Cabbage and Bacon Salad

I still have some of the Jaroma cabbage sitting around. It is versatile so I made a salad to eat it as it is.
But stop, I used salt and let the cabbage sit for 30 minutes, then washed it and got rid of the salt. Now the cabbage is no longer hard. And lost a quarter of its size.

Cabbage and Bacon Salad

Since everything tastes better with bacon and with onion and garlic, it was the dressing to turn to.

recipe:
1/2 head of Jaroma cabbage
80 g bacon bits
2 cloves of garlic1/2 tsp caraway seed
salt, pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Sherry vinegar
1 tsp fine parsley

Get a small pan and brown the bacon, get rid of the fat. Put in the onion and garlic and soften it for 2 more minutes.
Pull the pan from the heat and let it cool down a bit, add the Sherry vinegar and the oil and dress the salad with it. Season with caraway seed and parsley.

I served the salad with Tempura fish. I bought some Nile Perch today,
seasoned it with salt and pepper and put it through some tempura flour.
I made a tempura batter with ice cold Grapefruit flavoured Weizen beer.

Nile Perch Tempura with Cabbage and Bacon Salad

Purslane Green Smoothie with Macadamia

I found some fresh purslane in our organic supermarket today. It is rare to get hold of, so I grabbed a bunch. The moment I saw it, I thought Green Smoothie and was looking forward to it. In an other isle of the same market, I shopped a variety of nut milks.

Smoothie Bowl

Everybody is talking green smoothies on all Internet sites and well, why not. Until now a smoothie for me was some kind of mixture of fruits, apple- or cranberry juice as a base and maybe some fresh ginger or mint. Or a good dose of Yogurt and some kind of nut milk mixed in.
Since people love kale in their smoothies, I tried it once, but kale is not really my kind of veg I fall back to, when I think about cooking something green, so I was not inspired by that drink in the morning. Kale "talks" to me, but that conversation is one sided.

recipe:
200 g purslane
1/2 Lime
1 apple
1 banana
2 soft dates destoned
250 ml Macadamia Nut Milk
1 tbsp Agave Syrup
2 cm fresh grated ginger

topping:

1 tsp chia seeds
1/2 passionfruit

Get everything in a blender and make a smoothie fit for a bowl. If you like to drink it, take 100 ml more Macadamia Milk. Top it with chia seeds and the seeds of half a passionfruit. It gives a little crunch to the smoothie.

Dumplings in Chicken Stock

This is a regional dish from Poland, the area of former East Prussia.

Dumplings in Chicken stock

When you´ve made chicken stock from leftover bones, it is a great way to use it up.
Serve it as a starter for four or as a main course for two. It doesn´ t take long and is a nice soup without fuss.

recipe:

1,25 l Chicken stock
1 tbsp chopped parsley
8 tbsp bread crumbs
1 pinch of nutmeg
1 pinch of salt and pepper
1 egg
125 g high fat curd
4 tbsp milk
15 g butter

Ingredients

In a pot melt the butter and add milk, take it off the heat. Add curd and egg  and make a smooth dough. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Add the bread crumbs and parsley, mix it well and let it sit for 20 minutes to rest.

Bring the chicken stock to a boil. Use 2 teaspoons and make small dumplings, put them in the broth and let them simmer in reduced heat for 10 minutes.

Serve the soup with the dumplings with fresh chopped parsley. You can add some cooked chicken pieces and some carrots, if any are sitting around.



 

Cabbage and Salami Pizza

I am trying something crazy.

I bought some fine Spanish Jaroma cabbage. It is called to be one of the oldest cabbages. I don`t know if that is true. It tastes softer in texture then normal white cabbage or savoy cabbage and you can use it as salad too.

I have some pizza dough sitting in the fridge that needs to be done, otherwise it will spoil. But  I wanted to eat cabbage today, a salad is fine, but lets get experimental.

Cabbage and Salami Pizza

Do a chiffonade from the cabbage, slice some spring onions and put everything on the pizza.

recipe:

2 leaves of Jaroma cabbage
1 spring onion
3 tbsp tomato sauce
60 g Salami
60 g Mozzarella di Buffalo
50 g shredded Cheddar
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp chili honey
1 pinch dried thyme and oregano
pepper

Jaroma cabbage shredded

  

Poached Pork Roast with Veggies

Poaching a piece of neck from a pork in a lot of wine is not common everywhere here in Germany.
It is a recipe from the Thuringia region.
You can use dry white wine or a dry rosé. Do not use red wine.

Wine poached pork

Since the meat is poached, it does not get hard. The veggies on the other hand stay al dente, because when they are cooked in wine, they don`t get soggy.

I served just the pork and the vegetables and no carbs to the side. But it will go with mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes. Or just a piece of bread will do.

recipe:
750 g pork neck trimmed
1 1/4 l dry white wine
300 ml water
2 veg stock cubes
3 carrots
1/4 celeriac
2 small leeks
2 bay leaves
6 parsley stalks
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
4 juniper berries
salt and pepper

In a big pot bring together the wine and water with the onion, garlic, bay leaves, berries,parsley stalks, chunks of celeriac and stock cube and bring to a boil. Cook for 3 minutes than add the pork and reduce the heat, that it simmers. Let it stay on for 30 minutes.
In the meantime peel the carrots and cut the into 10 cm pieces, half the big ones, cut the leek same size. After 30 minutes add them to the meat and simmer for 20 minutes more.

Get the meat out of the liquid and slice it and serve it with carrots, leek and celeriac and some chopped parsley on top.

Velvety Potato Soup

Velvety Potato Soup is from my region in Germany. 

The creamy soup with some not blitzed up veggies and a finish with raw ham such as Parma ham or else. It warms your heart.

Soup with ham on top

If you have leftover potato mash you can use it and it makes an easy soup.

recipe for 2:
1 white onion
1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp butter
150 g mixed veggies as leek, carrot and celery
350 g potatoes or 350 g ready made mash
700 ml beef stock
150 ml double cream
50 ml milk
2 bay leaves
4 juniper berries
1 pinch of dried herbs
salt and pepper
50g ham

Use two pots. Boil the peeled potatoes in salted water, drain them and mash them with 1 tbsp of butter and 50 ml milk and set aside. Mash leftover from an other day is fine too.

This is the look without the mash

Start the butter with the half ring onion slices and chopped garlic and after they softened, add the veggies and stir them 2 more minutes, add the beef stock and bay leaves and juniper berries  and season well. Cook until the veggies are soft. Add the cream. Place the mash in a quarter at the time and let it dissolve in the broth.  Fish out the bay leaves and berries.

When you serve it, rip apart some ham and place it on top of the soup.

Parfait with Eierlikör or something not so similar to Eggnog

Parfait is something I like. It is so versatile and you can mix and match it with many flavours.

Egg Liqueur Parfait

I made some Eierlikör - egg liqueur or Advocaat -  a while ago and it needed to be used up. But it is easy to buy some Advocaat in stores around here. It is very different from US Eggnog, but I think you could use some - but it has to have enough alcohol in it.

The only thing with this desserts is the problem of having a lot of washing up to do afterwards. Thanks for the dishwasher so.

Parfait recipe:
2 eggs separated
70 g sugar
1 tbsp brown vanilla sugar
150 ml double cream
100 ml Egg Liqueur
1 pinch of fresh grated nutmeg or cinnamon

Beat the yolk with sugar and vanilla sugar for 5 minutes until creamy.
Beat the double cream to soft peaks.
Beat the egg white to stiff peak (don`t forget to wipe the bowl and whisk with lemon before you start)
Measure the Liqueur
Grate some nutmeg.

Put it in the freezer for minimum 4 hours.  Dress with fruits or coulis. It goes great with cookie crumbs- if you have some left from the holidays.

Egg Liqueur recipe:
8 egg yolks
200 g sugar
250 g double cream
250 g Baccardi
1 tbsp vanilla sugar


Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla until creamy, add the other ingredients and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and start to beat it until you reach 70C. Do not cook it!

Fill it in clean bottles, it keeps in the fridge for 4 weeks. Serve it with ice cream or pudding or fruits.