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.

Sushi lovers, start saving

Prices rise every day. People talk about food crisis and fuel crisis and about the need to save money. Some of course don’t care about the food crises and pour milk on the ground, thinking it will make their life better. I don’t know if I agree with this kind of problem-solving technique…but I guess people more or less agree that you need to save money for the future. Especially, if you like sushi.

Yesterday’s Financial Times announces that in the near future the price of a good quality tuna fish will rise oh-so-high and for that reason sushi (sashimi especially) might end up being something that only very rich and powerful people can afford. So why do its prices rise? It is not about the global warming. Not directly, anyway. It is about the very same fuel crises we are having. You see, fisherman in Japan are doing an excellent job in catching the most delicate tuna fish (using hooks instead of nets to minimise damage to the fish and leave it suitable for serving raw) and somehow this tasty fish needs to be transported to other countries (which might be far far away). Transport needs fuel and fuel costs money. Much money. And therefore the price of the fish goes all the way up.

Well, that is not just fair, is it? Because of some stupid fuel crises I, as a simple ordinary tax paying citizen, can not enjoy good quality sushi, as it will have a price tag of a Porsche (ok, maybe I am exaggerating, but still, you get the picture).

Fishermen held a strike yesterday in Brussels as well - not because of sushi though - but because of the very same super-high fuel prices. According to the footage that was one hell of a strike. Flags were burnt and all…Serious stuff, I say.

So, to be ready for the sushi-crisis, I stored up with some cheap nori sheets and sushi rice which I got from the local Chinese supermarket (rice price is also threatening to go up by the way). I can’t stock fish though…or can I? Any suggestions? 

Something light and tasty from Italy

For me, panna cotta has always been something jelly-like, something…a bit boring I would say. I have never ordered it in a restaurant and I have never tried to prepare it. Prejudices I guess. And I don’t know where they came from. So, what made me to rethink my prejudices. Nami-nami called for cooking panna cottas together, and when many members showed their nice desserts and raved about its taste, I decided to try. I mean, it is literally cooked cream, what is there to jump about? It has history, okay. As you know, panna cotta comes from Italy. Traditionally the cream is very slowly cooked until reduced by 1/4-1/3. Then you should add gelatin. As you want it to be more creamy and soft than a regular jelly, you shouldn’t use a lot of it. 2 sheets for 500 ml of cream should give you the best result. So, prepare gelatin, stir it into the cream, pour the mixture it into dessert bowls and let cool in the fridge. Seems like an easy task, right?

Guess again. Mine did not come out that nice. The first one I made tasted like strawberries as it was suppose to, was creamy and all, but something wasn’t right. I think it didn’t looked as good as I wasexpecting. And I blame my ramekins, because it was oh so hard to get the panna cottasout of them. As if they decided to be stuck in the ramekins and laughed at my face when I tried my hardest to get them out. And also, I guess I should have pour the strawberry puree through strainer like the recipe suggested, to get rid of the seeds. It would have made the panna cotta more tasty.

Here’s the recipe:

400 g strawberries

200 ml milk
200 ml whipping cream
4 tbsp sugar
2 sheets gelatin
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp honey

 

# Puree 250 g strawberries in processor until smooth. Pour puree through strainer, pressing with rubber spatula to extract as much puree as possible; reserve strained puree and discard seeds.

# Whisk milk, whipping cream and sugar in a heavy saucepan. 

# Soak gelatin sheets in cold water, let stand until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Drain the excess water and place the gelatin into the cream-and-milk mixture.

# Whisk mixture constantly over very low heat just until gelatin dissolves and mixture is lukewarm, about 3 minutes (do not boil). Remove from heat.

# Whisk in pureed strawberries and vanilla extract. Divide mixture among six small or four big ramekins or custard cups. Refrigerate until panna cotta is set. 

For the sauce, I sliced some strawberries with the egg cutter (very useful invention) and placed them into a small bowl. Added some liquid honey and let it set at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

When ready to serve, run small sharp knife between panna cotta and ramekins  to loosen. Dip bottom of ramekins into bowl of hot water for a few secons. Invert each panna cotta onto plate, shaking gently to unmold. Spoon strawberry-honey mixture over and serve.

So what went wrong. Nothing much I think, only that I used very stupid ramekins and it was very difficult to get the panna cotta out. The recipe suggested to hold the bottom of the ramenkins in hot water for 30 sekonds and that’s what I did. Way too long of course, because the panna cotta started melting, as you can see from the picture. Stupid me.

The second time I used different kind of bowls which I got through a lucky chance. You see, there were some sunny days in Belgium. Heaven. And we went to the seaside and enjoyed the kite show. Of course one has to buy some ice cream at the seaside and that’s what we did. They sold the ice cream in plastic cups. Not very environmental friendly, huh? People coming, buying two balls of ice cream, then throwing the cups somewhere near the trash cans, and after an hour going to buy another bowl. What I did, was that I brought the cups home with me. Perfect for panna cottas, I thought. Actually, not that perfect because they were rather big…but at the same time it was super easy to get the panna cottas out of them, no need to dip it into hot water, they just slided out perfectly.

I tried this recipe:

500 ml single cream (I used 20% fat)

5 tbsp icing sugar

100 g white chocolate, chopped

50 ml water

2.5 gelatin sheets

2 perfectly ripe peaches

 

The original version suggest to place thin apricot slices into the bottom. I used canned apricots and somehow couldn’t cut the right sized slices and decided to fill the bottom of the dish with small apricot cubes. What and excellent idea I thought and congratulated myself in my mind. But it was all wrong. After I poured the cream over perfectly placed apricots, the apricots decided to arise on top. Very unevenly. You can imagine the look in my face. So much for panna cotta. It is going to be an apricot jelly.

So, I don’t know, you can try placing apricot slices into the bottom of the dishes and see how it comes out. And let me know. Now to the cream:

# Place the icing sugar and the cream in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until slightly reduced.

# Add the white chocolate, and stir until smooth.

# Meanwhile, soak the gelatin sheets in cold water. Drain and place them into 50 ml hot water and stir until gelatin dissolves. Add carefully to the cream mixture. Simmer for a minute.

# Pour the panna cotta mixture over the peaches, and place in fridge until set. When it’s time to serve, loosen the edges and invert the molds over a plate.

For the sauce I placedchopped apricots and some raisins into a saucepan. Drizzled some honey on top and simmered for a couple of minutes. Cooled and served with set panna cotta (or whatever this dish is called).

After those adventures I found this page which gives you some tips on how to do a perfect panna cotta. Of course you only find the best sites and best information AFTER you think you have tried everything. But at least the next time I am smarter. And maybe it helps some of you as well.

First of all - use sheet gelatin. The quality of the granulated gelatin varies but is usually lower than the quality of the gelatin sheets. The powder can contain a high amount of broken protein which means they will create uneven stronger and weaker gels. So, with the powder, you might end up with a panna cotta which is soft on one side and firm on the other side. You shouldn’t have this problem with the sheet gelatin. Plain and simple, the powder gelatin is inconsistent.

Secondly, once you have stirred the dissolved gelatin into the cream, you should let it cool until at least room temperature, for about 1-2 hours. If you place the warm cream into dessert dishes and immediately into the fridge, the protein chains bond to each other immediately, and randomly, causing bulky and weak cross sections. With these weak bonds, the gelatin will progressively continue to firm over a period of time, thus the texture you gained the first day will be softer than the texture you have in 3 days. For example, you’ll make 3 bowls of panna cotta and place them into the fridge, immediately. And for the next three days you’ll eat one dish every evening. The one you’ll eat at the end, is the most firm. But ideally you would like your panna cotta to taste the same regardless of how many days it has been in the fridge, right? By cooling the gelatin slowly, at room temperature, the proteins are allowed to mingle with each other, forming a tighter and more structured bonds and as a result you’ll have a panna cotta which will taste the same tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

This post was actually very informative for me, so I suggest you to read it in case you are interested in perfecting your panna cotta. First thing to notice - it takes hours to prepare a perfect panna cotta. Not at all that easy as I thought at the beginning!

Eating sushi according to the rules

The pictures relieve that sushi has been prepared in my kitchen again. This time I was more in the “taking photos” team, while my good friend Becca prepared most of the sushi. And she did great, as you can see from the pictures!

Sometime in between preparing and enjoying the sushi rolls I started to think about the history and roots of sushi and I came to an understanding, that I know only a little. Only that sushi is delicious, probably originates from Japan, is eaten with sticks and can be accompanied by sake. I figured it is time to find out if my assumptios are correct. And I did. Lucky me that I hadn’t start small talk about the rules and manners of eating sushi, cause based on the knowledge mentioned above, I would’ve seemed very dumb.

Firstly, I discovered that sushi originates from China, where what was to become sushi was first mentioned in the second century A.D. Originally, sushi was a way of preserving food. Fish was placed in rice and allowed to ferment, which allowed an individual to keep the fish edible for some time. The fish was eaten when needed and the rice was thrown away (what a waste!!).

The method spread throughout China and six centuries later made its way to Japan. The Japanese, however, took the concept further and began to eat the rice with the fish. Very smart of them, I would say.

The kind of sushi we eat today “developed” in the early 19th century by Hanaya Yohei who placed a piece of fresh fish on top of an oblong shaped piece of seasoned rice. Today, we call this style nigiri sushi. Sushi was served as a quick snack from sushi stalls on the street. It became wildly popular. After World War Two, the sushi stalls were shut down and moved indoors, to more sanitary conditions.

Sushifaq also tells me that not long ago, a sushi chef (itamae) had to undergo ten years of training before working in a restaurant. Today, demand for sushi chefs is so high that many start work after only two years of training. I wonder if the quality of sushi has therefore gone down? I don’t know.

Apparently there are many rules you should follow if you want to have a perfect sushi experience, such as:

> Don’t put wasabi directly in the soy sauce. Nigiri-sushi comes with wasabi placed under the fish by the itamae, and reflects what he feels is the proper balance of wasabi to fish. In case you like a little more, sneak some separately on the fish or with it.

> Pick up the nigiri-sushi and dip the fish into your soy sauce, not the rice (which will soak up too much soy sauce). The rice is like a sponge, and too much soy sauce will overpower the taste of the food. It could also lead to the rice falling into the soy sauce and making soup - a mess in one word.

> Technically you shouldn’t drink sake with sushi (or rice in general), only with sashimi or before or after the meal. It is felt that since they are both rice based, they do not complement each other and therefore should not be consumed together. Its like having sandwhich with bread. Green tea is a great option with sushi or sashimi.

> If you are having soup and are not given a spoon for your soup, do not ask for one. You are expected to pick up your bowl to drink the soup, using your chopsticks to direct the solid pieces to your mouth. And slurping is fine!

The list of rules continues. You can have a look at sushifaq. I feel much more knowledgeable now. Still, I wonder if everyone follow those rules? And can they be punished if they are not? After all, the most important thing is to enjoy the dish not to worry if you are doing everything according to the rules…right?