Focaccia with Olives

This bread takes some time and patience and goes over 2 days.

But the bread has only 5 ingredients and that makes it perfect. The topping can be choosen by you. I went for green olives, fresh herbs and some fleur de sel.

Start in the early afternoon at the first day. Combine flour and water to a shaggy substance, cover with a lid and let the Autolyse work for you. Wait a full hour.

That means the moisture is slowly penetrating the flour. The dough later will have an 82 to 85 % hydration.

The salt is going in the leftover water to dissolve. The 5 g fresh yeast gets crumbled.

Use a standmixer and put the dough in. Add salted water and yeast and let the machine knead for 10 minutes.

Clean the hydration bowl and brush it with olive oil. Put the doughball in and cover with a lid. Let it sit at room temperature.

Now comes the fun part. Every 20 minutes wet your hands and strech and fold the dough. Do that at least 6 times. Then cover and stick it in the fridge over night or 18 to 24 hours.

The next day let it come to room temp. Fold it again. Use a baking sheet with baking paper and pour olive oil on top. Not too much, but 4 to 5 tbsp. Dump the dough on top. Strech and turn over. Now get it in shape.

I cut green olives in rings and cleaned fresh herbs. I put dimples with my fingers in the dough and put the olives in. When they only sit on top, they likely fall off. Next herbs and some fleur de sel.

Preheat the oven 250 C.

Put the bread in and toss a cup of water on the bottom of the oven. Close and reduce the heat to 230 C.

Bake for 25 min.

Babi Ketjap Pork Indonesian style

One other spice blend package from my trip to the JUMBO supermarket in the Netherlands. This time with pork.

Easy, tasty and quick to prepare.

I have bought 500 g of pork neck steaks and was looking for a way to prepare them. Then I checked the spice blends still sitting around and the dish was good to go.

The only other ingredients were an onion and water. But from my Spanish vegan Romesco sauce was still the green upper part of the leek in my veggie drawer in the fridge. A bit more veggies are always better.

Recipe for 4:

Babi Ketjap spice paste

500 g pork neck steak

1 tbsp oil

1 onion

60 g leek

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp red chili paste or sambal olec

Salt and pepper

2,5 cups of water

Rice or pasta

Chop the veggies and cut the pork in bite size chunks. Heat up oil in a wok and start with onion and garlic. When it is softened add the pork.

Brown on all sides then add the leek. Season with salt and pepper.

Now add the spice paste and stir that in. Pour the water in next and stir until everthing is dissolved.

Add soy sauce and chili paste. Reduce the heat and cook until the pork is done. Pork neck does not take long, 20 min should be enough.

Serve with pasta or rice.

Romesco Sauce with Leek - vegan

My BFF brought back a food magazine issue from Iceland for me. I bought one myself there 10 years ago and cooked some of the recipes.

This issue is a Summer edition and some Icelanders may have spend their Summer in Spain. Grill recipes and some great recipes from this region, but in Icelandic language.

GRILLAÐUR BLAÐLAUKUR MED ROMESCO-SÓSU

Thanks to google-translate and my prior trip to Iceland I could get the recipe completed.

This recipe is from the Catalonia region in the North East of Spain. It is pure vegan.

First step: preheat your oven 180 C fan

Second step: clean and roughly cut red bell peppers and tomatoes and take the top off a garlic bulb. Place it on a baking tray and brush with oil and season with salt. Bake for 30 minutes.

Third step: chop 2 medium onions and measure out 100 g of seeds. Fry off the onions in olive oil until golden and add the seeds to get toasted.

Forth step: take the white part of a leek and put a string on it every 6 cm. Cut it and cook it in salted water for 10 minutes.

Fifth step: in a large bowl bring oven veggies, pressed out garlic and onion seed mix together. Season with smoked paprika, more salt and a good dose of pepper and use a stick blender to make a spread. More coarse or fine as you like it.

Sixth step: romesco sauce on the bottom an leek on top and serve.

Ingredients:

1 large leek

2 red bell peppers

2 large tomatoes

1 bulb of garlic

Olive oil

50 g sunflower seeds

40 g pumpkin seedd

10 g pine nuts

(Use walnuts and hazelnuts if you don't cook for someone with nut allergies)

Salt, pepper, smoked paprika

Raclette Cheese and Bacon topped smashed Potatoes

4 larger potatoes were sitting in my potato hamper waiting to be cooked. And some slices of raw smoked ham were in the fridge from the green bean recipe.

Raclette Cheese was from my last trip to get groceries in France. It keeps for a long time in the fridge.

Peeling and cooking the potatoes came first. A baking sheet with baking paper and the potatoes were smashed. Salt and pepper and a good splash of olive oil.

Preheat the oven to 180 C fan and bake them for 25 min until the edges get crispy. Now top them with ham and cheese and back in the oven until the cheese has melted all over.

Ingredients:

4 larger potatoes

8 slices of raw smoked ham

4 thick slices Raclette cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper 

Chocolate Risotto Rice with Peaches

Lots of fresh peaches and they are all ready to eat. I needed a quick idea to use some of them for a sweet treat.

A sweet risotto came up. And it should have a bit of chocolate added to it. That goes nice together with fresh peaches.

I used my Thermomix to cook the sweet risotto. No boiling over, no sticking to the bottom and not constantly watching a pot. I only needed to get the trimmings together and wait for the Thermi to beep.

5 minutes before the end of the cooking time the chocolate went in to melt. In the last minute the egg yolk.

I've put thr chopped peaches with lemon juice in a big bowl and poured the hot rice on top and carefully stirred the stiff eggwhite in.

Ready to enjoy and to eat leftovers the next day.

Ingredients for 3:

180 g risotto rice - Carneroli

800 ml whole milk

45 g sugar

Pinch of salt

30 g butter

Vanilla essence

50 g milk chocolate

1 egg

3 peaches

1/2 juiced lemon

Coat the rice in the butter for 2 min at speed 2/100 C. Pour in milk, sugar, salt and vanilla essence. Cook for 35 min at speed 2 left/ 90 C.

Drop in chocolate at 30 min and egg yolk at 34 min. Chop the peaches and add lemon juice. Beat the egg white. Bring everything together.

Yoğurtlu Çükündür or Beets with Yogurt

This OMEGA heat dome over Europe asks for recipes that are refreshing.

No AC and no ceiling fans lets everybody sweat.

I saw this recipe by :"Türkisch kochen für Anfänger". Then looked it up on the Internet and added a couple of more things. 

The precooked red beets are available in every supermarket and are prepared very easily.

Greek yogurt or Turkish yogurt are sold here too. But take the high fat one, the other waters down everything.

The garlic was sauteed in olive oil. Others use it raw. But I like the first way more.

Fresh parsley and salt and pepper came next. I had a little bit of dill still in my veggie drawer in the fridge and it went in too.

Pomegranate syrup is often used in Turkey. I have some at home. A few drops for more taste.

Served with Turkish flatbread.

Ingredients:

200 g cooked beets

200 g Turkish yogurt

3 large young garlic cloves

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp pomegranate syrup

Salt and pepper

Dill and parsley

Chakchouka printanière aux Jambon

Spring Shakshouka with ham. The French sounds definitely better.

Green beans as a spring treat are good. This combination was new to me. But it is an easy side dish to serve or eaten on its own as well.

The raw smoked ham gives a salty and intense flavour to the beans. The eggs give the richness.

Keep the beans on the crunchy side. Soft and overcooked beans are the death of this dish.

After taking the tops and bottoms off the beans and washed them, I 've put them in the steamer basket of my Thermomix with some savoury herbs and steamed them for 5 minutes.

Spring onions and garlic chopped and sauteed in some olive oil for a couple of minutes. Then the beans went in without the herbs and needed 3 minutes. Everything was seasoned with salt and pepper.

Sliced ham and chopped parsley went in next. 4 openings in the pan and the eggs went in and cooked covered 3 minutes.

Time to serve.

Ingredients for 2:

400 g green small beans

2 stalks savoury herbs

2 spring onions

1 young garlic clove

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

50 g raw smoked ham

4 eggs

Parsley