For 2 Persons:

250 onion, chopped sideways into fine strips
250 veal liver, cut into small pieces
30g butter
Extravirgin olive oil
2 sage leaves
handful of parsley, finely chopped
1 glass dry white wine
salt, pepper

Preparation:

On medium heat, melt 30g of butter and olive oil in pan. Add chopped onion and sage leaves and cook covered for 10 minutes until soft, golden and sweet. Add liver and keep stirring until liver isn’t raw on outside anymore. Add glass of wine, cover and let cook for 3 minutes at medium heat again. Remove cover, add parsley, and let liquid evaporate. Pepper and salt lightly before serving.

Goes well with a white risotto or polenta.

Even if time has become a valued commodity lately, I still like to cook, and to occasionally try out new things. On this long weekend, I ventured to explore a heavenly taste combination: Basil and Strawberries. I remembered this combination from idly thumbing through Culinary Artistry, an extraordinary and inspiring book by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. Follow me below the fold for the recipe!

Basil Ice Cream

~40g fresh basil leaves
6 egg yolks
500ml regular milk
100ml cream (Vollrahm – wenn schon, denn schon)
120g white sugar
1 pinch freshly ground black pepper

Pick leaves from basil, wash and dry carefully. Chop coarsely, and reserve 1/4th of the chopped basil. Bring milk and cream to a boil. While cooling down, add 3/4 of the chopped basil to milk, let infuse.After 5-10 minutes, pass through sieve to remove basil.

In a pot, beat egg yolks and sugar until white and foamy. Slowly add handwarm milk to mix. Heat mixture up while stirring until it reaches 85°C and coagulates. Keep stirring for 5 more minutes. Cool down in bain marie with ice water. Add reserved chopped basil and a pinch or two of black pepper and keep in fridge over night.

The following day, spread in large plastic freezing dish. Mix thoroughly every hour while freezing. Alternatively, use ice cream maker and save yourself all the trouble

Meringue

Since the ice cream leaves us with plenty of egg whites, here’s a quick way to do something nice with them:

6 egg whites (clean, no egg yolk contamination)
375g white sugar
2.5 tsp vanilla extract

Beat egg whites several minutes until very stiff, gradually adding half of the sugar. Using a spatula, carefully add the rest of the sugar, as well as the vanilla extract. The consistency should be “blancs d’oeuf au bec d’oiseau”, that is, the egg white should form a little beak-shaped droplet if you put your finger into it.

Put baking paper onto two baking trays and use an icing bag (or an improvised one) to make 8cm long meringues. I could make about 50 of them with the above quantities. Cook for 50′ at 120°C in the oven. Let cool down gently by switching off oven and keeping door slightly open over night.

Plating suggestions:

Quarter two ripe strawberries and place. Decorate with balsamic reduction (goes well with Basil, goes well with Strawberries), a single scoop of the ice cream and a meringue. For good looks, I browned the meringue for 1 second with a blowtorch.

Bon appétit!

And another recipe. This was the other dish that required a bit of prep time at last Sunday’s party. But believe me – it’s worth every minute of it! The dipping sauce is complex to make, but also complex in flavors, which more than offsets the time spent in the kitchen. In preparing these, I was very inspired by the folks at Sub Rosa, whose recipe this dish is heavily based on. Unfortunately, I don’t have a barbecue to grill the skewers on, so a grilling pan has to do, but I’m certain that charcoal could only improve things. Read it after the fold.

Dipping sauce (make this first)

Ingredients

1 tsp oil (peanut or anything else that’s neutral)
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 “peperoncino”, pointy, hot italian pepper, cleaned and seeded, and very finely chopped
4-5cm of ginger root, peeled and finely grated
4 tsp curry powder (medium hot, mine’s chicken curry powder from Singapore)
4 tsp ground cumin
400ml coconut milk
4 Tbs. creamy peanut butter
2 Tbs. salted roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped (for extra crunchiness)
5 tsp Tamarind juice
1 handfull of coriander leaves, chopped
3 tsp fructose (or use 4 tsp honey instead)
Juice of half a lime
3 Tsp ketchup
150ml water

Preparation:
Heat oil to medium heat, and add onion, garlic ‘peperoncino and ginger. Cook while stirring until onion begins to get glassy. Add curry powder and cumin, continue to cook and stir into a paste, letting the flavors bond and develop. Now, add the coconut milk, tamarind juice, lime juice, coriander leaves, ketchup, and bring to a boil. Add peanuts and the peanut butter. Stir vigorously to avoid superheating (Siedeverzug for those that learned chemistry in german). Add water to correct the viscosity. The dipping sauce should coat the spoon but still be easily stirrable (it will get more viscous once cold).

Marinated Sate Skewers

Ingredients

1kg of minced chicken meat
1.5 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp tumeric (Kurkuma)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
3 small shallots, minced
5 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp fructose
2 tsp tamarind juice
1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
120ml dipping sauce (and some more during grilling)

Preparation

With a mortar and pistil, grind the coriander, tumeric and fennel seeds together. Put them in a bowl with the lemon and tamarind juice and the fructose. Mix well. Add the shallots and the 120ml of dipping sauce. Mix to an even consistency.

Soak ~30 bamboo skewers in water for 30′. Put the chicken meat on the skewers. Dip each skewer in the marinade, and place on a plate. Keep covered in marinade for a couple of hours, or over night in the fridge.
Heat a grilling pan to high heat, oil lightly. Fry skewers for 3 minutes on each side, and bask with additional dipping sauce.

Serve skewers with a small pot of dipping sauce. They can also be prepared ahead of time, and warmed in the oven. This recipe makes about 30 skewers with enough dipping sauce. Preparation time: 2-4 hours, including sauce prep and frying. But it’s worth it.

Summer is finally here! And when we’re suffering from the heat, why not cool down a bit with a classic Spanish summer dish: Gazpacho, cold tomato soup. I just cooked this for a party of 20 last Sunday, and no one complained. My personal interpretation of this classic looks as follows after the fold.

Ingredients:

1 cucumber, peeled and diced
3-4 tomatoes, washed and diced (alternatively, use halved cherry tomatoes)
1 handful of thyme, coarsely chopped
2 tsp italian herbs (dried)
1 onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 cup double-strength chicken stock (from cubes or powder)
Salt, black pepper, ground chili pepper, olive oil

Preparation:

In a small pan, heat a good layer of oil to medium heat. Add garlic, onion and thyme to oil when hot. Add the italian herbs, and cook slowly until onions are nicely soft and glossy. Set aside to cool.

Peel the cucumbers and cut them roughly into 1cm long quarter pieces. Coarsely dice tomatoes.

Using a power blender, blend the oil with its cooked ingredients to a fine paste. Then, blend cubed tomatoes, chicken stock, and cucumbers. If necessary, do this in small batches. Finally, season with freshly ground black pepper, salt if necessary and a little bit of ground chili for the right kick. Pour everything into a metal bowl and cool in the fridge or freezer.

Serve cold, garnish with cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs. Serves four to six.

Time for preparation: 30 minutes + 30 minutes to a few hours in the fridge.

This is step one: Get yourself a nice bluefin tuna of ~100kg.

Steps two and three of this fotonovela are after the fold.

Once the beast is landed, start the transformation process into sushi and sashimi as follows:

Step 2: Filet the fish. If you’ve done that previously with a sea breem, mackerel, or trout, you know how that works. It’s exactly the same, just a little bigger.

… until you end up with nice sashimi pieces…

Step 3: Prepare tasty nigiri sushi (note how red the meat of the fish is) and serve them to your guests.

Step 4: Oishi!!

I would like to thank the whole crew of the Ryokan Usagiyama Hasenberg, where this event took place. In particular, I’d like to thank the owner, Mr. Kurahayashi Masafumi for making absolutely sure that all his guests are happy and satisfied (I hope there was some Toro left for him, after all…), and of course the three kaiseki restaurant chefs and Mr. Honda Nobuyasu, the sushi chef, for managing that huge piece of fish.

Anyhow, thanks to Remy the rat, I went to search for the recipe for the movie’s signature dish, and lo and behold: Google provided. So, I spent half of last Saturday shopping, cooking, tasting, and enjoying some really good food. I had to make some translations and clever adaptations to the recipe (I don’t think you can get either japanese eggplant or yellow squash around here). Combine the efforts with a good bottle of red wine Globus cleverly convinced me to buy (El Molino de Puelles) while I was actually buying a present for Grubi, and you have:

The Menu

Le crottin de chèvre chaud et ses poires caramelisées sur salade verte
(Grilled goat cheese on salad and honey-caramelized pears) [recipe]

Carré d’agneau mariné aux herbes provençales et Confit Byaldi
(Marinaded lamb rack with Ratatouille ratatouille) [recipes]

&&&

Glace vanille et cafés
(not very inspired, this dessert, I admit…)

The major trick here was to start off my Saturday with shopping at the market for the fresh veggies, and the directly prepare the Confit Byaldi. Once that is done, the way is clear for the lamb rack and finally the goat cheese. That way, you actually have very little to do during the “hot phase” when you should above all entertain your guests. Again, I wanted to take pictures of the dishes in the making, but again, I of course forgot. So, there are no illustrations unfortunately. But what is better than just letting you imagine the sight of these dishes and the aroma above all!

Ingredients for 4 persons:

1 head green oak leaf lettuce (actually, just a couple leaves)
2 big pears (Abate variety)
4 Crottin de chèvre (french goat cheese, you can get it at Manor)
Some butter, some honey.

Optional: Light balsamic vinaigrette for salad.

Preparation:

Heat oven grill to 250°C. Prepare a few leaves of salad in plates. Drizzle with vinaigrette (optional). Cut pears into 2mm round slices, remove seeds, e.g. using a cookie cutter. Per person, you will need 3 slices. Put cheese on ovenproof plate and place directly under grill. Melt butter in large skillet. Slide pear slices into skillet, let cook gently while adding honey to pears. Caramelize. Serve pears on salad. Remove cheese from grill as soon as it starts to melt/bloat. Serve cheese on salad. Drizzle butter/honey/pear juice mixture from pan over cheese. Voilà !

This should feed 4 persons.

The lamb rack

Ingredients:
2 Lamb racks (16 ribs total)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 glass of strong red wine (I used a Nero d’ Avola from Sicily)
Provence herbs
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Some salt, tumeric, cayenne pepper
Butter for roasting

Preparation:
The night before: Heat olive oil in pan, cook provence herbs and garlic in oil. Do not fry, rather let the taste extract. Cool down, add red wine and remaining spices, and use the whole to marinade the lamb racks in a plastic bag in the fridge over night.

Take lamb racks out of plastic bag, and bring to room temperature. Melt butter in medium skillet on high heat. Briefly fry lamb racks from all sides in skillet. Put into roasting pan, and cook for at least two hours in oven at 80°C. Once the ratatouille is ready for final heating, you can keep both the lamb racks (in the pan covered with foil, at the bottom of the oven) and the ratatouille (open, top of oven) at 150°C during the final phase.

For serving, cut rack into individual segments, make little tents out of four segments by fanning them open and sprinkle very lightly with fleur de sel (I promise, next time, I’ll take some photos!).

For the ratatouille:

Ingredients

Piperade:
1/2 red pepper, 1/2 yellow pepper, 1 pointy orange pepper
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 Tsp extra virgin olive oil
3 round tomatoes, seeded, finely chopped, juice reserved
3 sprigs thyme
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley
1/2 bay leaf
fleur de sel

Vegetable topping:
1 nice zucchini, cut into 1.5mm rounds
1 “thin” aubergine, cut into 1.5mm rounds
2 small butternut pumpkins, peeled and cut into 1.5mm rounds
4 Roma tomatoes (oblong), cut into 1.5mm rounds
2tsp olive oil
2 sprigs thyme
Fleur de sel and freshly ground pepper.

Vinaigrette:
1 Tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Finely chopped chervil, thyme
Fleur de sel and freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:
First, prepare the piperade as base for the confit. Clean and gut the peppers and put them cut side down on aluminum foil. Place in oven at 230°C for ~15 minutes, until skin begins to lift. Cool slightly, and peel. Cut into small dices. Heat oil in pan on medium heat, and slowly cook onions and garlic until soft and translucent, but not brown. Add tomatoes, tomato juice, and parsley, thyme and bayleaf. Simmer until most liquid has evaporated (~ 15min). Add peppers and continue simmering until peppers are soft. Season to taste with salt, discard herbs. Reserve 1 Tsp of mixture, spread rest in bottom of roasting pan.

Pre-heat oven to 135°C. Place vegetable slices on top of spread piperade, alternating vegetables. Start with one line down the center of pan, then fill up pan spiraling from outside to inside. Overlap slices so that 1/4 of slices remain visible. Completely cover the pan, but don’t necessarily use all slices. Lightly pepper and salt, mix olive oil with thyme leaves, and drizzle over vegetable slices. Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil.

Place in oven for ~2h at 135°C, until vegetable slices are tender. Uncover and continue baking for 30 minutes to evaporate excess liquid. Remove from oven. At this point, the ratatouille can be kept in the fridge for later use (which makes it taste even better!). To prepare, warm up in 150°C oven, together with the lamb racks.

For serving, cut ratatouille into even portions in pan. Lift portion out, and serve, slightly fanning on plate with spatula.

Vinaigrette: Serve ratatouille with vinaigrette, made by combining the reserved piperade with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Puree. Season to taste with salt, pepper and finely chopped chervil and thyme.

Bon appetit!

Ivory Coast cuisine. Quite an experience. In the basement, they had storytelling and music playing, but unfortunately, we only found room in the ground-level room, where we sat next to the pastor of the Ivorian community. Very interesting.

This was a real discovery. We wanted to go to another restaurant, which was very full (and which later turned out to be the Tourist Trap mentioned above), but decided to just go out and find an alternative. Good idea. This place had very friendly service, and the wine the lady recommended was so good that we inexpectedly drank the whole bottle. They sell tailor-made wine portions. You get a whole bottle, but in the end pay only what you drank. Also, the food was excellent. Definitely a good “endroit”.

Jetzt weiss ich endlich auch, wie man “Orata” übersetzt, denn von diesem Fisch gab’s reichlich … Daurade royale, Goldbrasse, oder sogar gilthead seabreem, das geht mir mittlerweile fast so leicht über die Lippen, wie der wohlschmeckende Fisch selbst, nur in der anderen Richtung. Für Pedanten: Hier ist von  Sparus auratus die Rede. Und der hat im Moment Saison in Verona.

Ebenfalls Saison haben die Fehlübersetzungen. Dank Babelfisch und Konsorten ist mittlerweile überall alles übersetzt, leider meistens messerscharf an der Realität vorbei. Da wird das Dessert mit Ricotta zum ausgeglühten Dessert, und hilfreich heisst das dann auf Englisch auch noch annealed. Also Stahlherstellung, und nicht Süsspeisen.

Aber am schönsten war schlussendlich doch die Suppe mit “Fusskrebs”. Und ich schau auf die Karte und der Kellner läuft vorbei und macht ein touristentaugliches “Fantastico!” dazu… Na, dann doch lieber ‘nen gesunden Insalatone.