Cooking in a small AirB&B kitchen

I have rented a beautiful apartment with a large garden 15 minutes away from the Nuerburgring. The only downside is the small kitchen with no dishwasher and very limited space around the sink for dishes.

I decided to reduce my cooking for semi ready to cook meals using the microwave and a single plate on the hob. Less stuff to clean afterwards.

A good example for it was yesterdays Tortelloni with Salsiccia Tomato Sauce. The fresh pasta went in the microwave in two batches with 2 tbsp of water for 2,5 min.

The jar of sauce went in a pot to heat up. Then the first batch of tortellini went in while the other went in the microwave.

Some ready grated Grana Padano on top and the lunch was ready. 

Good and not too bad cleaning up later.

 

Pasta all'amatriciana

I still find pasta dishes I haven't cooked yet. This was one of them. 

I have a piece of guanciale in the fridge. I used some for spaghetti carbonara. But other dishes use this kind of bacon too. It is made from the pigs cheek.

The all'amatriciana originates in the Abbruzzen mountain town of Amatrice in Latium. You can find this dish in many restaurants in Rome.

Important is the use of a can of whole tomatoes, just crush them yourself. Pecorino is the choice of cheese, but I had a package of Grana Padano that needed to go.

Cut the guanciale in strips and put them in a cold pan. Slowly start to heat it up, wait until the fat has rendered out, then add onion and garlic. Open the can of tomatoes, then crush them and pour in the pan. Clean out the can with a little water and add that too. Season with salt and pepper and peperoncini.

Now start the pasta in not too much water.

A few fresh basil leaves were ripped and added to the sauce. Let it cook on medium until the pasta is short from al dente. Tranfer it directly from the pot to the pan and let it cook in the tomato sauce until done.

Add the cheese and stir it in.

Ingredients:

60 g guanciale

60 g pecorino

225 g spaghetti

1 can whole tomatoes

7 basil leaves

Salt, pepper, peperoncini

Rice and Fruit Dessert

Got cold leftover rice in Summer? Make a dessert kind of rice dish.

Use the kinds of fruits that are in season or that you have at home. When they are ripe and sift, just cut them up and put them in a bowl.

When the fruits are on the harder side, put them in a small pot with liquid of your choice and cook a quick compote. Let it cool and add to the bowl.

Creaminess comes from full fat Greek yogurt. Sweetness comes from maple syrup or honey.

Texture and maybe crunch from nuts, seeds or cereals. Use whatever you have on hand. 

I finished mine with Dutch Hagelslag = chocolate sprinkles.

Recipe:

150 g cold rice

100 g Mirabelles

3 tbsp maple syrup

1 cup Greek yogurt

3 tbsp chopped pistacchios

2 tbsp chopped hazelnut brittle

3 tbsp chocolate sprinkles

Ajam Pedis or Chicken in Onion Sauce

The last of my spiceblends from the Dutch supermarket. Very easy to cook and not spicy at all. I googled the name and discovered that it ment chicken feet. But the package discription only advised to use 700 g chicken.

The only vegetables that went in were onions and garlic. Mixed with a lot of sauce, the chicken legs had enough liquid to simmer in for 35 minutes.

Onions and sauce then go over rice with the chicken served on the side of the rice.

But use boneless thighs or breast if you like that more. The preparation is easy. No need to season the chicken. Just sautee oniins and garlic first, den scrape them to the side of the pan and get the chicken in. It does only need the time to close the raw sides and get a little bit of color.

Start the Basmati.

Add the sauce package and 2 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to medium and cook for 25 to 40 minutes, depending on the kind of chicken you use. Season with pepper. If you like more spice, add some now.

Ingredients:

700 g chicken

1 tbsp oil

1 large onion,  2 garlic cloves

1 spiceblend Ajam pedis

2 1/2 cups water

Pepper

Basmati

 

 

Fig Energy Balls

So many fresh but small figs sitting in bowls. A hand full went in these balls.

Lots of nourishing ingredients followed. My BFF gave me the recipe idea, but she used dates and mostly hazelnuts. But it is very versatile.

Dates need to soak over night in water. Figs only need 2 to 3 hours because they are fresh.

I chopped the quarted figs in small pieces and mixed them with the other ingredients, except the coconut.

Get the coconut in a small round container ot bowl. Form the small balls and toss each one seperately in the dessicated coconut.

Put the balls in the fridge they will dry out there.

Ingredients:

80 g fresh figs

150 ml apple soda or water

50 g ground almonds

30 g hazelnut brittle chopped

25 g toasted sesame seeds

1 tsp drinking chocolate powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp honey

Enough dessicated coconuts to roll the balls in

Spaghetti with Smoked Salmon and Dill

This is a fast dish that is based on "Henssler's schnelle Nummer".

But not that fast, because I used a bit more ingredients that lengthens the timeframe.

The longest time was cooking the spaghetti. They were double the length and al bronzo. Ba having a rough surface, the sauce clings to them a lot better.

I cooked them in less water to gain a high starch content in the water. That was needed for a good sauce.

Onion and garlic sauteed in a little butter, pasta water added to start the sauce. After 3 min 150 ml double cream were next. Seasoned and more water added. The spaghetti cooked the last 2 minutes in the sauce. 

The smoked salmon just needed to be cut up in small chunks and the dill to be chopped. They were in for the last 2 minutes just to heat up. Some lemon juice as a last thought and the dish was ready to serve.

Ingredients:

150 g spaghetti al bronzo

Salt

1 tbsp butter

1 onion, 2 garlic cloves

150 ml double cream

Pepper, Piment d'Espelette

150 g smoked salmon

Dill bundle

1/2 lemon

Bun with Crumble or Streuselbrötchen

Every time I am coming back to the Nuerburgring in the Eifel I am looking forward to this kind of baked good.

 

But you have to be early to get one. I got lucky yesterday at noon to get the last one.

It is a speciality that originates in the city of Aachen and is only available there and in parts of the Eifel. Outside this area nobody ever heard of it.

In Aachen they even have the "Day of the Streuselbrötchen" on April 29th.

It is a not so sweet heavy yeast dough. The streusel or crumble made with butter is pressed in a thick layer in the dough and piled on top of that.

When I came here 2,5 years ago for the first time and stood at the bakery, I wondered why they call Streuselkuchen a different name. But both bakes are very different. Now I am always looking forward to get a piece, even take some home and share with my neighbor.

Beef Shank leftovers

When there are bits and pieces of two dishes are sitting around in your fridge and taking up space, create something tasty from it.

In the door of my fridge in the jar was beef stock left. A smaller bowl in the fridge had some cubed cooked beef and a plastic bag was filled with cold Japanese short grain rice. 

In my compartment that holds all the condiments a jar of Ayvar paprika paste sat in the first row. 

For garnish I ripped off some green parts of a spring onion and ground lots of black pepper.

Biscoff Cream filled Apricot Dumplings

Served with vanilla sauce.

I've made this Austrian classic before, but in the traditional way. This time I used a shortcut and a very unusual filling of the apricots. The shortcut was the potato dough. 

We have 2 very good producers of ready to roll wet potato dumpling dough. You can choose between different dumpling styles. That makes life a lot easier and the chances that the dumplings fall apart during cooking due to the wrong kind of potatoes goes near 0.

The usual filling of the center of the apricot, after taking out the stone, is a cube of sugar that is sometimes dipped in Bailoni. That is an Austrian apricot liqueur. 

While looking for my sugar cubes in the farest corner of my cupboard, a jar of Biscoff cream fell in my hands. It has just a bit of cream left in it.

Why not change the flavour profile? I am not an Austrian and I like to make recipes my own way. A teaspoon Biscoff cream went in every apricot.

The potato dough wrapped around and formed to a closed ball. Make sure that there are no tiny holes in the ball. The cooking water will get in and the dumpling will split open.

To make sure the dumplings stay closed, a starch slurry is added to the cooking water. Depending on the dumpling size the simmering time will be 20 to 25 min?

While they simmer, I made the toasted breadcrumbs. A good amount of butter to brown them on medium high heat and to finish some cinnamon.

The dumplings get out of the water, shake off some of it and roll them in the breadcrumbs. Now they are ready to serve with custard.

Ingredients:

800 g ready made silk potato dumpling dough

5 apricots

5 tsp Biscoff cream

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp potato starch + 3 tbsp water

150 g breadcrumbs

50 g butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Vanilla custard

 

Asian Meatballs on Vermicelli Salad

Cold mungbean vermicelli to eat in this heat are great. They taste like nothing and invites you to get creative with them. But a little meat helps a lot too.

I went out early in the morning to the butcher to get the famous raw seasoned pork that most of us love to eat on a fresh breadroll with raw onions on top: Mettbrötchen

I used the seasoned pork to season it some more to resemble Asian taste and rolled it in small balls. The airfryer is the best option in this heat to cook them.

Lots of fresh veggies to go with the vermicelli and a good sauce.

Recipe for 2:

300 g sausage meat

1 spring onion

2 tsp garlic-ginger paste

Dried chili

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp Mirin

1 egg

100 g panko breadcrumbs

Parsley

Salad:

100 g mungbean vermicelli

1 carrot

1 red long pepper

1 spring onion

3 radishes

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

1 tbsp Mirin

2 tbsp light soy sauce

3 tsp sesame seeds

Pepper, salt, chives

Airfry the meatballs 15 min at 180 C

Put boiling water over the vermicelli noodles and let them sit 6 to 8 min, then drain.

 

Apricot Crumb Cake or Streusel Cake

It is a 2×1×1  method cake : flour, sugar, butter.

Recipe for s 24 cm round loose bottom cake tin:

300 g flour

150 g sugar

150 g cold unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

2 tsp vanilla sugar

8 to 10 apricots

2 tsp runny honey

Cut the cold butter in small slices and put the ingredients down to the vanilla sugar in a bix bowl. 

You could blizz it in a foodprocessor, but I thought I use an old method. 

Since it is very hot here, I used for the combining the stuff together a potato masher, then my hands in the end. With hot hands the dough does not get sandy, but melting. Only the last few minutes it then was good. 

I buttered the baking dish and put 2/3 of the crumbs in and pressed it down and a bit up the sides.

Take the stones out of the apricots and quarter them. Place them skin down on the dough. Drizzle with honey.

 

Beef Soup Indonesian style

One of my spiceblends I brought back from the Netherlands called for either chicken or beef. I wanted to give beef a try.

During the heat dome weather here not many people go for beef soups. It was a problem to get a good beef shank. It took me two weeks to finally got one.

All other ingredients were easy to find in the veggie section of the supermarket. 

I cooked the beef stock the day before I wanted to eat the dish. It took 1:40 minutes cooking time. The beef was super good after that time. I filtered the stock and cut the beef shank in small pieces. Both went in the fridge over night.

The next morning I cooked my potatoes and chopped leek, celery and green onion. 

Recipe for 4:

Stock:

600 g beef shank

1,5 liters of water

1 carrot, green from a leek, leaves off the celery, 2 garlic cloves, 2 dried chilis, 1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper

Dish:

1,2 liter stock

Beef cubed

1 Soto Ayam spiceblend

4 hardboiled eggs

1 tbsp oil

4 medium potatoes

150 g leek

75 g celery

1 green onion

Salt and pepper

4 tbsp crunchy fried onions

In a large pot heat up the oil and sautee the green veggies for 5 min. Add the paste and give it a good stir.

Pour in the stock and bring to a boil and cook until the veggies are soft. 

Now in with cooked potatoes and beef and heat it through. Just takes 5 minutes. Check seasoning.

Peel the eggs and get the plates ready. Sprinkle with fried onions.