Tuesday: penne with potatoes, green beans, and basil

A variation on a Ligurian dish driven by the contents of the cupboards.

Cut some peeled potatoes into 1cm dice. Steam them until cooked. Cut some green beans until they are about the same length as the penne. Steam until crisp-tender. Combine basil, pasted garlic, parmesan, olive oil and olive oil in the mini-chop and grind to a pesto-like texture. Toss this with the potatoes and green beans. Add chopped pistachios (no pine nuts in the house!), black pepper, and a bit of the cooking water from the pasta. Serve over whole-wheat penne.

Monday: sauteed vegetables

A no-brainer meal for using up vegetables: onion, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, tomato, smoked ham, olive oil, salt, pepper, and fennel seeds.

We also had some chard (thinner stems that normal) that I steamed in the microwave, coarsely chopped, and then combined with butter and sour cream.

Nothing complicated, everything good. :-)

Friday: frikadellen

To go with the leftover Ensalada Rusa I made some frikadellen:

Combine ground beef and pork with minced onion, minced garlic, minced pickles, salt, pepper, and an egg. Mix well and form small patties. Cook over medium-high heat and then set aside and make a pan sauce with tomato paste, ketchup, mustard, tabasco, and water. Before serving, put the frikadellen in the sauce and flip a couple of times to coat them.

Wednesday: Ensalada Rusa, stuffed squash

I needed to come back to the Ensalada Rusa recipe from Wiener since we had a lot of potatoes and it was so good last time.

The stuffed squash idea used some small round hard-skinned squash from the biokiste (no idea what they are): Remove the tops of the squash and scoop out the seeds. Add a bit of water, cover, and microwave until about cooked inside (4 minutes for us). Make the filling by combining garlic paste, minced onion, shredded dried smoked ham, diced tomatoes, diced dried tomatoes, olive oil, salt, white pepper, and a bit of white balsamico. Fill the squash, top with grated parmesan, and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and the insides are bubbling.

Saturday: nachos

Not sure where the idea came from, but once it appeared it definitely grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. :-)

For the chicken:

Brown some chicken leg quarters well. Add chopped onions and garlic and cook 4-5 minutes. Add coarsely ground coriander and some cumin seeds and let cook another couple minutes. Add sweet paprika, oregano, minced chipotles with adobo, a pinch each of ground cloves and cinnamon, a couple bay leaves, a good splash of soy sauce, and some chicken bouillon. Add sufficient water so that the chicken is just about covered. Bring to a simmer, cover, and let cook for a couple of hours. Turn the chicken pieces after an hour. Remove the chicken from the cooking liquid and let the pieces cool briefly. Meanwhile reduce the cooking liquid by half. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle: remove the skin and bones and shred the flesh. Stir some of the reduced cooking liquid into the shredded chicken and set aside.

To assemble the nachos:

Make a layer of chips. Top with kidney beans, shredded chicken, and some diced tomatoes. Put in a 200C oven (top heat) for ~5 minutes until the tomatoes wilt a bit. Add another layer of chips and top with grated cheddar cheese and more tomatoes. Toss back in the oven until ready to eat.

Serve with salsa, guacamole, shredded lettuce, and sour cream.

*Very* happy making food.

Friday: Succotash

It was impossible to resist doing a succotash given the contents of the fridge.

Cut some bacon into 1/2cm dice and brown it nicely with a bit of neutral oil. Add onions and garlic and sweat a bit. Add chunks of zucchini and pepper (we had long peppers in the box) and a good pinch of salt, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini are about soft. Add sweet corn (freshly cut off the cob), some diced tomatoes, and some broad beans, cover again, and cook another 5 minutes or so until the corn is read to eat.

Serve with some good bread.

There's not much point with making this unless you have fresh corn, but with the corn it is soooooo good.

Thursday: spaghetti with pesto, tomato salad

We had plenty of basil and some almost-overripe tomatoes in the biokiste this week... this was one of the obvious things to do with that.

The pesto was standard : basil, garlic paste, toasted pine nuts, parmesan, olive oil.

For the tomato salad I made a vinaigrette with garlic paste, microplane-grated ginger, white balsamico, mustard, and peanut oil. I used more vinegar than normal. We tossed this with some cut-up tomatoes and chives.

Wednesday: extending indian leftovers

We had some leftovers from Tuesday's lovely Indian food, but not enough for a full meal, so I came up with something.

For the leftover lamb paratha filling: saute some minced garlic, ginger, chile, and onion in clarified butter. Add ajwain and fennel seed and cook 30 seconds or so. Add steamed potato chunks and salt, mix well, and let cook 3-5 minutes. Stir in the leftover lamb and some chopped cilantro, cover, and let cook another couple minutes.

The second improv was to make another batch of saag paneer with tofu, but using swiss chard instead of spinach. I cut the chard into bite-sized pieces and boiled them until just about tender before using it.

Both of these turned out quite well. Using chard in this way is definitely something to remember next time the quantities of it start to get oppressive.

Tuesday: Indian

I was wondering out loud what to do with the mint in last week's biokiste when Andrea piped up with two suggestions: lamb, and some kind of raita. That got the ideas flowing, and here's what I ended up doing:

1. Lamb paratha (from BittmanWorld)
2. Saag paneer with tofu in place of the cheese (from BittmanWorld)
3. Mint raita : yogurt, salt, chopped peppermint

The paratha were a bit fiddly (I think the instructions calls for the initial rolling-out to go too thin), but everything tasted really good and made us quite happy.

Yet another catchup post

Some things we've eaten lately that I haven't gotten around to recording;

• Mezze night with hummus, baba ghanouj, and tabbouleh
• Chicken salad with skordalia made with a roasted chicken from the Coop. Recipe from Bittman, and it's a good one.
• Pasta with a raw tomato/anchovy sauce. Idea from the JP "More Fast Food My Way" videos.
• Roasted peppers diced and tossed with finely diced alp cheese, fresh herbs, lemon juice, and olive oil
• Steamed corn on the cob; we don't get enough corn on the cob...

Saturday: Chard-gorgonzola tart

I'm going through a difficult phase with the the chard from the biokiste, so I dug around a bit to find something new to do with it. The recipe I found, in the Le Menu archive, was for a tart with chard, gorgonzola (the recipe called for "couronzola", which I guess is just a Swiss variant of this), and creme fraiche. Sounds pretty good!

In this case following the recipe was a mistake. Normally the Le Menu recipes are reliable, but here the crust really should have been pre-baked before adding the filling. I ended up baking the tart for 40 minutes instead of 20, but the crust was still pretty soft. Ah well, the chard-gorgonzola combination was a good one... definitely something to remember for the future.

Friday: Bratkartoffeln with lamb

We still had some lamb that needed to be finished and this seemed like a good way.

Slice some potatoes and layer them in a hot pan with some clarfied butter. Cover and let cook over medium-high heat until the bottom starts to crisp. Toss to rearrange the potatoes and cook a while longer. Repeat this a few times until the potatoes are nicely colored. Cut the lamb into bite-sized pieces and add to the potatoes, along with some of the rosemary coating and a bit of additional rosemary. Cook until the lamb is heated through, then serve.

On the side we had summer squash sauteed in olive oil and a big green salad.

Wednesday: stir-fried beans, southeast asian chicken

Andrea wanted Asian, so that's what we did.

For the green beans: cut some smoked bacon into thick lardons and stirfry in a bit of peanut oil until they take on some color. Add chili-bean paste and some chopped ginger and cook a couple more minutes. Add green beans and some black vinegar, toss well, and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans are ready to eat.

The chicken is from an old Minimalist recipe that is in Hesser. (I know I've done this recipe before, but I can't find it with blogger's search...): Marinate chicken leg quarters in soy sauce, garlic, and ginger for an hour or so. Brown the chicken well in peanut oil, then reduce the heat, cover, and cook until the chicken is done. Set the chicken aside. Add additional ginger and garlic to the cooking pan along with some sugar and cook until the sugar caramelizes. Add water and fish sauce to dissolve the caramel and then add back the chicken. Cook for another five or so minutes, turning occasionally, until the chicken is heated through and nicely glazed. At the last minute stir in some chopped cilantro. Serve the chicken topped with the sauce.

Together with some rice this made for a great meal.

Tuesday: Pappardelle with sauce bolognese

I did the usual (Jamie Oliver) recipe for the sauce. Oranges are crap at this time of year, so to serve it I used a mixture of grated lemon zest, rosemary, parsley, and a bit of crushed garlic.

There was no sadness in the house about having to eat this. :-)

Sunday lunch: filled tomatoes

I'm not 100% sure where the idea came from, but there it was: tomatoes filled with lentils.

Peel some good sized tomatoes. Carefully core them and remove their seeds and juice. Fill with room temperature lentils and a sauce made from the lentil cooking liquid, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper, and good olive oil. Heat in the microwave for 30s or so. Drizzle with a bit more of the sauce and serve with good bread.

Sunday: slow-cooked lamb

This was a random thing inspired by the frozen leg of lamb in the freezer.

Fill the cavity in a boneless leg of lamb with some fresh rosemary and thyme, then tie the roast so it's a regular shape. Brown well on all sides, then cover with a paste made from minced onion and garlic, chopped rosemary, thyme, and parsley, mustard, salt, black pepper, and olive oil. Insert a meat thermometer in the thickest part and bake at 85C until the core temperature reaches 60C. Slice and serve

As sides:

• Basmati rice cooked with tomato and saffron
• leftover lentils
• An arugula, cherry tomato, avocado salad.

This was some good food.

Saturday: salad and lentils

We were pretty tired from the day's hiking, and had grabbed a panini while waiting for our transfer in Luzern, so it was a simple dinner: salad and lentils.

I cooked the lentils with onion, carrot, garlic, olive oil, bay leaf, a clove, and vegetable bouillon. We ate them topped with a bit of lemon juice and fresh olive oil.

Thursday: chicken under a brick

Inspired by from Food52, I did chicken under a brick. I left out the pickled peppers and just used rosemary.

To go with the chicken I sauteed diced zucchini in butter with fresh herbs (thyme, parsley, chives) and roasted some potato wedges tossed with salt, pepper, and more fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, parsley, marjoram).

Excellent food.

Wednesday's salads

Plenty of salad eating again this week:

1. Shrimp salad: broiled shrimp cut into small pieces then dressed with a mayo, sriracha, lime mixture
2. more guacamole (as long as they keep having decent avocados at the store...)
3. potato salad: potatoes, minced onion, mustard, olive oil, white balsamico

Tuesday: polenta pizza

A random idea to use up the polenta that didn't get made into dumplings.

Form cooked polenta into disks on a well-oiled baking sheet. Top with sliced tomatoes, strips of dried ham, and gruyere. Bake until crispy on the bottom and browned up top.

Sunday: Baked polenta dumplings and cauliflower

The polenta dumpling recipe came from this month's Le Menu. The original recipe called for it to be served on a bed of zucchini, but we had cauliflower instead, so I used that. :-) I did a bit of monkeying around with the seasonings of the dumplings but otherwise stuck more or less to the recipe.

Bring a mixture of 4dl milk and 4dl water slowly to a boil with a couple of bay leaves. Remove the bay leaves and whisk in 200g fine polenta along with a couple good pinches of salt, some cayenne, and plenty of black pepper. Cook, stirring frequently until it's a thick paste. Add freshly grated nutmeg and 50g of grated gruyere, mix well, adjust seasonings, then remove from the heat and let cool.

Put some light cream in the bottom of a baking dish and add a layer of sliced (1cm) cauliflower. Season well and add more light cream as necessary. Form dumplings from the polenta (I used my wet hands, but theoretically you can do it with two spoons) and put them on top of the cauliflower. Dot with butter, sprinkle over strips of thinly sliced dried ham, then bake at 190C for about 35 minutes.

Together with a big green salad this made for a very nice meal.

Another catchup post

[Still shockingly behind]

Last week's cooking:

1. Fish steamed on lettuce: inspired by the old Bittman recipe. I used cod and steamed it on lettuce together with some frozen peas
2. Ensalada rusa: recipe from Wiener. This is great stuff and I'll have to make it again and again.
3. Beans and greans: white beans and bacon done in the pressure cooker with yellow carrots, garlic, onion, chicken bouillon, bay leaf, cloves, and piri piris. Some nice bitter lettuce cooked in for the last few minutes. Served with parsley, chives, and olive oil
4. A big hash : dice some potatoes and pan-fry them until they start to get crispy. Toss in a 170C oven. Cook some ground beef with salt until about done and set aside. Sweat diced carrot, long red pepper, onion, and garlic. Add the beef and potatoes. Serve topped with chives, together with sour cream and ketchup.
5. Guacamole: avacodo, mashed garlic, salt, lime, 'tro, chipotle
6. Sauteed chard with killed onions. From Hesser. A repeat.
7. Cooked lettuce: boiled in well-salted water, then drained, chopped, and tossed with butter and a bit of yogurt.
8. "Catalan vegetable paella": from Hesser.
9. Vegetables with pasta: fresh tomatoes (peeled and chopped), minced onion, minced garlic, green beans (steamed to crisp-tender), diced zucchini (salted for a bit), whole-grain penne. Tossed with olive oil and black pepper and topped with shaved Sbrinz.

Last week's salads

[Shockingly behind again...]

It was hot, we had lots of vegetables to use up, so I made salads, salads, and more salads. And a soup or two.

1. Green beans steamed until crisp-tender then tossed with minced onion, white balsamico, olive oil, and sliced wienerli
2. Mange tous steamed until crisp-tender then tossed with soy, sesame oil, shiso, and that japanese hot pepper shake stuff
3. Beef sirloin seared, thinly sliced, and tossed with lime, soy, fish sauce, and sesame oil.
4. Cold rice noodles with carrots, cucumber, cilantro, peanut butter, soy, fish sauce, and lime
5. Shaved fennel with oranges, cress, and walnuts (from Hesser)
6. Shaved fennel with lemon, salt, and olive oil. (all about what you leave out)
7. Eggplant and pine nut puree (from Hesser)
8. Finely diced eggplant, herbs (thyme, lemon tyme, lemon balm, parsley, chives), garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt
9. Cucumber soup with yogurt (from Hesser)
10. Malaga gazpacho (from Hesser)

Wednesday: sauteed vegetables

The priority was to come up with a use of zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes to help clear the fridge for Thursday's new biokiste. That wasn't hard to do at all... :-)

Sweat a couple crushed garlic cloves together with a diced onion and some piri piri chilis in olive oil. Add zucchini and eggplant, each diced small, and salt and saute another few minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, bay leaves, lemon zest, salt, and pepper, cover, and let simmer 15-20 minutes. Serve topped with chives.

We ate this with thinly sliced pork loin chops that I seasoned well and then seared in the pan and a big green salad.

Tuesday leftovers

To go along with the leftover dirty rice, I tried the recipe for wilted chard with pickled onions from Hesser. Any new chard recipe is welcome, and this one is definitely good enough to become a regular part of the repertoire... an added bonus: the vinegar used to kill the onions is great for salad dressings.

Sunday: Falafel and co

Whenever I see a falafel recipe I think: "mmmm, falafel... I should give that a try." but somehow never have. I'm not sure why, but this recipe from food52 pushed me over the activation barrier.

I stuck pretty closely to the recipe (though I only made a half recipe), the only real variation was that I used parsley instead of cilantro (somehow it didn't seem right to use 'tro) and fried them in a mixture of olive and peanut oils. Really nice stuff... we'll make these, along with the tzatziki, again.

I made pita bread to accompany the falafel following the recipe in the Bread Bible. Without a stand mixer, these were a fair amount of work, but they were quite good.

Other accompaniments:

• Something like baba ganouj: eggplant roasted under the broiler, then peeled, chopped, and food-processed with garlic paste (allowed to cure with the salt for 10-15 minutes), tahini, and olive oil. I left the lemon juice and cumin out this time because the flavor and richness of the eggplant was great as is.
• Roasted bell peppers (yellow and red) tossed with salt and some of the olive oil used to cook the onions and potatoes for the tortilla last week (that's a remarkable ingredient to have around).
• A big pile of lettuce.

Saturday dessert: strawberries in a pink cloud

We're really enjoying the strawberries... This was another experiment using a recipe from food52.

I pretty much followed the recipe except for using jacutinga sugar and increasing the amount of balsamico to a good tsp or two (the 1/2 tsp called for in the recipe struck me as silly).

The results were quite nice. One tweak: I think the sugar was excessively strong; next time either standard sugar or plain raw sugar.

[Update: We tried this again the next night using white sugar and were happier with the results]

Saturday: dirty rice

I'm not quite sure where the idea for dirty rice came from, but once it arrived there was no alternative...

Rinse some blackeyed peas and soak them a few hours. Dump the soaking water and add sufficient new water just cover by 1cm, add a couple bay leaves, a clove, chopped onion, and black pepper. Bring to a simmer and let cook until the beans are about soft. Add a chicken bouillon cube and let the beans finish. Drain the beans and reserve the cooking liquid.

Coat a cup of basmati rice with peanut oil and toast for a couple minutes. Add two cups of the bean cooking liquid, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes. Let stand another 5-10 minutes.

Cut a couple coarse bratwurst into chunks and brown nicely. Drain the fat and add rice and beans. Serve topped with parsley.

With this we had grated zucchini sauteed in olive oil and then finished with vermouth (recipe from Hesser) and a big green salad.

Friday: Gazpacho

An improv gazpacho to celebrate (and start using) the tomatoes in the double box.

Mince an onion and some garlic, combine with salt and sherry vinegar in a bowl and let stand.

Peel some tomatoes, cut into chunks, and add to the bowl. Add roasted green pepper, chopped parsley, chopped cucumber, and olive oil. Add enough water to allow the stick blender to work and then blend well. Add more water to get it soup-like, then run through a strainer. Blend in some piment d'espelette and adjust salt. Let stand 5-10 minutes and then serve.

A really nice meal together with bread and the requisite big green salad

Thursday: roast potatoes and lamb

Keep it simple: season some lamb chops with salt and pepper and sear them well.

Make a batch of oven potatoes seasoned with cumin, paprika, salt, and black pepper.

Serve the lamb and potatoes with salsa brava.

As a vegetable side I sauteed some mangetout with thinly sliced garlic and olive oil.

Add a green salad and be happy.

Tuesday: vegetable curry

South-Indian inspired...

In a bit of neutral oil, toast a spice mixture made from fenugreek, cumin, green cardamom (all freshly ground), and some coconut. Add diced eggplant, zucchini, and fennel along with some turmeric and let cook until the vegetables are about ready to go. Add a small amount of crushed tomatoes, a squeeze of lemon juice, and adjust seasonings.

Meanwhile make the popu: toast black mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, and asafoetida in clarified butter until the mustard seeds pop, set aside.

Stir in the popu and serve over basmati rice.

Sunday: Tapas

We can't get enough tapas, so we did some more yesterday: tortilla de Espana, fried chicken wings with salsa brava, a tomato salad (tomatoes, flageolets, minced onion, garlic paste, salt, pepper, sherry vinegar, olive oil, parsley), and a big green salad.

The tortilla and chicken wings are recipes from Casas' Tapas book. I made these pretty much according to the recipes (substituting chipotle powder for the hot smoked paprika in the salsa brava recipe) on Saturday so that the flavors could meld and the chicken could marinate.

We also did a big green salad.

Very happy making food.

Saturday: baked vegetables

Driven by the massive quantity of vegetables in this week's double box.

Start by making the sauce: emulsify crushed tomatoes with olive oil, garlic paste, salt and pepper.

Layer the sauce with thinly sliced zucchini, eggplant, and fennel and very thinly sliced carrots and onions. Cover with foil and bake at 160. We didn't have either bread or breadcrumbs, so I improv'ed a topping: cook some millet in salted water for 10 minutes, let stand another 10 minutes, then drain and mix in some olive oil. After the vegetables have been baking for around an hour and a quarter, remove the foil, spread the millet over the top, and bake for another 40 minutes.

Really good stuff.

Friday: spaghetti with raw tomato sauce

We're getting tomatoes in the biokiste now... this week we got a double box, so there are a lot of tomatoes to use up.

Coarsely dice tomatoes, combine with finely diced fennel, minced shallot, finely chopped basil and parsley, olive oil, and black pepper. Just before serving add some cooking water from the pasta and adjust salt.

Serve with spaghetti and a bit more olive oil.

Tuesday: brown rice and sausage

Kind of a random idea... those happen sometimes:

Cook some brown rice in a copious amount of chicken stock, then drain it.

Meanwhile cut some merguez into chunks and brown it nicely. Add diced carrot, onion, and chopped garlic and let cook until the onion softens. Add crushed tomatoes, sweet paprika, rosemary, lemon balm, and thyme and let simmer 10-15 minutes. Serve over the rice.

Friday: Strawberry rhubarb compote

Andrea and I independently ran across nice-smelling strawberries at the Coop and bought a box, so we had "too many". Fortunately for us (who knows what we would have done otherwise!) there was rhubarb in the fridge and I had just seen a really nice sounding recipe for strawberry rhubarb compote on Food52.

I was going to say that I stuck more or less with the recipe, but I guess I didn't: I substituted lemon zest for orange zest and used riesling (a couple good splashes) instead of rose. Instead of simmering for a long time, I did it in the microwave: one minute at a time, stirring after each minute, until the rhubarb was soft, 6-8 minutes total. I could see the orange zest being better than lemon, but the riesling was a great complement to the really aromatic strawberries, plus its acidity was a nice balancer.

Very nice stuff.

Friday: Steak and potatoes

It's not all that often that we do steak and potatoes, but that's what needed to be eaten, so we forced ourselves to eat it. ;-)

For the potatoes: peel and slice (1/2cm) some potatoes. Cook with a bit of salt in clarified butter over medium-high heat until nicely browned.

For the tomato sauce: cook finely chopped shallot in neutral oil until it softens. Add crushed tomatoes, minced chipotles, oregano, salt, and black pepper. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

For the steak: season it well and then sear in butter.

Serve the steak on top of the sauce with the potatoes beside. Top everything with chives and serve with a lemon slice.

We ate this together with a big salad.

Tuesday: beef and broccoli

There was plenty of broccoli in the biokiste, pairing it with beef seemed almost too obvious.

Cut some thin steaks into bite-sized pieces. Sear them in neutral oil and then set aside.

Stir fry onion, broccoli, and diced kohrabi (it was in the fridge). Set aside.

Stir fry garlic, ginger, garlic-bean paste, and black beans (soaked in sherry and then drained) until aromatic. Add the vegetables and sherry from the black beans along with a bit of black vinegar and enough water to make a sauce. Add corn starch slurry to get the sauce to the texture you want. Just before serving add the beef and let it heat through.

Serve with short-grain rice.

Monday:southeast asian noodle salad

We grabbed a pre-made asian noodle salad for our hiking trip on Saturday and that gave me a powerful craving for a self-made one. :-)

Soak rice vermicelli in warm water until soft.

Combine chopped scallions, garlic, minced ginger, minced lemongrass, minced chili, chopped cilantro, lime juice, sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, a bit of black vinegar, and black pepper.

Cut a kohlrabi and a couple of carrots into threads. Microwave just long enough to remove the raw taste of the kohlrabi, combine with the scallion mixture.

Add chicken thigh and leg meat (cooked, of course), chopped into matchsticks.

Add the noodles and mix everything well. Let stand for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Adjust the levels of lime, fish sauce, soy, and sugar to get it where it should be.

Serve on a bed of lettuce, topped with peanuts and more cilantro.

Sunday: broiled chicken, chard with olives and capers

To use up the chard in the fridge, I used a recipe from food52 that sounded pretty good. To go with it I broiled some chicken leg quarters (seasoned with salt, pepper, and piment d'espelette).

The chard was ok, but it somehow didn't really come together. I guess I prefer the version that's stewed with crushed tomatoes and lemon zest.

Saturday: quick lamb stew

Idea and recipe outline from the JPFF2 episode (don't have the book, but I watched the episode).

Slice fennel and onion with the ceramic slicer. Cook over medium-high heat with some water for a few minutes. Add sliced mushrooms, crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Cook another 5 minutes or so.

Cut boneless lamb into 2cm pieces. Season well and cook in a mixture of olive oil and butter over high heat until well browned, but still rare. Combine the lamb with the rest of the stew, and adjust seasonings.

Serve over basmati rice, topped with crushed almonds, parsley, and a bit of chive.

Thursday: scallops and roasted potatoes

I found some nice-looking scallops on sale and did them really simply:

fry some bacon in a heavy pan and then set aside. Add a bit of butter and the seasoned scallops. Brown well on both sides and serve topped with crumbled bacon and some coarsely chopped pistachios.

We ate these together with oven-roasted new potatoes and a big green salad and were not unhappy about it at all.

Wednesday: Celery-ham tower

What to do with the celery roots in the fridge? What to do? Ah! got it!

Peel a celery root and slice it into 1/2 cm slices. Steam those until almost tender. Layer the seasoned slices with some good smoked ham. Top the towers with Gruyere and piment d'espelette. Bake at 175C until the cheese is brown and bubbly.

Very simple, but a really good combination of flavors.

Sunday: Krapfen/Empanadas/Pasties/whatever

We got the first eggplant of the year in the biokiste and I ran across a recipe in Le Menu that looked like a good way to use it: Krapfen with a quark-heavy dough filled with eggplant, tomatoes, cheese, and fresh herbs. I added leeks to the filling and used a hard cheese instead of goat cheese, but otherwise I didn't monkey too much with the recipe.

Since the eggplant was small, I did a second filling: ground beef browned and then cooked with garlic, onion, paprika (sweet and hot), coriander, a bit of ketchup, and tomato paste.

Both types ended up being really good and making a series of nice meals.

Saturday: Kohlrabi and lentils

An idea from Le Menu to use up kohlrabi: Cook some small lentils in boiling water until they're ready to eat (~30 minutes), halfway through add some vegetable bouillon. Combine finely chopped lemon balm and chervil, chopped garlic, light cream, and salt and let simmer gently for a while. Peel some kohlrabi and slice 5-7mm thick. Saute these in butter until cooked through and lightly colored on both sides. Serve by layering the kohlrabi and lentils on a layer of the sauce; top with more herbs for color.

Friday salad

A quick one at the end of a warm day: a bed of dressed lettuce surrounded by diced cheese, olives, broad beans, strips of siedfleisch, thinly sliced speck pieces, grated carrots dressed with lemon vinaigrette, and steamed kohlrabi sticks. Served with good bread.

Sunday breakfast: savory french toast

Another breakfast idea from Food52 that had to be tried: salt and pepper french toast.

In addition to the sriracha ketchup, we also tried these with raclette spices and Old Bay. Both worked well.

Sunday salads

A variety of salads to go along with the hot weather and use up leftovers from grilling.

1. Grilled peppers and green onions, macaroni, lemon vinaigrette.
2. Potatoes from the hobo pack served at room temp tossed with the remaining baerlauch pesto and some additional olive oil
3. Salt cod, broad beans, tomatoes, olives, red onion, parsley, red wine vinegar, olive oil (recipe from La Cucina de Mama)
4. A standard green salad.

Saturday at the Grill

Last night's grilling:

1. Grilled peppers tossed with grilled spring onions. Served with a lemon vinaigrette
2. Grill-roasted asparagus also served with the lemon vinaigrette
3. Hobo pack with potatoes, onions, garlic, piment d'espelette, salt, and pepper
4. A ribeye on the bone, seasoned with salt, pepper, and coriander. Served with a "pesto" made from baerlauch, toasted almonds, and olive oil.

Saturday breakfast: a pancake experiment

I found this intriguing pancake recipe a week or so ago (just the picture is enough to make me want to make it!). Yesterday I got around to trying it.

My mods to the recipe were to use less butter and add a pinch of salt to the batter. Since lumps in pancakes drive me nuts, I ran the batter through a strainer.

This definitely won't be the last time we have this for breakfast. mmmmmmm

Wednesday: rice and peas, spicy sauteed spinach

Another simple one:

Sautee chopped leek in olive oil. When it softens, add young spinach and a good pinch of salt. When the spinach shrinks a bit, add a couple good pinches of ras al hanout. A couple of minutes before serving, add some coarsely chopped lemon balm.

Meanwhile cook some basmati rice and, when it's almost done, top with some frozen peas.

Serve the spinach with the rice.

Sunday: Garbage rice

[trying to get back into the rhythm of posting regularly]

This is another one of those recipes driven to use up whatever is in the fridge.

Dice some bacon and get it browning in olive oil. Add whole cumin seeds and toast a couple minutes. Add 1.5 cups of short-grain rice, stir to coat, and cook a few minutes. Add grated yellow carrot, grated parsnip, chopped garlic, chopped spring onions that have been under the broiler until they take on some color, plenty of minced thyme, and chopped orgegano. Cook another couple minutes. Stir in a mixture of hot and sweet paprika, black pepper, salt, and freshly ground coriander. Add 1 cup each tomato puree, sherry, and water. Bring to a boil. Cover and put in a 175C oven for 15 minutes. Let rest 5-10 minutes. Serve drizzled with olive oil and topped with a mixture of minced parsley, rosemary, garlic, and lemon zest with a lemon wedge on the side.

Together with a big green salad this made for a good meal (and it really helped reduce the quantities of fresh herbs in the fridge!).

Another Grillfest

For this one I did a collection of recipes from Let the Flames Begin. I haven't used that so much in the past, so it was a lot of fun to go through and pick out new recipes and ideas.

The doings:

1. Chicken wings southeast asian style: coated with coriander, salt, and pepper; grilled; tossed with chile-bean paste, sriracha, lime, cilantro, mint, basil, sesame oil; served with a peanut-ginger-soy dipping sauce
2. Grilled buffalo wings, twice re-imagined: coated with curry powder, salt, and pepper; grilled; tossed with oregano, garlic, white balsamico, olive oil; served with a gorgonzola, sour-cream, olive oil dipping sauce.
3. Grilled potato steaks with sour cream, bacon, and chives
4. Siedfleisch marinated with parsley, garlic, and olive oil; grilled; served with red onions killed and then tossed with corandier, white vinegar, and olive oil.
5. Black bean, pineapple, chipotle salad.
6. Dessert: slightly sweet drop biscuits topped with a compote made from rhubarb, grated fresh ginger, and candied ginger.

Definitely some good stuff.

Saturday at the Grill

A couple friends came over to celebrate the summer-like weather. Here's what I did:

1. Shrimp : shell-on shrimp marinated with lime, coriander, cumin, and Old Bay, grilled on skewers, then tossed in a bowl with some more lime juice and another shake of Old Bay.
2. Pork: a faux filet marinated with lemon, minced garlic, and olive oil, grilled whole, and then sliced and tossed with a bit more olive oil and lemon juice
3. Chicken: chicken breasts grilled whole then sliced and tossed with pesto (no parmesan) and a bit of balsamico
4. Grilled salad: peppers and zucchini
5. Beets: diced, steamed, tossed with oil, balsamico, rosemary, salt, and white pepper
6. A big green salad.
7. Dessert: vanilla pudding topped with stewed rhubarb

The pudding didn't set up at all (I guess I didn't get it hot enough after adding the corn starch), so we had it as a dessert soup instead, but otherwise everything was quite nice.

Monday: pesto

There's still basil in olive oil in the freezer from last summer; that's an easy one to use: pesto!

To go with it I did a beet salad by tossing steamed diced beets with olive oil, feta cheese, white pepper, and piment d'espelette.

We also had thick slices of smoked ham that I quickly pan fried.

Friday: Veggie gratin

The usual "let's use up tons of root vegetables" gratin:
thinly sliced celery root, potato, leek, bodenkohlrabi (at least that's what we think it is) and smoked ham with a sauce made from cream, milk, garlic, bay leaf, clove, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a bit of cayenne. Topped with gruyere and then baked 40 minutes covered and 20 minutes open.

good stuff.

Sunday: tacos

On Saturday we picked some corn tortillas up in Zurich, so tacos were a high priority.

The filling: brown some seasoned beef stew meat then set it aside and pour out most of the fat. Add diced onion and mashed garlic, freshly ground cumin and coriander, and some ripped up dried guajillo chiles; cook a few minutes until the onion softens. Add about a Tbs each of ketchup and tomato paste and cook another couple minutes. Return the beef to the pan and add just enough water to about cover it. Cover the pot and simmer for a few hours, until the beef is falling apart. Add a small amount of ground cloves and cinnamon, more cumin, and some freshly ground black pepper and serve.

The baked rice: cook diced onion and garlic with whole cumin until the onion is soft. Add a cup of rice and cook a couple more minutes. Add 2cups water and chopped canned tomatoes along with a tsp of sweet paprika and some chicken bouillon. Bring to a boil, cover, and bake at 175 for 15 minutes then let stand for another 10-15 minutes before serving.

The sides:

• Corn salad: corn, diced red pepper, minced onion, minced garlic, cider vinegar, salt, rape-seed oil, chipotle tabasco, salt
  
• Cole slaw: napa cabbage and shredded carrot with a dressing from mayo, mustard, rape-seed oil, white balsamico, tabasco, salt, ground coriander

Goooood eating

Saturday: pork and beans

Toss some dried white beans, onion, garlic, bay leaf, clove, chicken bouillon, sweet and hot paprikas, black pepper, diced smoked ham, and water in the pressure cooker. Bring to pressure and cook 15 minutes. Serve topped with good olive oil, chives, and parsley.

Wednesday: split pea soup

It's great to have the pressure cooker and be able to do pea soup on a weeknight.

This was the usual: combine peas, onion, diced carrot, bay leaf, chicken bouillon, diced bacon, and herbes de provence in the pressure cooker, bring up to pressure, and cook for 12 minutes. Open the pot, add some wienerli, and cook another couple minutes until the sausage is heated through.

Serve with good bread and a green salad.

Monday: curried vegetable soup

Definitely a garbage soup.

Cook diced onion, leek, celery root, carrot (yellow and orange), potato, and steckrueben in some neutral oil with salt for 10-12 minutes, until the vegetable soften. Add cooked rice, ras al hanout, and sufficient water, bring to a simmer, cover, and let simmer until everything is cooked through. Puree and adjust seasonings.

Saturday: baked sauerkraut with pork

Not the first time we've done this one:
Combine sauerkraut with small-diced bacon, medium diced smoked pork shoulder, and white wine and bake until it's ready.

Serve with steamed potatoes, grainy mustard, cornichons, and a big green salad.

Friday: burgers with baked rice

The burgers were totally basic: beef, salt, minced onion, black pepper.

The rice was derived from the baked rice recipe in La Cocina de Mama; my variation this time was to use ras al hanout.

To go with this we had a salad made from steamed diced beets tossed with sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, and white pepper.

Thursday: pork steaks with cheese and apple sauce

A bit of a random one driven by the boskoop apples in the house along with leftover fondue.

Make the apple sauce: core the apples and slice them (could also peel them, but it's pretty easy to pick the peels out later if you don't mind a "rustic" dish) then toss them in a pot with a bit of butter, cover, and cook over low heat until it turns to apple sauce.

For the pork: season some pork steaks well, sear on both sides in the cast iron, then let rest a few minutes. Serve topped with the reheated fondue cheese.

Together with a big salad, this made for a nice meal.

Wednesday: fondue

It's been a while since we did a fondue...

Once again I did a standard recipe (no need to vary when we do this so rarely): cheese mixture from the place around the corner, garlic, corn starch, white wine, kirsch, black pepper, and nutmeg.

mmmm.

never going to catch up

Been bad about posting lately and I'm never going to catch up, so just some highlights from the past month so I can get started posting again

• Had dinner at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge... mmm, East Coast Grill
• Savory bread pudding with bacon and loads of paprika
• A salad of sliced belgian endive with a creamy, lightly spicy, dressing topped with mandarin segments and peanuts
• curried vegetable soup with ras al hanout
• steak au poivre
  

Sunday: pork and parsnip stew, biscuits

I had a craving for biscuits and a stew seemed like a good accompaniment.

For the biscuits I used the usual recipe from Bittman.

For the stew I used pork shoulder, smoked bacon, some turkey (remainders from the pot pie makings), leek, yellow carrots, parsnips, fennel, white wine, tomato paste, fennel seed, yellow mustard seed, and some beef bouillon.

To go with the rest of the goodness I did a chopped salad with spitzkohl and granny smith apples.

Saturday: Fusion curry + lemon rice

A recipe from Alles Klar that needed to be made: beef filet in red curry with lemon-basmati rice. I pretty much followed the recipe aside from the cooking in jars part... I cooked everything normally. :-)

To accompany I made a salad of chopped napa cabbage, fresh mint, lime juice, fish sauce, and sesame oil.

Really nice food; moving the sour elements from the curry to the rice is an interesting shift.

Friday: turkey pot pie

A simple pot pie:

Brown some diced turkey breast in neutral oil, set aside. Saute sliced leek, chopped onion, diced carrot, celery, potato, and parsnip, and minced garlic in the same pan. After a few minutes add white wine, some chicken bouillon, pepper, rosemary, sage, a bit of oregano, mustard, carrot juice (leftover from last week), and some water. Bring to a simmer and then add corn starch to thicken. Add back the turkey and adjust seasonings. Transfer to serving-size oven-safe containers (I used our french onion soup bowls), top with puff pastry, and bake at 175C until the puff pastry is ready, about 30 minutes.

Together with a big green salad, this made for a really nice winter meal.

Thursday: potatoes cooked with sherry, pork chops

There were a bunch of small potatoes from the biokiste that needed to be used...

Cut some new potatoes in half lengthwise and put them in a single layer in a hot pan with some olive oil. Cook ~5 minutes. Add a good quantity of sherry, salt, cumin, chopped garlic, chopped red onion, cover, and let simmer until the potatoes are done. Serve topped with parsley and chives.

For the pork: season pork loin chops well and pan-fry them. Drizzle with sherry vinegar and olive oil and top with parsley and chives before serving.

Serve with a big green salad.

Tuesday: Beets layered with beef and goat cheese

I'm not really sure where this idea to use up the beef that didn't end up in the hotpot came from, but I'm definitely glad it came.

Make a vinaigrette from sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, ras al hanout, black pepper, a bit of mashed garlic, and a pinch of of brown sugar.

For the beef: cut some steak into 2-4mm slices, sear the slices in a very hot pan, toss them with some vinaigrette and set aside.

For the beets: peel and slice them (1cm thick) and steam until tender.

Layer the sliced beets with, strips of beef, sliced goat cheese (we used a soft cheese with a rind for this), and vinaigrette.

As an accompaniment I made some basmati rice and served it topped with ras al hanout and chopped pistachios. That was a magical combination.

Great food.

Saturday: black-eyed pea soup

When I was growing up we always used to do black-eyed peas on New Years day. I don't always succeed, but I do try to keep doing this.

This year's version was really simple: into the pressure cooker went black-eyed peas, diced onion, diced bacon, chicken bouillon, bay leaf, clove, thyme. After 15 minutes at pressure I served the soup with thinly sliced red onions that I killed with red-wine vinegar, salt, and a bit of brown sugar.

Friday: Szechuan Hot Pot

This seemed like a good one for New Years Eve. As with last time, I stuck reasonably close to the stock recipe in Land of Plenty. This time I strained the stock before putting it on the table - definitely a nice refinement.

Things we had on the table to toss in the hot pot: thinly sliced beef, smoked bacon, strips of chicken breast, spring onions, sliced mushroom, broccoli, carrots.

For dipping sauce(s): soy sauce, sesame oil, black vinegar, garlic.

I also did a salad of very thinly sliced red cabbage, lime juice, sesame oil, fish sauce, salt, and a bit of sugar.

Really good eating.

Thursday: veal and potato hash

The veal breast that I used to make stock on Wednesday couldn't just be tossed out, so I used it to make a quick hash.

Dice some potatoes and cook them over medium-high heat in some peanut oil until they start to get a bit crispy. Add sliced leek, diced red onion, garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, and both sweet and hot paprika, reduce the heat, cover, and cook until the onion is soft. Meanwhile lightly brown some diced cooked veal breast in peanut oil, then add some madeira and let reduce by half. Add some veal stock, cover, and simmer 5-10 minutes. Pour the veal + liquid over the potatoes, mix well, and serve topped with chopped parsley.

Wednesday: big cooking

[well, comparatively big at least...]

I started the day by making a big pot of veal stock for later use and then, for dinner, moved on to two recipes from Alles Klar, neither served in glass, but that's just eye candy. :-)

The orange-fennel-avocado salad:
Slice a small red onion very thinly. Filet a couple of oranges. "Kill" the onions in the juice collected from orange prep along with a bit of white balsamico if needed (this is a deviation from the recipe; I prefer onions that have been tamed a bit in my salads). Very thinly slice some fennel. Dice a ripe avocado. Rip some Thai basil leaves into pieces. Juice and zest another orange (I used lemon zest since we didn't find an untreated orange). Make a vinaigrette from orange juice, some white balsamico, walnut oil (recipe calls for pistachio oil), and the zest. Layer together individual salads from the fennel, oranges, thai basil, avocado, and onion, seasoning and dressing the salad as you build it. Top with a bit more dressing and some chopped pistachios and serve.

For the braised veal with cous cous:
Slice a 500g piece of veal shoulder into 1-1.5cm thick slices (recipe calls for veal cheeks, but I didn't even bother looking for those without having ordered them in advance). Brown well on both sides and set aside. In the same pan cook a mixture of leek, carrot, and celery root (all cut into thick matchsticks) with some minced garlic for 5-10 minutes. Add a Tbs of tomato paste, a bay leaf, a cinnamon stick (broken in half), and a good Tbs of ras al hanout and cook another couple of minutes. Add 100ml of madiera and 125ml of white wine and let bubble a minute or so. Add 200-300ml of veal stock and let bubble another couple of minutes. Put the veal in a coverable casserole, pour over the vegetables and sauce, cover, and bake at 160C for about 1.5 hours. 10 minutes before serving prepare the cous cous: bring 180ml of carrot juice to a boil, remove from the heat, add 100g cous cous, mix well, cover, and let stand 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and olive oil and mix well. Serve the veal+vegetables+sauce over the cous cous.

Both of these dishes were really, really good.

Some notes:

• The orange+thai basil flavor combination is one to remember, particularly with fennel.
• We've got plenty of ras al hanout left; this is going to be a fun one to play with over the next couple of months.
• Cooking the cous cous in the carrot juice gives it excellent color as well as making it more interesting to eat.
  

Nanorestaurant review: Kohlmanns (Basel)

One smiley face; we'd consider going back for drinks and apps, but not a meal.

• Food: A few of the apps (served in glass jars) were quite good, but the main dishes were disappointing, particularly at the price level.
  
• Service: Good
  
• Atmosphere: Modern, but somehow pretentious.
  

Monday: Lentil stew

A good one for a cold day!

For the meatballs:
Coarsely grind 350g pork shoulder with 80g smoked bacon, add 2tsp salt (note, this is too much, see below) and a couple good grinds of pepper, mix well, and let everything sit in the fridge for a couple hours before forming small meatballs.

These were originally intended to be done as a sausage and in bigger pieces, but they are way too salty for that, so I did small meatballs and cooked them a bit longer in the unsalted soup to calm things down a bit.

For the soup:
Cook a mixture of green and yellow lentils in water together with a couple bay leaves and a clove or two. After about an hour add some biotta (mixed vegetable juices) and some more green lentils. Saute some small diced carrot (yellow and orange), with finely diced onion and minced garlic in olive oil and add to the soup together with the meatballs. Cook for another hour or so.

Serve the soup topped with fresh horseradish grated on the microplane and mixed with sour cream. Have good bread available and the obligatory green salad.

Thursday: Baked rice and vegetables and some fantastic beets.

Grate a yellow carrot, an orange carrot, a small bulb of fennel, and a medium-sized onion on the box grater. Cook 1.5 cups of risotto rice in 2 cups salted water for a few minutes. Stir in the grated vegetables along with a good amount of sweet paprika. Cover and bake at 175C for 30 minutes. Remove the cover, top with grated cheese (I used a mixture of mountain cheeses), and bake for another 20 minutes or so, until the cheese is brown and bubbly.

For the beets: Peel and dice (1-1.5 cm) a couple good-sized beets. Steam them until they're tender. While still warm toss with freshly-squeezed orange juice, rapeseed oil, salt, a bit of garlic (mashed to a paste), and freshly ground fennel seed. Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.

The baked rice was good, but the beets were the real star.

Wednesday: chicken baked on sauerkraut

This is one I've done before. The only difference this time is that I used piment d'espelette instead of raclette spices.

Tuesday: Bratkartoffeln with merguez

We had some merguez leftover from the weekend and combining it with potatoes seemed like a natural:

Peel some potatoes and slice them about 1/2cm thick. Toss them in a pan with some oil and a pinch of salt and cook them, covered, over medium high heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring only a few times. The potatoes should have some color and be heading towards cooked. Add some thickly sliced onion and cook another 5-10 minutes, again stirring only a few times. Finally add sliced merguez and some sweet paprika and let the sausage heat through.

Sunday: beans and stuck-pot rice

For the beans: Cook soaked blackeyed peas together with diced bacon, onion, garlic, bay leaves, cloves, and black pepper until they start to get tender. Add chicken bouillon and finish the cooking.

For the rice (method from Bittman): cook rice (we were out of basmati, so I used japanese short-grain instead) in a lot of boiling salted water for 5 minutes; pour into a strainer. Melt some butter in a pan and add a layer of rice. Top with diced merguez and thinly sliced onion, then with the rest of the rice. Add a splash of water and then cover with a towel-covered lid. Let cook over medium-high heat for ~5 minutes, then reduce the heat to low and let cook for another 40 minutes. This would have been better with basmati (of course), but it was still mighty good.

As a side: cook a diced onion in olive oil for a couple minutes, add chopped savoy cabbage, diced dried tomatoes, and a good pinch of salt. Cover and let cook until it's ready to eat.

Saturday: Pizokel

This seemed like a nice way to use up some of the savoy cabbage we had in the fridge.

Cook diced onion and yellow carrot in some rapeseed oil for a few minutes. Add diced bacon and chopped cabbage and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Set aside in a covered dish. Brown some sliced sausage (I used a smoked sausage) in the same pan and add to the dish with the vegetables. Add a bit more oil to the pan and cook some spätzli over medium-high heat until they take on some color and get a bit crispy. Add the vegetables and sausage back along with a splash of cream, mix well and cook for another couple minutes then serve.

As a side I did basic steamed beets: diced, steamed, tossed with salt, white pepper, olive oil, cider vinegar.

Wednesday: pasta with peppers and cheese

A quick one:
Cook a diced onion and some chopped garlic in olive oil for a few minutes. Add roasted peppers (these were ones from the biokiste that I processed and froze a couple months ago) that have been cut into strips, fresh thyme and rosemary, salt, and a good grind of black pepper. Let cook another few minutes. Add pasta (we used whole-wheat cellentani), a bit of cream, and some grated cheese (mixture of swiss hard cheeses) and mix well. Serve sprinkled with some raclette spices and black pepper.

Monday: chicken with squash

Something of an improv:

Bone a couple chicken leg quarters and dice the meat (1cm dice). Brown well in olive oil. Add chopped garlic and diced onion and cook until the onion starts to soften. Add cumin seeds and diced butternut squash and cook until the cumin is aromatic. Deglaze with sherry and let that mostly evaporate. Add some tomato paste, a bit of ketchup, chicken bouillon, and some black pepper, bring to a simmer, and let cook until the chicken and squash are ready to eat, about 20 minutes. Serve topped with toasted almond slivers.

We ate this very nice dish with rice (parboiled + wild) and a big green salad.

Sunday eggnog

We did an early Christmas dinner with some friends last night and it somehow seemed appropriate to bring eggnog with us. Since this is a traditional thing, I used a recipe from my grandmother's copy of the Joy of Cooking:

Beat 6 egg yolks until they lighten. Beat in half a cup of sugar. Beat in 2 cups of heavy cream. Add 2 cups milk and then a cup of bourbon (the recipe called for brandy, but I'm sure my grandmother would have used bourbon). Beat 4 egg whites to stiff peaks with a pinch of salt and then mix them into the rest. Serve topped with grated nutmeg.

mmmmm is that good stuff.

Saturday: gruenkohl and sausage

This week's biokiste included Grünkohl (pretty much collard greens). We generally don't get much of this, so a traditional prep is a good place to start:

Heat smashed garlic cloves in rapeseed oil until they take on some color. Add finely chopped Grünkohl, diced potato, and a good pinch of salt and cook for 5-10 minutes, until the color of the greens deepens. Add a bit of chicken bouillon, top with a smoked sausage (saucisson neuchateloise), cover and let simmer 20-30 minutes, until the greens are ready to eat.

Serve with mustard, maggi, and a big green salad.

Friday: Rosti and fish

For the rösti the usual prep: raw potatoes grated and then wrung out to get them as dry as possible, cooked in clarified butter. mmmmm

For the fish: cut a cod fillet into serving-size pieces. Season with salt and piment d'espelette, then place in a hot oiled pan. Top with a breadcrumbs that have been mixed with olive oil, salt, and piment d'espelette. Place tomato halves, cut-side down, next to the fish pieces. After a few minutes of cooking, flip the tomato pieces so the cut side is up, season them, transfer the pan to a 150C oven until the fish is cooked through. Serve with lemon.

Tuesday: risotto

We had a small head of radicchio in the box and this seemed like the obvious way to use it.

Cook diced carrot and onion in olive oil until the carrots soften a bit. Add rice and cook until it smells toasty. Add white wine and let it mostly reduce off. Add chopped radicchio and do the stirring thing with beef broth. Just before serving add some grated parmesan.

Serve with leftover brisket from the pot au feu.

Sunday: pot au feu

Really a two day prep:
Make a beef broth from a piece of brisket, some bones, carrot, onion, celery root, bay leaf, cloves, some fennel seed, and black pepper. Set the brisket aside and strain the broth. Let the brisket cool in the broth then skim the fat.

Set the brisket aside and add to the broth: sliced horseradish, carrot chunks, diced celery root, potato pieces, pieces of savoy cabbage, and salt. Try to add things such that they'll all be cooked at the same time. Just before serving thickly slice the brisket and add to the broth to heat through. Serve with freshly grated horseradish mixed with sour cream, black pepper, and maggi.

Saturday: bean burritos of a sort

For the beans: rinse black beans and toss in the pressure cooker with diced smoked bacon, diced onion, garlic, ground coriander, ground cumin, a bay leaf, and whatever else looks good. Add water, seal, bring to a boil, cook at pressure for 15 minutes. Let cool off heat.

For the rice: cook diced onion and garlic in olive oil. Add ground cumin and coriander, rice, and some tomato paste and cook a few more minutes. Add water and chicken bouillon, cover, and let cook until done. Raising the heat at the end to get a bit of crust on the bottom isn't bad.

For the way-out-of-season salsa: coarsely chop a tomato and combine with garlic paste, minced onion, minced cayenne (dried), salt, sweet paprika, white balsamico, and a small amount of normal balsamico. Let stand at least 30 minutes.

Make burritos with beans, rice, salsa, canned corn, and sour cream.

To go with this I did a cabbage salad by tossing shredded savoy cabbage with salt, ground coriander, white balsamico, and a bit of rapeseed oil and letting it marinate for a good while.

Friday: First Fondue

First fondue of the season. Woo hoo! :-)

Standard preparation: cheese from the place on Spalenberg, garlic, white wine, kirsch. Peppermint tea as a drink and big green salad as a side.

Wednesday: creamy chicken-cabbage soup

After the big cookie making we ended up with some egg yolks that needed to be used up. Combined with the usual desire at this time of year to make soup, this lead to a soup with an enriched base:

Cook some diced carrots, onions, and garlic in a bit of neutral oil until the carrots start to soften. Add savoy cabbage that's been cut into strips and mix well. Add good chicken stock, a clove, a bay leaf, and some fresh thyme and bring to a simmer. 10 minutes before serving stir in some chicken breast that's been cut into strips. 5 minutes before serving combine egg yolks with some light cream and whisk in some of the stock. Add to the rest of the soup and reduce the heat. Just before serving grate in some fresh nutmeg.

Serve with good bread and a pepper grinder on the side.

Nice, nice stuff

Sunday: chipotle-glazed ham on roasted vegetables

A random Sunday idea for the boneless smoked ham we picked up on Saturday.

Bring some apple juice to a boil, add a few chipotles. When the chipotles are soft, fish them out, puree them, then add the puree back to the apple juice. Continue reducing until you have a glaze. Add some fresh lemon juice.

In the meantime: cut up potato, leek, celery root, and carrot and toss with some salt, sweet paprika, cumin, coriander, black pepper, and peanut oil. Add some chicken stock and bake at 175C for 10-15 minutes. Place the ham on the bed of vegetables, brush with the glaze, and put back in the oven. Bake another 20-30 minutes, glazing every five.

Serve slices of ham drizzled with a bit of the extra glaze.

A bunch of Christmas cookies

Yesterday, together with the first snow here in Basel, we made a batch of Christmas cookies so that we're prepared for the season. We did Zimtsterne (Kaltenbach), Totenbeinli (Le Menu), Gewurz Sables (Le Menu), and Schokomakronen (Andrea's mother). Recipes are below

We ended up with quite a spread:
Should last a few days at least. :-)

Schokomakronen
100g hazelnuts, toasted in a heavy pan, peeled, and coarsely chopped
100g almond slivers
2 egg whites
75g sugar
200g dark chocolate (we used 60%)

Whip the egg whites to soft peaks, add the sugar, and whip to stiff peaks.
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, mix in the nuts, and let cool a bit.
Fold the egg whites into the chocolate.
Drop spoon fulls onto baking parchment and then bake at 150c until they're done (10-15 minutes?).

Zimtsterne
2 egg whites, beat to stiff peaks with a pinch of salt
250g sugar
1 Tbs cinnamon
250g ground almonds (I used 200g ground almonds, 30g flour)
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp minced lemon zest

Add the sugar and cinnamon to the beaten egg whites and stir for a few minutes (supposed to be 10...). Set aside 5Tbs to use as a topping (I forgot to do this).
Add the other ingredients to the egg whites and mix to form a even dough. Let this rest 15 minutes.
Roll the dough out to the thickness of a pencil on a surface covered with sugar.
Cut out star shaped cookies and place them on parchment-covered baking sheets.
Let rest 30 minutes.
Top with the reserved egg whites (if you remembered to reserve any).
Bake at 200C for 6-8 minutes. They're better when chewy, so don't bake too long.

Gewurz Sables
125g butter, softened
50g raw sugar
1tsp vanilla sugar
a pinch salt
2-3 Tbs water
200g flour
1 Tbs cinnamon
1 Tbs cardamom (1-2 tsp would have been better)
1 Tbs ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Beat the butter until it forms peaks.
Add the sugars, salt, and water and beat a bit more
Sift in the flour and spices and work into a smooth dough.
Form a 3cm roll, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest in the fridge for an hour.
Cut 5mm thick slices and put on a parchment-covered baking sheet.
Bake at 200C for 20-12 minutes.

Totenbeinli
200g walnuts
100g butter, softened
175g sugar
a pinch of salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
250g flour

Toast the walnuts in a heavy pan until they're aromatic. Let cool and then chop coarsely.
Beat the butter until it forms peaks.
Beat in the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and eggs and beat until it lightens.
Sift in the flour and mix to form a smooth dough.
Add the chopped nuts, then wrap in plastic and let rest in the fridge for an hour.
Roll out to 1cm on a floured work surface.
Cut into 7-8cm strips and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and let rest 30 minutes in the fridge.
Brush with egg yolk, then bake at 180C for 10min. Let cool a couple of minutes, then cut into sticks and bake another 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.

Saturday: baked sauerkraut

We got the first sauerkraut of the season last week and in this month's Le Menu there's a recipe for a sauerkraut gratin. That's a coincidence that's too big to ignore. :-)

Toss rinsed sauerkraut with some leek (cut into thin strips), a bit of diced bacon, and caraway (I didn't actually use caraway since the 'kraut from the biokiste is already seasoned) and pack into a gratin dish. Top with strips of bacon, raclette cheese, and leek rings. Bake at 200C for 15-20 minutes, top with some diced bread and bake another 5-10 minutes until the bread is brown and toasty.

I did this with a pretty aromatic raclette cheese which complemented the sauerkraut very nicely.

Of course we also had a green salad.

Thursday: sauteed vegetables

Once the new biokiste arrived we really needed to clear out some stuff from the old ones. Thus, sauteed vegetables: turnip, carrot, leek, onion, garlic, pumpkin, bacon, thyme, rosemary, black pepper. Served with some raclette spice.

We also had roasted cauliflower and a fennel-orange salad.

Sunday: carrot-ginger soup, horseradish risotto

Another soup: onion, ginger (plenty of it), carrots, potato, and chicken stock. After pureeing it I added orange juice to give a bit more sweetness and some acidity. The combination of the ginger's bite and the OJ was really nice.

Unlike last time I did the horseradish risotto, this time I left out the cream. Though the result was still good, it definitely missed the cream... no big surprise there. :-)

To round out the meal I marinated some chicken breast strips with garlic, fresh thyme and rosemary, salt, black pepper, and white balsamico and then browned them.

Oh yes, and that green salad.

Saturday: Fleischvogel (rouladen) with mashed pumpkin and potatoes

Adapted from a recipe from this month's Le Menu.

Pound out some rindsplätzli to a good thickness. Fill with mustard, bacon, onion, pickle, and leek then roll up and fasten with toothpicks. Brown them nicely in clarified butter then set aside. Add some flour to the pan, cook until light brown, then add white wine, beef bouillon, tomato paste, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer, then add the rouladen, cover, and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

For the mashed pumpkin and potatoes: Steam peeled and coarsely diced potatoes until ready to eat. Cook peeled and coarsely chopped pumpkin in microwave until tender, drain well. Combine potatoes, pumpkin, butter, hot milk, salt, and pepper and mash.

This would have been nicer with butternut or hokkaido, but that's not what we had in the biokiste and the end result was pretty good anyway. :-)

Thursday : mushroom-leek soup

Driven by the mushrooms I found on sale...

Cook some quartered mushrooms in butter over high heat until they take on some color. Add sliced leek and cook a bit longer until the leek softens. Add chicken bouillon, water, a bay leaf, and a couple cloves, and let simmer 15-20 minutes. Puree, add additional butter to taste, and serve sprinkled with a bit of raclette spice.

Together with bread and big salad this made for a nice meal.

Saturday: beans and greans

When there's a big head of escarole in the biokiste, it's almost too easy to decide what to do. :-)

Cook diced onion, diced carrot, and chopped garlic in olive oil until the onions soften. Add fennel seeds and cook another couple minutes, until the fennel is aromatic. Add chopped escarole and some salt and mix well to integrate. When the escarole wilts a bit add diced smoked pork shoulder, lemon zest, and some liquid from the white beans. Cover and simmer until the escarole is ready. Add cooked white beans and cook another couple minutes, until the beans are heated through. Just before serving add some fresh lemon juice to brighten it up. Serve drizzled with some good olive oil.

Definitely happy-making food. The fennel was quite a nice variation on the usual preparation.

Friday: Rösti Zweierlei

Though it looked really nice last time when I combined the potato and beet rösti in one pan, this time I did them separately so that things were properly cooked.

No complaints here. :-)