Cheeseburger style Rigatoni

I watched a short Reel by 99foodtrends with Nicol and it stuck to my brain. The basic ingredients were clear, the other I just did by eye.

But the outcome was a solid 8.5/10. 

She used soymeat, which I can not eat due to soy allergies and so I used basic 60% ground beef and 40% ground lean pork. The amount of meat was too much for the dish, the leftover cooked meat will get an other purpose.

The rigatoni were the more expensive kind 'al bronzo'. They kept their shape very good in the bake. No mushy pasta for me.

A cheeseburger usually had some iceberg lettuce in. The Reel was without any greens. I used two large Swiss chard leaves from my balcony and added them raw.

The sauce is the component which brings the whole dish together and get the Cheeseburger vibe going.

I used what I remembered her using, but added some more to it. The tastetest of the sauce was spot on.

Dill pickles and raw onion chunks and a good layer of Emmenthal cheese on top and the "Burger style" was complete.

Recipe for 2:

180 g Rigatoni al bronzo

1 tsp oil

250 g ground beef/pork

1 red onion, 2 garlic cloves

2 large Swiss chard leaves

4 pickled gherkins

1 white small onion

50 g Emmenthal cheese

Salt, pepper

Burger Sauce:

200 ml double cream

60 ml Curry ketchup

30 ml yellow mustard

3 tbsp Worchester sauce

3 tbsp mayo

3 tbsp gherkin brine

Salt. Pepper

Cook the rigatoni al dente.

Brown the meat in a little oil. When it is done, add red onion and chopped garlic and cook 5 more minutes.

Make the sauce and preheat the oven 180 C fan.

Cut the gherkin, and slice the Swiss chard and start layering.

A bit of sauce on the bottom, then the Rigatoni.

Next the chard and then the meat.

Top with gherkins and raw onion.

Cover with Emmenthal cheese.

Bake for 20 min.

6 eggs - 6 ways

New trends on social medias. This is one of them.

It is actually not 6 eggs, but 6 halves of them. Each with a different topping, make it as weird as you like.

I wanted to eat it with some bread as an evening snack and decided not to go too crazy. Foraging through my fridge and cupboards I found a couple of condiments to start the build up.

Having the access to fresh herbs on my balcony made it easy to get some freshness on top of the eggs.

I used a tiny pickled yellow pepper from a jar of gherkins, 3 capers, cranberry sauce, chive flower and a savory flower, some camembert, a tiny strip of a Noori sheet, some creme cheese with red bell pepper.

The base was a dollop of this or that.

Parsley and Asparagus Salad

The Levant meets German farmland.

The parsley salad with pomegranate dressing and nut crunch is well known in the Middle Eastern region of the Levant. I had a huge bunch of flat leave parsley from the Turkish supermarket in my fridge. 

I discovered a Turkish supermarket in a nearby town. I went over there to go to the garden center to buy more tomato plants. On the way there, due to road construction I had to drive a different way. New shops to check out.

They sell parsley only in huge bundles.

Some asparagus stalks needed a purpose too. Why not combine both of them.

Recipe for 2:

150 g flat leave parsley

400 g white peeled and steamed asparagus

1 green onion

50 g chopped walnuts

Dressing:

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 lemon juiced

2 tbsp pomegranat syrup

1 tsp agave syrup

Lemon salt, pepper

Crumble de Sardines, Pomme de Terre et Carotte

A crumble that is not the usual, it smells fishy!

This is a recipe from my GOURMAND magazine from April 25. Easy to prepare, but it takes 40 minutes in the oven.

I love these so uncommon dishes I can find in these cooking magazines in France. They sound complicated at first, but are often not. 

Use a solid pie dish and butter it.

Carrots and potatoes as the base, steamed for 10 minutes and then seasoned heavily with salt and pepper. The can of sardines has to loose the oil, then put in a bowl and mashed with lots of fresh chopped parsley. They go on top of the veggies.

Flour, butter, salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, garlic granulate are mashed to a crumble. That goes on top. Some tiny butter chunks are the finish.

Bake at 200 C for 40 minutes.

Ingredients:

3 carrots

4 smaller potatoes

1 can sardines in oil

1/4 bunch parsley

75 g flour

50 g butter

1 tbsp herbes de Provence

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt, pepper

Spinach and Cheese filled Bratwurst on Cream Spinach

The butcher shop in town is offering new food items sometimes. Creations that may suit you or not.

This bratwurst sounded tasty and I bought 3 of it. What goes with spinach in a sausage? More spinach!

Frozen cream spinach is a staple in my freezer, together with frozen peas. Easy to use at a short notice and always tasty. I used the microwave to defrost the spinach. Some green onions went in a pan with a little oil to soften. The spinach then went in with a good dollop of creme fraiche, grated nutmeg and salt and pepper.

The sausages were browned in a second pan. No cheese escaped the casing of the sausage and the spinach stayed inside too.

A good combination for lunch. The other 1 1 /2  sausages were good for breakfast the next morning on a breadroll with caraway mustard. 

French Comté on Asparagus Gratin

I bought a block of Comté cheese the last time I was in France. It should keep until mid of May, but today was the day to cook with it.

Asparagus season is well under way and I was looking for a combination with cheese. A gratin was the solution.

To give it some substance and to make it a full meal, I added potatoes and a little leftover luncheon meat (from my Okinawan Onigirazu dish) yesterday.

Combined with cream and egg yolk, the gratin became very tasty.

I peeled the white asparagus and the potatoes. The asparagus was cut in 2 inch chunks, the potatoes in very thin discs.

I cooked the asaragus chunks first in salted water for 8 min, then added the potatos and finished cooking it 4 more min. Drained and put in an ovenproof dish. Seasoned with salt, pepper, Garden seasoning and dried chives, the sauce went on and the box grated Comté.

Sauce:

Heat up a knob of butter and toss in the tiny chunks of luncheon meat. Brown them a little. Add cream and nutmeg, salt and pepper. Make a potato starch slurry and thicken the sauce. Take it off the heat and drop an egg yolk in and stir. 

Bake in the oven at 180 C fan for 25 min.

Onigirazu Okinawan style

My favourite YT Tabieats cooked once again. 

They are huge fans of the islands of Okinawa and taste tests many foods there. Recreating them at home later for their audiance to have the chance to cook them too.

I did some of their recipes before and all went well.

The famous SPAM or canned luncheon meat is not available here in Germany. But we have something a lot better: Fleischkäse

I bought a slice at the Deli section of our supermarket and browned it in the pan.

Sushi rice triple washed came out of the rice cooker, seasoned with some rice vinegar, sugar and salt.

The egg omelet was made in the traditional rectangular pan, which I use rarely.

The best is the meat topping with pork mince, sugar, miso paste and sake. It is a condiment that goes great with rice alone too. I made a little more of it to enjoy with the leftover sushi rice the next day. Just brown the pork mince without oil in a small pan. Put the sugar on top and let it caramelize. The miso paste needs a lot of stirring to desolve in the pan. The moment the sake goes in, it gets dark and creamy. Let it cool down. 

Break or cut a Noori sheet in two halves and take the sushi bamboo mat out of your drawer. Press the cooled rice with wet hands on top of it, not too thick, just cover it.

Now meat, egg and pork miso condiment and you are ready to fold the sandwich. Don't panic, the mat helps a lot. Done. Now enjoy eating it.