Puff Pastry with Asparagus and Feta

When you only have 2 asparagus stalks left of a pound, the choices for a full meal are rather slim.

I peeled them, chopped them and cooked them and put them aside. Still not knowing what to do with them.

A couple of hours later, a puff pastry roll and some feta came out to play and brought a jar of ayvar with them.

Recipe:

1 rectangular puff pastry sheet

150 g Feta

2 medium asparagus stalks

3 tsp ayvar

2 tsp grated Parmesan

Pepper and salt

Parsley

1 egg yolk to brush the pastry

Sesame seeds

Mix the cheese, ayvar, Parmesan and asparagus and season it. Measure the half of the puff pastrx and fill up one side. 

Fold the other over and press the edges down. Cut some slits on the top and brush egg yolk over it. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake at 220 C for 20 min.

Asparagus Pulpo Salad

The salad is seasoned with Kubeben pepper and Szechuan pepper.

I saw this recipe in an ad from a spice shop - Gewürzmühle Rosenheim.

They were promoting a kind of peppercorns I have never heard of: Andaliman pepper. 

But I have some many spices jars with different kinds of peppercorns, that I just picked up two of them.

Today I this years white asparagus season started. I went to a hut, where the big local farmers have their distributers. I talked to the woman there a bit and we exchanged some recipes.

Ingredients for 1:

6 medium thick white asparagus 

200 g cooked pulpo arms

1/2 lemon juiced

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp Bergamotte salt or lemon salt

Olive oil

1/4 tsp Kubeben - Szechuan peppercorns freshly grounded

Fresh flatleef parsley

Peel the asparagus and cut it in 3 mm slices. The same with the pulpo arms. Heat up olive oil in a wide pan and add the asparagus. Season with salt and cook for 3 min, now qdd sugar and a little pepper. Then a bit of lemon juice.

Put it to one side of the pan and put the pulpo in to heat up. Add more pepper. Get both on a plate, more lemon juice, pepper, a little more salt and olive oil. Finish with parsley and eat warm.

Egg Ragout

I found this recipe described as a former GDR school - and cafeteria food. It intrigued me.

Lots of hardboiled eggs were left after Easter - sitting in a basket beautifully colored. But I hate to eat hardboiled eggs on their own.

The ingredients were simple and can used in huge amounts without breaking the bank. That's why cafeterias liked to serve it to their customers.

Recipe for 2:

5 hardboiled eggs

3 green onions ot 1 medium yellow one

40 g butter

40 g flour

300 ml milk

50 ml water

2 tsp vegstock paste

120 g defrosted peas

1 medium carrot

1 small can sliced mushrooms

2 tsp mustard

2 tbsp Worchester sauce

1 tsp curry powder

Salt and pepper

Fresh dill

Serve with boiled potatoes

Chop carrots and onions fine. Drain the mushrooms and defrost the peas. Start the potatoes.

In a pot melt the butter and sautee the onions. Add flour and cook it. Gradually add the milk and stir to prevent lumps. Add the carrots and cook the roux a couple of minutes.

Add mustard and Worchester sauce and veg stock paste with water. Season with salt and pepper.

Now in with peas and mushrooms. While this cooks, peel the eggs and slice them. Get them in the sauce to warm through. Finish with dill.

I would love to see it on a menu of a cafeteria.

Lemon Snack Marmelade

I had these tiny edible lemons before and was not a huge fan of eating them on their own. They went in a lemon cake.

But I wanted to prepare one of my puddings from the package I shopped online and that one was lemon flavoured. I saw the lemon snack punnet once again at the big supermarket and wanted to give them a second choice.

I tried one when I came home and knew, not my choice, but put 2 on the pudding and that went well.

It is Easter Monday today and a second holiday. Time to spend more time in the kitchen.

Recipe for 380 g

280 g lemon snack

1 orange

40 ml Grand Marnier Triple sec liqueur

200 g pectine sugar 3:1

Take out the seeds in the tiny lemons, there will be lots of them. Cut the rind off the orange completely and cut the orange in quarters.

Add that with the Triple sec and the sugar to a mixer and give it a whirl.

Cook it in a pot for 13 to 15 min or until it has well up 3 min. Fill in clean jars.

Carbonade flamande or Belgian Beer Goulash

My neighbor came over for Easter Lunch and I wanted to serve something special.

A long simmered beef goulash is always a crowdpleaser. This is one of the 10 most famous Belgian dishes. It is made with dark beer. I made my own version, as always.

Ingredients for 4:

800 g beef chuck

2 tbsp flour

Salt, pepper

3 tbsp oil

3 medium onions

4 garlic cloves

1 small carrot

50 g leek

1 small celery stalk

500 ml dark beer (Belgium if available, but I used Stout)

2 cups beef broth

2 tsp dark sugar

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 bay leaves

1 tsp dried thyme

2 tbsp quince jam

2 tsp potato starch + 4 tbsp water

Cut the beef in bite size chunks and season it well with salt and pepper and flour it. The amount is too much to brown in a pot at once. Do it in two batches. Then take it out.

Chop all the veggies and put them with a little more oil on top of the brown gunk on the bottom of the pot. Don't worry it will go later. Let the veggies cook with a lid for 5 min. 

Now put in the beer and start scraping the bottom to get the flavour off. Add the beef and enough broth to cover it 1 inch high.

Add thyme and bay leaves and bring to a boil and cook covered on medium low for 2:45 min. After 2:30 check and put the slurry in to bind the sauce, if needed. Take a taste test. The beer makes it a bit bitter, add the quince jam or any kind of sweetener for balance.

We are cooking a Belgian dish, that means it is served with fries, what else!

 

Frankfurt Green Herb Soup

Green herb sauce with eggs is a regional dish in Hesse. I made the sauce before. The idea to this dish was from "savory lens"

It shows the spring season when the herb packages shows up in the markets. Funny to say that these packages are only available in a small radius. I talked to a friend 300 km away, he is not able to buy these herb packages there.

But today was soup day for me. Yesterday CAR Friday or Good Friday with fish. 

Aside from checking and cleaning a huge package of 7 herbs and spinach (which is in there to bulk out the herbs, because this spring season is too cold for lots of herbs) the recipe is pretty easy. 

Peeling and cooking floury potatoes. Mixing clean herbs with double cream and boiling water for my veg stock paste, this is very simple.

Recipe for 2:

200 g 7 different fresh herbs (parsley, chives, garden burnet, chervil, sorrel, borage, cress)

500 g floury potatoes

250 g double cream

250 ml veg stock from paste

100 ml white wine

Salt, pepper, nutmeg, Piment d'Espelette

12 quail eggs

Sour cream

When the potatoes are soft, put them in a big bowl and mash them with a potato masher. Put 2/3 of the mixed herbs in and stir well.

Transfer it to a bigger pot, add stock, wine and the leftover cream. Season well and bring to a short boil. Take it off the heat.

Now add the 1/3 of the herb mix. That garanties that the soup stays green. Halve the quail eggs and place on top of soup in bowls. A bit of sour cream as an extra.

 

Easter Layer Dessert

It is a Dr.Oetker dessert with ready made red fruit compote - rote Grütze- from the pudding section of the supermarket and a Paradise cream package.

Just dump the powder in 300 ml whole milk and mix for 3 minutes.

Fill the base of 3 glass jars with 1/3 of the red fruits and top it with the cream.

Either serve it this way or make it an Easter themed dessert. I used store bought sugar eyes, a piece of carrot for the nose and some liquid sugar paste to write the mouth and whiskers.

I found chocolate rice crispy chips and used them as ears.