pho a Viatnamese classic

I have not made this great tasty soup for a long time. But two large jars of great chicken stock are sitting in my fridge. They go as the base of soup very good.

To make it in a pho stock I had to add several ingredients and I bought sone salmon fillet on the way home. Important are the spices. Fresh ginger, lemon grass, chili and garlic and dried spices like star anise and cinnamon stick.
A half package of dash stock and soy sauce gives it the final umami taste.

Recipe:
150 g salmon
Lettuce
Spring onion
Mungo bean sprouts
Rice vermiceĺli
Chicken stock
2 cloves of garlic
1 knob ginger
1 red chili
1 stalk lemongrass
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
Dashi and soy sauce

Heat the stock with the spices.
Use boiling water for the vermicelli and let them sit in a bowl for 3 min. Drain.
In a big of oil sear the salmon.
Pack the solid ingredients in a bowl and pour the hit broth through a sieve on top.

I made cheese again

I have not made cheese in a longer time. During the hot summer days it does not work. Now it is cooler and I found the special cow milk at the large supermarket.

When you start making cheese you have to save two days for it. Then you have to follow a strict way to make the cheese. It will take 36 hours until it goes into the fridge and then it has to rest and get better and better then.

I wanted to try my hand at adding things to the cheese like a French Affineur. That is someone who buys regular good quality cheeses and gives them a special treatment or adds some other things to the cheese.
Since I am overflown by tomatoes right now, I picked super tiny ones and had them in a pan with some white balsamic vinegar and sugar and I put the tomatoes in  one of my 4 cheeses later.
The other one is filled with a line of dried summer herbs.

They are finished with different kinds of salt, the tomato filled one is finished with a blend of Kampot and Szichuan pepper.

Haianese Chicken Rice

A very popular dish in Singapore and Malaysia.
The guys from SortedFood made it on YT and it stuck to my brain for a while now.

Yesterday I bought a 2 kilo free range chicken and the first thought was Haianese Chicken Rice when I put it in my grocery basket. I went back to the veggie isle and bought the other stuff needed to the recipe. I changed a few things in the recipe.

It is a wonderful dish, but not so easy to prepare. It has a lot of steps and it takes a lot of time. I started at 9 AM on a Sunday and plated the food around noon. And you have a lot of mess and dishes on your hands later. But the up side is, you have about 2 liters of premium chicken stock left and some chicken meat for other dishes.

First you have to give the chicken a massage with salt to exfoliate the skin. Place it in a bowl and rub it down, then wash away the salt. You are looking for silky smooth skin in this dish and believe me, it gets that way.
Keep the bowl at hand for the ice bath after you cooked the chicken.

recipe:
1 large free range chicken
half a hand full of salt

1 leek
1 large onion
1 bunch of spring onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 pieces of gin
stalks of 1 bunch of coriander
pepper
2 button mushrooms

2 cups Thain rice
1 tbsp duck fat
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 pieces of ginger
3 cloves of garlic

50 ml soy sauce
50 ml water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sweet chili sauce

fresh mungo bean sprouts
1 tomato per person
coriander leaves

Peel and clean all the veggies and cut them roughly.
Set the chicken in a big pot with all the veg and add pepper and bay leaves.
Bring to a boil and after 10 min skim off the foam. On low heat let it cook for 50 min.
Fill the bowl with cold water and fill ice cubes or a freezer block into the water. Dump the chicken in strait from the pot. Let it cool down to room temperature.

Bring the soup back to a strong boil and reduce it for 30 minutes. After that you can salt the soup to your taste.

Let down the soy sauce with water and sugar in a pan, heat it up and set aside for later.
The bean sprouts need to be in boiling water for 30 seconds.
Use a small blender and put a little rapeseed oil with ginger and garlic in and make a paste.
Soak the washed rice for 15 min.

In a pot with a lid, start the paste and add the duck or chicken fat. Put the rice in and let it get coated all around. Add 4 cups of chicken soup and reduce the heat and let it sit for 10 min.

Be careful when you lift  the chicken out of the ice bath, do not destroy the lovely skin too much.
Cut it into pieces and let them sit on the rice bed. Drizzle with sauce and a bit of soup.
Serve with the bean sprouts and a tomato and coriander greens.

Mushroom Bagels Keto friendly

No bread to see here in this Bagels.

They are a wonderful starter to a meal, light and fresh and an eye catcher. I found the recipe in my newest French Gourmand magazine issue- this time they are calling all recipes "Salt Free".
The tomato quiche was also from this issue.

You have to buy some very large and fresh mushrooms and you need an apple corer and a serrated knife.

recipe for 4: 
4 large white champignons
2 tbsp cream cheese
2 tbsp Greek yogut
1/2 lemon
4 tbsp fresh herbs like parsley, chives and tarragon
1 knife tip of Dijon mustard
1 dash of Agave syrup
pepper

Get the stem out of the mushrooms and half them. Use the apple corer to make the hole in the top so it looks like a bagel.
Chop the leftover mushroom pieces and put them in a bowl with the other ingredients and mix well.
Use a good tablespoon of mixture to make the filling for each mushroom.
Serve and enjoy.

Quiche with cherry tomatoes

I have a lot of tiny tomatoes picked this morning and a handfull of cherry ones. I had a huge bowl of caprese salad last night but the plate with the tomatoes is not getting empty. I found the recipe in a French cooking magazine issue and had all ingredients on hand.

The quiches on the photo was made in individual small bakings tins, but I found my long rectangular one while I was looking for the others in my huge plastic baking dish storage container. It looks good serving it in such a form.

recipe:
1 ready made short crust pastry
little tomatoes
2 large eggs
50 g grated Emmenthaler
250 g curd
1 tsp Pul Biber or any other chili fleakes
pepper and salt
1/2 bunch of chives
1/4 tsp fresh thyme

Heat up the oven to 180 C
Butter the baking dish and place the dough in. Use baking paper and ceramic baking beans and bake for 8 min.

Crack one egg in the bowl, from the second egg keep a little egg white to the side and brush it on the short crust pastry when you remove the ceramic beans. Place it back it the oven for 4 min.

Add to the bowl all the ingredients, except the tomatoes and make a smooth batter.
Fill it into the prebaked pastry. Drop the tomatoes on top.
Bake for 30 min.
When it comes out of the oven, let it sit 15 min then serve.

Little Dumplings and beans

The little dough pieces are made from a soft pasta batter. When you use a press you can make the typical southern German Spaetzle or little sparrows.

The batter can be dropped into boiling water and the pieces cook for 3 to 5 minutes and are ready to eat.
They go great with all braised meat that had enough sauce. Or just eat them as they are. Browned in a pan in a bit of nut butter.
With a salad to the side that is a good lunch.

I made a green bean salad.

Courgette Poffertjes

Poffertjes are a sweet treat from the Netherlands. Little pancakes baked in special pans or electric poffertjes makers.

The idea started as a Takoyaki making. The Japanese octopus filled balls that are sold as street food or in Izakayas in Japan. The baking dishes are not easy to get here. The solution to our problem were the Dutch Poffertjes dishes. These are sweet little pancakes that are found at fairs and street markets.

Recipe
120g courgette
1 egg
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
30 g feta
oregano
Paprika powder
Oil

Grate the courgette and salt it. Let it sit 15 min. Drain and squeeze.
Add the ingredients and put enough oil into the poffertjes moldes that you have a bit sitting in the middle. Brush the oil around the pan surface too. Keep some more oil at hand. Put 1 tbsp of batter into each mould, let it set on medium temperature. Take two teaspoons and start to turn. You will need more oil when you turn them. Get the poffertjes brown. Set them on a kitchen towel.

They were served with a fried green tomato and a mild yogurt dip with fresh tomatoes.