Football made it difficult to cook

I haven’t cook something nice for a while now. I blame the football because, despite the fact that I am actually not a crazy football fan, I have succeeded in seeing most of the games. And as we don’t have a TV, every time there’s a game, we end up in a bar or a pub, have an unhealthy dinner (burgers and fries and all these kinds of pub-food). At least when Turkey-Germany game was on, S and N asked us over for pasta and football – the best dish I had when watching the football.

So, all in all, I did not have time to cook dinner in the past weeks. Everything should change now, as today is the last game, which we are going to see in one of the German pubs. Hence, soon you’ll be able to find some new dishes and recipes from this site.

In the mean time I’ll tell you about a very nice restaurant in Brussels, where I ended up somewhere in between the football games. Como-Como is located in the center of Brussels and is just too cute to be true. The food comes to you – it moves on those lovely little plates from one table to another and you can just pick the snack you want, eat it and then reach for another delicious bite. The snacks look divine and it is pretty difficult to choose which one to try next. The pictures are pretty bad – as I only had my phone with me – but should give you an idea of this very cozy restaurant.

All the snacks are divided between themes – meat, veggie, sweet, garlic, etc. The colour of the plate tells you which snack it is carrying. Just take the plate, eat the snack, think “oh, this is scrumptious” and mumble something like “mmyummymm” and reach for another snack. I can guarantee – it is the same no matter which kind of snack you try. You will be charged by the number of the plates you have in front of you. The more you eat, the cheaper the price of a plate.

To tell you the truth, I was a bit of distrustful of this place. I mean, it sells bite-sized snacks – how can one eat a dinner there. And it looked like a place for cool and fancy people only, who go there, eat a snack or two, have some wine and talk about cool stuff. And as I don’t categorize myself as a cool person, more like an ordinary one, I thought it wasn’t the place for me. Boy was i wrong!

There were four of us when we walked into the restaurant. Of course it was full and I thought the waiter is going to show us the door. But no! He kindly told us that there are some people leaving in about 10 minutes, so if you are willing to wait in one of the bars next door, I can give you a call once the table is ready. Simple as that. I was impressed.

About 15 minutes later we were sitting there at the table, as promised, and started to choose our snacks. It was difficult. They looked so good and their taste…I had no idea that bite-sized snacks can taste as little pieces of heaven. I only tried about 5 snacks because I had a terrible toothache, but with four of us we ate about 25 snacks – or more. And each and every one of them was delicious! I highly recommend this place – its a bit pricey though – but its well worth it. The food, the ambiance, the service – 10 points.

I’ll go and do something useful now, before the football. I’m not sure yet which team to support, as my favourite was The Netherlands…So I don’t really care who wins, as long as it is an interesting game, with several goals, yellow cards and emotional players.

Warm pasta salad with basil and avocado

So, finally something that is not sweet for a change. One has to limit the amount of sweet dishes, after all, it is summer and going-to-the-beach time. That is why I decided to use avocados in the salad that I made, because this green little fruit is very useful for your health. Did you know that avocados help to lower cholesterol and regulate blood pressure and can even offer significant protection against breast cancer?

Firstly, some tips for you on how to choose a perfect avocado from the shop or in the market:

- A ripe, ready to eat avocado is slightly soft but should have no dark sunken spots or cracks.

- Choose the avocado which has a slight neck, rather than the one which is rounded on top. Slight neck means that it was probably tree ripened and will therefore have better flavor.

- If you are not planning to use the avocado right away, you might want to choose a firmer avocado. It will ripen in a paper bag or in a fruit basket at room temperature within a few days. It is not recommended to refrigerate avocados until they are ripe. Once ripe, they can be kept refrigerated for up to a week.

The recipe serves two:

• 150 g pasta (penne, rotini)
• 1 avocado
• 150 g chicken fillet, chopped
• handful of fresh basil leaves
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• handful of finely shredded Parmesan cheese
• olive oil

# Boil pasta in water seasoned with salt.

# Meanwhile fry the chicken in a frying pan and season with salt an pepper.

# Using your hands, shred basil leaves into small pieces.

# Peel and chop avocado and place in a salad bowl. Drizzle over with lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Add shredded basil leaves and mix everything together.

# Place cooked chicken pieces into the salad bowl on top of the avocado-mixture.

# Drain pasta and add some olive oil to it. Mix to coat the pasta with olive oil and place pasta in the salad bowl. Give everything a good toss and adjust seasoning, if necessary. You can add the Parmesan to the salad or just sprinkle the platefuls over with some of it – up to you. Serve when warm, as then you’ll feel and smell all the nice flavors dish easy salad has to offer.

I liked it a lot. At first I was afraid of the taste of warm avocado. Never had had it before, that is why…but it was all okay – and mainly because I used not so ripe avocado, which could keep its texture while warm.  And the taste! The tender avocado together with strong Parmesan cheese – perfect combination.

Jelled coconut, anyone?

Well, I don’t know. It was suppose to be a panna cotta – but as I haven’t managed to prepare a proper panna cotta yet (as you can read from here), I don’t even know how a proper panna cotta should look and taste like. This time I ended up with something in between a jelly and a panna cotta, maybe because I changed the original recipe quite a bit… But I liked it though. As for J, this was apparently not his cup of tea. So I don’t know. Should do it again one day and serve it to more than two persons to get their opinion.

For two big or four small panna cottas you will need:

300 ml coconut milk

200 ml whipping cream

2 gelatin sheets and water for soaking

0.5 tsp rum extract or 1 tbsp light rum

about 2-3 tbsp sugar (depending on the sweetness of the coconut milk) + additional 4 tbps  sugar for the caramel

 

#  In a dry heavy saucepan cook sugar over moderately low heat, stirring slowly with a fork (to help sugar melt evenly), until melted and pale golden. Cook caramel, without stirring, until deep golden.

# Coat bottoms of 2 big or 4 small molds or ramekins with caramel. Set aside.

# Place gelatin sheets into cold water to soften.

# In a large saucepan bring coconut milk just to a boil, stirring. Add sugar – a few tablespoons (I added 2), until the mix is sweet enough for you (keep in mind that the caramel sauce will give you extra sweetness). Remove pan from heat.

# Remove excess water from the gelatin sheets and add it to the hot coconut milk, stirring until dissolved. Also stir in rum extract.

# Whip the cream until stiff. Carefully stir into the coconut milk and let cool at room temperature for about 30 minutes up to 2 hours. Why – read more at the bottom of this post.

# When cooled, stir the mixture well and divide among molds or ramekins which you coated with caramel. Chill desserts until firm, at least 4 hours, and up to 2 days.

# To unmold panna cottas, dip molds or ramekins, 1 at a time, into a bowl of hot water for 3 seconds. Run a thin knife around edges and invert desserts onto a platter. The caramel has been liquefied and will give you a nice sweet syrupy sauce.

I suggest to hold some crushed caramel at hand to sprinkle it on top for a garnish with nice texture.

So there you go. I liked that it was very light and that there was no need to start preparing extra sauce – everything was done in one go. But maybe I would use less gelatin the next time, so that it would be a bit less firm and more like a real panna cotta.

All in all, I was happy with it and a bonus was that I was able to use up the leftover coconut milk which I had from preparing curry for dinner.

Im getting all excited about different foodblog events…already found a second one to participate – Suganya is currently hosting fruit of the month and – you guessed it -  this lucky fruit is…coconut!

Pepper crêpes

Another kind of pancakes. This time with filling which has seasoned with pepper. I agree with Evelin – lemon and pepper are a combination magnifico. If you don’t like dishes with a lot of pepper – just be careful with pepper and taste the filling before adding all the seasoning.

If you have a food processor, a blender or a hand mixer, you are lucky. With any of those gadgets you’ll be able to prepare this dish super quickly. No stirring and mixing with your hand, just pushing the button (off topic – I just love my blender). So anyways, I was even that lazy that used the blender to mix the crêpes’ batter. But you see – it was a weekend morning and I was terribly hungry. Excuses, excuses…

Anyway. For the crêpes, just use the kind of recipe you have used to use. I have yet to find my very special fool-proof recipe, so I keep testing every time. This wasn’t very bad actually, I got nice and thin crêpes, just the way I like them. And exactly the amount I was aiming for – 5 crêpes. So I just write it down for myself to remember.

1 large egg (about 60 g)

100 ml warm milk

2 tbsp melted butter

0.25 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

0.5 tsp cardamon

3 heaped tbsp flour

 

# Combine all the ingredients in a blender and process for about 30 seconds, until smooth. Chill for at least 30 minutes during which you can prepare the filling and the sauce.

 

For the filling I used 250 g of ricotta, which was maybe a bit too much for five crêpes. Maybe next time I would use 175-200 g max. But you never know, one can not forecast how hungry she will be the next time she’ll prepare those crêpes…But in any case, here’s the recipe I used:

 

250 g ricotta

3 tbsp honey

1 tbsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp grated lemon rind

 

# Extra simple to prepare with a gadget – just combine everything and blend to smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Don’t make it too sweet, because the sauce itself is already pretty sweet. The filling can be made ahead of time as well, just keep it in the fridge until serving.

For the sauce you’ll need:

a handful of redcurrants

50 ml water

1.5 tbsp sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp cold water

# In a medium saucepan, combine currants, water, sugar and ginger. Bring to boil.

# In a separate bowl mix water with cornstarch and add to the sauce. Boil for about 1 minute and remove from heat.

# I suggest to keep it in warm and bring to boil again just before serving.

# When all that is done, you should be ready to prepare the crêpes. Keep them warm until serving.

And now a bit about the serving. The way I did it was the following: when the last crêpe was on the frying pan, I placed the serving plates into the microwave oven for about 40 seconds, just to warm them up. You know, warm plates keep the dish warm as well.  

For rolling I used another plate: just placed a crêpe on a plate (which does not have to be warm as this will go quickly), spread about 2 tbsp of the filling to my side of the crêpe and started rolling, also from my side of the crêpe. If you place the filling in the centre, it is not that easy to get nice rolls. But I guess you know it already anyway. So, when you have the roll ready, place it to the warm serving plate. Do the same with all the other crêpes. Easy as that. As I had 5 crêpes, I halved the last roll. To be fair and equal.  

And then I poured the rolls over with the hot sauce. And served immediately, otherwise there is no point in warming the plates.

J had a few bites and then went to the kitchen, brought a banana and sliced it next to the the crêpes. A good idea. But I liked it even without the banana. Especially this lemony-peppery filling,  which, using Evelin’s words, leaves the mouth sighing warmly in the most pleasant way possible.

Yesterday I found out that Susan is planning to hold a tribute to pancakes, hosting a deliciously sounding “Pancakes on Parade“. I think my crêpes would fit in perfectly. This will be my first ever food blog event, whopee

Cheese pancakes

That’s right, cheese pancakes. Very nice for the weekend breakfast. You’ll end up with about 15 pancakes if you use the amounts below – a pretty nice pile. Too much for a breakfast for two people, but leftovers will  be a nice lunchtime snack at work the next day. Or as a breakfast the next morning. Tastes good when warm or cold. Here’s what you need:

3 eggs

0.5 tsp salt

250 ml milk

150 g flour

150 g grated cheese

oil or butter to fry

# Separate the eggs.

# Whip the egg yolks. Add milk, salt, flour and grated cheese and stir.

# Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold in into the egg yolks and cheese mixture.

# Fry small golden cakes in a frying pan.

# Serve with tomato and cucumber slices, or without any side dish. Pretty nice and filling either way.

I guess you can play around with the batter, by adding some chopped and fried bacon or some salami for example. For me cheese was enough. Salami and bacon don’t seem as something you can put inside a pan cake. You can make an omelet out of them – but certainly not a pancake.

By the way. According to Wikipedia, cheese is a pretty ancient food. Proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE (when sheep were first domesticated) to around 3000 BCE. The origin of the English word cheese appears to be the Latin caseus. Similar words are shared by other West Germanic languages — West Frisian tsiis, Dutch kaas, German Käse, Spanish queso, Portuguese queijo and Italian cacio.

I wonder, if people at that time knew how to make those tasty cheese pancakes?