Bloglagged

The recent low frequency of blogging is primarily due to having had an overnight staying visitor for the past 2 weeks - not that we stopped cooking for that reason, but there was less time for blogging.
Actually, I used the circumstances to run a couple of my favorites again .. such as chicken quesadilla and beef tongue tacos.
Anyway. I guess this post is mainly to say I'm still alive - no blogging is expected for the next 10 days as I'll be on vacation far from home.

Rhino Chasers

A while ago I was in LA and had some very nice Korean BBQ in Koreatown. On the way back to the car we dropped into a small store to pick up a few drinks for later. Scanning the fridges my eyes suddenly noticed a lonely rhino - i.e. a single of bottle of this beer on the left. I was unfamiliar, hadn't even heard of it before, and I found the name interesting, so I felt I had to buy it and try it out.

While I admit it went down very easy, and was nicely refreshing on a warm night, I don't think I'll go out of my way to get it again.. actually I didn't really find it to be anything special.

Creamy Cheesy Eggplant

In honesty this was somewhat inspired by these zucchinis I saw over on Spis Ordentligt, but it turned out quite nicely, so here it is anyway.

Ingredients:
- 1 eggplant
- 125 mL (1/2 cup) cream
- grated pecorino
- salt and pepper

Slice the eggplant in 6 mm (1/4 inch) slices and place them in a baking pan, season with salt and pepper, pour the cream over it and finally a little bit of grated pecorino. Put in the oven on high heat till the cheese looks nice golden and crisp. CAREFUL: On high heat DO NOT leave in the oven for too long - suddenly the cream will turn to charcoal.

I served it with mushroom tortellini, tomato sauce and coarsely chopped fresh leaves of basil.

Risotto

According to my previous roomies the definition of goulash was anything I cooked .. while that is a bit unfair I do have a tendency towards cooking improvised dinners that start with frying bacon in a large pot and continues by adding ingredients until I have 6 or more servings of .. well, gulasch might be one way to describe it.
This, however, I would call a risotto.

Ingredients:
- 150 g (5 oz) bacon (cut in small pieces)
- 1 large (red) onion (finely chopped)
- 4 cloves garlic (mashed)
- 2 serrano chilis (finely chopped)
- 500 g (1 lb) crimini mushrooms (coarsely chopped)
- 500 mL (2 cups) arborio rice
- 250 mL (1 cup) wild rice
- 500 mL (2 cups) white wine
- 1 L (1 quart) chicken boullion
- 125 mL (1/2 cup) cream
- 125 mL (1/2 cup) grated pecorino
- salt & pepper
- fresh ginger (finely diced)

In a large thick-walled pot fry the bacon, then add the onion, garlic, chili and ginger. After a few minutes add the mushrooms and a few minutes later add all the rice - stir until the rice are well-coated and translucent. Reduce to medium heat and add 1/3 of the wine. With occasional stirring let the liquid reduce, then add more wine, repeat. Using the same technique continue with the chicken boullion in 4 portions of equal volume. When this proces is done, reduce to low heat, add the cream and the cheese, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Stir till well mixed, turn off heat and let sit for a few minutes before serving.

The result is quite dense, so be careful not to serve too much.

Nopales con Huevo

When I first arrived in California some 5 years ago and started examining the goods on offer at the local supermarkets I was quite intrigued to find jars of nopales - i.e. cactus. I quickly bought some and set about trying to incorporate them in my cooking.. unfortunately this all long time before I started this blog and I guess I didn't take notes (well, I didn't find any such around my belongings, anyway).
Having recently purchased Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico (in order to assist my growing interest in the mexican cuisine) and semi-recently discovered the fresh nopales in a local supermarket I've decided - after years of absence - to revisit the cactus with a more authentic touch.
This then happened within the frame of our Sunday tradition of having eggs for breakfast in the shape of Nopales con huevo..

Ingredients:
- oil
- 1 lb (450 g) raw nopales, cleaned and diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 1 serrano chili, finely diced
- salt
- 4 eggs
- 6 tortillas

Heat the oil in a skillet, add everything except the eggs and cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes - should be kind of dry at this point.[1] Break the eggs into the mixture and stir till set. Serve on heated tortillas.

While I was quite happy with the result my muse was of the opinion that there was a little too much cactus relative to the other ingredients.

[1] The dryness is kind of important - otherwise the eggs don't set so nicely. Actually here I don't really understand Diana Kennedy's recipe: It says to cover while cooking on medium heat till the mix is dry. Covering tends to keep in the juices a little too well. I ended up covering for the first 15 minutes, then removing the cover and turning up the heat for the last 10 minutes to get them proper dry.

B.L.A.S.T.

...that is the Bacon Lettuce Avocado Sprouts & Tomato sandwich. The idea for this one came about as we ate a BLT with alfalfa sprouts at the local eatery Silvergreens and I thought: "Just add avocado and it would be a blast...". Mrs. Erator suggested substituting prosciutto for the bacon, but that would then become a SPLAT sandwich. Maybe some other time.

Ingredients:
- bacon [1]
- 1 tomato
- leaves of romaine lettuce [2]
- clover sprouts
- 1 avocado
- ciabatta bread

Fry bacon, slice the tomato and the avocado, rinse the lettuce and toast the bread. Assemble the sandwich: Bread, bacon, tomato, lettuce, sprouts, avocado[3], and bread again. Enjoy immediately!

[1] No, I'm not going to tell you how much bacon to use - you know how much bacon you want in your bacon sandwich.
[2] Same as for bacon.
[3] The order is not really important, but it works nicely to put the avocodo and the sprouts next to each other because the avocado help keep the sprouts in place.

Cod & Goat Cheese in Bell Peppers

I'm not really sure how this recipe came about.. I thought I read it somewhere, but when I searched for it again I couldn't find it. Maybe I dreamt it up or misunderstood something I heard. Anyway, these things are not so important - it is much more important that this is delicious.

Ingredients:
- 225 g (0.5 lb) cod fillet
- 2 red bell peppers
- 6 scallions
- 100 g (3.5 oz) goat cheese
- salt & pepper

Clean the bell peppers, cut them in half and remove the seeds. In a bowl mix diced cod fillet [1], finely cut scallions, goat cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fill the cod & cheese mix in the bell peppers and put them in the oven at 175 C (350 F) for 30-40 minutes.

Serving suggestion: With a cold sauce made from 1 dL (1/2 cup) yogurt, 1 tbsp mustard, salt, pepper and tarragon as well as red rice. Actually this was my first time ever cooking red rice, I just recently found some a my local Indochina Market. The taste was somewhat similar to brown rice, but they cook faster than these and look pretty - the latter aspect I'm sure I'll try to utilize in future dishes.

[1] If you have a grinder, I'm sure ground cod would work nicely.

Banana cake

My "secret" to banana cake is - quite simply - to use more banana than the original recipe. If banana cake made with 1 banana is excellent, then banana cake made with 2 bananas must be even better - right?

Ingredients:
- 100 g (4 oz) shortening
- 2 dL (1 cup) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 dL (1 cup) sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla sugar *
- 3 eggs
- 2 bananas (preferably well-ripened)
- 100 g (4 oz) dark chocolate

Melt the shortening and let it stand to cool off a bit. In a small bowl mix the flour and the baking powder. In a larger bowl whip the sugar, vanilla and eggs well (so it becomes a white foam). Now stir in the flour and the melted shortening in portions. Mash the bananas and mix them in the dough. Pour the dough in a bread pan that you have greased (e.g. with shortening) and floured - this makes it a lot easier to the cake out of the pan in one piece.

NB: Do NOT fill to the brim - the dough will rise during baking.

Bake at 175 C (350 F) for 55 minutes. Let it cool a little bit before flipping it out on a plate and covering with melted dark chocolate. The easiest way is to melt chocolate is in the microwave oven, but since I don't have one here I made the water bath as you can see in the photo.

Let it sit until the chocolate stiffens at least a little bit, but it will take hours before it becomes hard again at room temperature.

* see here.

Stuffed Chicken Breast

Encouraged by my luck with the stuffed pork tenderloin recently I decided to try my hand at these stuffed chicken breasts - somewhat modified from the way I saw them made previously, not least due to my memory failing me. It's not entirely implausible that my version is less authentically Italian than the one I based it off.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breast fillets
- 100 g (3.5 oz) roasted bell pepper
- 75 g (2.5 oz) walnut pieces
- 25 g (1 oz) grated pecorino cheese
- 2 cloves garlic
- fresh basil
- salt & pepper

Additionals:
- 1/2 cup rice
- 1 cup water
- salt

- 1/2 onion
- 1 large tomato
- dash of cream

Make a stuffing of cut roasted bell pepper, walnut pieces, mashed garlic, grated pecorino cheese, salt, pepper, and freshly cut basil. Cut pockets in the chicken breast fillets leaving about 1 cm (1/2 inch) of meat to all sides if possible, and fill the pockets with the stuffing. Close the fillets again - I used a few tooth picks, but if you have something more fancy go ahead and use that instead.
Sear in a pan for a couple of minutes on each side, then cover and leave on medium-low heat while cooking the rice. When the rice are done the chicken is done, and some juices have collected in the pan - take out the fillets, turn up the heat and add coarsely chopped onion, fry these till soft. Then add diced tomato, salt, pepper and a dash of cream. Let simmer for a few minutes.

Tuna Salad 1

This tuna salad is so simple I can hardly believe it's also so good. But it is. This is classic recipe I remember from my childhood and it's still good - though I have since picked up a couple of other recipes (which I will get back to later).

Ingredients:
- 2 cans tuna (drained)
- 1 large tomato
- 1 cucumber
- 10 tbsp sour cream
- salt & pepper

Open the cans of tuna, drain, and put in a bowl. Add salt and pepper and let stand while cutting the cucumber and the tomato (dices). Add sour cream and mix it. Add lastly the tomato and cucumber pieces.

Goes well with several kinds of bread - this time we had it with pita breads.