Red Onion Jam

I have a friend who does not eat sweet desserts. She loves a plate of cheeses, maybe with some mustard or chutney instead. A dessert for all of us is my aim this time.

I watch a lot of YT and Food channels in the moment and I get a lot of ideas. The base for one recipe from South Africa is the red onion jam. In a combination with fruit and cheese, that sounds like something we all can enjoy as a dessert soon.

The peeling and chopping of 1 kg of red onions was a challenge for my now healing right hand. Working with a large knife is still not easy and after half of the onions, I had to rest a bit to continue later. But cutting all these onions with a small knife was not an option.

recipe:
1 kg red onions
2 cloves of garlic
5 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp salt
200 g brown sugar
50 ml red wine
150 ml balsamic vinegar
1 stick of cinnamon
5 stalks fresh thyme
1 stalk fresh majoram
4 bay leaves
1/4 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp Piment d´Espelette
pepper

Peel and cut the onions and garlic in strips.
Heat up the oil and get the onions in on medium heat, coat them well in the oil and close the lid and cook them for 15 mn. Every 5 min, turn them with a wooden spatula. They should get soft, but not Brown.
Season them with salt and the other spices and cook 2 more min.

Increase the heat a bit and sprinkle the sugar all over the onions, stir well and let them caramelize for 5 min. Do not get your fingers in, it will be very hot.
Pour the wine and vinegar over and reduce the heat again and close the lid. Cook for 10 min, then get the lid off and cook for 35 min more.
Clean some mason jars and fill in the onion mix.

Eat it with cheese or spread it on pastry.

Eggplant in Tomato Sauce

I am still working mostly with my left hand. An eggplant is easy to chop up when you only can steady it with some fingertips.
When cutting it into cubes, making it a bit rustic is normal.

I saw on TV Canadian chef and presenter David Rocco preparing the eggplant.

He tossed the chopped up eggplant cubes into a pan that was 1/3 filled with olive oil.
I usually do not use olive oil for frying, but when they show it on TV, I do it that way.

It went well, I fried the eggplant in two batches. Otherwise the oil in the pan would have been too cold and the pieces on top of each other. It takes a couple of minutes until they get a bit brown and wrinkle. Drain them on kitchen paper an salt them a little.

I have still some bags of homemade tomato sauce from last season in the freezer. I took a bigger one out and defrosted it. It was one with a strong taste of different herbs and fresh Chili - home grown too.

I dumped the fried eggplant in and ripped some fresh basil to go with it.

It tasted very good, but the eggplant was a little too oily for my taste.
Now I ordered an Air fryer on Amazon and next time I am using this for my eggplant cubes.

Lemon Curd Pastry

I made some lemon curd a while ago as filling for some macarons. The rest of the curd went into a jar for later.
When I thought about the pastry, I checked the jar and found some suspicious flecks on top. I threw it out and bought some. Not as good as my own, but tasty enough for some pastry filling.

The recipe is from one of my Thermomix magazine issues. They usually work  when I follow the instructions and do not  change too many ingredients.

Recipe:
500 g wheat flour type 550 (bread flour)
240 g milk
50 g butter
30 g fresh yeast
3/4 tsp salt
250 g lemon curd
1 egg for egg wash
Icing sugar

Make the yeasty dough with your stand mixer and knead it about 10 min. Use the Thermomix and that takes just 3,5 min.
Make a ball, cover it in a bowl and let it rest in warm place for 1 hour.

Heat up the oven 180 C.
On a floured surface roll out the dough 34x45 cm.
Smear the lemon curd all over the dough, just leave 1cm around uncovered.
Roll up the dough from the long side. Cut open the roll from the long side, just keep the upper 5 cm uncut

Fold the strands around each other and tuck the ends under.
Put it on baking paper and brush with egg wash.
Bake for 10 min, cover with baking paper and bake 10 - 15 min more.
Cool down about 1 hour. Cut it in to 15 slices and coat it with icing sugar

Salade Niçoise

There are probably as many recipes for this French Salad as the city of Nizza / Nice has inhabitants.

I know this salad from a trip to Nice so many years ago. What kept in my memory were 4 basic ingredients: cooked potatoes, green  beans and hard boiled eggs and canned tuna.

Now it is up to the cook to decide what else to add. Some serve it mixed in a bowl, others in separate heaps on a plate.

My one hand version was easier to put desperate ingredients on a plate. Cooking some potatoes in their skin was no problem, but peeling them later with one hand took at least 3 times as long as usual. To get rid of tips and tails of green beans, I laid them out in a rectangular shape beside each other and carefully cut the ends off.
Preparation of all ingredients took half an hour longer than usual. But it worked out just fine and tasted great.

I put the ingredients of the dressing in a jar, closed the lid and gave it a good shake.

Recipe for 2:
3 medium salad potatoes, cooked and peeled
1 small head of romana salad
2 hard boiled eggs.
200 g green princess beans
6 cherry tomatoes
100 g tuna in olive oil
Dressing:
1 spring onion greens
1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1 anchovis fillet chopped up
Salt and pepper

Quenelles in Tomato Sauce

My first one hand cooking. I bought a package of quenelles at my favourite supermarket Auchan in France. Quenelles are small flour dumplings that can sit in any kind of sauce and acompany any kind of meat or fish. But they taste good on their own in a strong sauce.

They have few ingredients. Flour, eggs, salted butter and milk and water. But making them with one hand was no option, the ready made are tasting as good.

I had to decide what kind of dish I was going to do. A dish out of the oven sounded great. Heating it up with one hand no problem. A found a baking dish that is usually for cakes but the quenelles just fit in that very well. A large spring onion to cut with the left hand was working kind of well, not so fine or regular as usual.

I have a jar of tomato passata is storage. Since I have a little plastic helper to open jars, I can use it. I just press the jar to my chest with my right arm and lift the lid a little to let the air in. Open it then is easy.
Pimping the sauce with olive oil, herbes de Provence and Piment d´Espelette and pepper and salt. A little dash of brown sugar finished it.

In the oven at 210 C for 20 min.

A perfect light dish.

One Hand Cooking

I work with just my left hand, because I had a Carpal tunnel operation on my right hand. That hinders a lot in everyday chores, one of them is cooking. I have a 2 hour helper for a couple of days and I really need her.

The first day after the operation she came over with a pot of Goulash to feed me. A beef goulash with an amazing sauce. I pestered her a while until she gave up the secret ingredient.
Usually when you brown the beef with the onions and the tomato paste, you deglaze the pan either with some alcohol or some broth. She deglazes the pot with 2 double shots of fresh pressed Espressso.
I have to try this hack the next time I prepare a goulash.

The next day she came over with homemade Spaetzle. She is from the Region of the Bodensee, the huge lake in the south, that borders Austria and Swiss too. A special dish there are these spaetzle with layers of strong cheese and onions. Lots of fresh ground pepper brings out the flavour of the cheeses.

To cook myself is something I am looking for.

Lunch in a Department Store Cafeteria

Saturdays in the city with lots of shopping tends to get exhausting. Checking out a restaurant with longer waiting time is not the thing you are looking for. Fast Food is not an option and eating something while walking around does not go well with the folks you are together with.
What else is there to do?

Our large department stores have good quality cafeterias, where you can start the day with breakfast, have lunch and later decent amount of coffee and cakes.
Being out in Saarbrücken and in the need of lunch and a place to rest our feet, we went into the cafeteria on the upper floor of Karstadt.
Good choice. Next time here in the city, we will come back again.

We had a side salad and spaghetti with grilled fish and a seafood dish. All very delicious and for a reasonable price.

Food comes fast to the table and after a short rest, we have been out again for more shopping.