Focaccia dolce storica Veneta

Christmas time is Panetone or Pandoro time, well mostly in Italy. But for a long time in November our Supermarkets atarting selling them too.

This one is from an Italian/Spanish big supermarket. They had mountains of different types and brands stocked through a lot of space.

I wandered between the isles to look for something special and found this one. The lovely package caught my eyes first. No bright colorful boxes, but an understated paper wrapped box with a bow and a coin on it.

The coin is called Osella, the seal of an authentic gift. That was an ancient coin the Doge of Venice gave to the Council as a symbol of good fortune. It is used today as a reminder what the City of Venice stands for.

Three different kinds were sold. The traditional, the one with mandarines and one with amarena cherries. Since I like it more citrussy and amarena cherries are too sweet, that one was the one I choose.

The spices that are used go back to Marco Polo. He left from Venice to Asia 1271 in search of exotic spices. 

The sweet Foccacia has lots of spices, soft candied mandarines and almonds. It is a fluffy and very rich dough.

Mulled Wine Mousse

Christmas Eve is the day for me to get most of my prepwork in the kitchen done.

First step of the day was preparing the mulled wine. Since it is very cold outside, getting is cold in a very short time was no effort.

Pour the wine in a small pot, add the spices, the honey, ginger and thick slice of orange to it. Heat it up, but don't let it boil. Cut the heat and let it sit 20 minutes. Take out all the stuff and let the mulled wine cool down completely.

Over a Bain marie or pot of boiling water use a heatproof bowl. Add egg yolks and sugar and start whisking with an electric hand whisk. The cream should get white and start to thicken.

Pour 100 ml of the cold wine in and whisk until you have a foamy silky mass.

Beat the double cream to soft peaks and stir it in. Fill in dessert bowls and let it set in the fridge minimum 3 hours.

Cheese XMas Trees

Some more preparations for XMas Eve.

I saw these tiny trees on a Reel, but did not write anything down. Google provided larger cheesy trees and I took some of the ingredients from different ones to make my simple one.

First order of the day was getting the red kernels out of the pomegranate. I think I finally found a method that works and does not turn everything in a bloodbath.

Use a bowl of water, cut off the top of the pomegranate, then cut down along the 5 sidelines. Break it open. Take every part over the water and scrape the kernels out. The skin will float on top, the kernels stay down. Skim them off, then drain the kernels through a sieve.

Many of the recipes called for sharp Cheddar cheese. Here is only the regular Cheddar available, but I am not a huge fan of. Instead I used Old Amsterdam sharp dry Gouda.

Ingredients for 5 trees:

Ritz crackers round

225 g cream cheese

50 g old Gouda

25 g Parmesan

1/4 tsp dried onion powder

1/4 tsp dried shallots

Pepper

Fresh chopped dill

Pomegranate seeds

Mix the cheeses with the seasoning. I used the cheeses cold. There were ready to mold. Otherwise put the cheesemix in the fridge for 15 min.

Roll the cheese form in dill, set it on the Ritz and put some pomegranate seeds in. Keep in the fridge until serving.

Ras el Hanout Carrots with Coucscous

My neighbors daughter made a short trip to Marrakesh. She brought home for me a bag with awesome smelling Ras el Hanout spiceblend.

She knows I love to cook and often her mother gets a plate of food as well.

I looked at Pinterest and found a recipe from deesküche, which I used as an idea for my own dish.

First of all I had to cut the carrots in matchsticks, but I am good with a sharp knife. Then I chopped shallot and green onions.

The cranberries and raisins were soaking in hot water for 1 hour, then drained. The almonds were slithered already.

But before you start the pan, get the couscous going. Double the amount of water to couscous and add veg stock paste and a knob of butter. Bring the stock to a boil, stir in the couscous and depending on your kind of stove cut the heat or let it sit on very low for 10 minutes. Then fluff it with a fork.

Heat up olive oil in a large pan and get onions, garlic and carrots in. They need good couple of minutes. Now in with cranberries, raisins and almonds and the Ras el Hanout loosened in a bit of water. Salt and Pepper follow and some chili if you like it more spicy.

Add 60 ml of veg stock and let it cook until the carrots are done, put a lid on the pan.

Finish with parsley, Feta and Greek Yogurt on top of the couscous.

Ingredients:

100 g couscous

1 knob of butter

200 ml veg stock

3 large carrots (400 g)

1 onion

1  green onion, 4 garlic cloves

1 tbsp Ras el Hanout in 2 tbsp water

60 ml veg stock

30 g almond slithers

60 g cranberries/raisins

2 tbsp parsley

Feta 

Greek Yogurt 

Raffaello roasted Almonds

The Christmas Market season is still in full swing, but I have no intention to go there.

But roasted almonds are a treat I miss. Why not make them at home? No problem, when the modern technology has arrived in your household = the Air Fryer

Making them in a pan is the oldfashioned way, but the cleaning is a mess. Putting them in the airfryer in a special baking paper is no mess. When they are done, get the paper with the almonds out and everything is clean.

Raffaello are a Summer treat, but white chocolate mixed with coconut as a coating for roasted almonds sounded nice. I had to try it.

Recipe: 

200 g almonds

70 g sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

3 tbsp water

100 g white chocolate

40 g dessicated coconuts

Place almonds with both sugars and cinnamon in the airfryer paper and add the water. Stir it through. Bake at 200 C for 15 min- it depends a bit on your airfryer. Stir every 3 minutes or shake.

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave, stir in the coconut. When the almonds are done, combine both and spread out on baking paper to dry. 

Leek and Bacon Spaghetti

A very fast pasta dish.

The mix of leek and bacon is a good compination. The time the colorful spaghetti needed cooking.

Start the bacon and after 2 minutes add the leek rings. Let it get soft and season heavily. The garlic powder gives a good deepness.

Add enough pasta water to loosen it up. Then the cream cheese and cream. Let the spaghetti finish cooking in the sauce.

Add parsley and lemon juice and top with deep fried onions.

Ingredients:

200 g spaghetti

100 g leek

80 g bacon smoked

2 tbsp olive oil

50 g creme cheese

100 ml double cream

1/2 lemon juiced

Parsley

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt, pepper, piment d'Espelette, dried chives, Italien herbs

Fried crunchy onions

Chayote Stew

The Chayote is nothing very common here in Germany. Sometimes in an Asian market or in France more easy available.

But I've got lucky any bought it at REWE supercenter. They had a table with "exotic" fruits and veggies for the holidays.

I have some recipes on this blog with chayote already and was looking for a new method to eat it.

Ingredients for 2:

1 large chayote

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

6 cherry tomatoes

175 ml veg stock

120 g ground pork or sausage meat

120 g cooked prawns

2 tbsp fishsauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

Pepper, drops of lemon

Put on some kitchen gloves first before you start peeling the chayote. The sap will otherwise irritate the skin of your hands. Peel it with a speed peeler and then cut through the middle lengthwise.

The chayote may have a white kernel or pith. When it is soft and young, you can eat it too. But I took the white bit out. Now cut the chayote in bite size chunks.

I always have to stop myself to eat to many chunks raw. I love them, but I need them for the dish.

Prepare the other ingredients and start to heat up the oil. Toss in shallots and garlic and the ground pork or sausage meat. Mince it and brown it. Chuck in the tomato slices. Season with fishsauce and pepper.

Next the chunks of chayote goes in together with some veg stock. Cook it for 3 min and add the oyster sauce. Give it all 10 minutes. Since the prawns are cooked, they just need to heat through. Check the seasoning and add some lemon.

 Cook some rice and serve it on top.

 

Strawberry Chocolate roasted Almonds

YOGURETTE chocolate covering caramelized almonds in dried strawberry sugar - what is not to like?

Yogurette is a famous chocolate with strawberry cream center. Many love it, I don't.

I had a couple of bars laying around and I needed an idea to use them. Pinterest helped.

Our Christmas markets sell sugar coated roasted almonds. But they got so expensive that last year I made some batches at home in my Air Fryer.

I used the same method this time as well. Only then the fun started. I had an open package of freeze dried strawberries (I needed some for an other recipe) and put the leftovers in a box. 

Now was their time to shine. In a blender with icing sugar and then put in a bigger container with a lid. Be careful, the strawberry dust gets everywhere.

I unwrapped the Yogurette and with some white chocolate I put it in the microwave to melt. 2x30 seconds.

The hot almonds went in a larger bowl, the chocolate went on top and was stirred through. Then all that went in the container with the strawberry sugar and got shaken very well.

Put the almonds then on baking paper to dry them and later store them airtight. The whole apartment smells like strawberry icing.

Separete the loose sugar from the coated almonds with the help of a sieve. Do not throw out the strawberry sugar, use it up for desserts or sweeten your yogurt.

Ingredients:

200 g whole almonds with skin

70 g sugar, 1 tbsp vanilla sugar

3 tbsp water

200 C 13 min in the Air Fryer, stir every 3 min.

Melt strawberry filled milk chocolate 80 g.

Mix 6 tbsp icing sugar with 20 g freeze dried strawberries

Nudja with Beans

Eat it with crusty Italian bread.

This is pour people food from Calabria. For a dish for 2 you will just need 35 g of Nduja. All other protein comes from the beans. I found the idea on Pinterest "anna's table"

I went to our huge Spanish/Italian supermarket across from the Main Station today. I only wanted to buy a bottle of the Spanish sloe and anis liqueur I had tasted yesterday.

But the kinds of supermarkets are dangerous to customers. Going in to get one item ended with getting 10 and spending a lot of money.

But it was worth it.

At the Italian fresh counter I saw a small piece of Nduja. I know very well that a little goes a long way. 68 g later, some Mortadella, Coppa and fresh bread later, I payed for the first items.

Usually white beans (Cannelini) are used for this dish, but I had a can of French light green ones.

Put them in a tomato based sauce and you wont see a difference.

Recipe for 2:

1 medium can of beans

2 shallots

4 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp tomato paste

200 ml veg stock

35 g Nduja

100 ml double cream

35 g Parmesan cheese

Some chopped parsley

Lemon juice

Salt, pepper, smoked paprika, Italian herbs

In a pot heat up the oil and give onions and garlic 3 minutes. Now in with the chopped up nduja and the tomato paste. Both need 3 more minutes. In goes the veg stock and the seasoning. Let the nduja cook until it has melted.

Now in with the drained breans. They only need to heat through. That means the cream can go in as well. When it bubbles again, add the cheese and the parsley.

Serve it with crusty bread.

Apple "Marshmallows" Viral

The new Insta/TikTok Reel are these "marshmallows". I have no idea who came up with this recipe in the first place.

The wobbly chunky substance tastes great and very much only like apple. It does not have any resemblance or sticky sweetness of a marshmallow.

BUT IT IS VERY TASTY and not overly sweet. Just the natural sweetness of a tart apple.

When you try it, make sure to use a good standing electric kitchen machine. The hot applesauce needs 20 minutes of high speed turning with a balloon whisk. The handheld ones do not have the speed and endurance for a 20 min whisk.

I saw many failures on line, most were using a handheld electric whisk.

Peel and core the apples and weigh them. You need 600 g of apple chunks. Juice of 1/2 lemon and 50 ml water. 2 tsp of vanilla sugar added to the pot.

20 gelatine leaves need soaking in water for 10 min. Squeeze the water out.

Cook with a lid until the apples are mush. Take a stickblender to make applesauce. Put in the gelatine immediately to dissolve it completely.

Pour the hot applesauce now in your standmixer and on high speed whisk it for 3 min, then go to halfspeed and whisk 15 min. In the end 2 more min on high.

Use a 25x13 cm dish and put baking paper in. Pour the foamy mass in and cover with clingfilm directly on the surface.

Put in the fridge for 5 hours. Do not try it earlier. Get it out and cut off cubes and enjoy.

But do not be dissapointed, the block that came out of the dish after 5 hours cooling time reminded me of a block of polenta I had to cut.

And it tastes like apples! No wonder! Not unpleasant and only a little sweet.

Ingredients:

700 g Braeburn apples to get 600 g

1/2 lemon

50 ml water

1 package vanilla sugar

20 gelatine leaves.