Corn Chowder

What can you do with 2 ears of sweet corn and lots of veggies in the fridge? Make a soup. 

It is relatively cold this morning with 58 F 14 C  and I had to wear a jacket going out to the supermarket.

A good hearty soup with bacon was my plan. To bind the soup a bit later I cooked some potatoes and made a mash. Half of it went in the soup at the end, the other half was used for something else. But use 2 potatoes instead and chop them fine or grate in the soup.

Recipe for 3:

2 ears of sweet corn

125 g smoked bacon bits

1 tbsp oil

2 green parts of a leek

2 stalks celery

1 carrot

1 yellow long pepper

2 potatoes or cooked mash

300 ml chicken broth

200 ml milk

100 ml double cream

Salt, pepper, paprika, celery leaves

Start the bacon. When it has taken some color, add the veggies and stir them for a couple of minutes. Add chicken broth. Season.

Cook for 10 min, add milk and cream and cook 10 more min, but keep an eye on it, because the milk and cream tend to boil over.

Add the potato mash and the chopped celery leaves. Check the seasoning.

I do not use a stickblender. I like my soup with the veggie chunks. But feel free to make it smoother.

 

Raisin Bread Luxembourg style

Fresh yeast does not last long in the fridge. For my Focaccia I've needed only 5 g.

Now 37 g are waiting for a purpose. I wanted some not so sweet Brioche type bread and looked around many platforms.

Then the Luxembourg Raisin Bread popped up. I did not know that was a thing there. Then I checked foods from Luxembourg and it was on a list. It is from " marcelpaa.com"

The recipe is a 3 day process. Why do I have a feeling it will not need much yeast?

And I was right. Only 10 g for 500 g flour. Well, now I am down to 27 g of fresh yeast in the fridge.

This is a recipe best started before the weekend. It is not for people who want a quick result. Overall preptime is no so much, but you will need a good standmixer that can knead dough for 20 minutes without overheating.

Recipe for a bread loaf tin:

500 g bread flour (I used tipico speciale 0.0)

10 g fresh yeast

300 ml water

10 g salt

30 g sugar

1 egg

65 g soft unsalted butter

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla paste

170 g raisins

50 ml dark brown rum

1 beaten egg to brush the loaf

butter for the tin and oilspray for the box

Evening before the day you start the dough:

Measure 170 g raisins in a small bowl and add 50 ml dark rum. Quality control is optional :-) set aside covered.

The next afternoon:

Get your standmixer ready with the dough hook. Measure all ingredients from flour down to vanilla paste in the mixing bowl. On slow speed bring it together in 3 min.

Now set a timer and on medium speed let it knead for 17 min. Take the dough hook out and fold the raisins in.

Use a greased dough bowl with a lid and let the dough fall in. Cover and at roomtemp let it sit for 60 min. Then strech and fold the dough 3 times. Cover and put in the fridge for 12 to 16 hours.

Saturday morning:

Get out of bed early to take the dough out of the fridge to come back to roomtemp for 2 hours.

Flour a surface and plopp the dough out. Pat it rectangular, then fold both sides over each other. The open side goes on the bottom of the buttered loaftin. Brush with eggwash and cover to rest at roomtemp for 60 to 90 min.

Preheat the oven 200 C fan.

Bake for 35 min on middle hight. Then unmold the raisin bread, put it on a baking tray and bake for 5 to 10 more min.

Let it cool completely

It can easily be frozen in slices.

 

Ice Cream Bar in a Croissant Trend

I try to give new trends a chance.

Today I bought fresh croissants and a box of ice cream bars.

I went for the todays "normal" size, which is between 80g to 90 g. Shrinkflation happened here too.

But I should have gone for the Mini. Our Croissants are too small to get a regular size ice cream bar inside.

It worked somehow. 

This trend is done and I wont repeat it. I do not know what all the fuss is about.

 

Oven roasted Peppers with Burrata

A big bag of peppers came back with me from latest grocery haul, very colorful.

Putting them on a baking tray with good seasoning and olive oil makes for an easy dish. After 30 min in total you are done.

To make a platter of veggies more fancy, put a ball of Burrata on top. For an additional nice touch, cut up some toast and in a pan with olive oil and butter and the greens of the spring onions let them take color. 

Put everything on a nice plate and it is ready to enjoy.

Ingredients:

1 Burrata

1 red bell pepper

2 orange long peppers

1 yellow long pepper

2 soring onions without the green tops

3 garlic cloves    

Olive oil

Butter

2 slices of Toast

Onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper   

Korean Eggplant "Schnitzel" or Gaji-gui

One of my favourite Food YouTubers is Maangchi. I've tried a lot of her recipes and all of them were good.

A vegetarian option to a pan fried piece of meat sounded great to me and I love eggplants/aubergines.

This is a very simple dish, but you will need an extra wide pan or better 2 pans. The dish is served with rice. But as a side dish Banshan for a Korean BBQ good as well.

I prepared the sauce first and set it aside. I used one big eggplant, the only size available at the supermarket yesterday. Cut off the green hat and sliced it lengthwise in 1 cm cuts. 

Put some flour on a wide plate and cover the eggplant slices good with flour. No need to salt them and let them loose moisture before that.

Be generous with oil and bake them, flipping them over a couple of times until golden brown. Brush the sauce on one side, flip and let it cook

Serve seasoned side up and scrape the pan to get the stuck on sauce back on the eggplants. Finish with sesame seeds and eat with a bowl if hot rice.

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, about 450 g

4 tbsp flour

2 green onions

3 garlic cloves

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp Gochugaru

1 tsp sesame oil

Sesame seeds

Oil

Danishes with Peaches on Pudding Cream

Each Danish has a single piece of milk chocolate inserted in the middle.

The fresh peaches are getting softer everyday and a puff pastry roll is waiting to be baked. But a good Danish needs something more, a nice layer of pudding as a base.

My KOMET pudding box still has some packages to choose from. I used pineapple flavour today

To give the pudding a little more structure, I only used 450 ml of milk instead of 500 ml. The pudding cream is nicely flavoured of faux pineapple, but it works well with the fresh peaches.

I've cut the puff pastry in 4 quarters and filled them. Last idea was the piece of chocolate. The edges of the pastry came up over the filling, brushed with some milk and was baked at 

200 C fan for 20 min

Ingredients:

1 rectangular roll of puff pastry

450 ml whole milk

30 g sugar

1 package pineapple pudding powder

2 ripe peaches

4 single pieces of milk chocolate

Milk to brush

Chicken with Masala Spicepaste Surinamese style

This paste has 3 chilis for heat on the front of the package. The 2 packages I already used had only one chili. Lets get cooking spicy today.

They use a lot of green beans in Surinam, but the yardlong variety. I only had access to our usual green Bobby beans. You can either make this dish with rice or cook it with potatoes.

I opted for Basmati and went ahead and started the ricecooker first.

Boneless and skinless chicken thighs are working great here, but prawns or Tofu would work too.

Recipe for 4:

400 g chicken thighs

1 tbsp oil

1 yellow onion

2 spring onion

3 garlic cloves

200 g green beans

3 hardboiled eggs

250 ml water

1 spicenblend package

1 1/2 ricecooker cups Basmati

Chop both types of onions and sautee them in oil for 3 minutes. Keep some of the soring onion green back for garnish. Cut the chicken thighs in bite size chunks and add them to the wok.

Clean the beans and cook them together with the eggs for 10 minutes. Let the eggs cool in cold water.

Add the spiceblend to the wok and pour in the water. Cook for 7 minutes, then add the beans and the rice to thicken the sauce.

Peel the eggs and cut them in slices and set them on top. Sprinkle with green onion.

 

 

 

 

Tirokafteri or Cheese spread

A Greek spread with sheep feta to dip some bread in.

The well known one is Tzaziki, made from Greek yogurt. This dip can be found everywhere, but Tirokafteri is mostly unknown outside of Greece.

It is a bit more substancial. Since there are no cucumbers in, it does not water down and can be served over 2 or 3 days.

I checked "Leckerschmecker" and found this recipe. I just added some fresh thyme and oregano, because I had some sitting on my cutting board from the Focaccia baking.

Recipe:

200 g sheep/goatmilk feta

150 g full fat Greek yogurt

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 lemon juiced

1 garlic clove or 2 tsp paste

Paprika powder, little salt and pepper

Fresh thyme and oregano

Use a fork to break down the feta. Stir everything else in until smooth.

Focaccia with Olives

This bread takes some time and patience and goes over 2 days.

But the bread has only 5 ingredients and that makes it perfect. The topping can be choosen by you. I went for green olives, fresh herbs and some fleur de sel.

Start in the early afternoon at the first day. Combine flour and water to a shaggy substance, cover with a lid and let the Autolyse work for you. Wait a full hour.

That means the moisture is slowly penetrating the flour. The dough later will have an 82 to 85 % hydration.

The salt is going in the leftover water to dissolve. The 5 g fresh yeast gets crumbled.

Use a standmixer and put the dough in. Add salted water and yeast and let the machine knead for 10 minutes.

Clean the hydration bowl and brush it with olive oil. Put the doughball in and cover with a lid. Let it sit at room temperature.

Now comes the fun part. Every 20 minutes wet your hands and strech and fold the dough. Do that at least 6 times. Then cover and stick it in the fridge over night or 18 to 24 hours.

The next day let it come to room temp. Fold it again. Use a baking sheet with baking paper and pour olive oil on top. Not too much, but 4 to 5 tbsp. Dump the dough on top. Strech and turn over. Now get it in shape.

I cut green olives in rings and cleaned fresh herbs. I put dimples with my fingers in the dough and put the olives in. When they only sit on top, they likely fall off. Next herbs and some fleur de sel.

Preheat the oven 250 C.

Put the bread in and toss a cup of water on the bottom of the oven. Close and reduce the heat to 230 C.

Bake for 25 min.

Babi Ketjap Pork Indonesian style

One other spice blend package from my trip to the JUMBO supermarket in the Netherlands. This time with pork.

Easy, tasty and quick to prepare.

I have bought 500 g of pork neck steaks and was looking for a way to prepare them. Then I checked the spice blends still sitting around and the dish was good to go.

The only other ingredients were an onion and water. But from my Spanish vegan Romesco sauce was still the green upper part of the leek in my veggie drawer in the fridge. A bit more veggies are always better.

Recipe for 4:

Babi Ketjap spice paste

500 g pork neck steak

1 tbsp oil

1 onion

60 g leek

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp red chili paste or sambal olec

Salt and pepper

2,5 cups of water

Rice or pasta

Chop the veggies and cut the pork in bite size chunks. Heat up oil in a wok and start with onion and garlic. When it is softened add the pork.

Brown on all sides then add the leek. Season with salt and pepper.

Now add the spice paste and stir that in. Pour the water in next and stir until everthing is dissolved.

Add soy sauce and chili paste. Reduce the heat and cook until the pork is done. Pork neck does not take long, 20 min should be enough.

Serve with pasta or rice.