thepassionatecook

Chimichurri

Having been a vegetarian at least for parts of my young (?) existence (despite growing up in a carnivorous country, meat was rarely served in my family, at least by Austrian standards, and I turned wholly vegetarian after a bad bout of food poisoning in Mexico, only reluctantly giving it up when I fell pregnant with my eldest), I still marvel at the 360-degree turns one can make... in my late teens and early tweens, I easily gagged at the sight of meat whereas lately, the thought of having a big juicy steak is one that can keep me going for an entire week if I know that a visit to the Borough Market is due and I might be lucky and snatch some fillet at the stall of the lovely people who sell their Devon-reared wild beef.

There is no dish that has been more of a constant in our married life than fillet steak and no other dish has gone through as many incarnations as this. In the 90s, we were trying to perfect a cream sauce, simply with green pepper, or a red wine or portwine reduction (with some disastrous and expensive experiments in the area), early in this decade we leaned more towards thick, herby sauces in the style of a pesto (coriander and rocket being a firm favourite) or a guacamole-inspired avocado number. It was only lately that we discovered a new addiction that grabbed our attention in an entirely different context and at the moment, we can't have steak without it. Chimichurri. I don't even remember how an innocent tupperware of the stuff ended up in my kitchen - it must have been my friend Sonia, spaniard married to a Chilean, who brought it along... I really can't remember the occasion. But like a BoneyM song (though WAY more pleasant) that just sticks in your head and you can't help but hum along to it all day long, it must have been racing around my dear little brain for weeks until I finally decided to read up on it and have a go myself.

An hour later, we're having dinner and enjoy a whole new taste-experience packed with fresh coriander, garlic and chilli (a combination I could not resist, no matter how hard I tried) and it instantly wins a firm place in our repertoire: not just with steak, it also cuts through oily fish like a treat, we've had left-overs of it for an aperitif (dunk into it with some fluffy bread) and it livens up any plate of our weekly vegetables-left-over-from-our-organic-box medley... so quick to make and so satisfying, this is a sauce we'll definitely carry over into the coming year, if not the next decade!

Happy New Year, everyone, to a joy-filled 2009 and some great culinary highlights!

Roasted sweet potato & red onion

Ever heard of the blood group "diet"? I am not a diet girl, really, I have never been engaged to Atkins and the grapefruit and South Beach diets don't feature in my repertoire, despite the fact that I gained 25 kilos while living in Mexico, 9, 15 and 23 kg respectively in my pregnancies. The infamous cabbage soup once made an appearance on my stove only to be chucked out as soon as we finished our first bowl... inedible. Really. Fact is, I am way too undisciplined to follow any regime that doesn't advocate comfort food. (Whether I am naturally drawn to foods that are good for me or just have an above-average metabolism, I don't know. But I am far from being fat and any doctor's model student when it comes to measuring body fat, cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Do I think I am "practically perfect in every way?" - no way! There's always room for improvement, don't you think?)

The curriculum for the studies (a BSc in Complementary Medicine) that I embarked on last year also has a module on nutrition and the blood group "diet" was highly spoken of. I have the misfortune of having grown up in Austria and being a blood type O. What that means in a nutshell is that I am not supposed to have any potatoes or pasta, both of which are a staple in my diet. Sweet potato, on the other and, is beneficial for my metabolism and that's a vegetable that is all but  unknown where I grew up and therefore only a recent discovery. Paired with red onions and coriander or parsley, roasted in the oven for just over half an hour, those sweet potatos are a real treat, recently enjoyed with a steak straight from the BBQ, a chimichurri sauce (recipe to follow) and a new addiction: cavolo nero. Also extremely beneficial for me supposedly. Who said diets have to be painful???

And if you're in the mood for roasting now, why not participate in our much-revered foodblogging event "Waiter, there's something in my..." where the theme this month is roasts. You've got until Sunday, so that's your dinner for the weekend sorted! ;-)

Marsala-roast onions with camembert

When I first learnt in High School at the tender age of ten that Europe's main diet in the Middle Ages was onion, I couldn't believe it. Of course, potato, rice and many other staple foods weren't known around here until a certain Cristoforo Colombo set sail for India and discovered something entirely different (I will be entirely grateful for the fact that he brought us, among other things, avocados, exotic fruit and CHOCOLATE!) Much as I love onions, I couldn't bear to think of the stench everywhere as people were tucking into onions as if they were apples... but then again, Dove wasn't selling on market stalls either, nor did they have the convenience of a bathroom or WC. So I guess onion breath was the least of their worries.

Making a meal of onions is exactly what I did a few weeks ago - what was originally planned as a side ended up being our dinner... and deservedly so. There's nothing better than to indulge in something roasted on a wet autumn day and even more so when there's cheese involved - and mopping up the juices with a fresh slice of French sourdough makes you forget it's only onions you're eating - a luxury they wouldn't have had in the Middle ages, of course!

Caramelised fennel & red onion salad with raisins & pistachios

The venue: an end-of-terrace house in East London
The occasion: an end-of-summer braai at the Cook Sister!'s
The first act: an I-wish-this-would-never-end dish of slowly caramelised fennel and red onion.

When I arrived at the house I thought I had made a big mistake. Oh no, Jeanne was her usual lovely self, the other invitees two friends of her whom I adore, master-of-the-braai Nick preparing the bacon-wrapped venison which I had "ordered"... but somehow, the briefing Jeanne had given me when she asked me to bring a starter failed to mention that Olwen and Cecil would ALSO be bringing salad - one each! Clearly a break-down in communications and I feared that we would  all be leaving with salad hanging out of our ears. Luckily, the company at the table was very forgiving and my "salad" a stunner.

Fennel is always a tricky one to serve - it's a vegetable you either love or hate, just like beetroot and celery, I guess. I was never a big fan as a kid, but then fennel is very much an adult taste, don't you think? Its flavour is often referred to as resembling aniseed or liquorice, both of which I used to hate - but then the comparison doesn't really work for me, as I don't really like liquorice even now and I do adore my fennel. Aniseed, maybe.

Anyway - this version is probably one of the least controversial ones, you can even risk serving it to people who are known as being picky. Anything caramelised tastes just miles better than plainly cooked and with the sweet-and-sour tinge this dish has to it, there's a flavour component for everyone. And if that won't win them over, then the sherry-soaked raisins will surely produce smiles all round... if you have very picky guests, just double the amount!

White asparagus soufflés

Taking advantage of the last few weeks of the season, I picked up some white asparagus from the German baker at the end of June... yes, I know, I still call it the German baker although it's really much more like a grocery store for expats. The first time I heard of them was actually at work, where they used to come to deliver bread once a week, as they would to many other addresses in the City, like the Austrian and German Embassy and any other location likely to house hungry workers desperate for a gluten fix. I also buy my sausages there, breadcrumbs, rye flour and  other essential and non-essential food stuff - I'd never tell the kids, but this is a great place to go for tried and trusted childhood sweets like Haribo, Milka and other tooth-pullers. Shame that the staff can be very off-putting at times, just goes to show that politeness and friendliness were certainly not a German invention ;-)
When I discovered that they also sold white asparagus imported from Germany there, I jumped for joy... no longer would I have to make the trek to the Borough market (much as I love going there, it takes a good 3 hours out of my day and at the moment, I don't have much spare time anyway), but now I can conveniently pick up a bunch when I drop my son off at school. So we've had a quite a bit this season just gone and although I still defend my view of the simpler being the better, I have been caught dreaming up some more innovative treatments for those pristine white stalks.
It was only with that last bunch I bought that I finally came to try one of the ideas - in my mind, it looked much prettier than what I managed to put together in the end, but the taste was amazing. I am not quite sure what to call it: it all started with the plan to make a savoury cheesecake, using crumbs from rye bread for the base - but then I got lazy and decided to just use the dressing ring to cut a base out of a slice of rye bread I had in the bread tin. Halving and arranging the tips around the edge of the form like in a charlotte russe seemed like a neat idea and the inside made from cream cheese, eggs and puréed asparagus stalks is a fluffy mixture somewhere between a flan and a soufflé.
Whatever you like to call it, it's a wonderful starter for an early summer meal and despite the assembly being a bit fiddly, surprisingly easy to put together. So if you're looking for a more elaborate way of serving asparagus, this recipe might be for you... and if you're having trouble laying your hands on some white asparagus, try it with its green cousin - the taste will not be as subtle and elegant as with white asparagus, but the looks will be even more dramatic, I should think!

Other asparagus recipes on thepassionatecook:
Salmon & asparagus cousous with mint & lemon dressing (July 2007)
Green & white asparagus salad with red pepper & tarragon (May 2007)
Venison fillet on apple asparagus "lasagne" (February 2007)
Smoked haddock & asparagus lasagne (May 2004)
Asparagus, parma ham and egg breakfast tart (June 2004)

Irish Colcannon or What on earth is kale?

As much as I used to steer clear of British food when we moved over here (not out of fear to see that the prejudices we hold about the islands' culinary traditions on the continent smashed, but more because there is such an abundance and variety of cuisines available in London) I notice myself wanting to find out more about it these days.
This is not to say that I my appetite for exploring exotic restaurants has been forever satisfied, but I do seek out traditional British food and try to re-create it at home every once in a while. So while I keep checking out Vietnamese, Korean and Ethiopian eateries in the capital, I have also picked up a fair amount of recipes for things like Christmas pudding, eccles cakes, spotted dick, toad-in-the-hole and other traditional British fare.
One thing that caught my eye a while ago is colcannon and the perfect occasion to make it came with a delivery of my organic fruit and veg box recently, which contained some kale. I had never seen or heard of this vegetable before (although my Mum insists it goes by the name of "Grünkohl" in German-speaking countries), but knew what I had to do. I picked up a recipe on the net (as you do these days), but then couldn't be bothered to boot my laptop when it came to cooking. I had also been slightly worried about the amount of fat going into the dish - it suggests preparing the potato mash, mixing the kale in, then frying various layers of it in a pan, turning as you add each layer. And while under any other circumstances nothing could appeal to me more than a crisp outer shell and a layer of crisp potato in the middle, I guess I had over-indulged at Christmas and decided to take my complete and utter ignorance with regards to Irish cooking as an excuse for a low-fat alternative. Alternating layers of a simple potato mash and the kale which I first blanched, then sautéed with some garlic, I cheated by making a somewhat healthier, oven-baked version of Colcannon... and let me tell you, I really liked it, authentic or not!

Pork fillet with sherry sauce and polenta flans

When it comes to all things meat, I am a bit of a fussy eater, to be honest, or rather a fussy buyer. It's probably something I've inherited from my Mum, who's not a big meat fan at all and would rather keep us on a vegetarian diet for weeks to then splash out on a more expensive cut once a month.
Nowadays, especially with pork, I find it difficult to get my hands on good quality in the UK without paying extortionate prices (only to find out that it is still only average quality) - or maybe it's because I don't have enough experience to know what to buy and how to prepare it... so whenever my family comes to visit I ask my Mum to order some from a small, organic farmer in their area where I know that I am only getting the very best. I usually get my favourite cut for the traditional Austrian Schweinsbraten (roast pork), kilos of lean tenderloin bacon and some pork fillet.
Thick-cut pork medallions (basically chops liberated of their bone and any fat or connective tissue) used to be a special treat for us when we grew up and it was the obvious choice last weekend, when I Mum brought some fillet over. With a simple sherry & cream sauce, this was dinner in a flash and the polenta flan bakes are certainly something I am going to make more often from now on. I find polenta a tad difficult to sell sometimes, with lots of people being turned off by its rather strong taste (compared to bland rice, that is!) and its consistency: I like to cook the polenta either with vegetable stock and butter or add some milk from the beginning, then add some grated parmesan - this makes the taste very mild and suitable even for polenta-loathers. Also, the common practice of spreading it out on a tray and baking it in the oven makes it too dry, I find, so I tried putting it into ramekin dishes, sort of flan style, which makes for a nice crisp topping (or base, once turned out), but keeps the mixture nicely moist and creamy inside... and there wasn't a single complaint heard from the APL (Anti-Polenta League) around the table!

Truffled bread dumplings and red cabbage

These recipes are long overdue... I served them with a delicious fillet of venison with portwine & orange sauce on a bed of porcini mushrooms not so long ago. I like the bread dumplings and the red cabbage not only because they're the perfect accompaniment for venison, but also because they can prepared well ahead, taking much of the strain out of a dinner invitation. And, of course, they're the quintessence of autumnal cuisine.
Bread dumplings are a very traditional Austrian food - any bakery across the country will use unsold white bread to produce and sell not onlybreadcrumbs, but also diced bread, perfect for this dish. You can, of course, easily make your own by using day-old, stale bread as well. The bread is mixed in with fried onions, herbs, eggs and milk, then rolled into individual dumplings (Semmelknödel) and steamed over a pot of water, or, as in this recipe, into a log which is rolled into a piece of cloth or aluminium foil and cooked in water (Serviettenknödel). They are great with sautéed wild mushrooms (chanterelle, porcini, girolles, etc), but also delicious just fried in a little bit of butter and enjoyed with an autumnal salad of fennel and spinach. To pep up the basic recipe, people like to add fried bacon bits... or, as on my visit to the Purzelbaum restaurant in Salzburg and in my recipe here, produce a more decadent version of it by adding fresh truffles.
Red cabbage, on the other hand, while being pretty much foreign to British menus, are a sine-qua-non on the culinary agenda of any Austrian restaurant during the autumn months. Be it to accompany various game dishes during the hunting season or the traditional goose in the month of November, red cabbage is the staple side dish everywhere and the preparation varies greatly as every establishment prouds itself of some secret recipe or other. I stuck to my bible of Austrian cooking, Plachutta's "Die Gute Küche"... you can see that this book has become my trusted friend over the years, as the outer shell is as battered as its inside is littered with splashes of sauce, cookie dough and greasy fingerprints - not a pretty sight, maybe, but indispensable in my kitchen on the rare occasions where I delve deep into my culinary heritage.
Plachutta's recipe may be time-consuming, macerating the shredded cabbage in orange juice for hours, but the result is worth every minute spent... and to be honest, I had so much other stuff to prepare day that I didn't mind a bowl of cabbage sitting around for a while. The cabbage was so incredibly fruity and yummy that I could have eaten it on its own. It would go very well with duck as well, I suppose, or any game bird for that matter - maybe try it with your Thanksgiving turkey this year... the bread dumplings would probably make good stuffing as well - who knows, this might be a better marriage of the Austrian and the American than the Schwarzenegger/Shriver connection!

Cocina Mexicana - Learning to cook Mexican III

(Sopes with salsa verde)
This third instalment of our Mexican Cooking Extravaganza will see the introduction of salsas - sauces, for those not versed in Spanish (or modern cooking). It is a common misconception that Mexican food is spicy - it can be, of course, but it isn't necessarily all the time. In fact, the families I stayed with when living in Mexico cooked very few dishes with hot chilli, instead, they would add salsas to their liking once the food was on the table. And when they did, like for my beloved "chiles rellenos" which are a bit hit and miss in terms of just how spicy they are, they'd let me taste it first - if it was mild, I'd pass it on to them, if it was spicy, I'd have to eat it. But even if you can't stand the heat, you'll easily get by in Mexico!
Sauces are many and varied and wherever you go, people will have a tray of different ones on the side board of their dining room - using different kinds of chillies, they vary in heat* (jalapeños, for instance, are reasonably mild whereas habaneros are definitely nothing for the faint-hearted) and flavour, some are smoked, some or not, some contain just chile, others are based on tomato... the list is endless. But the best salsas are obviously those that are home-made and a bit more elaborate than the ones you buy in the grocery store.
When you go to a good taquería, you'll have a choice of freshly-made salsas to accompany your tacos. We prepared the most common ones for our introduction to Mexican Cooking the other day:

Guacamole has celebrated a veritable culinary crusade, but sadly become bastardised a lot of times. It is really hard to come by a good one and buying it ready-made (or, worse still, using the omnipresent OEP sachets) is not a good idea for obvious reasons. For a dummies guide to guacamole, here are some tips on how to handle your avocados:
Three handy tips for a successful relationship with your avocado:
1) If your avocados are not ripe, wrap them in newspaper. (Don't expect them to be ripe and ready in a matter of minutes, though, the Mexicans don't insist on "mañana" for no reason)
2) If you want to speed up the ripening process even more, put a banana next to them. (It still will need a good day or longer, depending on how ripe it is to start with)
3) To keep the guacamole from turning brown, don't throw the stone away, but leave it in the bowl with the guacamole - old wife's tale or not, it's done the trick for me every time.

(photo courtesy of Cooksister!)
Pico de Gallo (more commonly known as Salsa Mexicana, as everything carrying the name "mexicano/a" will consist of something green, white and red like the Mexican flag) is a fresh sauce based on tomatoes, onion, chile jalapeño and generous amounts of fresh coriander, seasoned with lime juice. The ingredients are raw, but it doesn't hurt to prepare the salsa ahead for the flavours to infuse. This sauce is mainly used as is, simply added onto a taco or enjoyed with nachos (tortilla chips baked in the oven with grated cheese), rather than being used in cooking.

Another favourite of mine is Salsa Chipotle - I love chipotle chillies for their rich and smokey flavour - very addictive! This type of chilli is also more fiery than the jalapeño, so care must be taken by novices of spicy food. This sauce is very smooth and uses tomatoes and lime juice, but can be used for cooking as well as a condiment for tacos. The simplest way is to use tinned chipotle, which is juicy and gorgeous!

Salsa Verde (main photo, used on sopes) on the other hand, is a cooked sauce. Its base are "tomatillos" (note that in Mexico,  "tomate" always refers to this green, husked variety, a member of the gooseberry family, hence the name "physalis philadelphica", whereas a common tomato is called "jitomate") and they are cooked with garlic and chile jalapeño or serrano, then blended and seasoned with fresh coriander. The green sauce can also be consumed as is, on tacos, sopes, flautas etc, but it is also often added to cooked dishes - like chicken breasts in salsa verde or chilaquiles, a sort of lasagna made of stale, fried tortillas interlaces with cheese... the most successful hangover cure ever invented!

* If you want to find out more about the different varieties of chillies and their heat score, refer to the following entry on wikipedia. Also refer to this article for more on Mexican Cuisine. If you're after a cookbook for all things Mexican, with good explanations of the ingredients used, I can recommend Diana Kennedy's From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients. Yes, I know, she's English - but it's the best introduction to Mexican food I have come across as it covers all the basics.

Creamy spinach with roast potatoes and and egg: Spinat mit Spiegelei

This used to be one of my favourite dishes when I was a child: so much so that I even dressed up as it for our carnival parties... here's the proof! It is also a dish that has become closely linked to the Thursday before Easter, which in Austria is goes by the name of "Gründonnerstag". Upon investigation it appears that it wasn't to reflect our culinary traditions that this day was called "Green Thursday", but a closer look at its ethymology reveals that in Old German, as well as in some Austrian dialects nowadays, "greinen" means "to groan, to weep, to mourn" and this is where the name for the day of the Last Supper originates. Falsely interpreted, it soon became tradition to bring out green ornaments in Church as well as eat something green - herbs, salad, but more traditionally spinach. Similar to advent, my family used to observe the Easter traditions carefully - we had to give something up for lent (back then it was most likely to be sweets, nowadays, I give up beetroot ;-)) and this would be pretty much be the last real meal before the real fasting began which lasted until the early hours on Easter Sunday (or very late the day before for us kids). Maybe that's how I've come to like it so much!!!
I should have thought about posting this in the Easter week, but might as well serve it up now: not long now before spinach season, with the first field-grown baby spinach arriving at our stalls in late spring, early summer.
Most people don't make this from scratch, but usually buy the blocks of spinach puréed and frozen at the supermarket to only add the finshing touches (garlic, sour cream etc). It's incredibly easy to make, though, and tastes so much better. To achieve a real thick and creamy spinach, you prepare a béchamel sauce as a base, then add the blanched/steamed leaves, purée and season to taste. This can be served as an accompaniment, especially with Tafelspitz (recipe at end of post), but it's just a scrumptuous eaten on its own.