Tasty snacks for dinner

If you fancy a light supper, then prepare some nice snacks. Home-made focaccia really is worth trying and will definitely impress the guest(s). Below you’ll find the recipe for focaccia that I made and also some of the other snacks I’ve tried over time and which have been favorites in the house. 

Focaccia

I combined these two recipes. Was quite pleased with the end result… but if you have any further tips to keep in mind when making focaccia, do let me know. 

350 g flour
200 ml warm water
50 ml extra virgin olive oil
7 g dry yeast
0.5 tsp salt

 

In case the yeast needs to be activated, stir together  lukewarm water and yeast in bowl and let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. (otherwise mix yeast with other dry ingredients and then add all the wet ingredients). 

Add activated yeast to flour, oil, and salt and mix with your hands until a dough forms. Knead dough until soft, smooth, and sticky, 3 to 4 minutes.

Then transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and turn it to coat with oil. Let rise, covered, at warm room temperature, until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. I was in a rush and placed the bowl to the oven (50 C), to speed up the rising. I doubt it is the proper way, but…worked well. 

When the dough has doubled, press it evenly into a generously oiled baking pan. Let it rise again, covered with a kitchen towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Then cover focaccia with some seasoning. I chose sea salt, black olives, fresh rosemary leaves and of course olive oil. Before drizzling the dough with olive oil, press the olives into the dough, making shallow indentation. Oil will then pool in indentations. Sprinkle sea salt evenly over focaccia and bake in middle of 200 degrees C oven until golden, about 30 minutes.

Serve warm!

 

Tomato-bruschettas

fresh baguette or ciabatta
a couple of tomatoes
chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper
olive oil
crushed garlic

 

Place tomatoes into hot water for a couple of minutes. Remove from water, peel the tomatoes and clean from the seeds. Chop the flesh. 

Mix tomatoes with basil, salt, pepper and garlic. If there are some garlic non-lovers among the guests, you might want to divide the mixture in two and add garlic to just one part of the mixture. But it’s better with garlic, that’s for sure. 

Slice the bread and brush each slice with olive oil. If you are a garlic lover, brush the slices with garlic as well. Then place the bread into oven (200 degrees C) for a couple of minutes, to achieve some crispness. Don’t over-bake though, you don’t want your bruschettas to be hard to bite. 

When the slices are out from the oven, cover them with  the tomato-basil mix and serve. 

 

Rice croquettes 

I first wanted to make Gorgonzola Bamboloni which I have already made once (see the picture here). But as I had some leftover rice in the fridge, I decided to look for a recipe where I could use it up. Gourmet site offered a recipe for rice croquettes which I liked, so I went for it (btw, you can find thousands of other delicious recipes there). 

It’s very simple and foolproof recipe, and you can play around with it any way you want: in addition to cheese and ham, you might want to add some chopped vegetables or your favorite seasoning (e.g. curry powder) to the rice. I had some mushrooms at hand, so I decided to chop them in the mix as well, together with the cheese and ham. You’ll get about 10 croquettes from the amounts showed below (depending on how big you’ll make them). 

250 g boiled rice
100 g chopped ham and the same amount grated cheese, also add a couple of chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoon grated Parmesan
2 eggs

oil and breadcrumbs 

 

Mix the rice with ham, cheeses (and mushrooms or other vegetables, if you are using them). Season with salt and pepper in case the rice was not seasoned before (feel free to add some other seasoning as well). Add one lightly beaten egg and mix.

Put remaining egg (lightly beaten) and bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls.

Heat 3-4 cm oil in a skillet over high heat.

Dampen your hands and form croquettes from the rice mixture. Lightly coat with egg, then with breadcrumbs. Prepare all the croquettes before you’ll start frying them.

Fry croquettes in hot oil about 3-4 minutes, turning occasionally. When golden, place them on kitchen paper towel and pat dry. Best when warm (not hot!). 

 

Asparagus with bacon

I guess this recipe need little introduction. Just wrap the bacon slices around asparagus and broil in the oven at 200 degrees C until the bacon is cooked. Don’t over-bake it though – the asparagus should remain crispy, then it is easier to eat the snack. 

Instead of bacon, you might want to try wrapping prosciutto or smoked salmon around asparagus – the end-result should be just as tasty! 

Delicious seafood snacks

I wanted to try something interesting from my new Gordon’s book. And I did. Me, who knows nothing about seafood, decided to try whether scallop and prawn brochettes are any good. And they were! According to the recipe, you should use king prawns and large scallops, but I had to go with the smaller variation of each. You know, financial crisis…

The picture is as it is - not very good - but I hope you’ll get the idea. After all, what matters is the taste and I can’t give you the taste through the WWW anyway.  So, to the point. I changed a bit the original recipe, but will give you both – the original and the way I did it. I assume that both variations are worth to give a try.

Serves four:

2-3 tbsp olive oil

spring of rosemary, leaves finely chopped

small handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped

juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

12 large scallops

12 king prawns

12 bamboo skewers

 

# At first, prepare the chili butter: mix 100 g warm butter (not melted, just warm) with 1.5 tsp coriander, 0.5 chopped chili pepper, salt and pepper. Put the butter into the fridge (inside a foil).

# Then soak the bamboo sewers in cold water. This will help them to prevent from burning too quickly during grilling. 

# Mix the olive oil, chopped herbs, lemon juice and zest together in a bowl and set aside. 

# Thread 2 scallops and 2 prawns alternatively on each skewer, then brush with the lemon and herb marinade.  Place the skewers on a tray, cover with cling film and chill for 20-30 minutes. 

# Prepare the barbecue or heat a griddle pan until hot. Season the scallops and prawns with some salt and pepper. Barbecue or griddle for 1 1/2-2 minutes on each side, basting occasionally with any leftover marinade, until the scallops and prawns are opaque and lightly charred. Remove to a serving plate and top with slices of the chili butter, serve immediately. 

The way I did it:

# I skipped the butter as I served the snacks cold.

# Prepared the marinade and placed scallops and prawns into different bowls, covered with marinade and chilled for a couple of hours.

# The prawns that I bought were already cooked, so I did not want to grill them at all. The scallops however needed  cooking (according to the package, I needed to heat an oiled pan and cook them for about 6 minutes), so I cooked the scallps and set them to cool.

# When the scallops are cooled, thread them together with prawns on toothpicks and serve!

The marinade is really good. Recently I only served marinated prawns for a starter and the comments were only positive.

Daring bakers: crackers and dipping sauce

I made it! Today, on the very last day of posting, I succeeded in preparing Daring Bakers’ this months’ challenge. It was relatively easy to make and the recipe is a definite keeper for future house parties – it is cheap, tasty, and you can play around with the seasoning as much as you like.

I just moved to a new apartment and found a measuring cup laying around on the cupboard….heavenly! No more counting the tablespoons (1 cup equals 16 tbsp, so you can imagine the extra work I have done so far when using a recipe which gives you ingredients in cups…). I am no more afraid of those recipes which feature 1/2 cup or 1/3 cup or even 2/3 cup of flour or sugar or any other ingredient…I am free now to use any recipe I want! Feels good

Now the recipe -  for 1 sheet of crackers you will need the following ingredients:

 1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) unbleached bread flour 

1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt

1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast

1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar

1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil

1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature

Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

# In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball.  You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

# Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter.  Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed.  Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

 

# Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

# Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter.  Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour.  Roll it out into a paper thin sheet. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes under a towel.  Line a sheet pan with baking parchment.  Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment.  If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors. 

 

# Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.  Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.)  Be careful with spices and salt – a little goes a long way. Especially with cumin seeds – I used too much of those, the flavour was way tooo strong.

# If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut squers, diamonds or rectangles in the dough.  You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking.  If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first. 

6.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

7.  When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.  You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve. 

 Serve with a salsa sauce of your liking. I used the following recipe – but if you are in a hurry, pick something more simple as this salsa actually took me longer to make than the crackers. Nevertheless, it tasted good:

 

   * juice of 1 lime
    * 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
    * 1/4 to 1/2 cup finely diced red onion
    * 1 Red Fresno and 1 Hot Yellow minced chile (seeds removed)
    * 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar,
    * 1/2 ripe sweet honeydew melon, cubed into bite-sized pieces
    * 4 small, ripe peaches, peeled and cubed into bite-sized pieces
    * salt and freshly ground black pepper
    * 1/3 cup minced fresh coriander, or coriander and mint combined

# In a medium bowl blend the lime juice, garlic, onion and chilies. Let stand 20 minutes.

# Blend in sugar and fruits with salt (a generous pinch) and pepper (to make piquant) to taste.

# Refrigerate up to 3 hours. Fold in fresh herbs just before serving.

This amount of salsa is of course too much for one sheet of crackers, but you can use it up for your dinner. Try the salsa with grilled seafoods and poultry, or over rice noodles. Is best eaten within several hours of preparation. Use organic ingredients if at all possible.

 

 

Salmon bites

Something simple and easy, a snack which I discovered in one of the cookbooks  I browsed  at the bookshop over the weekend. It was one of the only snack from about a 10 I tried to memorize  from the books and the only one I did remember entirely, when I got home. Am I getting old?

The snacks then. You should be able to eat them with your hand – at least it was said so in the cookbook, but mine came out a bit soft, so I served them from the small serving spoon.

1 big potato, peeled and grated

1 slice of smoked salmon (about 10×10 cm), sliced into 8 even pieces

sour cream

salt and pepper

lemon juice

 

# Mix grated potato with salt and pepper and shape the bowlful into 8 small cakes. Place them into the hot pan and fry until golden brown. I didn’t use any butter or oil (did not want the result to be too greasy), but it is up to you.

# Place cooled potato cakes onto a plate or serving spoons.

# Place half spoonful of sour cream on top of the small potato cakes. Top with salmon and sprinkle over with some lemon juice. Serve.

Nice snacks, something different for a while (prosciutto rolls, salmon bruschettas and bacon biteswere getting too usual and unoriginal after some time)! Don’t be afraid to overseason the potato cakes – it is better if they come out too salty rather than too bland. Mine were a bit too bland, so I needed to sprinkle them over with some extra salt…

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?