Sorbet au Coco de Martinique

This is a very creamy and rich dessert from the islands of the Antilles.

My BFF made this recipe after watching a documentary about the island of Martinique. Even her husband, who is not so fond of sweet desserts, loved it. Only a few ingredients are needed.

I bought them a couple of weeks ago and they were sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for their use. But I was too busy before I went on holiday. Today I finally prepared it.

An ice cream maker is not a must, but I have one sitting unused for a long time in my storage. Now was the time to get the dust off it. 

Recipe for 10 scoops:

400 ml coconut milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Zest of a lime, juice of 1/2 lime

Mix all ingredients together and store it in the freezer for 4 to 6 hours. Or use your trusty ice cream compressor and let it run 50 min. Now just eat one portion and store the other in the freezer.

Flying Dutchman Burger

Yes, I watch too many food related videos. This one went viral about 2 weeks ago.

You can' t watch food videos in the moment, without one of these onion slice "buns" on burgers pop up. About 2 years ago, the IN a Out Burger Chain came up with this.

I love onions, not only as an ingredient of some sauce or veggie dish, but as a vegetable it self. I needed to give it a try myself.

I was blown away. It is a mess to eat, but Brioche buns or the lame sesame buns were never my favourite outside of a burger. I did a couple of breadless burger blogs here. 

Ingredients:

2 x 100 g seasoned beef burgers

2 slices Cheddar cheese

1 very large onion, 2 x 1,5 cm slices

Salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil

Romain lettuce

Burger Sauce:

2 tbsp mayo, 2 tbsp ketchup, 1 tsp mustard, 1 tsp Worchester sauce, 2 tbsp pickle juice, 2 cornichons

Shrimp and Sweet Potato Fritters Vietnamese style

This is Vietnamese streetfood! I should have better cooked it outside. But it is too cold today.

The combination with sweet potato and shrimps sounded great. All brought together in a beer batter. The batter was colored with tumeric and some annato seed powder. That gave the whole deep fried batter a beautiful deep golden color. 

The batter was thicker than the typical Tempura batter which is often used to fry vegetables and shrimps.

It was a bit of a learning curve to stick the shrimp on top of the fritter without loosing it the moment the fritter is turned upside down. But after I dipped the shrimp in the batter snd set it on top and pushed some oil around it, it stuck. Noe it was no big deal to finish it cooking upside down.

Recipe for 6 fritters:

1 medium sweet potato cut in thin strips

8 defrosted raw shrimps

Parsley

Frying oil

Batter:

1 cup flour, 2 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg, 1 cup beer

1/2 tsp tumeric, 1/4 tsp annato seed powder

Mix the batter and put it in the fridge for 30 min to rest. Drop a hand full of potato in the batter, get it covered and place it in the hot oil. Shape it like a fritter. After 2 min, turn it. Dip the shrimp in the batter and place it on top. With a spoon wave some hot oil around the shrimp. Then turn the fritter and cook the shrimp 2 to 3 min.

If you have shrimps left over, just batter them and deep fry them too.

Take it out and drain it on kitchen paper. Serve with parsley and the choice of sauce you like. 

Golden Milk sweet Risotto

Delicious and not too sweet!

The Golden Milk powder together with the spiced sugar tone down the sweetness.

The tumeric gives the rice a lovely color. The taste is not overpowering. 

My new favourite kind to make some sweet risotto.

Ingredients:

125 g Risotto rice washed

500 ml whole milk

20 g butter

2 tsp vanilla sugar, 2 tsp light brown sugar

1 tsp spiced sugar (cardamom and cinnamon)

1 heaped tsp Golden Milk powder

Pinch of salt

Juice 1/2 lemon, 1 egg yolk

1 beaten egg white

I used my trusty Thermomix and prepared the sweet risotto like any other kinds here on the blog. After 32 min it was done. I added the lemon and the egg yolk and folded the egg white in.

10 Minute Bacon Spaghetti

I saw a couple of easy pasta dishes from 5 different chefs. Chef Christian Henze made 5 Minute Carbonara.

He did not use Guanchiale or Spaghetti, but Panchetta and Capelini. And he added an onion.

I used 3 Minute Spaghetti and dried Porkbelly (Dörrfleisch). To get rid of the last green onions in my fridge and added them with a bit of garlic.

One egg and one egg yolk with grated Parmesan to bind the pasta with a good amount of hot pasta water.

Ingredients:

130 g 3 Minute Spaghetti

1 egg, 1 egg yolk

35 g Parmesan

40 g dried Bacon

2 Green onions, 2 garlic cloves

Start the Spaghetti in a pot with salted water and the Bacon in a Pan. When the Bacon gets crispy, add Onions and garlic.

Mix eggs with Cheese. Get the Spaghetti directly in the Pan and add pasta water. Get the Pan off the heat. Mix in the cheese. Stir in enough water to make it creamy.

Chicken Corn Soup Pakistani style

I had a small bowl of soup in one of the Omani hotels and I was fond of it.

But soup eating at 28 C is not my favourite thing to do. At home we have 9 C and chicken soup sounded great.

The staff at the Falaj Hotel was mostly from Pakistan and from Sri Lanka. So Dals and other dishes from this region tasted authentic.

When I was home again, I remembered the soup and started my Internet search. Some call it an Indian Soup with Chinese heritage. 

Then I found a short video of Mother and son cooking this soup together. I took my inspiration more or less from that video.

Recipe for 4:

4 chicken legs

Enough water to cover them completely

1 tsp salt, 2 tsp pepper, 2 tsp tumeric

6 chopped garlic cloves

1 red bell pepper, 1 small yellow bell pepper

1 yellow chili

2 small cans of sweet corn

2 tsp potato starch in 4 tbsp milk

1 egg

Place the chicken in a large pot and cover it with water. Add salt, pepper, tumeric and garlic and boil for 30 min.

Take the chicken out to cool a little to take off the meat.

In a blender stuff in the bell peppers and a drained can of sweetcorn. Add 60 ml water and blend. Pour in the soup and add the second can of sweetcorn. Cook on low heat.

Discard the yellow skin from the chicken and rip the meat to shreds. Add to the soup. 

Make a slurry from starch and milk and stir in the soup to thicken. Cook 5 min more, take from the heat.

Beat the egg and drizzle in the soup. Check the seasoning and chop the yellow chili to add for some heat.

 

Last Dinner in Muscat

I went to the international buffet in the Crown Plaza Hotel. Sitting outside beside the pool was great and I enjoyed the atmosphere very much.

International buffet here means a lot of everything. Bits and pieces from different regions of the world were served.

I went with some seafood and salads for my first course. 

Then I went to the life cook station. Here were lots of precooked skewers on the warming plates. I stabbed some with the serving fork and dry was the answer. I went with some chicken shawarma instead.

They offered tiny balls of Kibbeh. I tried one, bone dry.

Some labneh and hummus were better. As dessert I ate fruit and a mango cream dessert.