Sausage and Lentil Stew

While this isn't an authentic French recipe (so far as I know) it IS heavily inspired by dishes I had in Lyon when I went there recently. Yes, both the sausage and the wine are Swiss, but I'm sure proper French substitutes could be found.

Ingredients:
- 100 g (3.5 oz) smoked bacon, diced
- 6 small onions, quartered
- 2 smoked sausages ("Freiburger bauernwurst")
- 500 g (about 1 lb) green lentils
- 3 dL (about 1 cup) red wine (Dôle Romaine, Martigny, Switzerland)
- 1 L (about 4 cups) vegetable bouillon
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- fresh thyme
- 6 bay leaves
- 6 peppercorns

In a large pot the bacon was browned, then the onions were added and sautéed for 5 minutes before adding the lentils and the sausages cut in large pieces. The wine was added, and the pt was left on medium-high heat until the volume of liquid was nearly gone. Then the vegetable bouillon was added together with garlic, fresh thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns. The heat was reduced a little and the stew was allowed to simmer for 20 minutes (uncovered).

The stew was served with thick slices of bread and a glass of the red wine - a nice wine from the Swiss canton of Valais.

French Beer - Part I (Pelforth)

Beer probably isn't the first thing you think of when you think of France, and in my opinion the likes of Kronenbourg does nothing good for the reputation of French beer.

But, unsurprisingly, there is also good beer to be had in France - very good beer in fact. Take, for example Pelforth Brune, which I had my first taste of a few years ago in the US. When I recently went to Lyon I was suddenly faced with that option again. Not to be missed on my part - a delicious, dark, strong beer.

Of course, one could argue that this is cheating - that Pelforth is made so close to the border that one might as well consider it a Belgian beer...

Meze Menu 1

Meze is the middle eastern version of tapas: a selection of smaller snack dishes that served together make up a meal. Without further ado, let's have a look at Meze Menu 1:
- flour tortillas
- tabbouleh
- spanakopitta
- köfte
- grilled eggplant
- hummus

Yes, that is my recipe for (Mexican) flour tortillas but they go just fine in this context as well. The tabbouleh and spanakopitta have been described here very recently. The köfte are a slight variation on my previous recipe, and the hummus was my first attempt at it - it didn't turn out quite right, but I'll get back to that. The funny looking eggplant is called a Sicilian eggplant.

köfte:
- 500 g (about 1 lb) ground beef
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- 4 bird chillies, seeds removed, finely diced
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- fresh basil, chopped
- fresh mint, chopped
- salt
- cayenne pepper
- allspice
- 1 egg

All the ingredients were mixed, and little meat balls formed by hand were fried in a pan using a little oil.

grilled eggplant:
- 1 Sicilian eggplant, sliced thinly

The eggplant slices were grilled under the broiler.

hummus:
- 175 g (6 oz) dried chickpeas
- water
- 4 tbsp tahini
- juice of 1 1/2 lemon
- 2 cloves garlic, mashed

The chickpeas were soaked in cold water overnight, then boiled for about 1.5 hours until very soft. The water was drained off, but not discarded. The chickpeas were blended to a purée and the tahini, lemon juice, and garlic was added. The saved water from boiling them was added in portions until the right creamy texture was attained.

As mentioned the hummus didn't turn out quite right. I think it was perhaps too much lemon juice and/or garlic.

Apart from the hummus, the menu was fantastic.

Update: A better hummus recipe.

Spanakopitta

Strictly speaking, one should make spanakopitta using fillo pastry, but we didn't feel like making it and the store was sold out - so we used puff pastry, which wasn't sold out.

Ingredients:
- 640 g (about 1.5 lbs) puff pastry (cut in 4 pieces)
- 500 g (about 1 lb) frozen spinach
- salt
- 200 g (about 0.5 lb) feta cheese, crumbled
- 2 eggs (+1 egg for brushing)

The frozen spinach was put in a small pot without any water and thawed over medium heat - and excess liquid was drained off. The feta cheese was mixed with 2 eggs using a fork, then stirred into the spinach, and seasoned to taste with salt.

The spinach-cheese mixture was divided in 2 equal portions and each was spread on a piece of puff pastry, leaving some 2-3 cm (1 inch) free along each side. The remaining pieces of puff pastry were used as lids, folding the pastry along the edges to close them. Long diagonal slits were cut in the pastry lids and the pies were brushed with the remaining egg.

The pies were baked in the oven at 175 C (350 F) for 45 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Tabbouleh

To aid us in our quest for cooking more middle eastern food, we bought another book, Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food, to get more inspiration.

As it turns out our copy of the book is flawed by a production error - more specifically the same set of pictures appears twice, leaving us guessing as to which pictures we are missing. Amazon.com wasn't able to tell us whether it was just or copy, or their entire set - so instead they refunded us the value of the book, and let us keep it at the same time. Hooray.

First up in a string of post on the subject is a variation on tabbouleh, one of several bulgur salads.

Ingredients:
- 2 dL (4/5 cup) bulgur
- cold water
- juice of 1 1/2 lemon
- 5 tomatoes, diced
- 2 small onions, finely diced
- fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
- fresh mint, chopped
- salt, pepper
- olive oil

The bulgur was soaked in cold water for 10-15 minutes, then drained and put in a large bowl. The lemon juice and tomatoes were added and the bowl was left for half an hour to let the bulgur absorb the juices and turn tender. [1] The rest of the ingredients were mixed in.

Tabbouleh might be eaten as a stand alone dish (supposedly it is traditional to scoop it up with lettuce leaves), or as a side dish.

[1] At this point the texture of the bulgur still seemed somewhat 'uncooked', which was a little worrisome, but in the end the result was just fine.

Bird Chillies

I noticed a pack of small green chillies at the supermarket, they were called "piments oiseaux" and given my past experience with chillies and naming around here I wasn't sure what to expect. As it turns out they are in fact known as "bird chillies" in English too (which is be the direct translation from French).

Bird chillies hail from Thailand and are quite hot, but their smallness makes it quite easy to dose them right. It does seem to me that they turn up the hotness a notch once they turn orange.

The pack was quite big, and a fair number of them dried out before I was through using them, but they can be used just fine dried as well.

Chunky Rosehip Jam

Rose hip is a quite common plant in Denmark: It grows wild along roads and in the sandy dunes along the coast and it's also widely used for hedges. It seems particularly suited for the latter purpose (if the idea is to deter intruders): Like all roses it is profusely thorny, and moreover the ripe berries are very mushy, leading them to readily release their payload of fine itchy hairs.

When I was in Denmark this past summer it was during the rose hip season (the length of which I'm thoroughly unknowing of), and I decided to pick me a bucket of rose hips and try to recreate the rose hip jam I have so found memories of both my mother and her mother making years ago.


Ingredients:
- 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs) whole rose hips, halved and cleaned (800 g / 1.75 lbs when cleaned)
- 5 dL (2 cups) water
- juice of 1 lemon
- 450 g + 75 g (1 lbs + 2.5 oz) sugar
- 2 tsp red label Melatin [1]
- 1 + 2 + 2 tsp Atamon [1]
- 2 glass jars with tightly fitting lids, about 750 mL (3 cups) each


The rose hips were halved with a small knife, the seeds and itchy hairs scraped out with a teaspoon and collected in a colander. They were rinsed well with cold water and let stand to dry a little. It's highly recommended to wash the hands thoroughly after cleaning rose hips.


The cleaned rose hips were put in a large pot together with the water and the lemon juice, covered and brought to a boil. After boiling for 25 minutes, the larger portion of sugar was stirred in before boiling uncovered (at this point it can foam a lot) for an additional 12 minutes.
At this point 1 tsp Atamon, the smaller portion of sugar and the red label Melatin was added. The whole was brought back to a boil and boiled for 2 minutes before removing from the heat. While the hot jam cools down a bit the glass jars were each swirled with 2 tsp of Atamon. Still warm (but not boiling) the jam was poured into the glasses and the lids were fitted on tightly.

Once cool the jam can be eaten. Of course it can be saved for quite for some time. The jam I made here was very chunky - so much that I would consider cutting the rose hips in smaller pieces next time. I particularly like it on white bread, such as our home-made buns.

[1] Melatin and Atamon are Danish brand names. They are gelling and preserving agents, respectively. Melatin contains carrageenan, locust bean gum, and sugar - one could surely substitute with pectin and/or agar, although I'd have to experient with the amounts. Atamon is an aqueous solution of sodium benzoate, lactic acid, caramel coloring, and rum aroma - the label is positively oldschool (to the point where one suspects they couldn't introduce it on the market today), and I honestly have no idea what alternative products one can buy outside of Denmark, but I'm guessing one could try sterilizing the jars in boiling water.

Borscht

My parents have always kept a large vegetable garden - a hobby the entire family benefits from year-round. Although I have to say that neither I nor my siblings were entirely grateful for the bounty of beetroot. In our opinion our parents knew one or two recipes too many for dishes based on beetroot. Pickled beetroot were appreciated by all (e.g. as topping for liver pâté) - beetroot steaks and beetroot pâté not so much. Interestingly they never made us beetroot soup, which I think might have won me over a little more effectively - or maybe my taste just changed since then. Anyway, now it's autumn again, and therefore soup season, so I made a big pot of borscht.

Ingredients:
- olive oil
- 3 medium/small red onions, chopped
- 400 g (almost 1 lb) potatoes
- 800 g (almost 2 lbs) celery root
- 1500 g (over 3 lbs) beetroot
(all tubers were peeled, and cut in cubes 1 cm per side (1/2 inch per side))
- 2 dL (almost 1 cup) flour
- 2.5 L (2/3 gallon) beef bouillon
- 4 cloves garlic, mashed
- 12 peppercorns
- salt
- 6 bay laurel leafs
- thyme & oregano
- 0.5 L (2 cups) cream

In a large pot, a little oil was heated. The onion was sautéed for a couple of minutes before adding the tuber cubes. After another 5 minutes, the flour was added and stirred in to coat the cubes with the flour. The beef bouillon was added together with the herbs, salt, and peppercorns. The soup was brought to a boil, then the heat was reduced. The soup was covered and allowed to simmer for an hour with occasional stirring, before adding the cream.

Served warm with a little sour cream on top.

Stuffed Ball Round Zucchini

One Saturday morning shopping at the farmers' market I noticed these ball round zucchini, and thought they'd make an interesting variation for the previously mentioned stuffed zucchini. The recipe is basically the same as that mentioned previously, but the following substitutions are worth noting: I used 3 ball round zucchini; for the cheese I used Gouda cheese; and the bread crumbs were not Panko, but just some ordinary crumbs of dry bread...



It worked quite well - in fact, I think if I ever wanted stuffed zucchini in a handy serving-size way (as for one dish out of several in a fancy dinner) I'd use this version.

Burning Love

I have never really known why this dish is known as 'burning love' in Denmark. Basically it's just mashed potatoes with fried bacon and onion - and a some fresh parsley. Pretty easy.

Ingredients:
- 2.4 kg (5.3 lbs) potatoes, cut in chunks
- water
- 0.5 L ( 2 cups) milk
- salt & pepper
- bacon, diced
- 2 medium-large onions, chopped
- 1 bunch parsley, chopped

The potato chunks were boiled in unsalted water till fairly soft. The water was drained and the potatoes were mashed with a ladle [1]. The milk was stirred in, being added in portions, to give the desired texture. Seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

In a large pan bacon was fried. Then added onion and continued till the onion were soft and brown.

The mash was served with the bacon onion mix, and freshly chopped parsley - ketchup optional.

[1] The resulting mash was slightly chunky, which I like, but if a smoother mash is desired I'd use a hand-held mixer.

Paulaner Oktoberfest

I see I am a little late with this post, but only just so I guess it's not so bad.

I have mentioned before on these pages my taste for Bavarian beers as well as seasonal beers.

Therefore, it can hardly surprise that Paulaner Oktoberfest on sale seems a no-brainer to me.