Food 'n Finances: Taboulé

As a first in this series of low cost, delicious alternatives to your lunch sandwich, Pass the Saffron features Taboule! Taboule (pronounced tah-boo-lay) is a Middle Eastern or even Meditteranean wheat salad.  It's very easy to prepare, served cold and healthy!  It's best to make it one day before eating it, so all the flavors can mix.  

Take it with you to work in a tupperware dish and have it with some wheat crackers, nacho chips or just eat it as is!

Enjoy!

Ingredients

2/3 Cup of couscous

1 Cup of water

salt

olive oil

2 bunches of fresh parsley

(ripe) tomatoe

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

The quantities aren't fixed exactly, you can play around with them.  I, for example, like to give it a stronger parsley taste, so I tend to put more of that in.

Preparation:

1.  Boil the water, add salt and a little bit of olive oil.  Once it's boiling, add the couscous, and remove the pot from the fire.  Put the lid on and let the couscous absorb the water for about 5 minutes.

2.  Finely chop the parsley, garlic, tomato and onion.  The couscous should be soft enough by now, so go ahead give it a stir.   Add the finely chopped veggies to the couscous and stir them in.

3.  Add the lemon juice and taste.  If necessary add pepper/salt, olive oil or more lemon juice to your liking.

4.  Let the taboule chill for at least an hour, preferably for a night.

Lazy man's chinese chicken with green peppers

Because I was still feeling stuffed from yesterday's Thanksgiving dinner, I couldn't bring myself to making a much-needed pit stop at the grocery store.  And when I say much needed, I mean it.  As far as main ingredients go, I was limited to beef or chicken, tomatoes or green peppers and pasta or rice.  I was in a Chinese mood so I decided to try my hand at creating a ubiquitous Chinese dish: chicken with green peppers and onion!  I didn't have a recipe, only an educated guess of what the ingredients could be.  Moreover, I had to work with what I had!

So this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

For two people, you 'll need:

Two large chicken breasts

1 large onion

2 medium-sized green bell peppers

4 hot peppers

5 cloves of garlic

Soy sauce

1/2 cup of chicken stock (bouillon)

1 teaspoon of cornstarch 

vegetable oil (arachid oil or sunflower seed oil, never olive oil!)

Preparation:

1. Cut the chicken and green peppers into bitesize pieces.  Cut the onions into 1/8ths. Slice the garlic into large pieces.  Slice the spicy peppers into long pieces.

2.  Pour enough oil into a wok to cover the bottom and heat it up.  Once the oil is hot, add the sliced garlic and the slices of spicy pepper.

3. When the garlic begins to turn brown, add the chicken. Stir rapidly, to cook the pieces on all sides.

4. Add the onions and green peppers to the chicken and stir.  Drizzle soy sauce over the chicken and vegetables. Keep on stirring.  Be careful not to pour too much soy sauce over the chicken, you can always add more later.

5. Add the chicken stock or bouillon, and swiftly stir all the contents of the wok through the sauce at the bottom of the wok.

6.  Mix the teaspoon of cornstarch with some water.  Add the cornstarch mix spoonful by spoonful to the sauce in the wok, up to the point where the sauce has reached the thickness you desire.  Make sure to stir  the starch in well with the sauce.

7.  Add more soy sauce to your taste.  Stir.

That's it!  Easy-peasy chinesey!  Enjoy!

Stoemp Met Wortelen (Stoemp with Carrots)

Since winter has arrived, I couldn't resist making this wonderful winter dish.  A traditional dish from Brussels, "stoemp" has everything you need to stay fat warm and happy!  It basically is a type of mashed potatoes with a large amount of vegetables mashed right in with the potatoes.  And you can do it with all kinds of vegetables, although each one will require a slightly different preparation.

This time we'll focus on Stoemp with carrots, one of my favorites, especially when served with a nice banger-like sausage (although it should have a bit more of a peppery taste to it).

What do you need?

For two people you'll need:

6 to 7 large potatoes

10 large carrots

1 large onion

butter

salt

pepper

nutmeg

1 to 2 cups of milk

Let's get cooking!

1. Start by peeling the potatoes and cleaning the carrots and onion. 

2 Boil the potatoes to the point where they're soft enough to make mashed potatoes (usually around 18-20 minutes, but it varies according to the size of the potatoes).  You can halve the potatoes to shorten the cooking time.  Make sure to add plenty of salt to the water.

3.  Dice the carrots into small cubes.  Do the same thing for the onion. Melt a tablespoon of good, unsalted butter in a small frying pan or pot.

4. Once the butter has melted, add the onion.  Stir it until it has become glazy.  At that point, add in the diced carrots.  Keep it on a low fire for about 15 minutes, while stirring regularly.  You may need to add a little more butter or olive oil if you prefer.  Once the carrots are soft, you can remove them from the fire.

5.  When the potatoes are cooked, pour away the water and leave the potatoes in the pot. Mash them up a little bit before adding in the carrots.

6.  Add the carrots, a tablespoon of butter, lots of pepper and freshly ground nutmeg.  Also pour in about a cup of milk to ensure the stoemp is moist enough.  Add more later if need be.

7.  Mash it all together so that you get a consistent orange-yellow mass.

8.  Taste it to check whether it needs more spices or butter, or milk.

Serve with sausage, porkchops or thick bacon.

To wash it down, I suggest a dark beer with spices, such as a Belgian trappist or abbey beer.  A nice pale ale will also go great with it!

Foodbuzz Publisher Community Launches!!!

Today is an important day for our foodblogging community, where we take a significant step forward!

The press release below gives all the information on this event. Enjoy!


LAUNCH OF GLOBAL FOODBUZZ BLOGGER COMMUNITY
LEVERAGES REAL-PEOPLE, REAL-TIME POWER OF FOOD PUBLISHING

San Francisco – October 13, 2008: Foodbuzz, Inc., officially inaugurates its food blogger community with more than 1,000 blog partners, a global food blogging event and an online platform that captures the real-people, real-time power of food publishing in every corner of the world. At launch, the Foodbuzz community ranks as one of the top-10 Internet destinations for food and dining (Quantcast), with bloggers based in 45 countries and 863 cities serving up daily food content.
“Food bloggers are at the forefront of reality publishing and the dramatic growth of new media has redefined how food enthusiasts access tasty content,” said Doug Collister, Executive Vice President of Foodbuzz, Inc. “Food bloggers are the new breed of local food experts and at any minute of the day, Foodbuzz is there to help capture the immediacy of their hands-on experiences, be it a memorable restaurant meal, a trip to the farmers market, or a special home-cooked meal.”
Foodbuzz is the only online community with content created exclusively by food bloggers and rated by foodies. The site offers more than 20,000 pieces of new food and dining content weekly, including recipes, photos, blog posts, videos and restaurant reviews. Members decide the “tastiness” of each piece of content by voting and “buzz” the most popular posts to the top of the daily menu of submissions. Foodbuzz currently logs over 13 million monthly page views and over three million monthly unique visitors.
“Our goal is to be the number-one online source of quality food and dining content by promoting the talent, enthusiasm and knowledge of food bloggers around the globe,” said Ben Dehan, founder and CEO of Foodbuzz, Inc.
-2-
The Foodbuzz blogger community is growing at a rate of 40 percent per month driven by strong growth in existing partner blogs and the addition of over 100 new blogs per month. “The Foodbuzz.com Web site is like the stock of a great soup. The Web site provides the base or backbone for bloggers to interact as a community, contribute content, and have that content buzzed by their peers,” said Mr. Dehan.
Global Blogging Event
Demonstrating the talent and scope of the Foodbuzz community, 24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs offered online food enthusiasts an international, virtual street festival of food and diversity. The new feature showcased blog posts from 24 Foodbuzz partner bloggers chronicling events occurring around the globe during a 24 hour period and included:
· Mid-Autumn Festival Banquest (New York, NY)
· The "Found on Foodbuzz" 24-Item Tasting Menu (San Francisco, CA)
· Aussie BBQ Bonanza – Celebrating Diversity (Sydney, Australia)
· The Four Corners of Carolina BBQ Road Trip (Charleston, SC)
· Criminal Tastes – An Illegal Supper (Crested Butte, CO)
· From Matambre to Empanadas: An Argentine Dinner (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
· A Sweet Trompe l’oeil (Seattle, WA)

“24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs” captures the quality and unique local perspective of our food bloggers and shared it with the world,” said Ryan Stern, Director of the Foodbuzz Publisher Community. “It illustrates exactly what the future of food publishing is all about – real food, experienced by real people, shared real-time.”

Salsa con pomodori freschi e bacon

Even though this is ideally a summer dish, when ripe tomatoes are available in abundance, the weather was so nice this weekend with blue skies and radiant sun shine, that I couldn't resist making myself a dish which was equally light and radiant. (Plus I had a whole bunch of (over-) ripe tomatoes to use... ). You'll notice that it closely mimics the quintessential Italian dish, pasta all'amatriciana. This is just my own take on that classic recipe, where I used whatever I had lying around the fridge.

It's easy, fast, and most importantly, tasty!

The only things you need are:

For two people:

8 medium-sized ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

4 strips of bacon

Fresh spring onions

Black pepper

Preparation:

1. Clean the tomatoes, and remove any brown spots around the area where the tomatoes was connected to the plant. Leave the tomato whole, do not cut it up in pieces

2. Boil a pot of water and put the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 2-3 minutes.

3. Take the tomatoes out of the water and leave them to cool down for a few minutes.

4. Remove the skin of the tomatoes, which should come right off now that the tomatoes have been lightly blanched. Cut the tomatoes in halves and remove the seeds and any hard parts.

5. While heating some olive oil over a low fire in a frying pan, dice the bacon in small pieces. When the oil is hot, add the bacon. Stir frequently as you don't want the bacon to go brown.

6. Dice the tomatoes, and add the pieces to the bacon. Add freshly ground black pepper and stir well. Let the whole cook slowly over a low fire for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally, in order to mix the juices.

7. Boil water and prepare the pasta.

8. Chop up some fresh spring onions and add the majority to the tomato sauce, while saving a small portion of the spring onions. Stir them into the sauce and remove the frying pan from the fire. Let the sauce sit for another 2 minutes.

9. Pour the salsa over the pasta and sprinkle the remaining spring onions over the sauce.

Serve with some fresh ciabatta and a dry, light white wine!

Buon appetito!

A trio of sauteed mushrooms

I love mushrooms. Strange, however, that as a kid I would try to avoid eating mushrooms at all costs. I'd pick them out the sauce and throw them outside when my parents weren't looking, I'd scrape them from my plate into a napkin and hide them in the pocket of my pants only to dispose of them later. I'd even hide the mushrooms before my parents had even started cooking them. But, all of a sudden, I started appreciating the viled mushroom. Some years later I began to discover more varieties of mushrooms. And now I can justly call myself a true mushroom lover. Shitake mushrooms, enokis, fresh forest mushrooms, funghy porcini, ... The other day a Chinese friend of mine made a dish with mushrooms which can only be found in her region in China...gorgeous! All these types are grand prize winners, however my post will feature a type of mushroom which is sometimes looked upon as being too ordinary for some of today's high culinary artists... the plain white Parisian champignon or white button mushroom. I'll be showing three ways in which you can thoroughly enjoy these babies as a side dish (to be honest I could even eat them as a main dish!). So, without further adieu, three sumptuous recipes for making quick sautéed button mushrooms.



Numéro Un: Baby button mushrooms with soy sauce

What do you need for two people?

One basket of button mushrooms (I think it's about 250 grams) or if you're lazy/in a hurry, you could even use the canned ones for this.

light brown soy sauce

pepper & salt

olive oil

Preparation:

1. Pour some good quality olive oil in a frying pan.

2. Clean your mushrooms, you don't have to slice them if they're still baby mushrooms; just trim the stalks.

3. Once the olive is hot, add the mushrooms. Sautée them; don't fry them! Keep them moving around in the frying pan and only cook them on a medium to low setting.

4. Add the soy sauce to the mushrooms.

5. Add the salt and pepper (I personally like to add a good amount of freshly ground black pepper).

6. Keep on sautéeing them until they're cooked. Serve and Savor!
These mushrooms go very well with grilled chicken, makes for a very light and tasty meal!


Numéro Deux: Garlic Mushrooms

What do yo need for two people?

A basket of button mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of butter (or margarine)

olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

light brown soy sauce



Preparation:


1. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the olive oil. Once the butter/oil is hot, add the garlic. Briefly sautée the garlic.

2. Add the sliced mushrooms. Stir them into the butter-oil mix, and let absorb the goodness.

3. Drizzle the soy sauce over the mushrooms so that all are nicely coated with it.

4. Add the black peppper. If you want, you could also add some garlic powder at this point.

5. Cook for another ten minutes on a low to medium fire and then serve.

These are great with steak, or as a sidedish to just about anything.


Numéro Trois: Sauteed mushrooms with lemon and parsley

What do you need for two people?

a basket of mushrooms
1 tablespoon of butter
olive oil
fresh, chopped parsley (optionally also chopped chives)
1/2 lemon
black pepper
salt

1. Put about three tablespoons (or more, depending on the amount of mushrooms) of olive oil in a frying pan, along with the butter. Melt the butter and mix it in with the olive oil.

2. Slice the mushrooms. Add them to the butter-oil mix. Stir them well, so that they're all coated with the oil and butter.

3. Squeeze the half lemon, and add the juice to the mushrooms. Stir well.

4. Add the freshly ground black pepper and salt. Stir well.

5. Add the freshly chopped parsley (and chives if you wish)

6. Softly cook the mushrooms for another 7 minutes or so, until they're light brown.

Serve and enjoy!

Saffron's back, baby! With Flemish Beef stew (grandmother's style)

I'm back! Finally, after almost two months of silence, Pass the saffron, please has jumped back into action! Now that I've settled into my new home and into my new life, I hope to be able to post regularly again, although you'll have to bear with me at some points... Law school will demand most of my time to be spent sitting behing books instead of standing behind pots and pans.

The first dish I'll be posting is my absolute favorite dish, Flemish Beef Stew ( Stoofvlees or Stoverij in Dutch or Carbonades à la Flamande in French). However, there are so many different variations to this dish as there are grandmothers I think. Every family's stew tastes a little bit different. The dish also varies according to the region or city you're in, for example, if you have stoofvlees in Leuven (Louvain), then the taste will be somewhat sweeter than in other cases due to the addition of speculaas (a typical Belgian cookie). Another famous variation to this dish is called Gentse Stoverij, which uses two different types of beer and more herbs (thyme, parsley, etc). However, the recipe I'll be posting is the one created and followed by my grandmother.

What do you need?

For two to three people:

1 kg of beef stew meat (don't use "good meat" i.e. steak etc, rather use the shoulder meat, or rib meat). Make sure it's not too lean, you want to have some fat in there as the taste will be much better and the meat won't turn out to be chewy.

1 medium sized onion

1 teaspoon of sharp mustard

potato flour

2 medium-sized bay leaves

1 tablespoon of vinegar (don't use wine vinegar!!)

Pepper & salt

1 clove

Freshly grated nutmeg

optional: slice of white bread

optional: trappist beer

Let's get cooking!

1. If the meat hasn't been diced, cut up the meat into cubes of about 3x3x3 cm. Then melt about a tablespoon of unsalted butter in a large frying pan. Once it's gone light brown and there's no more bubbles in melted butter, add the beef.

2. Brown the cubes of beef. Make sure all the sides are brown, if not, your stewed beef will be very chewy and tough.

3. Once you fried the beef, remove it from the frying pan and put it in a casserole. Add water to the frying pan, and make a sauce with the butter left in the pan. You will probably have to do this several times in order to get all the rests of butter left in the frying pan to dissolve. Add the sauce to the casserole, but only add enough to leave the tops of the meat sticking out. Add salt, pepper, bay leaves and nutmeg.

4. Add the whole onion to the beef. Stick a clove into the bottom of the onion. You can also cut up the onion into quarters and let it dissolve. Also, add the teaspoon of sharp mustard. You can also use a slice of white bread, spread the mustard onto the slice of bread. Put the slice on top of the meat, with the mustard side facing down. The bread will dissolve and thicken the sauce (most likely you won't need to add potato flour afterwards).

5. Put the casserole on a very low fire, and let it cook very slowly for at least an hour (it might take a good deal longer, or it might less time, it all depends on the meat). Every so often check on the meat, whether it's cooked well enough, and give the whole thing a good stir. 6. Take a few tablespoons of the sauce and mix it with the tablespoon of vinegar and about a teaspoon of potato flour. Stir and then add to the beef. This will thicken your sauce (watch out, don't use too much, the sauce shouldn't be too thick, it still has to be quite runny). Stir the stew to let the potato flour do its work.

6. Once it's ready, remove the whole onion and the two bay leaves.

Serve with fresh fries, fresh chopped Belgian endives and some "pickles" (similar to British picalilly, but not as sweet and more sour)!

Smakelijk!! Enjoy!

Skipping across the Atlantic pond

As I'm typing this post, I'm actually in the middle of packing my belongings into two huge suitcases and getting ready to go on a long trip. I'm moving to Philadelphia, USA to attend law school there and put a final touch on my formal education. I've been told that there's lots of international food to be savored in Philly, and hence I'm looking forward to sampling the different opportunities there. I (again) will be absent for a while, but I hope to continue this blog as soon as I get settled into my new life across the Atlantic!

Peace!

Mussels + Fries + Beer = Heaven

I'm back! After more than a week of silence, I finally managed to get my act together and tell you about that single dish that's been on my mind since March. Every year, I, and several million other Belgians along with me, anxiously await the arrival of the mussels season. The official start for me and my family is the mussel fair in one of the neighboring villages, which I usually visit several times in a row with friends and family. It's very much a communal happening, maybe even somewhat of a ritual, to go there and wait for a substantial amount of time, just to get a taste of that first succulent mussel. And it was definitely worth the wait this year. Absolutely delicious... A signature Belgian dish, which again demonstrates the relative simplicity of Belgian recipes and the painstaking attention for the quality of the ingredients used. The version explained here is the "Flemish-style recipe", but mind you, there are many variants to this standard recipe: mussels with curry, mussels provençals, with white wine, with beer (one of my favorites is mussels cooked with Duvel, a blond, specialty beer). Regarding the mussels, Belgian always use the Dutch Zeelandic mussels (Zeeuwse mosselen), of which Belgium is the largest importer. I'm not sure these are available elsewhere, so you could try to use other ones, but bear in mind that the quality of the mussels is an absolute determinant of the final dish's taste. If you would like further information on Zeelandic mussels, please visit this site http://www.zeeuwsemosselen.be/ (Dutch).

What do you need?

1 kilo of "Zeeuwse" (Zeelandic) mussels

1 large onion

1 large stalk of green celery (more if they're thinner)

1 bundle of parsley

1 laurel leave

lots of pepper and a little bit of salt

Preparation

1. Wash and clean the mussels.

2. Slice the onion in rings into slices between 0.5 - 1 cm thick.

3. Slice the celery into slices about 8mm thick.

4. Coarsely chop the parsley

5. Take a pot large enough to hold one person's portion and make sure to put a little bit of water in it (enough to cover the bottom). (you could also add a light beer or white wine)

6. Put some mussels in the pot, enough to cover the bottom with one layer. Next, a layer of onion, celery and parsley. Cover that layer with another layer of mussels and keep on going until the entire cooking pot is filled up. Don't forget to put the laurel leave in one of the middle layers.

7. Finally, add salt (but be very careful; there's already enough salt water in the mussels and pepper to your own liking (I personally like a somewhat stronger peppery taste).

8. Put the mussels on a high fire and cover the pot with a lid. Cook the mussels until the water rises to the edge of the pot. Remove the lid, and add half a teaspoon of natural vinegar. Cover it back up and shake the mussels so as to spread the vinegar throughout the pot.

9. Put the pot back on the fire and cook the mussels until the water rises to the edge for the second time. Now check whether the mussels are thoroughly cooked (the shells should have opened). Normally they should be ready after the water has risen twice, but check them just to be sure as there may be some stubborn ones in the bunch.

Serve them in the casserole with either fries or buttered white bread on the side. Belgians eat the mussels with a special mussel dip sauce, made with mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, chives and sometimes light yoghurt

Green Quesedillas

Finally, the temperature has exceeded the 25°C mark on the thermometer here in Belgium. Today a "brisk" 29°C (I'm melting...) was noted. This obviously calls for some tasty and colorful food to accompany such wonderful weather! And seeing as how it's already hot enough, you don't want to spend to much time toiling at the kitchen stove.... Therefore, I decided to whip up a batch of delicious quesedillas! You all know the standard cheese quesedillas? Well this is the veggie take on that recipe. Again, easy, fast, tasty and full of color. Perfect for some outdoor lunches!

Mind you, I love to prepare this dish in advance, to have it later on after I come back from a night of partying. Great early morning-afterparty food!

What do you need?

To serve two people:

1 small red bell pepper
1 small yellow bell pepper
(optional: 1 small green bell pepper)
100 gr of mild cheddar cheese (freshly grated)
4 to 6 mexican flour tortillas (medium size)
50 gr of freshly chopped chives
50 gr of freshly chopped cilantro
salt
(optional: 1 spicy red pepper)



Y ahora, amigo? Como lo cocinamos?


1. Chop the cilantro and chives.

2. Dice the bell peppers, into little cubes of max 1cm in diameter.

3. Grate the cheddar cheese.

4. Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl. Make sure the cheddar has mixed evenly with the vegetables. You may want to add a little bit more of grated cheddar cheese, if you think more is needed to make the two tortillas stick together.

5. Scoop about 4 tablespoons of the veggie-cheese mix onto a tortilla. Spread it out evenly, so that the entire layer is about 1cm thick. I sometimes put a little bit of cheese on the edges, to make the edges of the tortillas stick together even better.


6. Place a second tortilla on the first one with the mix. Press down gently.

7. Heat up a frying pan, but do not add any oil of butter. Just heat it up and when hot, place the tortillas in the frying pan and cook one side till dark brown and crispy. Then turn it over and do the same for the other side. You'll see that the cheddar has melted and will act as glue between the two tortillas and veggies.


8. Cut the tortillas into quarters and serve with spicy salsa mexicana.


Que a proveche!!

Pass the Saffron please @ Foodie Blogroll

Pass the Saffron, Please can now proudly call itself member of the Foodie Blogroll! Jenn aka The Leftover Queen has added me to this cool Foodie community tool and I hope to find interesting foodie blogs in it!

All Hail the Queen!

Friends, BBQ & Grilled Zucchini

A quick and easy way to use and savor the flavors of freshly harvested zucchinis is to use them as quick side dish to a BBQ meal. I planted three zucchini plants a couple of weeks ago, and thanks to the recent (scarse) days of sunshine, I was slightly overwhelmed by the speed at which these litle guys grow. Knowing that the smaller ones are much better than their big brothers, I quickly grabbed my harvesting knife and brought some juicy little zucchinis inside. The ironic thing is that now that I finally had fresh homegrown zucchinis, I didn't immediately have a purpose for them. I used the first two to create a lavish ratatouille, with lots of veggies and herbes de provence. But then I still had several left... The solution came in an ideal package; my friends had gathered at our place for some lazy Sunday hanging out. Since the weather was quite nice, and there was a perfectly good BBQ sitting on the terrace with us, we decided to have ourselves a little improvised BBQ dinner! Everyone helped out and provided part of the food; meat and veg was brought over (read: stolen from parents' kitchens), extra beer was put on ice and side dishes were prepared. This is when I remembered my zucchinis! With some extra touches, they turned out to be very tasty! This Sunday proved to be great, once again proving my site's adage: good food, good friends,...great times!

What do you need?

2 or 3 small to mid-sized zucchini (or courgettes, as they're known over here)

olive oil

salt

herbes de provence (provençal herbs; a mixture of herbs used very often to season meat and vegetables in the Provence region of France)

Preparation:

1. Slice the zucchinis into pieces of about 5mm thick.

2. Put them on a large oven tray or plate and drizzle an ample amount of olive oil all over them, while making sure both sides of the slices are covered in oil.

3. Season them with a substantial amount of herbes de provence and salt and leave them to absorb the flavors for a while. I would suggest to let them rest for about an hour, however, I prepared them on site, about 10 minutes prior to throwing them on the BBQ and they tasted great!

4. Grill the zucchini slices on the BBQ for several minutes (medium indirect heat setting), until they're slightly brown in general, and have dark brown grill marks. Serve them immediately.

These go very well with grilled chicken and veal. You could even put them on a burger!

Belgian Fries

Fries are at the heart of almost every Belgian's love of food and hence you'll see them being served everywhere. They are Belgians' primary street food, where you can get it at so-called "fritkoten" (literally "fries shacks"), but you'll also find them in all kinds of restaurants and taverns, being served as an accompaniment to a wide variety of main dishes. In Belgium there's a true fries culture, which is why Belgians will often try to point out that it's actually Belgian fries and not French fries. A legend which is often told to explain this erroneous callsign, states that during the Second World War US troops were based in the French part of the country. During their arduous battle in the Ardennes, the French-speaking locals introduced them to the deep-fried potato slices. However, it has been noted that the term French-fried potatoes was already in use before WWII. More probable is the linguistic explanation; French may refer to julienning of vegetables.

Regarding the true origins of fries, the discussion still continues. Belgian historian Jo Gérard states that the story of the fries goes back to 1680, when the locals of the cities Namur, Andenne and Dinant often caught little fish in the Meuse river which they then served fried as a side dish. However, when the river was frozen or too turbulent, it is said they turned to potatoes and cut them into the shape of little fish and deep fried those in oil. However, this story has never been confirmed by other sources and consequently, other regions or countries claim to have been the first to create fries.

Regardless of whether or not Belgians were the first people to fry potato slices, they are at the very least their symbolic creator and most definitely the only ones who have built an entire culinary specialty around the delicious golden potato sticks. No other country consumes more fries per capita than Belgium, which isn't too surprising as even the smallest Belgian town has its own frietkot or friterie. The fry is not only the most popular snack, but is featured alongside many national dishes, with some of the most popular being: mosselen met friet (mussels and fries), friet met stoofvlees (fries with Flemish beefstew), friet met biefstuk (steak and fries).

If you step inside a frietkot or friterie, you'll find an amazing range of accompanying meats and condiments, which go very well with your portion of fries. You have several kinds of sausages such as cervela, lookworst (garlic sausages), curryworst, mammoet etc. Also popular are the boulet (a large cold meatball), vogelnestje (bird's nest; a large meatball with a boiled meatball inside and served in tomato sauce), saté, fried pieces of chicken and many many more. In terms of sauces and condiments, a whole new branch of fritsauzen or fries sauces has evolved over the years. While the most popular accompanying sauce is still (egg-based) mayonnaise, there are now so many sauces to put on your fries that I'm not even able to list them all. There's ketchup, curry ketchup, curry sauce, mammoet sauce, samoerai sauce, pickles (one of my favorites, similar to the British picalilly but not as sweet and packs a bit more sour flavor), stoofvleessaus (the sauce of the Flemish beef stew), white beans in tomato sauce, andalouse sauce, etcetera,...I think you're catching my drift.

Another sign that fries have been embedded deeply in the country's food culture is the manner in which the fries are prepared. It starkly differs from the methods followed in other countries and gives Belgian fries their specific taste and golden color (see below).

Regarding ingredients and cooking equipment, certain remarks can be made. First of all, what type of potato should be used for making fries? Well, at home we use a variety called bintje and sometimes also eersterlingen. However, I don't believe this variety is available to fries lovers outside of Belgium and the Netherlands (and perhaps some other surrounding ones), so in general I'd suggest using any type of potato rich in starch. More information regarding potatoes and fries in general can be found at http://www.belgianfries.com/.

As a frying oil, you should use a vegetable-based oil, which is able to handle the high heat for extended periods of time. In the past however, fries were fried in beef or horse lard, however that's rarely still used (I must admit I'm curious as to how fries fried in beef lard would taste). Either way, remember that whatever oil you use, it will have important consequences for the final taste of the fries. Make sure not to use the same oil endlessly! You should limit the number of times the oil is used to 10 times, as the oil breaks down a little every time it's heated up, which then affects the taste.

As far as cooking equipment goes, you'll need a deep fryer on which you can manually adjust the temperature of the oil/fat. Furthermore, an ideal tool for making large quantities of fries in the comfort of your own home is the fry-cutter, seen in action here. This is a wonderful aid when you have to prepare a large batch of fries for family or friends! If you would like more information about this tool or if you would like to purchase one, please contact me at dejosmans@hotmail.com.

What do you need?

To serve two people you'll need the following:

5 to 7 mid-sized potatoes or 5 large potatoes per person

vegetable-based frying oil

salt

Let's get started!

1. Peel the potatoes, removing any eyes or protuding parts which might prevent the fry-cutter from working smoothly. Put the peeled potatoes in cold water to rinse them and let some of the starch leave the potato. This will make the fries less sticky and more crispy.

2. Cut the potatoes into slices using a knife or fry-cutter. I sometimes also put these freshly cut fries into cold water again. This further reduces the amount of starch left in the fry, making the final result more crispy on the outside.

3. Wrap up the uncooked fries in a towel, thoroughly drying them off. Keep them wrapped up in this towel during the entire first round of frying. Turn on the deep-fryer and heat up the oil to 170°C for the first fry.

4. Put a handful of raw fries in the oil and cook them for about 7 to 8 minutes (after having done this for several times, you'll be able to tell when they're ready to come out simply by listening for a specific tone of sizzles coming from the oil). They will be slightly fried on the outside, with a slightly darker yellow exterior. In either case don't fry them till they're golden!!!! Stir the fries wel when they're in the oil. Use a large, flat ladle with large holes in it.

Don't put in too many at once, as you'll cause the oil to cool down considerably, and you'll end up with cooked fries instead of fried ones. Also, the fries will absorb more fat when cooked to a soggy state.

5. This step is crucial in the preparation of Belgian fries, and is what sets the Belgian style apart from the other frying styles. Once you've fried them for 7 to 8 minutes, take the fries out of the oil and leave them to sit in a tray for a while. Continue frying the rest of the fries, until you've fried all of them for a first time. Leave the entire batch of pre-fried fries to rest for about 20 minutes. This will give you time to put the final touch on any of the accompanying dishes or condiments.

6. When all the table guests are ready for the fries, turn up the heat on your deep fryer to 190°C. Again, take only a handful of the pre-fried fries and put them in oil. Fry them for about 2-3 minutes, while giving them a good stir. Once they've reached a light-golden color, take them out of the oil and put them in a bowl with kitchen paper. Toss them around a little bit before serving.

Serve them hot, with a little mayonnaise and salt! Enjoy!!!

Vleessla (Meat & egg salad)

Ahhh vleessla...no doubt one of my all-time favorite sandwich fillings. You can buy it readymade in virtually every butcher's or supermarket in Belgium, however, there's nothing like the homemade version. It's easy, it's rich and it's very, very tasty. And it's not for those who try to keep their cholestorol in check...

In Belgium it's usually eaten as a filling between two slices of bread, for lunch or dinner. However, while I was studying in the UK last year, it also appeared to be a great hit as a late night snack with my Spanish friends. We had planned a big night out; dinner, bar and some not too sober dance moves later on. As usual, afterwards all of us were craving for a good, filling snack before we were going to crawl into our warm, soft beds. Since these midnight cravings always seem to surface each time we went out for a drink or two, I prepared a large bowl (there were ten of us...) of vleessla in advance. Upon our return, I toasted a whole loaf of sliced bread and plopped the bowl of goodness on the table. Soon after, I was struggling to scrape together enough vleessla to put on my own piece of toast...the nerve...

What do you need?

Three hardboiled eggs

60 gr of cooked ham

1 mid-sized white onion

Three tablespoons of mayonnaise

salt and pepper

This will serve 3.

Preparation:

1. Hard-boil the eggs.

2. While the eggs are boiling, start slicing and dicing the onion and ham into little cubes or slices.

3. Once the eggs have cooled down a bit, remove the shell and mash them up in a plate.

4. Add the sliced ham and onion. Mix these three ingredients thoroughly, so you end up with a somewhat homogenous mixture.

5. Add the mayonnaise and mix it in well with the other ingredients. When the mixture has a thick paste look and feel to it, you're done!

6. Put some on a slice of (toasted or not) bread, if you can resist eating it straight from the plate!

Again, here you can play with the amount of each ingredient used; if the mixture is too dry add some more mayo, if you prefer a stronger onion taste, just pour in some more! Flexibility is key!

Tip: you could also replace the onion with chopped up chives and add a little natural yoghurt to the mayonnaise. To top it off, add in a little bit of chopped dill.

Frikadellen met krieken (Meatballs with sour cherries )

Another signature Belgian dish with contrasting tastes, typical of the region I live in, the South of the province of Antwerp. I know it may sound strange, even people from other parts of the country who don't know this dish will usually give me the "what the heck?!" response. But trust me, the saltiness of the meatballs goes great with the tangy sweetness of the sour cherries! If you're not sure what a sour cherry is exactly, you can find more information on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_cherry.

In the past, and also today (perhaps to a lesser extent), this was/is a dish eaten at festive occasions, such as the town fair (kermis), family parties, etcetera etcetera. I've heard it being eaten as a desert, but in my family, we've always had it as the main course.

What do you need?

To serve three to four people:

550 gr of ground beef
450 gr of ground pork
250 gr of breadcrumbs (no crust, only the dry inner white part)
4 eggs
salt
pepper
nutmeg

1 kg of sour cherries preserved in their own juice
3-4 tablespoons of sugar
3 tablespoons of water
1-1,5 tablespoons of potato starch

Preparation:

1. Take a big casserole and put the ground meat in it. In total, there should be about 1 kg of meat, but make sure that there's a little more ground beef in the whole than ground pork. The pork gives a lighter flavor to the beef and also adds some fat, again adding to the overall taste. But you shouldn't use too much pork, otherwise the meatballs will get too greasy.

2. Add the breadcrumbs, the eggs, salt, pepper and nutmeg. If the meatballs are too sticky, or too "wet", add a bit more crumbs. To make the breadcrumbs, leave a couple of slices of white bread out to dry, and after a couple of days break them up into crumbs.

3. Use your hands to mix all the ingredients, so that you get one homogenous mass.

4. Roll the meat into balls of about 3 to 4 cm in diameter.

5. Boil water in another casserole. When the water is boiling add the meatballs, and boil them for about 10 minutes. When boiled, pour away the water and leave the meatballs to cool down.
In the meantime, get started on the sour cherry sauce. You could also make the sauce first, and leave it to cool in the fridge, as I for example prefer my sauce to be cold. But it works equally well when the sauce is still warm. When the sauce has been prepared, fry the meatballs in a frying pan with a litte butter. When they all have a dark golden look, they're ready to be served.

6. To make the sauce, pour the contents of the jar of preserved cherries in a small casserole. Add the 3 (or four, or two, depending on how sweet you want it to be; my grandmother makes it really sweet, whereas my mother prefers to keep some of the cherries' natural sourness). Boil the mixture for about 5 minutes and then leave it to cool down while you mix the water and starch.

7. Mix the potato starch with the water. Add it to the cherries, to thicken the sauce. Again, here you can add more or less starch, depending on how thick you want your sauce to be. Briefly boil the thickened sauce again (for 2-3 minutes).

Serve each person about 6 meatballs, and pour an ample amount of sauce on each plate. Serve with a couple of slices of white or whole grain bread.

Smakelijk!

"Kermissoep" (Fair soup)

My grandmother often makes this soup for Sunday lunches, when the entire family has lunch at her place. Originally, this soup was only cooked when there was a "kermis" or fair in town, which called for a celebration. The celebratory part of this soup in those days was the use of meat, as in the past -for example during the war- meat wasn't always readily available. Luckily, we now don't have to wait for the fair to come to our village in order to enjoy this hearty soup!

Ingredients

300 gr of meat to create the stock, preferably a piece of shank (beef)
4 large stalks of celery
2 large leeks (only use the white part)
2 mid-sized carrots
(optional) 2 tomatoes
macaroni
Salt
Pepper
Laurel leaf

Preparation:

1. Fill a large casserole with water and add the the shank (with bone and the oh so important marrow). Often this soup meat is eaten afterwards (it's delicious cold with some mustard, and it also goes very well with the fried young potatoes described in a previous post.), and if you do wish to eat it afterwards, it's preferable to add the meat to the water once the water has reached its boiling point. If you don't plan on eating it, you can add the meat to the water from the beginning. Leave the meat to boil for about an hour (depending on the meat) so that the meat has been thoroughly cooked. Remove the meat from the casserole. Keep the stock boiling.

2. Finely chop up all the vegetables, the carrots let's say about 0,5 cm thick whereas the celery and leeks can be anywhere between 0,5 and 1 cm. The tomatoes can be cut into larger chunks, as otherwise they would desintegrate rapidly.

3. First add the sliced carrots and leave them to boil for about 15 minutes. Then add the chopped celery, and boil for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the leeks, macaronis and tomatoes. Leave this to boil for another 5 minutes and then turn off the fire.

4. Serve hot, with little meatballs; Belgians put little meatballs in almost all their soups. They even voted tomato soup with meatballs to be their all-time favorite dish! These meatballs are made with ground beef and pork, breadcrumbs and eggs. I will put up the full recipe for making these small ones as well as the standard, larger ones tomorrow.

Flemish-style Asparagus

This dish dates back to the Middle Ages, but remains very popular to this day. Typical for this time of year, well, from middle to late spring, you will often see people enjoying these asparagus during the short time that they're available. A true image of essential Belgian cooking, this recipe calls for very little main ingredients: asparagus, butter and eggs. So naturally you must ensure you can get your hands on some topnotch ingredients!

What do you need ?

This serves two people:

0,5 kg of white asparagus
2 to 3 eggs
80-90 gr of butter
20 g or a good handful of parsley (depending on your taste)
pepper
salt
nutmeg

Let's get cooking!

1. Peel the asparagus, removing the harder skin on the outside

2. Once you've peeled and cleaned them, bring the asparagus together into a bundle, and bind them together using a piece of string (one which can be used for cooking purposes, free of chemicals etc).

3. Put the bundle of asparagus in a casserole with cold, lightly salted water and bring it to a boil. Boil the asparagus to the point where they still have a bit of a bite. If you boil them too long, then you'll end up with mushy, soggy asparagus... Take them out of the water and place them on a towel, allowing the excess water to be soaked up by the towel.

4. Coarsely chop the parsley.

5. Boil some water, and hard-boil the eggs. Some people add a dash of vinegar, however this is optional. Once boiled, take out the eggs and start peeling them when they're still hot. Crush the peeled eggs using a fork.

6. Melt the butter.

7. Combine the melted butter, eggs and parsley and mix them well. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

Now place the asparagus (about 5 per person) on a plate, and pour the butter sauce over them. Place a little bit of freshly chopped parsley on top. Serve immediately!!

Belgian Food & Young potatoes with cured ham

Finally, I will be starting a long line of posts on Belgian cooking and Belgian food. Most of the traditional Belgian dishes are handed down from generation to generation, usually from (grand) mother to daughter, but in this case from grandmother and mother to (grand) son. I basically spent a few days interrogating my grandma, asking her to spill her secrets. Although I was already quite familiar with the preparation of the larger share of these dishes, my grandma's help was essential in getting things right. But you all know grandma's cooking, absolutely delicious, but usually done without the slightest sign of precise measurements. So, on that note, you'll have to bear with me for a bit and experiment a little on your own, to get the recipe to fit to your particular tastes.

As this is my first Belgian food post, I thought it would be a good idea to give a short descriptive introduction into Belgium's food. This actually led me to do some culinary soul searching as I had never thought about Belgian food in this way before. I had always taken my own country's food for granted, never really stopping to wonder why there weren't any Belgian cookbooks alongside the endless rows of cookbooks of more internationally established cuisines, such as the French, Italian, and Spanish ones (to name a few). Only now that I have had the opportunity to savor an ever-growing number of dishes from all over the world, am I beginning to see that our little country’s cuisine deserves to be recognized as a full, rich and delicious kitchen as well. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that Belgian culinary tradition is still mainly an oral one as indicated earlier. For over five decades, there’s only been one essential Belgian cookbook, of which each family owned a copy; “Ons Kookboek” by the “Boerenbond” (Our Cookbook written by the Farmer’s Union). Only in the past decade and especially in the past three to four years, has there been an increase in the number Belgian cookbooks available in bookstores. This may have to do with the recent institutional crises that the country has experienced, which has brought some people to search for a unifying Belgian identity. I can only applaud such initiatives.
However, the cookbooks produced so far are still focused on the internal Belgian market, which doesn’t exactly help the promotion of Belgian food abroad, where Belgian cuisine all too often equals Belgian chocolate, waffles, endives, beer and sprouts. Although these products are delicious and Belgians are very proud of them, there are so many more delicacies to be explored and savored by foreigners! As far as I know, only one good Belgian cookbook has been written; “Everybody Eats well in Belgium” by Ruth Van Waerebeek. You can find this book on Amazon.com.

But what exactly is the Belgian kitchen? How could one describe Belgian food? I have often heard the Belgian food being described to foreigners as “cooked with the same quality and finesse as the French cuisine, while it is served with German generosity”. That is essentially what it comes down to; Belgian food can be characterized as a combination of German, Dutch and French cuisines, with the French influence clearly being dominant. This isn’t all too surprising, when one takes into account that the regions which nowadays constitute Belgium have been overrun by and been under the control of foreign powers on countless occasions. The Romans, Germans, Spanish, Austrians, Dutch and especially the French, all left their marks on the country’s culture and culinary traditions. Even today, the country remains a meeting point of the two main European cultural groups: it sits astride on the barrier which separates the Flemish, who have a Germanic culture, from the Walloons, whose culture is of Romanic origin.

Belgian food is still deeply ingrained in its medieval traditions; the recurrent use of spices such as saffron (Pass it please!!!), nutmeg, the abundance of vinegars, condiments, mustards, almonds and dried fruits, they all lead to typically medieval contrasting tastes such as sweet-salt (for example red cabbage with sweet apples served with salted bacon), sour-salt and sweet-sour. This all reminds us of the region’s rich history as an economic center, when its ports of Brugge and later Antwerpen saw all those exotic spices being bought and sold within their walls.

Belgians tend to attach enormous importance to the quality of the ingredients used in their cooking. Long before the great chefs of the world chanted in chorus that high-quality ingredients are “key” to great cooking, Belgians (and others obviously) had already realized and consequently applied this knowledge to their everyday cooking. Belgian cooking usually doesn’t mix a great number of flavors to create highly complex palettes (although such complex dishes do exist), but rather it will use several key ingredients and bring their inherent flavors to the fore. Hence, you must have high-quality ingredients, as there’s nothing to hide poor quality ones with. A typical example is a dish which is very popular this time of year, namely young potatoes with cured ham, demonstrates this very well. There are two (yes, only two) pivotal ingredients: fresh, young potatoes and cured ham, either salted or smoked. Once the young potatoes have been boiled, they are sliced and fried in a frying pan, with either good butter or for the waistline-conscious, with a neutral vegetable oil, such as sunflower seed oil. When they’ve reached a light brown color on at least one side, they’re served with several slices of good cured ham, and a green salad. As you can see, you must have good ingredients to start with or otherwise your entire dish is ruined. Typical dishes such as this one, give a correct image of the honest, rustic kitchen that can be seen as the Belgian kitchen.
A true reflection of their love of all things delicious and mouthwatering, is the sheer quantity that the food is served with. If you ever have the opportunity to take part in a Belgian family dinner, or a large family party, such as a birthday party or “kermis” (fair) parties, then you’ll see why we are called the Burgundians of the North. Tables will be filled to the edge with main dishes, side dishes, condiments, sauces, beers and wines. Trust me, if you’re a guest at one of these parties, the most common question you’ll be asked is “Are you sure you don’t want anything more? You’re full? Nonsense, have some of this…” Even a simple Sunday morning brunch or evening dinner (depending on the family), will feature pistolets (a round, golden-colored bread roll), sandwiches, wholegrain bread, raisin bread, and several pastries. To go with the bread, you’ll be able to choose from different types of hams, salami, paté, sausages, americain (raw ground beef mixed with herbs and a sauce – a Belgian favorite), chicken in mild curry sauce, chocolate paste and the list can go on and on. Suffice it to say, you will not leave the table feeling hungry!

Vodkamelon

Since summer and its pool parties are right around the corner, I thought this oldie (but drunk goldie) might be a good idea to post. It's very minimalistic in terms of work and preparation, but you will have to remember to get started on it two days prior to your party.

What do you need?

1 large, ripe watermelon

1 bottle of vodka (you can also try it with other spirits, I found amaretto to be a pretty funky mix...)

a funnel


Lay it on me!

1. Cut a small hole in the watermelon, big enough to fit your funnel. Try to get it right from the start, so that you can use the piece you cut out to plug up the hole afterwards. Place the funnel in the hole.

2. Pour about a glass of vodka into the funnel, and let the watermelon absorb it. Do this several times a day, for two days. Remember to plug up the hole each time you have poured some vodka in. I also suggest you turn over your melon from time to time, to avoid the vodka from sinking to one side.

3. Once you' ve poured the entire bottle of vodka into the watermelon (or less or more, depending on how strong you want it to be or how drunk you want your guests to get), cut it up into large chunks and serve it right away!!

Watch the expression of your guests!


Party on!

Panzanella alla Senese

Panzanella is another favorite of mine. Traditionally, it was a poor man's dish, and I discovered it during my studies in Siena, Italy, where it rapidly became a favorite among cash-strapped students. Panzanella is a typical Tuscan dish (the Sienese will say typical Sienese...), whose ingredients can vary according to the region or city that you're in. It's a great summer salad, with bright and fresh colors which just entice you to eat it even more.

This version is the basic one and my favorite one, but I've also had it enriched with parsley, little cubes of pecorino cheese, carrots, capers and artichoke hearts. I even had one with anchovies once, but I prefer this basic recipe. Either way, it's a great way to use those last remaining slices of the leftover white bread.

If you wanna try some really funky alternative versions of this traditional dish, check out Heidi's 101 Cookbooks Blog at http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/spring-panzanella-recipe.html

What goes in it?

500 g of old, somewhat stale white bread (you can do it with ciabatta, but it'll work better with Italian-style farmer's bread or what the Italians call pane casalingo)
5 ripe tomatoes2 red onions
a large handful of fresh basil leaves
6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar


This will serve about 4 or 5 people.


Let's get cookin'


1. Take a large bowl or cooking pot and fill it about halfway with cold water. Place the slices or pieces of old bread in the water and leave them to soak for about 10 minutes.

2. Remove the bread from the water and tear it up into rough pieces and squeeze out the water with your hands. Now, break up the pieces into large morsels and put them in a large pot. Make sure that the morsels of bread are almost completely dry.

3. Cut up the tomatoes into eights (or quarters if the tomatoes are quite small, the aim is to avoid having slices which are either to thick or thin) and remove the seeds from the inside. Cut the onion into thin slices (rings). Also, cut up the majority of the basil into long slices, but leave some leaves to decorate the dish with later.

4. Add the tomatoes, basil and onions to the bread. Use your hands to mix all the different ingredients.

5. Add salt, pepper and olive (about 4 of the 6 tablespoons). I tend to add quite a bit of salt and pepper, as the bread, oil and tomatoes soak up a lot of the salt. Softly mix all the ingredients.

6. Leave the salad to rest for about half an hour in the fridge. Afterwards, right before serving it, add the wine vinegar and the remaining two spoons of olive oil. Decorate the salad with the remaining leaves of basil.


A feast for both eyes and tastebuds!!


Buon appetito!

Alioli

Have you ever been to Cataluña? If so, then you cannot have missed this sauce, which is more like a staple food there. And rightfully so! This recipe was taught to me by a very good friend of mine while we were studying, and obviously we had loads of it. Just toast some bread, break out the mixer and you're off! This is the quick version; the traditional version calls for crushing of the cloves in a mortar etc. Also, often in Cataluña, people will use an egg yolk instead of milk for added taste and improved emulsion. For this traditional recipe, please visit Nuria's blog at http://recipespicbypic.blogspot.com/2007/07/allioli.html

What do you need?

1 or more garlic cloves (depending on how strong you want it to be)
1 measure of milk
2 measures of high quality olive oil (extra virgin if possible)
Salt

Preparation?

1. Peel the cloves of garlic and put them in a bowl together with the milk. You can decide the amount of milk yourself, just make sure to add the double of that amount for the olive oil.

2. Using the mixer (handheld) chop up the garlic and mix it with the milk.

3. Once you'ved mixed the garlic and milk completely, slowly add in a little bit of oil. Keep on adding the oil, little by little. You will see the alioli get thicker and thicker. Once in a while stop pouring in the oil for a minute, but keep on mixing. You must not complete this process hastily!! If you do, your sauce will not stiffen up and you'll end up with a runny sauce far less alluring to the eye.

4. Add the salt (according to your own taste).

5. Once the sauce is thick and stiff enough so it'll hold a shape, then you're done. Taste to check of you've added enough salt, if not, add a little more.

Now just toast some bread and put some of your homemade alioli on it! You'll also be able to keep this type of alioli a little longer than the egg yolk variant.

Catalans will also often mix alioli in with their fidéua, making an already delicous dish even more heavenly (and even more heavy!....I've never been able to finish an entire plate on my own). You can find a good recipe for fidéua on Nuria's Spanish Recipe blog as well.


Buen provecho!!!

Spicy Thai Street Noodles

Sawasdee Krab!! This is a typical quick dish that you'll find on the fast-paced streets of Bangkok, which are usually packed with countless foodstalls. Once again a fast and easy dish, which will blow you away with its punchy flavors!

What do you need?

4 large cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of chilipowder or fresh peppers
one egg
Chinese cabbage or iceberg lettuce or spinach
any type of instant Thai noodle soup

This will serve one person.

What's next?

1. Peel and clean the cloves of garlic. I like my garlic taste strong so I put in four or even five cloves, but you can adapt this to your personal tastes. Put them in the mortar and add the teaspoon of chilipowder or a fresh spicy pepper. Again this can be adapted to your personal taste as I love spicy food... Crush the cloves and chilipowder, so that it becomes a thick, red paste.

2. Pour vegetable oil in a wok and heat it up. Once it's hot, add the garlic and chili paste. Stir for about a minute and then add the seasonings and oils which are included in the instant noodle package. Continue stirring for about another 5 minutes.

3. Add the noodles, along with a little bit of water, to soften up the noodles. Leave it to cook/ leave the noodles to soften. Once they've softened up a little, give them a good stir, in order to mix them thoroughly with the paste and seasonings. After stirring them, leave for another minute or so, to let the noodles absorb all the flavors.

4. Create a little nest in the wok with the noodles and pour the eggwhite and yolk into it. Stir it vigorously and mix the egg with the noodles to cook them completely. You could also first remove the the noodles from the wok and then prepare the egg and later add the fried egg to the noodles.

5. Serve the noodles with fresh iceberg salad, spinach or Chinese cabbage. This adds a touch of freshness and it puts out the fire in your mouth a little bit...

A table!!

Berber's Omelette

This is another great easy dish that I picked up a while ago. It's basically a very rich and succulent omelette eaten by the Berber people (the people indigenous to Northern Africa) living in Morrocco. It's traditionally eaten as breakfast, but of course, nothing is to stop you from enjoying this dish at some other part of the day. However, I really suggest you eat it as the Berbers/Moroccans do, that is by making enough of it so that you can share it with some friends. (btw, did you know Edith Piaf, the famous French singer-songwriter, was of Berber descent on her mother's side?)

What do you need?

1 large ripe tomato
1 large red onion
1 teaspoon of paprika (chillipowder)
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of cumin
3 eggs
salt
olive oil

You'll also need: a tajine cooking pot if you happen to have one, if not, a frying pan with a lid will do just fine

This will serve one or two. It's actually surprisingly filling, especially because of the copious amounts of fresh bread that you gobble this omelette down with.

What's next?

1. Chop up your tomato and onion in fine cubes. I tend to wait with chopping up my tomato until right before I add it to the rest of the ingredients. This way none of its juices will run off and be wasted.

2. Put an ample amount of olive oil in a frying pan and heat it up. When hot, add the chopped red onion, turmeric, cumin and paprika. Keep stirring until onion is glazy and has absorbed the spices.

3. Next, add the chopped tomato to the onion and herbs. Keep stirring over a low fire, so that eventually the whole turns into a thick mushy sauce. This should take only about 10 minutes or so.

4. Beat the eggs, yolks and eggwhites. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Once the sauce is ready, transfer it to the tajine, if you happen to have one. If not, just keep the sauce in the frying pan, spread it out somewhat evenly and add the three eggs. Simply pour the eggs on top of the sauce, and try to achieve an even spread of eggs and cover the frying pan with a lid. If you do have a tajine, just do exactly the same: just pour the eggs on top of the tomato sauce and cover it up with the lid.
Keep the pan or tajine on a very low fire and cook the ingredients for about 15 minutes. Make sure not to burn the sauce of eggs.

6. While cooking, I tend to fold the eggs in with the sauce in order to obtain a good mixing of flavors and it will also speed up the cooking of the eggs.

7. When cooked, simply put the whole frying pan or tajine on the table. This is very much a hands-on dish, so make sure to provide your table guests with lots of weapons, in this case fresh bread (any kind will do, but I've found that baguette, ciabatta or coarse white bread do very well in providing you with a scooping tool! And they let you soak and mop up those last bits left in the tajine very well!!

(tip: I also like put some freshly picked cilantro leaves on top of the omelette. It looks nice andadds some freshness to the dish.)


A table!