Plokkfiskur Icelandic style

It is not the most photogenic dish! But who cares, when it tastes great.

I had a bit of it at the Geysir center in Iceland together with Lamb Soup. Watching the eruptions now there near the Blue Lagoon inspired me to cook something traditional Icelandic.

Not many ingredients are needed. Just some white fish and potatoes to buy. The other stuff is the usual.

The most time to prepare needs the potatoes. While they are cooking, simmer the fish in milk, take it out and flake it. Pour the milk through a fine sieve for later.

Chop some shallots and soften them in butter, add the flour for a roux. Gradually add the milk to prevent lumps. Cook until it has the Bechamel consistency.

Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, lemon juice. Fold the fish in. Drain the potatoes and roughly mash them. It depends on your own preference it you love it more lumpy or more smooth.

Finish with cives, or parsley or dill. I used a boiled egg chopped to decoration to make it a bit prettier.

Serve it with some lettuce

Ingredients for 2:

240 g pollock or cod or tilapia

5 medium potatoes

400 g whole milk, 2 bay leaves, 6 juiniper berries, salt

2 shallots

3 tbsp butter, 3 tbsp flour

1/2 lemon juiced, nutmeg, salt and pepper

Chives, dill or parsley

1 boiled egg

Ham Egg and Mustard Spread

I've got a jar of Bautzner Mustard with Egg as a present. New foodstuff is always welcome and I try to find ways to use it.

So far I spread just the mustard egg paste on bread, topped it either with more egg or slices of cheese. Both were good.

Today I had 2 hard boiled eggs and a package of cooked ham sitting around. I made it in a kind of salad and spread that on some toast.

A very tasty idea.

Ingredients for 4 slices of toast:

2 hard boiled eggs

100 g cooked ham slices

1 tbsp freeze dried chives

1 tbsp Bautzner Mustard with Egg

1 tbsp mayo

2 tbsp Greek yogurt 

Green pepper, salt

 

Red Pesto and Sour Cream Maccaroni

One more 10 minute pasta recipe.

I used the 3 min maccaroni pasta. A piece of the large onion from the Flying Dutchman Burger was sitting wrapped on the kitchen counter. I used just a bit of it as a base and some texture for the sauce.

When the onion chunks taken on some clear color in the pan, I dropped in 2 tbsp of sour cream and 2 tsp of red pesto. As a seasoning I used some Tuscan spice blend. 

A ladle of hot pasta water now was all that was needed to cook the sauce properly. That took only 5 min. I drained the maccaroni and tossed them with the sauce. Finish with some Parmesan.

Done and dusted! 

Cherry and Cream Topping Cake

In German it is called Kirsch-Schmand-Kuchen. 

The problem in other countries may be the "Schmand". It is not Sour Cream - it is not Creme fraiche. It has a little less fat than Creme fraiche, but use it or if available the Creme fraiche leger.

The cherry filling in the middle if this cake is so smooth. It is cooked with Vanilla pudding powder.

Recipe for a 28 cm round loose bottom cake tin:

Dough:

80 g butter, 75 g sugar, 1 egg, 200 g flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder

Cherry filling:

1 jar of cheeries in juice, 1 Package Vanilla pudding powder

Topping:

400 g Creme fraiche, 200 g double cream,1 egg, 1 package vanilla pudding powder, 80 g sugar

Use a kitchen machine and pulse the shortcrust pastry. Put it in a greased cake tin and push the dough up the sides. Poke holes with a fork in.

Use a bit of the cherry juice and mix in the pudding powder. Bring the other liquid to a boil, add the mix and cook it until it thickened. Get the cherries in and cool it down complerely. 

Pour on top of the dough.

Mix creme fraiche with egg, sugar and pudding powder and beat the double cream to stiff peaks. Fold in the mixture and place on top of the cherries.

Preheat the oven 180 C and bake for 40 to 45 min.

Beef Cheek in the Slow Cooker

My local butcher had beef cheeks on offer. That is not so common and I was lucky to get a piece.

It was a whole cheek, about 600 g. That is enough for 2 people or 2 meals. I used my slow cooker to prepare it. A long slow braising method is needed to get the beef cheek done. 

I made it 2016, but in a pot on the stove. There is a blog with the cooking method.

To have a great sauce, the right ingredients are essencial. The liquid part was Noilly Prat, Rioja and homemade beef stock.

The beef cheek had to be seared on high in a pan on each side. I just used salt to season it. I used clarified butter. It went in the slow cooker. 

In the same pan with a little more butter my veggies needed a turn. Seasoned with salt and pepper. After 8 min, hot paprika paste and tomato paste went in to be cooked as well. Next was some flour.

Noilly Prat and Rioja were next, then the beef stock. I poured that over the beef cheek. A tsp of herbes de Provence and more black pepper followed.

I put the slow cooker on high for 4 hours. Then I only mashed the veggies and cooked some pasta.

Ingredients:

600 g beef cheek

1 onion, 3 garlic cloves, 2 carrots, 1/2 leek, 2 green onions, 1/4 celeriac

Salt, pepper, herbes de Provence

3 tbsp clarified butter

2 tbsp hot paprika paste, 3 tbsp tomato paste, 2 tbsp flour

75 ml Noilly Prat, 75 ml Rioja, 250 ml homemade beefstock

Pasta

 

 

 

Tuna Zanzibar with Linguine

I have got a couple of recipe cards in French from my BFF. They all feature Conserverie la belle- iloise cans with fish, soups and patés. 

They are not available here in the Supermarkets. Next time, when I go grocery shopping in France, I will take a look.

This recipe is based on a canned tuna with dried plums and spices from Zanzibar. No big deal to get the spices together and open a bag of dried soft plums.

Together with cherry tomatoes and a bit of onion this sauce had a great balance between sweet and savoury.

I bought a spice I haven't seen before just on Wednesday in a supermarket 40 km east of here. Dried cinnamon flowers. First I thought that they look like dry cloves, but cloves have round closed heads and these spice has a little funnel shaped head.

Recipe for 2:

1 medium can of tuna in sunflower oil

4 dried soft plums

10 cherry tomatoes, 1/4 yellow onion

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp creme fraiche

1/4 tsp each of dried ginger, nutmeg, chili, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper

180 g Linguine pasta

Chives

180 g Linguine, salt

Cook the pasta in salted water. Chop the onion and plums and quarter the tomatoes. Mix the spices with the drained tuna.

Heat the oil in a wide pan and start with onion and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Add a bit pasta water and the plums.  Short before the linguine are ready, add the tuna mix and the creme fraiche with more pasta water.

Get the pasta in and finish to cook in the sauce. Add more pasta water if needed. Finish with chives.

Air Fryer red Beets

My BFF brought me a bag of fresh red beets. A good winter vegetable, rich on magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, iron, calcium and B vitamins.

I used seasoning to "fight off" all the healthy stuff. Some oil to coat them and the air fryer to use only medium high heat to bake them.

I kept the peel on. First of all, I was too lazy to peel them and get bloody red hands. But second, most of the good stuff is sitting right under the skin.

A good wash and cutting off the top and bottom was enough. Just quartered and seasoned and baked.

Seasoning: herb salt, garlic and onion powder, dried thyme, rapeseed oil

Set the air fryer to 150 C and bake for 30 min.

I wanted to make a salad for lunch from the baked beets. But I had to give them a try and every time I went in the kitchen, I ate some.  Salad later?