Forel Provencal on potatoes-tomatoes bed

This Mediterranean fish recipe is in its flavors and employs a method of cooking fish by keeping it moist in a zesty sauce.

The recipe works also great on the BBQ.  Lay the fish down on some foil, cover in the olive oil mixture, turn over when half cooked and keep them covered.

Absolutely the best BBQ fish you’ll ever make, impressive taste for such a simple dish….

Ingredients: 1 forel for each person, (cleaned, cleared off the scales) potatoes, two pieces for each persons,

6 big tomatoes, 6-8 cloves of garlic, 2 onions, 1 teaspoon of rosemary or sprigs, 1 teaspoon of oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, olive oil, 1 lemon, bunch of parsley

Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Place forel fillets on a large sheet of aluminum foil and season with Greek spice mixture or salt and pepper, flavor with rosemary and oregano.

Peel potatoes or leave the skin on them. Cut in half and place around fish on the baking tin (on the alu foil).

Half tomatoes, slice onions into rings and scatter over potatoes. Toss garlic cloves over potatoes in their rind on them.

Combine olive oil with lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Cut tomatoes in half, bestrew with a bit of brown sugar, press garlic over them and sprinkle tomatoes with olive oil. Flavour with salt.

Place tomato mixture around fish. Carefully seal all the edges of the foil to create a large packet. Place the packet on a baking sheet.

Bake  everything in the preheated oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork, 30 minutes.

German asparagus soup

In Germany May is the season for eating asparagus. I prepared a white asparagus soup on the other day from puréed asparagus and broth, with some cream added. The heads of the asparagus spears were held back until the last minutes of cooking.

Ingredients:

1/2 c. chopped onion (1 small), 2 tbsp butter, 1 1/2 -2 lb. white asparagus, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces, heads reserved, 6 c. broth, either chicken or vegetable, 1/2 c. half and half cream/sour cream, salt, to taste, fresh ground pepper, to taste, dry white wine, to taste, parsley for garnish, cheddar cheese, croutons, ham slices

Preparation:

Peel white asparagus before chopping it into small pieces.

Sauté the onion in the butter until soft. Add the pieces of asparagus (minus the heads) and steam for 5 minutes. Add the broth and boil gently for about 30 minutes, or until the asparagus is very soft. Flavour with a pinch of sugar.

Purée the soup in batches in the blender or with a hand blender and return to pan.

Bring to a simmer and add the reserved asparagus heads and some cheddar cheese. Cook at least for 5 more minutes, or until they are fork-tender. Turn down the heat and add sour cream. Do not boil further.

Taste and add salt and freshly ground pepper as needed. You can add a few spoonfuls of white wine, or juice of a lemon (2 tbsp) if you think the soup needs acidity. Top with croutons and sliced ham. Garnish with parsley or spring onion rings.

Chocolate stamps from Belgium

The Belgian post office has released chocolate-flavored stamps. According to a Belgian stamp collector, Marie Claire Verstichel, who sniffed the chocolate, the flavor was disappointing, but they smelled good!

Come on, they taste better than regular stamps I am sure! Now I hope in Belgium the letters will be slide into Belgian waffle-flavored envelopes.

So far the Belgian post office released 538,000 stamps on that have pictures of chocolate on the front but the essence of cacao oil in the glue at the back for taste and in the ink for smell.

A set of five stamps costs 6.2 euros ($8) but might leave a customer hungry for more.

Swedish herring potato salad for Walpurgis night

Walpurgis night is a traditional spring festival in large parts of Central and Northern Europe. It is held on 30th of April or 1st of May. It is usually celebrated with dancing and with bonfires. It is exactly six months from All Hallows’ Eve.

In Finland, Walpurgis day (Vappu) is one of the four biggest holidays along with Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Midsummer.

In Germany, Walpurgisnacht, Walpurgis Night (in the folklore) the night of 30 April (May Day’s eve), when witches meet on the Brocken mountain and hold revels with their Gods and await the arrival of spring.

In Sweden, Walpurgis Night (in Swedish simply Valborg) has more or less become a de facto half holiday, thus people need some special treatment. The next recipe is a Swedish herring salad made for Walpurgis night. This colorful and healthy version of herring salad (Sillsalad), rich in both taste and omega-3 fatty acids. This recipe is also lovely when poached salmon is substituted for the herring (but then, it is call ed Laxsalad!).

Ingredients:

• 1 to 1 1/2 cup wine-pickled herring -or- tinned smoked herring
• 10 to 12 new potatoes, skins on
• 3 green onions (scallions)
• 1 cup pickled beets
• 1 cucumber
• 1 green apple (like Granny Smith)
• 1 bunch fresh dill (about 1/2 cup when chopped)
• 3 to 4 hard-boiled eggs
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)
• 1/4 cup light olive oil
• 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
• juice of one lemon
• 1/2 tsp. caraway seeds

Preparation:

Scrub the new potatoes well and then boil just until fork-tender, about 30 minutes (depending upon the size of your potatoes). Cool and cut into 1/8” slices.

Place pickled herring in colander and rinse lightly under cold water (omit this step if using tinned smoked herring). Pat gently with paper towel to dry and cut into 1” pieces.

Dice green onions and julienne pickled beet slices into thin strips. Peel, seed, and then chop cucumber into 1/2” pieces. Wash apple well, core, and cut into 1/2” pieces or slices, leaving the skin on. Coarsely chop the fresh dill, leaving a few long stems for garnish. Peel and cut the hard-boiled eggs into wedges.

For Lemon-Caraway Vinaigrette Dressing: Whisk together olive oil, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, and caraway seeds.

Arrange first 7 ingredients on a serving platter, sprinkling with chopped dill and garnishing with hard-boiled egg wedges and lemon, if desired. Serve lemon-caraway vinaigrette dressing on the side.

Yield: 6 servings as a main-dish salad; 15-20 if part of a buffet or smörgåsbord table.

Frankfurter soup

Hungarians are especially passionate about their soups, with fierce rivalries between regional variations of the same dish, (like the Hungarian spicy fish soup called Fisherman’s Soup or halászlé, cooked differently on the banks of Hungary’s two main rivers: the Danube and the Tisza). There is also a remarkable element of the Hungarian cuisine that are hardly noticed by locals, but usually conjure up much enthusiasm amongst foreigners, we have a kind of cold fruit soup, like cold sour cherry soup (Hungarian: hideg meggyleves) which is mostly consumed in the hot summer (see cold French cucumber soup).

Inspite of the German name of this soup, this is the one of the most popular soup in Hungary since we have really good saussages and a kind of thick sour cream make this dish more special. There is one more secret to tell the marjoram makes the soup simply irresistible.

The recipe ingredients:

½ onion
1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp plain flour
1.5 liter/2½ pts boiling water
1 large carrot, chopped

1 tbsp of marjoram

half of a Chinese cabbage, chopped
bunch of parsley
1 beef stock cube
1 tbsp Hungarian paprika
2 medium potatoes, chopped
2 frankfurter or Debreziner sausages (hot dogs), sliced
Salt, pepper, 2 tbsp sour cream

Directions:
1. Heat the oil and butter in a pan and gently soaté the onion for 2 minutes.
2. Add carrot, Chinese cabbage, stock cube, fseason with paprika powder, marjoram, salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Stir flour in vegetables and then gradually pour in the water, constantly stirring.
4. Add potatoes and Frankfurters and cook for another 15 mins, stirring occasionally to prevent the soup from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

5. Top with sour cream and fresh parsley.

Raisin-almond German brioche

This breakfast or afternoon brioche is the favorite of my family. It can be served with creme anglais or a jelly or other preserves to accompany tea or coffee, or with pate or hors d’oeuvre.  The tops of the small ones can easily be pulled away, giving space for a sweet or savory filling.  Brioche dough can also be used for wrapping other ingredients such as beef for boeuf-en-croute, a salmon filling, or for a spicy garlic sausage

Ingredients: 1 tablespoon active dry yeast, 1/3 cup warm water or milk (110 degrees F), 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon white sugar             

1 teasp salt, 4 eggs, 1 cup butter, softened, 1  egg yolk,  lemon peel, 150 gr raisins, 100 gr almonds

Directions:

• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
• In a large bowl, stir together the flour sugar and salt. Make a well in center of the bowl and mix in the eggs and yeast mixture. Beat well until the dough has pulled together, then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and supple, about 8 minutes.
• Flatten the dough and spread it with one third of the butter. Knead this well. Repeat this twice to incorporate the remaining butter. Add raisins. Knead it again. Allow the dough to rest for a few minutes between additions of butter. This process may take 20 minutes or so. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Deflate the dough, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. It needs time to chill in order to become more workable.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9×5-inch loaf pans (see Cook’s Note to make rolls). Beat the egg yolk with 1 teaspoon of water to make a glaze.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, form into loaves and place into prepared pans. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, about 60 minutes. Brush the loaves or rolls with the egg wash. Bake in preheated oven until a deep golden brown. Start checking the loaves for doneness after 25 minutes, and rolls at 10 minutes. Let the loaves cool in the pans for 10 minutes before moving them to wire racks to cool completely. Bestrew top of the brioche with almond and powder sugar.

 

Bear’s garlic soup with fennel bulb

In Hungary a new crazyness has broken out, people are jonesing the ramsons, they hunt them and even created a festival around them (which was held last weekend in the South of the country in Orfű).

As far as I am concerned I discovered the herb in Germany about three years ago but in spite of the lots of medical benefits, I didn’t become fond of it. Well, until yesterday when I got a bunch of ramsons from my neighbour’s garden and I decided to prepare a fennel soup seasoning with this new kitchen star. It tasted garlicy, no wonder as the plant has a strong garlic aroma, but without the side effects of the garlic, (such as smelly breath) and with the combination of the fennel, my family voted for that to keep the recipe and make it again.

Few more words about the herb

The Germans call the ramsons bear’s garlic, but in English it is also known as buckrams, broad leaved garlic, wood garlic and wild garlic, among other local names.

The wild garlic is a wild herb and it is native to Asia and Europe. The plant has both culinary and medicinal uses. I’s a very invasive plant and if left to grow uncontrollably, it usually creates a full blanket of dense growth in the area. One needs to be cautious while picking the wild garlic because of its similarity to other bell shaped flowers (are easily mistaken for Lily of the Valley, which is extremely poisonous and possibly deadly! The plant can easily be mistaken for other two poisonous wild growths too). One of the best ways to distinguish wood garlic from other wild growths is by rubbing the flower between fingers. If it releases a strong garlic aroma, it is the right plant. It is important to not consume the herb unless it has been properly identified. As a food, ramson is considered very healthy and its consumption is encouraged almost everywhere in the world. The plant has leaves that are fully edible and are used raw in salads and also as an ingredient in soups, spices, stews and other preparations. When added to homemade pesto, leaves of wild garlic add a powerful flavor to the sauce and make it more aromatic. Chefs generally opt for ramsons instead of basil to flavor pesto.

Wild garlic is a favorite of both brown bear and wild boar. The brown bear has quite a taste for the bulbs and has a habit of digging the ground to reach them. Cows that feed on wild garlic leaves produce milk that has a very strong garlic-y flavor. It is used to make a garlic butter that has been very popular in Switzerland since the 19th century.

When boiled, wild garlic can be eaten as a vegetable or added as an ingredient to other vegetarian dishes. In Russia, stems of the plant are preserved by salting and consumed as a salad. Bulbs and flowers of the wood garlic plant are quite delicious and added to various food preparations.

My beloved fennel bulb wild garlic soup

Ingredients: 2 fennel bulbs, oil and butter to cook

1 red onion, 2 cloves of garlic,

salt and pepper to taste,

1 tbsp of corn starch,

1 chicken stock, 1 bunch of wild garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon of fennel seeds,

1 teaspoon of dill and freshly chopped parsley

sour cream to taste

Directions: Trim the fennel leaves (discarding any woody stems). Melt butter and oil mixture and add the onion, fennel leaves, garlic cloves and soaté them, add black pepper. Dense with 1 spoon of corn starch and pour over one and half liter of chicken stock, simmer for 5 minutes.

Let it to boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are tender (about 20 minutes). Bestrew with dill. Serve with sour cream on top and finelly chopped parsley. You can eat with crunchy bacon slices as well.