Hungarian Pork with Paprika Cream Sauce

On my one day trip, I shopped at 4 different butchers in 4 different towns. Each had something special and was known for their line of goodies.

One butcher shop prepares different kinds  of shredded seasoned pork. The ingredients and the kind of seasoning change. The most well known is their Greek style Gyros. That is awesome. 

But I saw something with a reddish seasoning and some sweet corn kernels. I asked and was told that it was Hungarian paprika seasoning. The sales person told me to add onions and some cream. In the back of the shop I saw some small bags with small potato dumplings. They make them there too. They remind people of Gnocchi, but are a little different.

I added not only onions but garlic, fresh herbs, a dash of white wine and double cream. The result was very tasty. The potato dumplings went in a pan with butter and nutmeg to get some color.

Peaches on Cream Cake

Getting the right ingredients are a bit problematic in the moment. People here are stocking up on flour, yeast, sunflower oil, paper products and long lasting canned goods. 

The cake is named in German: Spiegeleierkuchen

Peach halves in cans are one of these things. I was in 3 stores but only was able to get sliced peaches in cans.

This recipe calls for Hessian Schmand. It has 24% fat. That is a thick kind of cream, but not available everywhere. No problem: use 2/3 creme fraiche and mix it with 1/3 sour cream.

It is important to have time for cooling and resting. 3 hours until the cake is ready and 2 hours more in the fridge to set.

Recipe for 12 pieces:

Bottom:

250 g soft unsalted butter, 180 g sugar

Pinch of salt, 2 tsp baking powder

250 g flour, 5 medium eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:

1 large can halved peaches

800 ml whole milk, 50 g sugar

2 packages Dr.Oetker vanilla pudding

400 g Schmand (300 creme fraiche-100 sour cream)

1 sachet cake glaze optional

Drain the peaches and save the juice for later.

Bring 675 ml milk to a boil, mix the other milk with sugar and pudding powder. Stir in and cook for 2 min until it thickens. Fill in a bowl and put klingfilm on top to prevent a skin. Cool down to room temp.

Preheat the oven 180 C.

In a standmixer beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add salt and eggs one after the other.

Mix flour with baking powder and add to the batter. Finish with vanilla.

Use a 10x 15 inch baking dish and cover it with baking paper. Spread the batter on top and smooth it out.

Bake for 20 min. Let it cool down in the dish.

Mix the pudding with Schmand and 2 tbsp peach juice and put in the fridge for 1 hour.

Spread it on the cold sponge cake and take a toothpick and make 12 partitions carefully in the cream. Place a peach halve in each.

If you like prepare the glaze and top it.

Put the cake in the fridge for 2 hours.

Asparagus Strawberry and Prawn Tart

It is finally asparagus season. The strawberries are still from Spain, but the ones in the large plastic tunnels will follow here soon. I can see these tunnels when I am driving to work on the Autobahn.

I made combinations of asparagus and strawberries before. This time the large prawns on top makes this combination even tastier.

I found the recipe on Nicest Things Blog, but changed it to my own preferances.

Recipe for 2 as a starter:

1 round puff pastry sheet

75 g cream cheese, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp chopped parsley, 1 clove of garlic, lemon salt, lemon pepper, Piment d'Espelette, pinch of Herbes de Provence

6 strawberries, 7 stalks green asparagus

8 raw defrosted black tiger prawns

2 tbsp toasted pine nuts, 1 egg yolk

I used a long French tarte dish with loose bottom. Some baking spray for the dish.

Unroll the puff pastry and lower it in the dish. If it is too short, take some of the leftover pastry and patch the end. Poke holes with a fork in the dough and place it back in the fridge until you will need it.

Preheat the oven 200C.

Wash the asparagus and break off the lower part. Cut in 2 cm chunks.

Hull the strawberries and slice them.

Get the shell off the prawns and wash them.

Mix cream cheese with the other listed ingredients. Spread on the dough.

Place the other things on top, the prawns go last. If you use cooked prawns, add them to the dish when it baked 12 min. Otherwise they will get rubbery. 

Brush the egg yolk around the dough and bake for 15 min.

Now it is time to toast the pine nuts in a dry pan. Stay alert, they will change from white to brown in a couple of seconds. Take them out of the pan when they are done. The chance that the residual heat turm them black is high. Sprinkle on the tart when it comes out of the oven.

Easter Eggs

In my family it is a tradition to color hard boild eggs on Good Friday. 

I grew up with doing it with my parents. But over the decades it got a lot easier to use ready made coloring. But I still remember onion peels and red beet peels being used by my grandma. Now these methods are back if you want to go the organic route.

There are so many different styles available now. This time I went for the super easy way. Coloring the eggs in cold color.

In a package I've bought 5 different small color tablets. They need vinegar to develop the color. A little amount of concentrated white vinegar was left in a bottle. I mixed 2 tbsp concentrate with 8 tbsp of water and used 2 tbsp of that mix for each color. 250 ml cold water on top and stir well. 

Just boil the eggs and place them directly from the pot in the colored liquid. Best not to do it on a wooden chopping board!

After 5 min the eggs are ready to get out. Drain them on kitchen paper.

Asparagus Wild Garlic Pesto Bread

The White Gold Season started.  It is Asparagus time!

The prices this year are steep and I've been told that they will increase by next year even more. But I hope by end of May that the harvest is plenty and the prices go down.

On my one day trip I bought a wonderful loaf of bread at a local rural bakery. It is a cubed bread and great for any kind of toast or fried bread.

I made wild garlic pesto last week and had enough left for a new recipe. The Black Forest Ham was from one of the four butcher shops I visited on my day trip too.

It became a crispy topping and the grease was used to fry the bread slices. No waste of a good bacon grease.

The asparagus was peeled and went in the steamer basket of my Thermomix. Steaming the stalks is much better than cooking them in water.

Cook 500 g asparagus and keep it warm.

Fry off the 4 slices Black Forest Ham until crispy, drain on kitchen paper.

Bake two sliced bread on the grease, add a little oil if needed.

Spread the wild garlic pesto on the bread

Place the asparagus on top, break up the ham and add a little more pesto.

Roasted Tomatoes with Spaghetti

A punnet of cherry tomatoes was sitting on   the kitchen counter and started to dry out. They needed to be cooked.  I did not have lots to put in this dish, so I went with very basic ingredients.

This is a 15 minute meal. Just drop the spaghetti in a pot and the veggies in a pan with olive oil. It will only need some seasoning and pasta water from the pot.

Finish with wild garlic pesto and fresh grated Parmesan.

Ingredients:

120 g spaghetti

200 g cherry tomatoes cut in 2 or 2 chunks

1 spring onion, 1 clove of garlic, 2 tbsp parsley

Salt, pepper, oregano, 1 tbsp olive oil

Parmesan, homemade wild garlic pesto

Banana Split

I was on a day trip and visited a lovely bakery. I have been there before on Sundays and the bakery was hopping with customers. 

On a Tuesday at 11 AM there was a line as well. Lots of tables were occupied with people having breakfast, lunch or cakes. The bread there is awesome. I bought two loafs to freeze on for the Easter holidays and eat the other during the week.

In the cake display cases I saw the chocolate covered bananas. They are called Banana Split like the famous ice cream.

I had to get one.

Sooo good! It is a pity that this bakery is more then 100 km from here. While I was on the road I stopped in a small town and saw the town fountain covered with Easter decorations. I had to take  pic.