Category: Europe


Mar
2019

Use By: Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

categories: Apricots, France, Fruit, Sorbet

There were so many things I could have named this post.  But hey, I made an Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet. So when I couldn’t decide between witty or explanatory  I decided to go with plain old pragmatism. Who knew ice cream was so complicated?

Apricot, Lemon, Basil Sorbet

BEING MORE FRENCH

Towards the end of last year, one of my work buddies and I were talking about New Year’s Resolutions. He said he never made the traditional resos of saving money, losing weight or getting fit.  Instead, he chooses something that explores a different way of being / thinking / creating.  So, it could be a  year of reading the financial papers or a year of being vegetarian or a year of being celibate or totally slutty or otherwise exploring a part of your personality that you feel needs expressing or you just want to have fun with.

“You know, like a year of being more French”

My reaction?

 

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

This is the beauty of something like this – it can mean whatever you want it to be.  For me…in no particular order:

Dress More French

  • Such as totally indulging my love of a striped t shirt.

 

Eat / Drink more French food (and wine)

Fromage anyone?

Fig, Fennel and Pistachio Roulade10

Watch More French movies / French tv shows

Including one of my favourite films ever The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

And just to balance out all that sweeetness, some gritty French police drama.

Be more Cultured

Self Care

French women take fabulous care of their skin and have amazing beauty regimes.

I plan on getting me a piece of that. My first foray into this realm was to buy some French eye drops that were RAVED about in a beauty blog.  They have made absolutely no discernible difference so that was money down le toilet but  I will try a new product each month.

 Read More French

I haven’t quite decided where this bit lands

  • Dip my toe in – Read more books set in France…eg Cara Black’s Murder In….Series
  • Float along – Read more books by French authors…I have some Proust and some Zola and some Binet in my TBR.
  • Dive in deep – Read French in French – I also have Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire and, weirdly a French translation of a James Patterson novel.

Maybe a bit of each…

Other ideas not fully thought out yet

  • Have an attitude
  • Start a revolution
  • Sexy Frugality

Mais, bien sûr

Cook More French

Which brings us back to doh oh oh oh.

The topic for our latest Tasty Reads Book Club was a “non book” book.  So you could cook recipes off the interwebs or the tv or, in my case a food magazine.  I bought this mag when I was on holiday last year and had not cooked anything from it.  

So, when some friends gave me a big bag of apricots of varying degrees of ripeness,  I decided to

  1. Be more French,  and
  2. To use this produce before it went bad (Year of Less Waste)

By cooking the Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet from the mag.

Here’s the recipe.

In English.

Print

Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

Print Recipe

A delightfully refreshing fruity sorbet

Ingredients

Scale
  • 500g apricots
  • 12 basil leaves
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 3 eggs
  • 200ml of cream
  • 150g sugar
  • 1 tbsp honey

Instructions

  1. Infuse 6 basil leaves in cream for at least 2 hours.
  2. Then put the apricots, the rest of the basil, lemon juice and a little water into a pot and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes.
  3. Taste and add the honey (a little more or less may be required depending on the sweetness of the apricots.
  4. Cook for another five minutes.
  5. Let cool.
  6. Separate the eggs.
  7. In a large bowl, beat the yolks and the sugar until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns pale. Then stir in the apricot mixture.
  8. In a separate bowl, beat the whites to soft peaks.
  9. In a third bowl, beat the cream to soft peaks.
  10. Add the cream to the apricot mix and blend through.
  11. Gently fold in the egg whites.
  12. Pour into a container. Freeze for 24 hours

Au revoir mes amis and have a lovely weekend!

 

 

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Oct
2018

Chicken Cacciatore

categories: Chicken, Italy

Happy Chicken Cacciatore Day Everyone!!!!

Chicken Cacciatore1

You might now know it but there is a debate raging on the backstory of Chicken Cacciatore!

Commonly received wisdom will have you believing that Chicken Cacciatore or Hunter’s Chicken originated in Renaissance Italy.

The big problem with this theory is that there were no tomatoes in Renaissance Italy – they only came to Italy post the discovery of the New World!

Ah, but the…let’s call them the Old Worlders will tell you, “It was made without tomatoes back in the day”.

Possible.  But tomatoes seem to be fairly integral to the idea of Chicken Cacciatore.  Even this old recipe for it which doesn’t contain mushrooms or olives or any of the additions we see in modern Cacciatore contains tomatoes.  Two types!

Chicken Cacciatore2 By the way, how adorable is this recipe?  The whole book is like this!  And where else have you read a recipe that mentions “wretched” little chicken wing or tells you to stir something with enthusiasm!

But, I’ve only told you one side of the debate.  The second theory of Chicken Cacciatore comes from Nikki Sengit from her amazing book, The Flavour Thesaurus. Her contention is that Chicken Cacciatore is about as Italian as Chicken Tikka Masala is Indian!

“Hunter’s Stew –  which is not, sadly, the invention of pockmarked Sicilian peasants, returning home with a brace of feral chickens slung over their waistcoats, but an English recipe from the 1950’s taught to nice girls by their mothers in the hope they’d bag the sort of chap who’d neither be too unadventurous nor too suspiciously cosmopolitan to object to a lightly herbed slop of chicken in tomato sauce”

Oh Nikki, so harsh!

Chicken Cacciatore is delicious!!!  At least this recipe, which is the one I used is!  I only took one photo so here it is again!

Chicken Cacciatore1

So, tell me which side of the debate do you land on? Renaissance or 1950’s.  Either way, buon appetito and have a great week!!!!

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Aug
2018

Macdedonian Grilled Cheese (Przeni Lepcinja)

categories: Bread, French Toast, Grilled Cheese, Macedonia, World Cooking

Grilled cheese is one of life’s little pleasures.  Warm toasty bread, oozy melty grilled cheese…it doesn’t get better than this.  Except in Macedonia where they top their grilled cheese with…wait for it….more cheese!!!

Today we’re continuing our visit to the Balkan States with a little look at Przeni Lepcinja – Macedonian grilled cheese.

Macedonian Grilled Cheese

Macedonian Grilled Cheese is essentially a cheesy French toast, topped with cheese.  It’s delicious and so quick and easy to make!

The blend of creamy melted mozzarella and the salty feta cheese is great and perfect with the crisp french toast style bread!

I found the recipe for Macedonian Grilled Cheese here  I’ve also copied it below.  I served mine with a little tomato and red onion salsa that was very similar to the Sopska Salata featured here. Although given the double cheese abundance in the toast, I left the cheese out of the salad!

Macedonian Grilled Cheese

If you feel like something a bit more substantial, this is also great if you serve with a poached or fried egg on top…this I think also has a nice symmetry – cheesy eggy bread, topped with cheese and egg.

Macedonian Grilled Cheese

And now, just because I can, here’s a cheesy joke for you:

What’s cheese’s favourite music?

R ‘n’ Brie. 

🤗

Cheesy and cheesy if you know what I mean.

Just like a Przeni Lepcinja!

Have a great week!

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Jun
2018

Cevapcici with Sopska Salata and Random Facts about David Bowie

categories: Salad, Sausage, Serbia, World Cooking

Поздрав из Србије!

Or, to my non-Serbian friends, Greetings from Serbia. Today we are continuing to explore the former Yugoslavian regions with a side step from Croatia to Serbia.
Cevapcici with Sopska Salata

On the menu today are Cevapcici (aka Cevapi) which are sausages found all over the Balkans in various shapes, sizes and flavours. The word is derived from the Turkish kebab from which my serving suggestion today is also derived.

Because meat+bread+salad  = delicious in any language! 😘

Cevapcici with Sopska Salata

Wikipedia lists the following variations:

  • Sarajevski ćevap, from Sarajevo, Bosnia, meat mix of beef and sheepmeat
  • Travnički ćevapi, from Travnik, Bosnia, meat mix of beef, veal, mutton and lamb
  • Banjalučki ćevapi, from Banja Luka, Bosnia, beef meat
  • Tuzlanski ćevapi, from Tuzla, Bosnia, meat mix of beef, mutton and lamb
  • Novopazarski ćevap, from Novi Pazar, Serbia, traditionally sheepmeat
  • Leskovački ćevap, from Leskovac, Serbia, veal meat

My version uses lamb so takes its cues from a the novopazarski cevap.  I could not find a recipe for one of these online and the entry in Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery was vague to say the least:

So I used a lamb cevapcici recipe I found online here. The spice blend made these sausages super tasty and the high-fat content of the lamb kept the sausages from drying out during cooking so this was a really good find.  Also, the cevapcici were super easy to make.

The recipe for the Sopska Salata or Serbian Tomato Salad came from here.

Sopska Salata

My pita recipe came from the Relish Mama Family cookbook which is our current Tasty Reads cookbook but you could use any homemade pita recipe or use bought flatbreads to make cooking this even easier.

Lamb Cevapcici with Sposka Salata

And now for some fun facts about Serbia. Which turned into random facts about David Bowie.

Nikola Tesla was a Serb.  Amongst other things, Tesla is known for the development of alternating current and wireless technology.  He was also played by David Bowie in the amazing movie The Prestige!

The most known Serbian word?

Vampire.

David Bowie starred alongside Susan Sarandon in a vampire film back in the 1980’s called The Hunger.

Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie in the Tony Scott movie “The Hunger”… (1983)
byu/Reporter_at_large inDavidBowie

Serbia is the world’s largest exporter of a particular (and delicious) food item.   In 2012, 95% of this item came from Serbia.  And seeing as this has now also become an unofficial David Bowie post, it features as an ingredient in two of the cocktails on this list inspired by David Bowie.

The ingredient?  Raspberries.

One more….just to really tie things together…Brian Rasic (Brajan Rašić) who was Bowie’s official photographer for many years and gave the world several iconic photos of the great man?  Was born in Belgrade.

Seriously, sometimes this just writes itself….

Have a wonderful week everyone!

And tell me, if you were going to drink a David Bowie-inspired cocktail from the list above, which would you choose?  I’d have a Starman.

 

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Cevapcici Recipe:

Cevapcici recipe 1

Sopska Salata Recipe (SBS Food)


Mar
2018

REPOST: All The Z’s – Part 5 – Zurich Mushroom Tartlets

categories: 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Mushrooms, Switzerland, Vegetarian

Hello, and welcome to the fifth and final post of the Food that starts with Z mini-series…We’re heading to Switzerland for some Zurich Mushroom Tartlets.  And I have a new book to cook from!  Pack your passports friends, we are taking a trip around the world via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery from 1972.

The book promises

  • 222 illustrations, 48 in  full colour
  • 672 pages
  • 2316 recipes from all over the world

Good Housekeeping World Cookery 1972

The World in 1972

So what was this world of 1972 that we are about to enter into? What was the zeitgeist that spawned this tome?

www.thepeoplehistory.com tells us that

1972 This year is marked as a black year in history due to the use of terrorism entering sport with the massacre of 11 Israel Athletes by Arab Gunman. Also this is the beginning of the biggest political scandal in modern times and the start of the Watergate Scandal. On the other side of the Atlantic a worsening of the problems between the IRA and the British government see wrongs from both sides and innocent lives are lost. 

Hmm…cheerful.

But who knew years were colour-coded?  Who has that job?  And can I have it when you’re done?

On a happier note, in 1972 you could buy these awesome shoes for just $9.97.

And this wig was a bargain at $20. The resting bitch face is possibly a sign of the troubled times…

1972 wig

Or maybe she was just worried about getting her wig wet.  Problem solved by this umbrella for a mere fiver. Look how much happier this woman is now she doesn’t have to worry about wet hair.

1972 umbrella

 

Switzerland 1972

So in the midst of all this trial and trib, what was going on in the notoriously neutral country of Switzerland?  Well, hold onto your hats because while chaos and panic were overtaking the rest of the world?  The Swiss were creating an International Convention on Safe Containers.

The Swiss are an orderly, well-mannered, and meticulous people.  This is why you could probably take your safe container and join a group of Swiss people mushroom foraging around Zurich without fear of dying from some fungi-induced poisoning.

Which brings us back to do…oh…oh..oh  (If ANY of you thought we were going to get through a post on Switzerland WITHOUT a Sound Of Music reference, then you don’t know me at all do you?).

ZURICH MUSHROOM TARTLETS

Zurich Mushroom Tartlets1

Let’s start with the recipe. It’s a very good place to start…(Refer paragraph above re The Sound of Music) And let’s hope that it isn’t an omen of things to come…

Zurich Mushroom Tartlets - Recipe

Hmmmm….make the pastry it says  Without actually telling you how to do that.  So, If they’re not going to tell you?

I will.  Here’s what you do.

Put your flour back in the cupboard, your egg and butter back in the fridge and tip your salted water down the sink.  Then you get in your car and drive to the nearest supermarket and by some ready-made pastry shells.

Because if they can’t be bothered, why should you?

Zurich Mushroom Tartlets3

I used a mix of mushrooms for my tartlets and added some herbs from the garden into the mix.

Zurich Mushroom Tarts4I  pan-fried the small fancy mushrooms in so they could be artfully strewn over the top of the tarts whilst I cooked the regular ones as per the recipe.

Zurich Mushroom Tartlets5

IWhile the mushrooms were cooking, I warmed the shells in the oven, then tipped the filling into them.

A sprinkle of parsley and some smoked paprika and these were good to go!

And they were delicious!  Creamy and earthy with a lovely crisp and light pastry.

Despite the initial setback with the pastry, the Zurich Mushroom Tartlets were a good start to this book.  Easy to make, quick, and tasty!  Best eaten in front of the telly watching The Sound of Music,  Or wearing your best curtains.  Or both.

 

Have a great week!

 

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