Bacon wrapped Asparagus

I have a new cookbook!

My last birthday was more then 6 month ago. Now I finally met friends again. Before they came I was asked about a birthday present. Since I have a new kitchen appliance - my Airfryer- I wanted a guidebook to use it more efficient.

The new recipes opened a lot more chances to use my new tool. The recipes are easy to follow.

Last night I chucked two ears of sweet corn in for 16 min. They tasted great and cooking them was s lot faster than boiling them in water.

Today I used up the last pound of asparagus upper halves.

Recipe:
450 g peeled white asparagus
150 g Austrian smoked ham slices
30 g Parmesan cheese
2 spritz olive oil

Wrap the asparagus stalks each in a slice of smoked ham with some fine grated cheese on top.
Stack them in the airfryer and spritz with a little oil.
Cook at 180 C for 10 min.

Serve with some sweet chili sauce.

Strawberry Dalgona

Fresh strawberries are great with the cream.

Since Dalgona is the trend here in this month, lots of different variations are popping up.

Just blend the strawberried and get rid of the seeds. That makes it a lot smoother. If you like it a bit rougher, keep them in.

Recipe for 1:
300 ml whole milk
Ice cubes
60 ml double cream
1 tsp sugar
3 Large strawberries

Beat cream and sugar to strong peaks.
Blend the strawberries and pour them through a sieve.
Mix it with the cream and put it on top of the milk.
Stick an extra strawberry on the rim

Courgette and Tomato Bake

A dish out of the oven us always a good meal with less hassle. Put everything in, pour over the sauce, chuck the cheese on top and bake it.

The stove keeps clean. You can have this dish for 2 or as many people you can feed with the size of your baking dish. I have one that feeds 8. A bigger dish would not go into my oven. 

To make it look nice, you can stack slices of courgette and tomatoes in a different pattern. But since everything is covered with sauce and cheese, you can keep it simple and throw everything in.

Recipe fot 2:

2 small courgette

1 medium tomato

6 date tomatoes

1 spring onion

Rosemary, thyme, purple basil, vietnamese coriander

2 eggs 

200 g sour cream

60 ml whole milk

Salt, pepper

Piment d'Espelette

Nutmeg

60 g Emmenthal cheese

Heat up the oven to 180 C fan.

Wash, slice and stack.

Mix and pour.

Sprinkle cheese.

Bake for 25 - 30 min

Mac 'n Cheese

I used small Fussili pasta! But the heavy cheesy pasta is something to try - just not more then 4 or 5 times a year ☺

The last time I had a helping was in a Restaurant in Florida. It was just fatty and very clogging. Since that time I stayed away from it. But then the guys from Sortedfood made a batch in Lockdown and that inspired me to do the same.

I was at the grocery store to look for the typical American cheese. I was standing in front of the dairy fridge and was unable to find it. I got help from someone filling up the fridge. It is such a long time since I bought that orange plastric wrapped cheese.

Many years ago my Dad made a couple of burgers. He wanted to prepare them like at the burger joint. When he served them, everybody took a bite and had a problem to get through the burger - he left the plastic wrapper on the cheese. He saw no difference between the cheese and the cover.

Since everything tastes better with bacon, and a little more fat does not count. I put some bits in the pasta as well. The preparation is easy. No need to make a roux. Just use some sour cream and mix that with the cheeses.

recipe for 3:
180 g small pasta - use Maccaroni - if you have them
150 g sour cream
4 slices orange American cheese
2 slices Emmenthal cheese
20 g processed velveeta paprika
4 tbsp cream cheese
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
60 g fried bacon bits
pepper
Piment d´Espelette
2 tbs breadcrumbs

Cook the pasta, drain and save some of the water.
Heat the grill of the oven to 180 C
Dump all the chopped cheese in the water, pour the pasta on top and stir.
Add bacon and seasoning.
Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and more Parmesan and stick under the grill for 7 min.

Put some basil leaf on the side of the dish to make it healthy !

Banana Nutella Bread

4 pretty black bananas greeted me this morning when I came into the kitchen. They smelled ripe.

Since my freezer is full, putting the bananas in there was no option.  Throwing them in the organic waste bin was not an option either.

My old banana nut bread recipe from my Alaska trip just needed 3 bananas.  I googled recipes for 4 bananas and found one from a German blog: zimt und zucker liebe

I added just some spices to it.

Recipe for a 25 cm loaftin:
250 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
400 g very ripe peeled bananas
50 g white sugar
50 g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large free range eggs
125 ml neutral oil
2 hands full chopped nuts ( almonds and cashews)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp softened Nutella

Heat up the oven to 175 C.
Take a loaftin and add baking paper, 1 inch over the rim to take it out later.

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Weigh 400 g bananas and add white and brown sugar to it.
Take a potato masher and give it a good workout.
Add eggs and oil.
Pour in the dry stuff and use a wooden spoon to mix.
In with the chopped nuts. Leave some cashews aside to top later.
Add allspice and cinnamon.


Pour half of the mix into the loaftin. Spread 1 tbsp nutella over it and stir with a cocktail stick.
Put the rest of the batter on top and add 2 tbsp of nutella. Stick sone whole nuts on top.
Bake for 50 - 60 min.

Pork Belly Chinese Style

I love the travel and food videos from Mikey Chen or Strictly Dumpling. Now doing videos as Cooking with Mikey.

One of these videos was about pork belly and the Chinese way of preparing it.

I have an other method I have seen Nigel Slater prepare and that was always my favourit. But I am always open for other recipes.

Preparation time is relatively short, but it takes time to marinate. 12 hours are a must, longer is even better. But that time I had to marinate the pork belly in the other recipe too.

The whole method was a bit strange to me, but the result was amazing.

recipe:
750 g pork belly with bones or not
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice  (freshly roasted whole spices, ground to a medium fine powder)

Use a double layer of aluminum foil, fold it in half.
Mix the marinate and brush the meat - BUT NOT the skin.
Set it atop the foil and fold the sides up, leaving the skin exposed.
Take 3 or 4 wooden cocktail sticks and pierce the skin very thorough.
Keep the sticks for the next day!

mix:
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
pinch of baking soda

Brush the skin with the mix. 

Stick in a freezer bag and put in the fridge to marinate 12-24 hours.

Heat up the oven to 200 C.
Put a rack on a baking sheet with some baking paper.
Use the sticks and pierce the skin again.
With a spoon get as much kosher salt on top of the skin to cover it completely. That will prevent it from burning. Let the aluminium foil sit snuggly on the sides.
Put it in the oven for 40 min.

Take the meat out, take the salt off. Take away the aluminium foil.
Set the oven to grill and place the meat back inside the oven for 20 min.

Cut the bones off and enjoy the meat and skin .

5 spice mix:
2 star anise
6 cloves
1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
2 cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 tsp Szechuan pepper corns

Roast the spices in a dry pan. Chuck into a grinder and blend.
  
  

 

Lunch at a Franciscan Monastery

Finally I was able to get out of Lockdown again and see friends.

We met about 80 km to the east from where I live. It was a great pleasure just to see them after such a long time.
Since this week restaurants were able to open up again, if they could provide the much needed space and distancing between clients. This is difficult for many to do, but several opened.

We went to a Franciscan Monastery on the hills above the Main river in Grossheubach. The Monastery is called Kloster Engelberg -the Angel Mountain. There are 612 steps leading up from the valley to the monastery- called the angel steps. The place is well known to draw many people on a pilgrimage. But not only known for that, but for the dark beer that is brewed here.

The place opened at noon and a couple of people waited with us to get in. We all were covering our nose and mouth with a cloth mask. Rather strange times.

The sitting on the inside was closed off. We had to leave our names and telephone numbers at the entrance and got a table signed to us. We had to get our food at the Kitchen counter and took it outside to the "beer garden". A inner court yard, where the tables were spaced 2 metres apart from each other. Only people from two households could sit together. Finally allowed to take the mask off.

We sat in the sun and enjoyed potato salad and warm meatloaf with a jug of dark beer.

Nothing could have been better!

Later we drove to a near by town and I bought a sweet bread at a local bakery. A cockchafer since it is still May.  

Pannacotta with Red Beets

Pannacotta does not always taste sweet. This is a savoury version.

In a bakery news leaflet I found a couple of recipes.  This one caught my eye, because of the red beets. I love this vegetable and using it in different ways is nice.

The earthy aroma is something many people do not like. I am a huge fan of the beets since I was a child on holidays at my Grandparents house. Grams cooked these right from the garden and always gave me one the moment it was cool enough to handle. Peeling it and getting red handed was something that appealed to me.

Recipe:
300 g precooked red beets
1 Shallot
20 g butter
40 ml veg stock
90 ml whole milk
90 ml double cream
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper
4 Gelatine leaves
3 Drops red food coloring

Cut 200 g beets into small cubes. Peel and dice the shallot very fine.
In a pot melt the butter and fry them for 2 min.
Add stock, cream and milk and season. Cook for 15 min.
Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 min, squeeze the water out.
Dissolve it in the pot with the beets. Put the whple mix into a strong blender and make a very fine liquid. Check the seasoning again

In a 22×15 cm dish lined with clingfilm pour in the mix. When it is not fine enough, use a fine sieve. Add food coloring if it is too  grey.

Store in the fridge for 3 hours.

Serve with salad, chopped nuts, some beet slices and crumbled bread.

Asparagus with Prawn & Pepper Topping

Asparagus season calls for inventing dishes. This is one of those.

I checked my fridge and found 2 red bell peppers that were on their last leg. I had a package of Chili Prawns from Lidl short before the expiration date.  (Chili Prawns that a not hot and spicy! They taste like regular prawns to me).

Combining them with the asparagus tops I bought was the plan. Chucking everything in a pan is so uninspiring.  Something  that looks good on a photo is a lot better.

I peeled most of the rubbery skin off the bell peppers and chopped a large spring onion. The peeled asparagus tops went into the steamer for 18 min.

Chunks of bell pepper and the onins needed about 10 minutes in the pan. A good dose of Noilly Prat and seasoning came next. The prawns needed only 2 minutes to heat through.

A nice oblong plate with the short asparagus tips laid out all in one direction, topped with the hot mix looked good.
I still have some of my 7 herb pesto to use up. A bit of fresh basil came last.

Looks good on a photo and tastes great on its own.

 

Woodruff Syrup

This is a herb that is unknown in most countries.

Here in Germany most people know the bright green jell-o with the very special taste. Do not ask me how woodruff tastes. A bit floral, a bit herby. When you use the wild plant be careful. It contains some kind of poison. The small amount of coumarin in it can result in a headache.

The wine laced with woodruff is an old spring drink here in Germany. Most people suffering a hangover the next morning point at the woodruff. But overindulging the tasty spiced wine and the alcohol in it is mostly the reason.

For a couple of years I have a pot with a woodruff plant on my balcony. It comes back every year and does not need much care. During normal years I go to France and buy cidre traditonelle from Brittany at the supermarket there. I add fresh strawberries and some lemon and a good bunch of woodruff and have a nice drink on weekends.

But this year is different. I was in the beginning of February in France and bought just two bottles of the cidre. It was long gone before the woodruff season started. Nice mid March the borders to France are closed and will reopen for normal travel at June 15th. They opened this weekend, but only to visit families and friends and not for tourist or shopping reasons. When I can finally go there again, the woodruff season will be over.

I do not like the stuff in white wine. I needed something else to do with my plant. Syrup was the next thing that came to my mind.

recipe:
500 ml water
375 g sugar
2 slices of lemon
50 g woodruff stalks
2 drops green pandanextract (optional)

Cut the woodruff the evening before you will use it. Wash it and let it dry on some kitchen towl.
Let it sit over night to wilt a bit. This intensifies the flavour.

In a pot heat up the water and the sugar and bring it to a boil. You can even reduce the liquid a bit to make it more syruppy. Put the woodruff in and let it cool down in the liquid and add the lemon. Let it sit for 5 hours. Stir some times.

Get the liquid through a sieve and back into the pot. Bring it to a boil and cook it for 3 min to sterilize. Fill in clean bottles.

Steamed Yeast Dumplings with Blueberries

Dampfnudeln  - Steamed Noodles ? No, that translation sucks.

A quick fix during the work from home time. Using my trusty Thermomix made the work more or less too fast to tell. 2 minutes to get the ingredients together, 2 min to warm milk, yeast and sugar and 90 seconds to knead the dough.

Getting it out was fast too, forming 4 balls did not take longer then 4 min.

The resting time of the balls was 30 min. The steaming time took 20 min. The blueberry compote less the 5 min. A great preptime of less then 15 min.

Recipe for 4 dumplings:
270 g flour
100 g milk
30 g butter
10 g sugar
1 egg
Pinch of salt
20 g fresh yeast

Put milk, yeast and sugar into the Thermomix. 2 min/37 C/ speed 1

Add the rest of the ingredients to the milk. 1.30 min/ on dough knead power.

Get the dough out and on a bit of flour give it a short knead. Cut it in 4 equal pieces.  Make 4 dough balls by tucking the dough under.
Butter the Varoma and set the dumplings in.
Put the lid on top and let them rest 30 min.

Fill 500 ml water in the Thermomix. Put the Varoma on top. Set it on 20 min/Varoma/ speed 1


Blueberry compote:
150 g blueberries
2 tbsp IKEA Sylt Blåbär jam
80 ml apple juice
Pinch ground vanilla pod