All posts by Ola

I love eating. Even more than I love cooking. My Mum got this thing into me, being a working woman with two kids and still managing to put a two course dinner on the table for us every day. My meals are a lot simpler, I cook for two, with Florian being my most devoted fan and audience. There is nothing more rewarding than a nicely turned out meal. There is nothing more enjoyable that a great plate of food in a decent restaurant with a glass of great red in a nice company. Hence this blog, to share ideas and joy of good food. Bon Appetit.
Made in Poland

Smalec Bozenki.

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This will be one of those recipes that I intend to add to the cookbook for Izzie one day. She will be able to make things the way her Gran did. It will all be there, available and ready to pass on and enjoy.

Bozenka, my Mum, the mentioned Gran, has brought along some  pork back fat, I purchased some minced pork and we got cracking.  Roughly 350 g of back fat was chopped and chucked into the pan, where it fried out for about 30 minutes, till it’s sort of golden. The minced pork goes in, 1 grated sweet apple, garlic, 2 large cloves, chopped, 3 shallots. Some marjoram and a pinch of salt.

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No, it’s not one of those that’s good for you and that you should have it every day in large amount. But smalec, when made this way, left to set for a few hours and then enjoyed with crusty bread and raw, thinly sliced onion, to accompany cold beer- is delicious.  We’ll be having some later on. 🙂

Good Food

Tagliatelle with roasted pepper sauce.

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This kind of cooking makes me really happy. I woke up at 7 am this morning, as usual, to the sounds of Iz playing in her room, stole a few more minutes and while postponing the moment I had to leave lovely warm bed, I thought of the sauce I’d make later on today.  And when I did make it and then served it with a glass of my absolute favourite Catena cab sav from Argentina( closely followed by second  glass), I thought- I am happy. This is my food heaven. And best of all- I made it myself.

Sunday, rainy, homey, apple strudel baked by lunch, nice, but not sensational. 20170115_121934

While the oven was hot I put in a tray of 4 chopped peppers, some shallots, a few garlic cloves, a tomato( tasting of nothing in particular, it could only be roasted), olive oil and some seasoning. 190 degrees, about an hour. Once cooled I removed the skins from garlic, shallots and tomato and blitzed it all into a thick paste.

While Paul and Izzie were splashing in the bath upstairs a few hours later, I got cracking with my sauce. Fried up a shallot, some celery, 2 cup mushrooms, 2 rashers of bacon. Added my pepper  paste. Then, a bit of genius kicked in, I had no fresh chili, but I had gochujang, Korean hot pepper paste.  Added a generous teaspoon. Chicken stock. A splash of double cream.

For me that sauce served with tagliatelle was 10 out of 10. And if I had some fresh basil it would have been 10,5. Cab sav made it all sing in my mouth. Florek said he found it a touch too thick, so for him next time- and there will be lots of next times- a splash of starchy water from the pasta with that sauce, that will do it.

I’m genuinely proud of myself!!! 🙂

For the science

Experimental cod fishcakes.

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There is this very annoyingly pleasant series on BBC2 called “Rick Stein’s Long Weekends” which I binge on and get ideas from. It’s annoyingly pleasant, as the dude travels to places like Reykiavik, Bordeaux, Lisbon or Vienna, walks around, eats and drinks and gets paid for it ( bastard!!!).  I watched him eating fishcakes made entirely differently to those I’ve been making for years, had some cod in the freezer and tried them today. I’m glad I did, that had to be done for the science, but it will now the the return to the old method, lightly cooked fish, spuds squeezed through the ricer. Those I made today consisted of raw cod, quickly pulsed  in the food processor, a shallot, spring onions, fresh red chili, lots of coriander, lemon peel and seasoning. I also coated them in sesame seeds, the idea seeded really appealing, but turned out to be quite disappointing.

The texture was nothing like I expected, spuds do add softness. Couldn’t taste the lemon and chili. Those lovely sesame seeds were lost, panko is the way to go, no doubt.

From today’s  episode in Vienna I crave one thing- apple strudel.  I might well make it tomorrow!

Baking

Cream horns, or rurki z kremem.

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I’ve been looking at mojewypieki. com, trying to find some inspiration  for Wednesday evening- ladies’ night at Lisa’s. Saw these and salivated over the keyboard. First batch was baked and eaten, more on Wednesday, so they’re nice and fresh.  I’m thinking of maybe filling half of them with coffee cream, for a change. Nothing wrong with whipped vanilla cream, but maybe something a little stronger.

The pastry- amazing!!! 250 g of flour, 125 g of cold, chopped butter, 125 g of soured cream, pinch of salt, kitchen aided, chilled for an hour. Rolled out pretty thin, wrapped around my horn metal moulds and baked for about 12 minutes in 200 degrees. While the first batch was in the oven I logged into Amazon and ordered another 6 of them, so I can be a lot more efficient.

The recipe recommended some sugar on top, I skipped that bit and instead sprinkled some icing sugar with a dash of cinnamon on ready stuffed ones. Fabulously creamy, filling, caloryfic and yummy.

Dessert

Mousse au Chocolat.

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Santa’s brought me a book, a super posh, velvet covered book with recipes from Laduree. I’ve been to Laduree once, back in the times when I thought that making macarons requires a PhD in pastry and nobody as amateur as myself will ever be able to make them.  That was a good 4-5 years ago, with Moka, who took us there and treated us to some superb pieces of patisserie   I’d love to do that tour again, now that I’m so much more confident. Might need someone to restrain me from licking the shop windows though.

I’ve marked a couple of must- do recipes from that book. Last night I asked Lisa if they fancied a pizza and beer sort of evening with Andy, they did, so obviously we needed a dessert.  Chocolate mousse was made, easy, delicious and quick.  If all the recipes work the way the mousse did, £17 well spent by Santa.

150 g of good quality dark chocolate was chopped and melted with 40 g of butter, then cooled to room temperature. 4 eggs separated, the whites whipped with 40 g of sugar, the yolks gently beaten. That was a new and different thing to do for me- beaten yolks went in bit by bit to the whipped whites, then  about 1/4 of those went into the chocolate and butter mixture to loosen it. Having done that all of the chocolate got chucked into the whites, gently incorporated  with a whisk. Then into the pipping bag with a star tip, 30 mins on the fridge and then ready to pipe into the serving dishes. It’s been enjoyed. And will be made again. 🙂

Uncategorized

Festive macaroons.

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Lisa’s having us for drinks this afternoon, I volunteered to make something sweet. There’s Bailey’s cheesecake for the grown ups and 2 types of Christmassy macaroons, both from mojewypieki.com.  The only change I made was the lemon filling I used- Dorota suggested mint one for the trees, I’m not a fan. Snowmen could do with some more finesse, but the trees I love. 🙂

Now awaiting the bright red food colourant from Amazon and there will be more macaroons. 20161209_164018

Rubbish

A disastrous nasi goreng.

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I’m going to have to create a new category- the dishes that ended up in the bin. That was just unpleasant and it hardly ever happens to me-my food is hardly ever so bad, that it’s thrown away. It was today.

It was a recipe from Ken Hom’s “100 quick stir fry recipes”. I bought a jar of shrimp paste especially for it, never used it before and never will again. Man, it was vile!!! I only added it to the wok and the smell was just wrong. It also added the texture to the dish, that Florek flushed down with lots of beer, even though we both only had one forkfull. It was annoying, as I wasted ingredients, the prawns especially could have been enjoyed in lots of other ways. They’re in the bin together with that crappy paste.

While we were busy agreeing on how bad the dish was, Izzie spilled carrot juice all over her bathed self and the carpet- amazing evening……

Ken- we have a problem, you and I. :-/

Dessert

Chocolate and hazelnut panna cotta.

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Inspired by the current series of Masterchef.  One of my favourite flavour combinations, a must try! I looked for a recipe online, found a few, didn’t completely follow any. Followed my gut and my taste. For 4 panna cottas I used 250 ml of double cream and 150 ml of milk, which I heated up with a tsp of vanilla sugar and about 3 heaped tsps of nutella. Possibly a bit more, as I kept on adding and tasting, but roughly that. 1,5 leaf of gelatine managed to set it just right. Chilled in the fridge since last night, to be enjoyed this evening after sushi. Very good, potential for a Christmas dessert.

Baking

Hazelnut and coffee dacquoise.

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This cake took time, effort, some skills and it wasn’t cheap. While I was making it, dividing the work into 2 days, I was thinking about how much I love doing it, how great it feels to take some eggs, butter, nuts, sugar, chocolate etc and turn it into something that delicious. I couldn’t help thinking about hurtful it was, when 2 months ago one of my best friends came to the conclusion, that she needs a break from me, as we have completely different passions and interests. We always have , but suddenly it became a problem and I hate that. But, while stirring my ganache I was thinking- screw that, I feel strong about what I love doing and if someone, even a close someone has a problem with that, that is her freaking problem, not mine.  The blog will remain about food as it has always been, not about reinventing myself, just to please someone.

I first heard about dacquoise on GBBO, but never attempted it until I saw the recipe in mojewypieki.com. Dorota makes it look doable, maybe not easy, but possible. So I started with a nutty meringue, made of 4 egg whites, a tall glass of mixed almonds and hazelnuts, toasted first, then whizzed smooth with 1 tbsp of potato starch. Egg whites got whipped with roughly a glass of caster sugar and a pinch of salt, nuts added, then onto a large, rectangular baking tray, oven only 130 degrees hot, for 1,5 hour. After that time it remained in the oven for another 1,5 hour to dry.

That same day I also prepared the base for the coffee cream- 4 egg yolks lightly whipped with 1/3 glass of sugar, 1 tsp of corn starch, then 3/4 glass of milk was heated up well and slowly added to the eggs, all returned to the heat and stirred till thickened. Then covered with cling film and left till next day in the fridge.

Next day I started with my ganache; 180 g of mixed dark and milk chocolate, covered with 3/4 glass of double cream, which was heated up with a splash of maple syrup. After a minute or 2 it just took a good stir and there was a lovely, shiny ganache.

The coffee buttercream caused me some trouble. I suspect it was the butter(190 g of it, less than recommended) that was maybe too cold in comparison with the egg mixture, but it split pretty badly in the kitchen aid and made me curse and call it names, none of those helped. Google did, so I increased the speed, as instructed and added some ganache, alongside 2 tbsps of hazelnut vodka and 2 tbsps of dry, instant coffee, mixed. It took some time to make the texture acceptable, it wasn’t exactly perfect, but it tasted great.

And then I could start putting it all together. Dorota has a short film included, which makes the assembling of the cake easy. First the meringue is trimmed on the edges, then divided in 4 equal rectangles. 3 are covered with ganache and left to cool for about 15 minutes, the fourth one gets covered by buttercream. The fourth one is then covered by the ganache side number 1, cream on that and repeat again. What emerged then needs a nice, smooth cover of buttercream all over it, chills in the fridge for about 2 hours. Finally- ganache all over, whole hazelnuts on top, flaked almonds on the side- Izzie helped doing that and we both loved it.

What I like about dacquoise is the texture and -in a Masterchefy language- the balance of flavours. It’s got it all- nuts, coffee, chocolate.  And I’m very pleased to be capable of making it. 🙂

Link to the original:

Torcik czekoladowo – kawowy dacquoise

Dessert

Lemon and raspberry pavlova

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Hard to believe, but with all my baking experience I’ve never before baked a meringue ( what??!!).  I’ve had a delicious raspberry Pavlova made by Alice in summer, absolutely loved it, but until last weekend I wasn’t tempted to make one.  Until I cocked up a batch of lemon macaroons that I wanted to take to Louise and James’s.  The batter was so overmixed and runny that I knew right away there would be no macaroons. But I still baked 2 giant ones, thinking- maybe a Pavlova-like kinda dessert of some sorts? The next day however I chucked those 2 giant macaroons, as I didn’t want to risk my reputation by experimenting on those 2 innocent souls and I baked 2 proper ones.  Good tactical move, as on Saturday, after a nice chicken dinner we built a lemon Pavlova, layered with whipped cream, fresh raspberries and raspberry coulis. Pretty much the whole thing went on the spot.  I liked it enough to look through more meringue recipes and I’ll be attempting  a small dacquise this weekend. A bit of a higher shelf, but hey, it’s good to be ambitious.

So, for 2 small meringue discs I used 3 egg whites, which kitchen aid whipped with 120 g of sugar, a tsp of yuzu juice, which I happened to have, 1 tsp of potato starch and a pinch of salt.Also, a tiny drop of yellow food colouring went in.  Baked in 180 degrees for about 5 minutes and then reduced to 140 and baked for roughly 40 minutes, left to cool in the oven.

Hopefully a start to more meringue baking.