Pasta with spicy Mango Curry Sauce

Hot and spicy is definitely the right answer to this dish. I used two kinds of curry powder and dried chilis for some heat.

I had a nice ripe mango sitting on the counter and wanted it incorporated in a hot dish. Mango and pasta sounded strange at first, but worked very well together.

But onions and garlic are needed to balance the dish. Otherwise you just have sweet pasta. I found a recipe, but I only used it as a guideline for my cooking.

Recipe:

140 g short pasta

1 tbsp rapeseed oil, 2 green onions, 1 garlic clove

2 tsp curry powder

1 fresh ripe Mango,  some coriander leaves, zest and juice 1/2 lemon, 80 ml veg stock

3 tbsp roasted pistacchios

2 dried Chinese red chilis, salt, pepper

Peel the mango and cut it in cubes. Deseed the dried chilis. Chop onion and garlic. Cook the pasta.

In a wide pan heat up the oil and start with onion, chili and garlic. After a couple of minutes add the curry and let it cook. Season.

Now in with mango, lemon juice and veg stock. Drain the pasta and add to the pan. Finish with chopped piatacchios and coriander.

Coloring Easter Eggs

This is a tradition in my household. Coloring eggs on Good Friday.

For many years now, industrial colored chicken eggs are available at all grocery stores. They become more and more colorful and sparkley each year. But I find them lacking in taste. They are stored to last long and then sold at high peak season Easter.

The other months of the year only 4 basic colors are sold and called Party eggs.

But my family always took the time and boiled the eggs and colored them. I keep up with the tradition.

6 or 8 weeks ago, the supermarkets started with selling Easter sweets and decorations. At one visit I stumbled apon a box that sat in the middle of the well known egg colors. I was curious about it and took a closer look. Eggs tossed in colored rice. Never seen something like this before. I had to buy it. 

Today I finally unpacked the box, read the instructions and boiled the eggs. Not one cracked in the process! 

The blistering hot eggs needed to stay hot (covered in a thick towel). But had to be stickered up. Putting tiny stickers on hot eggs, no fun.

Then I divided the rice between the 3 provided cups and added the color to them. In with one egg and then shake it well. Get the still hot egg out and rest it on some paper. Proceed with all of them. 

Now peel the stickers off the still warm eggs and your done. What a pain in the butt. From start to finish I needed 95 min.  

Air Fryer Salmon with Dry Rub

I never thought that a piece of salmon could be cooked so effortlessly in the air fryer.

Not much to do. Since I often use some baking paper designed for an air fryer now, cleaning up afterwards is so easy. This paper is not good for all uses, but fish works pretty well. I do not use it for chicken wings, they stay soggy on the bottom side.

I used a combination of dry herbs and spices, salt and pepper to coat the top of the salmon and seasoned a littke bit on the skin. That was all dry stuff. Before I closed the lid of the air fryer, I sprayed a little olive oil on top of the salmon. That was all what was done.

200 C for 10 min, then 3 min rest time outside, covered. Some lemon juice to finish. I ate it with some Tartar sauce.

Baked Beans with Jim Beam and Maple Syrup

I stumbled over a box of Baked Beans at the Discounter near by. I haven't seen these cans there before. I took two and wanted to cook something with them.

But not just eat them on toast as many Brits do. That is not the way I eat beans. I looked through Pinterest and mostly found recipes for homemade baked beans. One recipe stood out: Baked Beans with Bourbon and Maple Syrup. 

But that was just a recipe to improve the beans, nothing special. But the idea stuck.

I bought sausage meat at the butcher in the morning. That was the base to my dish.

Recipe for 3:

1 can Baked Beans

1 green onion, 2 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp olive oil

1 red bell pepper

75 ml Jim Beam Whisky, 30 ml Maple syrup

Cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, chili salt, pepper

Chives, cooked rice

Chop the veggies very fine. Start tzem in oil and cook them for 5 min. Add the canned beans. Then pour in Whisky and syrup and sesaon well. Cook for 5 more min on low heat. Finish with chives.

I served the Baked Beans with rice.

Mercimek Pilav

I found this recipe on Pinterest on a French site. No problem at all, since my food French is pretty good.

I changed the recipe a bit to my liking as always.

This pilav is usually served as a side dish to Köfte, Turkish meatballs. But since there are lentils in this dish, protein is provided. I just ate it as it is, just with a dollop of Turkish yogurt.

When cook Turkish dishes, the measurements are a bit unusual. The dry ingredients are mostly not weighted, but in volume. Used is a standart Turkish drinking glass.

Recipe:

1 glass green lentils

1 glass large boulgour

1 onion, 1 garlic clove

1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp butter

2,5 glass veg stock

1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tbsp hot paprika paste

Salt and pepper

Wash the lentils and cook them in water for 15 min, then drain.

Wash the boulgour.

Cut the onion in strips and in a wide pot heat up butter and oil and sauté the onions for 4 min. Add garlic and both pastes and stir them well. Now in with hot veg stock, lentils and boulgour. Season well and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 25 to 30 min until all the liquid is absorbed.

Serve with yogurt.

Spaghetti with green Peas

This idea came from SortedFood.

It is a quick and easy recipe. Cooking the pasta in veg stock (the homemade paste I posted a week ago) and defrosted peas mixed with more hot veg stock.

The special addition are the garlic breadcrumbs on top, fried off in olive oil.

I added one ball of Labneh to eat with the pasta. That gives a little but of creaminess to the dish.

Recipe for 2:

250 g spaghetti, 2 l veg stock from paste

250 g defrosted peas, 250 ml veg stock, zest of 1 lime, juice of 1/2 lime, pepper

2 tbsp olive oil, 1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp butter, 75 g breadcrumbs

Cook the pasta in veg stock, drain and leave some of the stock behind.

Mix the peas with fresh veg stock, lime zest and juice. Season with pepper and check the salt level. Homemade veg stock contains 20% of salt.

In a pan heat up oil and butter qnd fry the chpped garlic, add breadcrumbs and brown them. Mix the pasta with the peas and sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top.

Veal Cheeks with Broccoli

Veal Cheeks are a delicious kind of meat. Not so often to get at the supermarket.

Yesterday, I've got lucky to get some. The prices are steep. But I sometimes splurch some high quality food. Better to eat good quality on rarer occations, then mass pruduced meat daily. I am looking forward to the leftovers. Some will go in the freezer.

The preparation takes time. This is meat that needs to braise at medium temperatures to break it down. 3 hours in the oven gives the veal cheeks enough time to get buttery soft.

Recipe for 4:

4 veal cheeks (about 1 kg in total)

2 tbsp clarified butter

Flour, salt, pepper, Bouquet garni

3 spring onions, 3 garlic cloves

1 large carrot, 50 g leek, 2 parsley roots, 1 tomato

2 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tbsp hot goulash paste

50 ml Sherry fino, 200 ml red wine, 1 jar beef stock, some water

Season the meat with salt and pepper and coat with flour. Melt clarified butter in an oven save pot and sear the meat on both sides in medium heat. Take them out and chuck in onions first, after 2 min the other veggies and give them 5 min to roast.

Now add tomato and other paste and season again. Let the paste roast too. Add Sherry. Set the veal cheeks on top and pour in the red wine and beef stock. Top up with water if needed. Bring to a boil and close the lid.

Heat up the oven to 160 C. Stick the pot in and cook for 3 hours.

Steam the broccoli and make a salad out if it. Serve the dish with rice.