Saturday 1 December 2012

Getting acquainted with molecular gastronomy 2; Cherry Espuma

We celebrated my Mom's BIRTHDAY today and she loves anything made of poppy seeds. I decided to make her a poppy seed cake with some SOUR cherries and a molecular twist.

I remember espuma from my childhood (We already did it Before it was COOL:)). Back in those days whipped cream was made by this cool equipment. I read a little bit and made up my own recipe using the sour CHERRIES my grandma jared.

Ingredients;
3dl liquid from a sour cherry Compote
500 ml whipping cream (20%)
1 bag of GEL/FOAM fix (the one that you can mix in cold)
(you may put a drop of pink or red food coloring so its not as white as mine was)

Mix the ingredients and fill the espuma. Don't fill it completely, otherwise it will EXPLODE (since there's no space for the gas). Load the GAS and go!

I got the poppy seed cake recipe from "Anya, ez isteni"...

In case you wouldn't speak Hungarian I write down the English version (with my tiny adjustments)

Ingredients;
2 small eggs
120g sugar
60g BUTTER
90g minced poppy seed (FYI blue poppy seeds do not contain opium)
135g flour
300g SOUR Cream (20%)
1 bag of Baking Soda
tiny lemon juice
1 bag of vanilla SUGAR

Mix the dry ingredients,
Beat eggs with sugar,
Add dry ingredients, lemon juice, melted butter, then sour cream.
Bake it on 180'

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Burschetta


Ingredients;
1 small Onion
half eggplant
half ZUCCINI
2 tomatoes
1 mozzarella
fresh BASIL

1 BAGUETTE
olive oil or salted butter

Chop all ingredients into tiny (1mm*1mm) cubes. Fry the onions on olive oil, add zuccini and eggplans and fry them too. Take it off of the gas and add the TOMATOES, mozzarella and basil, add salt&pepper and Mix it well.  Cut the baguette and spread olive oil or salted butter on top. Put some of the vegetable mix on top and bake it in the oven for a few minutes.

ENJOY!

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Getting acquainted with molecular gastronomy; Tomato soup spaghetti

My first experiment with Agar-Agar was less than success, but the second time was a SUCCESS in terms of looks and taste at the same time. I got the idea from molecularrecipes.com but I used my own RECIPE


Ingredients;
1 Herbs SOUP CUBE
1/2 dl Water
1,5 dl tomato juice (used the one I put away in the summer)
1 tin of concentrated tomato puree

AGAR-AGAR (following the proportions given on molecular recipes.com; 150g tomato soup-2.4g agar-agar)

For decoration;
parmesan cheese
BASIL leafs

Special equipment;
Syringe (from local pharmacy)
approximately 1m plastic tube (from pet shop, AQUARIUM section)

Let the soup cube dissolve in 1/2 dl BOILING water. Add tomato juice and puree. Add salt and pepper, than filter it. Measure the clear soup and calculate how much Agar-Agar you need and mix it into the soup. After Boiling take the syringe and attach Plastic Tube to its end. Let the other end of the tube rest in the soup and start pulling the air out with the syringe. When the plastic tube is FULL, put it into a glass of cold water. I advise you to check a YouTube video before the procedure.

After a few minutes the MIX solidified you can simply push it out by attaching it to the syringe again and push air through the tube.

Carefully arrange it into a snail shape and sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top, finally decorate with a BASIL leaf.

Enjoy!

Tuna salad in pita

I had some left from yesterday's green salad and some PITA, I looked around what else I could find and ended up with a nice outcome for a leftover dinner.

Additional ingredients;
Purple onions
a tin of TUNA
Pitas

Cut the onions really FINE, add it to the green salad together with the Tuna. Put it in the pita. I also used the leftover lángos sauce.

Chicken bites with "langos" sauce and green salad

Lángos is a Hungarian pastry most commonly served with sour cream, garlic and grained Cheese. The other day I had an incredible hunger for LÁNGOS but I wanted to Eat something more healthy than Pastry FRIED in oil so I thought why not have chicken with lángos toppings?

Ingredients;
Chicken

Sauce;
Sour CREAM
Garlic
cheese

Salad;
LETTUCE (I used one with fresh herbs)
Cucumbers
GreeN olives
green PEPPERS
Avocado
CORN

Cut the chicken into small CUBES and Fry until its brown and crispy. I used sherry-truffel sauce to make it more exciting (I bought it in the super market but you can also make it at home). Press the garlic (amount depending on your taste) into the sour cream and grasp cheese into it.
Chop the vegetables and put them in a bowl.
Voilá, ready! Enjoy!



Monday 10 September 2012

Bagels for Breakfast


Ingredients:
Bagels
Bacon
2 eggs
Butter

Put bacon on the bottom and the sides of a TINY cake Mould (the one with the small clip on the side). Carefully crack two eGGs into the middle and bake it in the OWEN until it's not SHAKy. Well you can leave it shaky if that's what you LIKE. Butter the Bagels and carefully put the Bacon-egg cake on top.

Have a great morning!

Double tomato salad

I often make salads for Dinner and try not to make the same one twice. This is a really simple one.

You will need;
Cherry tomatoes
Lettuce
Avocado
Corn
Olives
and Sundried TOMATOES

Mix it and ENJOY!

Daring Bakers Challenge: Battenberg Cake


Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.
This piece was at the Daring Bakers ages ago, but I never had the chance to post it. I used Mandy's recipe, so I'll copy it here for you. My twist was that I made a cake pop version.


Traditional Battenberg:

Servings: +- 8
Ingredients
¾ cup (1½ sticks) 175gm / 6 oz Unsalted Butter, softened & cut in cubes
¾ cup / 175gm / 6 oz Caster Sugar
1¼ cups / 175gm / 6 oz Self-Raising Flour (***see end of doc on how to make your own)
3 Large Eggs, room temp
½ cup / 65gm/ 2 1/3 oz Ground Almonds (Can be substituted with ground rice)
3/4 tsp / 3½ gm Baking Powder
½ tsp / 2½ ml Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp (1¼ ml) Almond Extract
Red Food Colouring, paste, liquid or gel
To Finish
1/3 cup (80 ml) 100gm /3 ½ oz Apricot Jam
1 cup / 225gm / 8 oz Marzipan, natural or yellow
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/160°C Fan Assisted/Gas Mark 4
2. Grease an 8”/20cm square baking tin with butter
3. Line the tin with parchment paper, creating a divide in the middle with the parchment (or foil)
- Tip: See photos or watch video above for detailed instructions
4. OR Prepare Battenberg tin by brushing the tin with melted butter and flouring
5. Whisk together the dry ingredients then combine with the wet ingredients in a large bowl and beat together just until the ingredients are combined and the batter is smooth
6. Spoon half the mixture into the one side of the prepared baking tin
7. Add a few drops of red food liquid/gel/paste to the remaining batter, stir until the colour is thoroughly distributed, add more colour if needed
8. Spoon the pink batter into the other half of the prepared baking tin
9. Smooth the surface of the batter with a spatula, making sure batter is in each corner
10. Bake for 25-30mins until the cake is well risen, springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick comes out clean (it should shrink away from the sides of the pan)
11. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool thoroughly on a wire rack
12. Once completely cool, trim the edges of the cake with a long serrated knife
13. Cut each coloured sponge in half lengthways so that you are left with four long strips of sponge
14. Neaten the strips and trim as necessary so that your checkered pattern is as neat and even as possible
. Gently heat the apricot jam and pass through a small sieve
16. Brush warmed jam onto the strips of cake to stick the cake together in a checkered pattern (one yellow next to one pink. On top of that, one pink next to one yellow)
- Tip: See photos for detailed instructions
17. Dust a large flat surface with icing sugar then roll the marzipan in an oblong shape that is wide enough to cover the length of the cake and long enough to completely wrap the cake
18. Brush the top of the cake with apricot jam
19. Place the cake on the marzipan, jam side down
- Tip: Either in the middle or to the one side of the marzipan
20. Brush the remaining three sides with jam
21. Press the marzipan around the cake, making sure the join is either neatly in the one corner, or will be underneath the cake once turned over
- Tip: If you put the sponge to the one side of the marzipan, I found it easiest to "roll" the sponge over and over onto the marzipan instead of lifting the marzipan up onto the sponge
22. Carefully flip the cake over so that the seam is under the cake and score the top of the cake with a knife, you can also crimp the top corners with your fingers to decorate
23. Neaten the ends of the cake and remove excess marzipan by trimming off a small bit of cake on both ends to reveal the pattern

Orange panna cotta

I won't share the Recipe with you, because it didn't work out very well, but I thought the presentation worths a post.

Sunday 9 September 2012

Quick dinner: Chicken with corn Risotto and grilled veGG

I think the best thing you could do with chicken is to cube it up and FRY it on some olive oil. I always use the chicken spice mix from ALDI. I just love it.

I made this with some rice, mixed with a can of corn, and a bag of frozen vegg from the SUPERmarket. It is delicious with home-made Saffron mayo (1 egg and some oil whisked).


Salmon Salad

It's been a while... I was busy with School, WORK and so on... You know how it goes... Anyways, back to Business, I have a few pictures in the line, waiting to be posted. I will start with this Salmon salad that I presented like it was CARPACCIO.


Ingredients:
Smoked Salmon
Iceberg lettuce
Olives
Advocado
Corn
Cashews (I used garlic-Rosemary cashews)

I guess I don't need to tell you how to do it :) Enjoy!

Monday 28 May 2012

Stripe Goat cheese salad

I came up with a salad again. I found the taste very eXciting as well as the Presentation. Lining up your ingredients will be a definite success whatever they'll be.

My ingredients:
Iceberg lettuce
Olives
CUCUMBER
Thousand island sauce
Fresh goat Cheese
Corn
Sun-dried ToMatoes
Fried onions spiced with Chicken spice


Quick pasta with Pesto

The best recipes born when you are really hungry. This is one of those. Pretty simple but delicious.

Ingredients:
Fusilli for Two
300 gr of GREEN Pesto
150 ml Creme Faiche
2 mozzarella balls
Parmaham
PARMEZAN cheese

Mix the pesto with the CREME Fraiche while the fusilli is cooking. When the pasta is ready, mix them together. Put the mozzarella cubes on top, decorate it with some ROLLED up ham and hint some parmesan over it. Good appetite!

My favorite TUNA salad

I invented this RECIPE after the gym in the sauna. I was SUper Hungry and was thinking what do I have at home? I ended up with this Tuna salad which I absolutely love.

Ingredients (serves 2):
two handfuls of iceberg lettuce
3 boiled EGGS
1 tin of Tuna in olive oil
a handful of Olives
300 gr FETA cheese
2 handful of salted Chashew nuts

Put the ingredients in the above mentioned sequence on a plate. I hope you will like it as well!

Friday 4 May 2012

ARRIVAL Walnut salad by Tatus

This walnut salad is very SPECIAL for me. It has been created by my Granddad and I love it. He never managed to make a Portion that we did't finish in MINUTES.

Story behind:
At the place where my Granddad is from (Makó) they call grandpas; TATA but when I was small I named him TATUS. Since then, we call him that. He is a very social and Cheerful man. They have been married with my Grandma (MAMI) for more than 50 years now. They built a house up in the Mountains and spend most of the summer there.
I live in Holland for 4 years by now and they often pick me up at the AIRPORT. They always ask me what would I Like to eat when I ARRIVE, and the answer was always; Tatus's salad. By now it is kind of a TRADITION.
Ingredients:
6-8 dkg Walnut
2 apples
20 dkg GRAPES
1 big purple Onion
6-8 dkg ChEeSe

Dressing:
5 dkg Mayo
1 tbs Mustard
2,5-3 dl Sour Cream
2 tbs Sugar
a handful of Chives

Cut the Apples and cheese into small cubes and the Onion and chives FINE. Mix the ingredients of the dressing and add the other COMPONENTS. Add the least Fragile ones first.


With love from Tatus.

Friday 27 April 2012

Daring bakers Challenge: Armenian Nazook

Blog-checking lines: The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

Finally I made my first Daring Bakers Challenge: Armenian Nazook. I used the recipe Jason provided with small adjustments.
Ingredients:
Pastry dough

  • 420 gr Flour
  • 1 pack  dry YEAST
  • 225 gr Sour Cream
  • 225 gr softened BUTTER (room temperature)
Filling
  • 210 gr flour
  • 340  SUGAR
  • 120 gr Softened butter (room temperature)
  • 15 ml VANILIA extract
  • 25 gr Sour cream
  • 3 tbs grasped COCOnut
2 eggyolks

Preparation:
Pastry dough

Mix the ingredients until its not sticking to the BOWL. Put it in the Freezer for 3-5 Hours.

Filling:
Mix the ingredients.

After freezing cut the dough into four Parts. Knead the dough and ROLL it into an oval with a little flour. Put the FILLING in the dough and roll it up.
Cut the roll into small diamond shapes and put eggyolk on top and bake it on 180 degrees.

Enjoy!


Friday 20 April 2012

Milka cream with CHERRIES

I liked the MASCARPONE-White chocolate cream so much that I decided to make a Milk chocolate version. This one is just as SImPle as the other one.

Ingredients:
200 gr Milka
200 gr Mascarpone
a handful of Cherries

Melt the Chocolate and mix it together with the Mascarpone. Mix some cherries in. READY!

Saturday 14 April 2012

Daring cooks challenge: Salmon-goat cheese SALAD with grilled vegetables and Coffee dressing

Our April 2012 Daring Cooks hosts were David & Karen from Twenty-Fingered Cooking. They presented us with a very daring and unique challenge of forming our own recipes by using a set list of ingredients!
List 1: Parsnips, Eggplant (aubergine), Cauliflower (vegetables)
List 2: Balsamic Vinegar, Goat Cheese, Chipotle peppers (strong taste)
List 3: Maple Syrup, Instant Coffee, Bananas (weird)





When I saw the April challenge I knew right away that I will choose eggplant and goat cheese from the first two lists, but I was really hesitant with the third one. I ended up with instant COFFEE. So here you are, the recipe;

Ingredients:
1 EGGplant
1 Courgette
100 gr smoked SALMON
1 roll of mature GOAT cheese
1 middle sized purple Onion
1 red California PEPPER
Bird salad

2 spoons of instant coffee
2 spoons of BRANDY

Cut the AUBERGINE into long slices and grill it with OLIVE oil in a pan. Cut the rest of the plant into small CUBES, as well as the courgette and grill it over high heat. Do the same with the pepper and Onion in another PAN. Don't keep them too long over the heat so they stay CRISPY. Cut the Salmon and the goat cheese, take the bird salad and mix it ALL Together.
Put the brandy over a little heat and then mix the instant coffee in. Put a little bit of water in the mixture.
Roll up the Aubergines (one roll is 3 slices) and stick toothpicks in it to hold the SHAPE. Fill the roll up with the salad and remove the toothpicks.
Disperse some of the COFFEE Dressing around.

I hope you'll like it!


Friday 13 April 2012

Delicious WHITE chocolate-mascarpone CREAM with fruits

I was thinking about mixing MASCARPONE with white Chocolate for a while. I KNEW it is going to be incredibly DElicious, and I was RIGHT.
Here is the super-simple recipe:


Ingredients:
200 gr WHITe Chocolate
200 gr Mascarpone
Fruits to your liking

Melt the cHOcolate over boiling water. Mix the MAScarpone in the melt CHoCO until it turns to be smooth. Serve it with fruits.
Enjoy! 

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Daring cooks challenge: Braised pear with caramelized fruits

 The March, 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Carol, a/k/a Poisonive – and she challenged us all to learn the art of Braising! Carol focused on Michael Ruhlman’s technique and shared with us some of his expertise from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”. 
So there, I did my first challenge at THE DARING COOKS. I can't believe that School got so busy that I didn't cook for the last 1,5 months. I am LUCKY to have a boyfriend feeding me, otherwise I would be probably found over a strategy book dried out. It is my first challenge and I already had to take advantage of the grace period and CHEAT a little bit. Due to the time I wanted to choose something easy and fast so I braised a fruit instead of Meat or VEGG.

Anyways it was enough of FEELIng sorry for myself, here is a recipe for you.


Braising liquid:
2 hard PEARS pealed
0,75 L Red Wine
200 gr sugar
cinnamon
NUTmeg

Caramelized FRUITS:
Some Cherries
BLUEberry jam
SUGAR

Decoration:
Cocoa vinegar (Can e replaced by Dark ChoColate)
some HAZELNUT

Put the wine into a small pot with the SPICES and put it over the gas. It is handy if you put the cinnamon in one piece or put the spices in a small bag so they are not FLOATING around. When it comes to its boiling point, keep it on low gas, put the PEARS in and cover it with a lid. Cook it until the pears got really dark and than take them out and put them to a COLD place.

Your next step will be to get rid of most of the juice (give it to boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife, basically anyone in the need of SUGAR) and leave about 2 spoons in the pan. Put an Handful of cherries and one tablespoon blueberry jam in it. Put some sugar on top and cook it until it gets thick.

Cut the side of the pears and move it slowly. Decorate it with crashed hazelnut.
I've decorated the plate with the earlier mentioned cacao vinegar, but you can replace it with Melt DARK chocolate.



Sunday 12 February 2012

Creamy Asparagus soup with Cappuccino of smoked ham and Old Amsterdam cheese

This is the first post where I use an INGREDIENT that I brought from a city in HOLLAND. The first free ride -of course- I was heading to Amsterdam. The City that is famous for its canals showed a completely DIFFERENT face this time. The sport shops were packed, people trying on skates and you wouldn't find a piece on the canals without people walking or SKATING on them. The item I brought is -of course- OLD AMSTERDAM Cheese.


Ingredients:
2 boxes of small and thin Green ASPARAGUS
1/2 liter of water
1 Herbs SOUP Cube
1 CHICKEN soup cube

200 ml Cooking cream
3 slice of SMOKED ham

Old Amsterdam Cheese

PREPARATION
Put the CREAM on low gas and place the 3 slice of HAM in it. When the asparagus is ready, remove the ham and make is fluffy and bubbly with the hand blender.

Cook the Asparagus in water and a pinch of salt. When it gets soft remove most of the water, so you have approximately HaLF liter left. Put the soup CUBEs is and cook  it for 10 minutes on low gas. Smash it with a HAND BLENDER.

Put some soup in a cup or bowl, and carefully spread some CREAM over it with a spoon. Sprinkle some OLD Amsterdam CHEesE on top. You can save the top of one or two Asparagus as a decoration.
Canals in February. In Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsi

Tuesday 7 February 2012

TUNA dip

One of my ADDICTIONs is related to TUNA. I love it! This dip was the starter of a long lunch for my family.

Here is the basic recipe:
1 tin of TUNA chunks in oil
half of a small Onion
2 spoons of Cream
salt 
pepper

TOASTS or any bread to dip

Put all the ingredients in the blender and SMASH them. Decorate with purple onions and CHIVES.

You can follow my friend, who gave it a little EXTRA and put olives, sundried TOMATOES and Capers.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Balsamic Vinegar with CACAO???

I mentioned earlier one of my latest FINDINGS: Balsamic vinegar with CACAO. I like using interesting products that may sound weird at first sight. I would like to bring it into your attention because it is DELICIOUS and special

The TASTE:
you can slightly taste a the typical acid balsamic vinegar taste in the background a slight cacao taste but the dominant part is rather RAISIN like. It reminds me a lot to my MOM's favorite wine, the MALAGA.

USE it with:
Goat Cheese, fruit salad, Cheese platter, maybe some light grilled meat (turkey).

The brand has several SPECIALTIES. In the store I saw white vinegar, green pesto vinegar, berries and on the homepage there is a whole range of FRUITY creations. They suggest them next to cakes and ice cream.

Of course I showed my new favorite to my BOSS, who is a chef and was more professional than I am and checked the ingredients. It is quite natural. There is only one "E" in it :) he said.

















If I made anyone interested you can find further information here:
http://www.sodastudio.it/ftp/carandiniweb/eng/index.php
http://www.sodastudio.it/ftp/carandiniweb/schede/cremecarandini/cacao.php
http://www.sodastudio.it/ftp/carandiniweb/schede/schede_pdf/CdB_fruttati.pdf

LIME sorbet to ease your belly


SORBET is the easiest thing in the WORLD. They are not only DELICIOUS but they give you some space for creativity. It is always a good idea to put the sorbet back to its ORIGINAL packing. 

My favorite is from here: http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/diaryofafoodie/2008/02/watermelonsorbet . Of course I copied it :)

I prepared with a LIME sorbet for you.
Ingredients:
1/2 liter water
200 gr sugar
6 LIMES

Preparation:
HEAT the water with the sugar till it melts in completely. Wait till it cools down and put the JUICE of the limes in. Put it in the freezer. Check it every 2-3 hours, mix it with a fork.

No big deal. My POINT with this post is to show you how much you can do with the colors. You can always put a FLOWER on top as long as it is not poisoning, PICK  the right color plate and it looks AMAZING. I think...