Fried Shrimp and Spicy Broccoli

This recipe is one of the first ones that made us into thinking we should make a blog and one of the recipes we like cooking the most. It’s a very easy to make, delicious and packs a lot of flavor. And, hey, you’re eating broccoli, that’s gotta be healthy for you.

For the shrimps, we used frozen (500 grams), but you can use fresh. The idea of cooking the seafood is that you will both boil and fry it for short periods of time, so it doesn’t over cook.

Oven Baked Perch with an Almond and Breadcrumbs Crust or O.B.P.A.B.C.

What (!?!?!), you’re definitely gonna remember that abbreviation for a long time, especially after you taste this fish, pair it with a nice, crunchy, vibrant green bean side dish and a chilled Chardonnay.

So let’s get cracking. I used a big fish, around 2 kilos, that I filleted. 

Potato, Broccoli and Spring Onion Mash

We don't post very often recipes for side dishes exclusively, but we had the opportunity recently to cook a very nice and so brilliantly simple mashed potatoes dish that we had to give it the spotlight. We started this with the classical recipe for champ in mind, wich is basically mashed potatoes with butter, milk and spring onions.

With that in mind, we mixed things up a little by using cream instead of butter and we added another ingredient to the recipe, some crisp broccoli.

For 1 kilo of spuds, we used
250 grams of cream (24% fat-feel that cholesterol),
about 4 spring onions and
250 grams of broccoli. 

Regarding the last ingredient,  we only cut the flowers and used only those, finely chopped. The ideea is that the  broccoli doesn't need cooking as it will be mixed with the hot potatoes, and get done by the residual heat. In all honesty, we have to admit that we just ate the rest, all that crunchy goodness.

Boil your spuds, mix them with the cream, salt and pepper,  then mix in the broccoli and the finely chopped onions, only the green part. The result is surprisingly interesting for such a simple recipe, with a nice smoothness from the cream and some subtle  crunch from the greens.

We served it on the weekend with  some slow-roasted lemon and garlic chicken, so stay tuned for that recipe also.

Enjoy,

Express Post: Simple Green Bean Side Dish

I will start by saying that Mr. G. is really a little obsessed with green beans. He could have them as a stew, with or without meat, boiled in a salad, in soups and so on. Actually, I think is pretty cool considering that green beans are good for you, they are rich in beta-carotene (pretty surprising), lutein, B vitamins and antioxidants. Not to mention they are so easy to cook.

No wonder that, in the summer, using fresh green beans as a side dish becomes such an easy solution. Just boil them and season them however you like, complementing the taste of your main dish.

We served it with some Italian style meatballs that will be in the next post and we kept it simple, just drizzled some olive oil on top, salt and pepper, parsley and some thin garlic strips.

Enjoy,

Vegetarian Green Beans Stew with Cucumber Salad Recipe

Do you sometimes find the abundance of the summer overwhelming? This is not a complaint, just to clear it up. It's just that when we go to the market and see all the fruits and vegetables that we missed so much we wanna grab everything and ask each other if we got enough like it is the end of world. Does that happen to you?

This weekend we went outside the city to see my grandmother and somehow we managed to come back with an impressive quantity of green beans from her garden. We thought we will divide it in 3: for some soup, with lemon (refreshing), for a beans-and-tomatoes-sort-of-a-stew and for some garlicky salad.

Let just start with the stew. I called it stew because I had no other better idea, but I never considered it a warming stew or your typical comfort food, but that may also be because I associate it with summer because my mom always used to prepare this from the freshest, most tender green beans. Of course, you can also make it with canned or frozen green beans and you can add some meat and some heat. We will talk about that in 4 or five months.

Also, as you can see in photos it is not the really green and rounded type of green beans, we used a more yellow, flat kind.  I find that the thin, rounded ones are better in salads or stir fries because they hold their shape better.

Ingredients for 3 servings:

500g green beans
1 onion
2 tomatoes
some tomato juice
1 bay leaf
a bunch of dill
salt and pepper

In a tall pan heat up some vegetable oil and then cook the chopped onion until golden. At this point you can also add some garlic if you fancy. After the onion is golden add the green beans and stir for a bit. Add water or stock until it almost covers the beans. At this point you can add the spices- bay leaves, dill (at this point I used a dill flower), salt, pepper and some chilli if you like it spicy.

Let it simmer and when the beans are half cooked, add the chopped tomatoes and the tomato juice. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or until it is done. Before you turn off the heat, sprinkle some more dill and check for salt.

This vegetarian dish goes perfectly with some pickles, but to let yourself be completely "summered" try a simple and fresh ....

Cucumber salad: 

Cut 4-5 small cucumbers in slices, sprinkle some salt over them, then some vinegar (we used balsamic, but you can always choose to be a rebel :)) and, of course, some dill.

Enjoy,
Mrs. G.

Silk Handkerchiefs Pasta with Pesto Genovese

There are moments when I am deciding what to cook when I feel like I have to do something incredibly traditional, something extremely old-school, and when I get it right, for me, it’s an incredible accomplishment. 

This recipe is truly without the shadow of a doubt one of the great classics and, although this type of pasta may not be used on a big scale such as spaghetti or tagliatelle, it has an incredible elegance and beauty to it.

If you want to try this, I beg of you, do it all yourself: the pasta, the pesto, create it from scratch, don’t cut any corners by buying lasagna strips of pasta or canned pesto, trust me, the result will be worth it.

For the pasta, I used 250 grams of type 000 flour (for reasons beyond my understanding the 00 type has gone missing from stores) 1 egg and 2 yolks. The process of working the dough is the same as before, the difference being that the resulting dough will be more compact, robust and with a silkier feel (and also, more yellow). 

Be careful though, the pasta can be rather heavy on the stomach, so be prepared with some good, chilled Soave Clasico. You want to roll your dough until it is thin enough to be blown of the table. Just try and blow under the pasta sheet to see if it lifts; if so, that’s the thickness you need (in case you’re using a pasta machine, roll it up until the 9 mark). Take your pasta sheet and just break it into tiny squares, in a handkerchief like shape (or just cut it like that, breaking it is more fun), and boil it in salted water for 2-3 minutes, that’s all it takes.

For the pesto: 90 grams of basil leaves, 30 grams of pine nuts (toasted), 1 garlic clove, 70 grams of grated Parmiggiano, salt and good quality olive oil (I used the unfiltered kind for my pesto). Put the washed and dried basil leaves (be careful with them when washing, make sure you let them dry and not try and force the leaves, they lose their flavor like that) in a large enough mortar and start crushing them with a circular move with  a pestle, for 1 minute. Add the garlic and pine nuts and keep crushing them with the pestle until the garlic is nice and mashed in the pesto.

After this, add the cheese and crush some more, adding olive oil in the end to bring everything together. The amount of olive oil used should be enough to bind the ingredients and not take over the basil or be in such a quantity that the pesto is submerged in it. 

Regarding the salt, you can go 2 ways: use some coarse salt when adding the garlic, it will help you crush the ingredients better, or, if you’re scared you’re going to go overboard because of the cheese being also salty, wait until the end and added it there. 

So, a superb classic Italian that, for me at least, brought a very nice feeling of accomplishment when completed, hope it does the same for you.

Have a great weekend,
Mr. G.

Tabbouleh Salad/ Tabouleh/ Tabouli

For this delicious and full of flavour salad we used:

100 g bulgur (we had medium)

3 tomatoes

2 bunches flat leaf parsley

1 bunch mint

1 onion

salt and pepper

olive oil 

lemon juice

Remove the parsley leaves from the stems and chop them finely. The same with the mint. Mix them.

Chop the onion (you can use the regular, yellow kind), sprinkle some salt on it and rub it. 

Also dice the tomatoes and add the prepared, washed and drained  bulgur in the same bowl. Mix the bulgur and the tomatoes, so that the bulgur can take on  the juice.

In a salad bowl mix the parsley and the mint with the onion and tomatoes. Add salt and pepper if necessary and drizzle olive oil and lemon juice on top. 

Enjoy,
Mrs. G.

Trout Noodle Stir Fry

Instant noodles, we all know them, they’ve been there for us on those hard, lazy nights or when we were pretty much broke, and that’s a thing that can’t be said about a lot of foods. So I wanted to cook  something to elevate those bad boys, and I decided to give things a mix with some trout meat and crunchy vegetables.

For the fish, I just fried 2 of them whole in 2 tbs of olive oil until the skin got a golden color, after which I let it rest before removing all the meat from the bones, resulting in 200 grams of trout flakes, that can be prepared a day before, or you can use some leftovers from other fish dishes (cod works nice here).

For the stir fry: 3 medium carrots, 4-5 cucumbers, both cut into strips with the veggie peeler, 3-4 spring onions, white part separate from the green, 50 grams bean sprouts (soy, pea, etc., visit your local supermarket for more info), garlic, diced, 1 piece of ginger, thumb size, grated, 3 packages of instant noodles (only use the pasta, throw away those other things in there). 

Get your wok (or other similar pan) nice and hot, pour in some peanut oil, add the carrots, beans and the white part of the onion, mix for 2 minutes, add the cucumbers, garlic and ginger, cook for another minute, then add the green part of the onions (those also cut in to strips) and a mix of grinded coriander, fennel seeds and pepper. Mix this whole thing, add the flaked fish, pour in 2 tbs of soy sauce and 1 tsp of fish sauce. After stirring this combo throw in the noodles (in this case, the packages suggested a 3 minute cooking time, so I just boiled them for 2 and cooked them in the pan for another minute), and give it a strong stir, to make sure the soy sauce covers everything (add more soy sauce  if you feel like the dish needs more salt).

Enjoy!
Mr. G.

Express Post: Farmers' Market Tiny Haul

1. Red beets- for a chicken dish and for juicing. Beet is good for you :)
2. Tomatoes- for a summer salad
3. Lola Rosa Salad - for salads
4. Spring garlic- amazing at this time, the cloves are formed, but the skin on them is not yet dried. Amazing flavour, if you find it like this, definetely give it a try
5. Spring onion- again for salad, but also for sauces
6. Some bread- covered in seeds
7. New or early potatoes- the spring staple in our kitchen
8. Cucumbers- the smaller, the better, the spikier, even better. Also, look for the remainings of the flower on one end of the cucumber, that means they are fresh.
9. Avocado- not from the Market, but in the same bag and healthy
10. Strawberries-  so in right now! Bought them for a healthy snack, but with a lot of dessert recipes in mind.
11. Tarragon- found it fresh, so we are going to use it with some oven-roasted chicken
12. Parsley- we always buy parsley, that's it!
13. Lemons- again, not exactly from the Farmers' Market. For dressings and iced tea or lemonades.

Bye-eee!

Zucchini Patties

3 medium zucchinis

4-5 garlic cloves

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs

1 bunch of parsley

1 tbsp oil or 1 egg

flour

salt and pepper

Start by grating the zucchinis. We peeled 2 of them and let the skin on the third one. If you are planning on using egg to bring everything together it is best to drain the zucchinis well before mixing them with the other ingredients.

We decided to keep the dish vegetarian, so we used some vegetable oil instead. Add to the zucchinis the minced or grated garlic, breadcrumbs, finely chopped parsley, the oil and season it with salt and pepper.

Depending on how big your zucchinis are, how much you drained them you might need the add more breadcrumbs. You should have to be able to form some balls with the mixture, but it should still be sticky. Then flour the balls and pat them to get burgers or patties.

Then, fry them in oil on both sides until they turn golden-brown.

We served them with avocado and tomatoes salad, presented here.

Enjoy!

Avocado and Tomato Salad

Red onion + avocado slices + tomato slices + oil + lemon juice + salt + freshly grounded pepper

We love this salad, it is obvious it is super fresh and perfect for summer or spring, but also in the winter, avocado is a great substitute for cucumber, which I find not so tasty outside its season.

You can serve it with meat, but it is absolutely amazing with vegetarian dishes and especially veggie patties or burgers, essentially because the oils in the avocado makes the whole meal more filling.

Enjoy!

Fish Fingers in Beer and Nutmeg Batter

This fish dish always turns out delicious. It is very special because of the nutmeg and the egg whites being beaten separately.

For 1 kg of fish fillets you will need:
300 g all purpose flour
200 ml beer
3 eggs
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp nutmeg
salt
pepper

Cut the fillets in strips, season them with salt and pepper, then coat them in flour (you will use about 1/2 of the flour.

At this time you should have your side dish cooking also. We had sauted broccoli.  To continue with the fish, place the remaining flour in a bowl, add slowly the beer, oil and egg yolks. When it is all mixed, add the nutmeg, some salt and pepper. Beat the egg whites separately and incorporate them into the mixture slowly, so that the batter will be airy and light.

Dip the fish in the batter and fry them in vegetable oil. Try to be organized and finish the fish and the side dish or salad at the same time, the fish is best served hot.

It is one of those dishes that can even be served to people who aren't big fans of fish. We served it with broccoli and lemon juice, but you can make potatoes natur or mixed vegetables.

Enjoy!

It's Elementary! Wild Garlic Pesto Simple Recipe

You will need:

2 wild garlic handfulls
50g walnuts
50g almonds
100 ml olive oil
50g parmesan

Method:

Put them all in a blender and chop them and mix them until you get the desired consistency.

Serve it on pasta, on meats, on grilled vegetables or as a sauce for everything basically. Just don't plan a romantic date afterwards because it is garlic and it is...wild. Pun intended!

Enjoy!

Lentil Burgers Recipe/ Vegetarian Burgers + 4 Toppings

Burger recipe: I used red lentils, but you can replace those with any kind you have in the house. So, around 400 grams of lentils, 4 large eggs, a finely chopped medium onion, around 150 grams of bread crumbs, 1 tbs olive oil, salt, pepper. Boil the lentils, drain them a little and place them in a blender with the eggs, salt and pepper. After that I added the bread crumbs, until i had the desired consistency (you can always add more bread crumbs if the composition is to soft, or an egg or water if it's too hard), which should be like moist enough not to get to hard when you cook it, but firm enough to retain it's shape. It may sound tricky, it' actually very easy when you get to it. Form a couple of burger patties, honestly as thick as you like them, and cook them either in the oven (around 5-7 minutes on each side, depending on thickness) or fry them in vegetable oil until golden. This combo gives you a kind of neutral burger, so you can mix it up and use extra flavouring in the recipe (thyme, oregano, curry, chilli, whater makes you happy), but I liked like this so I can add the flavour with the other ingredients of the burger.

Tomato topping:

Grated cheese (I used grana padano, you can replace that with whatever you like, but I went Italian for this one) + tomato slices + chopped basil.

 Eggplant and Saffron Yogurt topping:

Grilled eggplant slices, guess how you do those :). For the saffron yogurt, put a quarter of a teaspoon  of saffron in 3 tbs oh hot water, let it infuse. Crush 1 clove of garlick, and put that in about 300 grams of yogurt, along side with a tablespoon olive oil, same amount lemon juice, the saffron-infused water (without the condiment), salt and pepper, and mix it up.

Sun dried Tomatoes topping:

Coat both sides of the bun with some oil from the sun dried tomatoes jar, add capers and tomatoes.

Avocado topping:

Iceberg salad + burger + onion + avocado

RO: Chiftele de linte/ Burger vegetarian cu 4 toppinguri

Burgerii: 400 gr linte, eu am folosit rosie, 4 oua mari, o ceapama mare tocata foarte marunt, 150 g pesmet, 1 lingura ulei masline, sare, piper. Lintea fiarta si scursa merge in blender cu ouale, ceapa, sare si piper, se adauga apoi pesmet, pana se obtine o consistenta dorita (se poate adauga oricum pe parcurs pesmet daca e prea moale sau apa/ oua daca e prea tare), adica destul de umeda ca sa nu se intareasca in cuptor, dar destul de tare cat sa poata fi modelata in bile. Formati astfel chiftele/ burgeri si coaceti-i in cuptor (5-7 minute pe fiecare parte) sau prajiti-i in ulei de floarea soarelui pana devin aurii. Gustul e destul de neutru, dar puteti adauga diverse arome: cimbru, oregano, chilli), eu am preferat asa pentru a putea adauga arome diferite prin celelalte ingrediente.

Topping de branza : branza rasa, gran padano + felii rosie + busuioc tocat

Topping de vanata si iaurt cu sofran: vanata la gratar + 1 catel usturoi, 300 g iaurt, 1 lg ulei masline, 1 lg suc lamaie, 3 lg de apa infuzata cu 1 lingurita sofran, sare, piper.

Topping de rosii uscate: ungeti ambele felli de chifla la interior cu ulei din borcanul de rosii uscate, adaugati capere si rosii uscate

Topping cu avocado: Salata iceberg + ceapa + avocado.

Enjoy!