With the help of our enthusiastic parents, we put these few hours to good use during the day finishing up work in the garden, kinda long pending list of activities, all of which had to be done before it began raining again.

So it was great to unwind and relax at the end of the day with a glass of wine, taking in the gorgeous view of the valley in front of our little country home while the bbq was slowly cooking our food for us.

Our makeshift barbecue

For the main meal, along with a set of sausages and already prepared turkey skewers,  I marinated some pork escalopes in a spice-herb mixture.

A couple of side dishes were made to go with the meat – a salad of mixed leaves, radish and tomatoes with a mustard-syrup dressing, asparagus with a coriander cumin seasoning and some herb and chilli butter to serve as condiments with the bread.

The rain drove us indoors before we could savour the last bits of the meal but it let us clean up before the drizzle stopped and we went out again to have our dessert of chocolate mousse. We’d started the meal outdoors and wanted to finish it there too!

I´ve shared below my recipes for the marinade and the other sides and condiments.

The dessert was made by following a recipe from Saveur that can be found here. I modified it slightly by adding some madeira to the mix. I also sprinkled some cocoa powder and served it with sponge fingers.

Marinade for Pork Escalopes (this was sufficient for 5 medium sized escalopes)

a good few tablespoonfuls of olive oil

1 heaped tsp paprika powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp dried oregano

2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

the juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and use it to coat the meat. Leave it covered and refrigerated until it’s ready to be cooked.

Coriander Cumin Asparagus

Ingredients (Serves 4)

500g asparagus

a medium sized knob of butter

1 heaped tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

5-6 small shallots, peeled and cut in half

salt and pepper

Method

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Drop in the asparagus and blanch for about 5 minutes. Have a basin of cold water ready and transfer the blanched asparagus into the cold water to refresh it. Remove and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper to absorb the excess water.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Add the coriander and cumin seeds. Let the seeds colour and toast for a minute or two. Add the shallots and fry them until nice and brown. Add the asparagus to the pan. Coat it with the contents of the frying pan. Season with salt and pepper.  Serve warm.

Radish, Tomato & Greens Salad with Sweet Mustard Dressing

Ingredients (Serves 4)

a bunch of fresh radish washed and cut into thin round slices

a handful of cherry or similar small tomatoes cut into halves

a couple of large handfuls of mixed greens such as rocket and watercress – I also added some of the radish greens to add an extra sharp flavour

For the dressing

a tsp of whole grain mustard

2 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tsp honey or maple syrup or similar (I used agave syrup)

a dash of salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients for the salad in a large salad bowl and set aside until ready to serve.

Mix together all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. Adjust the quantity of ingredients as per taste and keep aside until ready to dress the salad just before serving.

Herb Butter

Take a few sprigs of fresh thyme and sage, remove leaves removed and finely chop them. Mix this through about 125g butter or good quality spread and season with salt to taste.

You may also add some crushed garlic for garlicky herb butter.

Store in the fridge until ready to use.

Spicy Chilli Butter

Add a finely chopped shallot, couple of pinches of dry chilli flakes, half a teaspoon of paprika powder and dried oregano or mixed herbs to about 125g butter or spread. Season with salt and mix through.

Refrigerate until ready to use.

It was a great evening and even the rain did not dampen our spirits. We´re really looking forward to more pleasant, long barbecue smoke filled evenings and I´m looking forward to trying out more new recipes and sharing it here!

India is a large country with very distinct cultures and cuisines in its different regions. This means that I still follow recipes once in a while when I feel like doing something different. A few days ago, when there was a request to make an Indian dinner for some family guests, I turned to the internet to look up some inspiration. What I found was a lovely recipe for ‘gosht dopiaza’ or meat with lots of onions – a very popular dish back home in restaurants. I thought I’d give it a try, of course, with heavy customisation. Once you’re comfortable making a curry of any sort, customising recipes to suit your tastes and what’s available becomes second nature.

It turned out to be a beautiful dish, delicately spiced with an onion-rich sauce and very tender meat. So I tried it again just for the two of us one evening last week when the weather was real gloomy and dark rain clouds were looming large in the sky. Just the kind of day when a warm bowl of curry with some home made naan (on which I hope to do a post some day) is urgently required.

A rain soaked world with grey skies

The original recipe can be found at the Saveur website. I added/deleted a few ingredients and scaled it down this time round to serve two.

Indian Lamb Curry (adapted from an original ‘Gosht Dopiaza’ recipe from Saveur.com)

Ingredients (Serves 2 generously)

1 tsp paprika

1.5 tsp garam masala powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

4-5 cloves of garlic finely minced

a small piece of ginger finely minced

125g thick yoghurt

about 300g meat cut into cubes – this weight is inclusive of a piece of bone; you can substitute lamb with any other meat too

a big knob of butter

2-3tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 stick cinnamon

2 black cardamoms – can substitute with green cardamoms as per the original recipe

2 medium onions finely sliced

1 400g tin crushed/chopped tomatoes – you can make do with half the tin but I used the whole lot for the extra liquid and tomato juices

7-8 small shallots peeled and the larger ones cut in half

some chopped fresh coriander leaves for garnish (optional)

Method

The first step is to marinate the meat. In a large bowl, mix together the paprika, garam masala powder, turmeric powder, garlic, ginger and yoghurt with the meat. Leave covered to marinate for at least an hour or two if not longer.

Heat a heavy based casserole dish. Add the butter and oil. Add the cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon stick and black cardamom.  Let these cook for a minute or two. Then add the onions and saute until it’s soft. Add the marinated meat along with all of the marinade to the casserole. Add the tinned tomatoes. Add about a cup of water or enough to cover the meat completely. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium, cover and cook for an hour to an hour and a half until the meat is real tender and the sauce has thickened. Do keep checking and stirring the sauce once in a while.

Just towards the end of cooking time, heat some butter in a separate frying pan and fry the shallots in them until they caramelise with a nice brown colour. Add these to the casserole.

When the dish is ready, check for seasoning and add more salt if required. Garnish with the coriander leaves if you have them and serve with naan, roti and/or rice.

This curry takes a little while to get ready but the end results are well worth the effort. Cooking with Indian spices can seem daunting at the beginning, but once you play around with them a few times, it becomes easier to customise tastes to your own liking. This particular curry is a great crowd pleaser. It also gives you a good opportunity to experiment with those exotic spices you have always had in your kitchen and did not know what to do with them. So next time you have friends or family over, give it a go!

While I do have a recipe for chocolate madeleines from the school, I followed a different one this time round. Not entirely sure why I did that, I think I just wanted to see if other recipes are as good enough as the real deal. I found one at the BBC GoodFood website and tried it out. I think the main drawback with that recipe was the fact that it has no real chocolate in it, only cocoa powder which doesn’t leave you entirely satisfied. The madeleines also felt a bit dense and the texture was not as crumbly as desired.

Madeleines Attempt 1 vs Attempt 2 – the texture is visibly different

So I decided to add some good old chocolate to this recipe and see how it turns out. I also replaced the plain flour with ‘cake flour’  or farine à gâteaux that you get readily here in the supermarket. The end result was what we were looking for the first time round – moist, light and crumbly, chocolatey madeleines with a crisp border. Just perfect.

Dark Chocolate Madeleines (adapted from the BBC GoodFood recipe found here)

Ingredients – Makes 12

80g plain flour or cake flour

20g ground almonds

1/2 tsp baking powder

2tbsp cocoa powder

75g castor sugar

2 eggs

a few drops of vanilla extract/essence

90g melted butter

75g melted dark chocolate – I used one with just over 50% cacao

Method

Sift the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and cocoa powder together. In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs, preferably with an electric whisk, until it’s pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract/essence. Fold through the flour mixture slowly in stages. Add in the melted butter and chocolate and mix everything together.

Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate for about half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200C (conventional). Butter a 12-hole madeleine tin and dust it with some flour, shaking off any excess flour. Take the batter out of the fridge. Scoop tablespoonfuls of it and fill the holes of the tin.

Place the tin in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes or until the tops of the cakes are springy to the touch.

Once done, remove tin from oven, remove madeleines from the mould. Serve warm or cool sprinkled with cocoa powder or icing sugar.

These lovely little cakes are easy to put together, can carry any flavour and are ready in a jiffy – what more could you ask for!

The only meat we had was a fillet of pork and a cucumber was the only vegetable left in the fridge. The decision was made to grill the meat and make a salad using the cucumber. But then, what do we eat it with? There was no bread  in the house and that was how I went about trying my hand at home made pita bread once again.

I looked online for easy recipes and found a reliable here. The only addition I made were some dried herbs to give the bread some extra flavour. Although it does require a bit of time, as any bread making process does, I found it to be a relatively fuss free procedure and we were very happy with the fluffy, crisp breads that came out of the oven. They were much better than store bought ones which tend to be on the heavier, stodgier side for some reason.

The grilled meat and tzatziki I made are quite simple too and don’t require too much of your attention.

All in all, a lovely light yet gratifying meal for a rainy evening.

Herbed Pita Bread

Ingredients

300g plain flour

2 tsp instant yeast

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried thyme or a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves removed

2 tbsp olive oil

about 190-200ml water

Method

Mix all the ingredients except water in a large bowl. Add the water, a little at a time, to make it all come together. Knead the dough by hand or using a mixer until it becomes smooth and elastic. It takes about 10 minutes if you’re doing it manually. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a piece of lightly oiled clingfilm and leave it to rise. This takes about an hour depending on the temperature in your kitchen.

Once doubled in size, scrap the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into balls. Roll one ball into a small circle or oblong shape with roughly the same thickness all around. Place this on a baking sheet. Once the baking sheet has as many rolled out pitas as it can hold, leave it aside, uncovered, while you preheat the oven to 250C (conventional). As you’re rolling out each piece of dough, keep the rest covered with a tea towel.

Once the oven is hot enough, place the baking sheet on the lowest rack. Bake the bread for 5 minutes or until they puff up. Then transfer them to the middle of the oven so they can get nice brown spots on the top.

Remove from oven and place wrapped in a tea towel or piece of foil in a plate. Repeat with all the pieces of rolled out dough.

I got 6 pitas out of this recipe. Enough to last the two of us for two meals.

Grilled Pork

Ingredients (Serves 2)

250-300g pork fillet

3-4 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp sweet paprika powder

1/2 tsp hot paprika powder

a pinch of fennel seeds

1 tsp dried oregano

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper to season

1 large red pepper cut into large chunks

Method

Cut the meat into cubes. Mix the rest of the ingredients together to make a marinade. Coat the meat with this mixture and leave it to marinate for at least an hour if not longer.

Preheat the oven on its grill mode at a high setting (around 250C). Skewer the meat and pepper pieces onto metal or bamboo skewers. If using bamboo skewers, remember to soak them in cold water for 10-15 minutes before using to prevent them from burning.

Place the skewers under the grill and cook until done and the edges of the meat and pepper are charred, turning the skewers around occasionally for even cooking.

Remove and serve right away.

Tzatziki Sauce

Ingredients

One half of a cucumber

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely minced

2 small pots of yoghurt (preferably Greek yoghurt) – about 250ml

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper to season

Method

Grate the cucumber using the large holes of a box or other grater. Squeeze the excess moisture out of the grated cucumber using your hands, a little at a time. Place this in a bowl. Stir in all the other ingredients and mix well.

Check for seasoning and add more garlic, lemon, salt or pepper as required.

The combination of grilled meat and tzatziki went really well with the fresh pita. Definitely a must try if  you ever have the time!

This last weekend was one such time and when we were in the supermarket, I stood in the baking products aisle for a good few minutes wandering up and down without much inspiration. This is when Peter suggested what about making a simple sponge cake maybe flavoured with lemon and cardamom? Not a bad idea I thought. Later at home, I found an unused bag of dessicated coconut in the kitchen cupboard and decided to throw that in too. I’ve always liked the flavour of coconut in both sweet and savoury dishes, maybe it’s got to do with the coconut rich food I grew up with but it instantly comforts me.

So that’s how I baked a cake, similar to a sponge cake, but made robust with the addition of cardamom and coconut along with a light lemony tinge. It was ready just in time for an afternoon treat but it can very well serve as dessert too I think accompanied maybe by some poached fruit or whipped vanilla flavoured cream.

I used a 20cm cake tin and in hindsight, if I’d used a bigger tin, say a 24cm one, I think it would have significantly cut down the time in the oven but then again, baking for me has never been a rushed activity :)

Coconut Cardamom Lemon Cake

Ingredients

225g butter

225g caster sugar

3 medium eggs

few drops of vanilla essence/extract

125g self raising flour/cake flour

100g dessicated coconut

8-10 cardamom pods – outer skins removed and discarded, seeds crushed

zest of one lemon

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C (conventional oven). Grease and line a 20cm cake tin. In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and butter  with an electric whisk until quite pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla extract/essence.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, coconut, cardamom seeds and zest of lemon. Add this mixture to the sugar-butter-egg mix slowly in stages incorporating each batch of flour completely before adding more. I had to add a little milk to loosen up the mix a bit.

Transfer the cake batter to the prepared cake tin. Smooth the top and place in the oven. Bake until it’s nice and golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the top has browned and is turning too dark, cover it loosely with a piece of aluminium foil. It took me about 50 minutes to an hour but as I mentioned earlier, maybe a larger cake tin will do it in half the time.

Once done, remove tin from oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Cut into generous slices and enjoy the warm flavours of cardamom and nutty coconut with zingy lemon, there’s nothing to not like about this cake!

Since the local eating habits here in the French countryside extend beyond the usual chicken-lamb-beef variety of meat, it’s quite easy to source meat such as duck, rabbit, quail, etc, things that required a trip to a specialty store in Dublin. It also gives people like me who want to experiment in the kitchen, the chance to play with different ingredients and learn more about cooking with different varieties of poultry and game. Keeps it interesting!

This braised duck leg recipe gives you tender meat in a tart lemony sauce. Great for a not-yet-spring evening dinner. If you find the sauce to be a bit too tart, it might be a good idea to add some real thick yoghurt to it just before serving.

Duck Legs Braised in a Tomato Sauce with Lemons & Sumac 

Ingredients (Serves 2)

3-4 tbsp olive oil

2 duck legs

1 medium onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

a pinch of crushed chilli flakes

1 tsp sweet paprika powder

2 tsp sumac

1 x 400g tinned tomatoes

1 medium lemon cut into round slices, pits removed

salt & pepper to taste

about 700ml chicken stock

Method

Heat a heavy bottomed pan or casserole with the oil in it. Once hot, add the duck legs and brown well on both sides. Set aside. Add the onions and garlic. Saute until the onion is soft. Add the spices and mix through. Add the tinned tomatoes and lemon slices. Season with salt and pepper. Add the duck legs to the pan. Pour in enough stock to cover the meat.

Bring the sauce to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer, cover and cook on low heat for an hour or until the meat is quite tender and almost falling off the bone. Check seasoning and add more salt/pepper as required.

Serve hot with rice, polenta or warm crusty bread.

]]> http://aplateofgoodfood.com/2013/04/28/lemony-braised-duck-legs-in-a-sumac-tomato-sauce/feed/ 0 sujathanair duck legs with sumac duck legs with lemon braised duck legs duck legs in tomato sauce braised duck legs http://aplateofgoodfood.com/2013/04/21/pistachio-nut-biscotti/ http://aplateofgoodfood.com/2013/04/21/pistachio-nut-biscotti/#comments Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:45:37 +0000 sujathanair http://aplateofgoodfood.com/?p=719 ]]> Maybe it has to do with our recent Roman holiday or maybe it’s the lovely Italian cookbook I got while in Rome but for the last few days, I can only dream of Italian food. And that’s how on a cold and gloomy day like yesterday, it felt just right to fill the kitchen (in our case kitchen and living area) with the smell of baking.

It was not until I visited Italy that I realised that the word ‘biscotti’ is just Italian for cookie. I’ve made biscotti before using a great recipe from the Joy of Baking website. However, this time round, I decided to follow one from my latest cookbook (Traditional Italian Cooking by Gabriella Rossi – a handy book choc a bloc with authentic Italian recipes in various categories) especially for measurements of the basic ingredients and modified it by adding pistachios and nuts. The original recipe was for a coffee biscotti and what I ended up creating were some real nutty, crunchy yet soft cookies ;)

Pistachio & Mixed Nut Biscotti (recipe adapted from ‘Traditional Italian Cooking’ by Gabriella Rossi)

Ingredients

200g plain flour (farine de ble if you’re in France)

1.5 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

125g mixed chopped nuts

a handful of chopped pistachios

75g butter, cubed

150g caster sugar

a few drops of vanilla extract or essence

2 medium eggs, slightly beaten

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C (conventional). Grease and line a baking sheet. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add the butter and rub in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the caster sugar followed by the vanilla extract/essence and eggs.

Knead lightly until a soft dough is formed. Divide into two balls. Roll each ball out with your hands on a lightly floured surface to form a fairly uniform log. Place it on the baking sheet. Repeat with the other ball of dough.

Place the sheet in the oven and bake for around 20-25 minutes until the dough feels firm and is well coloured. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 160C. Let the logs cool for about 10 minutes. When cool enough to handle, place each roll onto a cutting board and cut it into equally wide slices on the diagonal.

Place each slice cut side down on the baking sheet and put it back in the oven. Bake for 5-10 minutes, remove from oven, turn all slices over and bake for another 5-10 minutes. Be sure to keep an eye on the cookies at this stage as they could get too dark and taste burnt if left in the oven for too long.

Remove from oven, place cookies on a wire rack and let it cool completely before transferring to your cookie jar.

I got around 20 biscotti from this recipe but the number could vary depending on how you roll out the dough and how thick or thin the cookies are cut. Either way, you’ll have enough to pass around.

A perfectly satisfying home made treat for with those mid-day cuppas. Enjoy!

Peter’s mom and stepdad are absolute lovers of art and culture and Rome has been at the top of their must-visit destinations. They’ve always wanted to visit Rome together with Peter mainly because it would then not just be a family trip but one with a free tour guide in tow (Peter lived and worked as a tour guide in Rome a long many years ago). The foodie in me has always wanted to travel to Italy to enjoy authentic Italian food first hand. And thus, we made a lovely combination – me looking for great spots to have some good food, Miep and Rien (the parents) researching what sights they wanted to visit and Peter at the head, prioritising our choices and steering us clear of tourist traps of which there are many.

At Corvara, we stayed at a cosy little B&B kind of hotel (Hotel Paese Corvara) run by a family who turned out to be the best conversation makers we met on our trip. The mother was also the cook along with her son and they whipped up some great meals for us. We got to try ‘farinata’ a regional specialty which was like a crisp pancake made with chickpea flour – it reminded me a lot of socca. They also made some lovely semifreddo – the first time I’ve tried an authentic Italian one – and it was a refreshingly light dessert. What also amazed me, quickly enough, was the numerous shapes and sizes that pasta were available in apart from the well known spaghetti, penne, tagliatelle, etc. And this was something I would continue to be surprised by during our entire stay in Italy – so much so that I’m now hunting for a book on just pasta.

The 7 days we spent in Rome were filled with visits to famous museums, basilicas and ruins. These trips were puctuated with many ‘cappuchino’ breaks to rest our tired legs.

Peter had warned us that a  true Italian has cappuchino only at breakfast but we couldn’t care less and downed cups of that rich, creamy, perfectly bitter liquid irrespective of the time of day. Detours were made more than once to find that one perfect restaurant where we could have a good meal without getting the usual ‘tourist’ treatment – mediocre food and a confusing array of additional charges on the bill that leaves the total figure way above what you were expecting.

We never went for an entire meal (antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti and dessert) and just stuck to ordering one or two dishes from the menu. Most of our meals consisted of pasta dishes or pizzas (which in Rome come with a really crispy thin base) but once in a while we came upon a place that served true Roman fare such as a hearty beef and beans stew.

One such restaurant (called ‘Enoteca Corsi’ near the Pantheon) also placed an entire bottle of limoncello on the table and we could help ourselves to as much of the lemony liqueur as we liked. When we did not feel like a sit down meal in the middle of the day, it was easy to just walk into any of the numerous cafes and order a sandwich with various fillings. My favourite was a foccacia kind of bread stuffed with mozzarella and proscuitto – simple yet satisfying. I’m not somebody who can consume large quantities of bread (unlike the Dutch side of my family). I lean more towards rice. However, the fluffy soft breads in Italy were quite scrumptious and I think I had more sandwich lunches in Rome than I’ve ever had before.

And then there were those times in the day (or evening) when one or more of us were hit by a craving for something to snack on, something soft with a melt in the mouth consistency that doesn’t take too long to either buy or consume. Rome had just the answer to that craving – gelaterias. These have changed my perception of what icecreams should taste like once and for all. The first time you have an Italian gelato, every other amazing icecream experience you’ve ever had just melts away from your memory. Most gelaterias have a large array of flavours ranging from fresh flavours like pistachio, strawberries and wild berries to something more exciting and interesting such as basil and rosemary, or rose and pine nuts.

Luckily for us, there was a great little gelateria just round the corner from where we stayed and so, there was no excuse for not treating ourselves to a treat once or sometimes even twice a day! It was quite a busy place (always a good sign) and we got flavourful scoopfuls that left us longing for more. At 2 euros for 2 scoops in a small cup, it was the perfect sweet tooth soother.

The ancient city of Rome has a lot to offer its visitors and although we spent a decent amount of time there, a few months can easily be spent exploring and discovering something new. Of course, the great food, wine, desserts and coffee only make the experience that much more sublime.

So here’s hoping that those pennies we flung into the Trevi fountain will ensure our return to Roma. Ciao!

What ended up on our plates for dinner was a chicken breast each stuffed with a herby mixture of sweet oven roasted tomatoes and salty molten cheese. To accompany this, I made a mushroom-cream sauce and a side of spinach wilted in butter with bacon. Very simple yet truly satisfying.

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Roasted Tomatoes & Cheese

Ingredients

3 medium tomatoes

a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

1 tsp dried thyme or a few sprigs of fresh thyme

100-150g taleggio or similar sharp cheese

2 chicken breasts

Method

Begin by oven roasting the tomatoes as this takes a while. Preheat the oven to around 160 degrees C. Quarter the tomatoes and place cut side down onto a baking tray (lined with baking paper or foil to make for easy cleaning up). Drizzle over the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I also added some strawberry vinegar for some extra zing. Season and add the thyme. Place the tray in the oven and let the tomatoes roast slowly for about 1-1.5 hours.

Once the tomatoes are done, remove from oven and let it cool. Increase oven temperature to 180 degrees C.

Slice one of the chicken breasts on the thickest part of its side to form a wide slit. Be careful not to slice all the way through. Fill this opening with some of the roasted tomatoes and slices of cheese.

Close up the breast using kitchen twine or tooth picks. Place in a baking tray. Repeat the same process with the other chicken breast. Place the tray into the oven and let the chicken cook through for about 35-40 minutes. Once done, remove from oven and let it cool for a couple of minutes before removing the twine or toothpicks.

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion diced

1 garlic clove finely minced

200g button mushrooms or a combination of different varieties

1 tsp dried mixed herbs

salt and pepper

about 150ml single cream

Method

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Saute the onions and garlic until soft and slightly coloured. Add the mushrooms and let it soften. Add a sprinkle of dried mixed herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Just before serving, add the cream to the mushroom mixture and let it heat through.

Wilted Spinach and Bacon

Ingredients

a knob of butter

1 small onion finely sliced

1 garlic clove finely sliced

100g bacon lardons or rashers cut into small pieces

200g fresh spinach leaves

salt and pepper

Method

Place the butter in a heated pan. Add the onion and garlic, saute until soft. Add the bacon and let it fry until slightly crispy. Drop in handfuls of the spinach and let it wilt and then mix through with the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve, in a deep plate, place a large spoonful of the spinach and bacon mixture. Rest one of the chicken breasts on top.

 Spoon some of the mushroom sauce over and around the chicken and voila! it’s ready to be devoured! :)

Suikerbrood is a sticky sweet loaf of bread that’s traditionally eaten during Easter in Holland. I’ve never had an authentic Dutch one but since we’re in a cosy little corner in France with Peter’s parents nearby, it seemed like the perfect setting to bake a loaf of this sugary bread.

After going through quite a few recipes, both in English and Dutch, I mainly followed this one here while incorporating a few other tips and tricks.

The tricky bit was deciding what type of flour to use. French supermarkets carry quite a few different kinds each with its own specific purpose. So you have flour for gateaus, white bread, multicereal bread, brioche, for making fluid batters, for pâtisserie and so on and so forth. While it is a bakers’ paradise, it is also mind boggling and this is when I miss the simple straightforward ‘plain flour’, ‘self raising flour’ and ‘strong white flour’ classification I was used to in Irish supermarkets.

Anyway, after much deliberation, we decided to use flour for brioche as the consistency of this bread is supposed to be somewhat brioche like. It turned out to be a good choice as the result was a great looking loaf with puddles of melted sugar in it with a nice buttery consistency.

Suikerbrood

Ingredients

500g plain flour

1 sachet of dried yeast

a good pinch of salt

1 tsp powdered cinnamon

a few drops of vanilla extract or essence

200ml lukewarm milk

250 – 300g sugar cubes broken into small pieces (we used pearl sugar as it’s more readily available in French stores)

a small cube of butter

Method

Place the flour, yeast, salt, cinnamon and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix together. Make a well in the centre and pour in the lukewarm milk. Mix until it all comes together. You may need to add a little warm water to make it a soft dough.

Leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes and then transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it’s smooth and elastic. Form into a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with oiled clingfilm and leave it in a warm place to rise.

Prepare a loaf tin by lining it with aluminium foil or baking paper and then generously buttering the insides.

After about an hour, the dough should double in size. Knock it back a little and transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Roll it out into a large round shape patting with your hands or using a rolling pin. Sprinkle the crushed sugar cubes  and mix it in by kneading the dough lightly.

Once the sugar has spread somewhat evenly through the dough, shape it into a ball and place it into the prepared loaf tin. Leave to rise in a warm place and wait until it doubles in size once again.

Place the tin in a preheated oven at 200 C (conventional). Let it bake for about 25-30 minutes until the top is a nice deep golden brown colour. If the surface is browning too quickly,  cover the top with a piece of foil.

Take the tin out after the loaf has baked, cool on a wire rack, run a knife along the edges to free the loaf and turn it out onto a plate or board.

Get yourself a nice thick slice or two, slather them with butter and enjoy with a hot cuppa!