Pesto

My mother brought me lots of stuff from her garden: apples, pears (a very nice variety called 'Jefke'), grapes, patissons (a type of white pumpkin), ...

and basil plants. So I decided to try to make pesto according to my mother's Italian recipe.

a handful of fresh basil leaves
2-3 tbsp pine nuts
1 garlic clove
salt
olive oil (use a very nice quality)
grated parmesan cheese


Wash basil leaves and dry them with kitchen roll.
Put them together with pine nuts and a little olive oil and use a handmixer or other device to blend this.
I crushed the garlic separately and added it at the end.
Add salt and some more olive oil. Taste the mixture and add more of any ingredient if necessary.
I used more basil leaves and only 1/2 garlic clove.
I didn't mix the grated cheese into the pesto but served it separately.


In stead of pasta I made a soup to go with the pesto. It was a basic vegetable soup with leek, celery, courgette, onion and potato. I made it according to my basic soup recipe, but I didn't blend it.

I added pesto and parmesan to the soup

and mixed it in.

Delicious!

Swetschkenkuchen - plum pie

Another Claudia Roden recipe from 'The book of Jewish food'. I made it with reine claude, a variety of green plums.


Serves 6-8

125g sugar
175g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
75 g butter
1 egg
1 tbsp rhum or brandy
750g - 1kg plums

Add half the amount of sugar to the flour and baking powder and mix well. Cut the butter in dices and add them. Mix with your fingers. Add egg and rhum and work this into a nice dough - add more flour if necessary. Make a ball of the dough and let it rest while you prepare the fruit.
Wash the plums, cut them in half and remove the kernels.
Grease a pie dish with a little butter and sprinkle a bit of flour over it. Roll out the dough and put it in the dish. Spread the fruit densely over the dough and sprinkle the remaining sugar over it.
Bake for 40-50 min at 190° C until the dough is golden brown and the fruit is soft.
Eat warm or cold.

Notes
A lot of juice comes out of the fruit, but this solidifies into a kind of jelly when the pie is cooling.
I added a little lemon juice on top, which wasn't really necessary.
Claudia Roden suggests using sweet black plums or apricots.
She also suggests that you can add a crumble layer on top, made of 50 g flour, 4 tbsp sugar and 50 g butter.

Tishpishti - Almond, walnut & orange cake with syrup

Birdies are starting to gather on the crane outside my window. It seems early for that. Last year I saw loads in October.

My aunt and I cooked together for our friends from Curaçao. I made the dessert and decided to try another recipe from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'. It's a sephardic recipe from Turkey.

Serves 8-10

4 eggs, beaten
150 g walnuts, finely chopped or ground
100 g ground almonds
200 g sugar
juice and rind of 1 orange
2 tsp cinnamon

For the syrup:
200 g sugar
250 ml water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rose water

Make the syrup first: Mix sugar, water and lemon juice and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and let it boil on medium heat for 10-15 min. Add rose water and let the syrup cool.
Mix all ingredients for the cake.
Cover a pie dish with tin foil or baking foil, grease with (sunflower) oil and pour in the cake mixture.
Bake the cake for 1hr at 180° C until golden brown. Transfer it immediately to a dish, remove foil and cut it in slices. Pour the syrup over the cake while it's still warm. Turn the slices around after 30 min in order to distribute the syrup evenly.

Notes
This is a very refined cake with subtle flavours. Claudia Roden advises to make it several hours in advance so the syrup can soak in properly.
Make sure the cake is baked enough before taking it out of the oven. It's a very liquid dough so it takes a while.

Here's the view from my cousin's terrace:

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.