Fresh made Satay Sauce with Nasi Lemak and Chicken

I bought some chicken inner filets and had no idea what to make with them. Today I wished I had some peanuts to eat and the recipe came to my mind. A third of a jar of crunchy peanut butter was is the store cupboard and all the other ingredients were on hand.
Combining chicken skewers with rice sounded good, combining them with the Singaporean coconut rice- Nasi Lemak- sounded even better.

First thing I did was to soak the wooden skewers in some water. I was not sure if I would use the grill or the pan later. So always be prepared.
The chicken meat was very thin and not so properly cut. I put them on the skewers as good as it worked and poured the rest of my Yakitori sauce over them to marinate.

Then I prepared my all time favourite Asian sauce - peanut sauce. There are so many recipes out there and I used a bit of that and a bit of this. In the end the sauce tastes like the one I get at my Thai food truck restaurant right down the street where I work. So I did something right.

recipe for the sauce:
2 tbsp fine chopped spring onions
2 tsp fine chopped garlic
1 tbsp light sesame oil
4 tsp red Thai curry from a jar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
125 ml coconut milk
2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
2 tsp lime juice

Sauté the onions and garlic in sesame oil, add Thai curry and water and bring to a boil, add the peanut butter and start to make it creamy. Add the coconut milk, sweet chili sauce and lime juice

skewers:
400 g inner fillets from chicken breast
salt and pepper
Yakitori sauce
Some peanut sauce

The recipe for the Nasi Lemak is already on the blog.

Chanterelle Mushrooms on Beef & Toast

Fresh Chanterelle Mushrooms are treat and very seasonal. I bought the first batch and served them as a creamy sauce on top of oven baked beef patties on a slice of toasted bread.
There are so many variations for these mushrooms, but they go great with all kinds of meats or salads. Many people prefer them with a cream sauce and bread dumplings.

Not many ingredients are needed, mostly of the onion kind.

Recipe for the mushrooms:
400 g Chanterelle Mushrooms
1 tbsp oil
2 spring onions
1/2 small white onion
2 cloves of garlic
Dried thyme
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp Brunch cheese with herbs
2 tbsp Noilly Prat
2 tbsp water
fresh parsley

Recipe for the patties:
400 g lean organic beef mince
1 spring onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp truffle oil
2 tsp Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
herbes de Provence

Chop onions and garlic very fine and in a little oil let them go soft and cook down.
Mix the patties and get them into the burger press. It will make 3 patties.
Put them on baking paper in the oven at 170 C fan and after 10 min, turn them and cook until they have the firmness or softness you want.

In a small pan in hot oil, chuck in the onions, garlic and mushrooms and give them the time they will need to soften and cook. That will take 10 min. Season during that time.
Now add water, Noilly Prat and the cream cheese and make a sauce and finish with parsley.

Toast some bread.

Veal Cutlett on the Bone

I bought a 3,5 cm thick piece of veal cutlett and left the bone and the fat around intact.

There are many methods to prepare it. I even thought of getting my Sous Vide Stick out of storage. But instead I opted for a method I found in the cookbook of one of my favourite female Chefs, Lea Linster, from Luxembourg.

I seldom eat veal. Yesterday at the butcher they had veal cutletts in different sizes on display and I thought why not. My first idea was to cut it off the bone, flatten it with the meat a cleaver and bread it like a Vienna Schnitzel.
But that was not paring so well with the French Puy lentil salad. The veal en nature sounded much more like it.

The preparation was easy, just cut a few times into the fat around the cutlett, season with salt and pinch a stalk of rosemary off your bush. Get a tbsp of rapeseed oil into a oven proof pan and on  medium to high heat sear the cutlett on both sides, 4 min each - if the cutlett is thicker use 5 min-
Preheat your oven to 150 C fan and place the pan in for 20-25 min  with the rosemary stalk.
Let rest outside the oven on a warm plate for 3 min. Season with pepper.

French Puy Lentil Salad

This is a recipe from Christian Juergens from Restaurant Überfahrt, Rottach-Egern. He is a 2 Michellin star Chef.

The only thing I changed were the pickled white little onions because I am not a huge fan of them. Buying a whole jar would not make sense, the rest would see the bin. I used cornichons instead, these are the small French pickled gherkins and they have the taste I love, crunchy and vinegary.

The lentils take a while to get soft, so start your cooking a bit earlier then the rest of the dish you are going to serve. The salad sits on a bed of arugula / rocket salad. That is one salad I always think of Bunny food and the strong flavour is not one of my favourite ones. But the combination of dark earthy lentils and the nutty salad works quite well.

recipe for 4:
160 g Puy lentils
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp whole grain Dijon mustard
2 tsp runny honey
5 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 bunch parsley
3 stalks tarragon
2 spring onions
4 tbsp cornichons
1 bunch arugula
salt and white pepper

Cook the lentils in unsalted water for 25 min. Drain and run under cold water.
Chop the spring onions in small rings ( I like to blanch them the last 30  seconds with the lentils)
Cut off the stems of the rocket salad - nothing worse than having them between your teeth or hanging out of your mouth.

Make the dressing and mix in the lentils/onions and let then sit for 15 min to absorb the flavour.

Level Up my canned Ravioli

Even I need a can of Ravioli some times. I mostly buy the French Panzani Ravioli.
Nobody is realizing, that canned Ravioli celebrated their 60. birthday in May this year. Maggi was the one who came up with the idea.
I still know them from camping trips and church weekend excursions, hot, lukewarm or cold out of the can.
They often saved the day when nobody could cook.

In a newspaper clipping I found 5 ideas how to pimp a can of Ravioli. This recipe is from German Chef Sybille Schönberger, 2005 Michelin Star decorated.

Recipe for 2:
1 standart can of ravioli - use what ever kind you like
1 red onion
1 clove of garlic
100 g Kalamata olives
50 g smoked bacon bits
50 g roasted chopped almonds
10 cocktail tomatoes
1 bunch of parsley
100 g baby spinach
A bit lemon zest
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
A bit of Parmesan

Quarter the tomatoes and chop onion and garlic.
In a pot in oil start the bacon on low temperature, add onions and garlic.
Drain some of the fat.
Add tomatoes, almonds and olives.
Now the Ravioli. Bring up to boil. Toss the spinach in and wilt it.
Season and add zest.

Finish with some Parmesan.

Tortilla de Patatas

A coworker at the office is a huge fan of Spain and often cooks Spanish food. We talked this morning about the way how to make potatos and eggs into a tasty tortilla.

Her first advice was, cut the potatoes as thin as possible and the second was, use a lid on the pan to cook the eggs.

You will need a pan with a relatively high rim so that the tortilla de patatas is not flat as a pancake. Other then that you need a good amount of time and patience until the potatoes get to the stage, were they are ready for the eggs. I added onions and a little garlic as well.

recipe for 2:
500 g potatoes
2 small onions
2 cloves of garlic
50 ml of olive oil
3 large free range eggs
salt and pepper

Peel potatoes, onions and garlic. Use a mandoline and slice the first 2 ingredients. Chop the garlic.
Use a small pan with a high rim and a spatula to stir.
Heat up the oil to upper medium and toss in the potatoes. Stir often, reduce the heat to medium and after 15 min the potaotes get a little colour around some edges. Add sliced onions and garlic and stir until onions are soft.
Season with salt and pepper.

Beat the eggs with salt and pepper too and pour them over the potatoes and stir well.
Close the lid and let the eggs set.
Use a bigger plate and put that on top of the tortilla and flip it over.

I ate a cucumber salad with sour cream and herbs with it.

Home grown Tomato season is nearly over

I gave a good friend a bag of home grown tomatoes and a jar of my Tomato Mango Chutney to carry home to her parents.
They loved the different kinds of tomatoes, their variations of sweetness or tartness and the unusual looks of some of them.

My friend send me pics of the tomato tasting and asked me to share more information about the tomatoes with my readers.

This year I have 13 tomato plants. And after 3 month of unusual heat waves I harvested some of them already. Tomorrow 3 or 4 plants will go into the organic bin.

This year I had some quirky tomatoes. Have you ever heard of a Travel Tomato? Nor did I. When they started to built fruit after the flower was pollinated, the tiny tomatos looked just like normal ones.

After a couple of days they started to grow out in different places of the small ball. They shaped up in a funny way. Small blobs of tomatoes sitting side by side. When the first one was ripe, I broke off a compartment and the rest stayed intact. I collected seeds.

A coworker loves to eat 1 slice of tomato an her breadand the rest often spoils. I gave her a couple of seeds for next year to grow the perfect tomato for her.

Some big ones have the name German Gold. This tomato has golden strips on a cream yellow colour. But due to our hot summer, they all went bright red with gold strips. Very attractive looking and tasting great.

I am a fan of Japan cuisine and travel. I have a large size tomato in the colour of  rust brown with a bit of green and s very tiny one in dark brown.
The big one is a Japanese Truffel, the tiny one is a Japanese Mini Kumato. The big one is juicy and tart, the tiny ones are sweet.

But my favourite one is Heinz K. An oblong shaped ketchup tomato. They remind me of the tomatoes the Italians grow for their sauces.

The small yellow light bulbs are sooo tasty and are called Green Pear. But my favourite are the Mexican honey tomato. The left corner of the pic.

After eating my daily dose of fresh tomatoes in large amounts - a bad allergy started.
No more raw tomatoes for a while. So sad.

Avocado Cucumber Soup

A cold soup on a hot late August day. It is still scorching outside and a cold meal for supper sounded great.

I just has to buy some natural yogurt and a lemon, all other ingredients were at home.
A coworker made that soup at her birthday brunch for all of us and we all loved it and asked for the recipe.

My soup is thick and creamy, but when you serve it to 15 people on a hot day, it makes sense to a a good 2 hands full of ice cubes. It will water diwn the soup a bit, it stays nice and cold for all.
One main ingredient are fresh herbs. She used coriander and parsley, I used my favourite anisseed herb, dill and some parsley.

Recipe:
1 avocado
1 medium cucumber or 4 small ones
1 green piece of spring onion
Juice of a lime
1 tsp sugar
250 ml veg stock
250 g yogurt
1/4 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp ground pepper
1 pinch of salt
Some onion and garlic granulate
1 bunch fresh dill
1 hand full parsley

Use a power blender and put tge soup in the fridge to chill.

Tomatoes with Onion and Eggs for Breakfast

I have so many tomatoes sitting around and I can´t eat large amounts of them raw any more.
The tomato allergie hit me.
I have to cook them to get on with eating tomatoes. What I cooked in the morning resembled the Northafrican and Israeli dish of Shakshuka.

I prepared it on the easy side just for Sunday brekkie and dipped some bread in. I bought a 6pack of extra large eggs and had now 4 times double yolks.  Tomorrow I will have to cook more tomato sauce to stack in the freezer.

recipe for 1:
350 g tomatoes all kinds, colours and sizes are ok
1 red bell pepper
3 spring onions
3 cloves of garlic
1 red chili
2 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper
fresh thyme
Tabasco
2 large free range eggs

In a frying pan start the oil and add onions, garlic, chili and red pepper and give them a head start of 5 min. Roughly chop the tomatoes, chuck them in and season well.
Cook until everything is mushy and soft.
Make 2 wells with a spoon and crack the eggs in, close the lid and cook 4 min.

Pumpkin and Dandelion Risotto in a Microwave

This is the third time that I use the base of a SortedFood recipe from the new book CBA2C. Making a risotto in a microwave is not something I did before. But reading the recipe I sounded logic and without a lot of hassle to do. That goes perfectly with the theme "Can´t be arsed to cook".

The risotto in this dish does not need constant attention. You just stir the veggies and later the rice before you cook it and after it is ready and you add more butter and cheese. The lazy cook heaven.

They asked for butternut squash and cavolo nero (Black Kraut), I used some of the rest from yesterdays Hokkaido pumpkin and bought a dandelion plant at the Turkish supermarket.

My microwave is an older model and has 750 watts. I adjusted the cooking time just a little and the recipe went well.

recipe for 3:
150 g Carneroli risotto rice
200 g Hokkaido pumpkin
1 onion
2 tbsp green from a spring onion
3 cloves of garlic
6 dandelion leaves
2 tbsp parsley
50 g smoked bacon bits
2 tbsp butter
50 g pecorino cheese
100 ml white wine
500 ml chicken stock
salt and pepper
chili flakes
dried oregano
3 sprigs of thyme

Use a big microwave dish and the cooking times are for 750 watts.
Chop pumpkin, garlic, onion, greens, dandelion and chuck it into the dish, add the smoked bacon  bits, 1 tbsp butter and 100 ml white wine and season with salt,pepper, thyme and oregano.

Close the lid and cook for 6 min on high.
Be careful when you open it, the steam is hot.

Wash the rice and add it with the chicken stock to the mix, stir well and nuke for 13 min on high.
When  it comes out, it will be still a bit liquid, close the lid and let it sit on the counter for 5 min.

This is the time you will need to grate the Peconrino cheese.
Add it with the rest of the butter to the risotto and stir well.
Serve with parsley and some chili flakes and more grated cheese.

Lamb Freekeh and Pumpkin Dish

This is the second recipe that caught my eye in SortedFood's newest cookbook.
Freekeh is a great staple to add to meat and veggies. It is rarely used and not available everywhere.

The other prime ingredients are butternut squash and lamb mince.
If you live in the UK, you can stop by your next bigger supermarket and buy them. Here in Germany, butternut squash is less used then the bright orange Hokkaido pumpkin. That was the only one I've got the other day.
Now lamb minced meat. Not available in German supermarket chaines. Take a trip to your friendly Turkish supermarket. I choose lamb goulash and the butcher let it through the machine. Nice lean meat and good quality. No water or much fat in the pan.

My way of the recipe from the book, makes 4 servings:
1 pound lean lamb mince
1/2 Hokkaido pumpkin
175 g Freekeh
2 tsp veg stock powder
2 red bell peppers
1 white onion
10 cm middle of a leek
4 cloves of garlic
1 red chili
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp Acik biber
6 drops Tabasco
Salt and pepper
4 stalks fresh mint
4 stalks oregano and thyme
30 g flat leaf parsley
50 ml veg stock
2 tbsp Pomegranate syrup
100 g sheep feta cheese

Wash the pumpkin, do not peel it! Halve it and take the seeds out. Chop it ingo bite size pieces.
Take a pot and add 3 times the amount of water to the Freekeh in. Add stock powder and bring to a boil. Pour in the Freekeh and cook for 12-15 min. Drain and spread out in a plate to steam off.

Prepare the rest of the veggies and keep the bell pepper brunoise seperate.
In a wide pan heat up some olive oil and chuck in all the veggies except the red peppers. Season and give them 5 min. Stir often. Now crumble the lamb meat in and brown that for 10 min. Add some stock and halve of the herbs. Dont forget the cumin, acuc biber, tabasco and more salt and pepper.
Chop the rest of the parsley. Pour some pomegranat molasse on top and chuck in the ft
Freekeh to reheat.
The last two min add thr red peppers and the rest of the parsley.
Open the package of sheeps feta and crumble it to serve on top.