Smoked Halibut and Quinoa Soup

The magazine issue I found this recipe in called it "Superfood Fish Soup". The quinoa here is the superfood.

While preparing it I saw similarities to preparing a British fish pie or making the British breakfast dish Kedgree. This soup is a somewhat leaner version of the two.

The kind of smoked yellow fish like haddock is not available here. I had to go to prepare a piece of smoked halibut. The lady fishmonger looked a bit surprised, when I told her I was going to cook that piece of fish in some milk. She had never heard of that kind of method.

recipe for 2:
250 g smoked halibut
1 large white onion
2 bay leaves
350 ml milk
1 tsp ground pepper
100 g quinoa
250 ml salted water
200 g Baby spinach
1 small leek
2 cloves of garlic
1 small can of sweet corn
1/2 bunch of chives
1 tbsp olive oil
600 ml veg stock
salt and pepper

Cook the quinoa in the salted water for 10 min on low heat, open and set aside for 5 more min.
Heat the milk with a peeled and halfed onion, the bay leaves and the pepper and set the fish in, simmer for 3 min and let it rest for 5. Get the fish out and drain the liquid in a bowl.
Make the veg stock.
Season.
Fineley slice the leek and chop the garlic. Saute them in the olive oil until the leek turns a bit soft.
Add the sweet corn and milk and veg stock, Cook for 5 min.

Add the washed and chopped spinach and the quinoa. Heat up and serve with the flaked fish and some chives on top.

Celery Soup with Sucuk Sausage

What can you cook when you have a huge piece of celery stalks sitting around. I bought this last Saturday because I needed 2 stalks for my lentil salad. An other one I used for some other dish.

I had the feeling that every time I cut off a stalk, 2 new ones grown back over night.
A bit of celery in a soup is great, but chopping it all up and freezing it would take up to much space in my freezer.
I played around with many ideas in my head. I came up with a soup.
A single pair of Turkish Sucuk sausages still sat in my fridge from the last trip to the Turkush supermarket and it was the hot kind.

Recipe:
500 g celery
2 beef stock cube
2 sucuk sausages, hot
2 spring onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp cream
salt and pepper
1 tsp Pul bieber

Clean onions and garlic and saute in oil.
top and tail the celery stalks and chop them into half inch pieces. Add to the onions anx cook 3 min.
Add 750 ml beef stock and cook until soft. Use a stick blender and make a fine soup.
Season and add the cream.
peel the skin off the sausage and half it lengthwise. Warm up in the soup.

Pavlova

The guys from SortedFood posted a list of different dishes you should have cooked
until you are 30 years old. Several of these dishes are typical for Britain, but since I follow Sorted for more then 4 years now I have cooked them all but one.

This one is the classic Pavlova. An Australian/ New Zeeland sweet treat.

I told my coworkers that I intent to bake a Pavlova tonight and they all stared at me with blank faces. I asked around and nobody knows this dish.

Recipe:
4 egg whites
250 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white vinegar
300 ml double cream
Raspberries, Physalis and Passionfruit seeds

Whip up the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add the sugar tbsp by tbsp until glossy.
Peaks again, add cornstarch, vanilla and vinegar and beat once more.
fill into a piping bag.
use baking paper and sprinkle some cornflour on top.

use a dinnerplate as a template for the circle.
pipe the mix on and make a higher wall around the outside.

bake at 130 C fan or 150 C for 1 hour, let it cool down in the oven completely for 3 hours.

whipp up the cream, no sugar.
clean the fruits and top that thing.

Lentil Salad with smoked duck breast

I just ate this salad and said WOW!

I made the second recipe from an organic magazine issue "natürlich".  The Chicory Watermelon Salad was on the same page.
I love lentils and it sounded good but I never thought it so wonderful.

It is easy to prepare. I just did not use raw garlic, just garlic powder and I blanched my onions for 30 seconds. I hate to eat raw onions in the evening.

Use a very good balsamic vinegar and your favourite olive oil and you are good to go. I ate a couple of slices of smoked duckbreast with it, but keep it vegetarian if you like.

recipe:
240 g cooked brown lentils
1 red onion
2 spring onions
2 stalks of celery
80 g cherry tomatoes
6 caper apples
1/2 bunch parsley

dressing:
1/2 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Drain the lentils.
peel and slice the red onion into half rings, cut the spring onion and blanche it for 30 seconds.
Cut the caper apples into 3 or 4 chunks.
Half the tomatoes

James Bond Cake

This is a recipe from Austria I found on Pinterest. I do not know, what kind of James Bond is in this cake. It is stirred not shaked.

I bake this recipe for my coworkers to celebrate something at the office tomorrow.
I went grocery shopping yesterday and found a portable baking dish with a lid to transport the cake tomorrow. Baking it, decorating it and moving it without problems from one place to an other is really good.

recipe:
250 g icing sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
4 medium free range eggs
100 ml tepid water
100 ml rapeseed oil
250 g flour
1 pinch of salt
2 tsp cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

topping:
250 g canned peaches - no juice
500 ml Rama cremefine to whipp up
2 Packages Dr. Oetker Paradies cream vanilla or white chocolate
Grated chocolate

Preheat the oven 180  C.
Beat eggs with the sugars together, add oil and tepid water, mix again.
In a bowl sift flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder together.
Bring both together and make a smooth batter.
Use baking paper and a deep baking dish.
Fill in the batter and make it even.
Stick it in the oven for 17-20 min.
Let it cool down completely.
Drain the peaches and mix them.
Add the Rama cremefine and Paradies cream and beat it until smooth.

Place over the base and sprinkle some chocolate on top.
Keep cool for several hours.

Onigiri with Chanterelle Mushrooms and Umeboshi

I love Japanese cuisine!

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung had an other recipe page and I saw chef Tohru Nakamura made something new again. He made Onigiri with fresh morels and sour and salted plum.
The morels are not in season here and the dried ones are sooo expensive. I found a bag with 10 g for 15€. No way!
Instead I bought a bag of dried chanterelle mushrooms 30 g for 3,99€. I just used half of the package and can put the rest in some meat sauce next. That was a far better value.  It is nescessary to use Japanese shortgrain rice, otherwise the onigiri have a different texture. I buy this rice at 5 kg on the internet. The same time I ordered rice, I bought Umeboshi. They are amazing mixed in rice. I tried them the first time in Kyoto at Nishiki Market.

recipe:
15 g dried chanterelle mushrooms
1 piece of spring onion green
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
1 tbsp white sesame seeds

1 tbsp soy sauce
250 g Japanese shortgrain rice
2 tbsp parsley
4 umeboshi plums
2 sheets of noori







Soak the mushrooms in cold water for 30 minutes, drain and wash the mushrooms again.
Drain.
Chop the green of the spring onion in fine rings and heat the sesame oil in a pan.
Put mushrooms and greens in and cook for 10 minutes, stir often.

Put on  a chopping board and finely dice.
Destone the plums and chop.
Cook the rice.
Chop the parsley and in a dry pan roast the sesame seeds.
When the rice is done, put it in a wide bowl and stir in soy sauce, mushrooms and parsley and a little salt. Let it get to a temperature were you can handle it.
With wet hands form rice balls and stick a bit of umeboshi in the middle. Form some onigiri trinangle shaped ball.

Cut noori sheet into strips and for the ones you will eat soon, wrap the noori around. The others store seperate.
I had some prawn salad and some fresh cooked prawns and some pickled veg with it.

Chicory Watermelon Salad

With sesame soy sauce dressing.

That is so delicious.
But I have to confess, it is a lot of work to prepare a plate of salad of two people.

I had a bit of running around to get a watermelon this time of year. Season is mostly over, but I found a seedless one- which still had a lot of seeds!

recipe:
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp puffed amaranth
10 red radishes
500 g watermelon
1 chicory
3 stalks of mint

dressing:
1 knob of ginger
1 small garlic clove
1/2 - 1 red chili
3 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 tsp dark sesame oil
2 tsp agave syrup
pepper

In a dry pan roast the sesame seeds and set aside.
Grate ginger and garlic.
Cut the chili into rings.
Make the dressing.
Make fine slices of radishes.
Take the single chicory and cut out the bitter core. Divide into single pieces.
Chop the mint leaves.
Open the watermelon and measure about 500 g. Cut into bite size chunks.
Decorate a huge platter so everyone can dig in.
Dressing on top. 

Eggplant Beef Burger

A bun less burger!
But that does not take the feeling of eating a good burger away.

I had organic minced beef and an eggplant sitting around and thought about so many different versions to prepare it. But it was only one eggplant so making a dish with filled ones like they do in Turkey is too much effort with just one.

Making a pasta sauce was next, because eggplant and some beef sound a bit like a la Nonna from Sicily. But it did not want to eat pasta.
I came home and still had no real idea what to prepare, then I found a leaflet in the mailbox with burgers to be delivered and the idea was born. I dumped the leaflet in the paper trash bin and went inside to cook.

recipe:
400 g organic beef mince
100 g bread crumbs
1 egg
1 spring onion white finely diced
1 tsp dried onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper
1 tsp herbes de Provence
1 tbsp tiny capers
oil
1 eggplant
salt
4 slices pepper cheese
tomato
ketchup
spring onion green
50 ml Bourbon

Cut the eggplant into half inch slices and salt them and let them rest 20 min.
Mix all the beef ingredients down to the capers.
In a wide pan heat up oil and dry the eggplant slices and give them a couple of minutes on each side until brown. On the side of the pan fry the onion greens.
Take both out of the pan, cover and keep warm.

Use a 6 cm ring cutter and press the beef mix inside. Make high round towers.
In the same pan brown the beef towers on all sides until dark brown, add the Bourbon and close the lid and reduce the heat and cook the patties until they are done or to your liking.

Put some ketchup on the lower eggplant disc and set a patty on top, add a slice of cheese and some tomato and the other eggplant slice. Top with fried green onion.

Mango Lassi

I did not drink enough today. When I came home from work I needed something to boost up my inner system. Plain old water did not do the job for me.

A very ripe mango was sitting in my fruit basket and waited to be eaten. But it was nearly mush and not very good to eat on its own. But a pail of Turkish yogurt was sitting untouched in the fridge and I came up with a Mango Lassi.

The last bit will go with me to work tomorrow, I just filled a 250 ml bottle.

recipe:
1 ripe mango
300 g yogurt
150 ml sparkling water
1/2 lime juice

Get everything in a mixer and make a smooth drink.

Leftover Entrecote and Pasta

I was looking forward to eat more of my lovely piece of beef. I cut half of the remaining piece into small cubes and put on a pot of linugine.

I had the Thermomix cooking more tomato sauce for the winter and it came handy with a few spoons today to finish my meal.

Just a courgette and a spring onion together in a pan in some olive oil and the beef added later and finished with the fresh tommy.

Such a fine kind of midweek meal.

Entrecote and herb butter

A huge piece of Entrecote is waiting for me. I checked the label outside to see the weight and saw 468 g. The first thing I did was secure the meat with some kitchen twine to make sure it wont fall apart. The next move was to get my meat thermometer out of the tool drawer.

But first things first. The herb butter.
No one can say I lack fresh herbs on my balcony. I went outside with some scissors and made a cut all round me. I selected the best and washed and dried it on kitchen paper.

Room temperature butter was waiting too. I used an ice cube tray and put the finished butter inside, that way I can use individual blocks and place them on the meat and the potatoes.

Boiling just a small amount of potatoes in a pot makes no sense. I stabbed them with a fork and placed them in the microwave for 10 min at 800 watts. Done.

The veggie side of the dish is Baby spinach. Just a small onion and a bit of garlic sauteed in oil and the spinach on top with some salt, pepper and nutmeg. Easy peasy!

I oiled the entrecote after I put some salt on it. No pepper, because that will burn and turn bitter. I used a cast iron griddle pan and had the meat on each side in the pan for 3 min on high heat.
I turned my little oven to 150 C and placed the entrecote with the temperature probe in.
I love my steaks at 58 C. Out it went and covered resting on a warm plate for 5 min.
Delicious.

Now I am looking forward to about 270 g of leftover entrecote to use up this week.

Duck Breast with Blueberry Ketchup and pointed Cabbage

Served with Pearl Barley.

The ketchup I made at the beginning of this week and it needed something to go with. I went to my usual Saturday supermarket and checked the organic and regional section. They sell produce from a range of 150 km around. I found a duck breast amidst all the different free range chicken stuff and was very happy about it - it was 30 % off, because had to sold and eaten today.

I bought a package of large pearl barley and a special kind of cabbage -Spitzkohl - pointed cabbage.  This has much softer leaves then the regular white cabbage and is rolled up at the top to look like a pointed hat. It does not take much time to soften up in boiling water and is eaten best with some cream sauce.

recipe serves 2:
1 large duck breast
salt and pepper
5 tbsp Bourbon whiskey

1/2 pointed cabbage
2 spring onions
1 tbsp butter
50 ml cream
1 pinch of nutmeg,
salt and pepper
1 pinch Piment d´Espelette

75 g pearl barley - large or small is your choice
1 chicken stock cube

The barley cooks for 20 min and then rests in the stock for 10 min.
Criss Cross the skin of the duck breast with a sharp knife, do not cut into the meat.
Place the breast with the skin side down into a cold pan and start the heat on high.
Cut the cabbage leaves into bite size chunks, cook it in boiling salted water for 3 min, drain unter cold water.
Chop the spring onion and saute it in butter, add the cream and the seasoning and add the cabbage and cook for 3 minutes.
Turn the duck breast in the pan to the other side and brown it. Now you can place it into the oven or, just as I did, splash the whiskey into the pan, close the lid and turn down the heat to medium and let the breast cook to your liking.

Cut into slices and serve with the ketchup.