Summer in Brussels

My neighbours came up with a good solution for the Summer weather we've been having.

Brussels goodies

One week ago I had friends over from the UK, so I stocked up on a lot of goodies from Brussels, before fleeing with them to the countryside. One night we had a big dinner.

One speciality here are 'grijze garnalen', a small type of shrimp. I got a salad with these and another one with crab from a renowned fishmonger. We had this on toast as an appetizer.

One very small hand was tucking in:

As a main course I prepared a chicken stew. I've posted it here before, just used carrots and parsley in stead of Jerusalem artichokes and coriander.

This is what was inside the pot:

And this is what it looked like on a plate:

In Belgium this is the season for strawberries. Labelga brought some along:

I had also gotten ice cream from the adventurous ice cream maker Comus & Gasterea, just around the corner from my appartment in Brussels. His ice cream is excellent, made from top quality ingredients, and he makes strange tastes such as curry, ginger, rose, chocolat sorbet...The owner has a rather oldfashioned approach, so I wasn't surprised not to find a website. I did find a few sites mentioning him though, such as this article in the newspaper Le Soir.

I went for classics: vanilla,

strawberry


and mango.

Everything met with success ;-)

Thank you labelga for all the pics!

Old books and bluebell forest

On April 13th I went to visit a library of old books and made a few snaps.

The first ones are miniatures from a manuscript of a medieval religious song book.

The next ones are from a book by Dodoens describing herbs en vegetables: fennel

I particularly like this one of the 'patissons':

and this one is garlic:

After this visit we had lunch on a sunlit terrace - we've been having Summer in Belgium during April. Labelga from Leafy Cooking had invited us over; you can see one of the delicious dishes she prepared that day on her blog.

After that we went to the Halle forest. At a very specific moment this becomes very spectacular with a carpet of bluebells. As you can see in the pics, we went at exactly the right moment.


Our next stop was a landmark in Brussels: the ice cream maker Zizi. One of my favourite spots.
We finished with a bottle of champagne, an appropriate ending for a day like this...

Ricotta artichoke pepper and bacon tart

Finally I'm back to blogging. But without recipes for the time being.
Yesterday I made this tart. I bought a pastry, spread it in a baking dish, spread some ricotta on top, then added yellow pepper; small, young artichokes - which my mother brought from her garden; she told me Italians eat them raw like that but I preferred to bake them - one shallot; some smoked bacon - all of this finely chopped -, a little olive oil and pepper & salt.
I baked this for 30 min in the oven at 200°C.

Today I also made a simple soup: onion, shallot, carrots, leek and potato, according to my basic soup recipe.

Shallot tart

I like dishes with lots of onions or shallots.


Puff pastry
500 g shallots, peeled and sliced
red wine or red wine vinegar
vegetable or chicken stock
200 g smoked bacon, in small cubes
125 g mozzarella, in cubes
1 tbsp sugar
butter

Fry the shallots for a few min. in butter.
Add sugar and fry this for 1-2 min.
Add a little wine (or wine vinegar) and top up with stock; the shallots should be just covered.
Add very little or no salt.
Let it simmer for 30 min. until the shallots are cooked and all liquid has evaporated.
Roll out the puff pastry in a baking tin, add bacon and mozzarella, put the shallots on top.
Bake this for 30 min at 200 °C.
I served it with a salad of mixed lettuce, raw fennel and roast pine nuts, seasoned with gomasio, pepper and olive oil.

Note:
I used red wine, it's delicious.
I sliced the shallots but you can also leave them whole.

Butter bean casserole

I ate a lot at restaurants lately and then I got fed up, so yesterday I bought a lot of vegetables and cooked myself a meal again. I decided to try butter beans. I researched a few recipes and came up with this simple dish. No quantities recorded, so use your experience ;-)


butter beans, rinsed and soaked overnight
green celery, washed
mushrooms, washed and cut into pieces
runner beans (? the green ones), washed and cleaned and cut into pieces
1 potato, peeled and cut into pieces
shallots, peeled
garlic cloves, peeled
parsley
pepper and salt
bean herb??? (in French: sarriette)
olive oil

Rinse the butter beans, add fresh water and bring them to the boil. Let them boil vigorously for 10 min. without cover. Add a few stalks of celery and of parsley, 2 whole shallots, a few garlic cloves and peppercorns. Bring to the boil again, then lower the heat, cover the pan and let the dish simmer until the beans are soft. This takes 1h - 1,5h.
Pour off the liquid and collect it in a pan. Remove celery etc., just keep the beans.
Cut a few more shallots into pieces and fry them a few min. in olive oil on medium heat. Add celery, cut into pieces and fry a bit more. Then add mushrooms and fry 1 min more. Then add runner beans, potatoes and butter beans. Cook this mixture for 5-10 min in a covered pan on medium heat.
Meanwhile heat the stock that you collected from boiling the butter beans. When it's boiling, add it to the vegetables. Bring to the boil, add salt, lower the heat, cover the pan and let this simmer for around 45 min. Add some chopped parsley during the last min.

A day out in Antwerp

Last Saturday I went to Antwerp. To start with, we went to see an exhibition of Flemish paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts.
After that we were pretty hungry and went to a fantastic Japanese place nearby, Izumi.

Edamame, boiled fresh soy beans, is something that I learned to eat with my sister at her favourite Japanese restaurant in London.

I was curious about this spinach with sesame seed and it was delicious!

Of course we had miso soup.

We also tried fried chicken

and fried tofu.

Never had this before: gyoza, a kind of dumpling, first steamed I guess and then fried...just gorgeous!

And we also had some sushi.


After this terrific meal we took a little digestive stroll and came across a few beautiful buildings.




Nearby we discovered a cook's walhalla: a bookshop only with cookbooks!! We couldn't believe our eyes. The selection was incredible, we just didn't know where to look. Because we still wanted to do some shopping and we didn't want to carry heavy books, we took the wise decision to come back later.
Then we did some serious clothes shopping, after which we needed a rest, so we went to the bar of the Fashion Museum.

We continued our shopping until the stores closed and then we needed a drink.

We ordered negroni's. They didn't quite look like the ones we had in the north of Italy, but they tasted good!

Minestrone

I am definitely a big soup fan. I like the simple soups that you prepare in no time but also the ones that simmer for hours and can be served as a main course. My mother used to make a traditional type of minestrone with white beans and tomatoes and bacon, which I might post one day. But some time ago I made a different type, based on a recipe from Emmanuela Stucchi's 'Italian vegetarian cooking'. I changed the ingredients a bit and of course I added Jerusalem artichoke. I hadn't gotten round to posting this yet so here it comes. I didn't note the quantities so just use your own judgment.


white cabbage, washed and sliced thinly
leeks, cleaned and chopped
Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and chopped
potatoes, peeled and chopped
celery, cleaned and chopped
peas (I used frozen organic ones)
red kidney beans, soaked overnight

The recipe is very simple: put the beans in a big pot with a lot of water, bring to the boil and let it boil vigorously for 10 min without covering the pot (to remove poisonous traces from the beans). Add the vegetables and salt, bring to the boil again, then lower the heat, cover the pot and let the soup simmer for 1,5 - 2 hours.
Serve with a toast rubbed with garlic, which you put in the plate before adding the soup, and with olive oil and a little parmezan if you like.

Note: the original recipe was with potatoes, peas, cabbage, runner beans, courgettes, cannellini beans and some pasta. It said to serve the soup with pesto.

Vegetable festival

Today I didn't cook anything special but I'm just blogging for the fun of it ;-)
I had yesterday's sweet potato and parsnip soup and a salad of grated (raw) carrot and (boiled) red beetroot, seasoned with pepper, salt, gomasio, lemon juice, olive oil and a little yoghurt.


I also made a pasta with leek, garlic and bacon which I fried in olive oil, and to which I added steamed broccoli. When I was a student my mother bought me a steaming pan with several levels, which I still have and find very handy. So I boiled the pasta in the water and meanwhile steamed the broccoli on top of it.
A simple meal like this can taste real good!

Brussels canal

One sunny winter day I was cycling along the canal in Brussels.

Chicken stew with Jerusalem artichoke

In my previous risotto post I discovered a really nice combination of vegetables and decided to try that with chicken. I must have said before that I looooooove Jerusalem artichoke and it came out terribly well in this dish. I invented the dish, based on a recipe for minty carrot chicken from Claudia Roden's book of Jewish food.



Serves 4

2 onions, peeled and chopped
12 chicken wings
700g - 1 kg Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and chopped
2 cups of peas (I used organic frozen ones)
lots of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
1 tsp turmeric
pepper & salt
sunflower oil

Fry onions in oil on low heat until they are soft and golden. Add turmeric and stir it. Raise the heat a little and add the pieces of chicken. Season them well with pepper and salt. Fry for 5 min, turn around, season again and fry the other side for 5 min.
Transfer the chicken to a big cooking pot, add boiling water, add the vegetables and if necessary some more salt. Chicken and vegs should be just about covered with water.
Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let the dish simmer for 15 min, half covered with the lid. Remove the lid and let it simmer for 20-30 min, until the Jerusalem artichokes are soft. Add the coriander in the last 5 min of cooking.


I served this with basmati rice and a little side salad with lettuce, red beetroot, parsley and gomasio. My guests loved the meal. They were my neighbours who are going to move soon and whom I will miss a lot! They took the pictures which I really like.

Parsnip and sweet potato soup and other soups

I love soup and I was inspired by this combination of vegetables in labelga's post on March 6.
My basic method for soup is: fry chopped vegetables for a few min in oil or butter, add boiling water, bring to the boil. Then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for about 10 min. Not longer, unless the vegetables are not cooked yet. Then mix it with a hand mixer.
This is the method of my mother's housekeeper. She used butter. I usually use olive oil - or sunflower oil when I use Asian spices - but butter tastes nice once in a while. I remember her endives (witloof) soup, delicious! The trick in this recipe is not to boil the soup for very long, so the vegetables keep their flavour.
When my vegetables are about to go off, I often throw them into a soup.

Sweet potato and parsnip soup



1 small onion
2 medium parsnips, peeled and diced
1 big sweet potato, peeled and diced
some leftover lettuce
1 dried small chilli pepper, chopped finely
1/2 tsp ground cumin
vegetable stock
1 tsp butter

Heat the butter and fry the onion and chilli pepper in it on low to medium heat. After 1-2 min add parsnips and sweet potato and cumin. After a few more min add the lettuce and let this shrink a bit. Then add boiling water, stock and salt. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for about 10 min. Mix it with a hand mixer.

I served the soup with sour cream and chopped parsley.

Pumpkin, endives and red pepper soup

This was a combination I once made at a friend's with her leftover vegetables. It turned out really well.
I used these ingredients:

1 small pumpkin, peeled and chopped
2 endives, washed and chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 small potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tsp sugar
2 bay leaves
"herbes de Provence"
olive oil
vegetable stock
pepper & salt

Broccoli and fennel soup

This was another successful combination.

1 onion
1 sprig of broccoli
1 fennel
olive oil
fennel seeds

Blinis

Today two friends came over for lunch. I decided to make blinis. I love them but had never prepared them myself up til now.
We had them with smoked salmon and sour cream of course, and I also served tarama (fish eggs), a sweet potato and carrot ajlouk (see previous post) and a salad with mixed lettuce, rucola, grated carrot, chopped fennel, boiled red beetroot and grilled walnuts. This was accompanied by a little lemon and parsley.
The blini recipe comes from Sarah Brown's Vegetarian Cookbook, which was my cooking bible when I was a student and went through a vegetarian phase.


Serves 4

15 g fresh yeast
1,5 tsp sugar
240 ml warm water
3 eggs
150 g wheat flour
150 g buckwheat flour
pinch salt
butter for baking

Crumble yeast and sugar together, add the warm water and let this stand for 5 min until it gets creamy and frothy. Beat the egg yolks through this mixture.
Mix both flours with the salt. Add the yeast mixture and beat the dough until it looks like a thick cream.
Cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm spot for 1 hour, until the volume has doubled. Beat it down with a whisk or wooden spoon.
Beat the egg whites and add them carefully to the mixture. Let it rise for another 20 min.
Heat a little butter in a pan. Add a tbsp of dough and fry both sides for 2-3 min on medium heat. You can bake 2-3 pancakes at the same time in one pan.
Serve them hot.

Note: I kept the blinis hot in a lightly greased oven dish, covered with aluminum foil. I put this in the oven at very low heat.

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!