Avocado and Beetroot Tower

In my last French cooking magazine issue were 70 recipes without meat.

There are some for parties and buffets in too.

I bought 2 avocados and some precooked beetroot yesterday. They sold the avocados ready to eat. One was, the other one was so tough the stick blender was not able to get it mashed up.

Beetroots come in different sizes. The problem is to get some that a large enough to have a decent base of the tower.

Ingredients for 4 towers:
2 large beetroots
2 ripe avocado
1 lemon
100 ml double cream
Salt and pepper

Use a piping bag mit a star nozzle.
In a high bowl mix avocado with lemon, cream and salt and pepper.
Fill the piping bag.

Start to construct with the beetroot base. Pipe avocado around the edge and in the middle. Set the next beetroot slice on top and build more.

Apple and Potato Curry - vegan

More vegan cooking. But the dish is so tasty, I did not miss any meat.
The idea is from the last French cooking magazine issue. But the recipe there was too basic and needed a lot of upscaling.

The smell in my kitchen is sooo Indian. Spices roasted in a pan are a good start.

Recipe for 2:
5 medium potatoes
2 Apples
1 red onion
1 Spring onion
10 cm ginger
5 cloves if garlic
3 Tbsp mustard oil
200 ml veg stock
200 ml coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp coconut curry powder
Salt and pepper
1 tsp agave syrup
1/2 lemon juiced
1 bunch fresh coriander, stalks and leaves

Peel the potatoes and cut them in 1 inch cubes and cook them in salted water for 10 minutes. Drain.
Peel and slice the onions and cube the apples. Slice the garlic.

In hot mustard oil start the spices for 2 minutes. Add the onions and garlic and the chopped coriander stalks. Let them get soft and add a bit some veg stock. Now add potatoes and coconut milk. When it gets to dry, add more veg stock.

Last step are the apples. Let them heat through and finish with some more coconut curry powder and the fresh coriander leaves.

Eat it as it is and stay vegan.

I used small crunchy red radishes in cubes with Greek yogurt, dried salad herbs and salt and pepper as a Raita.

Reblochon and Pear Tart

Tartiflette is usually the way to prepare Reblochon.

This tart is a different way to eat the strong creamy cheese. A pear is a great partner for cheese. I had a bag of fresh chestnuts. I put them into the oven and had some peeled to use in the tart too.

A second type of cheese is used to bind the royal cream. Fresh grated Gryěre is mixed into the sauce.

The traditional Tartiflette has bacon as a mayor ingredient. Bacon and a bit of spring onion. So, bring it in. But not uncooked bacon, but browned a bit with the onion.

Use a rectangular loose bottom French tart form.

Recipe for 4:
1 package of tart or quiche dough
1 large pear
50 g chestnuts
150 g Reblochon
40 g Gryêre
50 g smoked bacon bits
1 spring onion
2 eggs
100 ml double cream
150 g creme fraiche
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 C.
Spray the baking dish and press the dough in. Clean the edges.
Prick it with a fork.
In a small pan, cook the bacon for 5 min and add the fine chopped onion.
Set aside to cool.

Peel the pear and slice it in fine pieces. Place them on the dough. Add the bacon mix.
Place chunks of Reblochon on top. Next the crumbled chestnuts.

Make the royal sauce and add the grated Gryêre.
Pour it over and let it set in all corners.
Stick in the oven and bake for 40 min.
Let it cool down or 10 min, then take it out of the dish and serve warm.

Zucchini or Courgette Cake

Time to bake with veggies. Zucchini is a great vegetable to give the cake a hood amount of moisture. And if you grate the courgette very fine and squeeze it, nobody will know what's the main ingredient of the cake.

When you have one or two plants in your garden, you will have enough of this veg to bake at least a dozen cakes. If you like muffins, the spredded veg goes great with them too.

Recipe:
200 g courgettes/ zucchini
1 egg
165 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 ml canola oil
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp Raz el Hanut
60 g ground hazelnuts
50 g raisins
200 g flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder

Butter for the dish and breadcrumbs.
Use a 25 cm loaf tin and bake at 180 C for 50 min.

Grate the courgette and squeeze out the moisture. Mix sugar, egg and oil to a creamy mass. Sieve the flour, salt and spices and add it to the mix. Now put everything together and give it a good stir.
Fill it in the loaf tin and bake.

Asian Style Noodle Soup

This soup has many "fathers".

It is a combination of a Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese Soup. I mixed a lot of ingredients and created a very tasty soup for a cold afternoon.

The base was the leftover chicken stock from my fridge. With Miso paste and Peanut butter it became a creamy soup.
I bought a bit of roasted pork from the deli section and some fresh seasoned sausage meat.
The sausage meat was cooked Soboro style, like the Japanese way to make a fine crumb of minced beef. Use 4 wooden chopsticks and a bit of elbow grease.
I cooked a soft boiled egg and later in the same water blanched some sugar snap peas for 30 seconds.
One of the main components was a box of Shimeji mushrooms. The other were to types of noodles.

Ingredients for 2:
750 ml chicken stock
1 tbsp white Miso paste
1 tbsp chunky peanut butter
3 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
2 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
1 bag DON DON noodles (fine egg noodles)
1 bag UDON noodles (thick Japanese wheat noodles)
150 g sausauge meat
2 spring onions
4 slices pork roast
1 egg soft boiled
180 g sugar snap peas
1 box shimeji mushrooms
1 tsp white and black toasted sesame seeds

Make the Soboro first and add the white part of the spring onions to the pot to soften up.
Clean the pot.
Cook the egg and later blanche the peas for 30 seconds in the same water. Cool it down and slice into strips.
Cut the mushrooms off the stem.
Cook the noodles seperately due to their different cooking times.
Drench the Udon in some shoyu and the DON DON in some black vinegar and put in the soup bowl.
Put the strips of peas and cut up greens of the onion in. Set the pork roast on the side.
Heat up the chicken stock and add Miso and peanut butter using a fine sieve.
Heat up the mushrooms and reheat the meat in the soup.
Pour over the noodles and finish with the egg.

Apple and Kohlrabi Salad

I found some apples that are red on the inside. The name is Kissabel. Some of them are totally red on the inside, others are red and white and look very interesting. Coworkers at the office thought I was eating watermelon pieces and were astonished to hear that the red chunks were apples.

A good thing is, I do not react allergic to these apples. The last two years I have to looks carefully not to eat 3 new varieties. The old apple trees produce apples I can eat, but some of the newer creations are not so good.

A bulb of kohlrabi finely sliced is the base. The fine and juicy taste of this vegetable is great for eating it raw. My Mom used to make these cooked and drenched in a fat and flour sauce, I never liked them this way.

Ingredients for a plate for 2:
1 bulb of kohlrabi
1 juicy apple of your choice
5 stalks of pimpernel
1 stalk of thyme
1 stalk of tarragon
1 tbsp honey
2 clementines juiced
1/2 lemon juiced
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 cup mixed pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds toasted

First toast your seeds and nuts.
Chop the herbs.
Peel the kohlrabi and cut it into fine discs.
Peel the apple and slice it.
Make the dressing and top with seeds.

Prawns, Scallops and Salmon Tart

Tarte du Pècheur à l`emmental is the original name of this dish. The fisherman´s tart with cheese.

The prep time looks faster then it really is. I needed 50 ml of Fumet de Poisson for this dish. It is stock made usually from high quality fish and seafood. I helped myself and made a stock from the heads and shells of the prawns with Noilly Prat and vegetables.

After cooking the stock, I reduced it to less than halve of its original quantity. That way it got a very intense flavour.

A couple of vegetables needed to be prepared and cooked. The shortcrust pastry had to rest in the fridge first and then blind baked for 15 min.

The royal cream had to be prepared. It contained the Fumet de Poisson or fancy fish stock.
Now construction time started.

ingredients for a 26 cm diameter loose bottom tart form:
12 rose prawns with head and shell
6 large scallops
200 g smoked salmon
100 g baby spinach
1 carrot
1 white of a leek
1 spring onion
1 egg yolk
2 eggs
80 ml double cream
80 ml whole milk
40 g demi sel butter
50 g Emmenthal cheese
1 round shortcrust pastry
50 ml fumet de poisson- fancy fish stock
pinch of nutmeg
thyme
salt and pepper

preheat the oven to 190 C.

Bake the rested shortcrust pastry for 15 min covered in ceramic beans on baking paper.

In some butter saute the carrots, leek and spring onions - season with salt and pepper. Put on a plate.
In the same pan with more butter let the baby spinach wilt, season it with nutmeg and salt and put it into a sieve and press out the water. Chop it.

Put the veggies in the shortcrust pastry first, the  prawns and scallops and fill the holes with strips of smoked salmon.
Fill up with the egg  mix and sprinkle with Emmenthal cheese.
Bake at 190 C for 15 min, drop the temperature to 160 C and bake for 20-25 min more.

Salmon Sun or Tarte Soleil au Saumon fumé

When I bought the cooking magazine issue in France "Without Meat" I thought OK, 70 recipes purely vegetarian.
I was wrong. The last few recipes are for the pescaterian people. All recipes are with salmon. The Salmon Sun caught my eye and I was intrigued by the perfect photo.

Now after preparing it - it was a blast taste wise - I know that with our store bought puff pastry, no one would ever reach that stage of perfectness. But preparing puff pastry at home is too time consuming and I am not participating in the GBBO.

recipe for 2:
1 round puff pastry
4 tbsp creme fraiche
125 g smoked salmon
1 tbsp dill
2 tbsp chives
pepper
1 beaten egg
white and black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven 220 C.
Spread the round puff pastry on a baking sheet. Put a glass in the centre.
Spread the creme fraiche around, but leave 1/2 inch free on the outside.
Sprinkle with fine cut dill and chives and season with pepper.

Use a sharp knife and cut 4, then 8  and then 16 strips from the glass to the edge.
Cut the smoked salmon into fine strips and use some tweezers to place them on the pastry.
Work fast, the puff pastry gets bad to handle the warmer it gets.

Now take 2 strips and twirl them together. Do that until you have 8 sunbeams.
Beat the egg and brush the pastry and the middle.
Sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds.

Bake for 18 min.

Rural Aera Gastronomy

You will get no Smartphone signal there and WI-FI is pretty basic, but the food is awesome.
Many bikers and hardcore cyclists can be found there, together with lots of families out for good food. The place is called "Grüner Baum" in Oberzent-Hesselbach.

I was invited to celebrate a 60th birthday there and it took me quite a while to get there on a Sunday morning. It is so weird when you drive through the countryside and loose your smartphone signal completely. Beeing used to reach out to anybody anywhere and not beeing able to is creepy. But this is Germany, way behind other countries.

But I am not writing about bad phone connections, but great food.

The couple who is running the restaurant is young. He took over from his father. His wife is from Italy, so you can find influences from the Italian kitchen there.

We started with a mixed salad wirh a tasty dressing that had some  cut up lovage leaves in.

Then came a beef consommé with the Swabian style filled pasta, called Maultschen.

An Italian couple was part of our group of guests. In there honor a classic melanzane dish was served next. Since we had a lot of more food to come, my friend was wise and brought Mason jars for everybody to take home some of the food.
The melanzane with mozzarella in tomato sauce was amazing. I filled up my jar and ate the warmed up content the next day for lunch at the office.

The main course was either regional trout or beef from Korsika.
But not the French island of Corsica, but a small village near by with this peculiar name.




Zwiebelrostbraten, or beef rumpsteak with onion sauce.

Then finally the dessert came. Most of us had Espresso ice cream.

It took us more then 3 hours from start to finish. In great company the time flies and nobody was angry about the long waiting time between the courses.

Borlotti Beans and Feta Patties

In my newest French cooking magazine issue are 70 vegetarian and vegan recipes. Today was the desicion to use up feta and a red bell pepper. Since I browsed the the recipes last weekend the patties caught my eye.

I did not want to get groceries, I used up the things in the cupboard and in the fridge. The bell pepper had a slight soft spot, the sheep milk feta was on its last week in the fridge. But the main ingredient was a can of Borlotti beans.

The patties are cooked in the oven. That way no problems to turn them, just flipped them over after half the cooking time. As a counterpoint to the patties I served a dip to go with them. Very lemony and creamy.

Recipe for 8 patties:
1 small red onion
1 red bell pepper
2 tbsp chives
1 tbsp parsley
60 g feta cheese
30 g Grana Padano
1 can Borlotti beans
60 g breadcrumbs
3 tbsp flour
Salt and pepper

Dip:
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
parsley
1 tbsp rice syrup
100 g rich curd
2 tbsp creme fraiche
Fleur de sel

Preheat the oven 180 C.
Chop onion and bell pepper very fine. Cut up the chives.
In a bowl mix all the ingredients to a simple mash.
Use a large ice cream scoop and put 8 patties on baking paper.

Stick it in the oven for 30 min, turning the patties over after 15 min.

Prepare the dip.