When in Rome... (pun intended!)

Ever since relocating to New England, I've had a craving for clams.
Yesterday, I indulged in homemade linguine alle vongole and boy, were they satisfying!

Ingredients for 3 people (or 2 very hungry):

- 2lbs littleneck clams

- 3 cloves of garlic

- one lemon 

- red chili flakes, 1tsp  

- dry white wine, 3/4 cups (I used pinot grigio for cooking and drinking with the meal afterwards)

- non-salted butter, 3 tbsp

- chopped flat leaf parsley, to taste

- 1 lb dried linguine (spaghetti work just fine too)

- freshly grated parmesan cheese, to taste








Recipe:

- start off with rinsing and cleaning the clams in a bowl of cold water several times. Discard any clam that is not closed tight. If they are open, you can tap on them and they will close. If they stay open, it means that they are already dead and potentially toxic. DO NOT eat those!

- Then cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water

- While the pasta is cooking, fry the grated garlic and chili flakes in olive oil over medium heat in a pot for a couple of minutes

 

- Add the clams and the wine combined with the lemon juice.

- Cover and let simmer over medium heat until the clams are cooked (you know they are when they open up)

- Discard any clam that did not open, just like this one here:

- Drain the cooked pasta, and add them to the clam sauce. Add the parsley and give a good toss.

- Eat hot, sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

BON APPETIT!

Dead simple grilled eggplants: and I'm back in the game!

I know, I know, I know... I've been MIA for almost 6 months... I apologize.

I have now moved from Amsterdam to Boston, and after a couple of months, I finally got to cooking again. Things are not quite the way I want them though, as most of my utensils and appliances are still in Europe.

But it wasn't enough to keep me away from the stove any longer.

I am back with a vengeance, and I hereby present you with: ta-da! My dead simple grilled eggplants. You can seriously do this with your eyes closed, it's that simple!

First, gather a few ingredients:

- fresh basil and mint

- a lemon, zest and juice

- a clove of garlic

- eggplants (three eggplants lasted me a whole week!)

- extra virgin olive oil

- coarse salt (fleur de sel is better, but I didn't have any)

- freshly ground black pepper

Here goes:

- slice eggplants (1/4 inch slices are good), and brush them with a little olive oil

- grill them on a hot griddle pan until they are marked, nice and brown. Be careful not to burn them, but make sure they are cooked all the way through! Nothing less appealing than undercooked eggplant...

- while they are cooking, zest and juice one lemon. you can also take care of chopping the garlic clove very fine. I use a microplane to grate it, but chopping will give you a chunkier garlic. I only use the microplane because I just bought it ;)

- when the eggplants are cooked, place them in a serving plate, and drizzle with lemon juice, zest, garlic and olive oil

- as a finishing touch, sprinkle with salt, pepper and chopped herbs

Voila!

Beautiful disaster...

Some of you may know that I will soon be moving to the US for my job. And since I want to host Thanksgiving next year at my place (wherever that will end up being), I decided I should practice a staple: the cranberry sauce.

Unfortunately, I was the victim of what is commonly known as a rookie mistake: I overcooked it!

As a result, my sauce was absolutely beautiful, but horribly bitter and totally inedible!

The pics are nice however, so enjoy! ;)

21 November 2009

Scandinavian experiment

Some of you may know that a couple of months ago, I went to Norway and Sweden for a few days. I came back from there with quite a few delicacies such as Geitost, Flädersläktet (Elderflower) jelly, Wasa crackers (of course) and smoked moose ham.

A few weeks ago, I decided to use the smoked moose, since the peremption date was approaching.

With that in mind, I improvised a pasta casserole with a Chasseur-like sauce.

I do not recall the exact recipe, as I pretty much went along with the flow, but it went a little something like that:

• fry the smoked moose in a bit of butter, until slightly crispy. Put aside on a plate.
  
• in the same pan, fry a finely diced onion (I would have used a shallot if I had had one in stead) in a little bit of butter, until golden, but not too brown. 
• add a few sliced rehydrated porcini (of which you will have kept the water)
  
• add the meat to the pan, and flame with a little cap of Gin (the original smoked reindeer stew recipe I was inspired from contained juniper berries, which I did not have).
  NOTE: if you flame food, shut down air aspiration! and be very careful with your hair, brows and lashes! ;)
• add a couple of handfuls of spinach leaves (I used frozen spinach, that I thawed completely beforehand, and pressed all the water out of), add the water used to rehydrate the porcini mushrooms and cook until spinach is warm and tender. 
• add a dollop of sour cream on top, a little black pepper and salt to taste.
  NOTE: the smoked meat may be very salted, so be gentle with the salt!

• pour on top of cooked whole grain pasta (I used penne rigate).

29 November 2009

Enjoy!

Alsacian-like lemon and speculaas spices scented Christmas cookies

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday of the year. I just love everything that is remotely related to Christmas, the presents, mistletoe, holly, fragrant trees and decorations!

Inspired by an Austrian friend of mine, Bianca, I decided to bake Christmas cookies. Being french, I opted for an Alsacian recipe (lemon scented cookies); but because I have lived in the Netherlands for over five years now, I tweaked the recipe by adding Speculaas spices in the mix! Enjoy!

05 December 2009

Ingredients (makes about 15 cookies)

For the cookies:

• 250g flour
• 1/2 pack of baking powder
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp of Speculaas spices
  
• zest of 1 lemon, finely ground
• 1 egg yolk (use the white for the icing, see below)
• 2 tbsp of creme fraiche (thick cream)
• 100g butter, cubed 

For the icing:

• 125 g icing sugar
• 1 egg white
• 2 tbsp lemon juice 

Pre-warm the oven at 180°C.

Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add the sugar, spices, vanilla extract, salt, lemon zest, egg yolk and creme fraiche. Stir thoroughly, and incorporate the butter. Knead well; you should have a nice smooth dough (albeit a little crumbly).

Roll the dough on a flat surface, to a thickness of ~1/2 cm. With cookie-cutters (I used heart-, star-, flower-, tree- and angel-shaped ones), cut out the dough in as many cookies as you can. If there is leftover dough, make a ball out of it, and roll it down again until all the dough hass been cut out.

Place the cut-out dough on a baking paper sheet, and bake for ~15 minutes. Once cooked, let the cookies cool down completely before icing them.

When the cookies are cool, mix all the ingredients of the icing, until you obtain a thick white smooth paste. Ice your cookies with a spoon, using the back of the spoon to smooth the icing. Apply as many coats of sugar icing as you please (I used three coats). Let the icing dry completely before manipulating the cookies.

Happy Christmas!!!

 

Blanquette de veau à l'ancienne (old-fashioned french veal stew)

Cold weather makes me crave hearty, comforting food.

Lately, I've been trying to perfect a number of staple french dishes. Nothing like traditional stews, right?

My latest piece is a blanquette de veau à l'ancienne (translation: old-fashioned french veal stew).

INGREDIENTS (for 6 people):

- 1,2 kg cubed veal meat

- 2/3 big carrots

- 2 leeks (only the white part)

- 250g button mushrooms

- 1 large onion, stuck with 2 cloves

- 200g small onions ( I used spring onions)

- 60g butter

- 3 tbsp crème fraiche (thick cream is good too)

- 1 egg yolk

- 50g flour

- 1 bayleaf, 2 sprigs thyme

- juice of a lemon (to taste)

- salt

- 10 black pepper corns

RECIPE:

- Put the meat and the "cloved" onion in a large pan, and cover with cold water. Add some salt, and bring slowly to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes and remove the froth that will form at the surface.

- Meanwhile, peal the carrots, and cut them in big chunks. Wash the leeks, and tie them together with the bayleaf and thyme. Add everything to the boiling meat, as well as the 10 pepper corns. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

- Peel the small onions, and cook them for 10 minutes in salted boiling water.

- Clean the mushrooms, and cut them in half (or quarts, depending on the size). Sauté them in a pan with a little butter. Salt, and put aside.

- Strain the meat and vegetables, but filter and keep the broth. You will need 50cl of the broth to make the sauce, but put the rest inthe fridge; it will be useful when you want to heat up the leftovers.

 

- Melt the 60 g butter in a pan. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute on medium heat. Add the filtered broth progressively, stirring continously until the sauce is smooth. Cook for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. 

 

- Add the meat and vegetables to the sauce again (after removing the string from the leeks), and heat gently. 

- Just before serving, add the egg yolk to the crème fraiche, and stir the mixture into the dish.

- Serve with white rice, fresh pasta or boiled potatoes. My favorite is white rice.

- Bon appétit! ;)

Tomato soup and cheddar-Marmite twists

Malou asked me the recipe of my tomato soup and cheddar-Marmite twists.

As I mentioned in my past accomplishments post, the recipe I used came from the british cooking magazine BBC Goodfood.

I cannot take credit for the ingeniosity of this wonderful dish.

Here is the link to the original recipe.

Enjoy!