The kitchen
Garlic is to cooking as madness is to art. (Anon.)
Snacks
Avocado cream
Dan's Kalamata Olivada
Insalata Caprese
Marinated champignons
Melintsánes thiganités - Fried eggplant - Gebratene Auberginen
Pesto Genovese con tomate
Salad with fried scampi
Tomato salad
Main dishes
Boeuf Bourguignon
Chili con carne
Cupertino Cilantro Pesto Linguine
Fondue Bourguignonne
Ghackets mit Hörnli - Swiss Pasta with minced meat
Gravad Lax
Schokoladen-Fondue
Käsefondue
Kassler in Blätterteig
Köttbullar - Swedish meatballs
Lachs in Blätterteig
Mom's Baked Apple Pancakes (Madeleine Lussier)
Prassa
Teigtaeschchen
Scrambled Eggs
Zürigschnetzlets
Desserts
Creme au Calvados
Dessert a la Maitre Bocuse
Marzipan-Likör
Mousse au chocolat and orange sauce
Sherry cream
Tarte de Montmorency
Cream puffs - Windbeutel
Orange-Chocolate Cookies
Snacks
Avocado cream
1 ripe avocado
1/2 bunch of parsley
1/2 lemon
1 cup of yoghurt or crème fraîche
salt
white pepper
Mix the avocado with the lemon juice and the yogurth until creamy. Season with salt, pepper and finely chopped parsley. Garnish with lemon slices and serve with white bread.
Insalata Caprese - a very quick and delicious dish
Some tomatoes
some mozzarella
some fresh basil leaves
some olive oil, extra vergine
(some vinegar, if you like)
Buy the best ingredients you can get! This dish lives from fine quality.
Slice fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, arrange them alternatingly on a plate.
Salt and pepper, sprinkle with fresh basil leaves and pour some olive oil over
it all. Serve at once with white bread.
Insalata caprese must never be left standing around, or the oil will get horribly
soaked up into the mozzarella. Purists forbid vinegar. I myself do like a
little balsamico in a Caprese, but it should never, ever kill the fresh taste of
the other ingredients.
Dan's Kalamata olivada
I remembered this and two of the other recipes from the time I used the Pueblo
Mud Client. The recipes were in the help menu (punny, ain't it?). You can still
find them here.
I reproduce the recipes just as I found them.
Ron and Dan are Ron Lussier and Dan Greening of the Chaco Pueblo Team. Thanks
a lot!
2 cups Calamata olives (before pitting)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
2 large garlic cloves
Pit the olives. (This is easy if you put a few olives at a time on a cutting board and smash the olives first with the flat of a large knife, then pick out the pits.) Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Season the paste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate.
This recipe may be made a week ahead of time. It actually tastes better after a few days, when the flavors have blended together.
Ron loves this deep purple spread on toast for breakfast. (You have to have a high tolerance for garlic, though!)
Melintsánes thiganités - Fried eggplants - gebratene Auberginen
Eggplants:
3-4 eggplants
Buy female eggplants - they have less of the bitter seed, which is hard to
remove. Female eggplants are a little bit indented and roundish at the end
opposite the stem.
some flour
salt
olive oil for frying
Tsatsíki:
1 cucumber
250g Greek yoghurt - if you can't get the genuine thing, take cream curd cheese
3-5 cloves garlic
3-5 tablespoons olive oil
some vinegar
salt, pepper
Tsatsíki
Make it first, because the melintsánes should be served fresh from the
pan or oven.
Grate the cucumber, salt and leave for 10 minutes for the water to drain.
Meanwhile press or finely dice the garlic. Pour out the cucumber juice, pressing
the cucumber grating with your hand to get rid of as much liquid as possible. Mix
yoghurt/curd with garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and cucumber. Leave
for an hour or so before serving.
Melintsánes
Slice the eggplants lengthwise into slices of about 0,5 cm thickness. Salt them
and heap them in a bowl on top of each other, cover with something heavy. Leave
for half an hour to drain excessive water. After that, squeeze once more and dry
with paper towels. Sprinkle with lemon juice for flavour and to keep them from
browning.
Heat oil in a large frying pan. Immediately before frying each slice, powder it
with some flour. Not much, just to keep the eggplant from soaking up too much
oil. Fry until golden, turning once. Place on kitchen paper for a minute to
drain excessive oil, then keep warm in the oven.
Serve melintsánes and tsatsíki with white bread.
Marinated champignons
500g white or brown mushrooms, sliced or whole
200-300ml port wine
1 tablespoon of good vinegar, if you like
6-7 tablespoons of olive oil
some chopped garlic
some finely chopped shallots or red onions
some parsley
Clean the mushrooms with a dry towel - never, ever wash or even rinse with
water. Gently fry onions and garlic until they are light golden. You can leave
the mushrooms raw or fry them with the onions and garlic for a minute or so, but
not much longer. Don't boil them, or you can just as well buy those
rubbery lumps sold as 'marinated mushrooms' in glasses. -
Add pepper, salt and port, leave to cool but not too long, sprinkle with parsley
and serve with white bread.
The original plan was to make a sauce out of this, but the mushrooms were
delicious just as they were and didn't make it long enough. For a change,
replace the port with sherry and add some lemon juice and chilis.
Salad with fried scampi
10-15 fresh or frozen scampi
1 lettuce
1 orange or a can of mandarines
1 avocado
some lemon juice
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 red onion
2 slices of toast
1/2 cup of orange or mandarine juice
some port wine
some balsamico
some olive oil
salt, pepper
Wash the lettuce and leave to drip. Peel and dice the avocado and sprinkle
with lemon juice. Peel and filet the orange or sieve the mandarines, catching
the juice in a bowl. Finely dice the garlic and gently sauté it in some
olive oil. Dice the toast and fry in the garlic oil from all sides. Mix olive
oil, port and balsamico with the juice, add garlic, salt and pepper. Slice the
onion into very thin rings.
Now quickly fry the scampi in the now very hot garlic pan. Then take them out
and mix the olive oil from the pan with the marinade. Arrange lettuce, orange
filets/mandarines, croûtons, and onion rings on a plate, garnish with the
still warm scampi and pour the marinade over it all. Serve with white bread.
Tomato salad
Main Dishes
Boeuf bourguignon
1kg very good stewing beef
1 cup olive oil
1/2-2/3 bottle of red wine
1/4-1/2 cup balsamico
1-2 carrots
some chops of celery
some chops of leek
1 onion, chopped into rings
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bunch of parsley
salt, pepper
some bay leaves
some flour
a cup or two of cream
Dice the meat (not too small because it will shrink), removing grease and sinews.
Blend the other ingredients into a marinade, put the meat into the marinade and
leave in the fridge for a day. Turn the meat around from time to time.
Take the meat out, dry. Sear from all sides in very hot olive oil. Fry small
amounts at a time, so it doesn't start boiling. Meanwhile pass the marinade
through a sieve, removing the vegetables. Leave the bay leaves, though.
Put the meat into a large oven-proof pot. Powder the meat with flour or maizena,
pour the marinade over it. Add the cream, and some more wine, if you like.
Season with a little bit of mustard and some tarragon, thyme, or whatever you
prefer. Leave to stew very gently for about 2,5-3 hours.
Salt and pepper, serve with lingonberries or cranberries, vegetables or green
salad and potatoes or white bread.
Choose a good, dry wine for the marinade! Have the same wine at table to go
with this dish.
Cupertino Cilantro Pesto Linguine
Another Pueblo recipe.
1 cup pinolas (pine nuts)2 bunches fresh cilantro
1 small or medium jalapeno
2-4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons pink peppercorns
1 pound dry linguine
Toast the pinolas on a cookie sheet under the broiler, tossing a few times until brown. You don't need to oil the sheet, as the nuts have their own oil. Set the toasted nuts aside. (Toasted pinolas make a great snack on their own, but save some for the pasta!)
Cut off the stems from the cilantro. (Don't be picky. just hack off most of the stems from the bunch using a very big knife. Don't hack off your hand!) Throw the leaves into a food processor and chop them into a paste. Remove the seeds and stem from the jalapeno and add it to the food processor. Add the garlic and olive oil. You should end up with a bright green paste (pesto in Italian.)
Cook the linguine until it is chewy, but not soft (al dente is the Italian term.) Drain, then toss with the pesto, the capers, and the toasted pinolas. Sprinkle the peppercorns on top and serve with a nice red wine.
Köttbullar - Swedish meatballs
500 g minced beef/pork mixture
1-1,5 cup milk or cream
1 slice of white bread or a boiled and mashed potato
1 onion
salt, white pepper
a bit of mustard
Add 1 egg, if you like - most people put an egg into the meatball mixture,
but I feel it hardens them too much.
With a potato instead of soaked bread, the meatballs become even softer.
Finely dice the onion and sauté gently in a little butter without browning.
If you use bread, soak it in milk or cream. Blend the ground meat with the onion,
(egg, ) bread/potato, mustard and spices to the proper consistency and taste.
Add a little more milk or cream if the mixture feels too firm. Check taste and
consistency by test-frying one meatball. Then wet your hands and shape small
meatballs and place on a water-rinsed plate. Brown a generous pat of butter in
a frying pan, and when it 'goes quiet' place the meatballs in the pan (not too
many at a time) and let them brown on all sides. Shake the frying pan often.
Serve with green salad, potato purée or boiled potatoes and lingonberries
or cranberries.
Mom's Baked Apple Pancakes (Madeleine Lussier)
Another Pueblo recipe. These go fantastically well with the Calvados cream, see Desserts.
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large sliced apple
1/3 cup flour
4 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. (Make that 200 for European
standards.)
Melt the butter in a 10 inch skillet with an oven-proof handle. Combine 3
tablespoons of sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over the butter.
Place the apple slices in the pan and cook over medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes.
Cool slightly.
Meanwhile, beat together the eggs, milk, flour, remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar,
and salt until smooth. Pour evenly over the apples. Bake until brown and puffy,
about 15 minutes.
Serve at once!
Desserts
Calvados cream
crème fraîche, mascarpone, sour cream - whatever you got
sweet cream (unwhipped)
sugar
cinnamon
some Calvados
Mix the sweet and sour creams with sugar and cinnamon and whip until creamy. Add Calvados, as much as you like. That's it. Great with Mom's Baked Apple Pancakes (see above).
Mousse au chocolat and orange sauce
These are really two desserts. I list them together because you need egg whites for one and the yolks for the other. And because they go very well together.
Mousse au chocolat:
4 egg whites
200g grated bitter chocolate or couverture
200g whipped cream
some chocolate gratings, if you like
Orange sauce:
4 egg yolks
2 tablespoons powdered suger
1/8l orange juice
1 tea spoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons or more Grand Marnier
Mousse au chocolat
Melt the chocolat in a Bain Marie (a pot which hangs in a pot of almost boiling
water) or very carefully in a pot which sits directly on the stove. Leave to
cool for a short while.
Whip the egg whites until very stiff, then the cream. Gently fold the egg
white into the chocolate, then the cream, until no white streaks remain. Add
some chocolate gratings, if you like. Pour into a bowl or into cups and
refrigerate for an hour or more, until set.
There is no need to add gelatine - the mousse will set beautifully on its
own.
Orange sauce
Whip the egg yolks with the sugar into a creamy foam, then add the orange juice.
Gently heat in a Bain Marie (see above), whisking all the time, until the eggs
thicken and become creamy. Don't let them coagulate! Remove from the stove and
add the Grand Marnier.
Serve, e.g., with vanilla ice cream garnished with orange slices and mint leaves and strewn with chocolate gratings.
Tarte de Montmorency
750g Montmorency cherries (sour cherries)
225g flour
some salt
100g butter
175g powdered sugar
50g iced sugar
2 eggs
125g ground almonds
20cl milk
Mix 200g flour and the salt on a table or in a large bowl, add the butter, cooled and
cut in small pieces. Rapidly mix with your fingertips. Be quickly done with this,
or the dough will grow hard. Add a little bit of milk from time to time. Leave
the dough to rest in the fridge for half an hour or so.
Meanwhile, wash and pit the cherries and leave them to dry.
For the almond cream, mix 25g flour with the almonds, the sugar and the eggs.
Whip into a soft cream.
Butter a tart form, roll out the dough in the form. With a fork, poke some holes
into the dough. Spread the cherries on the dough, then pour the cream over them.
Bake for 60 minutes at 180º. Powder with iced sugar.
Orange-Chocolate Cookies
100g rasped chocolate or chocolate chips (dark/plain chocolate is best)
200g flour
some salt
125g butter
125g sugar
1 egg
finely grated peel of 1 orange
Icing: icing sugar + fresh orange juice (should be thick and smooth)
Cut the butter into small bits, mix all ingredients and knead the dough
until smooth, but not too long or it will grow hard. Powder the table richly
with flour and roll the dough out very thinly, in portions, using more flour
as you go. Then cut out round cookies with a cookie cutter or a small
glass (ca. 5cm diameter). Bake for ca. 8-10 minutes at 200°C.
Let the cookies cool down for a minute or so before removing them from the
baking tray so they won't break. Let them cool down completely before
applying the icing with a baking brush. Leave to rest until the icing has
hardened and enjoy!