Salmon and Prawn Soup Ulster style

My friend asked me yesterday to look for a small cookbook from Florida with an Orange/Onion Salad. The book was from 1988.

I do have it somewhere on my huge heavy load book shelves. I started to look for it. But 500 cookbooks are a bit much to look through. But I took 2 of them out and started to read.

The salad recipe is on my blog from July 2016, btw.

This soup is from a booklet I bought at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, Ulster.

It calls for cooked salmon. Great to do, when you have leftovers in the fridge. But I did not. I bought some fresh one this morning  seasoned it well and whacked it in the Air fryer for 8 min. The prawns I took out of the freezer and defrosted them in cold water. The shells went in with the stock to cook for 5 min for more taste. Waste not!

Recipe for 2:

250 g cooked seasoned salmon

Bratfisch seasoning

4 large black tiger prawns

450 ml fish stock

60 ml Sherry amaroso

60 g butter

2 heaped tbsp flour

200 g leek

2 green onions

2 garlic cloves

4 button mushrooms

2 celery stalks

Pepper, chives, parsley

Do all the prepwork first. Heat up the stock, clean and chop the veggies and cut the salmon snd prawns in bite size chunks.

In a wide pot melt the butter and sauté all veggies, season them too. When they are soft, take them out but leave the butter in the pot

Add the flour and cook it out. Pour in hot stock, cup by cup to prevent lumps. Stir constantly and add the Sherry.

Now dump in the veggies, the salmon and the raw prawns and give them 3 minutes. Finish with chives and parsley. Check the seasoning.

 

 

 

Romanesco in blue cheese sauce

I bought a mild Bavarian blue cheese for a pasta dish, that I did not cook. Now the cheese had his time in the fridge and needed to go.

I thought about a broccoli cheese dish, but at the grocery store fresh broccoli was super expensive. In an other basket was the romanesco and it was a lot cheeper.

Since I am watching Dubai 24 hrs today since 10AM, I did not want to spend a lot of time at the stove. I decided to cook in my Thermomix instead.

Recipe:

1 medium romanesco

5 smaller potatoes

1 liter veg stock from paste

125 g Bavaria Blue mild blue cheese

1 tbsp cream cheese

2 tbsp flour

1 tsp umami crunch seasoning

50 g leftover precooked lean beef mince

25 g deep fried onions

Get the leaves off the romanesco and soak it in cold water for 30 min. Cut it through the middle to get it in the steamer basket of the Thermomix.

Peel the potatoes and cut them in half. Fill the veg stock in the Thermomix first, hang the potatoes in the basket in and close the lid.

Put the steamer on top, close it and set it on 25 minutes, Varoma, speed 1

Set the steamer aside and take the basket with the potatoes out (put them with the romanesco to keep warm).

Pour 500 ml stock in a measuring cup and drain the other. Pour the 500 ml back, add cut up cheese, cream cheese, flour, seasoning. Close the lid and pluck the center. Mix at speed 5 for 1 min. Heat up at 90 C, 2,5 min, speed 2.

The ground beef goes in the microwave to reheat. Then bring it all together and enjoy.

Goose Leg and Dumplings in a Rural Restaurant

Being out and meeting with friends is a tradition for me. It was not easy in the years when I still had to work on these days, but I made it happen often.

This time we met in an typical German restaurant out in the countryside. I have been there before, but that was a long time ago. It is called Landgasthof Brunnenwirt in Fischbachtal.

It was the day after the Xmas Holidays and nearly all tables were occupied, but my friends had a reservation.

Goose is one of Germanys traditional festive dinners for larger families. Seeing goose kegs as a special of the day made it easy for me to decide what to eat.

Red Cabbage, potato dumplings and a braised goose leg in dark sauce. Later I ordered an Espresso with gingerbread chocolate mousse.

Turkish Manti-Style Viral Pasta

On every platform on the Internet somebody is hyping about this deconstructed Turkish Manti dish.

I love the original one and bought frozen Manti from a Turkish supermarket sometimes. Preparing these tiny dumplings at home can only be done as a family affair, because it is a labour of love for this dish.

The new way to prepare it is much more simplr and time saving. Instead of filling little dumplings, just boil the pasta and brown the meat in a pan with some onions and seasoning. I made it a very dry affair, because I used beef tatar or very lean ground beef.

A good seasoning is important. The Turkish yogurt got mixed with garlic, ground pepper and some fresh chives.

Butter was melted in a pan and a good amount of paprika powder was cooked in the butter.

Cooking the pasta was done on the side. Then everything was build up.

Ingredients:

100 g pasta

125 g very lean beef mince

1 green onion

1 tbsp olive oil

Oriental seasoning, pepper

175 g Turkish yogurt

1 tsp garlic paste

2 tbsp chives

Pepper

30 g butter

1 tsp paprika

Cucumber Asian style next level

There are more ways than one to skin a cat  --  or follow a TIKTOK trend involving cucumbers. The trend went viral and cucumber were a rare commidity in some countries.

But to prepare a less boring cucumber salad and using the entire one for a single serving is a tasty way to eat that veg. Combining it with lots of flavours is easy, because the cucumber on its own does not stick out flavourwise since it contains mostly water.

I took lots of random stuff out of my fridge and went to my Asian drawer to get the Korean toasted flavoured seaweed and the toasted seasame seeds together with sesame oil and rice vinegar. the first two items went in a mini chopper and were blizzed up.

I ate some breaded baked camembert last night and a tiny portion sized package of cranberry (Preiselbeer) was sitting on my counter. A bit of sweetness does not hurt anyone.

Some Surimi sticks or imitation crab went in as the protein. I did not use a shaker, but treated it as a salad and used two spoons to stir it. Less washing up to do.

Ingredients:

1 peeled cucumber in very thin slices

100 g imitation cra meat/Surimi chopped

5 g Korean crispy seaweed snack

2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

70 g sour cream

30 g cream cheese

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp cranberry sauce

50 ml pickle liquid from gherkins

lemon salt, pepper

1 green onion

Mushroom Leek and Lemon Pasta

Veggies from the Xmas shopping needing a purpose without much work.

A bit of cream cheese, a bit of cream and lots of pasta water with veg stock paste added, helps to flavour the sauce.

The seasoning was kept pretty simple, just some Argentinian seasoning salt, fresh ground pepper and a bit of smoked paprika. The lemon juice made the sauce fresh and a bit sour. That went well with the cream cheese.

A huge piece of leek, cut in 10 cm thin strips needed the longest time to cook in the wok.  Argentinian seasoning salt, usually used to season meat, was added. The leek h

ad to soften and wilt down. After 7 min, I added the garlic and the mushroom slices. Together that needed an other 7 minutes. 

Next cream cheese and cream and a ladle with veg/pasta water. A bit more veg stock paste and the juice of 2/3 of a lemon went in. Just some fresh ground black pepper and smoked paprika.

I transfered the pasta directly from the with veg stock paste seasoned water to the wok to finish cooking. A hand full of grated Gouda and fresh parsley rounded the dish.    

Pollok in the Air Fryer

Can you use the air fryer to prepare pollok filets? Yes, you can.

Pollok is a fish that gets dry easily. To prevent that, breading the fish is important. A good fish seasoning rubbed on the filet, flour, egg and breadcrumbs and the filet is ready to go in the air fryer. 

I even forgot to spray it with oil. But the fish was flaky and did not dry out. Baking it at 180 C for 12 minutes was enough.