Walnut Sauce with Strozzapreti

This is another quick-fix meal: making the sauce takes no longer than for the water to boil and the pasta to cook. Leftovers can be frozen and warmed up in the oven or a steamer.

I came across strozzapreti in a specialist Italian shop. Like orechietti or the thick fusilli, they are somewhere between fresh and dried pasta, packed with a sell by date like the dried variety but softer and chewier like the fresh stuff. The name is intriguing as it means “priests stranglers”.(and of course, as all the smarta***s will point out, in the picture we have fusilli.)

The walnut sauce was inspired by an Italian recipe but only to the point of two ingredients, walnuts and cream. There is no real intention to make this a traditional Italian sauce, but as the cold spell persists, so does the need for comfort food…

What you need

• 400 g of pasta (ideally fresh, but in any case, high quality stuff!)
• 50 g butter
• 100 g ground walnuts (or pecan for a slightly different but equally palatable flavour)
• 1 medium sized onion finely chopped
• 1-2 pressed cloves of garlic
• 100 ml Marsala
• 100 ml cream
• 200 ml crème fraîche
• seasoning with vegetable stock (powder, possibly dissolved in the Marsala), Cajun spice mix and paprika

What you do

1. Fry the onions in the butter (add the garlic as well unless you want the flavour to be more prominent, in which case add it right at the end) until they are glassy, perhaps slightly golden.
2. Add the ground up walnuts and allow to develop their flavour while stirring.
3. Pour in the marsala and simmer until it seems to have been absorbed by the nuts.
4. Add the cream before stirring in the crème fraîche.
5. Season to taste with vegetable stock, Cajun spice and paprika.

Serve with freshly ground parmesan cheese.

Polenta with Gorgonzola and Winter Vegetable Pan

Here at last is that long promised recipe for the dish that preceded the quince mousse.

Both dishes together make a perfectly good meal, but I also added a slice of zander or pike-perch (a fresh-water fish), seasoned with salt and Cajun Spice (see earlier entry), dusted with flour and fried à la minute in some hot butter or olive oil.  

 

 

What you need: Polenta with Gorgonzola

• 250 g Bramata Polenta
• 1 l vegetable broth possible with a bit extra (purists only use salted water…)
• 200 gr Gorgonzola, Blaues Wunder or Stilton in small cubes or slices (conversely for those who are not too keen on blue cheese a mixture of that and Mascarpone may be answer)
• grated parmesan
• Crema di Balsamico
• optionally: salt, pepper, Italian herbs and nutmeg

What you do:

There are two types of polenta, one that becomes quite solid once it is done and can then be fried up in butter and the other tends to be more liquid (apart from differences in the coarseness of the maize). For this recipe I prefer the liquid but relatively coarse-grained variety, which is the result of adding hot water or broth as the cooking and stirring goes on.

By the way, this does require a fair bit of cooking (and stirring time, the longer it cooks the easier it is to digest and the better it tastes, but unless you don’t mind chiselling out a black crust at the end, it pays to keep stirring…

The plus side is that it can be made in advance and that it freezes very well…

1. Bring the water with the vegetable stock to the boil.
2. Allow the maize to trickle into the boiling stock while you stir and keep stirring until the mixture thickens.
3. On a very small fire cook for at least 45 minutes, up to 2 hours if you have the time, stirring occasionally and adding water if the polenta gets too solid.
4. Season to taste towards the end.
5. In the meantime, butter a gratin dish and preheat the oven to 180°.
6. Pour in about two thirds of the polenta, then distribute the cheese over it. (Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg at this point if you use any.)
7. Pour in the rest, making sure the cheese is covered, then sprinkle a generous layer of parmesan on top for the crust. (alternatively, add the nutmeg at this stage.)
8. Bake in the oven until the top has developed a golden/light brown crust.
9. Serve with a pattern of Crema di Balsamice as decoration over the crust.

What you need: Winter Vegetable Pan

• olive oil (for sautéing, about 3 tblsp)
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 2 medium-sized leeks, finely sliced
• 1 medium parsley root cut into thin strips (about 3 mm thick and about 5 cm long; this is true for all root vegetables)
• 1 small parnsip
• 4 carrots (ideally of different types/colours)
• ½ celeriac
• ½ fennel, finely sliced
• 150 ml good white wine
• 300 ml passata or peeled tinned tomatoes
• 3 (+) cloves of garlic, pressed
• optionally: 5 pre-steamed black salsify (or scorzanera), cut in 5 cm pieces.
• to season:
• 1 vegetable stock cube(s)
• 1 tbls Cajun spice (see earlier blog entry)

What you do:

1. Heat the oil and sautée the onions and the leek until soft.
2. Add all the vegetables and stir fry briefly, then add the wine with the stock cube dissolved in it.
3. Pour in the passata, add the carlic and season with the Cajun spice.
4. Serve as soon as the liquid is reduced to a thickness of a mayonnaise and the vegetables are still quite crunchy. (If you prefer them soft, simply cook for longer.)
5. The dish can be done in advance, and warmed up before serving, in which case the “bite” of  the veggies needs to be monitored.  

Remarks

Black salsify is an underappreciated vegetable, only available in winter. It is said to be a pain to prepare. It looks like a grubby, black root and indeed it tends to leave black marks; it is best peeled under running water to prevent staining and to wash away the sticky milky liquid they exude when they are cut. Once peeled, the pieces or whole roots need to put into water with a bit of vinegar to prevent the snow white root from browning. If boiled in hot water or steamed, it remains white. It tastes slightly nutty and is sometimes referred to as winter asparagus. Served with a bit of cheese grated over the top and a bit of melted butter, it is a delicacy.

Quince Mousse on a "Red Coulis"

We still have a huge load of quince, which we are storing in our cool larder, where they seem to be keeping well. In a way this is an autumn recipe, but it was part of a meal I cooked for my parents’ traditional New Year’s Eve dinner (held a bit later this year as we were away until 6 January).

There was a small dollop of cream in the middle of the plate, but the pattern I tried to do with it didn't work out. Just as well as the mirror effect of the coulis cancelled it out anyway...

 

 What you need for the quince mousse

• 1 kg quince, backed for about 30-40 minutes till tender
• 1 lemon juiced
• 100 ml quince liqueur or schnapps (apple or pear will do as well)
• 100 ml rum
• 300 g brown sugar
• 400 ml cream, whipped

What you do

1. Put the quince into a baking tray and bake at 180° until they are tender. Peel, core and cube the baked quince.
2. Add the lemon juice, spirits and sugar and cook until soft. (With the resulting syrup you can boil up the core and peel for additional jellification before straining the liquid back into the quince cubes.)
3. Put the mixture through a sieve or liquidise. Leave the purée to cool.
4. Whip the cream and fold it gently into the cool purée.
5. Keep refrigerated for at least 24 hours before using.
6. Serve in scoops on the red coulis.

 

 

The "Red Coulis"

1. Warm 100 g damassine or plum jam or sloe jelly. Liquidise the jam and pass through a sieve.  
2. Add lemon juice (and plum schnapps or sloe gin respectively if thus inclined) to taste.
3. Pour on the cold plates and sit the scoops of mousse in the red liquid.
4. Garnish with a sprig of peppermint or lemon balm.

 

Gnocchi with Boursin Sauce

In summer I tend to avoid heavy duty dairy cooking, but with the lower temperatures in winter and the increased need for comfort foods I tend to use more cream and cheese.

This is a pretty quick dinner because I don't make the gnocchi myself. I have done on occasion because my Ticinesi godmother Aunt Pina awakened my love for them: hers were the best I have ever tasted, firm yet fluffy.  But it is a lot of work and nowadays some of the ones you can buy in the shops are pretty damn good. So, apologies for my laziness here, but as a result, preparing this dinner takes about as long as boiling up the water for the gnocchi and allowing them to come up to the surface of the cooking water, once you put them on (about 15 minutes).

Next to the ingredients under "What you need" you can see Caroline’s Chicory and Apple Salad with Walnuts (see below).

What you need

• 1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped
• tblsp butter
• 3 cloves garlic pressed
• 100 ml good white wine
• 1 vegie stock cube
• 100 gr Boursin (alternatively you can use a creamy blue cheese as well) cut into cubes
• 100 ml crème fraîche
• 100 ml fresh cream
• cheese spice mix (I get mine from my old friend Daniel Enz, “Bio Käse-Mix – teeparadies-Kreation”; if you want to make it yourself, experiment with fenugreek, cumin, dried garlic, nutmeg, paprika, coriander chillies, etc. all ground up very fine)
• salt, pepper
• 3 tblsp grated parmesan cheese

What you do

1. Melt the butter and sauté the onions with letting them brown. Add the garlic and stir to prevent it too from browning (as it would start tasting bitter otherwise).
2. Pour in the white wine and the stock cube
3. Stir in the boursin until it has dissolved in the wine.
4. Add the crème fraîche and the cream and reduce.
5. Season to taste with cheese spice mix, salt and pepper.
6. Simmer to reduce a bit further while the gnocchi rise to the top of the boiling water.
7. Serve with grated parmesan or pecorino romano.

To add a bit of vitamins here:

Caroline’s chicory and Apple Salad with Walnuts

5 chicory sliced

2 firm apples (www.biohof-matzwil.ch), mouth-sized, thin pieces

1 handful of walnut kernels

salt, pepper

cider vinegar

pumpkin seed oil

In the salad bowl mix salt, pepper and cider vinegar before adding the pumpkin seed oil.

Add the apples and the chicory and serve with fresh bread.

Caroline has also made her own balsamico-style quince vinegar. More of which at some later stage…

Galette Cannelloni with (Root) Vegetable Filling

It’s been some time since the last posting, due to pre-Christmas frenzy and then two weeks spent travelling around Rwanda with my family. But here is a recipe I did before Christmas and meant to post in December that is a typical winter dish and easy to prepare in advance.

 

 

 

Galettes

Galettes are a kind of pancake or crepe made with buckwheat flour and generally better for a savoury meal. I grind the buckwheat fresh, but in many organic shops you can get it as flour. (Sorry for the picture on its side; I can't turn it for some stupid reason)

 

150 g buckwheat flour

1 egg

100 ml milk

150 ml water

1 tsp salt

50 g butter       melted

Mix all ingredients and leave the batter to sit in the fridge for at least an hour to allow the buckwheat to absorb the liquid.

Then bake individual thin pancakes in a buttered griddle or frying pan. 

 

 

 

The Galette Cannelloni:

What you need

• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 fennel cubed
• 4 small waxy potatoes cubed
• 2 small carrots sliced
• ½ kohlrabi cubed
• optionally: cubed parsley root, parsnip or fresh beetroot
• 2-3 cloves garlic (I used wild garlic chopped and frozen in a bit of olive oil)
• 150ml of passata (or liquidised pellati tomatoes)
• 100 ml white wine or dry sherry
• berbere spice mix ((Ethiopian spice mix) (http://www.food.com/recipe/berbere-ethiopian-hot-pepper-seasoning-91929; I get mine from these folks: http://www.teeparadies.ch/)
• salt
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• Provencal herbs
• grated cheese (I really like pecorino romano with this dish)

What you do

1. Fry the onions and the fennel in a little olive oil without letting them brown.
2. Add the potatoes and the other vegetables, then squeeze in the garlic.
3. Season with berbere and a vegetable stock cube, then add the sherry or white wine. Lastly sprinkle with the Provencal herbs.
4. Add the tomato passata and simmer until the potatoes are done but still firm. The vegetables should still be al dente but reasonably dry.
5. Season to taste with salt and pepper if necessary.
6. Put the mixture across the galettes and roll them up. Place the cannelloni in a buttered oven-proof dish. If you need to make this in advance, you can now place the dish in the fridge till needed.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°, spread the rest of the filling across the top if there is any, sprinkle with freshly grated cheese and place in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the top is browning. 

Leek Cream Soup with Salmon Cubes

I first came across a version of this recipe, which uses carrots and some orange juice and zest, in a cookbook by one of Switzerland’s leading chefs, Oskar Marti, now retired. I was at his restaurant a couple of times and he likes to talk to people; somehow we hit it off, we ended up talking food and cooking, surprise surprise, and he gave me a few hints about the recipes in that book (he was about to present me a copy, but, obviously, I already had one); he wrote a very nice dedication into it when I sent it to him  a few days later, something I’m very happy about because he confirmed so many of my thoughts and beliefs concerning healthy, ecological and seasonal cooking.

Anyway, I had friends over the other day and realised I did not have enough carrots but loads of leeks, so I did this instead.

The advantage of this dish is that it can be prepared in advance and finished when the guests turn up.

What you need

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 2 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1 knob butter for frying
• 1 tablesp Madras curry powder
• 4 medium-sized leeks (the white bits), finely chopped
• 1-2 small (or 1 medium) potatoes, diced
• 100 ml dry sherry
• 1 tblsp vegetable broth powder/concentrate/cube
• salt and pepper to taste
• 200-300 gr very (!) fresh salmon, cut into 1 cm cubes.
• 250 ml fresh cream, whipped, if you like, for a fluffier texture; alternatively use double cream

What you do

1. In a sauteuse melt the butter and add the onions, the garlic, the ginger and the curry powder. Stir without letting the onions, etc. take on any other colour than the yellow of the curry powder.
2. Add the leek and stir till it has gone limp, then add the potatoes and the veggie broth concentrate / cube.
3. Pour in the sherry and reduce to about half.
4. Cover with water and simmer until the potatoes are soft.
5. Liquidise the mixture adding water to get the desired thickness and season to taste with salt and pepper. (You may want to strain the soup but I like tiny bits in it.) At this stage you can let it cool or keep it in the fridge till needed…
6. Preheat the soup bowls (better than plates), then distribute the salmon cubes and pour in the fresh cream.
7. Pour in the reheated, piping hot soup and serve; the salmon poaches itself on the way from the kitchen to the table. (See picture above.)

Curried Omlette

This may look a bit daunting because of the long list of ingredients, which is mainly the spices. If you prefer not to bother with the individual ones, just use a curry mix that you like, e.g. Madras Curry or a commercially available curry paste.  Even if you use your own spices, this is a quick and easy Indian meal, which allows for a lot of flexibility, depending on what you have in the fridge and the larder and on what is in season. The ingredients below reflect that it is December, but in summer you can substitute tomatoes (which are actually really nice in this dish!) and courgettes for some of the root vegetables. Potatoes are a standard ingredient, though.  

What you need

• 2 potatoes, diced and steamed or boiled
• ½ celeriac, diced
• 2 carrots, diced or thinly sliced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cm finely ginger chopped or pressed
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, pressed
• 1 leek, halved and cut into thin strips
• 4-6 eggs, depending on their size, beaten
• 1 tblsp turmeric
• 1 tblsp jeera powder (ground cumin seed)
• 1 tsp (+) cayenne pepper
• 1 tblsp ground coriander seeds
• a dash of tamarind juice (or vinegar)
• 1 chilli pepper finely cut
• oil for frying
• salt (and pepper) to taste

optionally:

• 1-2 medium tomatoes diced
• ½ capsicum pepper, diced
• grated cheese
• 1 handful of coriander leaves, finely chopped
• for garnish a green chilli in fine slices

What you do

1. Fry the spices (including the chillies) in a wide frying pan until they begin to go dark.
2. Add the onions, garlic and ginger (and the leek, if using) stirring to prevent them from going brown.
3. Add the other vegetables, stiring from time to time, and fry it all for about 5 minutes. The vegetables should still be crunchy. 
4. Add the beaten eggs and the coriander leaves/cilantro  to taste. (If you find there is not enough egg for the vegetables, beat one or two more and add them too)Fy gently until the eggs are no longer runny.  
5. If using, sprinkle with grated cheese to taste before the eggs have set completely.  
6. Either turn with a large plate and fry on the other side as well or put under the grill until the top of the omelette is browned.

   

   Add caption

Optionally garnish with some fresh coriander leaves and the sliced green chillies.

Remarks

Indian spice mixes can be checked out here. What is important is that the ingredients are usually dry-roasted (without fat) in a skillet or a frying pan, then cooled down and ground in a mortar or a specially designated spice mill (cheap coffee grinder used exclusively for this purpose). The list above obviates this need because all the spices are already ground and then fried before use.