Brussel Sprouts and Onion Bhajis

This is the second part of my personal Brussel sprout challenge. Brussel sprouts Indian style.

I love these fritters with onions and spinach. Why not take out the spinach and chop up a lot of Brussel sprouts and mix them with the onions in spiced chickpea paste. Everything that comes out of a fryer is tasty!

It was a long time ago that I made Bhajis. That is a pity, because I love those. The best way to eat them is the moment you can pick them up with your finger without burning them.

I stood beside the frying pan and keeping an eye on the ones in the oil, while eating the fresh ones. Sooo good!

Eat them while they are still warm. I dipped them a bit in a Greek yogurt carton.

Recipe for 2:

250 g red, white and yellow onions

200 g Brussel sprouts

1 cup chickpea flour, 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp brown mustard seeds, 2 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp chili flakes, 1 tsp aowan seeds, 1 tsp caraway seeds, 1 tsp black lemon powder, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp smoked salt, 1 tsp pepper

2 cups of water or more

Oil for frying

Greek yogurt

Cut the onions in strips, finely shred the Brussel sprouts. Discard the stem. Mix everthing with the batter and heat up the oil to 170 C.

With a large spoon drop some mix in the fryer and let it get golden brown and crispy on both sides.

Place on kitchen paper and serve with yogurt.

Brussel Sprouts Camouflage

Once a year I have to give my only hated vegetable a try. But I had to buy 1 kilogramm of it. That was the smallest amount available.

To keep it fresh for a couple of days, I removed the outer dark green leaves and cut off some of the stem. I washed them and put them in a moist kitchen towel. They are now in my veggie drawer of my fridge.

Today is the 6th of January. This is the day a church holiday in the catholic states of Germany and the day Christmas trees and decorations are taken out. It is the Holiday of the three Kings. Where I live, it is a regular work day.

After getting both Christmas trees down to the basement and storing all the decorations away, I wanted something fast and remembered the kitchen towel filled with Brussel sprouts.

I quartered 2 hands full of them and used some of my Advent calender oil bottles and some sauces. This combination was great and only the lingering cooking smell reminded me of the hated vegetable.

Recipe for 1:

300 g quarteted cleaned Brussel sprouts

1 tbsp rapeseed oil, 1 tbsp Chipotle seasoned oil

Smoked salt,

100 ml water

2 tsp Mango chutney, 2 tsp Balsamic rosted  onion sauce

Let the veggies get a good color in the hot oil. Season with salt and add water and close the lid and reduce the heat. After 3 min add both sauces and check if the sprouts are cooked. They should retain some of their bite.

Do not overcook them! Do not reheat them! Otherwise the farty cabbage taste will be back.

 

Scampi in Garlic Butter

This is a tasty way to get rid of some raw prawns/scampi left over from an other recipe. No need to block your freezer with small bags of prawns. You can do this in larger quantities or in single dishes to serve a bigger group of people.

It is a good lunch or snack at the evening with a glass of white wine and some baguette.

The dish just needs 12 minutes at 180 C in the oven. 

Recipe:

125 g defrosted prawns

Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

 30 ml white wine, 3 tbsp olive oil

20 g herb butter, 40 g butter

Salt, pepper, Arabiata seasoning

5 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp parsley

Melt the butter and add the other ingredients. Put the prawns in at a circle and brush some liquid on top and bake.

Take the baking dish to the table and tuck in and enjoy.

Prawn and Salmon Sushi Bake

The first day of the new year asks for something special to eat. 

I am not so much for the traditional German dishes on this day. They are good when you feed a whole family or group of people, but for a small household it is too much work.

It took me a long time to find the right dish. There were lots of choices, but I have done do many of them in the last couple of years. 

Sushi!

But preparing some sushi rolls for 1 is not much fun, do 2 sushi rolls and cut them up, you will have 12 pieces of sushi. That means you are full and there is not much variety.

The alternative is a bake. Lots more toppings and a good way to have some fun with it. Change the sides as in avocado or cucumber or douse it with spicy Sriracha.

The ingredients picture shows a huge amount of items. I was shocked after I got everything together. But it worked out fine.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 rice cooker cups short grain rice

35 ml rice vinegar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

125 g cooked salmon, 125 g raw defrosted prawns

3 tbsp cream cheese

1 large spring onion

2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, 2 tbsp furikake, 1 tsp ao noori 

3 tbsp sriracha, 3 tbsp kewpie mayo  or more or less of both

Noori sheets

Wash the rice until the water runs clear. Soak it for 15 min. Then cook it. In a small pan warm up the vinegar, salt and sugar. Pour it over the cooked rice and stir it well and cool it down.

Brush an ovenproof dish with sesame oil and press the rice in. Sprinkle with Ao noori, furikake and sesame seeds.

Cut the prawns in chunks, rip the salmon apart and mix it with onion, cream cheese, sriracha and mayo. Spread on top of the rice and top again with sriracha and mayo.

Bake at 180 C fan for 15 min.  Eat with noori sheets.

Leftovers Soup

The last year of food blogging was finished. Today I checked the amount of blogs. The total count was 342! I was surprised.

Since our shops closed a day before the holidays this year, many people bought more food than needed. I stocked up my fridge too. 

I prepared some great dishes, but bits and bobs of food were left over. To get just the right amount of ingredients is often difficult due to packages sizes. 

But most of it has a bit of a longer shelf life. Now is the time to work out what to do with it. Creativity helps, so does the stormy and rainy weather. Nothing better as spending time in the kitchen.

Some fragrant rice, some cooked potatoes, lots of single veggies, some cream cheese and a bit of bacon went on the kitchen counter. Then I picked a fresh bay leaf off my tree.

All this does not sound very interesting, but the soup was very good and warmed me up from the inside today.

Cut all the veggies in small pieces. They went on top of the cooked bacon and the broth helped to cook it in 10 min. 

Rice and potatoes only needed to warm up again. They went in next. To make the soup more rich in taste, some scoops of cream cheese helped with that.

Just check the seasoning and then tuck in.

There is no list of ingredients. Just look through your fridge and pantry and give it a go. Use up some turkey or ham or make it completely vegetarian, your choice!

Lemon Rice

This is a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi. I have one of his cookbooks and wanted something fragrant for lunch. I had all ingredients on hand and made just a smaller amount of the recipe.

Lemon rice sounds so plain and uninspiring, but when you read the ingredients and check the cooking method, you know that this rice will be something special.

It comes out very fluffy and each kernel is falling off the fork on its own. No clumbs of rice.

Recipe for 2:

200 g Basmati rice

350 ml water

1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp white pepper

15 cloves

18 dried curry leaves

5 g cinnamon rind

Zest 1/2 lemon

30 g butter

1 tbsp lemon juice

Wash the rice, then soak it for 15 min. Preheat the oven 200 C.

Crush the cinnamon stick by hand in smaller pieces. Put the rice in an oven proof dish. Use a small pot and add water, spices, lemon zest and salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Immediately pour it over the rice. 

Use some parchmentpaper and cut out a lid to put directly on the rice. Then cover the dish with aluminium foil. Bake for 25 min.

Take it out of the oven and get the alu foil off. Let the rice rest for 10 min. Melt the butter and mix in the lemon juice. Pour over the rice and fluff it with a fork. Serve.

Pumpkin Bellini

Today is New Years Eve.

Celebrating it with some French Cremont aka Champagne not from the region sounded good.

A very often served drink with these Bubblies is Bellini. The fruit puree is made from white vinyard peaches. That gives that a very floral and sweet taste.

But I do not have any peach puree at home, but pumpkin puree. The jar was left over from my pumpkin latte making in October. I saw a Pinterest post with this method.

Just add as much icing sugar and real vanilla seeds to the pumpkin puree to your liking. Freeze the puree in cubes and add them later to the flute with Cremont or Prosecco or Champagne or German Sekt and toast the New Year.