urban odds & ends

I recently bought a nice package of Lentilles du Puy, french green lentils ("the caviar of lentils"), in our spanish-italian deli, so this recipe was a must try. It was so delicious, I think it could even be a recurring meal on our table. Despite everything tasted really good on it's own, the combination of the earthy, slightly sour lentils with the sweet rich tomato sauce and the spicy salty sausage was mouthwatering good. Eaten on a friday evening accompanied by a nice glass of semi-dry red wine, perfect for calling it a day :)

Lentils with Sausage and Tomato Salsa serves 4
adapted from Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Italy

8 medium sices italian sausages (salsicce)

For the tomato sauce

800g canned whole tomatoes, chopped
1 small red onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 small stick of cinnamon
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
salt & pepper
olive oil

For the lentils

400g Puy lentils
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 bay leaf
fresh parsley, leaves finely chopped & stalks reserved
red wine vinegar
salt & black pepper
olive oil

Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F).

Let's start with the sauce. Heat a pot over medium-low heat, add some olive oil and cook the onions, sliced garlic, cinnamon stick and the chilli for about 10 minutes until the onions are soft and sweet. Now turn the heat up and add the red wine vinegar, be careful not to hang your nose directly over the pot or you're going to cry like a baby ;) Turn the heat back to medium-low and add the tomatoes. Cook for about 30 minutes until the sauce is thick and yummy.

Put the lentils into a pot and cover with plenty of water. Throw in the bay leaf, the whole garlic cloves and the parsley stalks and bring to a simmer.

Now it's sausage time! Toss your sausages in a little olive oil, lay them on a roasting tray or into a deep baking dish and put them in the oven for around 20 minutes until golden and crispy. And I'm going to warn you, the smell that comes out of your oven is so so good, so please don't eat the sausage right away... just maybe a tiny piece - whoops! :)

By the time the lentils are cooked, remove the bay leaf, parsley stalks and garlic and drain well. Put them back into the pot. Mash the garlic a little with a knife and mix well with the lentils. Add the finely chopped parsley. Dress them with olive oil and red wine vinegar and season to taste with freshly ground black pepper and salt.

Remove the sausage from the oven and discard the oil. Remove the cinnamon stick from the tomato salsa and discard it, too. Season the salsa to taste.

Time to assamble :) Tip the lentils onto your serving bowls and spoon over some of the tomato sauce. Place two sausages, whole or sliced - whatever floats your boat - on top. Bon appetit! :)

I'm sorry for neglecting my little babble space and you :) So much to work on and still recovering from a little illness...

For now I just want to share a tomato ketchup recipe. It's high season for tomatoes, I bought 7kg last weekend - some to boil down and freeze for tomato sauce and some to try the ketchup recipe I glanced at so often while leafing through my cookbooks. It needs a little prep time but it's definitely worth it. And I thinks it's pretty darn cool to serve homemade ketchup to my friends, announcing that I made it myself and hear them say how kick-ass this is ;)


Homemade Tomato Ketchup makes about 500mL
adapted from Jamie At Home (p 314)

500g plum tomatoes, halved
500g canned plum tomatoes, chopped
200g red wine vinegar
70g brown sugar
1 large red onion, roughly chopped (mine from the farmers market were HUGE!)
1/2 fennel bulb, roughly chopped
1 stick of celery, roughly chopped
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, sliced
2 gloves garlic, sliced
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked and stalks chopped
2 cloves
salt & pepper
olive oil

Heat a large pot oder saucepan over medium heat, add the oil, all the vegetables and the ginger, garlic, chilli, cloves, coriander seeds and basil stalks. Cook for around 15 minutes until the vegetables are soft. This smells really really good by the way :) Now add all the tomatoes and 350mL water. Bring to boil and simmer until the sauce has reduced by half. Add the basil leaves and puree with a hand blender, then strain it through a sieve twice. Grab yourself a fresh pan or the cleaned old one and add the sauce, the sugar and the vinegar and heat over medium high heat. Let the sauce reduce until you reached your preferred consistency for tomato ketchup. Season to taste with salt and pepper and fill while still hot in sterilized bottles. It should keep for six months.


Enjoy! :)

Eggplant Casserole serves 4
adapted from Mamma Maria! Familenrezepte aus Sizilien by Cettina Vicenzino

4 mid-sized eggplants
3 gloves garlic, cut into thin slices
500g tomatoes, roughly chopped
70g ham, chopped
125g mozzarella, chopped
100g freshly ground parmesan
fresh basil, leaves roughly, stems finely chopped
salt & pepper
oil

Remove the stem from the eggplant, than slice into 1cm thick discs. Using a big bowl, place them in layers, each layer sprinkled generously with salt. This procedure removes excess water and bitters. I used my heavy stone mortar to put some extra weight on top helping the water to drain. This step should take around 1 hour. After an half an hour we can start with the tomato sauce. Heat up a large pan with 1 tbsp oil over medium high heat and throw in the sliced garlic while the pan is still cold. This infuses the oil much better than cooking the garlic right away. When the garlic starts to brown add the basil stems and the chopped tomatoes. Cook until it looks like a thick nice sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat up your oven to 200°C (400°F).

Now back to our main actor: Monsignore Eggplant. Discard the liquid and give the eggplant slices a quick rinse. Take 3 slices in your hands and squeeze as much water as possible out of them. Repeat until all slices are dry. Grab a deep casserole and start with a layer of tomato sauce, followed by a layer of eggplant slices. On top goes some ham, mozzarella, basil and parmesan. Now repeat until all ingredients are used. The last layer should be tomato sauce with plenty of parmesan on top. Bake 30 minutes until the top is golden brown and the sauce nice and bubbly. This dish doesn't need any side dish besides maybe some crusty bread, sprinkled with olive oil and flaky sea salt.

Simple, yet delicious. This is the way I like my meals on weekdays, when I'm learning most of the time and there's no time for time-consuming preparations.

Zucchini Pancakes makes 4 pancakes
adapted from The Wednesday Chef

1 medium zucchini, shredded
100g feta cheese, crumbled
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 large egg
salt & pepper
oil

Mix the shredded zucchini with 1 tbsp salt, place in a colander and drain for about half an hour. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel and squeeze to release as much liquid as possible. In a large bowl combine the zucchini, egg, feta, spring onions and flour. Season with salt and pepper. Heat a large pan on medium high heat with 1-2 tbsp oil. By the time it's hot place the batter with a spoon in the pan making four pancakes and flatten them with a spatula.Fry until golden on each side - for about 7 minutes - until crisp.

I ate it with a simple yoghurt sauce, made with greek yoguhrt, a little lemon juice seasoned with salt and pepper. Yummy!

Oh my... these are long gone but they were unbelievable delicious. Now I understand this whole macarons hype going on for months. Macarons are flavored-buttercream ("ganache") filled almond meringues (from the lips to the hips I would say), a pastry for which Paris is famous for. The best pâtissieres selling les macarons are Laduree and Pierre Hermé. And since I don't have a second residence in Paris I absolutely need to try making macarons by myself, even if they're not easy to make. So if you want to try  (read as "...you need to try...") and join me in this adventure ;) I'll include some yummy recipes for you.

Making French Macarons Instructions
Macaron Chronicles 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Chocolat Macarons
Spiced Chai Latte and Salted Caramel Macarons
Rapsberry and Pink Peppercorn Macarons
Powdered Strawberry and Vanilla Bean Macarons
Pistachio and Grapefruit Macarons
Milk Chocolat and Coffee Macarons

Let me introduce our new family member... our chatty kitty cat named Nibbler.

We picked him up from Stephan's sister and brought him home after a 4 hour long drive yesterday. After almost one and a half days in his new home, he slowly gets accustomed to us and our apartment.
With his 10 weeks, he sleeps alot (almost 20 hours per day) and in the meantime he wants our full attention, jumping around like a little whirlwind playing with his fishing rod (its feather scrub is in the picture above).

Apart from that, there are no more news. It's very hot right now in Germany (35°C/95°F) and I'm not in the mood cooking complex meals right now. Chilled watermelon is my food of choice. So be patient until the weather cooled down a bit and working in the kitchen is fun again! :)

Meow!

Wow, this weekend was hot! The temperatures climbed up to almost 40°C! This makes even normal breathing to a sweaty event. We spent our weekend barbeque-ing with our friends, watching the World Cup (Schland!) and enjoying some boozy drinks (two-finger wide Liquer 43 with milk - yum!).

Today I'd like to share this basic recipe for homemade pasta and a ravioli variation with a tomato sauce. Preparing the dough in the pasta machine is actually kinda relaxing. Maybe I should write a book "Modern Meditation: The Pasta Effect"... sorry, this has to be the heat outside... ;)

Basic Pasta Dough serves 4

330g flour, preferably '00' pasta flour
3 medium eggs
3 tbsp olive oil

In a bowl combine the flour, eggs and olive oil. Knead the dough until it has come together and is smooth with a silky glow, if it's too wet add more flour and the other way round, if it's to crumbly add a little more oil. Divide it into 4 blocks, wrap it into cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 days).


Dust your work surface with flour and set your pasta machine to the widest setting. Take one piece of the dough and flatten it on the floured surface with a rolling pin. Pass the dough through the pasta machine, fold it one time and repeat at the same setting. Now narrow the setting and repeat. Go on until you get to the lowest setting. When each sheet is rolled, keep it under a moist towel so it won't dry out.


For ravioli it's the best to make the dough as thin as possible, because the filling is the main character. Of course you can shape with this basic pasta dough every other shape you like. For thin spaghetti or tagliatelle I would stop a little earlier (maybe 7 from 9 possible settings).



Ravioli with Spinach Ricotta Filling & Tomato Sauce serves 4

prepared pasta dough
400g tomatoes, canned and whole - pierced with a fork
200g ricotta
200g spinach, frozen
2 handful of grated parmesan
1 handful of basil, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 red onion, finely diced
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg white, beaten
salt & pepper
oil

Heat a large pan over medium high heat and add the oil and garlic slices of one glove while still cool. So the oil has time to infuse with garlic flavor. Add the frozen spinach and cook until defrosted and the water is fully evaporated for around 10 minutes. Set aside and let it cool down a little. Transfer to a board and chop the spinach roughly. In a separate bowl combine the ricotta, 1 handful of parmesan and spinach, season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer the prepared dough to a generously floured work surface. Use a pastry cutter or the rim of a glass (~ 6cm in diameter) to stamp out discs. Place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the centre of disc, brush the border with a little egg white and place the other pasta disc on top. Gently press out any air as you seal the edges together firmly, unless the ravioli will burst in the cooking water. As they are made, place the ravioli on a tray or plate sprinkled with plenty of semolina. Leave it to dry for around 15 minutes. The ravioli can be stored covered with cling film up to a day in the fridge.

In the meantime prepare the tomato sauce, see recipe below.

Heat in a large pot salted water to the boil. Cook the pasta for 2-3 minutes or until al dente. Drain and retain some of the cooking water.

Tomato Sauce

Heat a pan over medium heat, add the oil and onions and cook until the onions are translucent. In the last minute add the sliced garlic. Add the tomatoes and let it simmer around 30 minutes until the sauce is rather thick and very aromatic. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining parmesan and the basil. Season to taste, then stir in the cooked ravioli carefully. At this point you can adjust the thickness of the sauce by adding spoon by spoon of the reserved cooking water until preferred sauciness ;) Divide among the plates and serve with plenty of parmesan on top!