Moroccan fish dinner

Recently we went out to celebrate the submission of a PhD thesis. We went to a Moroccan fish restaurant, L'Océan (Av. Stalingrad 94 in Brussels, near the South/Midi railway station).

This is the view from the window.

You can choose the fish that you want to eat.

It comes with salad

and paella

and finally the fish appeared too.

Afterwards we got mint tea

and then we still managed a small dessert from the pastry shop next door.

Sublime Turkish dinner

Last Friday we discovered a very refined Turkish restaurant, La Sublime Porte.

We had a delightful mezze for starters.

Then as a main course: lamb,

stuffed chicken,
duck with fruit,
and stuffed vegetables.
This is Picasso's hand ;-)

For dessert we had a type of water pudding with dried nuts

and a sesame mousse.

At the end, Turkish coffee of course.

We had a great evening with our guests from Curaçao: delicious food, good conversation and a pleasant enough temperature to sit outside - which we do appreciate in this Summer with very changeable weather.

Sardines

On Wednesday my friend and me decided to cook together. I felt like eating fish and I still had a memory of delicious sardines from my trip to Portugal. So I went to a Moroccan fishmonger and got sardines that looked really fresh. The man also told me how to cook them in the oven.

Serves 2

10 sardines
2-3 potatoes, sliced very thinly
4-5 tomatoes, partly sliced and partly cut in wedges
bunch of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lemon
olive oil

Take an oven dish and put a layer of sliced tomatoes at the bottom. Add a layer of sliced potatoes. Add pepper & salt and sprinkle garlic and coriander leaves over it. Then put the sardines on top and add tomato wedges and some more garlic, coriander and pepper & salt.
Cut one third off the lemon and squeeze this over the dish. Cut the remainder of the lemon in slices and add them on top. Sprinkle 1-2 tbsp olive oil over the dish. Last but not least add some water, there should be about 0,5 cm in the dish. I wouldn't have thought of that but the fishmonger told me.
Bake in the oven at very high temperature (200 °C or more) for 20-40 min.

This is what the sardines looked like before cooking

and on a plate

We finished the whole dish and licked our fingers!
Afterwards we just about managed to squeeze in a little bit of lettuce

Note: The fishmonger told me that if you cook sardines in the oven, the insides need to be taken out. If you grill them, it's not necessary. He also said that I could substitute the potatoes for carrots. He advised against cooking courgettes with the sardines.

Dinner with a view

Last weekend I was invited for dinner on a terrace of a rooftop appartment in Brussels (St-Gilles). The view was fantastic. Weather had been very changeable in the past days and hours, but we enjoyed the sun all evening.

Preparations in the kitchen

Mmm, nice dinner, hardly anything left to photograph

Dessert was good too

Part of the view. Those who know it can spot my apartment block on the far right. Still not entirely sure where the appartment block in the middle is, on the right of the church spire (nor which church this is). I'll have to go and explore. At the back, a Brussels landmark: the atomium, well worth a visit, especially since it's been renovated with good taste.

Another part of the view

More landmarks: the 'Pensions Tower' next to the South/Midi railway station, with a reflection of the next landmark

the Palace of Justice, of which the dome has been renovated - it's really shiny now - we're waiting for the rest.

St-Gilles town hall

Then the sun went down

Just love this birdie

Sunset over the Brussels skyline

Thanks J. for the invite and the pics!

Vegetables again

Yesterday I prepared a quick dinner with lots of vegetables for my friend who is visiting from Curaçao.


We had a spinach, courgette and bacon tart, sweet potato ajlouk (she calls it pom over there), a salad with red beetroot, sourcream, dill and lemon juice and a fennel salad simply seasoned with lemon juice and olive oil.

For the tart I just steamed the courgettes, cooked the spinach, rolled out a ready made dough, covered it with the vegetables and a bit of smoked bacon and 2 eggs mixed with some sour cream. Baked this for 20-30 min at 180°C.

Walvis

Yesterday we had a quick meal: risotto with broccoli, peas, leek, spring onion, chervil and smoked bacon. I like to use just one colour of vegetable.


Then we hurried to the cinema to watch Persepolis, the Iranian animation film based on Marjane Satrapi's 'graphic novels' (apparently the author doesn't like this term). I read all the books and the movie was a nice reminder of the stories.

After the movie we went for a drink in the Walvis (Whale), one of my favourite bars in the neighbourhood which had been closed for a while but was open again for the first day, to our great relief.

This is the view from the terrace in the evening light.


We still had a few munchies left from the movie:

Attack of the crocodiles

Cute kitten

Roast peppers with anchovy

This Italian recipe, peperoni alle acciughe, is a nice starter for a warm Summer evening.

Serves 4-5

4 anchovy fillets (I used tinned)
3 peppers (you can use different colours)
1 tbsp oregano (dried or fresh)
1 garlic clove, very finely chopped
1 tbsp capers, very finely chopped
salt
olive oil

Wash and dry the peppers and cut away the stems and seeds.
Cut them in 3-4, put them in an oven dish greased with 1 tbsp olive oil, add salt and dried oregano and roast at 200°C for 20-30 min until they are soft.
Let them cool, then transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with garlic, capers, anchovy and olive oil.
Let this stand for 2h before serving.

Note: if you use fresh oregano, chop it finely and add it at the end together with garlic etc.

Summer at the Belgian seaside

We had been promised fabulous weather and tropical temperatures for the weekend, so I went to visit my family at the seaside. Once again the weather forecast had been a bit misleading, because this was what we got:

A lot of wind and not a lot of sun. During one of the sunny spells we ventured out to the beach and had to flee within 10 min because it started raining. And then friends call from Portugal telling they're enjoying the sun on the beach with live Brazilian music and caipirinhas.... I'll have to go back there soon.
What can you do with this weather at the seaside?
You can get an ice cream at De la Poste in Knokke (the best) and you can look for fossils.
Here's my cousin's collection of shark and ray teeth:

Stoemp me sossis

Because of the cold weather last week I got a craving for a Belgian speciality and typical winter dish: sausages with a mash of potatoes and other vegetables.

I made the stoemp with andijvie (no idea what it's called in English, not endives, that's something different). It looks like a long lettuce with curly leaves and the taste is a bit bitter.
I steamed the potatoes and cooked the andijvie separately in butter; then mashed everything together and added more butter, pepper and salt. It tasted great, esp. with a Belgian brown beer to go with it. Lots of butter is the key to a nice tasting mash.
Afterwards I checked a traditional recipe which recommended to boil the andijvie together with the potatoes.

Almost Friday the 13th

Once in a while it still happens: I burn my food...


Fortunately we had a nice dessert to compensate: a bolo de arroz (rice cake) from a Portuguese bakery in Brussels. I served it with a cup of coffee with a pau de canela (cinnamon stick), which I brought from Portugal; I think they use it there to stir in their coffee but as I'm not a coffee drinker I'm not sure. I prefer herbal infusions like cidreira (citroenmelisse in Dutch, not sure what it is in English).

The day after, on Friday the 13th, things went better. Finally a day of Summer weather in Belgium after weeks of rain and cold. I went to the Blue Note Records Festival in Gent, to see India.Arie and Guru's Jazzmatazz. It was in a fantastic location, the garden of a former abbey, and the festival setup was very stylish. You could drink sparkling rosé wine in the proper glasses! The concerts were great - Guru esp. got the tent shaking - and in between them our Belgian stars Tom Barman and Mauro Pawlowski did a fantastic job at their turntables.
It was a beautiful night, and in the morning, nothing better than a nice brunch to deal with the effect of al this sparkling wine.

The dish in the middle has mussels and potatoes and courgettes and tomatoes and garlic and parmezan.... it was delicious! Maybe R can tell us the recipe?
Next to it are a salad with rucola and a fruit salad.

Quick lentil curry

Yesterday I had some soup left over from the day before and I wanted to prepare a quick dish to go with it. So I improvised this lentil curry which tasted real good. Forgot to take a pic though.

split red lentils
1 potato, peeled and chopped
green peas (I used frozen)
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
olive oil
chopped parsley

Fry onion and garlic in oil. Rinse lentils in water and add them together with the potato. Add curry powder and a lot of salt. Cook for 1-2 min. Add enough boiling water to cover the ingredients well. Bring to the boil, add the peas and wait till it boils again. Then lower the heat and let the dish simmer until it's cooked and most of the liquid has been absorbed. This takes about 20 min. Add parsley in the last minutes of cooking.

Note: afterwards I thought that it could be nice to add some dried raisins, grated coconut and perhaps a bit of chilli. Perhaps in that case it's better to use sunflower oil in stead of olive oil. You could also substitute the parsley for coriander leaves.

Potato and onion pizza

After a few days of eating out, I was craving for a home made meal with lots of vegetables.


Serves 2

1 pizza dough (I just bought it ready made)
2-3 potatoes, peeled and sliced very thinly
1 onion, peeled and sliced very thinly
1-2 tbsp capers
1 tbsp dried oregano
olive oil
smoked bacon or anchovy, chopped

Put potatoes and onions in an oven dish, add some olive oil, salt and oregano. Mix this well with a spoon. Roast in the oven for 10-15' at 200°C.
Roll out the pizza dough in a pie dish. Pierce it with a fork. Add potatoes and onions. Cover with capers and small pieces of bacon or anchovy. Add pepper.
Bake for 25' at 200°C.

I served this with three ajlouks: carrot, seasoned with red chilli paste, sweet potato, with parsley, and courgette, with garlic and parsley.

Linzer Torte

Lots of work, travelling and headaches kept me from blogging. But here I am again.
I had Linzer Torte when I was in Süd-Tirol last autumn and I simply loved it. So I got the idea to make it myself one day.
I found a recipe in a German cookbook and I also checked an Italian recipe for crostata de marmellata, which was fairly similar. The result wasn't quite what I remembered from Süd-Tirol but it still tasted very nice.


Serves 4-6

125 g butter, cut in dice
200 g flour
125 g ground hazelnuts (or almonds)
80 g sugar (recipe said powder sugar, I used cane sugar)
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of vanilla black spots (from inside a vanilla pod)
200 g raspberry jam

Mix flour, hazelnuts, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
Make a hole in the middle and add butter and egg.
Mix this with your fingers until you get a firm dough. Add more flour if necessary.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in the fridge for 2h.

Cut 1/3rd of the dough off and set it aside.
Roll out the remaining 2/3rds and transfer it to a greased pie dish (this is a tricky part).
Pierce it with a fork, then cover with jam.
Roll out the remaining dough and cut it into strips. Decorate the jam with the strips of dough.
Bake at 180°C for around 30 min.

Notes:
You can add grated lemon rind in the dough and decorate the tart with sliced almonds. You can also paint the strips of dough on top with a bit of egg yolk for extra colour. I didn't bother with any of this.

I used two types of jam: one was strawberry-raspberry-pineapple, a leftover in my fridge, and the other one was home-made blackberry jam, which was offered to me in Portugal and which I managed to bring to Belgium without breaking the pot.

Saturday dinner in Brussels

Last Saturday we cooked a simple dinner.

First we had appetizers with the view at the front of the building.

Then we moved to the kitchen at the back.


This was the result: baked fish with spring vegetables.

Nice sunset with live salsa music coming from a nearby street party.

Ricotta and spinach soup - Zuppa di ricotta e spinaci

Yesterday I went to visit my friends who have a holiday home in the countryside. It's a small wooden house, like a cabin, with a fireplace and it's surrounded by ponds and trees and lots of beautiful wildflowers. It's very idyllic, you have the feeling that you're completely away from everything and it's hard to imagine that you can find places like this still in Flanders.

There's a vegetable garden and yesterday we had artichokes from the garden - delicious.

My friends brought ricotta and 'warmoes', an oldfashioned vegetable similar to spinach but not as soft. I offered to make a soup with this.

Serves 6

300 g ricotta
600 g spinach, torn in pieces
1 big onion, peeled and chopped
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
vegetable stock
ground pecorino or parmesan
olive oil

Fry the onion on low heat for a few min until golden. Add ricotta and fry it while stirring for 15 min, until it also gets coloured.
Add pepper and salt, tomatoes and spinach. Add 1,5 l boiling water with a bit of vegetable stock.
Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for 15 min.
Serve very hot with extra olive oil and ground cheese.

Note: I tend to add a small dried red pepper (peperoncino) to spice it up a little.
You can use the spinach stalks; I cut them off but I add them with the torn leaves.

This is the soup with the view:

We also had some home made elderflower juice, made from the flowers in the garden. I photographed it in a small herb patch:

and on a seat made from a tree that was cut off.

Truly nice getting away like this for a city gal like me!