Greek Christmas Cookies - Melomakarona

I wanted something not so common as this years XMas cookies. It took a while to find something that fit the bill.

I found this recipe in "Landbäckerei spezial".

No butter and no eggs, but olive oil, brandy and orange juice. It smelled very different while preparing the dough and later the cookies.

To get them all the same size- baking time is important- use a scale to weigh the single dough balls. 33 g each is a good weight.

Recipe for 25 cookies:

Syrup:

200 ml water

250 g sugar

70 g honey

Zest of 1 organic orange

1 cinnamon stick

Dough:

50 ml orange juice

50 ml brandy

200 ml olive oil

Pinch of salt

Knife tip ground clove

1/2 tsp cinnamon

50 g sugar

2 tsp baking powder

500 g all purpose flour

Topping:

100 g coarse ground walnuts

Cook the syrup first and let it cool down.

Mix orange juice, brandy, oil, spices, sugar and salt in a big bowl. Stift flour with baking powder in. Bring together as a dough, but don't overmix.

Preheat the oven 180 C.

Use a scale and weigh 33 g of dough. Form a sushi like log. Place them on baking paper. Use a fork and prick them on top 3 times.

Bake for 25 min. When they are still hot, dunk them in the syrup ( without the cinnamon stick)

Put the top in the ground walnuts and rest on a cooking rack.

Pasta Mista with white Beans

YT Pizzaiolo Luigi made this. It was an Italian pour people food. Nothing went to waste.

The pasta mista was usually leftover dried pasta from different packages. Broken in to small pieces by hand. Or some allready short kinds of pasta.

I did the same and took a couple of strands of pasta from different storage containers.

In the morning at Adenau / Eifel I bought a piece of oven baked pork knuckle- but the tiny kind. That was the meat in this stew.

The other protein were cooked white beans in a can. The cooking method is pretty straitforward

Start with a good gluck of olive oil, toss in whole garlic and then halved cherry tomatoes and a bunch of basil.

Depending is you use raw meat or cooked as I did, put it in the pot to get more flavour. Close the lid and cook for 5 min. I took the meat out to cut it up and add it to the stew later.

Next step are the beans. Throw them in with the liquid and fill the can with water 1 1/2 times to get enough liquid in. Bring to a boil, season with salt, pepper and thyme. 

Break down the pasta in 2 cm chunks and add them. Stir and on medium heat let them cook. Keep an eye on it to stir and eventually add more water/stock.

Chop the pork and let it reheat in the stew. Check the seasoning, a good helping of freshly ground pepper is nice.

Ingredients:

8 cherry tomatoes, 5 garlic cloves, 1 good hand full of basil leaves

3 tbsp olive oil

250 g cooked pork

1 can white beans 

150 g pasta mista 

Salt, pepper, thyme

700 ml water/ veg stock

 

Food at the Dorint Hotel

Today is Sunday the 17th of November and the last day of Tourist Drives at the Green Hell.

A very cold and rainy day following the race day yesterday, where 85 cars left decent amounts of rubber on the track. In dry conditions that would mean grip with no end on the tyres. But in the wet: rubber water rubber - slippery as walking in high heels on an ice rink.

Seven exciting laps later, both the car and I were save.

I checked in at the Dorint Hotel directly at the Grand Prix Circuit for 1 night.  The Bid Bar was the foody place for the night.

As a celebratory drink I choose Campari Orange, that was my Mom's favourite. She was the one who wanted me to experience this drive.

Some warm bread with butter and creme fraiche came with the drink. 

As a starter I choose a hot soup. Seasonal is pumpkin now, it was not the usual thick babyfood like cream, but a very consomme like soup with cooked green pumpkin seeds and topped with pumpkin oil.

My Dorint Burger arrived with French fries. The patty was excellent and the toppings and cheese very good. Usually I am not a friend of soft buns, but this time I wished there was one.

The bun was rockhard and reminded me of a cross between rusk and Swedish crisp bread. It broke in chunks when bitten in it. Not my favourite.

 

Puff Pastry with pickled red Onion filling

The apple rings are long eaten, but a third of the puff pastry was left over.

Now I wanted to try baking it in the Air fryer to test the bake again.

I looked through my fridge for something tasty. Cooked ham and cheese is a good start for a filling. Then I saw a jar with pickled Tropea onions. That looked like the "cherry on the cake".

I tried to fold the edges over the filling, but not enough puff pastry available. Just a little fold, brushed with egg and milk wash. 

Both pastries went in the Air fryer at 180 C for 15 min.

Ingredients:

2  puff pastries at 14×18 cm

1 egg yolk, 50 ml milk

2 slices Emmenthal cheese

2 slices cooked ham

2 pickled red Tropea onions

Udon Noodles in Peanut Almond spicy Sauce

Udon Noodles are thick and most sauces cling to them. I looked for a nutty and spicy sauce.

A very fast dish to satisfy lots of cravings.

While the noodles were cooking I mixed the sauce in a bowl. The paste was very thick. Loosening it with hot noodle water to the right consistency is a must. And that warms up the sauce a bit too.

I had not much of an idea what to put in the sauce mix. Bringing random stuff together often ends with the best results.

Let your creativity work in overdrive.

Ingredients:

Gochujang, Gochugaru, Kewpie, garlic paste, Ao Noori

Peanut butter, chopped almonds, toasted sesame

Light soy sauce, Mirin

Green onion and more toasted sesame to top the Udon.

 

Air Fryer Apple Puff Pastry Rings

Puff pastry baked in a Air fryer? Let's give it a try.

These dough covered apple rings looked good, but most recipes called for baking them in the oven for 20 zo 25 min.

Then I found air fryer recipes that cut the time to 15 min. There is one downside to it. I can bake all apple rings in one go in the oven, but due to the size of my basket only 3 at the same time.

It is a bit fiddely to get the puff pastry strips wrapped around the apple slices. Cut the strips not too wide and divide them in the middle.

The result may not look so pretty. But after baking it looks a lot better.

Bevor putting them in the Air fryer, brush them with egg yolk and milk, put some cinnamon on top and sprinkle sliced almonds all over. A light drizzle of agave syrup finishes it.

Bake it at cake setting for 15 min at 180 C.

I ate them with Greek yogurt topped with salted caramel crunch

1 rectangular sheet of butter puff pastry

2 apples

Cinnamon

Sliced almonds

Agave syrup

Topping:

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

Salted Caramel crunch

 

Cucumber shaked with Caraway Mustard Sauce

The Logan vibe has reached me again. An entire cucumber waited to be eaten.

From one of my latest Nuerburgring trips, I brought back from Monschau a large stone jar of caraway mustard.

Monschau is famous for its mustard mills and they produce so many different flavours. In some tourist shops or at the mustard mill museum you can have taste tests.

I love caraway seeds. The flavoured mustard goes so well with many German dishes and works good in some salad dressings.

Do yourself a favour and use a speed peeler to make long strips instead of slices.

To have a complete lunch I decided to give the cucumber hype a try again. But this time I used imitation crab (Surimi) and some smoked salmon and goat cheese cream cheese. I still have some fresh herbs on my balcony, they were added too.

The seasoning was mostly salt and pepper, because I wanted to let the caraway mustard shine.