My Italian dream

It's been a while since I last posted here... certainly not because I lost interest in cooking, but rather because I changed my location to the land of pomodori and prosciutto - Italy. Now that I have settled there I shall start posting again :)

Italy, or to be more exact Tuscany, is a land of many culinary delights. My new challenge is to discover the secrets of Tuscan cuisine. Below are some pictures of a delicacies market on Piazza Republicca, Firenze held around once a month, selling all sorts of superb products (including the best mature pecorino I ever ate coming from Pienza):

and some shops in Bologna:

 

Creamy countrystyle chicken with white wine

Sometimes the simplest ingredients can lead to a wonderful dish (either that or perhaps I'm a girl of simple tastes). This is exactly what happened here. I got an inspiration from a movie - it's not an exact copy of the dish they made there, but I wonder whether you can guess which movie it was? Hint: "three medium carrots"

You'll need:
1 chicken breast
3 medium carrots
30dag mushrooms
125 ml double cream
1/2 glass of white wine
rosemary
salt & pepper
2 spoons of oil

 1.Peel the carrots and cut them into slices.
 2. Peel the mushrooms and cut them into quarters.
 3. Transfer the carrots and mushrooms into an oven dish.
 4. Add salted and peppered pieces of chicken breast on top.
 5. Sprinkle everything with rosemary (be generous).
 6. Add the oil. Don't add too much, you don't want the sauce to be too oily.
 7. Pour cream over it all and add the wine.
 8. Put in the oven set for 200 degrees for about 30-40 minutes (the exact time depends on the size of  chicken breast  pieces), et voila!

Bon appétit!

My favourite potato salad

For this recipe you'll need sour cucumbers. They look similar to gherkins, but they taste differently. It's a traditional Polish product that can be bought in most Polish shops in the UK

You'll need:
4-5 medium potatoes
3 sour cucumbers
75g ham
1 egg
fresh parsley
3 spoons of mayonaise
1 spoon mustard
salt & black pepper

1. Peel and slice the potatoes. Boil them in salted water.
2. Hard-boil the egg. When ready cut it into pieces.
3. Cut the ham into small cubes. Do the same with the cucumbers.
4. Mix the mayo with mustard and add some salt and pepper to the mixture. Be generous with the pepper.
5. Wait until the potatoes cool down before mixing all of the ingredients together. Sprinkle with fresh parsley on top, et voila!

Bon appétit!

Asparagus and leek cream soup

Yet another way to enjoy the delicate taste of asparagus!

You'll need:
10 green asparagus shoots
1 medium leek
1/2 medium size onion
5 medium size potatoes
thyme
0,5l bouilion (it's ok to use a vegetable cube)
sour cream
croutons
salt & pepper
olive oil

1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes. Carefully clean the leek and cut it into thin slices. Chop the onions.
2. Fry the onions, potatoes and leek on olive oil with thyme for about 5 minutes in a deep pan/thick bottom pot. Add some salt and pepper for taste.
3. Add bouilion and boil for another 10-15 minutes until soft. 3 minutes before it's ready add the asparagus (cut into 3-4cm bits).
4. Remove the asparagus heads for decoration.
5.Wait until the soup cools down and then blend it.
6. Warm it up again and transfer into a bowl.
7. Decorate with sour cream, asparagus heads and croutons, et voila!

Bon appétit!

PS. This soup also tastes very good if served with chicken.

Asparagus and prawns linguine

With the season for asparagus slowly coming to an end, it's the last chance to enjoy this delicate vegetable. It's important for asparagus to be very fresh to be tasty. To check if it is, just rub two stems against each other, they should make a squeaky sound. The real secret of this recipe though is tasty extra virgin olive oil and the freshly hot 'marinade' it makes part of.

For this recipe you'll need:
4 green asparagus shoots, cut into bite-size bits
100g king prawns
50g mozarella, sliced
50g freshly grated pecorino cheese (or other hard cheese, eg. grana padano or parmesan)
1 lime
5 spoons of olive oil
crushed dried chili
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
a handful of linguine (or spaghetti)

1. Boil the linguine in salted water. In the meantime prepare the 'marinade'. Zest the lime. Mix the olive oil, juice from half the lime, lime zest, garlic and crushed chili. Add a pinch of salt.
2. 3 minutes before the pasta is ready add the asparagus into the boiling water.
3. Warm up the 'marinade' on a pan. Once it's hot, add the pasta together with the asparagus and prawns. Fry for 2-3 minutes while stirring so that the flavours mix. Add half the pecorino cheese towards the end of the frying.
4. Transfer the contents of the pan onto a plate. Add mozarella slices on top. Sprinkle everything with pecorino, et voila!

Bon appétit!

PS. Did you know that asparagus belongs to the lily family?

Pear and cranberries salad

It's time for a veggie and diet friendly recipe :) Something light to welcome springtime

You'll need:
A salad mix
one pear (any kind, I used a turkish pear)
a handfull of dried cranberries
50-70g blue cheese (crumbled)
5 spoons of olive oil
2 spoons of red wine vinegar

All you need to do is cut the pear into small cubes and mix all the ingredients together. It takes next to no time. The vinegrette sauce for this salad is very simple, it's just a mix of olive oil and vinegar - a classic vinegrette sauce would also have mustard, but it would not fit here. There is no need to add salt as blue cheese is already salty.

Bon appétit!

Andy's green "carbonara"

This is my uncle's recipe for what he calls carbonara. While it is obviously not an Italian carbonara, it's still delicious.

 

You'll need:

Pasta (tagliatelle works very well)

small chicken breast 

4 slices of bacon

mushrooms 

green olives (add black olives too if you have some, they will contrast nicely with the green colour of the dish)

1 1/2 spoons of basil pesto

250 ml of sour cream

hard cheese (parmesan or grana padano) 

tarragon

While the pasta is boiling, cut the chicken into cubes and fry it with tarragon adding also some salt & pepper for taste. Cut the bacon into small slices and add to the chicken. Peel and slice the mushrooms and also add to the pan and fry for two more minutes. Remove from the hob and add the olives, cream, basil pesto and stir. Add hot pasta and put back on the hob for another 30 seconds. It's best when left for 10 minutes before serving (and possibly reheating) as it ensures that the sauce sticks well to the pasta. Add freshly grated cheese on top, et voila!

Bon appétit!

Mustard coated coley fillet with sweet potatoes

 

 White wine adds an extra twist to this recipe. Sweet potatoes are especially good when baked with wine :)

You'll need:
One coley fillet
mustard (I recommend one of the more spicy types)
sweet potato
3 garlic cloves
half a glass of white wine
fresh coriander leaves
lemon
sour cream (optional)
chilli powder (optional)

1. Peel and cut into cubes the sweet potato. Boil it in salted water until it's nearly ready. It will go into the oven next, so no need for it to be completely soft.
2. In the meantime, finely chop the garlic and coriander leaves.
3. Put the fillet in an oven dish, sprinkle with lemon, cover with 1/3 of the garlic and mustard. Add some coriander on top.
4. Put the sweet potato cubes in the oven dish next to the fillet. Sprinkle with garlic.
5. Put the dish in the oven set to 200 degrees for about 20 minutes. Halfway through the roasting process add the wine.
6. Once ready sprinkle the potato cubes with some more coriander.
6. Serve with sour cream with chilli powder on the side.

Bon appétit!

Christmas specials: beetroot fish salad

This might sound like an unusual combination of flavours, but it is actually really good. The ingredients might be slightly difficult to buy outside Poland.

You'll need:
2 sour cucumbers (one of Polish regional specialties, it's different from gherkins. My grandma makes them herself so we use our own rather than bought ones- perhaps I will reveal the recipe one day ;))
2-3 salted herring fillets
1/2 can of white beans
3 cooked beetroots
2-3 spoons of mayonaisse
salt and pepper for taste

Salted herring fillets are widely available in Poland, but might be a little bit more dfficult to obtain elsewhere. It's basicly raw fish put in salted water for taste and preservation. When you buy them, they are a bit too salty to use straight away. So, you need to put them in cold! water  (it has to be cold, if you put them in hot or warm water they will become hard) for a few hours. You'll need to change water from time to time. The number of times and the time depend on how salty the fillets are to start with. The idea is for them to be only slightly salty at the end of the process.

Once they are ready, cut them into small cubes and put them in a bowl. Cut the cucumbers into small cubes as well. Add to the bowl. Add the beans. Grate the beetroots on a cheese grate and similarly add to the bowl. Add the mayonaisse, a pinch of salt and pepper for taste and mix it all together, et voila!

Bon appétit!

Christmas specials: breaded mushroom 'hats'

Finally it arrived. Christmas. The season to be jolly. Together with all the goodies I've been waiting for all year.

I decided to share some of my family Xmas recipies with you. In Poland the biggest celebration is Christmas eve. On that occassion we traditionally prepare a supper consisting of twelve dishes, none of which contains meat. The exact dishes vary from house to house and from region to region. For this reason in my house we now have fifteen dishes - we couln't agree on the dishes following the joinder of different family traditions.

I will start with one of the easiest elements of our Christmas eve supper: breaded wild mushroom caps.

Wild mushrooms can be seen as a rare delicacy in Western Europe, but back home we collect the mushrooms ourselves (it can be considered a national hobby back in Poland) so we always have lots in strorage. For this recipe you need to select only the finest caps.

You'll need:
dried wild mushroom caps
one egg
breadcrumbs
black pepper

First you need to put the mushrroms in the hot water for around two hours so that they become soft. Then you break the egg into a plate, mix it with a fork and add some pepper to it. You put the mushroom caps first in the egg mix and then coat it in breadcrumbs, just like when making a schnitzel. Then you fry them on a hot pan, et voila! Your first Christmas dish is ready. Bon appétit!

bubbly banana coctail

Simplicity at its best.

You'll need:
one banana
a glass of milk
1/2 lemon
3 tea spoons of sugar
1 spoon of cream (optional)

Cut the banana and put in a container, squeze in the lemon (be careful not to let any pip in) add milk and sugar and blend! Bon Appetit!

Wherever my thoughts will lead me...

I got on the train back from work intending to buy ingredients for chili con carne, but then I started thinking...and came up with the above. This new invention of mine does not have its own name yet... it's mince lamb with chick peas, bromley apple sauce and cheddar with a hint of oregano. Bromley apples are very sour, so the end result is very unconventional, but it will surely appear on my menu again! I prepared it all on the pan, but I think it could benefit from a few minutes in the oven ;). Can be served with rice, but today I ate it with a recent discovery from a local Turkish shop - Iranian flat bread, yum!

 Bon appétit!

A variation on countryside style savoury tart

Remember my Countryside style savoury tart? Like I said tarts come in all shapes and sizes... This one is almost identical, but this time I added mushrooms and omitted olives and parsley.

Bon appétit!

Mint zucchini soup

Coming back in big style with something vegetarian for a change!! This is a slightly modified recipe from kwestiasmaku.com. A great combination of flavours. I liked it so much, that I made it four times in a row.

You'll need:
3 or 4 medium size potatoes
1 medium zucchini
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 glass of boulion (can be replaced by a cube)
a handfull of freshmint leaves
balkan/natural yoghurt
pepper
butter and oil
bread to toast

1. Chop the onions and garlic. Peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes. Cut the zucchini into similar size cubes. Everything will be blended in the end so no need to be too careful about sizes.
2. Take a pot with a thick den. Put some butter in and let it melt. Add some oil and fry the onion until its nice and golden. When it's nearly ready, add garlic. I didn't add the garlic at the beginning, because if it is fried for too long it turns bitter. Allow it to fry for 30 seconds or so, and then add the potatoes and zucchini.
3. After two minutes start adding boulion.
4. Let it simmer until the potatoes are ready.
5. Chop the mint leaves. Leave a few for decoration.
6. Add the mint to the soup around 2 minutes before it's ready.
7. Leave the soup to cool down and then blend it (a blender looses its sharpness if used for blending hot stuff).
8. Once the soup is mixed into a cream form, warm it up again and transfer into a bowl. Add some yoghurt and bread toasts, et voila!

Bon appétit!

Haddock pasta bake

Next episode in the fish saga. Using smoked yellow haddock again. Definitely not for those on a diet ;) wonderfully spicy.

You'll need:
smoked haddock
sour cream
mature cheddar
penne
pepper cayenne
ground coriander
fresh coriander leafs
black pepper

Boil the pasta. Grate some cheddar, cut the haddock into small bits. When the pasta is ready, transfer half of it into a casserole, sprinkle with pepper cayenne, ground coriander and black pepper. Be careful, pepper cayenne is very spicy, so don't add too much. Add the haddock bits on top. Add some grated cheddar and half of the coriander.

Pour a few spoonfulls of sour cream over it. Add the second half of the pasta. Add some more spices as required and a few more spoonfulls of sour cream. Add grated cheddar on top and sprinkle with the rest of the coriander. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, et voila!

Bon appétit!