Asparagus in creamy Cheese Sauce

Topped with more

 cheese and baked in the oven.

I had a bunch of hard cheeses left in the fridge. Not much from one kind, but many kinds in small sizes. They were blocking my cheese shelf and needed to go.

The white gold - asparagus - is sold in huts all over the place here. I bought a kilo. After peeling it, I took the washed peel and bottom pieces and threw them in a pot with salted water. They cooked for 20 minutes. I kept the stock for the cheese sauce and the pot too.

The asparsgus went in the steamer on top of my Thermomix. Then drained and cleaned the thermomix.

I put all bits and pieces of cheese in the Thermomix to make a homogenous mountain of shredded cheese.

The base of the sauce is a roux. Butter, flour, a little milk and lots of asparagus stock. Seasoned with salt and white pepper. Dumped the ground cheese in and a couple of spoons full of cream cheese. Since the cheeses had intense flavour, no more seasoning was needed.

The bottom of an oven proof dish was given some sauce, the asparagus on top and covered with the cheese sauce. 

I can never have enough cheese, grated Gouda went on top and the dish baked in the oven at 180 C fan for 20 min.

I served it with some potatoes and parsley.

Ingredients:

1 kg white asparagus

3 tbsp butter+ 3 tbsp flour

125 ml milk

400 ml asparsgus stock

Salt+ white pepper

Pecorino, Grana Padano, Parmesan, old hard sheep cheese, cream cheese

Parsley

Potatoes

Chicken Tenders with Ranch Dip

I've made the Ranch dip yesterday to serve with the fried chicken tenders.

I bought a package of 600 g chicken breast, that were 3 halves. I butterflied them to make them thinner and then cut them up in strips. 

They were only seasoned with salt and pepper and coated in flour. The final seasoning was on the eggmixture. 600 g chicken were too much for my airfryer. Deep frying them was a better choice and I could reuse some of the frying oil I kept in a bottle.

I wanted to use Panko as the final coating, but did not had enough for the amount of chicken pieces. I added regular breadcrumbs, sesame seeds and 3 hands full of crushed cornflakes.

2 eggs and a good gluck of milk were the base of the wet mix. Chili, paprika, dried onion and garlic, salt and pepper and some chicken seasoning went in too.

I fried the tenders for 8 minutes in 180 C hot oil and put them on kitchen paper later.

They were served with Ranch dip and carrot salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ranch Dressing - homemade

Hidden Valley Ranch in a bottle or as powder packages is not available here in supermarkets. You can buy online, but the prices are crazy.

There are several yogurt based salad dressings here to buy, but they are not coming close to the US one. I tasted some of them, but most of them were only good on lettuce, too watery and were lacking the buttermilk undertone.

I will cook chicken tenders tomorrow and serve them with Ranch dressing. I went online and checked a lot of recipes and made my own version. The way I remember the original one, it is pretty close, just missing MSG and other stuff that is forbitten here in Europe.

Recipe:

1/2 cup Mayo

1/2 cup sour cream (with herbs)

6 tbsp buttermilk

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried parsley

1 /2 tsp dill weeds

1/4 tsp dried chives

Salt and pepper

Stir it all together and put in a jar and it keeps in the fridge for 1 week.

Bolognese with Green Spelt Groats - vegan

My BFF gave me a package of green spelt groat.

The area she lives now is a producer of it. Spelt is a very old kind of grain and can be grown on barren soil where wheat wont do. But it has less volume harvest, only about 70 % of a wheat harvest.

I've made meatfree bolognese before and wanted to give it a try. Most of my bolognese sauces always contain a lot of fresh vegetables. I love the balance of veg to meat and I am no fan of more or less veg free bolognese sauce.

The start was to cook the grout in vegetable broth. There was no advice at the back of the package. I decided on 100 g green spelt groat to 300 ml stock. It takes 15 minutes to cook and I did not use enough liquid. Some of it stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Now I know that I should treat it like an instant polenta 100x400.

Recipe for 4:

100 g green spelt groat

400 ml veg stock from paste

2 carrots

3 celery stalks

Green part of a leek

200 g cherry tomatoes

2 spring onions

4 garlic cloves

1 orange mini bell pepper

5 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp paprika paste

200 ml tomato passata

200 ml white wine

10 fresh basil leaves ( no dried stuff!)

Fresh oregano, thyme, majoram, sage, rosemary

Salt and pepper

I used my Thermomix to create a very fine vegetable mix. In a large pot went the olive oil heat up, then the tomato and paprika paste to cook for 2 min.

All veggie mix was dumped in and needed 5 min to cook. Then wine and passata were next.

The salt and pepper and all fresh herbs with stalks went in. I fished them out short before serving with some tongs.

Let it cook 12 min and then stir in the cooked groat. Make sure it is completely loose and well combined with the sauce. 

Serve on top of fresh cooked pasta with some more basil leaves.

Danishes with Pear Filling

Some baked goodies on a holiday - May 1th - for coffee are great. But a trip to a market is out, most places are closed today.

But ready made pastry rolls are a thing in my fridge, especially for solutions like today.

The filling was easy. I bought a punnet of pears 3 days ago. They looked ripe. The punnet I had the week before was awesome. This was the same kind. Yesterday I took the first out and looked for the softest. 

Well, not much luck this time. Mostly hard to rock hard. Today 4 of them went in a pot to become the filling of my danishes.

Recipe:

4 pears

200 ml white wine

1 cimnamon stick

Sweetener of your choice

1 heaped teaspoon potato starch + 3 tbsp water

Peel the pears and core them. Cut them in cubes

Heat up the wine with the cimnamon stick and the sweetener and add the pears. Cook until the pear chunks are softer, but not mush.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan.

Mix starch with water to a slurry and pour it in and let it thicken. Cool it down.

Unroll the pastry dough and cut it in 6 pieces and fill it with the cold pears. Fold over and bake for 17 min.

 

 

Shepherd's Pie Turkish style

From my Istambul cooking magazine issue. The mash is with sweet potatoes mixed with potatoes. 

The beef is prepared Köfte style, but not made in to balls, but spread out on the bottom of the pie dish. The cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes get a good amound of butter and a little cream and get mashed.

What was new to me is the finish on top of the mash: hot water with paprika powder. That went in the oven for 30 minutes, then sharp cheddar slices went on top for 15 more minutes.

First step peel and cook both kinds of potatoes. Then prepare a bowl with the veggies and seasonings for the Köfte meat. A bit of yogurt and a little water makes the meat a lot smoother in texture. Spray the pie dish with some oil and layer the meat in flat. 

Put the mash on top. Now heat up 2 tbsp of water and mix it with 1 tsp of paprika powder and pour that on top. The cheese comes last.

Let it sit 15 minutes when it comes out of the oven to set, sprinkle some chives on top.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan. 

Ingredients:

4 smaller potatoes

1 large sweet potato

50 g butter, salt and pepper

Meat:

400 g ground beef

1 red onion

4 garlic cloves

2 small bell peppers

5 tbsp chopped parsley

3 tbsp water

2 tbsp yogurt

2 tbsp Adana Kebap seasoning

1 tsp paprika powder

Salt and pepper

2 tbsp hot water + 1 tsp sweet paprika

6 slices sharp cheddar

Chives

Spaghetti with Creme fraiche and Vegeta

I saw a short YT video about kid's favourite pasta dishes. This one was from the Balkans.

Kaymak was used as the rich cream. But for that you have to go to a Turkish or Balkan supermarket. Our standart ones don't sell it. But creme fraiche is a good substitute.

Vegeta is a powder to season everything in the Balkans. It has the Umami taste, like Maggi. I just bought a small package at the Eastern European store and wanted to learn what it is all about.

Cream and Vegeta are going well together. A strong kind of seasoning, when used too much. Mixed in with spaghetti, great idea.

Since I had leftover green asparagus, I sauteed it with a bit of green onion and tossed that in with the vegeta cream spaghetti

Ingredients:

140 g spaghetti

60 g creme fraiche

1 tsp Vegeta

5 green asparagus

1 green onion

Olive oil

Salt and pepper