Saturday, October 31, 2009

Friday: boiled beef hash

A dish to make productive use of the piece of beef I used to make broth.

Cook some diced onion with chopped garlic in rape-seed oil over medium high heat until the onion starts to soften. Add diced potato and cook until the potatoes are about done. Add diced leftover beef and let it heat through. Serve with ketchup and chipotle hot sauce.

mmmmmm, comfort food.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thursday: beef broth with Flaedli

There are a few recipes in Wiener for beef broth with various egg-based additions, and they all sound good. One has to start somewhere, so I did the version with crepes (Flädli here).

For the broth: 500g beef (siedfleisch), one leek, one carrot, one onion (with peel), half a celery root, a bit of cabbage, one bay leaf, a few peppercorns, 1.5l water. Bring to a gentle simmer and let cook, uncovered, 2 hours. Strain, let cool overnight, remove the fat layer, strain through cheesecloth, reheat and adjust salt.

For the crepes: 2 eggs, 250ml milk, 100g flour, 1/2 package chives (cut into 1/2 cm lengths), a big pinch of salt. Cook the crepes with clarified butter and then let them cool.

To serve: put some very finely diced (brunoise) carrot and pfaelzer in the bowls, heat the bowls, roll the crepes and slice them crosswise into threads (chiffonade), finally add the broth.

We ate this quite good soup with some roasted cauliflower and escarole with creme fraiche.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Tuesday: lentils with pasta

Inspired by a recipe in Wiener and the leftover lentils in the fridge.

Nothing remotely fancy here: I heated up the leftover lentils, added some finely diced salami, and served the resulting mixture over pasta. Nice stuff.

As a side I did an escarole recipe from AFK: cook pieces of escarole in salted water until they're tender, drain well, combine with salt, butter, and creme fraiche and then serve.

A good argument for cookbooks: I'm not sure if I ever would have come to the idea of combining lentils with pasta.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Sunday: Zwiebelkuchen

Almost let Zwielbelkuchen season slip by without make one... but not quite.


This time I followed Andrea's old recipe. I did the crust per the recipe and varied the toppings ratio a bit: 750g onions, 3.6dl sour cream, 2 eggs, ~150g bacon (rendered a bit before being added).

The result was quite good, quite good indeed.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Saturday: lots of stuff

Yesterday was an active one in the kitchen.

Pumpkin soup: sweat some onion, carrot, and garlic for a bit in butter. Add diced pumpkin, salt, and water to cover. Simmer until the pumpkin is done then puree. Add nutmeg and white pepper and taste for salt. Serve topped with chives and a bit of raclette spice.

Lentils: Cook a sliced leek in olive oil with some diced carrot until the leek lightly caramelizes. Add green lentils, a bay leaf, some herbs de provence, a bouquet garni with parsley, thyme, and rosemary, a splash of white wine, and water to cover. Cover and simmer until the lentils are tender. Serve topped with olive oil.

Slow-baked pork roast with a sage-apple sauce: Brown a nice pork loin roast well on all sides in clarified butter in the cast iron skillet. Wipe out the excess fat, season the roast well, add some good apple juice and a couple of sage leaves to the skillet, and let reduce for a couple of minutes. Insert a thermometer, transfer the skillet to an 80C oven, and cook until the internal temp is 65C. Leave the pork roast on a plate in the oven. Add more juice to the pan drippings (after fishing out the sage leaves) and reduce by about half, mount the sauce with butter, and adjust salt. Slice the pork and serve topped with the sauce.

Friday: beans and greens; chicken with sherry

A clear choice for using the big head of escarole from last week's biokiste.

I started by making some soisson beans in the pressure cooker: the washed beans went in with chopped onion and garlic, a couple bay leaves, and sufficient water. These cooked for 30 minutes, then I opened the pressure cooker and added some chicken bouillon.

For the greens: cook chopped onion, garlic, and diced carrot in olive oil until the carrots start to soften. Tear escarole into pieces and add to the pan. Cook until the escarole is ready to eat. Top with beans, some of the bean liquid, piment d'esplette, and some roasted almonds.

To go with this I did a quick spanish-influenced chicken dish: Brown a couple of chicken thighs and legs well, season, and set aside. Add slivered garlic and some chopped onion to the pan, cook until the onion browns a bit. Deglaze the pan with sherry; let the sherry boil for a minute, then add back the chicken, cover, and let simmer until the chicken is ready to eat.

Of course we also had a big green salad.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Thursday: Tortellini

We still have some pumpkin tortellini in the freezer so when I didn't feel like doing much in the way of cooking and the cupboard was bare, we were still set. :-)

To serve with the tortellini I did a quick tomato sauce by sweating some onions and garlic in olive oil for a bit, adding canned tomatoes and simmering for 10 minutes. After pureeing with the stick blender this was ready to serve.

To go with it we had a big green salad.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Wednesday: crepes with spinach

Simple weeknight dish: sweat some chopped onion and garlic together in some neutral oil; add diced long green pepper and cook for a couple minutes; add spinach (torn into pieces), a good pinch of salt, and some fresh thyme. Cook until the spinach is ready to eat. Stir in some good cottage cheese.

Serve with crepes and sliced ham. oh, and a big green salad.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Monday: red cabbage and sausage

ah, the winter vegetables are coming...

Slice a couple of raw bratwurst 1cm thick; brown the pieces on both sides. Add sliced leek and diced carrot to the pan and cook a couple of minutes. Add thinly (but not very thinly) sliced red cabbage, a diced apple, caraway seeds, some salt, fresh thyme, and a grind of pepper. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is ready to eat. Quite simple, quite good.

We ate this with the usual green salad.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Saturday: pork and black beans

For this I started from a Bittman recipe for black beans with orange.

First I simmered some cubed (4-5cm) pork shoulder and bacon with cloves, bay leaves, and peppercorns until the pork was just about tender. I fished out the meat and set it aside. The liquid, along with orange zest, some fresh cloves, and bay leaf, became the cooking liquid for the pre-soaked black beans. To finish I browned the pork a bit, cooked onion, garlic, carrot, and long-green pepper in neutral oil, added beans, OJ, and some of the bean liquid.

We ate this with parboiled rice and a big green salad.

mmm, pork and beans. :-)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Nanorestaurant Review: Zur Saege (Flueh) revisited

This was our second visit and once again it gets two very big smiley faces.

The only minor disappointment was that game didn't play a bigger role on the menu (only there in the amuse bouche), but what was on the menu was so good that we weren't too sad. :-)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tuesday: Coconut schnitzel

A random idea spurred by the limes in the fridge and a bag of coconut in the pantry.

Season some sliced (1cm) pork; squeeze over lime juice and let stand 15 minutes. Mix grated coconut with some hot paprika; "bread" the pork using the flour->egg->coconut technique; ;et stand on a rack for 10 minutes or so then saute at medium heat (don't burn the coconut).

I also served steamed potato wedges with herb-quark (parsley, chervil, salt, pepper, quark) and green beans sauteed in butter. Good stuff, very good stuff.

Oh, and the green salad.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Monday: Pasta and vegetables

To complement the soup I did another take on pasta with vegetables: cook finely diced onion and carrot with some chopped garlic in a bit of butter for a few minutes; add some chopped broccoli (including stems); cover and cook for about 10 minutes; add light cream, strips of air-dried ham, rosemary, and oregano; cook another 5 minutes or so, until the broccoli is ready to eat. Serve over buttered spaghetti.

Together with a nussli salad, this was a very nice meal.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Sunday: pureed vegetable soup

A simple one to help get through the veggies: Combine cauliflower, carrot, kohlrabi, and onion (all cut into pieces) in a pot. Add enough water to cover, some chicken bouillon, and herbs de provence. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are just soft enough to mash with a potato masher. Mash them, then puree with a stick blender. Add milk, heat gently, serve with curry powder on the side.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Saturday: Bi Bim Bap

Well, something like bi bim bap at least...

Marinate some sliced beef (1/2 cm slices) with ginger, soy sauce, and garlic. Kill some thinly sliced red onion with salt, mirin, and white wine vinegar. Do a quick pickle from julienned carrot and kohrabi with salt, mirin, and white wine vinegar. Cook some spinach in a pan, drain it, chop it very coarsely, then put back in the pan, toss with soy sauce and some sesame oil and keep warm. Make a pot of short-grain rice. In a separate pot put a thin layer of oil (peanut+sesame), put over medium-high heat, pack in the cooked rice, and let cook covered for 10 minutes to form a crust. For the last five minutes add an egg (in a ring-mold so that it doesn't contaminate Andrea's portion!) to the top. Meanwhile cook the beef in a grill pan. Serve the rice topped with sliced kimchi, the onions and pickles, beef, and spinach. Drizzle with sesame oil and some soy sauce.

This could have had a better crust on the rice, but it was still very very good.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Friday: Spaetzlipfanne

Very much a cuisine de kuhlschrank dish: slice some bratwurst and brown the slices nicely, set aside; add a bit of neutral oil to the pan and cook diced onion, thickly sliced leek, and diced long green pepper until the pepper is soft and then set the veggies aside; add a bit more oil to the pan and then brown some spaetzle; add the sausage, vegetables, some steamed broccoli, and some sliced oven-dried tomatoes; heat through and then serve.

I should have done something with the broccoli other than just steaming it, but this was otherwise pretty good.

We also had a big green salad.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Tuesday: pasta with oven-dried tomatoes and truffle salami

At the market this week I picked up a truffle salami from Piemont that is amazingly good. This dish was an improv to use some of that.

Start by cooking some small diced carrot and long green peppers in olive oil. When the peppers are starting to soften add diced salami, thick slices of oven-dried tomatoes, and some of the leeks cooked with the tomatoes. Stir gently together and leave on the heat long enough for the tomatoes and salami to warm through. Serve on top of whole wheat penne.

As sides we had spinach cooked with diced smoked pork loin and spaghetti squash steamed, "spaghettied", and tossed with butter.

Oh, and a green salad.

What a meal.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Sunday Indian

It's been too long since I did anything South Indian...

Last night I did two dishes from Dakshin: Pepper Sambar and Green Bean Poriyal. Aside from the green beans, this didn't do so much to work through the masses of vegetables in the fridge, but it was awfully good. :-)

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Saturday miscellany

A couple of additional things from yesterday:

  1. I oven-dried the plum tomatoes from this week's biokiste by cutting them in half, putting them in a baking dish with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and thick leek slices, and baking at 125C until the tomatoes had shriveled.
  2. I started a batch of kimchi based on a recipe in Quick Pickles using the giant head of napa cabbage from the biokiste. The first step (salting the cabbage) is taking longer than the 2-3 hours suggested in the recipe (at 15 hours now and there's still a ways to go), but that's no tragedy.

Saturday dessert: apple pudding with caramelized apples

A recipe from this month's Le Menu that just sounded fantastic.

The pudding:
Combine 5dl apple juice with 1Tbs corn starch, 80g sugar, one egg, and one egg yolk. Bring to just under the boil then remove from the heat. Stir in 6 sheets softened gelatine and the juice of half a lemon. Strain into another bowl. Let cool for a bit, stirring occasionally, and then put in the fridge until it starts to set up. Whip 2dl of cream and gently stir that in along with a egg white that's been whipped to peaks. Strain into a serving bowl and put in the fridge to set up.

The apples:
Caramelize 100g of sugar; dissolve this in 1dl apple juice; cook thickly-sliced apples in this until they are serving-soft; reduce the liquid to a syrup.

Serve the pudding topped with apples and drizzled with the caramel syrup.

Note:
I didn't leave the pudding base in the fridge long enough, so the egg whites and cream separated out and we ended up with a layered pudding; still very tasty but not as attractive. Or maybe it was supposed to be this way since it's supposed to be allowed to set up in individual serving bowls? The non-lightened base was quite good, it's worth thinking about trying a more standard pudding without the "lighteners" though.

Saturday: vegetable soup

Friday afternoon I made a pot of chicken stock, this put it to good use.

Bring the stock to a simmer with some brown rice, a couple stripped corn cobs (idea from Ruhlman), and herbs de Provence. After an hour or so take out the cobs and add sliced leeks, some greens (batavia with the leaves cut into pieces), and the corn (this wasn't the most tender corn, so it needed a while in the pot). After 30 minutes or so add grated kohlrabi and carrot. Let cook another 10 or so minutes, add a splash of white wine, then serve.

Together with some good bread and a green salad, this made for a nice dinner.

Saturday lunch: burgers

This was planned for dinner, but Andrea pointed out that it would mean quite an early dinner since it's getting dark so soon. So burgers on the grill for lunch!

I did my usual minimalist burgers: beef and salt, but this time I melted a bit of cheddar over the burgers at the end. To go with them I grilled a long green pepper and some red onion and toasted the buns on the grill. We ate these with salad and pickles (including garden pickles).

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Friday: chicken, corn, morel ragout

Inspired by the corn in the biokiste along with memories of an appetizer we had at Zur Säge.

Soak some dried morels in chicken stock. Halve or quarter the softened mushrooms. Combine the (strained) soaking liquid with some more chicken stock and reduce it strongly.
Cut the kernels from a cob of corn and cook them for a few minutes in butter, until they are about ready to eat. Reserve. Add a bit more butter to the pan and cook some thinly sliced leek and very finely diced carrot until the leek softens. Sprinkle over a bit of flour and cook another minute or so. Stir in some white wine and let it reduce substantially. Stir in the corn, morels, and reduced stock along with a bit of light cream (halbrahm). Let this simmer very gently over low heat.
In a separate pan brown some chicken breast (cut into bite-size chunks) in clarified butter. Season well during the browning. As the chicken finishes transfer it to the corn-morel mixture. Deglaze the browning pan with some more white wine, reduce that to a very small amount, and add to the main pan. Taste for salt and add a bit more cream if needed. Serve with good bread.

This turned out really nicely.

As a vegetable side: cook spinach with a bit of olive oil, remove from the pan and chop. Add diced long green pepper to the pan and cook until it softens a bit. Add back the spinach and taste for salt.

We also had a green salad (the first nussli of the year).

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Wednesday: Pumpkin, greens, and pasta

Inspired by this week's "Weeknight Kitchen", but adapted to help use up the ton of vegetables we have in the fridge.

Dice (2-3cm) and roast some pumpkin (not clear the type, we got a piece in the biokiste) with some olive oil at 200C until it softens. Meanwhile brown some diced smoked pork loin quickly in some olive oil and set aside. In the same pan cook diced onion, carrot, green pepper, and chopped garlic with some piri piris and salt until the vegetables start to soften. Add some batavia (lettuce) that's been ripped into pieces along with a couple sprigs of thyme, a sprig of oregano, and a splash of white wine and cook until the lettuce is ready to eat. Add the pork and pumpkin along with some orecchiete (not too much, the point is the vegetables!). Serve topped with fresh parsley and grated parmesan.

Good stuff and very helpful with the using up the veggies thing. :-)