Sonntag, 24. März 2013

Mushroom-Tarte





I have these strange moments when I am on the market or somewhere where you can buy food, whereever, and see something that I know just from hearing but never prepared it yet by myself.
For example; I have been to the Languedoc (France) with my best friend last may, and we went on the marché du jour. I saw these awesome artichokes....I only knew them from pizza, from not-so-good-pizza, and I thought..how do they taste when they are prepared fresh???
Well, we bought some, and really: I HAD NO IDEA how to prepare them.
So first, I anatomized it, peeled off, cutted, twitched and picked....
Finally I called my boyfriend in germnay, he had to google it for me. That was quite funny, because he is absolutely not that "kitchen-boy".Now, he had to help me with THAT!
At the end, after a bunch of work, because we wanted to leave the artichoke in a whole and had to peel out the hay inside with a small spoon (we didn`t know any good trick to do it with less effort) we had a wonderful dinner with fresh fish and artichokes, olive oil and baguette.
It was worth the work!

The same happened to me on the market when I saw dried mushrooms.
Until I was something about 20, I HATED mushrooms, especially cèpes. I had a bad experience when I was a kid, so there was an obstacle. But things can change.
So I prepared these Mushroom Tarte,and what can I say?
It was awesome!
It smelled like...like..something mysterious, it smelled dark, it smelled like I bite into a forest. Mossy, tangy...full! Yeah, I guess I eat now more mushrooms.

_________________________________________________

Mushroom Tarte


Ingredients:(springform of ~28 cm aperture)

Filling

> 700 grams fresh mixed mushrooms
> 35 grams dried mushrooms, different kind (cèpe, morel, shiitake ...)
(you can also take a plus of grams of fresh mushrooms instead of the dried ones. I prefer to have a lot of different ones, but if it is easier for you, take less sorts.)
> 2 shallots
> 1 garlic clove
> 1 small branch fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
> 2 tbsp. olive oil
> 250 grams liquid cream
> salt, pepper
> bit of lemonjuice
> 2 eggs
> a small bunch of chive, chopped
> 1 hand full of grated Gruyère (or another melting, aromatic cheese, not soft)

Shortcrust:
(you can also buy that one readymade in the counter fridge)
> 250 grams flour
> 125 grams COLD butter, chopped in dices
> a pinch of salt and sugar
> ~ 4 tbsp. COLD water


>> let dried mushrooms soak in hot water at least 1 hour.
>> In the meanwhile you can prepare the dough:
Put flour on a work surface, add butter. Rub butter quick and soft into the flour, until you`ve got little rough flakes. Add salt, sugar and water and combine QUICKLY until you´ve got a dough. Wrap in foil and put into fridge. for at least 30 minutes.

>> Preheat oven to 230°C (air circulation) ( 450°F)
>> Put soakes mushrooms into a sieve, rinse several times with clear water. Let drip down.
Chop all mushrooms (also the fresh ones) into pieces.

>> Peel shalotts and garlic, cut into little dices.  Put off the thyme leaves.
>> Roast shalotts, garlic and thyme gently in olive oil
>> Add fresh mushrooms. Add soaked mushrooms after pressed out all the water.
>> Roast a few minutes. Add cream. Let cook softly for some minutes, until cream boiled down a bit.
>> Flavor with salt, pepper and lemonjuice.

>> Whisk eggs with chopped chives, mix it with the mushrooms. (Leave some chives for decoration)

>> Roll dough out (thin) on a floured work surface, pinch a baking paper into a springform pan (~28 cm aperture) and put dough inside.
>> Your rim should be around 4 cm high.
>> Prick little holes with a fork into the dough.

>> Sprinkle dough base with grated cheese. Put mushroom-egg-mixture on top.

>> Put into oven for 15 minutes. Reduce then heat to 180 °C (350°F), leave the tarte for 10 more minutes in the oven.

>> Sprinkle with leftover chives.

FINITO!


Freitag, 15. März 2013

Leek-Hash-Casserolle à la Dad



This one so so so so simple recipe is a homage to my daddy.
He was not very often at home, because he worked the whole day long, so my mum cooked a lot of awesome stuff.
But he did sometimes two meals for us (well, I remember those two, probably it was more...and I didn`t mention the Christmas roast goose, this is special).
The first one was just a good wholemeal bread (we have wonderful bread in Germany!) with fresh cheese, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Quite simple, but awesome.
The second one is also simple, but warm instead of cold, and you can read the recipe here.

He cooked leek with hash, mixed with nutmeg, salt and pepper, and it was just wonderful. So easy!
My mum mostly cooked casserolles for us. We were three (wonderful :)) girls and it was not easy to get us full. A casserolle did always its work.

So I took daddy`s recipe of the leek stew and made a casserolle out of it. It is so so so so tasty, just try it out. The crispy lid makes all just....just....aaye! Just heavenly!
Enjoy!

 ________________________________________________________________________________

Leek-Hash-Casserolle

serves 2


Ingredients:
> 2  leeks (~ 400 grams)
> 200 gramsground beef
> salt, pepper, nutmeg
> 1 Tbsp mustard (not too hot)
> 2 Tbsp Crême fraîche
> 70 grams Pecorino/Parmesan, grated
> breadcrumbs
> 250 ml vegetable stock

>> Preheat oven to 190°C / 380°F
>> Heat a pan with a little bit of oil and roast the meat a few minutes. Take out of pan and put aside.
>> Put leek into hot pan until it gets soft. Add vegetable stock & mustard. Let cook ~8 minutes.
>> Take pan from stove. Add Crème fraîche and two third of the cheese. Mix well.
>> Put all into casserolle. Sprinkle generously with all the breadcrumbs and the last third of cheese.
>> Sprinkle with good oliveoil
>> Put into oven for 20 minutes. The casserolle should be now as crusty and golden like on the photos. Take out and enjoy!
________________________________________________________________________________

Freitag, 1. März 2013

Orange-Choc-Stix


I am kind of a person that doesn`t like throwing something away - I mean food. Everything else is easy. But food? No way!
It is always a challenge for me to deplete everything in my fridge, all the leftovers from cooking sessions, and I am extremely proud if I made it!

I never thought about the peel of oranges. Sometimes you rasp it to use it sprinkled in pancakes or something, but the whole peel?
But then I remembered something I saw once in France (OMG, I love this country!)
And because Timo is a chocolat AND a fruit junkie, this was perfect for another of my glorious wonderful kitchen experiments he has to taste before I do :P

Well, what shall I say? It worked. These beautiful and tasty sticks are awesome to eat along the way, because (probably your opinion is different) you cannot eat that much of it. It`s more a tasty pleasure than a crapulence, like you sometimes have with chips. Once you`ve started to eat, you do not stop, and afterwards you feel bad. Not like this with these Choc-Stix.

Enjoy them with hot tea, coffee, milk or whatever comes in your mind. Or pure.
_________________________________________________

Orange Choc Stix


Ingredients:
> 2 oranges, peel untreated (!!!!!!!!!!!)
> 70 ml orange juice (taken from the 2 oranges)
> 160 grams sugar
> 260 ml water
> 60-70 grams good dark chocolat (at least 70 %)
>> Carve orange two times all around, so that you have four areas of peel you can now carefully peel off   from the pulp.

>> Give the peel for two minutes into hot water, just to blanch them shortly. Drain on a kitchen paper.

>> Combine water, orange juice and sugar in a pot and heat it until it cooks. Add the peel pieces. At low heat, let them simmer for 90 minutes.

>> take the peel out of the sirup, shake off the too-much-sirup-stuff and put onto a cake rack - let it dry there for about 2 hours.

>> If you want, you can scrape clean now the white inner stuff from the peel and put into trash, so you just have a few millimeters of pure orange peel. I didn`t do that and it tastes the same, for me. Some say, it is more bitter. I don`t think so. 

>> Cut the peel into long stripes, as thick as you want them to be.

>> Melt chocolate on a hot water bath and dip them into the liquid chocolat. Shake off the choc a bit and put on a baking paper to dry.

>> Store them in a screw top jar or something similar....not to forget: dance around and sing "Hallelujah! I`ve done something gorgeous!" (with the melody of your choice)
_________________________________________________________________________________