Monthly Archives: January 2015

Made in Poland

Barszcz czerwony.

Leave a comment

Jana mentioned the other day, she must now dash and run to have her barszczyk and krokiety. I’ve been drooling ever since. Best clear barszcz can be found at my mom’s, full of flavour, smelling with garlic, cumin and marjoram. And if it’s a special occasion and she serves it with uszka, one is in for a treat.

In the middle of the making of our Home at 23 Enfield I would certainly not be tempted to be making uszka, but last night I made barszcz and looked up the recipe for paszteciki in “Kuchnia Polska”. I hardly ever use that book and that very recipe failed to amaze me with flavours or texture, so I won’t be copying it, the barszcz however I made the way mom does, so here it is.

I had about 5-6 medium beetroots, which I peeled and chopped roughly, covered with about 700 ml of cold water, added a carrot,  a halved shallot, a bay leaf, some peppercorns, marjoram, 2-3 dried mushrooms and chicken boulionette and let it cook for about an hour on a small heat.  Then added a tbsp of white wine vinegar and let to stand till the next day.

Today I reheated it, not allowing it to boil, added 2 small cloves of garlic rubbed with salt, adjusted the taste with pepper, ground cumin- amazing!!- sugar and a touch more vinegar. I ended up with rich, yet clean flavoured soup, lovely for lunch on a cold day, after lots of messy work in the house.

Good Food, Room for improvement

(Pseudo) Korean steamed seabass.

Leave a comment

If it looked better than it did, I’d have entitled it “Judy Joo’s steamed seabass”, but I doubt the good woman would like her name next to my plate of seabass.  I saw a couple of her tv shows, I quite like what she has to offer and how she offers it, not even that much bothered by her American accent.  Also, I rediscovered mirin today. I used to have it in the pantry, then chucked it, as it wasn’t used very much. Today I bought a fresh bottle and was very pleasantly surprised at what it did to a dressing or a courgette on the pan.

One thing I could have used was a bamboo steamer, but I haven’t got one, so I used a collander instead, lined it with baking paper, with slices of fresh ginger and garlic, like in the recipe and placed my seasoned and scored  bass fillets on top. Tightly covered with foil and steamed for about 20 minutes, while Florian was being late for dinner again.  I’m sure my fish would have looked much more presentable from a proper steamer, mine looked the way it looked.

It sat on a little salad of courgettes and carrots sliced with veg peeler to make them look nice; on some hot olive oil I threw a bit of garlic, then there should have been a couple of anchovies, if I had remembered to get them while buying mirin, then the veggies, mirin and off the heat after 3 minutes.

The dressing on the steamed fish was  particularly pleasant- some juliened ginger, 5 tbsps of soy sauce, 3 tbsps of mirin, a sprinkle of sugar, a touch of chilli garlic paste and some toasted sesame seeds. I added some sesame oil as well.

Served the bass with some white coriander rice. It was light, pleasant and sort of… too healthy.  Steaks tomorrow. 🙂

Good Food

Sweetcorn and prawn fritters.

Leave a comment

I came across the recipe for sweetcorn fritters in “The Telegraph”, it was one of the recipes to use avocado with.  I made it this evening, but I threw in some raw shrimps and that was a good idea, as on their own they’d not be in any way worth blogging. I’m not sure I’d even know if there was sweetcorn in them,  if I hadn’t made them myself- corn is blended in the batter,  next time I’ll add a bit more, after the blending,  for more texture.

So, 3 eggs, 100 g of plain flour, 100 ml of creme fraiche, 150 g of canned sweetcorn, 1 tsp of baking powder all blended, then 3 spring onions, fresh coriander added, some seasoning and the prawns, chopped in half.

The salsa; chopped avo, 4 chery tomatoes, half a red chilli, a shallot, a clove of garlic, 2 tbsps of olive oil, juice of 1 lime and seasoning. More fresh coriander, of course, cause we like our coriander.

The recipe is a keeper, texture will be improved next time.

 

Baking

Thursday cake, for Ewa.

Leave a comment

Ewa’s coming to town on Saturday, so I made sure there’s something sweet in the fridge. Looking at the picture, that’s what a cake for a diabetic looks like, yeah? 🙂 By Oluta MD, hhheheehehe. 🙂

Cocoa sponge cut in two( for cocoa sponge usual recipe, one tbsp of plain flour replaced with a tbsp of cocoa), covered by toffee cream from Delecta, covered by raspberry jelly with frozen raspberries. Great idea, razzies cut through the sweetness very well, the whole cake eats lightly.  A layer of sponge on the jelly, more cream, chocolate ganache. Toasted almonds. Done. 🙂

Baking

Happy Birthday to me ;-)

Leave a comment

I’ve made myself a cake yesterday, making sure it will not be too sweet and will be enjoyed and not binned, like the last one.  I baked a sponge of 2 eggs, cooked off a chopped  up  apple and threw half of a packet of strawberry jelly, left to cool. I whipped Advocaat Torte Cream, of Delecta, yes, I know, easy and I might have tried a bit harder, but it is a tasty one. On the layer of sponge, cut in half I put some cream, then the apple and jelly, then the sponge, the cream and a bit of chocolate ganache on top. Random amount of cream with random amount of chocolate all warmed up made a lovely cake topping.  Although my birthday is today, we cut the cake last night and enjoyed it, it is moist, not too sweet, moreish and yummy. I’m 38 today and said goodbye to all my age demons a little while ago. A little demon called Pizion helped there. 🙂

Good Food

Fish pie.

Leave a comment

I had some lemon sole and some lovely prawns in the freezer and I thought it was time to see if I liked a fish pie.  I researched the recipes, might have gone traditional, like Mary’s, with white sauce and hard boiled egg, but I decided to go with Jamie Oliver’s.  He wrote he liked his with salmon and haddock, but one can use any fish one fancies and the recipe uses no ” hideous white sauce”. It appealed to me, after a day of running after Pizion, who now crawls really fast and must be watched all the time. Dinner had to be cooked, but I had no 3 hours to spare.

While the spuds + parsnip for extra sweetness were boiling away for the mash, I grated 2 carrots, a celery stick, some lemon zest, half a chilli and some of remaining gruyere( I had no cheddar), seasoned it well, scattered my chopped sole and prawns over it, mixed it all well and added some lemon juice too. Both the zest and the juice were lovely coming through later. I piped the mash onto it and baked in the oven for about 40 minutes.

I found it lovely, not too heavy, fish was soft and flavoursome. Could have done with some parsley, but I had no fresh herbs at home. Pleased.

Dessert

3 BIT, sugar overload.

Leave a comment

It troubles me, this cake.  It took two days to make it, it wasn’t cheap, with the butter biscuits and dulce de leche and yet it sits in the fridge and it’s inedible. It’s so horrendously sweet that having more than one small piece would make me sick.  Annoying, really.  The recipe is Dorota’s from mojewypieki.com and this lady knows what she’s doing. Maybe she used different biscuits, less sugary, maybe different brand of dulce,  I’m quite sure I will not only not be making it again, I’m wondering what to do with it. Could give it to somebody, a neighbour with 2 small boys maybe, but if the kids find it too sweet as well, it will look like I’m dumping it on someone. :-/

I started making it yesterday. I used 300 g of buttery French biscuits, lined the base of the tin with them, them warmed up about 300 g of canned dulce the leche( I used Nestle) and poured it over the biscuits. Then used another layer of biscuits on top.

In a pan I warmed up a glass of milk with about 4 tbsps of sugar and vanilla paste and 60 g of butter. In another pot I had half a glass of milk, 2 tbps of plain flour, 2,5 tbsp of potato flour and 2 eggs. All this whipped together I poured onto the boiling milk and mixed until thickened.  A bit like home made budyn. While still warm, it went onto the biscuits, then the last layer of them on top, cling film and into the fridge for the biscuits to soften. Today I finished it with whipped cream and grated, bitter chocolate.

It looks good, but is far too sweet, even for Florian. :-/

Uncategorized

Nigella’s pancakes.

Leave a comment

I searched for a nice pancake recipe after Ocado failed to bring any baguettes (out of stock), that I always have in the pantry. As the weather sucks and going to the bakery to get some rolls was a bit much to ask of me, I thought, ok, pancakes then.

This Nigella’s recipe has great reviews, so I gave it a go.  They were indeed lovely and will be made again, but with bacon and some blueberries,  of which I had neither, so we had them with maple syrup or with apricot jam.

For 2 people I used 120 g of plain flour, 1/2 tbsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp of sugar, 1 egg, 15 g of melted butter and 150 ml of milk, all whipped into a nice, thick batter. I fried them on oil, quite quickly, flipping when the bubbles appeared.

They’re quite light, soft and enjoyable. And will be made again.