Crêpes with Gorgonzola Radicchio filling

I call the thin pancakes Crêpes like everyone else. But it is an Italian dish, you can call the pancakes Crespelle. The idea for this I found on Pinterest.

Leftover Gorgonzola from the dessert midweek needed an other purpose. A small chunk still sits in the fridge now, that will end up on pasta soon.

The crêpes needed a filling. Why not fill it with salad. I bought a small head of radicchio today and chopped it up. To give it a bit more flavour and texture, I added a chopped springonion.

recipe for the filling:
300 g Radicchio
35 mkl milk
1 spring onion
10 g butter
75 g Gorgonzola
30 g Parmesan cheese
pepper

Chop onion and radicchio and start the butter in a pan and add the onion, after 2 min the radicchio.
It will take a while for the salad to wilt down and get brown. Crank up the heat to get some of the water evaporated.
Add the milk and the Gorgonzola and let it melt, then the Parmesan cheese and season to taste.

Ready to bake 3 crépes:
75 g flour
1 large free range egg
1 pinch of salt#
150 ml milk
30 g butter

Make the batter and let it rest 20 min.
Brush the crepe pan or any other you have with a little butter. Let it get to temperature.
add 1/3 of the batter in the middle of the pan and swirl it around.
Wait until you see bubbles forming on top. Turn the crepe over. Bake all 3 and keep them covered and warm on a plate in the oven on low heat until the filling is ready.

Puff Pastry with savoury and sweet topping

I made 3 jars of red onion jam last week. Eating them with cheeses is one option, using them in a dessert is an other.

I saw Sarah Graham, South African food blogger and cookbook auther make this dish. It was the perfect last course for my Pintxos lunch.

It is pretty easy and just takes 10- 12 min in the oven.

Ingredients:
Puff PastryP
red onion jam
Peaches
Thyme
Gorgonzola
Balsamic vinegar

Stack everything except the balsamic vinegar

Put it in the oven at 220 C.

Pintxos - home cooked

Since my trip to the Basque Region in Spain and France I was Looking forward to prepare some of the tasty Pintxos at home. My friends were here today and we had a feast.

We prepared 5 pintxos and made a dip to eat with it. It is a lot of Mis en Place to do. One of us had to peel, chop and prepare all the ingredients. A lot of work, but the final preparation did not take that long.
Preparing each pintxo for the photo shoot took a bit more time.

We started with a simple one. Just a little tomato salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar on a toasted slice of pepper baguette topped with Serano ham and a fried quail egg.

With all pintxos we served a Gazpacho Dip.
recipe:
1 red bell pepper
1/2 yellow bell pepper
1/2 red Chili
1/3 cucumber
1/3 cantaloupe melon
3 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
3 slices Italian wheat bread without crust

Chuck it all into a blender and that´s it.

Next pintxo was with pan roasted fresh Chorizo on a bed of tomato salad and toasted bread.

300 g of white and brown button mushrooms were the topping for our next pieces of bread. Cutting them into tiny cubes was taking some time and a huge pile went into the pan to roast. After 10 min in a little olive oil there was just enough left for 4 pieces of baguette.
To make the bread more fancy, a slice of Serano ham was skewered and half a boiled quail egg was added.

Fish was a main ingredient in Basque cuisine. Pintxos with some kind seafood .
I bought a piece of cod
Rubbed with smoked paprika and some of my own pepper mix, the 3 pieces went in some olive oil.  It did not take long to finish them.
Roasted bread with a little goat cream cheese and some leafs of Japanese spinach.

The last pintxo was with warm goat cheese roll on caramelized onions and topped with sauteed yellow bell peppers.

Tuna in Tomato Sauce with Linguine

I was clearing out some leftovers from my fridge. Half a can of pizza tomatoes and half a jar of great tuna was sitting around. Usually tuna is not cooked in tomato sauce. I prefare it in some kind of light creamy sauce.

But a tomato sauce made from scratch with basic ingredients and the final adding of the tuna gave a wonderful sauce for my pasta.

Take a bit of time when you prepare the tomato sauce. Let it reduce about one third. That is a way to intensify the flavour. Then add the tuna and the fresh herbs.

Recipe:
250 ml pizza tomatoes
3 Spring onions
2 Cloves of garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp piment d' espelette
50 ml red wine
30 ml balsamic vinegar

Fresh herbs
Tuna
Pecorino,  if you like

Lunch Invitation

The day my stitches were pulled I was invited at my friends house for lunch to get the first taste of meat from their new smoker oven. Spareribs were on the menu for the day.

I was not sure how this smoker worked because it is a steel box that works with electricity. The smoker is indoors and just a fine smell of roasting meat was in the air. The temperature gauge was at 107 C and the meat stayed in for nearly 4 Hours.

As an Amuse Bouche with the rhubarb flavoured Prosecco came 3 different prepared quail eggs. Smoked and pickled.

The starter were oven baked thin White Asparagus with some Bacon and breadcrumbs topping. The main dish was next and the smell of smoked meat quadrupled the moment the door of the smoker opened.

Finger licking good it was!
As side dishes a pasta salad and some tzaziki came with it.

The dessert today was a small pastry filled with strawberry jam and ricotta. A strawberry compote on the side.

Chicken Wings with Coriander and Lime

I watch a lot of cooking shows in the moment and start to cook with both hands again.

I came across a dish from Adrian Richardson, an Australian Chef. He made chicken wings in his huge Pizza oven and they looked tasty. But I did not write any ingredients down. What I still remembered was a huge bunch of Fresh of coriander and some limes and chili.

It took a while until I bought free range chicken wings. They should be marinating for a while. I took some of my home made spice mix for chicken and mixed it with some olive oil.

My twist was a good heaped tablespoon of Hoi Sin Sauce.
The chopped coriander was mixed with lime juice, salt and pepper and Piment d´Espelette.
One red chili without the seeds went in the oven proof dish too.

recipe for 3:
12 organic chicken wings
1 heaped tbsp hoi sin Sauce
1 1/2 limes
1 large bunch coriander
1 red Chili
olive oil
salt and pepper
Piment d´Espelette

Bake it at 180 C fan for 40 min.

Nduja Rice from Calabria- spicy

Nduja is a special sausage made in Calabria. It is a kind of spreadable salami with lots of hot chili paprika. It depends a little on the butcher how hot you will get it. If you by it locally, bring it home and freeze it in portions.

You can eat this just by its own, or serve it with some meat. You might get it as first course at an south Italian meal.

I have some recipes in the back of my Hand to prepare in the future. This is the second of it. The first was a Pasta dish I posted April 12,2017. I had a good amount of leftovers and reheating it made it even spicier.
Looking forward to the leftover rice from today is a little challenge.

recipe for 2 as full meal, or 4 as a side:
270 g long grain Rice
75 g nduja
2 onions
1 spring onion
4 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
75 ml veg stock
2 tbsp  White wine
250 g chopped tinned Tomatoes
1 tbsp sugar
 a pinch of salt
pepper
many basil leaves
30 g Pecorino cheese

Cook the rice like pasta in lots of water and take care not to over cook it. Drain it and fluff it.

In a wide pan heat up the olive oil and fry the onions and garlic, add the tomato chunks and the nduja to melt.
Add wine and  broth and bring to a boil and reduce a couple of minutes.
Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
Now the rice and let it soak up the sauce for a couple of minutes, with out any more heat.
Stir in the cheese and a bit of ripped basil.
Serve the rest of the basil with the dish.