Meghli - a Dessert with spices

Other names are Moghli, Meghleh or Karawiya. It is a dessert from the Levant. This one was made in Lebanon.

Every time I visit the large Turkish supermarket here in the city, I spent some time in front of the dessert isle. I´ve made several of the desserts from the different shelves. This one was a new one I haven´t seen before. Preparation sounded easy and so I bought it.

Yesterday I stirred the content of the package in 800 ml cold water and brought that up to boil and cooked it until I had the right pudding consistency. While stirring it a strong smell of anis seed and something else came to my nose. This something else is caraway seed. It was just masked by a bit of cinnamon. Very strange to my nose.

I googled the pudding and found out that it was a special dessert served to celebrate the birth of a child or at other festivities such as Christmas.

After I finished the pudding it went into smaller bowls to cool down completely. Then it went into the fridge.

On the package was a picture how to present it. It was topped with nut shavings and whole nuts.

I decorated it and then came the taste test.

This is not my kind of dessert.

Mushroom Soup from Ukraine

All Eastern European and Russian Countries have mushroom dishes in their list of favorite foods. Collecting wild mushrooms during the season is a common tradition in many families there.

When I was a child one or two adults went with us bunch of kids into the forest near by and we were told what to look for when we wanted to pick some mushrooms. My mother was very careful because she had not much knowledge of wild mushrooms. In the same house I grew up lived a family of biologists.  They checked our loot always very careful and showed us more things to look for in he right mushrooms. But since that short period of time, I never went out to pick some mushrooms. I prefer the ones you can buy in a store.

I wanted something vegetarian today and I found a mushroom soup from Ukraine on Pinterest. They use fresh porcini mushrooms. No way I can get any of them here this time of year. But I have a tin of dried ones. This 1 pound tin is a very old one, it had coffee in when I bought it. But since this time I only store dried porcini mushrooms in it. The smell is formidable when you open the lid of the tin. It is so well closed that you can store the mushrooms in it for a very long time without them getting spoiled.
 I took about 20 g out and soaked them over night in a cup of water. I used the water for the soup later.

recipe:
600 g mushrooms like brown button, king oyster and shimeji mushrooms, 20 g dried porcinis
3 cups vegetable stock
1 cup soaking mushroom water
1 cup half and half  or milk and cream mixed
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs of thyme
200 g potatoes
2 carrots
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp parsley

Clean the veggies and cut them roughly.
Set aside a quarter of the brown button and half of the shimeji mushrooms for later.
Cut up the rest.
In a large pot heat up 2 tbsp of oil and toss in onion and garlic first, 2 min later potatoes and carrot.

Stir well and let it saute a little. Chuck in the mushrooms and then add the veg stock and porcini water. Season and put thyme and bay leaf in.
Bring to a boil and reduce the heat and cover and cook for 15 -20 min.
Use a stick blender and make a semi fine soup, add the half and half and stir. Check for seasoning.
In a pan in olive oil brown the mushrooms for topping. Chop the parsley.

Sweet Corn & Cheese Fritters

The base of the recipe is from a site for parents with young children. Food was one of the topics.
The original recipe is recommened for little kids starting between 10 to 12 month. Not much seasoning or strong cheese. They use young Gouda.

Why not try a recipe like that. When you see recipes of American corn fritters, they are pretty basic too.

I used this recipe to get some of my leftover cheeses out of the fridge. I had some Peccorino, Taleggio and Swiss Mountain Cheese. And I used some kinds of seasoning.

recipe of four:
1 large free range egg
200 ml whole milk
100 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
85 g sweet corn out of a can
5 tbsp mixed grated cheeses
1 1/2 tsp chives
pinch of sea salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp of piment d´Espelette
white pepper
oil

Mix egg andd milk, add flour and baking powder. Stir well.
Add sweet corn, chives and cheese.
Season to taste.

Heat up oil in a pan and spoon some mixture in. Bake on both sides on medium high heat for 2 min or until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.
Serve with some sweet corn kernels.

Sugo Coq au Vin with Pasta

Using recipes published by great German Chefs (and Chefs from other countries) makes cooking tasty dishes often so much easier. Not that I follow them to the T, but I let them inspire me.

This one is from Christian Jürgens, 2 star Chef from Restaurant Überfahrt at Tegernsee. I love to cook his recipes, they are so down to earth. The quality of the ingredients is the most important part of the dish.

You can only cook as good as your ingredients are. The rest is the skill of the Chef. That was a good description a professional told me once.

recipe for 2:
2 chicken legs free range
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 stalk rosemary
2 stalks thyme
1 stalk tarragon
4 cloves of garlic
3 spring onions
4 baby carrots
1 can crushed tomatoes
150 ml strong chicken stock
200 ml red wine
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp potato starch  and water
pasta

Season the chicken legs with salt and pepper. Use a cast iron skillet and brown them on both sides in olive oil. Take them out.
Chop onions, garlic and carrots and get them with the herbs and the bay leaves in the pan. Stir them for 3 min and pour the red wine in. Scrape the bottom of the pan.

Add chicken stock and tomatos and place the chicken legs back in. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and close the lid.
Check the cooking time and start the pasta.
After 35 min, check if the meat is done. Get it out and pour starchy water into the sauce and let it get thicker. Add the butter and get it off the heat.
Take a fork and pull the meat off and toss it in the sauce.

Check the seasoning and serve on top of the pasta.

Pancakes with Nut filling

On of the Chefs that write for the Süddeutsche Zeitung is Elisabeth Grabmer from Austria.

The original recipe is more complex then mine. I wanted to have a plate with pancakes after work and I took some of the components from the recipe. It is usually served with a pot of whipped cream with rum and vanilla. I am not a huge fan of whipped cream with desserts. I took a good amount of Greek yogurt and served it. So tasty.

I am lucky to call a crepe pan my own. It is a lot easier to handle pancakes or crepes this way. I bought that pan years ago in Troyes in the Champagne. Every time I use it, I think about my nice vacation in an apartment in a building from the 16th century.

recipe for 4:
pancakes:
2 eggs
250 ml whole milk
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla sugar
125 g sifted flour
30 g Ghee

nut filling:
100 ml whole milk
2 tbsp honey
100 g grated hazelnuts
50 g grated almonds
1 tbsp rum
2 tbsp egg liqueur
pinch cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla sugar


oranges:
100 g kumquats
200 g water
125 g sugar
200 g Greek yogurt
Cinnamon

Use a small casserole. Start with the kumquats. Make the sugar and water liquid and put the washed kumquats in for 5 min. Take the kumquats out and save the sugar liquid for an other purpose.

Make the nut filling. Use the cleaned casserole again and add milk and the other ingredients. Just warm it up a little bit without too much heaz. Stir well and set aside to cool.

Make the pancake batter and let it rest 20 min.

Use Ghee or clarified butter for the pan. Bake 4 pancakes and put roughly a quarter of the nutfilling on top and roll the pancake up.
Mix the yogurt with cinnamon and cut up some chopped kumquats.

Miso Ramen

This is my not so authentic version of Ramen.

But the taste was great, and I had to work with what I´ve got. A warm Japanese noodle soup. A lot better then all the instant ones.

I used fresh veggies, fresh noodles from the Asian supermarket and an egg that spent time to soak in a dark liquid. When that does not sound good, I don´t know.

I bought deli pork roast on Saturday. The fatty kind of pork belly was not available. The drier kind of pork roast was good too, but a bit unusual.

recipe for 2:
5 cloves of garlic
3 sping onions
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
3 tbsp white miso paste
1,2 l water
1 beef stock cube
1 package dashi powder
4 tbsp soy sauce
pepper

1 tsp lard

2 pok choy
100 g mini corn
1 soft boiled marinated egg in soy mirin sauce
chives and greens from spring onions
250 g ramen noodles cooked.
J

Use a large pot and boil water with salt. Blanche the pok choy for 2 min and scoop it out and put into ice water. In the same pot cook the corn for 5 min.
Scoop it out and cook the noodles in the same water. Drain them and dry them.

Use a China bowl and put the lard in, add a little hot soup and melt it.
Place the noodles in and warm them in more stock.
Put all the topping in the bowl and pour more soup in.

Beet Root Salad with Pomegrante Seeds and Goatcheese

I found a salad recipe on Cooking Magazine issue again. This time it is from Luxembourg Chef Lea Linster.

Since a little kid, I love beet root. My Grandma had them in the garden and each time she cooked some, I waited beside the stove to get a freshly cooked one. I just had to wait until she was able to peel the hot thing. A bit of beet root juice specks on me did not bother anyone.

The combination of the earthy beet root and the sour and sharp pomegranate seeds is great. The fruit does not give too much sweetness to the salad. And the good amount of vinegars helps too. The earthiness goes into the background.

recipe for 4:
500 g precooked beet root
50 ml wine vinegar (Melfor-vinegar)
sea salt
pepper
100 ml black currant juice
100 ml beet root juice
1 shallot
4 tbsp high quality olive oil
3 tbsp pomegranate seeds
60 g goatcheese
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp parsley

In a small casserole reduce the black currant juice and beet root juice. Add the beet root juice you will get after you grated the beet roots too. Reduce it to under 100 ml and cool it down.

Use a box grater and roughly grate the balls. Pour 25 ml of Melfor vinegar and the olive oil in a mixing bowl, add salt and pepper and use a whisk to make an emulsion. Pour over the beet roots.
Peel and finely chop the shallot and soak it in the other 25 ml of Melfor vinegar for 10 min.
Add to the salad.

In with the pomegranate seeds and chopped parsley. Pour the reduction over the salad.
Let it sit for 20 min, then put on plates and crumble the cheese on top.