Houmous aux Carottes

The newest GOURMAND magazine issue, this time Sans Viande, has lots of nice vegetarian recipes.

This is the first one I found. It is a little different approche to prepare a hummus, but the carrot as the main ingredient does not mush smoothly when it is raw. And using canned carrots is a no go for me and in any kind of French kitchen.

The carrots needed a time in some olive oil in a hot pan with some seasonimg and after 5 minutes with a bit of water to steam and get a bit softer. Let them cool down before mixing them with the other ingredients of the hummus.  You can use the remaining liquid from the carrots and add it to the blender. 

Ingredients:

2 carrots

3 tbsp olive oil

75 ml water

130 g canned chickpeas

3 tsp tahini

1 lemon juiced

Fresh parsley

Sesame seeds

Salt, pepper, piment d" Espelette

Serve with in olive oil toasted bread

One Pot Spaghetti with French Tatare Cheese Spread

My last grocery haul in France brought me a couple of different cheeses. The spead with garlic and herbs called Tatare is very well known. I knew I wanted to use it for a pasta sauce.

A punnet of crunchy and sweet cherry tomatoes needed to go. They went together with my last big spring onion and a couple of garlic cloves in a very wide pan with olive oil. I seasoned everything with salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence and waited just a couple of minutes for the halved tomatoes to get a bit soft. 

Then the uncooked spaghetti went in. Stirred around in the pan for bit until the veg stock went on top. I reduced the heat and covered the pan to cook. Exact timing depends on the cooking time of your pasta, but swirl them around in th pan a couple of times and check the liquid. 

I has a baby romaine lettuce and chopped it up, but feel free to baby spinach instead. The lettuce went in short before the spaghetti were done together with the cheese and some Ayvar for flavour and color. Fresh basil came last.

Ingredients: 

225 g spaghetti

150 g cherry tomatoes

1 large spring onion

4 garlic cloves

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt, pepper, herbes de Provence

450 ml veg stock from homemade paste

175 g Tatare cheese spread

3 tsp Ayvar

Basil

Chicken Afritada Filipino style

Chicken thighs and lots of veggies all cooked in one pot. You only need the rice cooker for the basic white rice.

This is a recipe I found on Pinterest from "Mama Lulu Cooks". But I only watched the YT video and wrote down the list of ingredients. 

She cooks in pots a size, I don't have at home. I added some of my mini chilis, because I like the kick of heat when I bite on one of them.

A good amount of veggie prep has to be done. But when you plan it right, you can cook it easily. 

Recipe for 4:

4 chicken thighs

Chicken seasoning

1 tsp oil

2 onions

6 cloves of garlic

3 bay leaves

7 mini chilis

2 carrots

1 red bell pepper

3 medium potatoes

3 tbsp tomato paste

550 ml water

3 tsp chicken stock

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp sugar

3 tbsp dark soy sauce

Salt and pepper

Basmati

Season the chicken thighs and it a little oil brown them on both sides and then take them out.

Soften the onions and garlic next, then add the tomato paste and cook it out. Chicken back in and the water. 

Now all the veggies, seasoning and bay leaves. Get it back to boil, cover and reduce the heat and cook for 30 min. 

Use a rice cooker to cook the basmati.

 

Breadloaf for Tartines and Sandwiches

I needed to buy bread or bake some myself.

Too lazy to walk to the bakery in this heat, I decided to bake a loaf myself. The proofing time was a lot shorter then I imagined. The place where the bowl with the dough rested was pretty warm.

I had not much kneeding to do, my Thermomix did the job for me. I put the dough ball in an oiled container and covered it. Proofing time should have been 1 hour, but after 45 minutes the dough has more then doubled in size.

I had a loaftin dish already buttered and floured, the rolled up dough went in and rested an other 10 minutes.

I baked it at 200 C for 45 minutes with a dash of water splashed in the oven at the start for some steam.  Make a cut through the middle before it hits the oven.

It came out of the loaftin dish without a problem and needed to cool on a wire rack. 

I had a slice of bread with butter and my first homegrown small cucumber from my balcony.

Recipe:

500 g breadflour (550 style)

300 ml luke warm milk

40 g fresh yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

40 g butter + butter for the dish

In 100 ml milk with sugar dissolve the yeast and let it sit for 10 min. Melt the butter and add it with the other milk together to the yeast mix. Flour and salt togteher, then everything in the maschine to kneed a smooth dough. Rest it, shape it, place it in the dish, rest it and bake it.

Croissants for Breakfast two ways

No bread at home for breakfast but a readymade dough roll for croissants.

Saved me from walking to the bakery in the heat.

Roll them up and bake them as they are - boring. I decided on 3 with sweet and 3 savoury filling. 

I made a tiny lemon marmelade a while ago and had an open jar in the fridge. I filled three croissants with some of it. To identify them easier later after baking, I sprinkled some ground pistacchios on top.

The other 3 were filled with a big slice of soft reddish outer skin cheese. A very intense flavour profile, but melts perfectly. The top of the croissants got some sprinkles of grated Emmenthal cheese. 

Both kinds were brushed with egg yolk before getting the topping on. 

Baked at 200 C for 15 minutes

Handkäse mit Musik or a Hessian speciality

This is for me childhood. The sourmilk cheese is nearly fat free, high in protein and was the cheapest cheese available then.

The music is the special treat to get the cheese more palatable, because you add oil and vinegar, onions and caraway seeds to it.

The "music" comes long after eating, when the raw onions start the tune.

Eaten on a good slice from a loaf of German bread with butter was and still is a treat for me.

The cheese is no longer cheap and the tradition that this combo is served in Biergartens and Summerrestaurants is dying out. You only find it in Hessian, outside the state is unknown.

Traditionally served with apple wine or cider.

Ingredients:

250 sour milk cheese or Handkäse

1 medium onion

1 tsp caraway seeds

1/2 tsp paprika powder

Salt and pepper

4 tbsp grapeseed oil - never use olive oil

3 tbsp cider vinegar

Asparagus with caper mayo and radish salad

A different way to have some kind of asparagus salad.

There are many different components and each of them need a bit of time. I use green asparagus, but the original recipe from "Konstantin Keller"called for the German white gold. But as always, recipes are giving me ideas, but I make my own version of them often.

The first step in the morning was breaking off the hard lower parts of the green stems. They have something like a predetermined breaking point. I cleaned the asparagus before starting the prep, so the broken off parts went in a small pot with 300 ml water and some salt to cook for 20 min. I just needed some asparagus water to start cooking the stalks themselves. I used the water to cook them in, then kept the remaining water and used some of it for the marinate later.

Let the asparagus and the water cool down. The salad with the mixed radishes came next. It needs a bit of time to marinate too. I have a Japanese style harpe slicer, that made my life easier getting all the radishes sliced. Chopped fresh herbs and a little salad dressing and they had time to set.

The marinate for the asparagus was easy, just mix asparagus water, grapeseed oil, lemon juice and piment d'Espelette with some salt and pepper and brush the asparagus stalks with it.

Next step was the capers mayo. I mixed mayo with mustard and chopped capers and some chives and that was layered over the lower parts of the asparagus.

The original recipe called for smoked trout as a protein. I used some canned fish.

Ingredients:

500 g green asparagus

150 g smoked fish

Marinate for the asparagus :

30 ml asparagus water, 1/2 lemon, 2 tbsp grapeseed oil, 1/2 tsp piment d'Espelette, salt and pepper

Dressing:

3 tbsp mayo

1 tsp medium French mustard

2 tbsp capers, the salt washed off

1/4 tsp chives

Salad:

300 g mixed color radishes

2 tbsp mixed fresh herbs

Olive oil

Vinegar

Salt and pepper