Cole Slaw Austrian style

This is a warm served kind of cabbage salad. In many parts of Austria variations of this cabbage salad can be found.

I still have enough cabbage in my fridge to create a couple of dishes. But cabbage can get boring after a while. So I was looking for smaller dishes with just one or two portions. Making a salad helps. Just adjust the amount of cabbage and dressing and you are good to go.

Ingredients for 2:

300 g shredded white cabbage

600 ml water, 50 ml white vinegar

2 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp caraway seeds, 4 tbsp rapeseed oil

Pepper, 60 g bacon bits, 1 large spring onion

3 tbsp parsley

Shred the cabbage very fine. Boil water, vinegar, sugar, salt and caraway seeds for 1 min and drop in the cabbage. Cook until it gets to the texture you like. Be careful when you drain the cabbage. Keep about 1/2 inch of the liquid. 

During the time is cabbage boils, put the bacon in a pan and make it a bit crispy, add the spring onions in during the cooking time.

Put cabbage and bacob together. Add oil, pepper and parsley. Eat it warm.

If it gets cold, reheat it .

Salmon Spinach Potato Bake Swedish style

I had two pieces of salmon in my freezer and a package of frozen spinach. It was time to take it out. But I had no idea what go cook with these ingredients. I found an answer to my question on Pinterest.

Swedish style is not so often cooked here. Most people just think of Köttbullar or Hot Dogs from the flat pack furniture store. 

The combination of potatoes, spinach and salmon is nothing to rave about. Just basic kind of cooking. But the recipe is brought to the next level with a thick and creamy cheese sauce covering fish and veggies.

That this dish contains fresh dill in a good quantity is nothing special for Northern cuisine. Dill is the go to fresh herb in all those countries.

Recipe for 2:

300 g salmon, 500 g potatoes, 450 g frozen chopped spinach

1 yellow onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp oil

2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour, 250 ml whole milk, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp Noilly Prat

Lots of fresh grated nutmeg, 100 g grated cheese ( Gouda, Cheddar or Emmenthal)

Lemon salt, pepper, 1/2 bunch fresh dill

Peel the potatoes and cook them in boiling salted water until done. Chop in bit size chunks.

Defrost the spinach and squeeze out lots of moisture. Chop onion and garlic and saute them in oil for 5 min. Add spinach and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg. Cook for 10 min.

Use an oven proof dish and mix potatoes and spinach. Chop most of the dill and mix it in.

Season the fish and set it on top.

Melt the butter and put in the flour to make a roux. Cook the flour for 2 min and gradually add a bit milk after the other. Now in with lemon juoce and Noilly Prat. Season with lemon salt, pepper and nutmeg. Dump the cheese in and melt it. Pour over the fish and veggies. Place dill fonds on top. Bake at 180 C fan for 20 min.

Dumpling Waffles with Pulled Pork

Potato dumplings from the day before were cut up and usually baked in a pan in some butter. That is the way I did it for as long as I can remember. But not today.

I found a recipe from a supermarket chain that made day old potato dumplings into waffles. Well, there are a lot of videos out on YT were people press the funniest kinds of food in a waffle maker. Mostly it looks then like some kind of waffle and is edible.

But I did not just press the dumpling in the waffle iron, the recipe called for some kind of dough.

Recipe:

3 potato dumplings

1 egg

3 tbsp milk

Salt, pepper, dried thyme

Oil for the waffle iron. Cut the dumplings in small cubes. Add the other ingredients and take a potato masher to crush all of it together. Drop 3 tbsp each side in the waffle iron.

Depending on your iron, it will take between 4 to 6 min. 

I had some pork roast left, pulled it apart and served evetything with braised red cabbage.

Mascarpone Basil and Chocolate Muffins

I had a package of Galbani Mascarpone at home. I needed some for my fennel and lemon pasta dish.  Now I had more then halve left over. 

Tiramisu? No. I checked the Galbani website to look for recipes.

There was a funny picture for an Easter cupcake showing a cute sheep. Lots of Mascarpone to use up. But I was not interested in building a flock of sheep.  I only baked the sheeps body without the "wool".

Preheat your oven 180 C.

Recipe for 12 muffins:

150 g butter, 180 g sugar, 100 g Mascarpone

3 eggs, 2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt, 2 tbsp fresh chopped basil

2 tbsp cocoa, 1 package chocolate pudding mix 

150 g flour, 1 tbsp milk

Beet butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add mascarpone and eggs one after an other, beating each time in between. Then the other ingredients. Fill in muffin cases.

Bake for 25 min.

Fennel Lemon Tagliatelle

This very tasty vegetarian recipe is from Tegernseekitchen.

It is not much work to do. The pasta is creamy and fennel and dill go very well together. The breadcrumbs topping is something I will use on other dishes in the future. 

Recipe for 2:

150 g tagliatelle

75 g Mascarpone, zest of 1 lemon, juice of 1/2 lemon, lemon salt and pepper

1 medium bulb of fennel, 1 medium yellow onion, 3 cloves of garlic

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter 

Fresh dill, grated Grana Padano

Preheat the oven 200 C.

Cut the fennel in halve, then in strips. Put it in a bowl and season with salt and pepper and add 1tbsp olive oil. Put on a baking sheet and stick in the oven for 20 to 25 min.

Cut the onion in strips too, slice the garlic. Add oil and butter to a pan and saute the onion garlic mix until soft. Season with lemon salt. Add the breadcrumbs and brown them.

Cook the tagliatelle. 

Take 2 tbsp pasta water and mix it with the Mascarpone to get smooth. Add zest and juice from the lemon, lemon salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and mix it with the cream and a lot of dill. Just keep a little for decoration later. Place on a plate, top on one side with fennel and on the other side with onion breadcrumbs. Finish with dill and grated cheese.

Chicken Steak in Turkish coating

At our new Turkish supermarket I found a box of hot chicken coating mix. There are two packages inside and a preparation advice on the back. One in pictures and one as a recipe. 

There is a small spice package inside which contains chili and paprika. Mixing it with 6 tbsp of water makes a thin red marinate. The chicken steaks rested in the marinate for 1 hour. Then you pour them in a colander and let the marinate run off.

From the coating packages 2 tbsp are put in the cleaned container. Mixef with 6 tbsp of water. That makes a viscous kind of liquid.

Dip the chicken steaks in and coat them with the liquid and drop them on a plate with the dry coating. Let them get a thick outer layer.

Shallow fry them in 2 cm oil on medium high heat. Do not turn the heat too high. The outside will burn and you will have raw chicken inside.

Cooking will take 10 - 12 min.

Serving it with a large tomato was my lunch.

Crispy, hot, tender and juicy.

 

Rice Cooker Rice with Tuna and Tomato

Not much work to do to bring this meal to the table. When you have a trusty rice cooker.

This is a combination of canned tuna and fresh tomato and herbs. The prep time is very short. It took me the longest to get the tuna out of the can because the lid stuck.

Instead of water I used veg stock for the rice. A bit more liquid then usual to one cup of rice. You will need the extra liquid with all the other ingredients in the cooker. A tablespoon good olive oil gives the extra kick. Season it well with fresh and dried herbs and depending on the stock you use, salt and pepper.

I had a tomato with a thicker skin. Cut off the top a bit, set it top down in the rice cooker, that makes it easier to get the tomato soft. 

Close the lid and return to your sofa.

Food for 1:

1 rice measuring cup short grain rice, 2 m. cups veg stock

1 large tomato, 2 tbsp fresh parsley

1 small can tuna fish, 1 tbsp olive oil

Dried thyme, salt and pepper

After the rice cooker is finished, take out the tomato and peel the skin off. Then mash it in the rice and stir all ingredients together.