thepassionatecook

Sweet potato & rocket frittata bites with feta and mint pesto

(photograph courtesy of Cook Sister!)

Trawling through folders on my computer that have been lying dormant for a long time, I came across this picture taken at an event I catered for last year. It had the most ecclectic mix of people and some pretty amazing ABBA costumes... not to speak of the delectable canapes, of course ;-)

These frittata bites are incredible for cocktail parties because they're easily made, need next to no work with regards to assembly and they can be made well in advance. I also love this dish in its non-party version, which I often make to get more protein into my diet. Eggs are incredibly good for you of course, dispelling the myth that they raise your cholesterol, studies have shown that it doesn't, in fact, if anything, it raises your good cholesterol and lowers the bad. Not to speak of the minerals, essential fatty acids and vitamins the humble egg contains, especially B-Vitamins, a great source of energy!

This version with red onion and sweet potato is such a healthy treat it's almost unreal - make this on the weekend to serve as a weekday lunch, a quick dinner when you're home late from work and have had no time to shop or enjoy at breakfast - you can even enjoy it in a breadroll if you must! It keeps for a good few days in the fridge and if you pep it up with some feta and mint oil, maybe a salad on the side, you've got yourself a lunchtime treat the whole office will envy you for!

QUICK REMINDER:
The Bistro Food edition of WTSIM is in its last week, please send your contributions to  by the end of the month!

Lady Maria's Schokogugelhupf

I solemnly vow not to watch the Eurovision again. I do. Unless Jonathan Ross presents the show. Or Austria qualifies - both very unlikely events indeed.

Moving on, let's speak about nicer things. Things that lighten up everybody's face, that fill the house with warmth and make the birds appear to be singing overtime.

Like when Lady Maria is visiting. She's not really of royal descent, my Mum, she just happened to marry a normal sort of guy (Lord Rudi) who went on to come into the possession of some land up in Scotland and is therefore, by default, a "Laird" - which, translated to English, means "Lord". So it follows that she is a "Lady". Not they they have been invited to have tea with HRH, nor do they own a lavish mansion in Belgravia or Mayfair (or anywhere else, for that matter) that I could benefit from...

Whenever she graces us with her presence, my sons demand that she bake with them - and really, there's only one cake they will make, which has become my sons' absolute favourite and is about the only thing we ever bake when we bake together. By popular demand. It takes the traditional shape of a Gugelhupf, a plain Bundt, basically. I bring this to playdates and coffee mornings often and everybody is always amazed at how tasty, moist and finger-lickingly good it is. The last time I made it, there were five of us around the table, including two boys who polished off the *entire* cake in a matter of maybe half an hour - and probably only took so long out of politeness.

You know how Austria is known for its patisserie, but most of it, especially the more elaborate creations, is seldom, if ever, made at home. Every (good) Austrian housewife's repertoire (at least in my Mum's generation) would also include the famous Sachertorte, the  Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) with home-made fillo-pastry, a variety of tray bakes typically with fruits of the season, Black Forest cake, Malakoff Torte (a tarte with almonds, buttercream and sponge fingers), a nut or poppyseed ring, a plaited yeast bread for Easter and a variety of biscuits (incl. Lebkuchen, our version of ginger bread). Nowadays, not many people bother to make their own, so I know very few women (or men) of my age who can master their own strudel. But the Gugelhupf is something everybody can make, it's easy, quick and therefore the most recognised form of cake in the country. Delicious as all its different variations may be, it is therefore also the one form of cake that you're unlikely to find in one of the many cafés in Vienna - as everybody knows how to make their own, people tend to go for more elaborate patisserie when they go out.

What sets this one apart from your usual chocolate Gugelhupf, which can often turn out to be quite firm in texture and, without artificial additives, incredibly dry, is that it uses real chocolate (rather than cocoa powder) and almost as much ground almonds as flour - giving it that extra moisture. Incredibly easy to make (with a little adult help, this is quite literally child's play), this is one of the best recipes to have up your sleeve and sure to become a favourite in your household, too!

Red lentil koefte

Hello. My name is Johanna and I am a recovering Eurovision addict. Or that's what I thought. I am, in fact, a continuously relapsing Eurovision addict. For much as I growl each year that the voting is rigged, the music is not what it used to be and the whole thing is just farcical, guess where I'll be on the appointed day the following year? In front of some television or other.

We weren't allowed to watch much television when we were growing up, in fact, for large stretches of my life my parents didn't even have a TV... but Eurovision night was when we were allowed to stay up late and watch that abominable show. And it's not even like I could be patriotic and support my own country, because as you may have noticed, Austria only participates about once in a decade (we're just too crap, or maybe our taste in music is too sophisticated... Mozart, Haydn... erm... Falco - you know where I am coming from). So over the years, I have seen some pretty appalling shows, I think I only ever missed one, which was when I was living in Mexico.

I have also experienced these cursed nights in the most surreal of settings: one year, in my early student days, we all dragged sofas out onto the pavement, placed a TV set on a window sill facing outwards (no flatscreen TVs back then, either, it was a whopper of a set which didn't live to see the next morning, as some half-drunk moron tried to adjust the antenna yet again and the thing came crashing down on the pavement) and enjoyed the show al fresco - and tons of passers-by joined in and purused of our generously stocked cool boxes which were, in fact, laundry baskets and cleaning buckets filled with ice cubes.

Another memorable night was in an old, derelict tramway shed transformed into an alternative music venue in a rather seedy part of Vienna - I went there with a friend (female, straight) only to find out (and she might have known that but not let me into her little secret) that it was going to be the largest turn-out of Vienna's gay community. I had the best time of my life: there was a live act of the Geschwister Pfister, a brilliant Swiss comedy act consisting of a husband-and-wife team and her gay brother-in-law... who went on to do the live commentary for the eurovision contest on stage. The whole thing was followed by a dance-off to the hits and flops of past Eurovision years which turned out to be a right hoot!

This year, try as I might, I cannot not watch the event, seeing that we have his royal poofness Graham Norton doing the commentary, plus one of my all-time favourite voices (however much of a waste of talent she will be on that stage) is competing for France... it is, of course, Patricia Kaas. Ever since I found that out, I had long-standing arrangements with my daughter to see the show together, from the comfort of my bed, bag of nachos on my lap, spreading crumbs everywhere (actually, only on my hubby's side because he is a partypo**** and refuses to watch with us). But alas, she has better things to go to, so I will be off to a friend's where my desire to watch the show will not be met with complete disbelief.

The plan is for the two of us to come up with finger food that represents some of the participating countries. While I haven't made my mind up about what I will be making (suggestions welcome), this will be on the menu definitely, as my homage to Turkey. I made these lightly spicy lentil koefte a while back when I started my lofe-affair with Middle Eastern cooking and discovered the beautiful book Turquoise. As for the rest, I am thinking of some mini-quiches (France), a tortilla of sorts (made by my friend who is Spanish), some falafel with hummous (might be able to pass it off as Israeli), some blinis with caviar (Russia), some gravlax with home-made dill & mustard sauce (Sweden)... if you have any suggestions for the more "exotic" countries like Armenia or Lithuania, Rumania or Azerbaijan where, to be honest, I haven't got the faintest idea of their national dishes, please send me some inspiration!!!

Potato & watercress salad with smoked salmon

I have a long-standing relationship with potato salad. It's very popular thing in Austria, though very different from how it is usually made here, and every house-hold has their preferred way of making it. When I went to High School, there was a small "Beis'l" across the street - I am lost for words now, as I am not sure what to call or how to describe this place: I guess it's more like a caff', an unassuming, slightly uninviting place that opens just before midday and stays open until midnight, is always full of semi-drunk, chain-smoking locals who seems to be jobless and in need of company, serves hearty, traditional food that isn't even trying to be chic or healthy or trendy - it's food, for Christ's sake, what more do you want?

When we were old enough to be allowed in without a teacher (the establishment also served as a make-shift canteen for the few pupils who couldn't go home at lunchtime), it was the coolest place on earth to be - not only did that show that you got enough pocket money to afford it, you also got to hang out with the older, cooler pupils who spent more time in the caff' than they did on the school bench. In my last two years, I recall a number of times when teachers sent one of us over to see if any of the kids who hadn't turned up in class were across the road enjoying a sneaky drink... and more often than not, we would score (or never return to the classroom ourselves, as it were!)

I never had much pocket money, so in order to be able to get in, I'd have to loyally share the cheapest item on the menu with a friend... (those were the days when nobody minded me poking around in their food ;-)) which happened to be a potato salad or sometimes even just a breadroll. If you happened to know anyone, and I swear: anyone!, who attended the high school in Peuerbachstrasse in Linz, and you'd ask them who makes the best potato salad (and Hascheeknoedel, might I add), they would say it was that place (Kastner). I once asked the chef cook (see, it's that kind of place where you'd rather swallow your tongue than call whoever mans the kitchen a "chef"... they're a cook. end of story.) how she made it and the secret lies in cooking the potatoes until they're softening, but still firm to the bite, peel them, cut them into thin slices, transfer to a bowl and cover with stock - leave to macerate for hours and only then dress it with lots of mayo, sour cream and sliced onions.

In the UK, a potato salad couldn't be more different if it tried. First of all, people seem to be too lazy to slice or even peel their potatoes. That was my initial thought, anyway. I have since discovered that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to find the type of potato you need for our kind of salad: it needs to be waxy, firm and able to hold its shape when sliced after cooking. I have never, ever found such a potato in the UK, everything here is floury and will disintegrate if cooked without skin. If you're lucky, you might find Kipfler, which I believe are called "rattes" in French, somewhere on a market like the Borough here in London and you'll pay a hefty price for them.

So the solution is to use new potatoes, baby potatoes, Jersey Royals even for a nice, nutty taste. Cook them in their skins, halve the ones that need halving, and enjoy them without bothering to cut them. The recipe below adds a generous amount of watercress, something else I have first encountered here and have fallen in love with, smoked salmon and a dressing of home-made mayo (for which I must remember to post a recipe soon) and wholegrain mustard... I like to use wild Sockeye salmon which has a deep, red colour and contains the antioxidant astaxanthin which is great for your bladder, your immune system and for preventing Altzheimer, Parkinsons and other nervous system disorders... plus it's the most delicious around!

Here you have yourself a lovely spring salad, a great addition to any picnic spread and something that's maybe a tiny bit more sophisticated than what they used to serve at my high school caff' ;-)

Seeded sourdough bread

I bet you have answered this question a hundred times and asked it just as many: if you had to survive on one food alone, what would it be? For me, probably unsurprisingly, it is freshly baked sourdough bread (preferrably my own) with a generous smear of butter with fleur de sel de guerande (Bridel being the only one readily available here).

I bake about three times a week and this is the latest loaf: the same, trusted recipe I have been using for years now, this time with the addition of a generous amount of seeds: poppy, sesame and linseed. Many people think I am mad to bake my own bread (until they taste it).

Here's why I always make my own bread:
1) I just love the taste of freshly baked bread, I love the warmth of the kitchen while I bake it, I love how inexplicably, the whole family enjoys a lift of their mood when I am making a fresh loaf and they all gather in the kitchen - it just puts a smile on everyone's face.

2) I love the fact that my kids are eating proper bread that they must chew and that doesn't disintegrate in their mouth as soon as they put it in. It's good for their teeth, it's good for their digestion, it's good for their taste buds.

3) I love the fact that it is all natural, no preservatives, no e-numbers, no transfats, no activators and stabilisers and whatever else they put in to make bread last for weeks.

4) I love the fact that I can put in whatever I choose to, I use almost exclusively organic flours, which nowadays come in very exciting variations from small artisan milleries around the UK. Plus I add whatever takes my fancy on a given day - seeds, nuts, onion, cheese, herbs... the list goes on.

5) The bread (naturally!) stays fresh incredibly long (that's one of the many benefits of fresh sourdough) - after 5 days, you might want to toast your slice to pep it up a bit, but it hasn't gone stale... if only a loaf lasted that long! Usually, my family tends to find their way down to the kitchen when they smell the bread baking... and before I know it, someone has sawed off a bit and is happily munching on it ;-)

6) I also like how impressed people are when they taste it and ask me where I buy my bread... so many expats living here are used to good-quality bread, something this country just does not produce (at least it's not widespread and tends to be quite expensive).

7) I like how I have been able to spread the love and my sourdough culture, which I initially got sent from Germany, has now got seedlings in many of my friends' fridges - even the most reluctant of cooks have begged me to pass on the culture and show them how to make proper bread - and most of them have stuck to it over the months and years.

This is my own, humble contribution to making this world a better place ;-)

WTSIM - theme for May!

It's my time to host the fabulous "Waiter, there's something in my..." event again and I have chosen a theme that I am sure will be striking a cord with many of you. Over the incredible FIVE years that I have been maintaining this food blog, I have gone through many phases: as my aptitude in the kitchen increased, I tried to emulate the many wonderful dishes I had eaten at starred restaurants, only to finally return to simple recipes and bold flavours - and no other way of cooking expresses this more (apart from maybe Skye Gyngell's very own, inimitable style which I adore) than BISTRO FOOD.

So I invite you to create a dish that is either a bistro classic or should really be one - simple, hearty and bursting with flavour. It can be meaty, fishy, vegetarian or a dessert, something you've eaten in a gastropub recently or maybe something chosen out of these wonderful books. To reward all your best efforts, there will be a prize draw as well: a copy of a recently pubished cookbook written by Anthony Demetre of Arbutus and Wild Honey, both Michelin-starred restaurants here in London which have perfected the art of bistro food and adapted it to the local audience. Their restaurants are also different in that their wine is very afordable you can order just about any wine by the glass or caraffe, depending on how you're inclined. I'd really like to see this at more restaurants, most of the time if you just want a glass, you're stuck with some pretty awful house wine! So a copy of Today's Special is up for grabs and believe me, this is one book you're going to love... and I have just made two wonderful recipes out of it on the weekend... reliable and amazing!

Please send your entries to between now and the 31st of May, include your name, location, blog's name and URL to your post... I can't wait to see all your tempting creations!

Quinoa, prawn & asparagus salad with coriander & lime dressing

Super tasty meets super healthy. Not something you read every day, right? This salad has become an absolute favourite in our household - it is inspired by an old clipping out of a magazine supplement, but just as happens with dishes you make over and over again (we have this almost every week), it has been adapted, improved and reached a point where you just sleep-walk your way through the recipe, using some main components but also throwing in whatever you might have left in the fridge.

I normally add some avocado, but as per usual all I could get at the supermarket that day was either so hard you could easily kill someone with it or completely mushy - so I threw in some green asparagus which we're also eating like mad at the moment. I vary the herbs a lot, using dill or basil, always coriander, though, simply because I am addicted to it. The prawns and quinoa are a constant, but it would taste equally nice with some pan-fried or even smoked salmon.

Quinoa is a relatively recent discovery of mine, I had tried it on various occasions and always completely overcooked it. Ever since I discovered I could steam it in my Thermomix, which takes all of 20 minutes and doesn't need any attention at all, I make quinoa at least twice a week - a big batch of it, too, so that I can throw some into a tasty salad, add some to a, say, tomato soup and feed the kids with it as well. Perfectly versatile and super healthy: as well as being a comforting carb, it is one of the few non-meat products that contain all your essential amino acids. Plus it contains more protein than beef, balancing out your naughty carb fix niftily!

Beef Wellington - a contribution to WTSIM!

While Jeanne of CookSister! is frantically writing the round-up to this last month's edition of "Waiter! There's Something in my...", I have to publicly stand up to the fact that I am desperately late for this event. I have spent weeks pondering over the theme of retro-classics, in fact, I came this close to posting recipes for prawn cocktail, carrot cake (which in Austria is a retro classic, not the daily sugarfix most Brits know it as) and Waldorf salad (in the case of the latter, I realised all to late that I have already written about it here).

Retro classics are a funny thing in that a given dish might be considered as such, having enjoyed immense popularity over a certain period of time in a certain stretch of land, whereas elsewhere (often the country of origin) it might still be a staple food and not be considered retro. Take pavlovas, for example, which have been featured up and down the food magazines here in the last two years and are now on the way out (I believe), gaining popularity on the continent this year (if various food magazines across the channel can be trusted)... whereas  Down Under they're the most popular dessert ever and will probably remain so forever. 

Having recently discovered a fabulous butcher that sells online and delivers straight to your door (the only shame is that most of the food is sold frozen... but then it reaches you as such, ie hard as a brick and cold as ice, so you can put it straight in the freezer and defrost when needed - more on this supplier soon), I was keen to try their fillet steak on which they have a half-price offer at the moment. I instantly thought of beef wellington, individually presented rather than as a whole log. You should think that a keen and curious cook like myself should have mastered such a classic a long time ago, but I haven't... in fact, I have tried it once only and it was a miserable failure, not in terms of taste, but presentation - the dough rose at the same exponential speed as the beef shrunk, leaving me with a gaping hole that the tastiest mushroom duxelles could not compensate for.

This time, I consulted the Cordon Bleu cookbook from which I never cook, just because the pictures are SO retro that they don't appeal... great cookbook to buy when you're on a diet - you're much more likely to salivate watching paint dry than leafing through this. But in this very instant, it did what it does best: be reliable with regards to kitchen classics. I didn't even look at the list of ingredients, all I was interested in was the technique. The key things are to seal the meat beforehand by frying it sharply in a pan (or the meat will shrink in the pastry), leave it to cool (or the pastry will get soggy) and cut a tiny slit into the pastry at the top (I am guessing this is also as a ventilation measure to keep the pastry crisp and sticking to the meat).

The technique worked, but I made a fatal mistake: I failed to translate cooking times from a whole rack of beef to individual (small) portions of steak, resulting in meat that was well done rather than medium, as I normally like it. (the recipe below has been amended to factor this in). Well, another thing to improve on, since the family loved it, there shall be many requests for it. Beef Wellington was at the height of popularity in Austria two, three decades ago, when it was the ultimate dish to impress with at your dinner party... thirty years on, I might finally be able to master it ;-)