Hi guys!
It's monday and time for something vegetarian, definitely not vegan today. I don't know how you feel about sweets for lunch or dinner, but I get cravings for sweet things sometimes and that's the moment when I know that nothing will fix it as well as pancakes or its austrian sibling I want to introduce you to today. Kaiserschmarrn is essentially a large baked pancake that you pull to pieces in the pan and caramelize it with a little sugar and butter. I first got to know it on one of many skiing holidays to Austria. My sister took it a even further by eating nothing but Kaiserschmarrn for two week in a row for dinner because she loved it so much. And today, she would choose it over fries anytime. My recipe is from a book by Johann Lafer, an austrian cook and tv personality with a wide-known sweet tooth. I got the book "Dessert, die mein Leben begleiten" (Deserts that accompany my life) from friends for my 17th birthday a while ago, but I have to admit I am only making this recipe from it.
Here's the recipe:
200ml (6.7 fl.oz; about 3/4 cup and 1 tablespoon) milk
120g (4.2 oz; a little less than 1 cup) all-purpose plain flour
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon sour cream
6 eggs
80g (2.8 oz; a little more than 1/3 cup) white sugar
raisins
butter
1) Preheat the oven to 220°C (428°F). Pour the milk in a bowl, add the salt and flour and whisk until smooth.
2) Crack two eggs in the bowl. Separate the remaining four eggs, put the yolks in the bowl with the milk-flour mixture and the whites in another bowl. Add half the sugar to the eggwhites and beat until stiff. You should be able to turn the bowl with the eggwhites staying in it.
3) Whisk in the two eggs and four eggyolks. Add 1/3 of the beaten eggwhites and fold in to loosen the dough up. Add the rest of the eggwhites to the mixture and fold in as well.
4) Heat a pan (with a lid) over high heat. Add the butter and the dough and sprinkle with raisins if you like. Clamp on the lid and put the pan in the oven. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until dark golden.
5) Carefully remove the pan from the oven and tear the baked Kaiserschmarrn in small pieces. Sprinkle with a little butter and remaining sugar and turn in the hot pan until starting to caramelize. Serve with confectioner's sugar dusted on top.
Serves: 4 if you're normal, but 2 if you're my sister and I
Active preparation time: 10 minutes
Total preparation time: about 30 minutes
© Copyright: Johann Lafer, "Desserts, die mein Leben begleiten", p. 18.
Here's how mine turned out:
It is wonderfully light and fluffy and golden once baked and caramelized and it was just the perfect thing to satisfy my sweet tooth today. Traditionally, you would serve it with plum sauce or apple sauce on the side, but I like it best pure or with added raising and nothing else.
Have fun trying and I hope you like it as much as I do!
Hi guys!
It is Monday again and as it is rather cold in Switzerland and snowing at the moment, I have been craving nothing more than a warming bowl of soup. Don't get me wrong, I am more of a winter than summer girl, but when it is cold I still love to cook warming soups and stews. I have already introduced you to another recipe for pumpkin soup, but while that one has a fiery and spicy taste, the following is creamy and sweet. It is from Donna Hay's "Fast fresh simple" and she has been cooking it on the accompanying tv show, so here's the link to recipe and video:
http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/15145/roasted-pumpkin-soup
This soup will need a little time as you have to allow the pumpkin to roast. Here are my steps:
1) Cut the butternut in half and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Place the onion on the tray as well. Salt the butternut and drizzle with olive oil.
2) Roast in the oven for about 1 hour until golden and caramelized.
3) Scoop the pumpkin out of the skin and put in a blender or pot along with the onion, skin discarded. Add a cup of the broth and blend until smooth.
4) Add the remaining broth and cream and stir until it is combined. Finish with salt and pepper to taste.
5) When serving, add a teaspoon of sour cream to the soup.
Active preparation time: 5 minutes (I am not joking)
Total preparation time: about 1 hour and 5 to 10 minutes.
Here's how mine looks:
As I already told you at the beginning, this soup is wonderfully sweet from the caramelization happening when you roast the pumpkin as well as the added honey, but it should have been balanced with a nice pinch of salt and some pepper. The sour cream will, obviously, add creaminess and freshness to the soup. The flavours from roasting help to balance the sweetness as well as rounding the soup. To me, this roasted butternut squash soup is the best way to end a cold day.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
This week time is flying. I don't even know where the days are going with the learning and everything, so I was looking for some relaxation in baking. There is nothing like the smell of cake or any baked good, a cookie, brownies or scones for that matter while baking and once they're fresh out of the oven. So I turned to the newest addition to my cookbook range, a book from Cynthia Barcomi simply titled "Baking Book" that I brought with me form Berlin. Skipping through the pages, I decided to give her scones a try and since I have had leftover hazelnuts from my Christmas baking and dates, the recipe for Date Nut Scones seemed to be just perfect. Here it is:
315g (11 oz; 2 cups + 1 tablespoon) all-purpose plain flour
50g (1.7 oz; 1/4 cup) sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of one lemon
125g (1 stick; 4.4 oz) butter, straight from the fridge
80ml (1/3 cup; 2 1/2 fl.oz) milk
1 teaspoon golden syrup or sugar cane syrup
1 egg
55g (2 oz) nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios)
120g (4.2 oz) dates of figs
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (374°F). Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2) Roast the nuts in a pan until they start peeling, then chop them coarsely. Chop the dates as well.
3) Mix the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a bowl. Cut the butter in small pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Mix with your fingers until the mixture starts looking crumbly or with a kitchen machine.
4) Mix the milk, syrup and egg and add to the flour-butter-mixture. Blend until the ingredients are just combined.
5) Fold in the chopped dates and nuts. Turn onto a flour-dusted work surface and roll to a circle of a about 20cm (8 inches) and 2cm (1 inch) thick. Either cut eight rounds from the circle using a glass or cut the circle into 8 equal pieces like you would cut a cake.
6) Bake for about 18-22 minutes until the scones have started to turn golden-brown. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
© Copyright: Cynthia Barcomi "Backbuch", p. 48.
Yield: 8 scones
Active preparation time: 30 minutes
Total preparation time: 50 minutes
Here's how mine turned out:
I left mine in the oven for 20 minutes. They might be a little bit dry and crumbly eaten on their own, but I just love them plain. If you'd like to add a little moisture, you could have butter or marmelade (I imagine orange marmelade would be heavenly) with them or even whipped cream. If you'd like your scones smaller, you can cut the dough in more pieces.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
It's monday and I want to share another vegetarian recipe with you. As you know, I own Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook "Notes from my kitchen table" and I have been reading her "goop.com" blog for quite a while now. Last week, it featured an article on so-called "super foods" and I instantly loved the recipe for walnut pesto, so I decided to try it today. I made a few changes to it which I will elaborate on later. So here's the link: http://goop.com/journal/make/207/superfoods
I will add the recipe in metric here:
100g shelled walnuts
2 cloves garlic
1 piece (about 20g or 1 slice) day-old bread
120ml milk
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
25g grated parmesan
salt and pepper, to season
Here's how mine turned out:
As I said earlier, I mad a few small changes. I changed the whole milk for skimmed milk to have less fat. Secondly, I took only two tablespoons of olive oil and added 2 tablespoons of pasta water to thin instead. I did this for two reasons: number 1 is the same as before, to go easy on the fat as nuts contain a lot of (healthy) fat already and secondly, because I worried that the strong taste of olive oil, or too much of it, might cover the taste of the walnuts. The pesto turned out wonderfully. The walnuts add beautiful flavour to the pasta and it is a great alternative to the usual basil pesto, for example.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
This week has been quite intense and packed with lots of learning so all I was craving this weekend was some real comfort food to wind down and relax a little. I am a big chocolate fan, so finding the perfect chocolate cake recipe has been on my agenda for a while and I remembered seeing the following recipe and instantly thought "Why not give it a try today?". The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's "How to be a domestic goddess" and even though I find the title rather ridiculous, I love the subheading that reads "baking and the art of comfort cooking" which, in my opinion, sums up the idea behind the book.
Here's the recipe:
225g (1 + 4/5 stick; 8 oz) unsalted butter, softened
375g (13 oz) dark muscovado sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g (3.5 oz) good-quality dark chocolate
200g (7 oz; 1 1/3 cup) plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
250ml (1 cup; 8 fl.oz) boiling water
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (374°F). Cream the butter and sugar, either with a wooden spoon or with an electric mixer, than add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well.
2) Melt the dark chocolate over low heat. Fold in the chocolate, taking care to blend well but being careful not to overbeat. You want the ingredients combined: you don't want a light airy mess.
3) Gently add the flour and bicarb, alternately with the boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter. Pour into a lined loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes.
4) Turn the heat down to 170°C (338°F) and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. The cake will still be a bit squiggly inside, so an inserted skewer won't come out completely clean.
5) Place the loaf tin on a rack, and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. Don't worry if it sinks in the middle: indeed, it will do so because it's such a dense and damp cake.
Makes: about 16 slices
Active preparation time: 20 minutes
Total preparation time: 1 hour
© Copyright: Nigella Lawson, "How to be a Domestic Goddess", p. 166
Here's how mine turned out:
I am very well aware that this is not the most beautiful cake I've baked, but its taste makes up for it by a hundred times. My cake sunk in the middle, but once you've cut it into slices, it doesn't look bad at all - I promise.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
It's been a while since you've heard from me and I am sorry it took me so long. I had a lovely Christmas time though and enjoyed lots of great food. But as the new year has started, it brought along a few resolutions for me and I vowed to get one vegetarian recipe a week in. So as today marks the first monday of the new year, here comes 2013's first meat free monday recipe. The weather in Switzerland has been a little cooler, so I decided to try a new recipe for a vegetable curry. Paging through my cookbooks, I found a recipe for pumpkin-chickpea-curry in Donna Hay's "No time to cook".
Here's the recipe:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion
2 tablespoons red curry paste
400g (14 oz) chickpeas, drained
600g (21 oz) pumpkin
250g (8.8 oz) aubergine/ eggplant
400ml (13.5 fl.oz; 1 +2/3 cup) coconut milk
250ml (8 fl.oz; 1 cup) vegetable broth
basil
lime wedges and rice to serve
1) Cut the pumpkin and aubergine in about 1cm (1/2 inch) pieces. Cut the onion in small pieces.
2) Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium to high heat. Add the onion and curry paste and cook for about 2 minutes until the onion starts to soften.
3) Add the pumpkin, aubergine, chickpeas, coconut milk and vegetable broth to the pan, turn the heat high and bring to the boil. Turn the heat to low-medium and cook the vegetables until soft, about 10 minutes.
4) Add the basil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with cooked rice and lime wedges.
Serves: 2 according to the book, 4 if you're eating like me
Active preparation time:15 minutes
Total preparation time: 30 minutes
© Copyright: Donna Hay "No time to cook", p. 109
Here's how mine turned out:
I did serve my curry with rice, but it's hidden under the vegetables. I love to colour of this dish; it is perfect to brighten up a dark winter day. I also exchanged the amounts of coconut milk and vegetable broth to make the curry healthier as coconut milk tastes great, but adds lots of fat to each curry. The pumpkin adds a nice sweet touch to balance the spicier curry and the aubergine is wonderfully soft and flavourful. The chickpeas deliver a healthy dose of protein. This recipe for a vegetarian curry really hit a soft spot with me and I am very likely going to cook it again soon.
Have fun trying and a great start to the new year!
