Rice Paper and Panko Fish

Making experiments in the kitchen is always a wonderful way to come up with ideas and flavour combinations.

I bought some wolfsfish yesterday, that is a fish that has a firm flesh and doesn`t fall apart, when you handle it. I grated some cucumber, radishes and daikon. I watched a YT video from Alex French Guy Cooking yesterday and he prepared a lot of things with the rice paper. Having it sitting in my Asian cupboard for a while, I wanted to make the best out of it.
Pok Choy goes with fish and spring onions are a good veg to go with it too.

A dipping sauce is a must too.

recipe:
200 g Wolfsfish
1 pok choy
100 g cooked cool rice
2 spring onions
1/2 red chili
50 g grated cucumber
50 g grated daikon raddish
50 g grated red raddishes
coconut oil
mirin
panko
1 egg
3 tbsp flour
frying oil
salt pepper cayenne
chili sauce sweet and sour
soy sauce

coat the fish in flour egg and panko and bake it in some coconut oil until done

soften the pak choy and the spring onions in some oil

soften the rice paper in some wet kitchen towl

                                    fill it up and start folding the spring roll without to much air inside

make the dipping sauce and heat up the fryer 180 C to make golden brown spring rolls

Wood Garlic Pasta and Asparagus

Coming home from a vacation trip always leads me to shop for seasonal local products and start cooking something to make me feel at home again.

In the middle of April here in Germany starts the white asparagus season. Little selling huts are all over towns, along roads and inside supermarkets. Buying the white gold, as it is called here, a local source is important to me. I am living surrounded by asparagus fields, because the soil in the Rhine basin is mostly sand.
An other food I am waiting for is the arrival of the wood garlic. You can smell it in many places when you walk through the surroundings forests, but buying it from a local farmer makes more sense, since the wood garlic in the forest is protected.
Combining both makes a great dish and eating something vegetarian is a good idea too.

Making a pesto from wood garlic is a good way to conserve the green leafs. Putting it over pasta is a great way to eat it.

recipe for the pesto:
50 g wood garlic leafs
30 g pine nuts
25 g pecorino
a pinch of pepper
50 ml olive oil
put everything into a blender and mix until smooth

soften the onions first, then add the bread

as an asparagus and pasta topping use some fresh corn bread and some spring onions
recipe:
3 spring onions
100 g fresh corn bread cut into small chunks
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper

cook some Paglia e Fieno pasta - a green and yellow pasta mix

Paglia e Fieno

recipe for the white asparagus:
1, 5 l salted, sugared and buttered water
500 g peeled white asparagus
cook it for 7 min.

Eating food in Cornwall

On a short trip to Cornwall I tasted some traditional and some modern style food.
It is not always easy doing that, when you travel with a coach tour. Often you have a stop at some petrol service stations or eat food at the Hotel. But during free time I was able to have a go at local food. When you talk to people and tell them you like their food, they are all very helpful and you get often their family recipes.

One very traditional kind of food are the Cornish Pasties, a meat and veggie filled pastry with a crimped crust, that was eaten by the miners in the pewter mines. Since pewter is poisonous, the miners held the pasties along the crimped crust and eaten the middle out of it, without polluting the food, then they thrown out the crimped rest from the pastry. Sometimes the filling was even with a bit of sweet stuff, so the men in the mines had their dessert in the same pasty. The crimping was even signed and you could see where the sweet filling started.

recipe:
250 g  flour
125 g Butter or you could use half butter and half lard
a pinch of salt
1  egg
2-3 tbsp water

2 large potatoes
1 onion
1 swede of parsnip
250 stewing steak
1/2  tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 pinch of nutmeg, 1 pinch of thyme, some of a beef stock cube crumbled

Make a quick dough and let it rest 30 min in the fridge.
Make 4 equal pieces and roll the out on a floured surface. Fill the with finely chopped veggies and meat. Close the dough  so it makes a half moon and with some water around the edges close it. You need to crimp the edge so that the filling can´t escape. It needs a bit of practise. Use 2 fingers and fold the dough over. Brush it with some egg wash and bake it in the oven at 200 C 30 min, the reduce the heat to 180 C and bake 30 min more. Eat warm or reheat it the other day.

The other wonderful treat is Cornish Cream Tea. You can find it everywhere in local cafes or restaurants. A kind of scone that is eaten with jam and clotted cream, a thick and rich cooked double cream. Served with the traditional pot of tea. That is a feast. Since this scones were so amazing I asked for the recipe and it is super easy.

recipe:
500 g plain flour
15 g baking powder
a pinch of salt
100 g caster sugar
100 g diced butter
250 ml milk
eggwash

Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Use your fingertips to rub the  butter into the mix, add the milk and mix well. Knead it gently until it becomes a soft dough.
Roll it out on a floured surface 2.5 cm thick and cut 5 cm rounds. Place them on baking paper and brush them with egg wash and a bit of sugar to sprinkle on top - bake at 200 C for 15 min.
 

Cornfed Chicken on a bed of veggies

A wonderful yellow skinned French Label Rouge chicken crossed my way :-)   I had to take it.

The cooking method is fairly easy, just clean the chicken, pat it dry and rub it with some oil, syrup and a spice blend of curcuma, smoked paprika, cumin, pepper, coriander and salt.
To prevent it from getting dry, set it onto a bed of seasoned veggies and add some Bourbon.
And I am looking forward to make a good broth out of the rest and to have a chicken noodle soup to warm my heart.

recipe:
1 cornfed chicken about 1,4 kg
3 carrots halfed
4 celery stalks halfed 
1 spring onion
half of a whole garlic
1 slice of lemon
chicken seasoning
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp Agave syrup
salt and pepper
3 glucks of Bourbon

Preheat the oven 180 C fan and cook it for 70 min, turning it after half the time (35 min)

Asparagus with Prawns

I found fresh and great looking green organic asparagus today at the supermarket. Pair this with some skewers of prawns, and you have the best dish for starting into the weekend.
For the prawns I use a seasoning of German famous chef Schubeck, he deals in herbs and spices and is well known about his knowledge of the healing components you add to your meal with herbs.

This spice is called Carribbean Scampi Seasoning. You have to mix it either with oil or with broth and marinate all kinds of seafood in it.
I cooked the Asparagus in steam first, then chucked it into a pan with some butter and seasoning and a bit of veg stock and put a lit on top and finished it for 5 minutes. I don´t like soggy asparagus, but the very hard ones are not to my taste either. So I needed some timing to cook it right, but it went well.

recipe:
500 g green asparagus
50 g dill
200 g home made Hollondaise
2 skewers of raw prawns
1 tbsp chili oil
1 tsp Carribbean Scampi Seasoning
salt and pepper
500 g La Ratte potatoes

Put the asparagus -minus the  woody bottom part into a sieve over a pan of boiling water, steam it for 15 min, add butter to a pan and chuck the asparagus in with salt and pepper, a dash of veg stock and close the lid and cook it for 3 min.

In a steamer

Boil the potatoes and cut the dill.
Mix oil with the seasoning and add the prawn skewers.
Make the Hollondaise sauce.

Place everything on a plate and enjoy!

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Make yourself something comforting. One of these dishes is a chicken soup. When you are feeling sick or down, this soup will help to restore your good feelings and helps you to heal.

When you have a carcass of some roasted chicken left, maybe the chicken breasts, you have a great meal for the next days.

Use the carcass, scrape all the bits and pieces out of the roasting pan, get in with some fresh, frozen or freeze dried veggies, chuck in some bay leaves and a couple of cloves of garlic, an onion and some peppercorn and you are ready to go. Enough water to cover everything and bring it to a boil. If you like a bit of heat in your soup, use a fresh chili and cook it in the soup too.
It will take an hour until the broth is done, let everything cool down completely, that gives a lot more flavour to the broth, then pour everything through a sieve.

When you prepare the soup, check the salt content, you will need to add some. Cook some pasta in a separate pot, chop the chicken breast into pieces and look for some fresh bits of veggies and bring all together , heat it up until the flavours mingle, add some fresh parsley and you have a second great meal. A Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Liver dumpling soup

Several years ago someone gave me an old cookbook. It was printed 1920. The recipes were written in old German skript. I have problems reading it, so my Dad helped me. All the recipes need a lot of time, when made the way they were written.  Kitchen helpers of the electric kind were not available. But working in the modern way, it is easier.

Liver dumpling soup

My favorite recipe from the book us a soup with liver and some rice. The liver today goes through an electric blender. Former cut by hand and pressed through a sieve.
A quick meal, when you have leftover rice and some frozen veggies. A jar of beef broth or some beef stock cubes are a great base.

Recipe:
200 g liver (beef,pork or chicken)
1 l beef stock
150 g mixed frozen veggies such as carrot, leek and celery
1 tbsp parsley
pepper
120  g cooked rice

Use a blender and make a liquid mixture from the liver. In a pot heat the broth with the veggies and cook it for 5 min. Get the heat up and drizzle the liver into the broth. Cook it for 3 min and get the rice in. Add some parsley.