After a 5 hour drive up North and a stroll through the old town I found an Asian restaurant.
They serve mostly Sushi, but the menu has some Vietnames dishes.
I was not looking for Sushi, but I wanted something warm as a dinner tonight. The place is in the old town just a 2 minute walk away from the hotel.
I went for Summer Rolls with Prawns as a starter and had rice noodles with stir fried beef and onions.
A good meal after a long day.
I bought some ground beef at the supermarket today with no idea what to cook with it.
At home I asked KI what to do with 400 g lean ground beef. A recipe from CHEFKOCH came up. I read through it and thought KI is crazy to give that recipe to me. The ratio 4x400 ingredients (beef, potatoes, canned tomatoes, stock) were sparse and the cooking method basic.
But the idea stuck and I started to make my own version of the stew. Cooking took only 30 min in total.
Recipe for 4:
400 g lean ground beef
1 tbsp olive oil
2 medium red onions
Salt, pepper, smoked paprika, Italian herbs
4 garlic cloves
650 g potatoes
1 tbsp paprika paste
1 tsp pepperoni paste
400 g can of whole tomatoes
2 small tomatoes
400 ml beef stock
1 bay leaf
60 g sugar snap peas
1/4 bunch of parsley
Heat up the oil and start to break up the beef and let it brown, add chopped onions and garlic and let them get a little soft. Season with salt, pepper and paprika and Italian herbs.
Add paprika paste and pepperoni paste.
Pour in stock, canned tomatoes, small chunks of potatoes, tomatoes and bring to a boil. Chuck in the bay leaf and reduce the heat and cover and cook for 15 min.
Cut the sugar snap peas in thirds and chop the parsley. Add both after the 15 min are over for an other 3 min.
Check if the potatoes are done and if you need more salt or seasoning (heat).
I have not done these in years.
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On one of my trips I found a Turkish supermarket and since I had time I went in to browse.
Since that time a triangle shaped package of Yufka dough was sitting in my fridge. Last night I thought about what to cook for Sunday. I had not bought anything special for that day.
The Yufka package came up and one look to an upper shelve in the fridge turned up Feta cheese.
The filling of the cigars (sigara) is simple. Lots of fresh flatleave parsley, feta, yogurt, lemon, garlic and seasoning.
Put together in 5 minutes and ready to place in the yufka leaves. The top of the triangle is brushed with some water and it closes the cigar perfectly.
Use a wide pan and cover the bottom with 0,5 cm oil and heat that up to medium high.
Bake in 2 batches and make sure to keep an eye on it, because the sigara tend to burn easily. Turn them a couple of times, then put them on kitchen paper to soak up the oil.
Eat warm with yogurt and or spicy sauce.
Ingredients:
Yufka triangle pastry
200 g sheep/goat feta
1 bunch flatleaf parsley
4 tbsp Turkish/Greek yogurt
3 tsp minced garlic
1/2 lemon juiced
A little salt, pepper, dried herbs
It was the first time that I used a Tahini based marinate for boneless and skinless chicken.
I looked for an Arabic way to prepare chicken thighs and many different methods came up. Many used a coal grill to bake them. But the one with the marinade stood out. Since I was in Jordan a couple of years ago I love Za'atar. The earthy flavour mixed with sesame is great.
I had all ingredients on hand because I first bought the chicken this week without knowing what to cook with it.
The best side to this dish is rice. But use Lavash bread if you can lay your hands on some.
Preparing the marinade does not take long. The chicken should be in it at least for an hour, but over night or a couple of hours would be better. Mine was in the marinate for 4 hours.
When the marinate is ready, before you toss the thighs in, fill two tablespoons in a bowl and set them aside for later. It will go on top of the baked chicken thighs.
Preheat the oven 180 C fan and use baking paper to lay the thighs flat on. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Check if they are done.
Serve with parsley Basmati rice.
Marinate for 3 boneless and skinless chicken thighs:
1/3 cup of Tahini
4 cloves of garlic crushed
1/2 lemon juiced
2 tbsp raspberry or red wine vinegar
5 tbsp water
2 tbsp Za'atar
Buy a punnet with 9 nectarines and you don't have fun eating them for a couple of days because they are rock hard.
Then all 9 of them are fully soft in one day. And then you can see them rot away when you do not eat them at once.
I ate some, threw 2 out do to mold and decided to use the other ones to bake something with.
Clafoutis is a French dessert, usually made with cherries. It is a pancake like batter, but you can easily improve it.
Recipe for a 23 cm dish:
5 nectarines
40 g melted butter + butter for the dish
Pinch of salt
50 g sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
120 g flour
80 g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
250 ml whole milk
Icing sugar to top later
Butter the baking dish and preheat the oven
180 C fan.
In a bowl stir melted butter, sugar, salt, vanilla together. Add the eggs. In an other bowl stir flour, almonds and baking powder together and add it to the wet mix. Stir and loosen everything with milk. Let the batter rest while you take care of the fruits.
Wash and destone the nectarines and cut them in bite size chunks. Place them on the bottom of the dish.
Pour the batter on top and bake for 35 to 40 min
Serve at roomtemp with icing sugar on top.
The day after tomorrow I am going out on my next racetrack adventure. Some stuff in my fridge needs to be eaten before that trip.
A ball of mozzarella and 2 lonesome tomatoes were on the list of things to eat. For a Caprese too much mozz and not enough tomatoes, some open bags of cheese needed a purpose too.
It took some time and I thought savouy pancake could be a solution. Until now I only had Dutch Baby Pancakes in the sweet variety, not with cheese. But I found an Austrian recipe that gave me the idea to use up some cheeses. " tasteoftravel.at"
Recipe for 1 pan with a 22cm diameter:
3 eggs
100 g flour
160 ml whole milk
1/3 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
25 g grated Parmesan
1 tbsp fresh chives
1/2 tbsp fresh oregano
1 tbsp fresh parsley
30 g butter for the ovenproof pan
Topping:
125 g fresh Mozzarella
30 g Emmenthal cheese
2 smaller tomatoes
Small leaf Greek basil
Herbsalt
Preheat the oven 200 C fan.
Make the pancake batter and let it rest 10 minutes.
Put the pan on the hob and let it get hot. Melt the butter and brush it up the sides well. Pour in the batter and let it sit on the hob for 2 minutes, then get it in the oven.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. DO NOT OPEN IT WHILE IT BAKES!
Prepare the topping while it is in the oven, it has to go on top immediatly, because the pancake will deflate.
Serve hot.
The asparagus in honey and mustard sauce is from the cooking magazine from Istambul.
Pretty easy to prepare and goes over the green asparagus that was only cooked in salted and buttered water for 6 minutes. It can be served at room tempetature with the sauce.
I served it with a piece of Atlantic wolffish I bought this morning at the fishmonger. The fish was only seasoned and panfried.
The honey and mustard sauce starts with a little roux. Butter and flour, a little milk but mostly cooking water from the asparagus. Then lemon juice, whole grain mustard and runny honey. Seasoned only with some salt and pepper.
The mustards seeds gave a nice texture to the sauce and went well with the fish too.
Sauce:
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
50 ml milk
150 ml asparagus cooking water
1/2 lemon juiced
3 tsp whole grain mustard
3 tsp runny honey
Salt and pepper
