dan's kitchen

2006-10-29T03:18:00.000-08:00

Simple Chicken And Vegetable Soup

Living in Thailand now, not having my own kitchen setup yet, I only get to cook once in a while at my friends place. This soup isn't just very easy to prepare, it's also the type of food I like to eat when I have a bit of an upset stomach. This certainly tends to happen here in Thailand if I had a few chilies too many the day before. You can also prepare quite a big pot of this tasty soup, then keep it for the next few days or even freeze it.

For a big pot:
1,5 l (50 oz) chicken stock
1/4 l (1 cup) white wine for cooking
2 bay leaves
1 clove
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (for the veggies)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (for the chicken)
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 large carrots, cut into large pieces
2 spring onions, chopped
1 celery root, cut into large pieces
1 broccoli
any other veggies you'd like
chicken thighs, breast or legs, cut into large pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Add bay leaves and clove to the stock and bring it to a boil. Reduce the temperature so the stock simmers gently.

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté for at least 5 minutes. Add garlic, spring onions and all the other veggies that take longer to cook. Don't put broccoli and similar types of veggies in yet as they only take a very short time to cook. Pour in the wine.

Stir well and sauté for another 5 minutes over medium heat to let the wine absorb a bit.

Add the chicken stock including the bay leaves and clove and adjust the temperature to let the soup simmer.

In the meantime, heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken pieces and season well with salt and pepper. Sauté all the pieces well all around, then put them into the soup.

Keep everything simmering and taste the soup after another 15-20 minutes. Adjust the taste if necessary by adding more wine, salt and pepper. About 5 minutes before serving, add broccoli and other fast cooking veggies.

If you're interested in other easy to prepare dishes, check out:

Spaghetti with Oven Roasted Tomatoes
Roeschti
Filled Zucchetti
Pasta with Sage

2006-10-17T04:13:00.000-07:00

Venison on pepper sauce with mashed potatoes

Hunting season brings a variety of game meat to the markets. While this particular sauce could be used for beef or pork tenderloin as well, it pairs really well with venison. It might look like it's a bit time consuming, but if you're preparing all your ingredients ahead of time, it's done fairly quickly and tastes wonderful. You could also serve noodles instead of mashed potatoes.

for 2 people:

for the pepper sauce:
5g (0.2 oz) white pepper corns, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 shotglass whiskey (could be replaced by rum)
1 slice of bacon, cut into small pieces
1 shallot, chopped
1,5 dl (5 oz) white wine
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar (red is ok too)
1 twig of thyme
30g (1 oz) whipping cream
100 ml (3,5 oz) chicken stock
30g (1 oz) flakes of butter, put into freezer
freshly ground salt and pepper

for the mashed potatoes:
4-6 medium sized potatoes, peeled
2 tablespoons butter
milk, until desired consistency is reached

the meat:
2 venison fillets (or beef fillets or pork tenderloin)
freshly ground pepper and salt
2-4 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 80 C. (180 F.)

Grind pepper (not the white one!) preferrably in a mortar and season fillets well all around with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over high heat, sauté strongly on both sides then place into pre-heated oven. Depending on the thicknes of your fillets, expect the meat to be in the low-temperature oven for at least 45 minutes.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, time is not very crucial for low-temperature cooking. You should be fine between 45 and 90 minutes. Just make sure you've sautéd the meat well enough before placing into the oven (about 5 minutes total).

For the sauce, sauté the white pepper corns over medium heat in the olive oil. Add whiskey (or rum) and flambé immediately. Never do this under the hood as the flames might get in there! And watch your hair too!

Add bacon and shallots and sauté for a few minutes. Then put white wine, balsamic vinegar and the thyme twig into the sauce. Let the liquid absorb completely before adding the chicken stock and the whipping cream. Let the sauce simmer over low heat.

For the mashed potates, wrap the peeled potatoes in plastic foil and microwave for about 3 minutes until soft. This is the easier way instead of boiling the potatoes.

In a large pot, add potatoes, butter and some milk and mash them over medium temperature until you have a fairly smooth paste.

Keep on adding milk if the mix is too thick. Keep the mashed potatoes warm with closed lid over low temperature.

Once your meat is almost ready, add the butter from the freezer into the sauce and move the sauce pan in circles for the butter to mix into the sauce. Don't stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste and remove the thyme twig.

Serve your fillets sliced with mashed potatoes on the side and pour over the sauce. I would also recommend heating the plates first. At this low temperature in the oven, any plates should be fine to be put in there together with the meat for preheating. Enjoy!

2006-10-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

Italy Part 4 - Three treasure restaurants

As usual, I've been doing quite a bit of research about which restaurants to visit during the tuscany trip. But the best ones were either found accidentally or by recommendation of our local hosts, Josiane and Narciso. Generally, the restaurants were all very good or even excellent. The pasta where it's made fresh by hand is always a real treat. A normal italian dinner consists of four parts, first antipasti, then primi, then secondi and then dolci and of course an espresso at the end with possibly a grappa. the antipasti could be some slices of prosciutto and a local salami, primi are most of the time a plate of handmade pasta, the secondi (main dishes) meat or fish, then any kind of dessert like handmade vanilla ice cream with a few drops of aged balsamic vinegar on top. To summarize it, it's usually quite a feast and you won't leave the table too soon.

Ristorante I' Polpa (Fiesole)

This place was found completely accidentally as all the other restaurants around were filled with tourists in their garden patio. I' Polpa didn't have outdoor seating which obviously kept most tourists away from it. But the menu attached outside looked very promising and the food ended up being fantastic!

The kitchen, quite simple.

A fresh porcini mushroom, grilled with olive oil, pepper and salt. Amazing!

The chef is putting the salsa verde on plates.

The lovely chef serving our dishes.

Stuffed goose throat with salsa verde and the best potato I've eaten in a long time. One of her grandmother's recipes.

A wonderful pie with grapes and rosemary.

Ristorante I' Polpa
Piazza Mino, 21/22 - 50014 Fiesole
Tel. 055.59485

Ristorante Il Pozzo (Monteriggioni)

At this place, the pasta was really standing out. Even though we didn't order it, the bistecca fiorentina they served at the next table, looked amazing as well. Specialty here the pasta al cinghuale (wild boar).

Besides a nice interior, Il Pozzo also offers a nice garden patio which was filled with tourists though.

Papardelle al Cinghuale. A must try here!

In paper wrapped ravioli with truffle sauce.

Ristorante Il Pozzo
Piazza Roma, 2 - 53035 Monteriggioni (SI)
Tel. (0577) 30.41.27
www.ilpozzo.net

Osteria Locanda (Terranuova)

One of Josiane's and Narciso's special recommendations, this restaurant is beautifully located. During warm summer nights, the garden area is available for seating in the middle of a herbal garden. It's a bit hard to access on top of a hill located down a small alley, but certainly worth a trip. Amazing food, very friendly service, great atmosphere and cheap, good wines.

Raw sole fillets marinated in olive oil and lemon juice with a lentil salad.

Pasta with porcini.

A simple beef stew. Heavenly done.

Narciso having a little chat with the chef after our fantastic meal.

Osteria Locanda Il Canto del Maggio
Frazione Penna 30/d - 52025 Terranuova B. ni AR
Tel. 055.0705147
www.cantodelmaggio.com

2006-10-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Italy Part 3 - Mercato Centrale in Firenze

The mercato centrale is a grocery market that's open every day starting 7am until 2pm. It's a two story building under a huge roof where all kinds of vendors attract locals as well as tourists for taking pictures or tasting some 100 year old balsamic vinegars. It's both spectacular and amazing to be able to shop in such a way especially after being reminded of the supermarket at home which hardly offers such variety and quality. I always enjoy checking out big markets in different places around the world. A nice comparison would be the local grocery market in Pattaya, Thailand.

Parmesan cheese, nice and crumbly.

There was a wonderful smell around those marinated olives!

Dried herbs, beans, veggies, ...

A big variety of dried fruits was also available.

Fresh seafood. There were many stands ...

... offering all kinds of fish, crabs, lobsters and sepia.

A stand which sold intestines only. Check out the brains in the lower right corner.

Kind of gruesome looking!

2006-10-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Italy Part 2 - Regello

Away from the tourist destinations, we arrived at our agri-turismo place (kind of like a bed and breakfast) about 30 km outside Florence. The place was like a dream with two wonderful hosts, Josianne and Narciso. We were welcomed with a fantastic dinner, but not before picking some tomatoes in the garden which ended up as a very nice sauce for the primi piatti, the appetizer. If I'll have the chance to visit here again, I certainly will. Many thanks to Josianne and Narciso who were just simply wonderful to be with for those four days.

Narciso cutting prosciutto.

In the kitchen, Josianne is preparing the main dish.

Josianne's kitchen. Marvellous!

The dining table next to a gigantic fireplace.

Tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. A rarity these days.

Narciso's home-made olive oil in a little can. Olive oil and bread always belong on any italian dining table.

Melon (from the garden outside) and prosciutto for antipasto.

Narciso is serving the primi piatti. Pasta!

Simple but high quality ingredients are the key to italian food. Cherry tomatoes, roasted pine nuts, garlic and herbs mixed with a superb olive oil.

Saltimbocca for main dish.

2006-10-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Italy Part 1 - Bologna

I apologize for the lack of updates recently... there has been a trip through italy which was very much food oriented as you'll see in the following posts. To put the conclusion first, for me, italy still offers the best food in the world. Beautiful grocery markets through narrow streets, local deli stores, bigger market halls that offer fresh goods on a daily basis and of course a vast selection of fantastic restaurants where it's still a rule to prepare fresh pasta day by day. I hope you'll enjoy the following pictures. I will be in italy hopefully very soon again since there's never enough time to enjoy all there is to enjoy.

One of many narrow market streets.

Getting some fresh fruit while on the way to work.

A wonderful selection of fresh produce.

Sometimes it's hard to notice the vendor in the small grocery stalls.

Carrying another load of fresh vegetables to his store.

And how much were those apples?

A woman checking out the fantastic Tamburini deli store.

Another fine Bologna deli store.

The selection of local salami, prosciutto and other coldcuts is endless.

A woman trying to make up her mind what to get.

I've never found such great salamis as in Bologna.

Fresh pasta...

... prepared every day.

2006-09-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

Chanterelle Salad

Either a nice summer salad for lunch or an appetizer for a nice dinner, chanterelle mushrooms on a bed of green salad is a treat!

I used a green leaf salad which is somewhat specific to europe and quite popular in switzerland, a so called 'Nuesslisalat'. If you can't get this leaf, I would suggest using another dark green salad, for example dandelion.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

2 big handful of fresh chanterelle mushrooms
2 tablespoons butter
freshly ground salt and pepper
dark green leaf salad (e.g. dandelion)
red balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Start heating up the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and season well with salt and pepper. Sauté the mushrooms until they've lost most of their liquid. Let them cool out until they're just slightly warm.

Mix the green leaf salad in a bowl with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to taste. Place the salad on plates and arrange the warm chanterelle mushrooms on top. Sprinkle with another few drops of olive oil and enjoy!

2006-09-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

A few days in Paris

More than ever before I noticed what a beautiful city Paris is, including, of course, wonderful opportunities to dine excellently if you're careful to avoid the tourist traps. I wouldn't necessarily try to eat in a brasserie next to the Notre Dame or the Louvre, rather walk the many charming streets of Le Marais or Avenue de Buci for a fantastic selection of bakeries and patisseries as well.

There's one particular place I'd especially like to recommend. At Caveau François Villon, 64 Rue de l'Arbre Sec, I ate quite heavenly! The concept of this restaurant is, that you're choosing from an appetizer, a main dish and a dessert for a fixed price which was 26 Euros. In addition, I chose a glass of red wine, a Corbières, which was quite above the average quality of what you'd get served for 6$.

The entrance to the 15th century building, the wonderful Caveau François Villon restaurant.

You choose from six different appetizers, six main dishes and six desserts.

A pork feet terrine with a vinegary sauce and a small salad.

Beef tenderloin on a strong green pepper sauce with a Roesti-like potato pie.

The famous crème brulée.

A wonderful ratatouille with anis seeds, served chilled.

Lamb kidneys on a parsley sauce. Amazing!

One of the best desserts I've had in a while, prunes soaked in red wine and prune liquor.

A mushroom salad in a different restaurant inside Le Marais. The baguette is always served with any dish.

Duck breast on a honey sauce with mashed sweet potatoes. Coarse seasalt and peppercorns are served on the side of the plate to be mixed into the sauce. Good idea!

Caveau François Villon
64, Rue de L'Arbre Sec
75001 Paris
Tel.: 42.36.10.92

Au Gamin de Paris
51, Rue Vieille du Temple
75004 Paris
Tel.: 42.78.97.24

2006-09-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

Roquefort with Williams Pears

I've got a plane to catch in 2 hours to Paris! To introduce the next three days in the french capital, I found an excellent roquefort cheese at the local deli. If possible, get yourself a few nice williams pears. If you can't find that type of pear, any other small, ripe and sweet pear should do. Cut your pear in half, put a slice of cheese on top and bite!

The roquefort cheese (or another blue-type cheese if you can't find the good stuff), is like a dream paired with pears and a nice bottle of red wine. Bon appetit!

2006-08-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

Rack of Lamb with Cheese Risotto

I'd like to share a very nice little trick I've learnt from my friend George. Instead of sprinkling parmesan cheese on top of the risotto before serving, try to grind up some dried porcini mushrooms and then powder them on top of your rice. The extra flavor is quite fantastic and really very simple to achieve.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

1 rack of lamb (could be replaced with a beef or pork filet)
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
handful of dried porcini mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon coarse seasalt
1 cup risotto rice (carnaroli or arborio)
1 large shallot, chopped
1 cup cheap white wine
2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
4 tablespoons ground parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon chicken stock
2 sage leaves
1 thyme or rosemary twig

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 80 C. (175 F.)

Crush the peppercorns and salt with a mortar. This is my preferred method of grinding up salt and pepper because I like them to stay a bit coarse, but you can also use your regular peppermill and salt shaker.

Rub the salt and pepper mix all around your rack of lamb.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil at highest temperature in a skillet.

To sauté meat of any kind, I like to use a stainless steel skillet to get the highest temperature possible.

Sauté the rack of lamb about 3 minutes on each side until you get a nice and dark crust all around. Then immediately place it in the oven in an oven-proof dish.
The beauty of this low-temperature method is, that your meat can stay in the oven for 30 minutes or even 1 hour and it will still be very tender and juicy.

Depending on the size of your rack, I would count on leaving the meat in the oven for at least 30 minutes (for a small rack) or up to 1 hour (for a big one). But don't crank up the temperature. To guarantee the tenderness and juicyness, you'll have to keep the temperature at the low 80 C.

Since the temperature in the oven is quite low, you can also add your dinner plates to preheat them without worrying that they'll brake.

Start preparing the stock. Put 2 cups of water into a small pot, add chicken stock, sage leaves and the thyme or rosemary twig. Heat up the stock over medium heat.

Grind up your dried porcini mushrooms. A mortar works best, but use your fingers as well, to get the powder as fine as you can. Put aside.

In another pot (or my preferred way, a non-stick skillet), heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat, add the shallots and sauté them until they start to golden a bit. Add the rice and mix until all the grains are covered with some of the olive oil. Pour in the white wine and stir until all of it is absorbed.

As soon as your rice is running a bit dry in the skillet, add some of the stock but never too much at the time. Keep on stirring. This process takes about 15-20 minutes.

Keep on tasting the rice to see if you like the consistency. Shortly before the rice is done, add all the three cheeses and mix well.

Remove the meat from the oven, cut it up and arrange nicely on preheated dinner plates around your risotto.

The big thing last, sprinkle your ground up porcini mushrooms on top of the rice and decorate with a twig of thyme or rosemary or anything else you find beautiful.

I served one of my favorite wines with this dish, a full bodied Amarone from italy. Enjoy!

This recipe was also submitted to "Design Within Reach" for their summer call for entries.

2006-08-18T02:44:00.000-07:00

Snack Burgers

I might be repeating myself saying that I like to look into the fridge to see what else is left in there and use it up before it goes bad. That's how those little burgers turned out which I served as an appetizer.

I posted another type of snack a while ago while being in Pasadena. Check it out here.

Ingredients:

eggplant slices
tomato slices
feta cheese slices
dried oregano
freshly ground salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil
black olives, pitted

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to about 400 F. (200 C.)

Place the eggplant slices on a non-stick surface on a grid that will go into the oven. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt.

Put the feta cheese slices on top and add a few drops of olive oil. Next come the tomato slices, seasoned with oregano, salt and pepper.

Cut the olives in half and decorate the snack burgers with one olive each and once again, sprinkle with olive oil.

Place them into the preheated oven and bake until the tomatoes start to build a little crust.

Enjoy with some bread as an appetizer or a snack instead of chips.

2006-08-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

Zucchini Flowers

Those might not be easy to find in your regular grocery store. I picked them up at Signora Nicoletta's 'Schrebergaertli'. Those blooming flowers are full of zucchini flavor and with their delicate shape, they're almost melting on your tongue.

There's many ways you could prepare them. The next time I will try to fill them with ricotta before frying. For this first time, I went for a simple beer batter and then deep-fried in peanut oil. Serve them as an appetizer or maybe even as a main dish if they're filled.

for 2 people as an appetizer:

Ingredients:

about 10 zucchini flowers
60 g (2,5 oz) flour
1 egg
1,5 dl (5 oz) beer
salt and pepper
peanut oil

Instructions:

Don't wash the zucchini flowers if you know they were organically grown, otherwise, be very gentle when you wash them. Clean the stems by slightly peeling off the outer skin which is very rough and somewhat itchy.

Prepare the batter by mixing egg yolk, flour, beer, salt and pepper. Whip the egg white seperately first, then mix it into the batter.

Heat the peanut oil in a large pot and test the temperature by dropping a tiny bit of batter in it. If it starts bubbling right away, your oil is hot enough to start deep frying.

Dip one zucchini flower at a time into the batter and place into the hot oil. Flip the flower once after about 10 seconds. It should be slightly brown, but not too dark. You can probably deep fry up to three flowers at a time, depending on the size of your pot. Put the finished fried flowers aside onto a kitchen paper for the oil to drain a bit.

Sprinkly some extra salt and pepper on top if necessary and enjoy!

The preparation of this dish reminds somewhat of tempura, which is another fun and social dish.

2006-08-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Super Simple #4 - Spicy Pasta with Sage

Pasta is always among my favorites and there's so many types of sauces you can come up with if you don't want to go for a sauce using tomatoes.

Dried chilies, especially those scary thai chilies, are great to spicen up the olive oil. Depending on how spicy you like it, you can cut open the chilies, revealing the seeds, or leave them whole for less spicyness.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

pasta of your choice
6-8 table spoons extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed
red, dried chilies (amount depends on how spicy you like it)
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
10 sage leaves, cut into stripes
freshly ground parmesan cheese

Instructions:

In a pot, bring water to a boil. Add salt.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the chilies. Leave the chilies whole if you'd like to keep it not too spicy, cut them open to reveal the seeds if you're into a spicy sauce. Reduce the heat to medium and add sage and the crushed garlic cloves. Easiest to crush a clove of garlic is to press on it with the flat side of a knife.

If the garlic starts to brown too quick, remove the pan from the heat to not burn the garlic, then reduce the heat. This sauce should simmer for at least 10-15 minutes for all the flavors to mix. Basically, the olive oil will be flavored with the sage, the garlic and the chilies. Cook your pasta accordingly to have them al-dente by the time your sauce is ready.

It's nice if the garlic becomes a bit crispy, same goes for the sage. Crispy is good, burnt is bad.

I like to stir the cooked, drained pasta directly in the skillet with the sauce. That way, you're not wasting any of the wonderfully flavored olive oil.

Serve with grated parmesan cheese on top. You can choose to eat the crushed garlic pieces or not. I usually eat a bit of it and leave some aside to not smell like garlic for the rest of the day.

2006-08-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Leg of Lamb (Gigot) on the Fire

For the Swiss National Holiday, we went up into the mountains to our good friend, Graziano's cottage at about 1800 m height. Electricity not being available up there, living and cooking work a bit differently. A lot of herbs, like the thyme we've used to fill the lamb with, grows just around the corner at the edge of the forest.

Graziano has been our family's friend for years and he's always been famous for preparing a wonderful leg of lamb roast on the fire. This time was no exception and the fresh air in the alps and the fantastic view over the mountains made this dinner an unforgettable one!

The fridge in the alps! The water, directly from a mountain water stream has about the same temperature (6 C. / 43 F.) as the inside of a state-of-the-art fridge and works great for storing food.

Graziano opening the lid of the 'fridge' and removing a water melon.

Since our leg of lamb was a bit uneven in thickness, Graziano chopped a few sticks to tie together the lamb roast.

Sharpening the sticks.

Pushing the sticks through the marinated leg of lamb was holding it together nicely.

The chef holding his marinated, tied together leg of lamb, ready to put it on the fire.

A wide grilling place works great to have a fire burning on one side while being able to move the hot embers to the other side underneath a grill.

Graziano's fantastic leg of lamb roast, filled with a garlicy thyme marinade!

The kitchen inside the cottage works without elecricity as well! At night, candles are used to light the place and a fire is burning underneath the stove top. The stove is a swiss made Tiba.

Opening the door to the stove reveals a beautiful fire burning and heating up the stove top for cooking. We've prepared a few potatoes, diced and seasoned with fresh rosemary, salt and pepper as a side dish for the lamb. For dessert the stove came in action again for a calory bomb dessert, a chocolate cream made out of dark swiss chocolate, melted with some heavy whipping cream and then served with some more whipped cream! Very heavy but great!

2006-07-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ostrich on Noodles with Chanterelle and Pear

It happens quite often that my ideas suddenly change while I'm cooking. While my chanterelle mushrooms were pleasently simmering in butter, I thought I'd like to add a shot of some kind of booze. Looking into the booze shelf, I noticed a bottle of a fine williams pear brandy from the elsace in france. If you're hesitating to buy this kind of brandy, it's also very delicious for desserts or as a digestive.

Luckily there were some unripe pears sitting in the kitchen as well, perfect to add to the sauce which turned out quite nice!

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

2-4 ostrich steaks (depending on the size), replaceable with a beef tenderloin
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 handful of fresh chanterelle mushrooms
2 tablespoons butter
freshly ground salt and pepper
1 large green pear, sliced (hard and unripe is fine)
2 shots of williams pear brandy
noodles

Instructions:

Bring water for the noodles to a boil, add salt.

Season the steaks well with freshly ground salt and pepper.

In a small pan or skillet, heat the butter over medium-high heat and sauté the mushrooms until they're starting to shrink. Add the sliced pear, stir and sauté until the slices start to brown a bit. Add one (out of the two) shot of the pear brandy. Season with salt and pepper and keep mushrooms and pear simmering over low heat.

Add the noodles into the boiling water. Once they're almost done, heat a skillet with the olive oil over high heat and sauté the steaks quickly, about 1-2 minutes on each side depending on their thickness. Pour the second shot of pear brandy over the steaks.

Add the finished noodles into the mushroom-pear skillet, stir well and serve on plates. Arrange the steaks on top and serve immediately.

2006-07-26T06:03:00.000-07:00

Super Simple #3 - Filled Zucchetti

Based on a little poll we've had a while ago, most of you readers seem to be interested in quick and easy to prepare dishes. This zucchetti dish certainly belongs into this category as well. The preparation time is 10 minutes or less with another half hour you won't have to do anything while the zucchetti sits in the oven. The addition of a little bit of clove added a nice exotic touch.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

2 whole zucchetti (size depends on your appetite)
olive oil
3.5 oz (100 g) ground beef
3.5 oz (100 g) ground lamb
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons fresh or dried oregano
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon ground paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 clove, ground (or 1/2 teaspoon clove powder)
2 oz (about 50 ml) white wine
2 tablespoons cognac or brandy
1 tomato, thinly sliced for decoration
a few thin onion slices for decoration
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Cut a thin lid lengthwise for each zucchetti. Using a spoon or a special tool, remove seeds and excess meat from each zucchetti so you'll have plenty of space to fill them.

Microwave the zucchetti to soften them but make sure they're still a bit crunchy inside. To test that, stick a fork in it and see how resistant the veggies still are. If you don't have a microwave, you could also keep the zucchetti in the oven for an extra 15 minutes or so at the end or get yourself a microwave. It's not just there to cook frozen dinners (please don't!), I prefer boiling potatoes in there for example which just takes a few minutes.

Place the zucchettis into an oven-proof dish and put aside. Pre-heat the oven to 355 F. (180 C.).

In a skillet, heat a bit of olive oil (a few tablespoons) over medium heat, sauté onions and garlic for about 1 minute. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn as it will become bitter! Pour in the cognac or brandy. Add both ground beef and lamb, season with salt and pepper and sauté for about 3 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients besides the tomato and onion slices. Stir well and test the taste. Add more spices to taste. If you like your dishes a bit spicy, you could add some chili as well.

Fill the zucchetti with the meat, decorate with tomato and onion slices, sprinkle with a few drops of olive oil and put into the oven for about 30 minutes. Optionally, you could also add some ground parmesan cheese on top.

For some other super simple recipes, check out:

Spaghetti with Oven Roasted Tomatoes
Rosti (Röschti)

2006-07-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

Gigot Steaks on Eggplant with Tsatziki

Gigot, or also knows as leg of lamb, has a very unique lamb flavor which differs from the lamb racks I usually prepare. You might have to ask your butcher for leg of lamb steaks or if he has a whole leg, he might be able to cut a few steaks for you. Preferrably you would like those steaks to be at least 1" thick, better 1,5".

The combination of lamb, eggplant and the cucumber dip is very refreshing and perfect for those hot summer days.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:
2 leg of lamb (gigot) steaks, 1-1,5" thick
1 eggplant, sliced lengthwise
salt
flour
olive oil for sauté

for the marinade:
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 twigs fresh thyme, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fresh or dried oregano
10 mint leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
freshly ground salt and pepper

for the tsatziki:
17 oz (1/2 l) plain yoghurt
1 cucumber, peeled, seeds removed and finely chopped (best to use a food processor)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped
salt to taste

Instructions:

You need about 6 hours to de-water the yoghurt for the tsatziki. Use a strainer with a thin piece of cloth inside (a kitchen paper might work as well). Put the strainer in a bowl and pour the yoghurt into the cloth.

After several hours, a lot of the water from the yoghurt will have seaped through the cloth, giving you a much less liquid and wet yoghurt, perfect for tsatziki.

Before starting to cook the meat and eggplants, finish the tsatziki. Add the cucumber to the dried out yoghurt. Add garlic, olive oil, dill and salt to taste. Mix well and add more ingredients to taste. Keep cool in the fridge.

Sprinkle enough salt on all the eggplant slices on both sides and let them sit on a plate for about 30 mins. The water will start to come out of the eggplant and form little drops on the slices.

Once that happened, wash the slices and flour them all around.

Rub all the ingredients for the marinade around the steaks. Use more olive oil if the marinade is too dry. Put aside.

Preheat the oven to 175 F. (80 C.).

In a skillet using plenty of olive oil, sauté the steaks over high heat about 1-3 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness, until they've gotten a nice brown color but leaving the inside red. Put the steaks into a dish and place into the preheated oven.

Depending on the thickness of the steaks, leave them in the oven for at least 30 minutes, but no longer than 1 hour. You still want the meat to be slightly pink inside.

In a skillet, sauté the eggplant slices in olive oil until browned on all sides. Don't overlap the slices in the skillet, only put as many at a time as possible. Add more olive oil as needed.

Arrange the eggplant slices on the serving plates and put a lamb steak on top. Serve with the cool tsatziki on the side.

We've enjoyed a bottle of nice tuscany wine with this dish but you could also go for a lighter red to keep this dish more suitable for a hot summer night. I do tend to think though that a full-bodied italian wine enhances the flavor of lamb quite nicely.

2006-07-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

Schrebergaertli

I wouldn't know how to translate this correctly into english, but a 'Schrebergaertli' basically is a community of little cottages, each with its own garden for cultivating vegetables, salads, fruits and such.

Today we've visited Signora Nicoletta, who's been growing her own vegetables and fruits with great success for years already in her own little cottage in the 'Schrebergaertli'. She seems to have a perfect green thumb as everything she plants seems to grow beautifully!

By the way, having your own little cottage in a community like this is quite cheap. The rent per year is around US $ 150/year. Cheap rent, yes, but you're not allowed to sleep there overnight!

It was a joy, watching Signora Nicoletta, originally from Italy by the way, being active in her garden, filling bags and bags with fresh salads, onions, herbs and fruits.

Signora Nicoletta picking a few cucumbers.

Watering the tomato plants.

Cutting different kinds of salads.

A handful of green lettuce.

Preparing the soil for new baby salads.

In Signora Nicoletta's garden you'll also find eggplants...

... grapes ...

... all kinds of berries, and much more.

We left there with bags and bags full of fresh herbs, salads, vegetables and berries.

The dwarf is sitting there on the soil watching that everything grows well, isn't he?

A few recipes with all that green stuff

Green leaf salad

Ingredients:

any salad you like (preferrably organic)
balsamic vinegar
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
fresh herbs (for example parsley)

Instructions:

There's not much to describe about making a simple green leaf salad. For certain types of leaves that are a bit more bitter than others, I like to make a stronger dressing by using more balsamic vinegar while I rather use a white wine or even apple cider vinegar for more subtle leaves like butter lattice.

I'm personally more into simple italian style dressings with just those few ingredients, but you certainly could add some mustard, cream or even soy sauce. Just try to not confuse the tastes by adding too many ingredients into the same dressing. Be creative!

Cucumber salad

Ingredients:

cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
sour cream
vegetable oil
white wine or apple cider vinegar
fresh or dried dill
sald and pepper to taste

Instructions:

A cucumber salad is a nice and refreshing salad that is best served a little bit chilled. Dill goes very well with it. If you don't have fresh dill, the dried one works as well. There's a seasoning by Knorr called 'Aromat' that I also like to add into the dressing. Again, taste your dressing and add to taste.

Pasta with fresh herbs

Ingredients:

pasta of your choice
lots of herbs (I used basil and celery leaves)
extra virgin olive oil
fresh garlic clove, crushed
fresh yellow onion, chopped
red chili (if you like it spicy)
lots of freshly ground parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, onion and chili and sauté over low heat for 10-15 minutes without burning the garlic!

In the meantime, cook your pasta in boiling, salted water al dente. Right before the pasta is ready, add all the herbs into the skillet and mix. I also like to put the drained pasta directly into the skillet to mix it well with the sauce. You really need to use a lot of herbs. I'm still surprised how much that mountain of herbs shrinks down when heated up!

Season with more salt and pepper to taste, serve, and sprinkle with lots of parmesan cheese. If you're pasta is a bit dry, add more olive oil.

With a simple dressing like this, it is even more crucial to use only the best and freshest ingredients. The herbs I had from Signora Nicoletta were so strong in taste and made for a great pasta sauce.

Rucola Risotto

Ingredients:

lots of rucola (arugula, rocket)
for risotto ingredients click here
lots of freshly ground parmesan cheese
a nice piece of meat goes well on top, I used a swiss horse steak

Instructions:

For the basic risotto instructions, please check here on my previous post.

Before starting the risotto, sauté your meat (horse or beef tenderloin) over high heat on both sides until nicely browned, but keep it raw inside. Season well with freshly ground salt and pepper. Wrap it into aluminum foil and put it into a low temperature oven (80 C. or about 175 F.)

Prepare your risotto. After about 10 minutes, add the ground parmesan cheese. Once the rice is almost ready, add the rucola and stir well. Arrange the rice on the plates. Remove the meat from the oven and arrange on top of the rice.

Vanilla ice cream with fresh berries

Always a favorite! Vanilla ice cream with berries of your choice! The berries could also be heated up a bit, or you could add a shot of liquor like cointreau.

Here are some other ideas:

Coffee with vanilla ice cream

Vanilla ice cream with grand marnier oranges

2006-07-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

Pork Tenderloin with Prunes

I've always liked the combination of meats with fruits and the pork tenderloin is especially nice to serve with fruits or even fill it. For this particular recipe, I used dried prunes which were first soaked for a while in Noilly Prat and then stuffed into the tenderloin.

I like to keep the ingredients simple to not confuse the tastes. This dish stays very simple in preparation and is a guaranteed success in the oven for low temperature cooking. As a side dish, I prepared some noodles as I thought they'd go best with the slightly sweet sauce from the meat.

for 2 people:

for the pork and noodles:
1 pork tenderloin
about 8 dried prunes, pitted and cut in half, soaked in 1/2 cup Noilly Prat for at least 1 hour
1 tablespoons green peppercorns, slightly crushed
1 tablespoons red peppercorns, slightly crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
kitchen string to close the meat
noodles of your choice

the sauce:
1 tablespoons green peppercorns, slightly crushed
1 tablespoons red peppercorns, slightly crushed
about 8 dried prunes, pitted and cut in half, soaked in 1/2 cup Noilly Prat for at least 1 hour
1/4 cup Noilly Prat
1/4 cup dry white wine (a cheap one for cooking)
3-4 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon chicken base (Better-Than-Bouillon)
1 teaspoon butter

Instructions:

We'll start preparing the pork first. Preheat the oven to 80 C. (180 F.).

Cut the tenderloin lengthwise without cutting through. Fold open the meat and add the soaked prunes. Close the meat and tie it tight with the kitchen string. Rub the peppercorns all around the meat.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over high heat and sauté the meat all around until brown, but not longer than a few minutes. The meat should still be red inside.

Wrap the tenderloin in aluminum foil and put into the preheated low temperature oven.

For the sauce, add all ingredients but the butter into the skillet where you've previously grilled the pork. Simmer the sauce until the prunes almost completely lost their original shape and are dissolved in the sauce, about 20 minutes. Add more white wine if the sauce becomes a bit too thick.

In the meantime, bring water to a boil in a large enough pot for the noodles. Add salt. Before adding the noodles, make sure your sauce and the pork are ready to be served. The pork should have been in the oven for about 30 minutes.

The advantage of low temperature cooking in the oven is, that the meat won't dry out and it also doesn't matter much if you leave it for another extra 10 minutes.

If you have the possibility, preheat the plates. The other way would be to increase the heat in the oven to a very high temperature for just 1 minute or so, not longer! That way, the meat will still stay juicy but will be hotter for serving.

Just before serving noodles and meat, add the butter into the sauce and mix very gently.

Remove the meat from the oven, cut into slices and serve with the noodles on the side. Pour the sauce over the noodles and serve immediately.

I found this funny looking swiss wine in the grocery store, a Dôle with the whole Ruetlischwur story written on it! Most likely, you won't find it at Trader Joe's ;-)

2006-07-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

Schwiizer Z'nacht (Swiss Dinner)

It usually happens when I return to Switzerland that I really crave some very basic swiss dishes. Not that it would be impossible to prepare those abroad, but the atmosphere and melancholy ask for it!

Having arrived just a few days ago back home, I do feel the urge of starting to cook again finally after one month of eating out in Thailand.

Walking through the local Migros (grocery store), which, by the way, is another very interesting experience being used to big american grocery stores - why is everything so tiny here? - I got a few Zueri Sausages (sausages from Zurich) to be prepared with a fresh green salad directly from the garden and a potato salad.

for 2 people:

for the sausages:
any kind of sausages you like for grilling (I used Bratwurst and Cervelat)
a good mustard

for the potato salad:
about 6-8 small potatoes, microwaved
4 tablespoons sour cream or plain yoghurt
1 white or yellow onion, chopped
4 tablespoons white vinegar
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
salt and pepper
1-2 teaspoons mustard
1-2 teaspoons Knorr Seasoning or soy sauce (optional)
half an apple, cut into slices (optional)

for the green leaf salad:
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil (extra virgin cold pressed)
salt and pepper
any herbs like italian seasoning, thyme, oregano
shallot or onion, chopped (optional)

Instructions:

Not too long ago, I noticed that cooking potatoes is done the easiest way in the microwave. Especially for a dish like the potato salad, you'll really only need the potatoes to soften, which takes a few minutes instead of boiling hot water first and then cooking them in a pan.

Make sure the potatoes are not getting too soft though as they'll fall apart when you mix them into the dressing.

Mix all the ingredients for the potato salad dressing and also for the green salad in seperate bowls. You'll really have to taste the salads once they're done and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Grill the sausages over medium-high heat on a grill and serve them hot with some mustard on the side.

We had a nice and light bottle of swiss wine, perfect for a hot summer evening.

2006-07-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

Thailand - Last Day

Market in Pattaya

The markets in Thailand always fascinated me with their vivid colors and scents. While this market in Pattaya is rather small, in bigger ones you'll encounter all kinds of, in our eyes, peculiar booths that sell, for example, turtles, swamp frogs, dried fish filled with baby banana, fermented pastes and of course a huge amount of different local seafood, vegetables and fruits.

While you're strolling through those markets, the colors change as quick as the smell does from the spice booth next to the seafood stand. It's a visual feast to see the locals selling their goods.

Mostly, markets don't only sell foods, but also an unspeakable amount of things you can't imagine what they'd be good for. The perfect example would be the famous Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok where you can find about anything if you're patient enough to walk through all the sois (alleys). There's scorpions, underwear, ripped dvd's, antique furniture, birds and tigers, fresh fruit juices and anything else you could think of.

Fruits like Mangosteen, Logan, Bananas, Coconuts and many more...

Fresh vegetables.

More veggies.

Different kinds of chili pastes.

Sseasoning and fish sauces.

Fish and other seafood.

Pork and beef.

Cutting pork chops.

More meat.

Spices, onions and shallots.

2006-07-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 21-23

Roadtrip to Dansai, Loei (northeast)

The northern parts of Thailand are quite different, more hills, green and lush, beautiful rice patties and overall just more quiet and peaceful so it seems. Loei is a region in the northeastern part of Thailand, called Isaan.

Dansai, a small town in the Loei region, was having their yearly
ghostfestival called Peetakhon, where locals would dress up, dancing through the streets in masks to wish for enough rain for a fruitful harvest and a good year of fishing. Similar events seem to be present in other cultures, including Switzerland as well.

Chateau de Loei Winery

Loei is also famous for their winery. Chateau de Loei is located in the middle of wide ranging vinyards where I wanted to go for some wine tasting as I heard that their white extra dry is quite nice.

At the tasting, I did manage to taste 2 wines out of about 10, as the others were "mai mee", an expression you might hear quite often while in Thailand, meaning "don't have". Trusting the word of my friend George, I ended up getting a box of the extra dry anyway and I'll keep you posted about it once I've actually tried it.

The Chateau de Loei Extra Dry

Amazing Thai Dinner

The food highlight certainly was this balcony type restaurant, situated right next to a small swamp off the main road. I feel comfortable to say that I had some of the best thai food ever here!

I really wanted to check out the kitchen as well and found that to be very interesting as it has nothing to do with western type kitchens we're used to. First of all, thai's cook outdoors whenever they can. This probably stems from the fact that their deep-frying and roasting chilies is more convenient in a well aired area.

Lots of stuff on the kitchen table.

The stove. Siemens? Electrolux?

The assistant cutting galangal (thai ginger).

The chef cutting lettuce for the soup.

Some kind of intestine for a sour-spicy soup.

Heating up the stove.

The best tom yum plaa (fish tom yum) I've eaten so far.

Prawn-egg dish.

One of the best fried fish I've had. She fried it for about 5 minutes on each side in a wok filled with peanut oil.

Smasing lemon grass to make fine threads.

Lemon grass threads, kaffir lime leaves, frog legs, sesame oil, tapioca starch and several spices which I don't know what they were. Really great!

Adding the above to the wok.

Frying until the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves are crispy.

The basket for food delivery into the restaurant upstairs.

2006-06-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 20

Pak Boong Loy Fa, Pattaya

I've walked by this place several times until I finally sat down to give it a try. I actually went twice already since then, but the first time I didn't have my camera with me when I had a green seafood curry sizzling on a hot pan. That curry was so amazing that I came back and ordered this hot and sour fish that was served in a fish shaped pan over a small fire.

I've eaten great here both times but I would recommend having an Imodium ready if you have a bit of a sensitive stomach like I do since the dishes here are rather spicy.

2006-06-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 19

Fondue Bourguignonne at Restaurant Swiss Food

In Soi Diamond, a cross street to the famous walking street in Pattaya, there's at least one more other swiss restaurant besides Swiss Food. I got introduced to this place by my good friend and real estate agent, Tommi.

This time I brought my friends Andrew and Muchi and we ordered a fondue bourguignonne.

Unlike the cheese fondue, you don't dip bread into cheese, instead you'll cook beef in the boiling oil and then dip it into your favorite sauce. There's a selection of different sauces arranged on your plate around the raw bite-sized beef pieces.

The fondue at Restaurant Swiss Food tastes great! I can't remember I had such a good one before in Switzerland. It's served together with a bowl of french fries, which are very good as well.

We've ordered Tommi's favorite bottle of red wine here, the Puglia Primitivo from italy.

Restaurant Swiss Food
175/29 Soi Diamond
Pattaya

2006-06-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 18

Kiss Food & Drink

This place is a bit like Denny's in the US besides the fact that they do serve good food here. At least the thai dishes taste very fine, I haven't tried the burgers or wienerschnitzel which they also offer on their menu.

The kitchen is open around the clock and the outdoor seating is quite interesting to watch the people go by at 4 in the morning.

From my last visit I also remember it from sitting there at a table with very heavy tropical rain outside. It's quite fun eating here while watching the water level on the streets rise.

Because Kiss Food & Drink never closes, it seems to attract quite a few 'farangs' (westerners) with their thai 'girlfriends'. While the guy can eat his cheeseburger here, she'll be more happy to order a spicy som tam (papaya salad).

This time, we ordered a deep fried snapper and a ruby fish, which is a hybrid fish raised in the northern parts of thailand, originally an idea by the king to feed the people up north. I like their way of deep frying fish a lot as it's not greasy, the meat stays tender and the outside gets nice and crispy. The meat gets easily scraped off with a spoon and tastes great with a few drops of chili infused fish sauce.

2006-06-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 17

Casa Pascal

What can I say... This is probably still my favorite restaurant in the world! Pascal is originally from Korea but got adopted by a swiss family when he was a small child. He was raised in Lucerne, Switzerland, followed by a long journey (chef in Hong Kong, head of the kitchen at the Dusit in Thailand) and now has his own restaurant in Pattaya, Thailand.

His food is fantastic! While some recipes are very sophisticated like his goose liver terrine for example, you'll also find simple and hearty dishes on his menu like beef stew, wild mushroom risotto and spaghetti.

The dishes are perfectly prepared and amaze me every time I go there. I keep finding myself asking the question why his dishes taste so great! It's a new experience each and every time!

A very special occasion is the sunday brunch as well, which happens only from october through march I believe. Simply put, it's by far the best brunch buffet I've ever seen!

The restaurant itself offers a very warm and friendly atmosphere, beautifully lit, with lots of attention to small details.

Casa Pascal is a 'must' if you like to treat yourself to a great evening of fantastic food prepared by master chef Pascal and his wonderful wife, Kim.

Casa Pascal
485/4 Moo 10, Second Road
Pattaya
www.restaurant-pattaya.com

Our bottle of Amarone gets decantered and warmed over a candle.

Still one of my favorite red wines, the Amarone is a full-bodied italian treat!

Amuse bouche, fresh crab cake.

Pascal's famous goose liver terrine. Amazing!

Maybe the best ravioli I've had in the last 10 years, with goose and beans filling.

A wonderful risotto with black truffles.

Creme brulee, with orange slices inside. It was good, but the desserts are not Pascal's highlights.

A good espresso with very delicous cookies made by Pascal as well.

2006-06-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 16

Nang Nual Seafood, Pattaya

This is one of the oldest restaurants in Pattaya and it's famous for its amazing selection of very fresh seafood of all kinds: lobsters, crabs, prawns, mussels, oysters, you name it.

It's located directly on the busy and famous "Walking Street" in Pattaya, but what you might not notice first is, that it has a nice outside seating directly above the ocean.

Everything goes by weight. You get a plastic basket, choose your seafood and then give it to them to measure the weight. They'll recommend a way of preparing your food, steamed, grilled, with or without sauce. Since the seafood at this place is always so fresh, I like my food prepared without any special ingredients, usually just grilled and then sprinkled with lemon juice.

Another highlight is the vegetable buffet. The same concept applies as for the seafood, you choose your veggies, put them in a basket and they'll "wok" them for you. The veggies here are always perfectly prepared, never overcooked and very crunchy.

Nang Nual is not cheap though for a seafood place in Thailand, especially if you're ordering some of their big lobsters. But you'll get the freshest and best ever!

Tiger Prawns. My favorite!

Many types of fish. I chose a cotten fish grilled while wrapped in banana leaves.

Weighing a crab.

A lobster on the scale.

Picking from many types of vegetables.

After you choose, they'll "wok" the veggies. Delicious!

2006-06-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 15

Breakfast at Dynasty Inn, Bangkok

For the longest time, I tried to stick to western style breakfast, toast, eggs, bacon etc. since I never thought hot soup to be an appropriate breakfast. But I'm slowly starting to convert and even add extra chili!

This simple thai breakfast is a clear soup with boiled rice, pork, chicken, shrimp or squid with a few chopped up spring onions and roasted garlic. I've also chosen to add an egg which gets added raw into the hot soup.

I find that type of breakfast very soothing and relaxing for the stomach, as long as it's not too spicy. But I still ordered a side of toast and jam and some coffee to wake up ;-)

Speaking of the Dynasty Inn, I should also add here that I like to stay at their hotels quite a bit. They're also offering a free shuttle service between their hotels in Bangkok and Pattaya as long as you stay a minimum of 2 nights. They're very well located with clean rooms at about 25$/night in Bangkok and 30$/night in Pattaya. The 24-hour restaurant at the Dynasty Inn in Bangkok serves some great thai food too! As always, feel free to email me if you'd like to get some more info.

Dynasty Inn, Bangkok
Sukhumvit Soi 4 (Soi Nana)
next to the big Nana Entertainment Complex
www.dynastyinn.com

2006-06-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 14

Bei Otto - German Dinner in Bangkok

"Bei Otto", which translates from german to "At Otto's", is apparently one of two really great german restaurants in Bangkok. Chef Otto started in Bangkok in 1981 at the Singha Bierhaus until he opened his own restaurant with a delicatessen store right next to it. He also runs his own butcher shop to make his own german sausages.

The sauerkraut is imported from germany and the mashed potatoes taste just like 'at home'.

The atmosphere inside is also quite authentic resembling a german hunter's lodge. The clientel was, not surprisingly, mainly german, but we did spot a few local thais and also japanese tourists.

This was a real treat. I'll go back there for more, also to do some grocery shopping next door in the deli store.

Highly recommended!

Bei Otto
1 Soi 20 Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok
www.beiotto.com

Pretzel-like bread with coarse salt outside.

Munich-style white sausages (Weisswuerste) with sweet mustard.

Fantastic pork knuckle with great sauerkraut.

Assorted grilled and boiled german sausages made by Otto's own butcher shop.

A must to accompany good german food: Erdinger Hefeweizen.

2006-06-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 13

Muchi's Chicken

A few nights ago, Andrew's and Muchi's kitchen was once again in action and Muchi made a very nice filled chicken for a few guests we had. The recipe came out of a japanese book, so I won't try to translate it here for you.

Back in LA, I've prepared a few filled chicken recipes as well. You might want to click here or here to take a look.

Gianni Ristorante

In terms of italian restaurants in Bangkok, you'll find quite a few. Some of them are really great, like Zanotti for example. But since I've been there several times already, we went to another place this time, called Gianni.

The atmosphere is upscale, the prices not as high as at Zanotti. The duck liver appetizer I had was around $10, the venison main dish about $15.

As always, it gets very expensive with the wine. Wine prices in Thailand are high already anyway, making it even more noticable in a restaurant.

The food was good, even though not great. While the duckliver was fantastic, the raspberry sauce that was a bit too sweet for my taste, could have been a bit more subtle. The venison with the walnut crust was nice too, but again, something was missing to make it perfect.

Maybe I'm just a bit too picky right now about italian food after visiting New York last month where we've eaten some of the best italian food ever! But then again, the numbers on the bill were quite different as well!

2006-06-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 12

Beard Papa

What a weird name! This place specialized in doing cream puffs originally comes from japan. The first time I had one of those was in L.A. when Mizue brought over a few delicious puffs to our place. To find out more about the locations, check out their website www.muginohousa.com.

Walking through Siam Paragon with Muchi the other day, we were pleasantly surprised to see a little Beard Papa shop there. If you're one of those knowing Muchi, then you know how much she loves sweets and that's the beginning of an addiction.

They cost about 1$ each and are filled with cream right when you order them so they don't get mushy. A must try!

2006-06-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 11

Roesti in Pattaya

George, who's building the house for me outside Pattaya, was telling me several times about this little thai restaurant in a small village that prepares an authentic swiss roesti and zuerigschnetzlets (veal in cream sauce). I had a hard time believing it until he actually took me there a few days ago.

The thai chef at that place used to work in a swiss restaurant before and prepares a wonderful roesti with veal. For a roesti recipe, click here.

Chinese Dinner at Chine Chine Bangkok

Chine Chine is an upscale chinese restaurant in Bangkok, run by a friend of Andrew's mom. The cozy atmosphere with above average long seats and the subtle jazzy piano and vocal background music, make for a very pleasant evening. One of Chine Chine's specialty is pigeon.
Chine Chine
2nd Floor J. Avenue
Thonglor 15, Bangkok

Duck tongue fried with thinly sliced garlic.

Waterspinach.

Hot and sour soup.

Peking duck skin.

The duck skin wrapped in tortilla like corn flour dough.
Very similar to what we had at China Palace (click and scroll down).

Pigeon. Chine Chine's specialty.

2006-06-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 10

Isaan specialties

The food from the Isaan region (north-eastern part), is much less what you would normally consider typical thai food in western cultures. This is probably for the simple reason that the ingredients are a bit less compatible with our taste buds.

We went to this place a bit outside the touristy areas of Bangkok where I was the only "farang" (white guy) and where they exclusively served Isaan specialties.

As the dishes arrived, Andrew told me to try this special white bean dish. It tasted good! Until everyone was laughing and congratulated me for eating ant nests!

Another rather peculiar dish were the jumping shrimp. They're small baby shrimp and they're alive. A bowl arrives on the table that's covered with a lid. Once you open the lid, the shrimp are jumping high up trying to escape the lemon-mint sauce they're beeing bathed in. Even though it sounds a bit cruel, this was probably my favorite among the dishes.

Ant nests! Have a close look and you'll see some black ant heads in there! Mmmmm...

Jumping shrimp. A bit cruel but very tasty!

Duck tongue.

Forest mushroom soup.

Thai truffles. They're also growing underneath the earth surface. A bit tough to eat but interesting.

Tripes.

Fried chicken. Sounds pleasantly normal, doesn't it?

Our little gang of ant nest and jumping shrimp eating people.

2006-06-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 9

Lunch Buffet

Today's lunch was at a small buffet on the street where you could pick from several specialties from different regions of Thailand.

Among traditional curries, there was a pork blood specialty from Chiang Mai (north) and a rather spicy dish with eggplants and bamboo from the south. All those dishes would be served with some cold rice noodles.

2006-06-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 8

Raclette in tropical Bangkok (!)

Tonight, Khun Mao brought home some raclette cheese, pickled cucumbers and onions and put her old raclette oven on the table for a swiss evening! I didn't expect I'd be eating raclette (a winter dish) in tropical climate. Good thing there's air conditioning to make it cold enough in the room to justify a winterly dish like that. It was great fun though. The domestic prosciutto was suprisingly good as well! We've also had a fun raclette in the US shortly before my departure. Check it out here.

If you're walking through Bangkok's shopping malls, you'll definitely stop calling Thailand a 3rd world country. At places like Central, Paragon or Emporium you can find about anything you want in the grocery sections. The one bad thing I found out so far though is, that wine is very expensive because of a heavy import tax. Probably about twice the price of the US.

2006-06-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 7

Red and Green Curries

My friends Andrew and Muchi and their co-workers are usually quite in a hurry during workdays and rely on a quick and simple lunch. Once again, we went to B Resto which is just around the corner from their office and we tried a red curry with chicken and a green curry with pork.

While the green curry is prepared with different kinds of thai eggplants and kaffir lime leaves, the red curry came with thinly sliced bamboo shoots.

One particularly interesting thing about thai food is, that you're going through a whole range of different flavors with just one bite. It's certainly spicy, but also a bit sweet (not too sweet like in california), a bit sour, a bit salty, a bit bitter. Something that has to be experienced.

Check out a recipe for green curry with chicken here, and scroll down.

2006-06-13T23:17:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 6

Seafood Soup

This is another dinner Andrew prepared at his house. Fresh seafood is definitely one of the strenghts of Thailand and it doesn't cost nearly as much since everything is local and fresh daily.

For this soup, we've used a red spotted grouper, crab claws, tiger prawns and mussels.

The base of the soup is a regular fish stock, prepared with carrots, leek, some fennel seeds, onions, bay leaves, which later get strained.

In another pan, we cooked the trash parts of the prawns (head, shells, legs) in some stock as well. This really gives the stock a strong, fresh seafood flavor.

Later on on, this stock including all the prawn parts, get blended in a food precessor until smooth. Into this blend, we've also added a whole white grouper for additional flavor, some paprika, garlic and fennel seeds.

Now all the prawns, mussels, crab and red grouper go into the stock one after each other without completely cooking them.

At the end, all the ingredients are combined together with the blended sauce and you're ready to serve this soup with some baguette to clean up your plate after eating!

I think this would also work if prepared less soupy and used as a sauce for pasta. Delicious!

2006-06-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 5

Mangosteen

This is one of my favorite local fruits, called mangosteen. It somewhat reminds of lychees in terms of texture.

It tastes very sweet as the fruits are picked when they're ripe, as opposed to what we're mainly used to in countries where fruits get imported.

To cut open a mangosteen, you'll use a knife and make a cut around the fruit horizontally without cutting through the whole fruit. Then, the top of the fruit can be lifted off like a lid and the white, seadlike shaped core is revealed.

You'll only eat the white core which can be spooned out very easily or picked with a fork.

2006-06-11T03:24:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 4

Brunch at Sheraton Grande Bangkok

Every sunday, the Sheraton offers a big brunch with jazz.

There's several restaurants that team up and put together a spectacular buffet ranging from fresh local seafood and sashimi to suckling pig, cold cuts, cheeses, salads, steaks and of course desserts.

The live jazz consisting of international talent was pleasant and made for a great atmosphere.

Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit
250 Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok

Dinner at Andrew's and Muchi's

There's and endless amount of great restaurants in Bangkok, but the grocery stores, mainly located in big shopping malls, offer an experience on their own.

At the brand new Paragon Shopping Center, you'll find about anything that you'll need for your western style cooking as well.

Andrew prepared a nice seared tuna in sesame for appetizer and a rib eye stuffed with garlic and rosemary.

His stove top and oven are probably the ones I'll be getting for the house as well. It's a smeg (the brand) with a gas top and works like a charm!

2006-06-10T19:38:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 3

Lunch at a Hole-In-The-Wall Noodle Place

There are countless places to eat along almost any street in Bangkok.

Some of them are just small grill places or fruit stands, then there's others like this little place that somewhat resemble a restaurant, but they're really not much else than a hole-in-the wall with a few plastic tables and chairs, toilet paper for cleaning your hands and re-used wooden chop sticks. Lots of no-no's in other cultures with more strict cleanliness standards.

But putting that all aside, the food at those places is amazing and really cheap!

This particular place apparently one of the best in town.

You choose to either have egg or rice noodles, then you choose the types of fishballs you'd like to have in your soup and that's about it. Drinks are served in a little tin cup.

On the table you also have a few different types of sauces, chili paste and sugar to be added to the soup to your likings.

This might have been the best noodle soup I've had. The price? 80 cents.

Afternoon Espresso and Cake at the Oriental Cafe

Depending on the places you go to, the prices vary a lot.

Overall, your eating and drinking experiences in Thailand are quite cheap. But places like the Oriental Cafe in the Emporium Shopping Mall remind a lot of western prices. $ 2.50 for an espresso. $ 3.00 for a cake.

The mixture between the 3rd world feeling and the total high-class and sophistication is very fascinating to me.

You'll get the whole range, but taste and quality are mostly of highest importance.

Dinner at China Palace

Speechless! Most amazing chinese dinner ever on the 32nd floor of the Prince Palace Hotel. We were invited by the Bunnag's family doctor to enjoy the fireworks for the king's 60th celebration while enjoying an incredible meal.

We've had a few great appetizers including drunken chicken, jellyfish, pork sausage and a shrimp toast. After that sharkfin bamboo soup, peking duckskin tortillas, shrimp in a chinese olive sauce, crab, steamed grouper, shitake and spinach vegetables, chinese noodles with squid and chili and ground duck wrapped in lettuce leaves.

All the dishes were simply incredible!

China Palace
488/800 Bo Bae Tower, Damrongrak Road,
Klong Mahanak, Pomprab, Bangkok
www.princepalace.co.th

2006-06-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 2:
(updated)

Lunch at Paragon Food Court Bangkok

The Paragon Mall must belong to the biggest and nicest malls in Asia. It's opened quite recently and has a fantastic grocery section as well that could be compared to a mixture of Whole Foods and Mitsuwa in Los Angeles.

I was also pleasently surprised to see a growing amount of organic vegetables and fruits on display. They even carry raclette cheese and fondue mixtures!

On the same level there's also a gigantic food court, chairs placed around tables with beautifully designed, several meter long fish aquariums on top, ready for the countless people enjoying their lunch while watching the fish move in front of their eyes.

One of the many restaurants within the food court offered a wide range of different types of asian cuisines, including indian, japanese, chinese and of course thai food.

I went for a simple green curry with an iced lemongrass greentea. $4 for this lunch.

A green curry is fairly easy to make and can taste very authentic if you're using a good green curry paste, available at most grocery stores in the international food shelf. For a simple recipe, click here and scroll down.

Cajun Creole Dinner at Bourbon St. Bangkok

This was an interesting place Andrew wanted to introduce me to.

It originally got founded by a guy from New Orleans who imported a few life crawfish and decided to breed them as this was a lot cheaper than importing them from the US.

At Bourbon St. you order the crawfish by weight.

They serve them on big plates together with some corn, potatoes and a few andouille sausages, which were very delicious!

The coleslaw sidedish was great too, not sweet as opposed to how it's usually served in california.

Bourbon St. is just one of few of Bangkok's international places and proves that you can always escape from the more spicy thai cuisine if you're feeling a bit homesick.

Bourbon St., 29/4-6 Sukhumvit Soi 22, Bangkok 10110
www.bourbonstbkk.com

2006-06-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Thailand Day 1: B Resto

I meant to post some pictures and comments from our New York trip as well, but the time before the departure to Thailand was just not enough!

But I'll update on New York later, as this trip had quite some culinary highlights!

I'm in Thailand now... This also means that the format of this blog will change a bit during this month as I don't have a kitchen to cook in for now.

But I thought I'd share some food related experiences out of Thailand, a country that in my personal opinion has to offer more than any other country I've been to so far.

Arriving in Bangkok at 6am in the morning, the humidity already hit me exiting the airplane. I believe this is a key reason already, why the food tastes so great down here.

Wherever you go, there's always the smell of chilies and the countless local herbs and spices in the humid air that will keep making you hungry as you're exploring the streets of Bangkok. Maybe that's why the thais eat all the time. It's just impossible to resist surrounded by those wonderful scents!

Last tuesday, my best friends' mother just opened her thai restaurant around the corner where they live, on soi rangnam. The beautiful, black lacquer tables really brought forward the colors of thai food.

As a starter, we tried a stew with egg, pork and fried tofu which reminded me a lot of a japanese dish I've eaten in Los Angeles.

The simple fried rice with prawns and a few drops of the chili/fish sauce on top accompanied by one of my favorite vegetables, stir fried morning glory, was a real treat. This dish was quite spicy with many fresh, red and green chilies inside. One has to be careful not to mistake a green chili for a vegetable!

We've also had a clear soup on the side with seaweed, minced pork and another kind of tofu. Everything was deliciously prepared at a price of about 1$ per dish!

B Resto, Soi Rangnam (opposite Kasikorn Bank), Phayathai, Bangkok, 10400

2006-05-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

Quick Pesto

This has been one of my and my friend's favorites for quite a while! It's not really a pesto sauce the way you've probably had it before. It's a very simple and quick way of making a pesto sauce while it's less of a paste than 'regular' pesto. I prefer this way since it maintains the texture of the ingredients and the sauce is literally prepared within minutes.

You can serve this with any kind of pasta. I like to use tortellini with a cheese filling. Bristol Farms has a nice selection of freshly prepared pasta, tortellini and such...

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons pine nuts, coarsely chopped
1 handful fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
1 handful fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
freshly ground salt and pepper to taste
ground parmesan cheese to taste
pasta of your choice

Instructions:

Time yourself so you'll be able to serve the pasta al-dente. The sauce just takes a few minutes to prepare.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add pine nuts and garlic and sauté until slightly starting to brown. Don't burn the garlic as it will become bitter. Add basil and mint leaves, season with salt and pepper and stir for only about 10 seconds.

Immediately pour the sauce over the pasta and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

2006-05-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Raclette

This is actually a winter dish in Switzerland (like Fondue), but it was nice and cold enough the other day, to eat raclette at night outside. Normally you'd use a special raclette grill for this dish, but since I don't have one here, my favorite toaster oven worked just fine.

I think it's most fun to eat this with several people as you're grilling the cheese directly at the table.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

about 300 g gruyère cheese (from Trader Joe's); if you like a stronger cheese taste, you might want to find an aged gruyère (sometimes at TJ's as well)
small potatoes (as many as you think you can eat)
pickled cucumbers
pickled pearl onions
paprika

Instructions:

Cut the cheese into thin slices (1/8", a few mm) with a sharp knife. Arrange on a plate and set aside.

Wash the potatoes (don't peel the skin) and microwave them until they're almost completely cooked. This takes only about 2-3 minutes if the potatoes are small.

Preheat a toaster oven to about 400 F. (180 C.)

When you're ready to eat, cut the potatoes lengthwise in half, arrange on your baking dish, put a few slices of cheese on top, sprinkle with paprika and grill until cheese is melted and has a nice, brownish color.

Only put as much at a time in the oven as you can eat in a short amount of time as the cheese will become rubbery if it gets cold.

Eat immediately while hot with a few pickled cucumbers and pearl onions. I like to drink a dry white wine with this dish.

En guete! (Enjoy your meal in 'swiss-german').

2006-05-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

Summer Lunch - Tilapia Fillets with Lemongrass Seasoning

Our friend Mutsuko recently came to visit from Thailand and brought this nice seasoning. If you don't intend to get a bottle of this in Thailand, then you might as well just mix it yourself. The ingredients are easy to find: coarse seasalt, turmeric, lemongrass and red chilli. Together with a green salad on a white vinegar dressing (or apple cider), this makes for a nice and light summer lunch.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

4 Tilapia Fillets (costs about 6 bucks at Trader Joe's, cheap!)
2-3 tablespoons lemongrass seasoning mix (enough to rub it all around the fish)
1 tablespoon butter
fresh (preferrably organic) green salad leaves

Instructions:

Wash the fish pieces, dry them with kitchen paper and season all around with the lemongrass mix (coarse seasalt, turmeric, lemongrass, red chilli).

Prepare the salad. I would suggest using just a bit of white vinegar (or an apple cider) and olive oil to complement the lemongrass seasoning.

Heat the butter in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the fish for about 2 minutes on each side over medium-high heat until golden. Serve immediately with the salad on the side.

2006-05-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

Back in the kitchen soon...

Hi everybody, this is the last week of post-production on the upcoming 'Superman Returns' blockbuster...

The kitchen didn't get nearly as much attention as it should have, but that will change again next week!

Please bare with me.

In the meantime:
http://supermanreturns.com/
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/supermanreturns/hd/

2006-05-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

Strawberry Risotto

This is a recipe I've heard about a lot but never got to do it for some reason until last weekend. Surprisingly, it didn't turn out sweet, but quite spicy due to a fairly large amount of freshly ground black pepper.

For a simple, but sophisticated tasting dish like this, it is, again, crucial that you're using good ingredients only. This starts from using whole black peppercorns (preferrably ground in a mortar), to good cheese, sweet strawberries and so on.

I think this dish is wonderful and could be served as both an appetizer or as a main course. Please let me know what you think of this unique flavor.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

150 g (about 5.5 oz) fresh and sweet strawberries
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
ingredients for basic risotto, as described here
2-3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
2-3 tablespoons ground parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper (use a mortar if you have one)
optional: freshly ground salt
basil leaves for decoration

Instructions:

Wash the strawberries. Thinly slice half of them, cut the other half into larger chunks. Slice one extra strawberry for decoration. Put aside.

Start preparing a basic risotto as I've described it here, but use butter and shallot instead of olive oil and yellow onion. Before pouring the white wine to the rice, add the thinly sliced strawberries and sauté until the fruits soften a bit. Then pour the wine.

Continue until the risotto is almost done. With the last batch of chicken stock, also add the remaining, larger chunks of strawberries. Add cheese, cream and pepper at this point. Stir for another few minutes. Try the risotto and add some salt if necessary.

Serve the risotto with a basil leaf and the sliced strawberry for decoration. Enjoy!

2006-04-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sour lamb

The sauce for this dish makes all the difference! It's somewhat exotic tasting, but quite exquisite by adding the sour, garlicy and salty seasoning at the end.

A simple polenta went along well with this dish.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

1 big lamb shank (or two smaller ones if you're hungry)
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground salt and pepper
a few twigs of fresh rosemary
1,5 cup (about 3,5 dl) beef or chicken stock
3.5 oz (about 1 dl) red wine vinegar
2 anchovies (instead, I just discovered anchovy paste in a tube at Bristol Farms)
2 cloves of garlic
optional: a few pearl onions, peeled
optional: butter lettuce salad for appetizer
1 cup polenta (cornmeal)
1 teaspoon dried or fresh herb such as thyme
1 tablespoon butter

Instructions:

Prepare the polenta according to the description on the package. Cornmeal bought in a package requires only very little time (a few minutes) to prepare as opposed to cooking polenta the real way with dried corn (about 45 minutes). While stirring the cornmeal mixture, add some herbs such as thyme. Place the finished mixed polenta on a board, form it into a firm square shape, spread some butter over it and let it cool out.

Season the lamb shank with freshly ground salt and pepper all around. Be generous with the pepper, but a bit careful not too use too much salt as we'll be adding some anchovy paste (very salty!) to the sauce at the end.

Prepare the beef or chicken stock.

In a non-stick skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and sauté the lamb together with the rosemary twigs all around until browned. If you like, put a few pearl onions next to your shank as well. Add a ladle of stock, cover the skillet with a lid and reduce the temperature to low. Check that the lamb just slightly simmers in the skillet. Every 15 minutes or so, add some more of the stock up to a total cooking time of about 2 hours. Flip the meat about half way through.

In the meantime, pound garlic and anchovies into a paste using a mortar. If you don't have a mortar (I highly recommend getting one though), you can chop the garlic very fine and mix with the anchovies. Pour this mixture into the red wine vinegar and mix everything well together. Put aside.

About 10 minutes before the lamb is ready, cut the polenta into slices and heat them up in the oven or in another skillet using a bit of olive oil or butter. Give the polenta a nice crispyness outside and it should have a slightly golden color.

When the lamb is ready, move it into a preheated plate or bowl. Pour the vinegar-garlic-anchovy sauce into the skillet where your lamb was sitting in, stir well over high heat and pour over the lamb. Serve immediately with the polenta slices.

2006-04-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Marsala Pears

I served this as a dessert after the porcini risotto with mussels. When choosing your pears at the grocery store, try to find fairly soft ones or at least a smaller kind so they won't take as long to soften in the pan. Marsala is a fortified wine from italy that is both available as a dry and a sweet version. For the dessert, the sweet version is preferred.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

3 small to medium size soft pears
juice of 1/2 lemon
0.7 oz (about 2 dl) sweet marsala (available at Bevmo)
the peel of 1/4 orange
1-2 tablespoons sugar
optional: whipping cream

Instructions:

Peel the pears, cut them in half, carve out the center part, place in a pot and immediately sprinkle with lemon juice so they don't start getting a brown color. Mix the orange peel together with the marsala. Place the pears flat side down into a non-stick skillet, pour over the marsala and sprinkle the sugar over the pears.

Cover the skillet with a lid and cook the pears for about 10-15 minutes until they have softened. Test how soft they are by sticking a sharp knife inside. If all the liquid is absorbed, add a bit more marsala. Flip the pears and cook for another few minutes.

Place pears on dishes, let them cool out completely or eat them while still a bit warm. Serve with whipping cream if desired. You can also serve a bit of the sweet marsala with it.

2006-04-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

Porcini Risotto with Mussels

This is another italian risotto recipe with a nice mixture of two strong flavors, porcini mushrooms and mussels. I've used eastern mussels for this dish, but you can replace them with any other mussels you like. Eastern mussels are quite cheap and perfect for pasta or rice dishes.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

ingredients for basic risotto
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
7 oz (about 200 g) tomatoes from a can (italian pelati or any cheaper brand)
0.5 oz (about 15 g) dried porcini mushrooms (soaked in warm water)
1 lb (about 500 g) mussels
a bit of parsley for decoration

Instructions:

Before starting to make the risotto, bring water to boil in a fairly large pot. Add the mussels and cook them until they all have opened (a few minutes). Take the mussels out of their shelves and put aside (or do that a bit later so you don't burn your fingers).

Heat butter and olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped onions and garlic and sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat (don't burn the garlic) until golden. Add the tomatoes, crush them if they weren't already in the can.

Drain the soaked porcini mushroom, add them to the tomato sauce and sauté for another 10-15 minutes until most liquid is absorbed. Put the sauce aside.

Now prepare the risotto as described here. Once your rice is almost ready, add the mussels and the tomato/porcini sauce. Mix well, serve on plates and decorate with a bit of parsley. For dessert, I served the marsala pears.

2006-04-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

Emergency Salad

10pm, arriving at home, hungry, didn't go buy any groceries... i'm sure you know the scenario. For me, those are the times when some interesting things happen (sometimes). Looking into the fridge, I tried to think about what I could make, quickly, with whatever ingredients I had. This turned out really good! And it was ready within 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 cup of pasta (I had two different kinds of small leftovers which I used)
a few lettuce leaves (torn into smaller pieces)
1-2 tablespoons pickled japanese ginger (beni shoga) (could be replaced with any other pickled ingredient, like pickled cucumber or onions, should be nice and sour though. Surfas carries something similar.)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (good quality, I had french imported one from Surfas)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1-2 tablespoons apple cider (depending how sour you like your dressing)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Boil the pasta in salted water until al-dente. Drain it and cool it in a strainer under cold water.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl. Add lettuce leaves and pasta, stir well. Serve with a slice of bread. I had one more slice of pumpernickel leftover, which I used. Here's another recipe I used pumpernickel with.

2006-04-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

Oven-baked fennel (vegetarian)

I have to admit, I made this dish as a side dish for lamb chops, but you could definitely serve this as a main dish or serve a risotto with it. If you're choosing to prepare it with lamb chops, season the lamb with freshly ground salt and pepper and sauté about 4 minutes on each side (for chops about 1,5" thick). Wait to do this until 8 minutes before the fennel is done.

for 2 people (as a side dish):

Ingredients:

3 medium sized fennels
10 pecan nut halves (for filling)
6 pecan nut halves (for decoration)
30 g (1 oz) ground parmesan cheese
100 g (3.5 oz) mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons butter
freshly ground salt and pepper

Instructions:

Cut the fennel pieces so you only have the "bulb", or the root. Also remove all the thin, dark-green pieces from the stem and finely chop them. Slice the roots in half lengthwise. Using a sharp knife, carefully carve a hole into each root without damaging the bottom. Keep the carved out fennel pieces and put them aside.

From the outside, cut off a small piece at the bottom of each root so they can sit on a dish without tilting over. Steam those six pieces in a steamer (or a large pot with just a bit of water). The fennel should soften but not fall apart! Stick a knife in it to see how soft it got. Once softened, remove from the steamer and let it cool out.

Pre-heat the oven to 425 F (about 220 C). Since I'm living in this small apartment right now, I don't have a real oven. But I've been using a Black & Decker Toaster oven for years (Amazon sells a similar one, click here) and it works like a charm! Highly recommended, especially if you usually don't cook for more than 2 people.

Chop the carved out fennel pieces very fine. This works great with a food chopper.
In a dry skillet (don't add any oil or fat), roast all the pecan halves until they're just starting to brown a bit. Put aside 6 of the pecans for decaration later, roughly chop the other 10 halves and put aside.

Put the butter into the skillet, heat it over medium-high heat, add the finely chopped fennel pieces and sauté until softened (about 5-10 minutes). At the end, also add the finely chopped dark-green fennel twigs and stir.

In a bowl, combine this fennel mixture, parmesan, mascarpone and chopped pecan nuts. Season strongly with freshly ground salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.

Put the six fennel halves on a lightly buttered oven dish and fill the carved out holes with the fennel mixture. Distribute all the mixture equally onto the six fennel halves. Put the dish into the preheated oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and decorate with the pecan halves.

2006-04-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

Leftovers

A few days ago, I posted a recipe for the tuscany style pork. Since the meat tends to stay more juicy when cooked as a bigger piece, there's obviously leftovers. And to have leftovers from that pork is very much worth it as it makes for delicious coldcuts. The following evening, I cut slices of the cold pork and spread some pumpernickel with sour cream and a few greens on top. This is something you can prepare within five minutes, and served with a good bottle of wine it's quite a treat!

You could, of course, use the pork coldcuts in a baguette sandwich as well with some good mustard and cressant.

Also worth pointing out, would be, that I originally paid about $ 16 at Whole Foods for the pork center cut. For two people, this was enough for the first tuscany style dinner, and there were plenty of leftovers for nice coldcuts. If Yoko wouldn't have eaten all of the leftovers, I could even have prepared some nice baguette sandwiches the following day ;-) In other words, this is quite a bargain for 16 dollars!

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

Leftovers from the tuscany style pork, sliced
Pumpernickel bread (available at Surfas)
sour cream
chives, thinly sliced
watercressant, alfalfa sprouts or any other type of greens
lemon juice and lemon slices for decoration

Instructions:

Put some sour cream onto the pre-cut pumpernickel slices. You can make two versions, one with chives on top, the other one with alfalfa sprouts for example. Sprinkle with fresh lemon juice and decorate with a slice of lemon.
Serve the sliced pork coldcuts on a seperate plate.

The wine i opened was a Malbec, which is a nice, full-bodied type from argentina. Available at Trader Joe's for a great price!

2006-04-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

Tuscany Style Pork with Pinto Beans

Here's a recipe that almost only requires waiting! Sounds good, no? And it also tastes very nice.

Again, I have to stress that the secret lies in high quality ingredients, in this case especially the quality of the salt and the pepper. You don't want to use any pre-ground powdery pepper from a plastic container with little holes on top.

What you want to use are whole pepper corns (black or a combination of black, red and green corns), then coarsely ground with a mortar.

I prefer that way even over using a good pepper mill because the mill will still grind the corns pretty fine and i like them to stay more coarse.

for 2 people (with leftovers for cold-cuts the next day):

Ingredients:

Pork center-cut in one piece (about 4 ribs)
handful of fresh rosemary, finely cut
handful of fresh sage leaves, finely cut
freshly ground salt and pepper (see comments above)
6-8 garlic cloves, peeled and cut
1 cup dried pinto beans, washed and rinsed
10 whole sage leaves
a total of about 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

For the filling of the pork, place finely cut sage, rosemary, garlic cloves, salt and pepper into a bowl and put aside.

Also turn on your oven and pre-heat it to 475 F.

Using a wooden spoon, dig a hole through the center of the whole piece of pork. Twist and turn the spoon, dig again, making a bigger hole. Really make that hole big enough so you can generously stuff the filling inside.

Starting with small amounts, using your fingers, stuff the filling inside the pork. Begin from one side, add more from the other side. Go back and forth. Make sure you press the filling all way into the center of the pork as well. Really stuff it! It's fun!

Rub some olive oil all around the pork and season it well on the outside with freshly ground salt and pepper. Be generous with your seasoning! It will create a nicely browned, somewhat salty and peppery crust in the oven.

Put the pork bone-side down into the pre-heated oven. Set your alarm clock to 30 minutes. If you don't have a kitchen timer, i'm sure you have a cell phone ;-) After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350 F. and give it another hour in the oven. If you have a food thermometer to measure the temperature of the meat, stick it in there and it should read about 160 F. (This should really be the case after that one hour at 350 F.)

In the meantime, put the washed pinto beans into a medium size pot, cover with water and add about 4 tablespoons of the olive oil. Also add the sage leaves. Bring to a rapid boil, then reduce the temperature to simmer. Keep the beans simmering at low temperature.

The overall simmering time depends a bit on how you like your beans. I like them to be still somewhat crispy (not like at your average school cafeteria where they're being boiled over night it seems!). I simmered them for about 30 minutes. Just keep on trying them until you like the texture, i guess all way up to one hour.

Most likely, your beans will be done before the pork. Just turn off the heat if that's the case and heat them up again 5 minutes before your pork is ready. Drain the beans, put them back into the pan and add the rest of the olive oil (about 1/4 cup), seasing with salt and pepper to taste, mix well and serve together with a pork rib.

2006-04-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Mini Poll #2 Results

Here are the numbers for the poll we had on this site during the last week.

Click on the image to enlarge to view the results.

Nobody seems to like complicated cooking! Maybe i should really try the chocolate scallops ;-)

I will for sure start adding more vegetarian dishes since a few people already specifically asked me about this. Concerning cheap cooking, for now, I'd like you to check out this recipe if you haven't already. More to follow...

Thank you all for voting again!

2006-04-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

Coffee with Vanilla Ice Cream

Finally the apartment is moved and finally, you can expect more frequent posts here again. This is just a quickie here but a delicious version of a coffee drink good for afternoon coffee and cake, or as it was in this case, a 1:00 am coffee to get some more energy to finish up cleaning the house. I recommend the afternoon coffee and cake version though ;-)

Some people started calling me the "Espresso Police" so i'll be sure to be posting more coffee drinks here in the future.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

hot coffee (or a long espresso)
vanilla ice cream (i'm a fan of the Haagen Dazs vanilla)
optional tablespoon of brandy or cognac

Instructions:

Prepare coffee the way you always do. I don't drink filter coffee but if that's what you like, go for it. I'd recommend a long single or double espresso for each person.

If you're choosing to add some brandy or cognac, do that before adding the ice cream, and stir. I don't add sugar to this type of coffee because the ice cream will sweeten it enough.

One big scoop of vanilla ice cream per coffee would be about right.

Click here for another recipe using the Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream.

2006-03-22T18:08:00.000-08:00

Bean Salad

This simple salad can be served as a small main dish with some toasted bread or as a side, along with some potato salad (Dan's potato salad to follow) with german sausages, or eisbein, or anything else you could think of.

Just make sure you don't overboil the beans. I like them with bite, still a bit crispy.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

organic green beans (amount depends if you're serving as main or side dish)
1 shallot or 1 small yellow onion, chopped
white vinegar (wine vinegar or apple cider)
extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground salt and pepper

Instructions:

In a bowl big enough to fit all the beans, mix vinegar, olive oil, shallot or onion, salt and pepper. You'll probably end up adding vinegar at the end because the beans don't absorb much of it and you'd like to get the dressing a bit sour for this salad.

Wash the beans well and cut off the end pieces. Put some salt into boiling water and add the beans. Boil them for about 5 minutes but start trying them before already to make sure they don't get too soft. I would recommend removing them when you think they're still a bit too hard since they'll end up softening some more afterwards anyway.

Pour cold water over the beans to prevent them from softening too much. Move them around in cold water for a minute or so. Shake them well to get rid of the water on them. Add the beans to your dressing, mix well, taste them to make sure you like the dressing, add vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

2006-03-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

Dan's little poll #2

Last january, I posted a poll asking people how often they cook every week. You can check out the results here.

Some of you gave me suggestions of what other questions would be interesting to ask, so I decided to add a new poll. Please take a moment and vote on the right sidebar! I will post the results later.

This should be interesting...

Thanks for reading! As always, please feel free to comment. I will always respond (directly in the comments section or by email) if there's anything to respond to ;-)

And thanks to Tommi and Andrea, I will put your suggestions into future polls.

2006-03-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

Vanilla Ice Cream with Grand Marnier Oranges

This turned out to be one of the best desserts I've had recently. All you need are three ingredients and you're in for a little treat!

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

1 orange, peeled, cut in half and sliced
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier Liquor
1 small shot glass Grand Marnier for flambé (optional)
2 scoops of good quality vanilla ice cream (i think Haagen Dazs Vanilla is the best)

Instructions:

Put the sliced oranges into a non-stick skillet and start heating over medium-high heat. Add the 2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier. While it's heating up, prepare to do the flambé (if you choose to do so).

Have the shotglass of Grand Marnier ready, as well as some matches. Make sure you do this in a safe environment far away from anything that could catch fire.

Once the oranges are strongly heated up, quickly remove them from the heat and immediately pour the Grand Marnier into the pan, putting it on fire right away with a (preferrably) long matchstick. Move the skillet back and forth in the air to have all the liquor burning. Depending on the heat and the amount of liquor you used, you should have flames for about 5-10 seconds.

This is a fun and eye-catching procedure, but it can go wrong if you're not acting quick enough.

Scoop the ice cream into a bowl and add the Grand Marnier oranges on the side. Enjoy!

2006-03-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

Midnight Snack

After cleaning for the whole weekend, a little sunday midnight snack is perfect to enjoy as a short break. It also lets you forget for a short while that it's monday tomorrow morning and you'll have to get back to work!

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

crackers (i like those a lot)
cucumber, roughly peeled and sliced
goat cheese
oven-roasted tomatoes (from Whole Foods or any other deli, the really good ones are at the Beverly Hills Cheese store)
italian parsley for decoration
white grapes
cold bottle of white wine

Instructions:

There's not much to describe. Put goat cheese onto the crackers and the cucumber slices, add oven-roasted tomatoes and a few leaves of italian parsley for decoration.

I really like those oven-roasted tomatoes. There's another really simple dish i made-up a while ago using those tomatoes. Take a look here.

Heidi brought us this bottle of white wine which you won't find at any regular grocery store. There's a restaurant in South Pasadena that once in a while does a special evening where they also invite wineries to present their wines. If you're interested, i could probably find out more details about those events. Or if you read this Heidi, could you please give us some information about it?

This Pinot from Robert Linsley was very good and nicely presented in a thin bottle.

2006-03-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Rick's amazing Catfish (thai style)

I met Rick through this blog and I'm very glad I did! He gave me one of his recipes to try. I was amazed! I had four friends over for this dish and we all thought it was the best catfish recipe we've ever had. This is simply delicious and very authentic thai tasting. And to top it off, it's also quite easy and quick to prepare.

Rick is working on his food blog as well. Once it's up and running, I will post the link on my blog.

One thing I love about thai food is the beauty of it! The raw ingredients put together look like a painting.

If you're interested in other thai recipes, check out the dinner I prepared for last christmas. I can highly recommend the seafood cakes.

For 2 people:

Ingredients:

2 catfish fillets (about 1/2 lb), cut into 1 1/2 " pieces
2 tablespoons tapioca starch or tapioca flour
1 liter (33 oz) peanut oil for deep-frying
1 cup rice (for steamed rice to be served with the fish)

Sauce A:

2 dried red thai chilies, roasted until lightly brown, then ground with mortar/pestle
1/2 shallot, sliced
1 green onion (spring onion), thinly sliced
1 tablespoon cilantro, coarsely chopped
about 4 " piece of lemon grass, thinly sliced

Sauce B:

2 fresh red thai chilies, thinly sliced
juice of 1/2 lime (if it's a small lime, use the whole one)
1 tablespoon mint, coarsely chopped
3/4 tablespoon Golden Mountain sauce (Maggi Seasoning can be used instead, is not as authentic thai though)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon rice powder (see description how to make it below)

Instructions:

Remove the fish from the fridge at least 20 minutes before deep-frying. Start preparing some rice in a rice cooker. Put the tapioca flour or starch in a bowl, add the catfish pieces and mix everything by hand until all the fish pieces are covered thinly with the tapioca starch.

Mix all the ingredients for Sauce A together in a bowl. Use less chilies if you don't like it too spicy. Put aside.

For Sauce B, roast 1 tablespoon rice over medium-high heat until it just slightly starts to brown. Ground with mortar and pestle into a thin powder. Mix all the ingredients for Sauce B together in another bowl. Use less chilies if you don't like it too spicy. Put aside.

Heat the oil in a big pan over high heat and don't leave it unattended. If you have a candy thermometer, use it to get the oil all way up to 375 F. If you don't have one, you can drop a tiny piece (like a breadcrumb) of fish into the oil. If it strongly sizzles, your oil is hot enough to start deep-frying.

Pre-heat the oven to about 150 F. You can skip the oven, just be quick with serving the fish, otherwise it will get cold too quickly.

Deep fry half of the fish until the pieces are browned (don't dry them out too much), remove the fish pieces and put them on some kitchen paper to drain the oil a bit. Move the drained pieces into the oven.

Deep fry the second half of the fish, drain and put into the oven.

Mix Sauce A and Sauce B together, mix well. If the sauce looks too dry, add more fish sauce and/or lime juice. Pour over the fish. Serve immediately with steamed rice. I like to drink Singha Beer (Thai Beer) with thai food. It balances out the spicyness very well.

2006-03-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

Super Simple #2 - Röschti (aka Rosti)

If the recipes on this blog are getting simpler and simpler, than there's a reason for it.

Being very busy these days with a full-time job during the day, a night-time job to finish up a DVD production and an upcoming move to Thailand, I'm relying a lot on quick and easy dishes.

But! They still have to taste good... and Röschti, another Swiss specialty, is a nice dish in many ways.

First of all, it's great to prepare if you have old potatoes that you're about to throw away because you can't think of any use for them anymore. As a matter of fact, this dish tastes better with old potatoes because they are much more dry which is exactly what you're after for preparing Röschti.

If you want to go the really simple way, all you need are old potatoes, butter, salt and pepper! I happened to have some leftover bacon in the fridge as well, and an onion, which makes this dish delicous!

Also, you can serve many kinds of foods with this dish. Great are sausages (Bratwurst), or veal cutlets on a creamy, lemony sauce with some parsley, or even just a simple sunnyside-up egg.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

2-3 large (baked potato size) and preferrably old potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 slices of bacon, cut into small cubes
freshly ground salt and pepper

Instructions:

If you plan ahead, you can microwave the potatoes a day in advance. This is especially useful if your potatoes are pretty fresh and still wet inside. Having them sit around for an extra day after microwaving will make them more dry and more suitable for Röschti.

Worst case, you can still use fresh potatoes and microwave them just before cooking. Your Röschti just tends to become a bit mushy.

Peel your fully microwaved potatoes and grind them by hand using a rough grinder. In a non-stick skillet, heat the butter over medium heat, add the chopped onion and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the bacon and stir for another 2-3 minutes until the bacon has browned a bit. Increase the heat to high and add the potatoes. Cook them until overall browned a bit (don't burn them) while stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce the heat to low and form the potatoes into a pie-looking shape. From now on, don't stir anymore. You want to get a nice and golden brown on the bottom side. To keep the potatoes warm on the upper side as well, put a serving plate upside-down on it. At the end, if you're not afraid to do so, flip the skillet upside-down while holding the plate with the other hand and your Röschti will already sit on a dish ready to serve!

Let the Röschti simmer for about 10-15 minutes to create that golden bottom. Also, it should really become like a pie, keeping its shape when you remove it from the skillet.

If you'd like to serve this with sausages, I can highly recommend the ones they sell at Surfas. Those are the best sausages in town I found so far. They're in the frozen section. Enjoy!

If you're interested in really quick and easy dishes, also check out this spaghetti recipe.

2006-02-27T00:21:00.000-08:00

Chocolate Truffles

A few weeks ago I went to see a demo at Surfas how to make chocolate truffles. The basic recipe is very simple, the whole procedure a bit time consuming though. I'm not much of a patissier, but they came out pretty well so I thought I'd share my first experience.

for about 20 truffles:

Ingredients:

8 oz bittersweet chocolate (Valrhona is a very good and expensive brand for truffles, you can buy smaller portions if you visit the store)
4 oz heavy cream (as heavy as you can find it)
1 oz high quality unsalted butter (President brand or any other European style butter)
anything you feel like for flavoring (I used fresh ginger and allspice for half of the chocolate, lavender for the other half)

Instructions:

Before we begin, the most important rule: Chocolate and water are worst enemies! Always make sure that no water touches the chocolate at any time.

Chop the chocolate into small chunks, put it into a bowl (split into two bowls if you're making two different flavors for the truffles). In a saucepan, heat the cream and butter and add your flavors. Taste the cream to see if you like the flavor. If you use something like lavender, you want to filter your cream to not have any lavender pieces in the ganache. After filtering, make sure you still have 4 oz of liquid, otherwise fill up with more cream. Pour the hot liquid over the chocolate and stir until smooth. A rubber spatula (Le Creuset are the best) works great for this.

Once melted, pour the liquid into an airtight container and let it sit for about 2-4 hours until it has firmed. I used a portion disher from Surfas to form the ganache into little balls. Size #100 worked great for that. I would also suggest that you wear plastic gloves to do this. It will get pretty messy and the gloves will also prevent the warmth of your hands to melt the chocolate too much.

You can decorate the truffles as you wish. I got some special molding chocolate from Surfas (that type of chocolate is supposed to make it a lot easier for melting in a double boiler). Dip your truffles into liquid chocolate and move them around with a plastic fork until covered all around. Instead of covering them with liquid chocolate, you could also sprinkle some very high quality cocoa powder over your truffles.

I made some candied ginger for decoration which turned out very nicely. Cut fresh ginger into small pieces, put about same amount of water and sugar in a skillet and add the ginger. Bring to a boil until the ginger caramelizes with the sugar. Remove the mass from the skillet, let it cool and cut into small pieces. Pestle and mortar worked great for me to get nicely shaped ginger crystals.

2006-02-23T00:21:00.000-08:00

Traditional Cheese Fondue

With temperatures being pretty cold around here recently, we've decided to do another fondue before the summer comes back. In Switzerland, we usually only do this dish in the winter, preferrably in the mountains, with snow falling outside and a fire crackling in the fireplace. It's a wonderful dish for several people gathering around the table. It's best served with either a dry white wine or tea.

It is most romantic in a special fondue set, but you could also serve it in a regular pan on any hotplate you can place on your table. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about what kind of fondue set you should get.

Ingredients per person:

150 g (about 5.5 oz) gruyère cheese (from Trader Joe's, make sure it's not cave aged otherwise your fondue will get too salty)
75 ml (2.5 oz) white wine (cheap one like Charles Shaw from Trader Joe's is fine)
1/2 teaspoon corn starch
1 shotglass of Kirsch (Bristol Farms usually sells it, any brand is fine)
1 big clove of garlic
pepper and freshly ground nutmeg
bread (baguette, not sourdough) cut into about 1 inch cubes

Instructions:

Before you start, make sure you have a hotplate arranged on the table where you'll be eating your fondue. Basically, you'll need to start eating immediately after it's ready, so make sure your guests are all ready to eat by the time you'll serve the fondue.

Peel the garlic, cut it in half lengthwise and thoroughly rub it all over the inside of your fondue dish or pan. Leave the garlic in the dish.

Mix the corn starch with the kirsch in a cup until it's completely dissolved.

Grind the cheese in a food processor or manually. Put it into the fondue dish, pour in the wine and start heating it up over medium-high heat. From now on, until the end, constantly stir the cheese. You might want to have a second person around to assist you with stirring, while you add the rest of the ingredients.

Once the cheese started to melt a bit, add the kirsch with the dissolved corn starch and stir strongly. Bring it to a quick boil, then reduce the temperature to keep simmering the fondue until it has reached a creamy thickness. To test if it's ready, stir and lift your tool to see how liquid the cheese is. Season with pepper and nutmeg to taste.

Move the fondue onto your medium-low heat hotplate (or fondue gas burner) on the table and start eating immediately by stirring bread pieces with your fondue forks. Make sure the fondue always slightly simmers while you're eating, but it shouldn't boil.

2006-02-17T01:03:00.000-08:00

Super Simple #1 - Spaghetti with Oven Roasted Tomatoes and Salad

How often does it happen that you're at home, hungry, with no mood to go to the grocery store?

On a night like that, I often check what's in the fridge and try to come up with some quick and simple dish. I had some leftovers of oven roasted, marinated tomatoes which i bought for appetizers a few days ago at Whole Foods. If you're ever in the area, the Beverly Hills Cheese Store has really fantastic roasted/marinated tomatoes, but the ones from Whole Foods aren't bad either.

Then i had a bit of fresh spinach left, a handful of the herb salad mix from Trader Joe's and a few cherry tomatoes, the perfect ingredients for a nice salad.

I always make sure I have some basic ingredients like spaghetti, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, and in no time, you can create a wonderful tasting dish that's fast enough to prepare so you won't starve while cooking.

Especially when it comes to those simple dishes, I can't stress enough how important it is that you're using good quality ingredients! It just simply makes a big difference.

for 2 people:

Ingredients:

about 100-125 g (3,5-4 oz) spaghetti per person
about 10-20 oven roasted/marinated tomatoes
2 big cloves of garlic, crushed
1 hot chili (if you received one of my spice boxes, that's the time to use one of those thai chilies!)
4-6 tablespoons good quality olive oil
pinch of dried marjoram or oregano
parmesan cheese, (freshly) ground
salad, any type you might have in your fridge
freshly ground salt and pepper

Instructions:

Start by making the sauce. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, add the whole chili and the crushed garlic (crush garlic by pressing on it with the flat side of a knife), reduce the heat to medium and sauté for about 5 minutes, then add the roasted tomatoes. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn, otherwise it will get bitter. At this point, you can also add some dried herbs you might have on your shelf. Marjoram or oregano go well with the roasted tomatoes.

The longer you sauté, the more flavor you will have in your sauce. The more hungry you are, the shorter you will probably simmer your sauce! But i would recommend to simmer it for at least 15-20 minutes total over low heat.

In the meantime, heat water in a big pan, once it's boiling, add a bit of salt and oil. Add the spaghetti and stir to make sure they don't stick together.

Prepare the salad, mix together all the different kinds of leaves and tomatoes you might have. I like to make a simple italian dressing by just adding a good balsamic vinegar, olive oil, freshly ground pepper and maybe a few pinches of dried herbs, like an italian seasoning mix.

Remove the spaghetti from the water when they're al-dente or slightly before! That's one of the most important things about this dish, do not overcook spaghetti, it will ruin the dish.

Pour the sauce over your spaghetti on the plates, sprinkle with parmesan cheese (freshly ground would be best) and serve with the salad on the side. The Ripasso wine from Trader Joe's would go well with this and only costs $6.99.

Another dish has been added to the "super simple" series of dishes. Check out the Röschti.

2006-02-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

The Ravioli Experience

I'm not going to get into details about this, the pictures should speak on their own. It was fun! But I'm not going to do it again! Boy, that was a lot of work and it reminded me to stick to what I think I'm best at: simple dishes!

But all of us (at least i hope so!) had a fun time going through this together. Well, Mizue had to roll out a lot of dough, so I'm not sure how much she enjoyed it. And Wakako was going to move things into her new apartment, but was instead filling little pieces of dough with crab filling. And didn't I tell Daveed we were going to an art exhibition and he ended up disassembling crab legs? And not to forget about kitty, who would rather have jumped onto the table instead of just smelling the dungeness crab from underneath!

Check out the pictures to see this historic event! ;-)

I feel the urge to just fix some eggs with toast now! For those of you who have seen the movie Big Night, you know what I'm talking about. For those who haven't, go ahead and watch it. It's my favorite food movie!

2006-02-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

Mushroom Quiche

I made this on a Sunday morning for breakfast. You can use this recipe as well for other types of quiches. The basics are all the same, but you could use ham and spinach, or different kinds of cheeses or anything else you feel like.

One of the most famous ones is quiche lorraine with bacon and cheese.

Remember that you will have to store the dough for about 2 hours before rolling it out. Give yourself enough time if you intend to serve this for breakfast.

a quiche big enough for about 3-4 people:

the pastry:
2 oz (65 g) gruyère cheese, diced into small cubes
3/4 cup (120 g) all purpose plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 oz (65 g) unsalted butter, cut into smaller pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten with a fork
2 tablespoons cold water

the mushroom mixture:
8 oz (215 ml) whole milk
1/2 oz (15 g) dried porcini (soaked in milk)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
6.5 oz (190 g) different kinds of mushrooms (e.g. white, portobello, shitake, chanterelle), stems trimmed and cleaned, then sliced
1 large leek thinly sliced (white parts only)
1 tablespoon tarragon (fresh or dried)
freshly ground salt and pepper
1-2 tablespoons dijon (or colemans) mustard
3 oz (90 ml) heavy cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk

Instructions:

Let's start by making the pastry first. Use a food processor to mix cheese, flour and salt. Mix until crumbled. Add the butter and keep mixing until it looks like bread crumbs. Add the egg, mix quickly, then add the water. If the dough sticks to the edges of the mixer, scrape it down. Keep on mixing until you have a solid, rough dough. Let it sit in the fridge for about 2 hours and give it another 15 minutes outside the fridge before rolling the dough.

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C).

Roll the dough until it's big enough to fit your baking dish. Rub out the dish with butter before putting your dough in it. If you have some special pie weights, use them to weigh down the dough so it doesn't bubble up in the oven. I don't really care if it bubbles up, I don't use any weights.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it cool a bit. In the meantime, heat half of the butter and half of the olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and sauté for about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté for about 10 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. Move the mushrooms to a bowl. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 375 F (190 C).

Use the same pan to heat up the rest of the butter and olive oil and sauté the leeks. Cover the pan and cook them until they're softened, about 10-12 minutes. Season with tarragon, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat.

Now spread the mustard evenly onto the bottom of the pastry to cover all the spots. Add mushrooms and leek mixture evenly. Whisk together milk, cream, eggs and egg yolk with a bit of salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over your quiche. Bake the quiche until the dough is slightly browned, about 25-30 minutes.

When you remove the quiche from the oven, it will be a bit too soft to cut. Let it cool down for at least 15 minutes before slicing.

2006-02-09T22:21:00.000-08:00

Orange Roughy with Gobo

This might be one of the simplest recipes I've done in a while. There's almost no cooking involved but it tastes fantastic! The decoration with the thinly sliced zucchini makes for a good "ahhhhhh, beautiful!". Instead of the Gobo, which is somewhat exotic and hard to find, you could serve a simple white rice.

for 2 people:

the fish:
2 pieces of Orange Roughy
1 shallot, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4-6 tablespoons olive oil
1 can of tomatoes (about 15 oz)
1 handful of fresh dill, chopped
freshly ground salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 zucchini, very thinly sliced
extra dill sprig and lemon slices for garnish

the gobo dish:
about 8-12 gobo roots (burdock), peal scraped off and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup cheap white wine
juice of 1/2 lemon
1-2 tablespoon soy sauce (optional)
extra dill sprig and lemon slices for garnish

Instructions:

Start by heating up half of the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the shallots and sauté over medium heat for about 5 minutes without burning them. Stir in the garlic and sauté for another minute. Pour in the tomatoes (for this dish, I prefer canned tomatoes over fresh ones), add the sugar and mix well. Simmer the tomato sauce for about 5-10 minutes to blend the flavors, then stir in the dill.

Move the whole sauce into an oven-proof dish that is also big enough to hold your two Orange Roughys next to each other. Spread the sauce evenly in the dish and let it cool out a bit.

Preheat the oven to 425 F (220 C)

Lay the Orange Roughy onto the tomato sauce, season with freshly ground salt and pepper. Arrange the sliced zucchini on top of it to make it look like fish scales. Or be creative and do your own decoration here!

Put the whole dish into the preheated oven and bake it for about 20 minutes, depending on how thick your fish is. In the meantime, prepare rice in a rice cookeror do the gobo dish.

There's many ways to prepare gobo. For this particular dish, I went for a simple stir-fried version in the wok.

Heat the other half of the olive oil in a wok or big skillet over high heat. Add the gobo and sauté for about 3 minutes. Add the white wine and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. I like it when the gobo is still crunchy inside. This simple side-dish should be done within about 5-8 minutes. Make sure you don't burn the gobo, otherwise it will get bitter. If you want to, you could also add a bit of soy sauce for extra flavor.

Serve the fish directly from the oven-proof dish because it will look nice with the zucchini slices on top! Garnish with some extra dill sprigs and lemon slices. Enjoy!

2006-02-09T00:34:00.000-08:00

Mini Poll Results

Here are the results from the little poll I had running during the last 2 weeks.
Click on the image to enlarge.

Do you have any suggestions what other things would be interesting to hear from people? Please let me know and I'll start another poll.

Thank you all for voting!

2006-02-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

Rolled Chicken with Potato Gratin

Chicken doesn't have to taste simple! This is a very unique way of making chicken taste quite gorgeous. The horseraddish with the prosciutto merged with the sherry/cream sauce gives this dish a very intriguing fragrance. As a sidedish, I prepared a potato gratin, a favorite side in my home country.

for 2 people:

the chicken rolls:
1 big, thick chicken breast (or 2 thinner ones)
4 big teaspoons horseraddish cream
4 very thin slices prosciutto (ask for the least salty one)
4 sage leaves
freshly ground salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 woodsticks (toothpicks) to attach sage to chicken

the potato gratin:
300 g (0.7 lb) potatoes (1 week old are perfect!)
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
freshly ground salt, pepper and nutmeg
butter to rub ovenproof dish
1-2 tablespoons prosciutto or speck, cut into small cubes (optional)
50 g (0.1 lb) gruyère cheese, roughly ground

Instructions:

Let's start by doing some preparation for both dishes. Wash the potatoes or peel the skin, cut into thin slices.

Cut the chicken breast lengthwise in half (use a very sharp knife to make this an easy task). Cut both halves one more time lengthwise in half, resulting in 4 thin chicken steaks. If you're breast is not thick enough to cut into 4 slices, you could use 2 breasts and cut them only once each.

Spoon 1 big teaspoon of the horseraddish onto each of the 4 chicken slices and spread evenly. Lay a slice of prosciutto on top. Tightly roll the chicken, put a sage leave on top and attach it to the chicken rolls and simultaneously close the rolls so they won't roll open.

Depending on how salty your prosciutto is, season your chicken only very lightly with salt or skip the salt completely. Sprinkle the chicken with freshly ground pepper.

Now that the chicken is ready to be cooked, start working on the potato gratin. Heat the milk and the cream in a saucepan. Season well with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the thinly sliced potatoes and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are softened but don't fall apart. Also preheat the oven to 450 F (220 C).

Rub some butter in an ovenproof dish to lightly cover the whole dish. Once the potatoes are softened, pour them together with the milk/cream into the ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the prosciutto cubes (optional) and the gruyère cheese.

Put the gratin into the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes until it got a nice, lightly brown color.

As soon as your gratin is in the oven, heat butter in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Grill your chicken rolls on all sides for about 4 minutes total. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the dry sherry and cook until half of it is absorbed. If the heat is too high, it will absorb too quickly and you'll have to add more sherry. Add the cream as well and mix with the sherry. Cover the chicken rolls and let them simmer for about 15 minutes until done. The chicken and the potato gratin should be ready at about the same time. Taste the sherry/cream sauce and season with more pepper if desired.

2006-02-01T22:31:00.000-08:00

Spice Box - Free Samples

Since some of those recipes I'm posting here require a few special ingredients which might not be sitting on the shelf in some kitchens, I thought I'd provide a few free samples because I'd like you to try those dishes as well.

With the content in this box, you'll be equipped with the spices for the Indian Lamb Curry and the Pork Tenderloin.

Most of you who tried my Buddha's Hand Jam enjoyed it quite a bit, some of you even got inspired to create your own jam! I hope those exotique spices will also start a fire in you and you'll begin experimenting with some new and foreign seasonings.

If you're interested, email me (info under my profile) and i'll ship a box to you.

Thanks for reading! And if you haven't voted in my little poll in the right sidebar yet, please do so!