British Mince Pies

That is a Christmas treat from Great Britain like no other. A couple of years ago I bought a packaged one from Harrods at the Frankfurt Airport, but it was a bit too dry for my taste.
I ordered stuff from a British Shop online this year for the first time in October and saw a jar of Mince Meat there. I ordered it to try my hand at these pies around Christmas time.

Today was the day. I was not so sure if it would work and how it would taste, so I bought ready made shortcrust pastry yesterday at the supermarket. I had no idea how to prepare them and as always google helped. I checked about 10 different recipes, even the one from Sortedfood and made it my own recipe by adjusting several of them to my liking.

I even baked them at a lower temperature for a shorter time and they came out good. Just one broke while I tried to scoop it out of the muffin tray- but that was my first try of the homemade mince pie and I was delighted.

recipe:
1 ready made shortcrust pastry
320 g jar of Mince Meat
1 clementine
1 zest of a lemon
1 small apple with peel
2 tsp of Osborne Brandy
1 egg
cooking spray for the muffin tray
icing sugar

Prepare the Muffin tray with spray and preheat the oven 210 C.
Pour the jar of Mince Meat into a bowl.
Peel the clementine and brake it down to individual segments, half them.
Core the apple and chop it into fine cubes.
Zest the lemon
Add Brandy and mix everything well.

Cut out 10 cm discs from the shortcrust pastry and place them in the muffin tray.
Fill with 2 tsp of mix.
Place some dough on top, either cover it fully or make some star shapes.
Brush with egg wash.

Bake for 17 minutes.
Let rest in the tray for 10 min and the scoop them out and cool on a wire rack.

Pumpkin Salad Greek Style

I am finally back on track after my holidays. It took me a while to get used to the very winter weather here and I had no time to cook. I just took made some classics like homemade Ramen soup or Bratwurst.
Nothing to post here.

Today I made the grocery shopping for the Christmas days and I have most of my shopping done. I will just need to get some bread and fresh chicken thighs and some peppers and I am done. It is a good thing that I have a second fridge in the basement. It holds now all the stuff I will need over the holidays.

In that cold and ugly weather I wanted something out of the oven. A salad with winter veggies sounded good. After you have peeling and chopping done, all other things are made by the oven and you have time to do something else- like doing laundry!

recipe for 2:
700 g Hokkaido pumpkin
280 g red onion
250 g parsley roots
1 lemon
5 cloves of garlic
1 tsp thyme and oregano
1 tsp salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
200 g feta
6 artichoke hearts in oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
chives

Preheat the oven 200 C
Peel onions and cut them into 6 wedges, cut the lemon into 6 wedges, peel the garlic and crush it a little, peel parsley roots and quarter them.
Wash the pumpkin, open it and take the seeds out. Cut it into small wedges.
Get everything into a bowl and season it and toss it in oil.

Put in in the oven and bake it for 25 min, toss half way through.
Half the artichokes and cube the feta.
Open the oven and place both inside with the veggies, turn the heat off and let the oven door a bit open and let that rest for 5-10 min

Place it on 2 plates and finish with balsamic vinegar and chives.

Comfort Food Chicken Miso Ramen

It is so cold and rainy and after a short stop downtown and a trip into our big new Asian supermarket I wanted something warm. My first intention was to go to the Christmas market in town, but the weather was too bad.

So I bought Asian mushrooms, bean sprouts and lots of different sauces and went home.
From the weekend I still had 700 ml homemade chicken stock. I added Dashi powder, white miso paste and soy sauce for a good broth.
I cooked some flat spaghetti in baking powder and salted water for the right chewiness.

Recipe:

700 ml chicken stock

1 tsp Dashi powder

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp white miso paste

200 g flat spaghetti

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

4 l water

1 pack Enoki mushrooms

50 g bean sprouts

1 egg

3 leaves of romaine lettuce

3 slices cooked pork belly

1/2 tsp Ao nori

Green of one spring onion

Prepare the soup.

Cook the pasta.

Assemble everything and enjoy!

Who does not love mashed potatoes?

A good quality potato which is important for a good mash. Use some that are the best for mash or dumplings. Whole milk , cream and butter are key ingredients. Do not skimp on them.

Adding sauteed onions and garlic in dark sweet and vinegar sauce are  a good choice.

I served it with fried eggs and some romana salad in cream dressing.

Ingredients:
750 g potatoes
Salt
100 ml whole mlik
50 ml double cream
30 g butter
Nutmeg
Pepper
2 spring onions
1 white onion
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Honey
2 eggs
Balsamic vinegar

I made a low fuss version of Haianese Chicken Rice

I love the Singaporean dish of Haianese Chicken Rice, but that takes a lot of effort to make the chicken perfectly right and prepare the tasty rice.

I used up some of my chicken breast I had left over from the weekend and used the stock I prepared with the carcass. The stock was already good on its own, but I reduced it about 30 % to intensify the taste. I used the same method to make the rice more tasty by sauteing fresh ginger and garlic in duck fat and adding the rice to it. After a couple of minutes the reduced stock went in and the rice started to cook. After a couple of minutes I reduced the heat to very low and let the rice absorb all the stock.

The chicken breast was very tender and was just reheated in some more stock.

The dish was served with a salad of carrot noodles with lemon juice, lemon olive oil, lemon pepper and black Hawaiian salt.

A bit of sweet chili sauce finished the whole meal.

If you do not have time for the signature dish of Singapore, prepare something like this and you will enjoy a good lunch.

Citrussy Chicken

I am back home from the Caribbean and was looking for some meat. I ate a lot of vegetarian food during my holidays because the meat came most of the time from Brazil and organic or free range was not to get.

The food on the island of Curacao is based on imports from the Netherlands, the USA, Brazil and Venezuela. You only see small farms when driving around the island,  but not a lot grows there.

I bought a free range chicken today and planned to use it in different ways.

To give the chicken in the oven a nice flavour, I used a whole lemon. First some zest mixed with the butter, then the whole lemon in the back cavity of the chicken, pierced with toothpicks to secure it.

Rub the chicken outside with the lemon butter, salt and pepper. Add a good tablespoon of Zaatar and a tsp of additional Sumac.
Give it a bit of sweetness with dark coconut flower syrup.

recipe:
1,6 kg free range chicken
50 g butter
1 lemon
1 tbsp Zaatar
1 tsp Sumac
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven 170 C fan or 190 C
Zest the lemon and mix it with the butter. Rub the chicken with it. Salt and pepper inside and outside.
Stick the lemon in and secure it with toothpicks.
Cover with Zaatar and Sumac.
Drizzle the syrup over on both sides.

Bake for 75 min.
Serve it with oven roasted sweet potato wedges.

Use the carcass as base for a chicken stock later.

Bitterballen and Spring Rolls

I went down to the restaurant at the apartment complex for a sundowner and stayed for a plate of fried goods.

These starters are small dark brown small balls of all the stuff that is secret in a kitchen mixed with potato mash.
To make it even more guessable it is heavy coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried.
You eat this very hot with lots of good mustard.

I have eaten them when I spent time in Noord Holland.
They are actually beer food and often served in pubs.
The other bit on the plate were just spring rolls served with sweet chili sauce.

They went very well with my pinia colada.