Jerusalem artichoke risotto

I often make risotto when I don't have much time or just a few vegetables left.
It's a very simple recipe which you can vary endlessly. And I had forgotten how delicious Jerusalem artichokes are; their flavour comes out really well in this dish.

Serves 2

4-6 Jerusalem artichokes
2 carrots
2 potatoes
1/2 cup green peas
1 onion
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp pine nuts
1 bay leaf
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup rice
3 cups boiling water or vegetable stock

Peel the vegetables and cut them into pieces.
Fry the onion in the oil for a few min, then add pine nuts and other vegetables except the peas. Fry a little more. Add the rice and fry a little more, while stirring frequently.
Add boiling water, peas, salt, parsley and spices. Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and let it simmer on very low heat until all water has been absorbed.

Note
You might add some lemon juice to this combination and maybe a little sugar.
In general, you can also add some white or red wine to risotto.
One day I would like to make a chicken stew with this combination of vegetables.

Cinnamon rolls

Finally I got round to cooking again. February was a very busy and also a sad month.
So I was really glad to get back in the kitchen yesterday. I was inspired by Akemi's recipe of cinnamon rolls.


Dough
400 g flour
20 g fresh yeast
1/2 cup milk
40 g sugar
40 g boter, cut in small pieces and soft
pinch of salt
1 egg + 1 egg yolk

Filling
1 tbsp soft butter
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp sugar (cane, brown, mascovado...)

Put the flour in a bowl and make a small hole in the middle.
Crumble the yeast with your fingers and drop it in the hole. Add 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp milk and a little flour to the yeast and mix all of this together.
Put the bowl in a warm spot, cover it with a kitchen towel and let the yeast mixture rise for 15 min.
Add milk, sugar, butter, egg and salt to the bowl. Mix everything thoroughly with a wooden spoon or food processor until it forms a nice dough.
Put some flour on your workspace and knead the dough on it for 10 min. Drop the dough a few times on the workspace.
Put it back in the bowl, cover again and let it rise for 1-1,5 hr in a warm spot.
Give the dough a punch in the middle and knead it again.
Roll it into a rectangle which is 1 cm thick.
Spread the butter for the filling on it, then sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.
Roll the dough, starting on the longest side of the rectangle.
Cut it into slices of 2-3 cm.
Put those on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Cover it again with a kitchen towel and let it rise for 30 min.
Put a little egg yolk on top of each roll for a nice colour.
Bake it in the oven at 190°C for 15-20 min.

Notes
My rolls were a bit dry. Next time I will roll out the dough a bit thinner, and use bigger quantities for the filling. I might also try another filling e.g. with hazelnuts or poppy seed. Recipes are welcome!

Biologists' dinner

With 4 fellow biology students we started to have dinners together over 10 years ago. The hostess would prepare the main course and the others would bring starters, dessert and drinks. Even though some of us lived abroad for 1-2 years, we managed to keep up the tradition. Recently we've started cooking together in stead of each preparing her own stuff. Today we were on again.


For starters we had a delicious salad with rucola, pomegranate seeds, cucumber and parmezan, with a dressing made from pomegranate juice, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. After that we had an enormous baked dish with fish, leek, onions, garlic and sour cream. The dessert was an Italian rice tart with apples.


Needless to say that after this meal we could do with a little walk in the countryside for digestion!

Beef stew with quince

Another Claudia Roden recipe called khoreshte beh, which stems from Persia.


Serves 6

2 big onions, chopped
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 kg beef shoulder (or other meat for stew), in 2,5 cm cubes
1,5 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1oo g yellow split peas, soaked for 1 hr
2 big quince, washed, without core and cut in big slices (with or without skin)
4 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tbsp sugar

Fry onions in a big pan until soft. Add the meat and fry until it's brown. Add just enough hot water to cover the meat, add spices, pepper & salt, and let simmer for 1 hour.
Add split peas and quince and if necessary more water. Let it simmer for another 30 min, until split peas and quince are cooked. Add lemon juice and sugar 15 min before the end of cooking time.

Notes
You can also use lamb or veal.
I couldn't find the split peas so I used red lentils.
Next time I will fry onions and meat separately, in order to be able to really seal the meat on high heat.
Taste the dish and add more sugar or lemon juice if necessary

Hommos - chick pea spread

Yesterday I had friends over for dinner. As a starter I made hommos, based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver. It's a typical middle eastern dish.


Serves 6

750 g cooked chick peas (drained weight) or 300 g dried chick peas
1/2 tsp cumin seeds, crushed in a mortar
1 tsp red chilli paste (e.g. sambal)
1 garlic clove, crushed
juice of 1-1,5 lemon or 2-3 limes
1 red pepper
3 tbsp pine nuts, roasted
extra virgin olive oil

If you use dried chick peas, soak them overnight in water, then rinse and add fresh water. Bring to the boil, boil uncovered on high heat for 10 min., then cover and let them simmer until they are cooked. This usually takes around 1 hr.
If you buy them boiled, drain and rinse in water.
Crush them in a blender with the lemon juice and some olive oil. Add cumin seed, chilli paste, garlic and pepper and salt. Taste and add some more of any ingredient you think is lacking.
Peel the red pepper. You can cut it in half, remove stem and seeds, put them in a greased oven dish and bake them in the oven for 30 min at 200 °C. Alternatively, you can leave it whole and put it under the grill; let the skin blacken and then turn it over for the next part and so on until the whole skin is black.
When the pepper is baked or grilled, put it in a plastic bag and let it cool for a bit. Then peel it and remove what remains on the inside. The steam in the bag makes it possible to peel them easily.
The flesh should be soft. Cut it in small pieces and add to the hommos.
Decorate the dish with the roasted pine nuts.
Serve with baked pizza crust or pitta bread, cut into pieces.

Notes
You can also add chopped fresh coriander or parsley leaves.
In traditional hommos there is some tahina (sesame seed paste) added. I didn't think of this but I will try it another time.
Claudia Roden keeps the cooking liquid from the chick peas and adds some of this to make the hommos creamy. She also adds red paprika powder.

As a main dish I prepared the spicy lamb and coconut stew (see previous post) and as a side dish spicy root vegetables, another Claudia Roden recipe from her New Book of Middle Eastern Food, posted by labelga. For this last dish I used the original Claudia Roden quantities, perhaps with a bit more Jerusalem artichokes. I left out the chilli pepper since my other dishes were already quite hot. One of my guests suggested the addition of parsnip, which I might try next time.


For dessert I made the Danish apple dessert again (see previous post) and served it with vanilla ice cream. And as a final touch I got some of Brussels best cookies from Dandoy, to go with tea and coffee afterwards.

Today there's finally some sun in Brussels, after weeks of depressing grey and dark winter days. So I had this view while clearing up my kitchen this morning:

You can see the Koekelberg basilique far away in the middle and the white tower on the right is a beautiful concrete church from the 1930's in Molenbeek.

Quinces in wine - cotognata

A few days ago I couldn't resist buying quince (kweeperen, coings, marmelos....). I love this fruit, the smell and flavour are almost like perfume. I meant to prepare a chicken stew with them, but as I already used chicken for the broth, I decided to prepare the quince separately as a dessert.
The recipe by Claudia Roden has already been posted by labelga.


I used red wine, about 200 ml, a cinnamon stick in stead of powder and only 6-7 cloves.
I added a lot of water and also some lemon juice.
When the fruit was cooked, I took it out and left the liquid to cook for another 15 min. It didn't get very sirupy in that time but I like it this way.

Green sauce - salsa verde

This is my favourite sauce. It's like a type of home-made green mustard, served with boiled meat or potatoes. The recipe is Italian.
I make my green sauce based on a recipe from Lorenza de' Medici's 'ITALY The beautiful cookbook'.

Serves 6

50 g parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs, soaked in water and then squeezed
1 clove garlic, crushed
2-3 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1 tbsp capers
1 boiled egg, peeled and finely chopped
1/8 l olive oil, extra virgin
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together except the olive oil. You can use a blender or food processor.
Add the olive oil little by little and incorporate it into the sauce. Maybe you won't need the total quantity mentioned.
Taste it and add some more of any ingredient as you seem fit.

Note: use a very nice quality of olive oil as it determines the taste of the sauce.

Chicken broth

Broth is my favourite dish. My mother used to make it when I was a kid, and I took out the vegetables and ate them first and then slurped the liquid which is so delicious.
Since a few years I've started making my own broth, based on my mother's and her sister's recipe. It's not difficult but you need a lot of time.


Ingredients
1 chicken
2 carrots, peeled and cut in pieces of 3 cm
2 leeks, cleaned and cut in pieces of 3 cm
2-3 branches celery, cleaned and cut in pieces of 3 cm
1 onion, peeled
2 shallots, peeled
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 turnip, peeled and cut in big pieces
1 parsnip, peeled and cut in big pieces
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp dried thyme (or better: a few branches of fresh thyme)
a few branches parsley
2-3 cloves
8-12 black pepper corns
salt

Wash the chicken and put it in a pan with 2-3 l cold water.
Bring this to the boil.
Take off the froth on medium heat during 5-10 min.
Add the vegetables. Stick the cloves in the whole onion before adding it.
Add parsley and herbs. You can bind them together with cooking thread (this is called 'bouquet garni' in French), so they are easy to take out in the end.
Add whole pepper corns and salt to taste.
Bring this to the boil again.
Then lower the heat and leave it to simmer for 2-3 hrs on very low heat.
Take out the chicken, pour the soup through a sieve into another pan and throw the vegetables and everything else that remains in the sieve away.
Take the skin and bones off the chicken and put the pieces of meat away.
Leave the broth to stand in a cool spot overnight.
In the morning, take off the fat carefully with paper towel.
The broth is now ready for use.

I froze half of the broth and made a soup with the rest.
For this I chopped a few vegetables very finely (1 leek, 1 carrot, 1 potato, 1 onion and 1 turnip). I heated the broth until it boiled, added the vegetables and let them simmer on low heat for 10 min.
You can eat the meat cold or put it back in the soup to heat it.

Notes

You can add a little vermicelli or other pasta in the soup.
I also make this with beef in stead of chicken.
Claudia Roden advises to keep the cooked meat in a little bit of broth.

Ginger tea for colds

I'm having a cold, so I make this special tea in the mornings.

1 tsp grated or chopped fresh ginger
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp lemon juice

Pour boiling water over ginger, thyme, rosemary and pepper, which you have put in a tea egg or other type of strainer. Leave this for 5 min. and remove.
Add honey and lemon juice.

Beef curry

My aunt gave me this recipe for a delicious beef curry.


1 kg beef (the kind for stewing, cut into pieces)
2 tsp salt
4 tsp black pepper
400 ml coconut milk
1 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped or grated
3 red chilli peppers
1 tbsp madras curry powder
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 pieces of lemon rind
1 piece of lemon grass
1 tsp ground fennel seed
1 tsp ground cumin

Mix pepper and salt thoroughly with meat.
Heat coconut milk on medium heat and add everything except meat, fennel and cumin.
Boil for 1-2 min., add meat, bring to the boil and then simmer for 2-3 hrs in a covered pan.
Roast fennel and cumin and add it at the end.

Note:
I only used 2 chillies and removed them after 1 hour.
I omitted lemon rind and lemon grass because I didn't have any.
I used normal fennel seed, not ground.
I also added a little water to the coconut milk.
After 2,5 hours I added some chopped potatoes and let the dish simmer until they were cooked.

Meatballs in vegetable sauce

Yesterday I went to see two of my old schoolfriends. My friend suggested to cook together which I thought was a great idea. So we exchanged recipes by email and got our shopping lists organized. And yesterday I took the train to Ghent armed with two cookbooks and a bunch of ingredients.

We made our own version of Claudia Roden's kubba bamia, which are meatballs cooked in a vegetable sauce.



Serves 6-8

500 g minced beef
2 onions
2 tbsp oil (olive oil or other)
2 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
1 small bunch of celery
1 small bunch of parsley or coriander
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp sugar
pepper and salt
1-1,5 kg vegetables such as okra (ladies fingers), courgette & pumpkin

Chop 1 onion finely and add it to the minced beef. Add a little chopped parsley and pepper and salt. Mix this with your hands and make it into small balls.
Fry the other onion in oil until it's golden. Add garlic and fry a little longer. Add the chopped vegetables (including the celery) and fry for a few min. Add enough hot water to let the meatballs boil in it.
Add the meatballs, sugar, lemon juice, chopped parsley or coriander, pepper & salt and let the dish boil. Then lower the heat and let it simmer for about 25 min, until the meatballs are cooked.
We served it with steamed potatoes.

Note: Claudia Roden suggests that you can use other vegetables such as tomatoes and aubergines. Use just one of the vegetables mentioned or just any mixture of them.

For dessert, I made the Danish apple dessert again (see previous post).

At night I went back to Brussels and saw the Michael Franti show, which was just terrific! It was the last concert of the Yell Fire tour in Europe. The band was very animated, the concert was sold out and the whole public was going nuts. After the show, Michael Franti was shaking hands with the fans and even came down in the public. Labelga managed to get hold of his hands twice, wouwww!

Before the concert, labelga brought me one of her juices, made with the recently bought extractor: apple - carrot - mint, yummmmy!

Pumpkin ratatouille

I still had half a pumpkin left, so I made this dish, based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson.


Serves 2-3

1-2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 peppers, one yellow and one red, chopped
2 courgettes, sliced
500 g pumpkin, chopped (weight without seeds or skin)
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp ground coriander
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp sugar

Fry the onion in olive oil for a few min. Add garlic, cumin seed and coriander and fry for a few more min.
Add peppers and fry on medium heat for a few min.
Add pumpkin, courgettes, sugar, pepper and salt and fry for a few more min.
Cover the pan, lower the heat and let the dish simmer for 30-45 min until the vegetables are soft.
One day later, this dish tastes even better!

After the meal, we went to see the Sara Tavares show in Brussels. It was great!

Chicken in coconut sauce

Yesterday my cousin who lives in Tanzania told me she prepares this dish very often there. It's a recipe by Claudia Roden, also called macalcal or masala chicken. I still had one pumpkin left that my other cousin gave me, so I decided to add this.

Serves 6

4 onions, chopped

4 tbsp sunflower or sesame seed oil

6 garlic cloves

7 cm ginger root, crushed or ground

1 tsp turmeric

6 pieces of chicken (e.g. breasts)

salt

a lot of white pepper

500 g potatoes

500 g pumpkin

1 can coconut milk or 75 g santen (creamed coconut)

1 tsp sugar

100 g cashew nuts or almonds

2 tbsp raisins

Fry the onions on low heat in the oil until they are soft and golden.

Add garlic and fry for a few more minutes.

Add ginger and turmeric and stir this.

Add the pieces of chicken and pepper and salt. Fry this a bit and turn the chicken around.

After 5 min, add the potatoes, pumpkin and coconut milk. Add hot water until everything is just covered.

Let the dish simmer for 30-45 min until everything is cooked.

Add cashew nuts or almonds and raisins and heat for a few min.

Spicy lamb and coconut stew

This delicious stew is an Indian recipe from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'. It just has a hint of coconut flavour, very delicate.


Serves 4

500 g onions
3-4 tbsp oil (e.g. sunflower)
1 kg lamb
3-5 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1,5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves (or 2 whole cloves)
3-5 small dried chilli peppers
750 g small potatoes, peeled or washed and cut in big pieces
50 g santen (creamed coconut) or 125 g coconut milk
1,5 tbsp tamarind paste or lemon juice
1,5 tbsp sugar

Cut the onions in rings and halve these. Fry them on low heat in 1-2 tbsp oil until they are soft and golden. Cover the pan and stir regularly to prevent them from burning. This can take 15-20 min.
Clean the meat: cut the skin off and big pieces of fat. Cut the meat in pieces of 4 cm. Fry it on high heat in 1-2 tbsp oil until it's brown on all sides.
Add crushed garlic, cumin and coriander to the onions and cook for a few minutes while stirring. Add the meat to the onions and add hot water until everything is covered. Let this boil.
Skim off the foam and add cinnamon, cloves and chilli peppers.
Cook this on very low heat in a covered pan for 1,5-2 hrs. Remove the chilli peppers.
Add potatoes, santen (cut into pieces) or coconut milk, tamarind and sugar. If necessary add more hot water until everything is just covered. Cook for another 30-40 min. until the potatoes are done. There should be plenty of sauce left.
Serve with rice, chapati's or bread.

Rice flour pudding with coconut

I love puddings with rice flour. Usually I make Claudia Roden's mulhallabeya, with milk, or kheer, with coconut milk.
Today I tried a recipe from Weldon's 'THAILAND The Beautiful Cookbook', called ta-go, from southern Thailand.



Serves 8

Pudding
125 g rice flour
185 g sugar
5,5 dl jasmin water (water with jasmin essence)

Covering
45 g rice flour
5 dl coconut cream
2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt

Mix rice flour and sugar with the water and let it stand for 15 min.
Bring this to the boil and cook it on low heat for 15 min. while stirring continuously.
Divide the mixture in 8-12 small bowls (with a volume of around 1 dl); fill only half of each bowl.
Mix the ingredients for the covering and bring them to the boil. Cook this on low heat for 15-20 min. while stirring continuously. Pour this on top of the first mixture in the bowls and let it cool.
The texture of the top layer should be much thinner than the one on the bottom.

Notes
I didn't find jasmin essence so I used rose water in stead. I added it at the end of the cooking to the first mixture.
For coconut cream you dissolve creamed coconut (santen) in hot water. I wasn't sure about the proportions so I used 100 g creamed coconut in 5 dl water. Afterwards I checked Claudia Roden's instructions and she advises to use 100 g santen with 2,5 dl water to obtain 3 dl. This means I should have used more santen: 170 g in 4,2 dl water.
I was afraid this dessert would be too sweet, so I made it with less sugar. But when I tasted it, it could use more sugar, so it's best to stay with the amount mentioned.
The recipe states these quantities serve 4, but it's very rich so it's better to serve small portions, for up to 8 people.

Before this I had a lamb couscous with a hot sauce and an onion and raisin sauce (confit d'oignon et de raisins secs), from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'. Don't think I will blog it though; the cooking in itself was enough work ;-)

Roast pumpkin

Roasting is my favourite way of preparing vegetables. It gives them a great flavour. I do it with potatoes, carrots, fennel, sweet potato etc. and usually just add some olive oil, salt and rosemary or fennel seeds.
For pumpkin I use this delicious recipe by Jamie Oliver. The nice thing about it is that you don't need to peel the pumpkin, which is hard work sometimes. Depending on the type of pumpkin, you can even eat the skin.

Serves 6

1 pumpkin
2 tsp coriander seed
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp fennel seed
2 small dried chili peppers
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp olive oil

Wash the pumpkin, cut it in halves, remove top en bottom and the seeds. Cut it in wedges of 2,5 cm.
Take all dried herbs and spices and ground them with the salt and pepper in a mortar. Add garlic and mash it together.
Put this mixture in a bowl, add the olive oil and mix well. Add the pumpkin wedges and turn them around until they're all covered with the mixture.
Put them in an oven dish and roast them for 30 min. at 200°C.

Carrot and pumpkin risotto

My cousin J. gave me two beautiful pumpkins from her neighbour's garden, hooray!
Today I used one half for this delicious risotto.
The recipe comes from 'Italian vegetarian cooking' by Emanuela Stucchi.


Serves 4

120g butter
1 small onion, chopped
210 g pumpkin, chopped (weight without skin and seeds)
4 carrots, chopped
2,5 l vegetable stock
400 g Arborio rice
90 g grated Parmezan
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper

Fry the onion in half of the butter until it's transparent. Add pumpkin and carrots and cook for about 30 min. until they are soft. Mash them with a fork.
Add the rice and cook this for a few min. on high heat, while stirring. Add boiling vegetable stock and lower the heat. Let the risotto simmer for 20-40 min. until the rice is done. Stir regularly.
Switch off the heat, add the remaining butter, Parmezan, nutmeg and pepper and salt. Cover the pan and let it stand for 5 min.

Thai pumpkin and coconut dessert

A long time ago, an Indonesian roommate taught me how to cook this simple dessert, which she called kolak.
I also found a recipe in 'THAILAND The Beautiful Cookbook' by Kevin Weldon.
I used palm sugar (gula djawa) which I found in an oriental supermarket but you can use any type of sugar.

Serves 4

5 dl coconut milk
60g sugar
300g pumpkin, chopped (weight without skin or seeds)

Heat the coconut milk with the sugar. When it boils, add the pumpkin and let it simmer for 15 min. until soft. Serve cold.

This is the version from the book. My roommate boiled the pumpkin in water and added a glass of coconut milk in the end.

Bolo de abóbora delicioso - Delicious pumpkin cake

I found this recipe on a Brazilian blog, Pecado da Gula. It reminded me of the carrot cakes (bolo de cenoura) which I had in Brazil. I made it for brunch with my cousins.


80g unsalted butter at room temperature
1,5 cup sugar (240g)
3 eggs
200g pumpkin (weight without skin and seeds)
0,5 cup grated coconut
1,5 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
0,5 cup coconut milk
pinch of salt

1 cup = 200 ml

Chop the pumpkin, cook it until soft with a little water, and at the end let the remaining water evaporate. Mash it and let it cool.
Mix sugar and butter with a wooden spoon until it has a creamy texture. Add egg yolks one by one and keep stirring. Add the mashed pumpkin and stir again.
Add grated coconut and coconut milk.
Mix the flour with baking powder and salt and then add all of this to the mixture.
Beat the egg whites and incorporate them carefully into the mixture.
Grease a cake tin and add the mixture.
Bake it for around 30 min. at 180° C.

Chestnut soup and Danish apple dessert

Today I had lots of time to cook, hooray! So I invented a soup with the last of my chestnuts.


Chestnut soup

Serves 2-3

150 g chestnuts
1 leek, chopped
1 sprig of white celery, chopped
1 small potato, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 tsp. vegetable stock
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 bay leaf
thyme

Peel the chestnuts (see Chestnut and pumpkin pie) and cut them in 4.
Fry the shallot in olive oil for a few min. Add leek, celery, bay leaf and thyme, and fry for a few more min. Then add potato and chestnuts and fry for a few more min.
Add boiling water, vegetable stock, salt and a lot of pepper.
Let the soup boil, then let it simmer on low heat for 15-45 min. until the chestnuts are soft.
The taste is just divine!

For dessert I finished off the apples from my mother's garden with a recipe from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'.


Danish apple dessert

4 apples
175 g sugar
3 tbsp. flour
3 eggs
150g ground almonds
1 tsp. cinnamon

Peel the apples and cut them in pieces. Cook them with a few tbsp. water until they are soft. Mash them with a wooden spoon.
Add 75 g sugar and flour and 2 eggs and cinnamon. Mix this well.
Grease a tin and pour in the apple mixture.
Mix almonds, 100g sugar and 1 egg into a paste.
Rub a little oil (e.g. sunflower) on your hands to avoid that the paste will stick.
Take pieces of the paste and press them flat between your hands.
Cover the apples with these pieces.
Bake in the oven at 180° C for 25 min. until the paste is brown.
You can eat this hot or cold.