Vichy Carrots

This is a old classic French side dish from Vichy, a small town in the Auvergne. 

Carrots are cooked with not a lot of effort. They are sitting under a lid and are steaming and the use of some mineral water (there are some mineral springs around Vichy) should give them the special taste.

Which is just BS! I used bottled sparkling water I drink at home daily. It works just as good. Tap water will also work.

Ingredients for 2:

6 medium carrots

1 pink Roscoe onion or 4 shallots

40 g butter

Salt

white pepper

1 tbsp honey

100 ml sparkling water

3 tbsp fresh parsley

I recently bought 3 pink Roscoe onions. They are very mild, but shallots will do too. Peel and finely chop it.

Use a pan with a lid, that is important to steam the carrots later. Melt the butter and saute the onions until they are translucent.

Peel the carrots and slice them in diagonal longer discs. It looks fancier. They should not be thicker than 3 mm. Add them to the onions and stir well. Season with salt and pepper.

Now close the lid and reduce the heat to medium and wait 5 minutes until you open the lid again. Now the carrots will have a little more liquid. Add the honey and let it coat everything and then pour on the water and close the lid again.

Let the carrots cook until they reach the softness you like. That can take 6 to 12 min. Finish with parsley.

 

 

Parsnip Muffins

I am still getting rid of too many veggies and a 350 g bag of parsnips needed a purpose.

In two days we have Halloween. Little muffin wrappers with spooky design fell in my hands when I looked for white ones. But why not.

I only needed 2 parsnips for my muffin recipe I found on SevenCooks.

The other two were peeled in very thin strips and dried on the oven at 140 C for 45 min. They will sit on top of my muffins. To stick them there a bit of lemon glaze should help.

Recipe for 24 mini muffins:

150 g grated parsnip

100 g butter

100 g sugar

1 pck vanilla sugar

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

130 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

Topping:

50 g icing sugar with some drops lemon juice

dried parsnip chips

Use a box grater or a Thermomix to make a fine parsnip base.

Cream butter and sugars together, add salt and egg after egg. Fold in baking powder with flour and do not overmix. Add the parsnip and stir it in.

Fill 1 heaped tsp in each mini muffin cup and bake at 180 C for 12 min.

Mix the icing sugar with a little lemon and make a dot on top the cooled muffin. Stick s piece of dried parsnip on top.

 

Fennel baked in the Oven

A huge bulb of fennel was left over from my vegetable stock paste making yesterday. I only needed 1 sleeve and the most part went in the veggie drawer of my fridge.

What to do with it. Cold and foggy weather are not the best time for a salad with raw fennel. Something comforting and nice was needed.

A bake with cheese goes well with any kind of vegetable.

Fennel is a very crunchy vegetable. Putting it raw in the baking dish does not help with it. A 7 minutes cooking time in salted water makes the fennel a bit softer.

Start with the roux while the fennel is cooking. Use milk, veg stock and double cream to have enough liquid. Season with lots of nutneg, smoked salt and pepper.  The green onions go in chopped raw.

Drain the fennel, add it to the mix and spray the baking dish with oil. Fill in the mix.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan.

 

Mix cheese with breadcrumbs and top the fennel. Bake for 20 min. Eat it as a veggie dish or serve it as a side with meat or fish.

Ingredients for 2:

2 fennel bulbs

2 green onions

40 g butter, 40 g flour

200 ml milk, 150 ml double cream. 100 ml veg stock

Salt, pepper, nutmeg

75 g grated Emmenthal cheese

75 g breadcrumbs

Oil for the dish or butter

Sausage Rolls with Chutney and Mustard

I am taking part in a Brunch with friends that is a 2 hours drive from here. I wanted to bring sausage rolls for this event.

I have not made any in a longer time. To know how much preptime, baking time and cooling time I needed to calculate, I decided to give my own recipe a dry run in advance. Then I know when to start the cooking process and the sausage rolls are not too hot to get packed up.

I used uncooked Bratwurst and peeled off the casing. The dough is rectangular and enough for 2 long sausage rolls.

My recipe contains some sauteed onions. They had to be prepared first. Steamed under a lid they needed 10 minutes to get soft and took some color. To cool them down they went on a plate and were spread out.

I cut the dough through the middle lengthwise. Streched the sausage meat a bit and formed two strands. I needed 3 sausages (300 g total) for the two pieces. The sauteed onions followed.

I needed a bit of sauce inside the sausage rolls. I have some sweet chestnut mustard I bought at a garden fair. But that was not enough. Plum chutney for a bit of fruitiness. Just some dollops of both spread out over the sausage.

Crunch? My just opened bag of pumpkin seeds was still sitting on the counter. They were waiting for a cleaned container to store them. No there are less to store.

I closed the dough by rolling it over with the paper it was on. Pinched the seams and transfered to the baking sheet. Some diagonal slashes with a knife on top, some eggwash and black and white sesame seeds.

Baking time at 200 C fan 22 to 25 min.

The whole process without cooling time took 1 hour. 20 min for a bit of cool down and they are ready to be packed for the Brunch. 

Fig Balsamic Dressing

I still have figs to preserve. I am slowly getting short on ideas.

But a Winter dressing for salads or even to top a bit of vanilla ice cream with it sounded great. Luckily I had some small empty bottles at home. I just had to sterilize them in boiling water.

The figs were quartered and the top cut off. I measured old good quality Italian balsamic vinegar with 1/3 white balsamic vinegar to get the acidity I wanted.

This is balanced later with a bit dark Muscovado sugar. That helps with the shelve live too.

Ingredients:

350 g quartered figs

80 ml water

225 g balsamic vinegar

125 g white balsamic vinegar

2-3 tbsp dark Muscovado sugar

Cook the figs in water and a quarter of the vinegar mix for 20 minutes. Take a stick blender and mix it very fine.

Now it does not look good 😂 add the other vinegar mix and cook for 5 min on low heat.

Add some of the sugar, stir and test the acidity. Use sugar to your taste.

Fill in clean bottles. They keep unopened in the cupboard for 6 month. When open, store them in the fridge.

 

Pollock on Leek in Cream

The beef noodle soup I had planned for the weekend was a healing gift to my sick friend. I had to look for something else to cook.

The early morning grocery run let me stop at the fishmonger. Pollock was on sale today. I choose a medium sized filet. 

Without any idea what to do with it, I discovered that my breadcrumb box was nearly empty. To bread the fish, I had to put old baguette and breadrolls in the Thermomix to produce breadcrumbs.

Job done and the box was nearly filled to the top. But I did not use any breadcrumbs for my pollock later. I went just with some fish seasoning and pepper. 

Recipe for 1:

220 g pollock filet

150 g leek, the white part

 1 tbsp olive oil

50 ml double cream, 50 ml veg stock, 2 tbsp Noilly Prat

Salt,pepper, fish seasoning

Cooked rice as a side

Cut the leek in 1/2 cm discs and wash them. In a wide pan heat up the olive oil and sautee the leek for 8 min. Season at the start with salt and pepper. Last, add Noilly Prat.

Add double cream and veg stock and let that cook 2 min.

Season the pollock and scrape the leek to the side of the pan and set the fish in. Reduce the heat to medium and cover the pan with a lid. After 4 min, turn the fish and cook covered until done.

Reheat the rice and serve everything together.

 

Fig and Goatcheese Quiche

More recipes with figs and there is no final one in sight.

My friend was diagnosed with Covid again. I am taking her beef noodle soup and some fresh groceries later.

She heard about my fig problem and was looking forward to some baked goods with figs and goatcheese.

I went out to the supermarket very early to get her groceries and the ingredients missing from my recipe. Originally it called for walnuts, but she is allergic to nuts. I bought some pumpkin seeds for crunch. And lactose free double cream, the regular is bad for her too.

The pastry is a fresh dough from the supermarket, but very good quality. It needed to be baked blind for 10 min to prevent a soggy bottom later.

10 figs went on top of the royal mix together with lots of fresh grated hard goatcheese.

Recipe:

1 readymade shortcrust pastry for a 26 cm dish

8 to 10 figs, cut in halves

3 heaped tbsp crispy Dutch onions

3 large eggs

150 ml double cream, 160 g goat cream cheese 

150 g grated hard goat cheese

6 slices raw smoked ham

4 tbsp pumpkin seeds

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp smoked salt

1/4 tsp pepper

A very good pinch of nutmeg

Preheat the oven 200 C.

Prebake the quiche dough 10 min.

Take the baking beans off and sprinkle the crispy onions on top.

In a bowl mix double cream, cream goatcheese, 1/4 of the grated goatcheese, the eggs and the spices. Pour over the onions.

Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top and rip the ham strips apart to spread them out.

Cut off the tip from the figs and halve them, or quarter if they are larger. Set them on top of the quiche. Finish with grated goatcheese.

Bake for 40 min. Take it out and let it set 15 min.

 

Fig and Apple Compote

This years 2. fig season is killing me. No more empty jars for jam and I wont buy some.

Looking for ideas and talking to friends is a good way to get inspiration. The compite was one of them. Eating some of ot with some Skyr as dessert and giving some to my neighbor, I had enough to put two filled freezer bags down for use in the future.

This is a good way to make figs last longer. There is no additional sugar needed. I only used a little pear fruit juice to have enough liquid for a compote. As a seasoning, a bit of cinnamon and ground ginger and the juice of a lemon are nice.

It takes a bit of time to peel and cut the apples, but a 2 to 3 ratio from apples to figs works fine. Just top and tail the figs and quarter them. When the cooking is done, after about 20 minutes, use a potato masher to give the compite the right consistency.

Ingredients:

2 apples

650 g fresh figs

1 lemon, juiced

100 ml pear juice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger