Baked apples version 2

I made baked apples before, but this time I used a recipe from Claudia Roden's book of Jewish food.

Serves 6

6 sweet or sour apples
3 tbsp butter
1,5 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp sugar
50 g walnuts, chopped finely
50 g dried raisins


Wash apples and remove the core. Make the opening inside big enough.
Place them in an oven dish.
Mix all other ingredients and fill the openings with the mixture.
Add a tiny bit of water to the dish (1-2 mm).
Bake them in the oven at 160 - 180°C for 45 min - 1,5 hr, until they are completely soft but have not fallen apart.



Note: 180°C was too hot in my oven, next time I will bake them at 160 °C.
I served them with vanilla ice cream.

Lamb stew with Jerusalem artichoke and peas

I celebrated the start of Spring with the first dinner party in my new appartment.

It was a beautiful day and I went to butcher Frank in St-Gillis by bike. The friend who had tipped us on this butcher was there and gave me good purchasing advice and recommended me to the butcher. I took delicious meat home.

The dish I chose comes from the book of Jewish food by Claudia Roden and was inspired by a gift I received from a friend's garden.

Serves 6

1-1.5 kg lamb

3 garlic cloves, chopped finely

4 tbsp oil e.g. sunflower

500 g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled

juice of 1/2 lemon

500 g peas (I used frozen)

Fry the meat in oil until it's brown and add the garlic in the end. Add pepper and salt and cover with hot water. Bring to the boil, then cook on low heat for 1.5 hr.

Add big slices of Jerusalem artichoke, pepper and salt, lemon juice and more water if necessary.

Cook for 15 min and add peas.

Cook for another 5 min.

I served this with steamed potatoes.

Before we had a beef broth with finely cut vegetables and Hungarian soup pasta.

The dessert was baked apples.

The whole menu met with success.

Enlarging my food horizon

In my new life I also get to experience new kinds of food. This work of art was carefully constructed and then devoured.

Roast chicken with fries

This WE we were house-and-dogsitting at my mother's. For city birds like us, it's great to get out to the countryside, and have some space. We took advantage of the facilities and invited family and friends over for a very traditional Sunday dinner: roast chicken with fries and apple sauce. As a kid we had this every Sunday, except for the fries. We used to be a very untypical Belgian family who didn't own a 'friteuse' for deep frying for a very long time.

For starters I prepared soup in an enormous pot, according to my basic soup recipe, using onion, leek, green celery, fennel, broccoli, parsnip and 'knolselder' (root celery, celeriac?).

The fries were freshly cut from potatoes, since someone in my household strongly objects to deep frozen ones.

Some were cut by hand, with a very sharp Japanese ceramic knife

and some using a special tool for cutting fries - I couldn't believe I still could find this in my mother's house after perhaps more than 20 years.

After this the fries were soaked for min. 1 hour. Then they were pre-baked at 170°C, and later properly baked at 180°C. Baking them twice is a secret of Belgian fries.

The chickens were washed and dried. Inside they were seasoned very liberally with salt and pepper, and a little sage and rosemary. You can add a lemon cut in 4 on the inside.

On the outside the skin is loosened a little on top and then you put some sage and rosemary in between the flesh and the skin. These herbs should be fresh or soaked, to prevent the skin from breaking when in the oven. Then rub the skin with olive oil and season liberally again with pepper and salt.

Our helper in the kitchen said it was a pity that the chickens were dead, since they couldn't enjoy the massage any more.

Put them in a 200°C oven for about 15 min. Take them out of the oven, turn them upside down, season the other side and put them back in the oven and lower the heat to 180°C. Reverse them every 15 min and pour some of the juices over the chicken. Total cooking time is about 50 min- 1 hour.

The chicken was served with fries, apple sauce (from my mother's deep freezer ;-) salad and home made mayonaise. It all tasted terrific.

My guests brought cakes for dessert, but I forgot to photograph them. Labelga did though. Cakes on Sunday is also a real big tradition here.

I had also prepared a few healthy appetizers and brought real good pistachioes and fried corn from Istanbul.

To my surprise, the vegetables were very popular with the kids.

After the meal, albeit not without difficulty, we managed to stir ourselves for a walk.

A strange phenomenon was observed.

Thank you all guys for a very cosy afternoon - exactly like a Sunday should be.

Note

For my own records I noted the quantities. We were 9 adults, 2 big children and 3 smaller ones. We had 5 chickens which was a good estimate. We had 6-7 kg potatoes for the fries, which was far too much. 5 kg would have done. One big box of apple sauce would have done, I had opened another one. 2 bags of salad were OK and mayonaise made with 2 egg yolks as well.

Pancakes

I have a legendary pancake recipe, which I got from a cooking course at school when I was 10 years old. I still have the original piece of paper on which I wrote it down. It's a bit worn, so now I want to preserve the recipe here. No pics - but you know what pancakes look like ;-)

500 g flour
5 eggs
1,1 l milk
2 tbsp sugar
2 packets vanilla sugar
butter
pinch of salt

Heat 1 dl milk, 1 big tbsp butter, 2 tbsp sugar, and vanilla sugar, until the butter is molten.
Add 1 l cold milk to this.
Whisk the eggs and add them to the milk mixture.
Mix flour and salt and add eggs and milk. Add some water if the mixture is too thick.
You can let the dough stand for a bit and then it's ready for baking.

Notes
For the quantities: 3 eggs serve 4 people.
You can sieve the flour beforehand if you like.