'd planned to make these ages ago, along with other things. Unfortunately I started with what seemed to be apple turnovers, which turned out to be a mistake. Not directly horrible to eat, just didn't work very well. Lundulph thought they were like a McDonalds apple pie, but baked in the oven instead of deep fried. We still have a copious amount in the freezer and Lundulph is kind enough to eat one every now and then.

Anyway, these turned out very good - just like I like them - crumbly, yet chewy. I guess the dough is a bit like cookie dough. I just didn't make them ridiculously large and didn't put any bits in them.

I had one to try them out (amazing how long it took for them to cool down) and the second one just sneaked up on me and made me eat it. I swear!

Ingredients

200 g unsalted butter or margarine
2 dl caster sugar
1.5 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1.5 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tsp baking powder
5 dl plain flour

Method

1. Melt the butter gently. Mix the baking powder into the flour. Preheat the oven, if it is electrical.
   
2. Whisk the butter, sugar and vanilla light and fluffy.
3. Add the syrup and flour and mix until a greasy dough forms. Note it will be a bit crumbly.
4. If the dough feels too loose, put in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.
5. If you can roll it, divide it into 4 - 5 pieces and roll lengths of about 2.5 cm diameter. If not, form small balls of about 3.5 cm diameter. Flatten the lengths with your fingers. Flatten the small balls with a fork.
   
6. Cover some baking sheets with baking paper and place the lengths or balls on them.
7. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
8. If you did lengths, immediately cut diagonally. The biscuits will still be quite soft, so be careful. Leave to cool completely before removing from the baking paper.

The above quantity resulted in 52 biscuits. Now 50... Doubt they'll last very long.

Update 15 July 2007: We (Lundulph mainly) finished these a couple of days ago. Apparently they are good dippers, he says. After the lovely chewiness when still warm, they went a bit too hard for my liking and I suspect it was the butter that did it, so I'll try another batch with margarine and see if that makes things a bit softer. A further thing to do is perhaps increase the amount of baking powder.

Lamb Barbecue

My good friend HairyLee suggested some time ago an alternative to a barbecue, to go the to butcher's and ask for a leg of lamb, but get the bones cut out, then just slap it on the barbie and some 6-7 people will be sorted meat wise.

So finally, I brought up some courage and went to our local butcher and placed an order. It seems that this is quite a popular thing to ask for, because they had ready made ones and a choice of marinades. But I'd made plans, so I got a plain one.

And yesterday I picked it up, nicely vacuum wrapped and all. It was a quite large lump of meat, so I made loads of marinade:

Ingredients

2,25 l yogurt
5 tbsp dried rosemary
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
2 heads of garlic, peeled and crushed/pressed
1 bone free leg of lamb ca 1.6 kg

Method

1. Mix the yogurt and spices in a large bowl.
2. If you feel there's too much fat on the lamb, remove some of it, but leave some to keep the meat juicy during cooking.
3. If you don't plan to cook and eat everything, cut up the lamb in smaller pieces.
4. Place the lamb in the marinade. Note that there's enough to completely cover it. Leave for 24 hours in the fridge.
5. When ready to cook, take out the pieces and rinse off all the marinade.
   
6. Cook on the barbecue until ready.
7. Enjoy!

I had originally planned to make the marinade the evening before, in order to get all the flavours out, but didn't get a chance to do that. Still this worked like a treat and the meat was VERY tasty.

Now the story behind the yogurt marinade. When I lived in Bulgaria as a child, a diplomat from Afganistan lived in the flat above us with his family. His wife and my Mum were very good friends. Now in Afganistan, goat and mutton are often cooked and to get rid of the smell that these types of meat often have (and that many people, including me, find unpleasant), they marinate in yogurt. This seems to remove the smell and tenderise the meat too.

I didn't have a chance to speak to my Mum to ask for the exact recipe, so the above is an improvisation. And it worked ever so well, the meat was super! Sadly we waited too long for the barbecue to burn out and had to finish cooking it in the oven.

And here is what it looked like:


But it didn't stay this way for long...

Alternative Swedish Midsummer

Last Friday was Midsummer's Eve, a big feast in Sweden. Traditionally with marinated herring, boiled new potatoes, bread beer and Swedish snaps - nubbe.

Sadly this year we didn't get a chance to go to IKEA and buy the traditional marinated herring, so as often before, I improvised.


Hot smoked salmon, sauté potatoes (yes, I overdid the sauté bit) and the treasure of the decade - golden chanterelles. I've been looking all over for fresh chantrelles pretty much since I moved to the UK and finally I found some. The best way to cook them is to fry them lightly in butter under cover. Make sure it's lightly salted butter, though. That's all they need.

Then I made what my Mum and I call white sauce. It's very good with salmon of the smoked or gravad variety and also for barbecue. And it's always good to make it the evening before, so the flavours can come out.

Ingredients

100 ml extra thinck double cream
200 ml full fat créme fraîche
4 tbsp mayonnaise
3 - 4 spring onions, the green parts only
dill, salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Whip the cream to the stiff peak stage. With the extra thick cream, this won't take long, so be careful that it doesn't turn to butter.
   
2. Mix the créme fraîche and mayonnaise well, then stir in the whipped cream.
3. Chop the spring onions finely and stir into the mixture.
4. Season with dill, salt and pepper.

This makes enough for about 3-4 people. The above is of course the heavy duty maximum calories variety, but it's quite allright to swap for leaner variants of the ingrents. The créme fraîche can be exchanged for strained Greek yogurt.

Barbecue

Well, yesterday was barbecue day. Yes it was cold and rained most of the day, but a decision had been made and tools and materials had been purchased. So we had a barbie and we had luck with our timing in that the rain stopped just at the crucial time. A hot tip from our friend Wombat is to cook all the food and keep it warm in the oven. Then when everything is done, lay it out and let everyone help themselves.

A miscalculation from last year on hamburgers taught us a valuable lesson and I decided to just do the Bulgarian meatball mix, but after a consultation with my Mum, she recommended skipping the bread and egg as it would make the meat stick to the grill. Then my Dad scanned in some recipes from the Swedish Lidl and emailed to me and I thought I'd give one of them a go - Cevapcici. Or kebapcheta (кебапчета), as you'd say in Bulgaria. And I added a couple of things to the recipe and almost all went very quickly. Looking at the recipe it's for 4 people, but that would be if these 4 people only ate the kebapcheta and nothing else...

Ingredients

4 medium sized onions
4 cloves of garlic
1 kg minced meat
4 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp olive oil
1 dl mineral water
salt and pepper to taste


Method

1. Peel and chop the onions finely, even run them through a food processor if you have one, along with the garlic.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Leave overnight to allow the flavours to come out, but this is not necessary.
3. Form small sausages and either shallow fry or barbecue.

I added the coriander and cumin. I also thought to speed things up a bit, I made fairly long sausages and put them on bamboo skewers, but this wasn't a good idea at all, as they disintegrated a bit on the barbecue and ended up into smaller sausages anyway. But they were very tasty, we had them in hot dog buns with mustard and ketchup.

Toffee cake

This is a recipe I got from a very good friend of mine, who usually does it for her Name Day. It's ever so tasty. I haven't done it for many years and managed to burn the toffee a bit, but that was no problem at all.

Ingredients

Cake base

3 dl plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
3 dl caster sugar
6 tbsp boiling water
5 tbsp lemon or lime juice
5 tbsp water

Toffee

3 dl whipping cream
2 dl caster sugar
1 dl syrup
40 g dark chocolate
3 tbsp soft butter (i e at room temperature)

Method

1. Butter a cake tin and line it with dessicated coconut.
   
2. In a bowl, mix the flour and the baking powder well.
3. In a different bowl, blend the eggs and sugar until they go white and fluffy.
4. Add the boiling water, a little at a time to the egg mixture, while still whisking.
5. Add the flour, also a little at a time and incorporate well.
   
6. Pour the cake mixture in the cake tin and bake on gas mark 3 (or 175 degrees C).
7. When the cake comes off the edges of the tin, it's ready, also test with a stick in the middle to ensure that it's baked through.
8. Take the cake out and turn out onto a sheet of baking paper with a little sugar on it and leave to cool completely.
9. Cut into two layers, mix the lemon juice and water and spread evenly over both layers of the sponge cake.
10. In a saucepan put together cream, sugar and syrup and bring to the boil slowly. Put a lid on, as it will splatter. Bring to the soft ball stage (112 - 116 degrees C) and take off the heat and place in ice water to stop it going hotter.
11. Stir in the chocolate and the butter so they dissolve completely.
12. While still fairly hot, spread just under half of the toffee onto the bottom layer, then place the second layer on top. Cover the cake with the remainder of the toffee, both top and sides and leave to cool.

I used extra thick double cream for both the toffee and the decoration. The packet said that it's not good for whipping, but I beg to differ, it worked very well indeed, but you need to be careful and stop at the right moment, or it'll turn to butter. Also I got some gigantic raspberries, they look almost look like strawberries. The original recipe suggests red currants for decoration and the point here being is that the acidity of the fruit will offset the sweetness of the cake itself.

Needless to say, this cake disappeared very quickly.

Courgettes with Rice

The other night Lundulph was out on a company do and I decided to cook something with cheese in it. As I've mentioned before he doesn't like cheese, so I've adapted my recipes after that and removed the cheese from them.

This is another traditional Bulgarian dish. I eat it as a main course, but I think it's best served as a side dish with some sort of meat or perhaps salmon.

Ingredients

0.5 dl grapeseed oil
5 medium sized onions
2 - 3 cloves of garlic
4 dl rice (pudding or arborio)
6 dl water
5 medium sized courgettes
salt, black pepper, dill
500 g strong Cheddar cheese, grated

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions and the courgettes. Peel the garlic cloves and press them.
   
2. Heat up the oil and fry the onions and garlic until they go translucent.
3. Add the rice and stir in to get the grains covered in the oil, then add the water and bring to the boil.
4. Simmer until most of the water has been taken up, then add the courgettes, stirring from time to time.
   
5. When the courgettes begin to soften, add salt, pepper and dill and stir in well.
6. Transfer to an oven safe dish, then spread the cheese on top. Bake in the middle of a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C) for about 30 minutes, until the cheese goes golden brown and crispy.
   

Lundulph's Chilli Con Fowl

Today was a special day as Lundulph cooked and I helped. He made up this recipe all on his own and it was very tasty.

Ingredients

2 medium sized onions
2 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
500 g turkey steaks
1 tbsp plain flour
3 chicken stock cubes
2.5 dl boiling water
2.5 dl white wine
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp Greek style plain yogurt
5 chillies
0.5 tsp hot chilli powder
2 cans of kidney beans (at 400 g each)
3 medium sized peppers
black pepper

rice

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions. Cut the turkey steaks into small pieces. Drain the beans and dice the peppers. Chop the chillies fairly finely.
2. Dissolve the chicken cubes into the boiling water, then add the white wine, tomato puree and Dijon mustard.
   
3. Heat up the oil in a large pan, then add the onions and press in the garlic and fry until they go translucent.
4. Add the turkey and stir until the pieces are sealed.
5. Sprinkle the flour and stir in so it soaks up some of the fat.
6. Add the stock mix and yogurt and stir well.
7. Add the kidney beans, chopped chillies and chilli powder and black pepper and bring to the boil.
8. Leave to simmer for about 30 minutes, then add the peppers and leave to simmer for another 5 - 10 minutes.
9. Boil the rice in the meantime.

Actually it was very hot with the 5 chillies, since we put in the seeds as well. Lundulph thought the heat was ideal.

We used Thai rice, because the brown rice would have taken too long to boil. The wine was the excellent Muscadet from the local Coop for £2.99. And as Lundulph said, drinking the left-over wine from the cooking tastes nice because it doesn't really count.

Risotto

The other day I finally got round to making risotto. I really like it, despite the slightly below average ones I used to get at school. It's difficult to go wrong with a risotto, I think.


Ingredients

1 packet of dried chanterelles (about a handful)
3 dl brown rice
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
2 small onions
½ can of sweet corn (300 g can)
1 can of whole button mushrooms (400 g)
3 handfulls of frozen garden peas
1 knob of butter (about a heaped tbsp)
salt, dill

Method

1. Wash the dried chanterelles in warm water. Boil up enough to cover them and leave to soak for about 30 minutes.
   
2. I use easy cook brown rice which takes 30 minutes. So in the mean time, I put the rice to boil.
3. Peel and dice the onions, drain the sweet corn and button mushrooms. Quarter the mushrooms.
   
4. Once the chanterelles are done soaking, cut into smaller pieces if they are large.
   
5. Heat up the grapeseed oil and fry the onions until translucent.
6. Add the mushrooms and chantrelles and leave to fry for 10 minutes, stirring.
7. Add the sweet corn and the peas and fry for another 5 minutes until everything is heated through.
8. Add the butter, salt and dill. Stir until the butter is fully melted. Remember to add a bit more salt than seems enough, as the rice will dilute the flavour.
   
9. Drain the rice, then add the fried vegetables and stir to mix evenly.

At step 9 I remembered that I actually have a whole packet of risotto rice. I'll try to remember it for next time and use that instead. A thing to do would be to use vegetable stock instead of pure water and add only a little at a time and stir, until the rice is done.

Anyway, it was very tasty indeed. Lundulph also added black pepper, but I think it was nice with just salt and dill.

Happy Easter!

The long awaited Easter holiday is here and I have two extra days on either side of the week-end. Yesterday I baked the traditional Bulgarian kozunak (plural is kozunatzi). This is a type of cake very much like a panettone. This year the Bulgarian and West European Easters coincide, something that my Dad doesn't like, because it means only one lot of kozunak, instead of two. Here is my Mum's old and trusted recipe.



Ingredients

2.5 dl full or semi-skimmed milk
2 dl caster sugar
1 kg strong white flour
14 g dried yeast (2 sachets)
4 large eggs
150 g butter (or 1 dl grapeseed oil and 50 g butter)
the zest from 1 lemon
0.25 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp dark rum

Suggested fillings

marzipan
jam
raisins
chopped nuts

Final touch
1 whipped up egg and pearl sugar or flaked almonds for decoration

Method

1. Warm up the milk to about 40 degrees C. Stir in 0.5 dl sugar.
2. Mix well 2-3 dl of the flour with the yeast. Then add to the milk and sugar, stir in well to get a thick paste, then cover and place in a warm spot to rise.
3. In the meat time, melt the butter, whisk the eggs and the sugar white and fluffy, then slowly add two-thirds of the butter, while continuing whisking.
4. Add the lemon zest, vanilla and rum and mix in well.
5. By now the yeast paste should have risen quite a bit. Add the egg mixture to it, and then slowly add the remaining flour and work into a dough. Add the remainder of the butter towards the end.
6. Now cover the dough and place in a warm place to rise a second time for about 1 h or until it doubles it's size.
7. When the dough is done, knead it, divide in pieces and make the kozunatzi.
8. Traditionally it is done as a loaf in a tin or made into a plait.
9. My Mum usually does a roll with a filling. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 0.5 cm. Spread filling on top, then roll up and place on baking paper.
   
10. Cover with a towel and leave to proof (rise a 3rd time) for 30 - 40 minutes somewhere warm.
    
11. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3 (175 degrees C for electrical ovens). Brush the surface with the whisked up egg and sprinkle pearl sugar or flaked almonds. Bake in the middle until a nice golden brown colour has been achieved.

Yesterday I made a double dose of the above, which was a mistake, as I ended up staying to 3 o'clock in the morning to finish baking the kozunatzi. I also ended up with 7 large loaves. You can see 6 of them in the picture, the last one being still in the oven. I made one roll with just raisins, two with rolled out marzipan because Lundulph likes that, one with blackberry and cloudberry jam I had left over, one with blackberry jam and chopped hazelnuts, one in a loaf tin and one as a plait. A word of warning - be very sparing with the filling as it tends to run out during baking. I used too much marzipan and a lot of it came out of the roll and stuck to the baking paper.

This morning we had some for breakfast and it was very nice. Most of the kozunatzi I sliced and froze, it'll last us well into the Summer for sure.

Spuds!

Last year, I enthusiastically planted 34 nests with potatoes. They all came up and as the weather got drier and drier, I kept watering and watering. They didn't grow as I'd expected. And after we came back from our holiday in July, all traces of the potatoes had disappeared. Eaten by slugs and snails, so I didn't bother with them.

Yesterday, I bought some new plants and one of them I planted in the middle of one of the old potato nests and guess what - there were a couple of spuds in there. I tried another nest and there were more potatoes. I ended up digging through 14 of the nests and had 1.750 kg of small potatoes - some the size of a peanut. This was a very pleasant surprise and certainly made my day.



Lundulph is on a business trip, so I'm waiting for him to come back and we'll try out our very own potatoes. This also means that I haven't been cooking anything interesting either. I made another vegetarian gyuvetch overnight, this time no potatoes, but Jerusalem artichokes and turnips. I've never had turnips before, so I thought I'd try it out.

Another thing I got from Waitrose the other day is a dragon fruit. I spotted these weird, unreal looking fruits on the top shelf of the exotic section and the pink colour looked so artificial, that I was compelled to buy one. It didn't have any instructions on how to eat, so I just cut it in half and peeled off the skin. Inside, the dragon fruit had white flesh with black seeds scattered everywhere. As Lundulph put it, like a kiwi fruit gone mad. And white... The texture and the crunchiness was definitely that of a kiwi fruit. But it didn't taste of anything. So all looks and no substance. Still it's very different looking and would be useful for decoration, both whole and sliced.

Bulgarian Moussaka

Yesterday my good friend Simon came over for dinner. And so I made moussaka, I hadn't done that for a long time, so I was looking forward to it and indeed, I got a bit over-excited and used too much potatoes.

Ingredients

2 large aubergines
1 - 2 tbsp grapeseed oil
2 medium sized onions
3 - 4 tbsp grapeseed oil
1.5 tbsp sweet paprika
1 - 3 dl water
500 g potatoes
2 medium sized carrots
500 g minced meat
1 x 400 g can tomatoes
salt, black pepper, parsley and savoury

Method

1. Wash and slice the aubergines, about 1 cm thick, then fry them lightly in a little bit of oil. Best is to just brush the pan between rounds. Then put aside.
   
2. Peel and dice the onions. Peel and dice the potatoes, about 1 cm cubes. Peel and cut the carrots finely - I normally slice it first about 3 mm thick, then quarter the slices.
3. Fry the onions in the oil. When they turn translucent, add the paprika and stir quickly for about 1 minute.
4. Add the potatoes and stir well. Pour 1 dl water and let simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Add the carrots and stir in.
   
6. When the vegetables begin to soften, add the minced meat and stir in well, until it has browned.
7. If it seems a bit dry, pour in 1 - 2 dl water and let simmer for another 10 minutes.
8. Now add the tomatoes - either crushed or blended. Also add the salt, pepper, parsley and savoury.
9. Leave to simmer and in the mean time, line an oven-safe dish with half of the aubergines.
10. Take the mince mix off the heat and turn over to the dish. Cover with the remaining aubergines.
11. Bake in the oven. Start at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C) and when it starts bubbling, reduce the heat to gas mark 4 (175 degrees C) and leave to cook for 45 - 60 minutes.
12. Now prepare the topping

Topping

3 tbsp grapeseed oil
3 tbsp plain flour
3 - 4 dl milk
3 eggs
grated cheese or feta cheese (optional)
salt

1. Heat up the oil and add the flour, stirring quickly.
2. Slowly add the milk, still stirring it in.
   
3. When all the milk has been incorporated, take off the heat. The consistency should be of a custard cream.
4. Leave to cool a bit, then whisk in the eggs and the optional cheese. If needed add also salt.
5. When the moussaka has finished baking, take it out and cover with the topping, then put back in the oven, turn up the heat to gas mark 9 (250 degrees C) until it gets golden in colour.

Over the last few years, my parents have very kindly given me a collection of small painted terracotta pots which are very good for making portion sized moussakas - very good for dinner parties and this is what it looks when you use them.

Vegetarian dishes

I've gone through most of the recipes and labeled them with the new functionality of the blog. So, you may wonder why some of the meat dishes have the Vegetarian label. Well, it happens mostly on the Bulgarian dishes and the reason for this is that very often, the meat can be replaced with potatoes or rice or just not added at all. If you use the same herbs and spices for seasoning, the difference won't be noticeable. In fact, my Dad and Sister rarely notice when they have run out of meat stuffed peppers and moved onto the vegetarian ones.

Mushrooms are also a decent additive, when you remove the meat from a recipe.

Vegetarian Gyuvetch

Yesterday we were at a party with lots of people and several of the guests, including me, brought some dishes. Since no one else was catering for the vegetarians, I thought the following might be nice. It is called gyuvetch, because that's the name of the dish it is cooked in, a large terracotta pot. Mine takes about 5 litres, so the amounts below really filled it up. If you remember, I cooked our Christmas bird in it, but this is it's true use. Generally there should be pieces of meat in there as well, but going through my Bulgarian cookbook, pretty much any ingredients can be used. One other exciting thing was that I tried out the slow cooking facility on my cooker, so I cooked this overnight, in total of around 12 h, which I believe makes a huge difference.

Ingredients

1.5 dl vegetable oil
5 medium sized onions
4 medium sized carrots
4 large Jerusalem artichokes
5 large potatoes
2 tbsp paprika
3 - 4 dl water
2 large aubergines
3 large courgettes
200 g okra
4 small peppers
1 red chili
1 x 400 g can whole button mushrooms
100 g peas
10 g fresh thyme
15 g fresh mint
15 g fresh dill
salt, black pepper
2 x 400 g cans of whole tomatoes

Method

1. Peel and clean the onions, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes. Dice the onions coarsely, slice the carrots, cut up the Jerusalem artichoke and potatoes in bitesize chunks.
2. Wash and clean the aubergines, courgettes, okra, peppers and chili. Remove the "tails" of the okra, i. e. where they held onto the plant. Cut up in bitesize chunks, apart from the chili, which I cut into as small pieces as I could.
   
3. Heat up the oil on medium high heat and fry onions, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes, stirring regularly, for about 5 - 10 minutes. The vegetables should release some liquid.
   
4. Add the paprika and stir in quickly so the vegetables get covered, then add the water and leave to simmer for another 5 minutes.
5. Place the other vegetables into the gyuvetch, add the mushrooms, peas, herbs, salt and pepper, except the tomatoes. Try to mix them up a bit.
   
6. Transfer over the fried vegetables and mix in as well.
7. Place in the oven on the slow cook setting (gas mark S, or 110 degrees C) and leave to cook overnight. Alternatively, cook at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C) until the potatoes and the other vegetables have gone soft, about 45 minutes I should think.
8. Take out only the tomatoes from the can, not the juice, and blend. Add to the gyuvetch and stir in, then put back in the oven for another hour or so on the slow cooking or 10 minutes on the faster cooking variant.

Putting the chili in made it spicier than I anticipated, but it was very nice. Also I forgot to put in parsley, but that didn't matter too much.

Bip's Fruit Sponge Cake

Going to a party this week-end and everyone is supposed to bring a dish. I'm bringing a vegetarian casserole (recipe tomorrow) and a sponge cake.



This is one that my sister Bip told me a few years ago, when she cake to visit, it's super easy and is good with any fruit you have at hand. I've done it with blackberry today, but bananas are very good and it would definitely be nice with pineapples as well. The amounts below result in a very large cake which fits perfectly in my large cake tin, but for everyday use I recommend half of everything.

Ingredients

4 large eggs
4 dl caster sugar
4 dl plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
500 ml blackberries
unsalted butter

Method

1. Line the cake tin with baking paper.
   
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar into a white fluffy froth.
3. In a separate bowl, blend the flour and baking powder well. Or use self-raising flour, I personally don't see the point of it.
4. While continuing to whisk the egg mixture, add the flour a bit at a time into a nice smooth cake mixture.
5. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 (or 200 degrees C for electrical ovens). Pour the mixture into the tin. It should only fill about one third of it.
6. Now cover the surface with berries, it's really up to you how much fruit you use. The fruit will sink in a bit as the cake bakes.
7. Now with a cheese slicer, cut thin slices of butter and cover the cake surface.
8. Place in the oven and bake until ready. This size takes about 1 h 30 minutes. Test with a skewer - when it comes out clean after sticking it in in the middle, the cake is done.
9. I plan to serve it with custard.
   

As I mention above, I don't like the self-raising flour, it feels like you don't have any control over it and so I'm suspicious and don't buy it. With just plain flour it can be used to thicken soups or when needed make sponge cakes by adding baking powder, I think it's more versatile. But don't let that stop you.

Kashmiri Meatballs With Tomato Sauce

I made these yesterday and made a variant on the Bulgarian tomato sauce today and we had it for dinner. The combination was not stunning, as I suspected, but was quite edible. My original plan was to make a vegetable curry, but I forgot to decide on one and hadn't bought the ingredients.



The recipe for the meatballs is based on the one by Madhur Jaffrey from her book Indian Cooking. The previous time I made these, I followed the recipe and was disappointed by the lack of flavour. And I hope it's just because of some major misunderstanding on quantities. Lost in translation or something. Also, it was too dark for me to go up to the end of the garden to pick bay leaves, so here is what I did yesterday.

Ingredients

1 kg beef mince
4 tbsp ginger purée
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp ground coriander
0.5 tsp ground cloves
0.25 tsp ground cinnamon
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
0.5 tsp ground black pepper
0.5 tsp hot chili powder
2.5 tsp salt
3 tbsp plain yogurt
4 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients except the oil and mix well.
2. Get a bowl of water to wet your hands in and a sheet of baking paper and make the meatballs oblong like sausages. About 2 x 2 x 10 cm. Place on the baking paper.
3. From the above, I made 26 "koftas".
4. Heat up half of the oil in a non-stick frying pan and fill it with koftas, making sure they don't touch.
5. Turn them regularly until done. Keep replacing with new ones as space becomes available, they tend do shrink a bit.
6. Add more oil when needed.
7. When removing the meatballs from the pan, place them on kitchen roll to soak up excess fat.

This is the recipe without the sauce and with all spices doubled, except the cinnamon. Yesterday, I doubled that too and it was dominating the flavour, so I've left it as in the book in the listing above.

As for the tomato sauce:

Ingredients

4 small onions
2 small cloves of garlic
0.5 dl vegetable oil
3 x 400 g cans of tomatoes
1 x 400 g can of mushrooms
salt, black pepper, mint, thyme and chili flakes to taste
1 tbsp plain flour

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions.
   
2. Heat up the oil and fry the onions. Press in the garlic as well.
3. Purée the tomatoes and add to the onions.
4. Slice the mushrooms, if not already sliced and add to the sauce.
5. Add all the spices and stir in well.
6. Leave to simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes.
7. Add the flour to thicken a bit.

Lundulph has now frozen the remaining meatballs and I'll add some tuna to the tomato sauce and we'll have it with pasta on Thursday.

"Hm, root soup, I cook!"

"For a Jedi, it is time to eat as well".

Well, in the Sainsbury's lottery in February, I won a free packet of sweet potatoes. I've never cooked these and only had them once in a quiche together with regular potatoes, which was very nice, so I've been thinking of trying them out for a while.

Also the trend I started with making large amounts of soup to take for lunch are really good and I fancied potato soup for next week.

Ingredients

5 small onions
1 dl vegetable oil
900 g sweet potatoes
900 g potatoes
4 large carrots
1.8 l boiling water
3 tbsp chopped mint leaves
3 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp dried dill
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp Vegeta
black pepper

Method

1. Peel and dice the onions, sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots.
2. Heat up the oil and fry the onions until translucent.
3. Add the vegetables and stir in well, so they get coated in oil.
4. Add the boiling water, then add all the herbs.
5. Leave to simmer for 20-25 minutes under cover until the roots are soft.

This was highly experimental and I had no confidence at all in the concoction, but actually it wasn't too bad. One thing is that the sweet potatoes were well over-done and went mushy in the mouth, whereas the potatoes and the carrots retained some crunchiness.

Also it's surprisingly filling.

A hot tip from Simon: add the sweet potato later so it keeps it's crunchiness. Next time I'll try adding it after 15 minutes of the cooking time.