I take a break form my paper-writing business and would like to tell you about a simple and tasty dish I cooked yesterday. It’s a wee variation from a dish found in my bible (see previous post), which is based on cabbage and split yellow peas.

You’ll need a small/medium cabbage, half a cup of moong dal and a third of a cup of urad dal. In terms of spices, you’ll need about 1.5 tsp of black mustard seed, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder, 3 garlic cloves, some oil, a chunk of fresh ginger (I like it grated), some chopped almonds and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach.  Ah, and somegaram masala, naturally Before doing anything else, wash 4-5 times the beans in plenty of water and finely chop the cabbage.

Let’s get started:

- put some oil in a big pot (I use an enameled cast-irin pot), add the ginger, coriander, fenugreek, mustard seeds and garlic and let whole thing get hot and frying (add a bit of water if it gets sticky)

- throw in the beans and the cabbage, add a cup of water and bring to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes

- reduce the heat and cook the whole thing until creamy (about 30 minuutes). you can add water if you feel that it gets too dry

- add the spinach leaves and cook for an extra 5 minutes

- add the almonds and a bit (1/2 tsp) of garam masala

- serve at once, with rice or polenta or grits and enoy

Unconventional, right? Indian food is not limited to choicken with a spicy yellowish sauce. This dish is very indian. Delicate,  mild, different, simple. you can cook it when back from work in less than an hour and will stuff you nicely.

The original is on page 286 of the “bible” (buy it! it’s worth it)

See yous!!!

We had a very relaxing and easy going evening yesterday. But let’s skip sraight to business. As I was mentioning 2 days ago, I had a sea-creature based dinner in mind, and that’s what happened. Fantastic t’was. Tried a new receipe with a creature I had never cooked before. I decided to get some oysters first, and to folow them with an octopus dish. Oysters are always easy to prepare and very tasty with some horseradish (white wasabi) and 1 or 2 drops of Tabasco. Great!

Now, let’s move to the stew. I bought an octopus that was about 1 kg. Was already cleaned up, so that make life easier. I did check about 30 different receipes, as I ahd not much of an idea on how to cook the beast. I finally started over salivating when I read this guy in an Italian website. Here’s a translation and some easy instructions for you non-italian speacking friends:

Earthware Octopus Stew

You’ll need an octopus, rinsed and cut into bit-sized chunks. Beofre chopping it, I quickly brought it to a boil for about 1-2 minutes, let it cool down and tried to remove as much skin as plossible.

After that procedure, chop a red onion (on the big side), toss it into a pot (preferably clay), together with 3 table spoons of olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves and a bit of red hot chilli peppers (as much as you like). Let it golden on the fire for about 4-5 minutes.

Now, add the octopuss together with 4-5 diced tomatoes (Pachino preferably), about 60-100 g pitted black olives, and a glass of white wine. Bring the whole thing to the boil, then put on a lid, turn the ehat to low and cook for about 45′ (or until the beast is soft when pierced witha  fork).

Once it is ready, get four slices of home-style bread, toast it until nicely crips and golden and rub a garlic clove onto it (like if you were making a bruschetta – that’s brusketta, for whoever did not read my previous post), and put it at the bottom of a bowl. Now, overlay your stew on top of it and enjoy it!

I washed it down with a Chardonnay, again from the Chateau St. Jean cellar (california). I prefered their Cabernet Sauvignon.

Happy New Year to everyone!!!!

tshcuessi

Fred

PS: total cost if the dinner ~ 15 US$

quick post today. Just happy about my shopping for tomorrow, that I just wan to share it with you few people reading this. Here’s what I plan for dinner on new year’s eve:

- Oysters

- Pasta with fresh tomato, shrimp and octopusses (maybe risotto, still undecided)

- octopi and veggies “stew”

- wine and bubbly stuff

Let’s see how it goes

Very pleaseant evening. Good food, good drinks, our share of emotions and excellent company.

We had a set of starters composed of salmon and cheese tartines, champagne with a great secret ingredient (I’ll tell you later), raw veggies with a great hot anchovie sauce (excellent if you like them hairy fishes), prawns and, finally, oysters with panic. All followed by a nice chicken dish with some tasty red wine.

Now, two notes:

- Oysters with panic:  NEVER EVER EVER open oysters with the wrong tools. A filet knife is not the best idea. Unless you want to carve yourself a pair of stigmatae. Wasn’t that painful Manolis? Additionally, do not try to open them from the “wide” part of the shell. Form the back, that were the “entry point” is.

- The champagne’s secret additive: this was brought from France by Benedicte and is littrally translated as “truffle aperitif“. It’s indeed a truffle liqueur that you add in your champagne. Fantrufflestastic!!!! Even on its own. I hope to find a bottle of this somewhere soon.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

See ya!

So now for the menu. Here’s what we had:

Aperitif:

- Olives medley

- Walnuts

- Grissini

Washed down with Prosecco di Conegliano.

Lunch:

- tortellini in brodo

- roast turkey with potatoes and a carrots and butternut-squash puree

- endive, apples, walnut and cheese salad

- Strawberry charlotte

For these items, we drank an American wine. For the first time, I decided to try something new and asked the wine guy at Austin Liquors in Shrewsbury, MA whether he could recomend a wine that would remind me of an Amarone or a St. Emilion and woyuld not cost me an arm and a leg. He told me to go for a Chateau St Jean 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. Sure, it’s nothing close to what I was asking for, he said, but if I like those wines I mentioned, I would be very satisfied with this one. Well, he was damn right. We really enjoyed it. And for 15 USD, I enjoyed it even more. Anyway, back to the food. Let me tell you about ho to cook those things.

Tortellini in brodo:

I have to admit that I cheated a bit on this one. Could not really bother to make the tortellini meslf, so I bought them “dry” from Barilla. But I made the soup meself.

- I bought two beef ones, some leeks, an onion, carrots and parsley

- I boiled the bones in ~ 4 litres of water (start with cold water) for about 4 hours. A lot of fat will come pout of the bones. Remember to regularly remove it, or your soup will be quite heavy.

- chop the leeks and the carrots and the onion(s) in half. Pass them in a frying pan woth olive oil for about 5′ and throw them in your beef stock

- cook for another 30-45 minutes.

- pass the whole thing through a sieve and cook the tortellini in the remaining stock

- add a spoonful of miso (gioves a nice twist to the soup)

- serve with some minced parsley and some grated parmigiano.

Rosted turkey:

This one is simple. We got a 14 lbs bird. Just shoved it onto our roaster and into the oven, at 350F for ~ 4 hours. Once the temperature in the breast was ~ 80C, we switched off the oven and let the bird cool down for 15′ at room temperature.

Roast potatoes:

Very simple as well. I cit hte potatoes in small cubes and brought them to the boil for about 5′. Removed the from the ater, put on an oven tray and shoved them in hte oven, close to the heating block, for ~ 40-45′.

Carrot and butternut squash puree:

- boiled ~10 carrots together with a medium sized squash until sift.

- added nutmeg (maybe half a tsp), salt, pepper and a drop of olive oil

- pureed the whole thoing until smooth and homogenous

Gravy:

This one was done by Hanne. still, very simple. Mix two soup spoons of flour with some of the bird’s juice in a small sauce pan, until the flours becomes kind of a thoink cream. Then start slowly pouring the rest of the liquid.

Finally, we also ad the salad, for which i have no picture and the cake mmmh cake Here it is

We finished woith coffee and tea and chocolate

Well, that was my christmas lunch menu. We enjoyed it, and that’s what counts.

Next, new year’s dimmer

Bye bye!

Fred

Was a fun two-days session and we had the chance to spend some time with firends and nice food

We had some frinds coming to our place on the 25th and I was eager to host, as it is the only time during the calendar year, were I feel free to use all the nice stuff for the table. We ahve some many wedding gifts that make a difference on a table setting but that we are “ffraid” to use on a daily basis.

I just feel like sharing my “happy” set up with you guys.

The table cloth was all hand made by my mom. Took her ages, but the  cloth and the matching napkins are just “adorable”. The dishes are maybe not the most beautiful ones ever, but they have been in the family for ages, thus they have a very strong sentimental value to me.

Cutlery and glass-ware are all new and “to be handled gently”. I like them a lot and still can’t believe that we got them. Thanks a lot guys!

On a similar note, we had a wee aperitif table set in the living room, so that we could have some prosecco to get the stomac moving I’d like to spend a few words on that tray. It comes from Cairo (Egypt) and it’s a hand made silver and colored glass “snack” serving platter. When we got it, we just could not figure out what it was. After putting all the glass bits in their respective holes in the silver tray, it became quite evident what it was. And we just fell in love with the thing. It’s an extremely simple yet detail-rich platter and you can clearly see that whoever created it, is a real artist. We are very fond of it.

Ok, so this was the setup of our lunch. Now, for what was served (next post).

Cheeriuss!

Today i’ll start a esries of posts describing my Christmas lunch menu. We’l have some frineds for lunch on the 25th and I’ll have the chance to play cook again.

Firt dish, Joans menu:

- Boil some water in a pot or kettle.

- pour 4 ounces in a baby feeding tool (also known as bottle)

- add 2 scoops of formula

- screw nipple assembly on top of bottle

- shake vigorously

- serve warm

Catch you later for some more!

Tschuess

Fred

just wanted to share yet another boring and simple dish which I cooked yesterday and was lecker und geil. Was a veeery simple beef stew yet, as we know, simple dishes are sometimes the baest ones. That’s why I think that french cuisisne is overrated. Too complicated, too many sauces and ectopic flavors that really mask the true taste of the raw ingredients. But what can you expect from a nation that invented perfumes and wigs

Anyway, here’s my wee stew:

- chop an onion (or two) and a few carrots  and golden them in a pot with some oil, cloves and some bay leaves.

- when nicely soft and colored, but not fried and burnt, throw in your stew meat (I like cubed beef, about half a kilo for a decently sized stew) and let it simmer for a few minutes and add half a glass of red wine, salt and pepper.

- let it cook at low heat for about 15 minutes, add a glass of water and cook for another 30′.

- Now, you should have a nicely colored meat cooking in its own juices and it smells very good. I like to now add some cubed potatoes and cook the whole thing for another 45′. Remember that the longer you cook it, the softer the meat.

- Finally, ten minutes before the whole thing is ready, I add some fesh spinach leaves.

serve as is or with polenta, grits or dark rice on the side.

Enjoy!

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I’m back for part deux. This time I’ll talk about my “beans and lentils” collection. Again, until recently, i only thought about these guys as plain an boring colored things to boil. Slowly started experimenting wuth few “unconventional” varieties, ie ones that we don’t really use in our western cuisine, and that was a good thing to do. Explosion of different flavors and aromas. Taste. Not boring. Colorful. Beautiful for both the eyes and the taste buds. Mmmmmhhhhh

So, here we go:

From top left to bottom rigth: Moong Dal, Urad Dal,  Moong Split Peas, Urad Chilka, Masoor Dal and Red Chori.

The beauty of these guys is that they do not really need to soak overnight, as other beans do. I just wash them 4-5 times and put them in thepot “as is”.

I usually tend to make combinations of these guys, when preparing dishes. I like to overdo it with Masoor Dal (usually 1 cup) and then 0.5 cups of any other bean. I also use chickpeas a lot, but those are nothing “special” and you can find tem anywhere.

Well, these are my beans and lentils. Soon for some nice ways on how to use them

Have a nice week-end und

Tschuess

In this post, I would like to talk about Indian food, which is a big passion of mine. Before moving to Glasgow in 1996, curry was for me just a yellow powder that you would add to chicken and rice. Nothing too fancy, nothing to really write home about. Never covered as a staple of my food consumption. Then I moved up north, where the aboriginal diet is shite and unhealthy. Other source of nutrition were curry houses and indian take aways. Go once and go twice, I started getting the feel for “real” curries (I guess that real can be only use for what you eat in India) . We tried Ashoka a few times  but my favorite remains Mother India, in Sauchiehall street.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that I love curries. And Hanne does too, meaning that we eat a lot of them at home, on a weekly basis. We are currently making a lot of beans and lentil based dishes, as they are cheap and very easy to make. I do get my inspiration from what I call my culinary bible, which is this cute book called “1000 Indian recipes” by Neelam Batra. I recommend it to anyone.

Before getting into some recipes that I kind of “modified” form the above bible, I think I’d first like to show you what ingredients I used. First of all, spices. No kitchen should be without these guys:

These are the minimum requirements: Turmeric, Garam Masala, Chili powder, Cumin seeds, Cumin powder, Curry madras, Fennel powder, Cardamom powder, Mustard powder, black mustard seeds, Green cardamom pods, Black cardamom pods and Kokkum black. I might have forgotten a few. I’ll change that later. There are many many more spices and herbs that are used in Indian cuisine, but I can say that these are the essentials.

I am a huge fan of turmeric and of green cardamom pods. I try to use them as much as possible, even though many people say that turmeric does not taste of anything and the pods are a veeery aquired taste. They are pretty disturbing if you are not used to them, epsecially if you chew on one.

So this is it for the spice rack. Next will be the legumes. get ready for some colorful photos

Bye bye for now