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.
Baking

Ptysie.

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According to Dorota from mojewypieki. com, these were the taste of our childhood. Only having made and tasted them I understood what she meant.  The filling reminded me of “warm ice cream” sort of treat we used to get as kids, a super sweet meringue served in a cone.  Ptysie today had about 50 ml of blackcurrant juice/puree added to the Italian meringue, good call, otherwise they’d be far too sweet.

Choux pastry according to Dorota’s recipe turned out to be quite thick, difficult to squeeze through the piping bag, but still rose in the oven and turned out alright.  The filling; Italian meringue made with 120 g of sugar, a splash of water, 50 ml of blackcurrant juice for the sugar syrup and 2 egg whites and 20 g of sugar for the meringue. It holds rather well the next day. Ptysie are light and pleasant, but I think I’d like that filling to have a bit more character.  Nice though. 🙂

Good Food

Chicken kievs from scratch.

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Tom Kerridge made them on telly. I normally get ours from Waitrose, but might now stop buying them, as what came out of the oven this evening was the moistest chicken dish I’ve ever made.  And easy too! Two nice breasts cut on the thick side to make a pocket for the butter, I must have done a decent job as none of the butter got out while cooking. Garlic butter- 2 crushed cloves, parsley, cayenne pepper( not a mind blowing addition for me), salt, all blitzed. When stuffed, I seasoned the breasts, tossed in flour, egg and panko, quickly panfried and cooked in 200 degrees for 15 minutes.  Like I said- super moist. Served with mixed greens and cold San Miguel beer. Destroyed the lot.

Baking

Salted caramel macarons.

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I wanted to bake macarons again and looked to Macarons & more website for a flavour inspiration.  A chap called Tim Kinnaird took part in Masterchef a few years ago, reached the final but did not win. His macarons  are still remembered, but now he runs his own company, inspiring guy! One of the flavours he sells is salted caramel, my new favourite. I thought chocolate shells would be better and reduce the sweetness a bit, so I baked them replacing 40 g of icing sugar with cocoa. The filling was wild and random, yet successful- I blitzed about 2tbsps of mascarpone, 1 tbsp of Philadelphia, 3 tsps of salted caramel spread- roughly and just a tsp of peanut butter. And it tastes pretty damn good. A smear of salted caramel on top and a sprinkle of toasted nuts. Thumbs up.

Dessert

Salted caramel cheesecake.

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New favourite flavour.  I bought a jar of salted caramel spread (“Wilkin & Sons”) and made 4 small round cheesecakes the usual way; a base of biscuits and melted butter and the filling of whipped cream, Philadelphia ( a small packet) and the said spread, maybe 2tbsps. No sugar needed, naturally. Dark chocolate grated on top with a few roasted chopped nuts.

Very enjoyable.

Baking

Gingerbread. Nearly perfect.

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I might have found the ultimate gingerbread recipe. It’s moist, not too sweet, rich and delicious, all I have to do when making it next time is double the amount of ginger, both fresh and ground.

The recipe is from bbcgoodfood.com. 140 g of Medjool dates, pitted, chopped and soaked in 125 ml of boiling water for about 30 minutes, then blitzed into a paste with the liquid and all.

75 ml of oil( I used vegetable), 75 g of black treacle, 50 ml of maple syrup and a tsp of freshly grated ginger( moooooooore needed!!), all well mixed together.

In the bowl of kitchen aid 250 g of plain flour, 50 g of muscovado sugar, 1 tsp of bicarb soda, 1 tsp of ground ginger ( more needed, or perhaps mine is a bit out of date, it is down the sink now) and 1,5 tsp of cinnamon, a lot, as always.  Finally 175 ml of buttermilk and 1 whole egg complete the list of ingredients. They all make quite a runny batter, which bakes for about 40 minutes in 140 degrees. The author of the recipe is right, when the cake is wrapped in foil overnight, it’s even better the next day, sticky and moist. Yum.

Beverage

Passion fruit mojito.

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We dropped off Mum and Dad at Bristol Airport last night and then headed to Wahaca, Mexican restaurant co- owned by Thomasina Myers. I wanted to go for quite a while, but central Bristol is not quite on the way, ever, yesterday though we stopped by.

Two things blew me away. Chicken tinga tacos made my palate sing and dance, I’ll search through Thomasina’s recipes and I’ll make it, but passion fruit and vanilla mojito was just outstanding. I like my cocktails quite sweet, when Jedrek makes my mojito I have to ask him to make it sweet, the guys in Wahaca made it fab without asking. Loved it and will be copying.  🙂

Dessert

Doughnuts with peanut butter filling.

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The idea from mojewypieki.com again. I wasn’t stunned initially, as I’m not crazy about peanut butter myself. I like it on a toast every now and then, but I kept on thinking about it and finally yesterday I got around to making doughnuts. Mum and Dad are still here, so most of the 19 doughnut batch was filled with plum conserve, those with peanut butter I shared with Andy- Lisa said it would be quite his thing.

For the doughnuts I used 450 g of plain flour, 180 ml of warm milk, 2 whole eggs and 1 yolk, 60 g of melted butter, 60 of sugar- 20 g of which was vanilla sugar and 20 g of fresh yeast. A splash of vodka was added as well, to prevent the dough from soaking too much oil. Zaczyn was made, then added to the remaining ingredients, kitchen aid worked it all nicely for a few minutes, then it proved for over an hour. Knocked down, rolled out, doughnuts cut out and left to prove again.

Now, I need to think of a method which will allow me to transfer the risen, light as clouds dough from the surface onto the oil.  Everytime I do it, lots of air escapes and the ready doughnuts are not that as round and perfect as I’d like them to be.  Mum suggests greasing the surface rather than flouring it. I might give that a go.

Now, the peanut butter cream is surprisingly awesome. 125 g of smooth peanut butter, same amount of mascarpone, 100 ml of double cream, 50 g of icing sugar( the recipe suggested 80 g, I thought it was far too much and I was right) and a splash of vodka. All beaten with my birthday present- a hand mixer from Kitchen Aid.  It turned out good enough to actually dip the doughnuts filled with it in it, that’s what I was doing, that’s Andy was doing.

Finished with a drizzle of chocolate and a few chopped nuts. Really yummy.

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!