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.

Jam doughnuts, baby! :-)

For weeks I’ve been craving Krispy Kremes, those with custard and chocolate. Fortunately the nearest place we can get them is Tesco in Ch’ham, close to exactly nowhere, plus they’re quite expensive. So I thought maybe it is time for me to learn to make yeasty dough ( ciasto drozdzowe), as every respectable Polish cook/baker must have it in their repertoire. My Mum makes it well, but she makes it  in a traditional way, kneading by hand. I have a Kitchen Aid, so don’t have to, the hook does all the job.

The recipe I picked is again from the excellent mojewypieki.com, Dorota’s oldest and most trusted doughnuts recipe. Hers was for 40 pieces, I used a third and still managed to make 17. I gave a few to Keeva the neighbour, when passing on her parcels, we’d never manage to eat them all and her daughters like doughnuts, so- nothing wasted and good neighbourly relationship sustained.

I used 333 g of plain flour, 17 g of fresh yeast, 40 g of sugar, 170 ml of milk, 2 egg yolks, 33 g of melted butter, a splash of whisky ( that prevents the dough from taking in too much fat when frying), a zest from half a lemon and a pinch of salt. First I made zaczyn out of some of the flour, all the yeast, some warm milk and some sugar- all those from the ready weighed ingredients, nothing extra. Mixed it all and left covered for about 20 minutes until frothed up, yeasties have been busy. 🙂 Added that to the rest of the ingredients waiting in the bowl of KA, attached the hook and let it roll for about 12 minutes. Then covered and left in a warm place for 1,5 hour, until more than doubled in size. Then knocked it down, formed small doughnuts with a cookie cutter- I didn’t want the giant ones, was also worried if they’d cook. Then again left them to prove till doubled in size and proceeded to fry them in veg oil heated up to 175 degrees. It’s a quick process and very enjoyable, as the beauties were very light and nicely risen, I only used a little skewer to flip them.

The only jam I had was  a strawberry one, next time I’ll use either raspberry or maybe some lemon curd, I’m thinking, either way will be investing in a proper syringe to stuff them with. One day I’ll use custard and that will be tricky to pour into the doughnuts.

Final touch was a bit of maple glaze and they were ready. I was super happy when I cut through the first one, it was like a cloud. Dorota woman is a genius. Craving satisfied. 🙂

Pulled chicken fajitas.

I saw the recipe online in GF and immediately wanted to try. Pulled pork is nice, but takes long to make, plus it makes me feel a bit guilty- what’s the point in sweating on the floor with Chodakowska and then munching on a pig.

Chicken was fun to make and not too long. I had boneless thighs, which I seasoned and rubbed with chipotle paste.  Then made a marinade with more chipotle, some bbq sauce, small carton of passata, some chopped shallot and a splash of water.  My chicken was placed in a baking dish all nice and cosy,  covered with marinade and it wnet to the oven for an hour in 160 degrees, under alu foil.  After an hour the foil went and the temperature up to 200 for another 20 minutes.  The sauce reduced nicely, chicken fell apart under the forks, mixed with the sauce was excellent.

Served with coleslaw and an avocado salsa- by the recipe too, but I found it too strong, it nearly killed the chicken in that tortilla. Guacamole would have been better I think. But still very pleased with the whole thing.

Kotlety mielone with a twist.

A Polish classic.  Greasy, tasty, served with mash and some veg.  Every now and then I feel like having something from the times when I was growing up.  I saw a recipe recently in Interia. pl featuring those very kotlety, but slightly poshed up by addition of fresh mushrooms. Apparently that is the version from Kresy, the former Polish territories by our eastern border, snatched from us by Soviet scum in 1945.

Obviously I had no fresh, wild mushrooms, but I had chestnuts and some dried porcini, which  when soaked did an excellent job too. I fried them all up with a shallot and some crushed garlic and finished off with a splash of cream. When cooled, I added it to the regular mielone mix- fresh minced pork, an egg, some white bread soaked in milk, some fresh thyme, salt, pepper and the said mushrooms.  Very nice, I must say, even Pizia had half of a kotlecik for lunch, in spite of the mushrooms, but I’m sure a small amount will not cause her any stomach upset.  She is, after all, a foodie in the making. 🙂

Cream horns.

I saw them being made on GBBO, obviously from scratch, puff pastry and all. I ordered the cute, metal horns from Amazon to make them with and today did, to have something sweet when my man comes home after 2 long weeks in Canada. I bought my puff though.

They were fun to make, to roll onto the horns, painted with egg yolk and baked till golden. When cold I piped in some vanilla whipped cream with fresh strawberries. I intended to dip the front in chocolate too, but forgot to buy chocolate. Next time I won’t forget, there will be plenty of next times, the horns are sheer delight.

Scary macaroons.

Yup, they look like they’re ready for Halloween.  I admit, I didn’t do a great job mixing the food colourant with the rest of the ingredients, I wonder if kitchen aid would do a better job, only I wouldn’t be quite following the recipe. We’ll see. For now, we’re having tea and the scary macaroons stuffed with rhubarb filling. If I were to make improvements, I’d add more rhubarb, than the 280 g that I had. Experience now shows they taste best when the filling is sharp, lemon, yuzu kinda sharp, raspberries- the contrast with sweet almond cookie is then delightful. I made the filling with 280 g of chopped rhubarb, quickly cooked with 3 tbps of sugar till falling apart, then a packet of unsweetened budyn smietankowy mixed with 1/3 of a glass of water- in. All mixed together, nice, tasty, but a touch too sweet, this sharp contrast is missing today.

Still. Being eaten and quite quickly. 🙂

Chinese with a high 5.

I recently purchased some fresh and fragrant Chinese 5 Spice, needed it to make something from 15 minute meals. I used it today to make a pork stir fry, turned out to be particularly lovely, so it landed here. Very difficult to make an enticing photo of a stir fry though.

Pork fillet, thinly sliced, tossed in a mixture of beaten egg, 2 tsps of 5 spice, same amount of cornflour and brown sugar.  Once quickly fried on the wok, it got removed, mixed veggies fried- a shallot, a carrot, some asparagus, green peas, bell pepper, 2 crushed cloves of garlic. Then the cooked rice. Then pork back in. Lovely flavour, which I sexed up with soy sauce and sesame oil. Yum yum.

Coffee eclairs.

All my ambitious plans of flattening my stomach again are pointless. I love eating too much. I can’t just have 1 eclair, I have 3, with beautiful whipped vanilla cream and the coffee glaze dripping down my fingers. So much more pleasure than sweating on the floor with Ewa Chodakowska, hoping to lose 2 kg around the stomach. Sorry Ewa, eclairs 1, you- 0.

Eclairs were one of the challenges for the Bake Off contestants last Wednesday. Most of them were mixing plain flour with the strong one, hoping to make the choux more stable and drier. I tried that trick, I thought my choux was excellent, but whether it was due to that addition or not, not sure.

For the pastry I used 105g of flour, 30 g of which was  a strong one, 85 g of butter melted in 225 ml of water, a pinch of salt and 3 lightly beaten eggs. Until today I didn’t know I should really cool the flour/ butter/water mix before I add the eggs, now I know. The end result- smooth and shiny dough, ready for the piping bag.

I piped my eclairs quite small, that made me around 16 of them. The sight of eclairs rising in the oven is lovely, I was watching them with Izzie. One day I’ll teach her to bake with me.

They baked for about 25 minutes in 200 degrees, then I got them out of the oven, made a small hole in each and returned them in for another 4 minutes to dry them out.

When ready for dessert, I stuffed them with vanilla cream and finished with coffee glaze- just a double espresso with about 5 tbsps of icing sugar. Keeps nicely in the fridge, our eclairs are being enjoyed for 3 consecutive evenings. Yum.

Plum and chocolate chip muffins.

I was looking for a recipe for chocolate muffins as a form of down payment to Florian, who finally, after months of nagging, begging, threats of suicide and slashing veins agreed to complete the thresholds in the kitchen.  The search engine on mojewypieki.com showed only 800 recipes for muffins, but I went with these, as I happened to have some plums and not enough chocolate to make the chocckie ones.

Easy, quick, yummy. For 12 muffins I used 2 tall glasses of plain flour, a tsp each of soda and baking powder, 120 g of sugar, 2 eggs, beaten, half a glass of sunflower oil, 300 g of soured cream and 5 medium plums, chopped in small pieces.Also, a handful of chocolate chips. All dry ingredients combined, all wet ingredients added, into paper muffin cases, baked in 180 degrees for 25 minutes.  Very pleasant indeed. 🙂

Dough balls, less is more.

I made us some sufficient lunch this afternoon, which is why dinner was to be smaller and simple.  My lovely child made me super happy at the lunch table,  when she pushed away her bowl of chicken and carrot cream soup and picked some cauliflower and french beans off my plate and  was happily munching on them, disregarding her lovely soup.

Back in old times, when we used to live in Ruislip and often ate at Pizza Express, they served a few dough balls with garlic butter as a starter. This evening I made some for us. Regular pizza dough I normally make, just formed into balls, baked in 220 degrees for about 7 minutes, fresh garlic butter, some salami and rocket, some parmesan and a glass of French red. Simple, delicious, enjoyed in the company of my lovely man, who appreciates good food as much as I do. 🙂