Linguine all'Arrabiata à la Dubrovskis

My uncle came visiting and showed us how to enjoy the summer. He also prepared this special dish. You can use any kind of pasta for it, but he used Linguine. Arrabiata means that the sauce has some kick to it. As my uncle cannot eat fresh pepper or chili, he used some paprika and cayenne spice. He also used caperns and olives that  tasted deliciuos. Instead of the big caperns you can also use the smaller bite-sized ones :)

Ingredients:

• Oil
• 2 Onions - chopped
• 3-4 cloves Garlic - chopped
• 200g Caperns
• 200-300g Olives (green and black)
• 2 cans Tomatoes (diced)
• 1 tablespoon Tomatopaste
• 2 tablespoon fresh Rosemary - finely chopped
• 2 tablespoon fresh Basil - finely chopped
• pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, paprika to taste

• 500g Linguine pasta
• 100g Parmegiano Reggiano cheese - grated
• 1 Baguette

Preparation:

1. Start with heating up the oil. Sautée the garlic for 1 min, be careful that it doesn't get brown and bitter. Add the diced onions and sautée for 3-4 min. Add the olives, cook for 3 min, then add the caperns and cook for another 3 min.
2. Now, add the tomato sauce and bring to a rapid boil. Let boil for 5-10 min. 
3. In the meantime, boil salted water for the linguine. Add the pasta into the boiling water and cook for 9-11 min.
4. Finish the sauce with the tomato paste and the fresh herbs (rosemary and basil). Stir and spice to taste with pepper, salt, cayenne pepper and paprika. Let cook for 1 more minute.
5. Drain the pasta. Mix the linguini with the sauce. 
6. Serve with parmesan and baguette. 

Need for speed - I accepted the challenge!

Print this recipe:

French cuisine

It's all about Croissants dipped in hot chocolate, small Tartes, typical lunch Baguettes, sweet and savory Crepes (e.g. Crepe Suizette), Onion soup, Frog Legs (Cuisses de Grenouille), Snails (Escargots), Eclairs, Créme brûlée, etc. eaten in surroundings such as Notre Dame, Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, Champs Elysee...

Here are some pics:

Breakfast at Notre Dame

Lunch at Champse Elysee

Light Supper at Montmartre

Mother's Day treats - Tarte Citron and more...

Birthday Lunch: Frog Legs, ...

... Snails, ...

... Creme Brulee...

Evening Beer

Last Breakfast at Montmartre

Omlette with ham

Crepes Suzette, table side flambee

Viking Bread

This recipe is based on a visit to the "Royal BC Museum" in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It's a huge museum with very nice galleries to the human and natural history. They additionally had a special Viking exhibition that we were lucky to catch, which was the actual reason for us to go there. Very fascinating. One day I will go to Scandinavia to explore more of the Vikings. During this exhibition, I also found this little recipe for Viking aged bread. After my friends already made some Lembas bread, Elvish bread from Lord of the Rings (here is a recipe), I thought I am gonna try this bread.

For my friends who like the spirit and memory of the Vikings :)

Ingredients (for about 3 flat cakes):

• 150 g barley flour
• 50 g wohlemeal flour
• 2 tsp crushed flax seeds
• 100-200 ml water
• 2 tsp butter
• a pinch of salt

Preparation:

1. Work all ingredients together into a dough. Use more water or flour if dough is too dry or wet. Here, my old Ninja mixer would have come in handy. However, I did it old-style, Viking-style and used my hands :)
2. Let dough cool for 1-2 hours.
3. Shape dough into flat cakes of about 1cm thickness. 
4. Bake at 150 degree celsius for about 15-20 min.

This was our last little romantic getaway to the small coastal town Victoria on the Canadian border, a cute little town where you can feel the French and English influences. Despite the very stressful time for both of us, the trip was filled with wonderful memories and finally, a Canadian stamp in the passport :)
                     - Afternoon Tea in the beautiful Butchart Gardens (see my previous post here), watching whales with a very adventurous zodiac boat trip, last minute cider sipping with a nice view over the orchard, watching some soccer world cup games in Irish pub style restaurants, a private unexpected tour of Hatley Castle and its gardens (the one from X-Men, Smallville, Arrow, The Witches of East End, etc.), seeing Tom Cruise IMAX style, a scary ghost tour through Victoria's night that made it difficult to fall asleep later on, staying at the Shakespear room at the romantic Albion Manor Bed and Breakfast with a private terrace and cute little bathroom (another B&B I can highly recommend, see also my post on the Inn at Cliff Top Lane B&B in Whistler, Canada), having a lazy afternoon and evening at a hotel with some beer, prosecco and a weird Kevin Costner movie, etc.

Print this recipe:

HAPPY EASTERN - Egg Liqueur Cookies Linzer Style

These sandwich style cookies look like flowers and have a little flower cut-out that is filled with a yellow egg liqueur cream. Even though cookies is more something for Christmas time, I found this recipe on one of the blogs I am following (Patce's Patisserie) as last year's Easter recipe, and I thought them fitting.

The sweet short crust pastry made with flour, almonds, sugar, egg and lemon zest used for these cookies is called a "Linzer short crust pastry" that orginially was used for the "Linzer Eye" cookie, a Christmas cookie with two sandwich style cookie discs filled with jam and with three little cut-out holes on top. These cookies originated in the small town Linz in Austria in the early 1700s. I will be using a flower cut-out instead of the three holes and instead of red jam, I will fill them with a yellow egg liqueur (or a yellow jam as non-alcoholic version), fitting to spring and Eastern.

Ingredients:

For the short pastry (Linzer style)

• 125 g butter - softened at room temperature
• 100 powdered sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon peel
• 1 egg
• 180 g flour
• 70 g corn starch
• 100 g ground almonds (blanched)

For the topping:

• 4-5 tablespoons egg liqueur
• 120 g powdered sugar 
• alternatively for a non-alcoholic version: 3 tablespoons yellow jam (e.g. apricot or mango-maracuya, no extra sugar needed

Preparation:

Preheat oven at 180 degree C (350 degree F).

1. Prepare the short pastry. Mix together butter, powdered sugar, salt, lemon peel and egg. In a separate bowl, mix flour and corn starch. Add the flour/cornstarch mix and the almonds to the butter mix and knead together to a pastry dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for about 30 minutes. Please use blanched almonds as it makes the pastry lighter. Unblanched almonds would result in brown cookies, not white ones.
2. Roll the pastry dough on a floured surface (ca. 3mm thick). Put plastic wrap on top of the dough and it rolls easier.  My cookie cutter was flower shaped and had a smaller flower as the cut-out. It had the option to remove the inner cut out, so that I could make both, the botton part of the cookie without a cut-out as well as the top part with the cut-out. Now, cut out as many flower cookies without a cut-out as with a cut-out. Place the flower cookies on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. If the unbaked cookies seem soft, put them in the fridge and let them chill for about 10 minutes. This will prevent that they are spreading during baking. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 180 degree celsius for about 8-10 minutes. Be careful that the cookies don't brown. Take them out of the oven and let them cool.
3. For the egg liqueur topping, mix together the egg liqueur and powdered sugar. Spread a thin layer of the egg liqueur on top of the flower cookies without the cut-out. Alternatively, use the yellow jam for a non-alcoholic version. Those will be the bottom of the sandwich cookie. For Christmas time, you would now dust the top part (the cookie with the cut-out) with powdered sugar. This is optional, but I noticed that for Eastern it looks better not to dust them. Assemble the cookies as sandwiches, the cut-outs facing up. Add a little bit more of the egg liqueur topping in the cut-out holes. 

These cookies will soften when stored. Keep them in an airtight container in the refrigerator or serve the day of cooking.

Print this recipe:

My Mom's "Kartoffelsuppe" (Potato soup)

This is on of my Mom's recipes I grew up with. It's perfect for spring time. A light but still hearty and flavorful soup, depending on how much of the sausages you add :)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 cured hard paprika sausages ("Bauernbratwurst) 
• 1 onion - diced
• 2 carrots - sliced

• 3-5 potatoes - cubes (1 inch)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• salt, pepper 
• 1 liter water 

• 1 leek - sliced
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 3 wiener sausages or 1/2 cup bologna (Fleischwurst) - sliced
• vegeta

• 2 tablespoon fresh parsley - chopped

Preparation:

Start the Base:

Heat the oil and butter. Add the paprika sausage and diced onions. Quickly sauté the onions and brown the sausages for about 2-3 minutes, be careful that the onions don't turn brown. Add the sliced carrots (hardest vegetables) and fry for a few more minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add the potato cubes (second hardest vegetables), tomato paste, salt and pepper and stir. Fry the potatoes for about 5 minutes, stir regularly to not brown the onions. Fill up with water, bring to a boil and let simmer at medium heat for about 10 minutes till the potatoes start to soften up.

Finish Up & Serve:

Now, add the leeks, the frozen peas and the sliced wiener sausage/bologna. These ingredients don't need long to cook. Let cook for 5 more minutes till potatoes are completely soft. Season with salt, pepper and vegeta to taste.

Use a potato masher and softly press into the soup for a few times to slightly squeeze the potatoes. Do not completely smash all of them. The soup should still be clear and there should still be bits of potatoes. You just want to break them up a little.

Sprinkle fresh parsley on top and serve with crusted bread and

cured paprika sausage (Bauernbratwurst)

This version uses sliced bologna (Fleischwurst)

This version uses sliced wiener sausages

Print this recipe:

** New Blog Domain **

First New Year's Resolution achieved!!! I have bought myself a domain and redirected my blog to it. Now, I do not need to have the "blogspot" in my URL.

Welcome to my new Domain:

                         www.pudicasfoodcorner.com

Cheers,
Pudica

BRUNCH TIME - Mini German Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

This is another little recipe from "Brunch at Bobbys". These "German" pancakes (also called Dutch baby pancakes) are sweet popovers that quickly fall after removing from the oven. It is said, that they indeed derive from the German "pfannkuchen" made out of eggs, flour, sugar and milk. Strangely, as a German I had never heard of them. Nevertheless, they are delicious.

The first time I tried these German pancakes was in Salt Lake City, as my friend T. made it in a big casserole for her kids. She called it Dutch baby pancake and as she made it in a big casserole, it was just one big but really thin one. Bobby Flay's recipe suggests using little muffin tins and serving them with an apple-calvadas-caramal sauce. Other possible toppings include fruit toppings, lemon, butter or syrup.

We made these German pancakes on one of those Saturdays long ago when we all went together to Yamhill Yoga and afterwards we had brunch together at our place. We made a savory spinach-gruyere-strata (also one of Bobby's recipes) and these mini German pancakes with a warm blueberry sauce as dessert. A very successful brunch with best friends :)

Ingredients:

For the dough

• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 4 tablespoon butter (melted and cooled)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Topping

• 2 cups frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoon cornstarch (mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven at 400 degree Fahrenheit.

1. Combine milk, sugar, vanilla extract, orange zest and eggs in a blender. Add flour, butter and salt. Blend till smooth.
2. Fill greased muffin forms with batter (about 1/4 cup of batter into each form).
3. Bake for 15 min until golden brown and puffy.
4. Prepare the blueberry syrup. Heat the blueberries, water, sugar and lemon juice in a small sauce pan, add the cornstarch and vanilla extract. Stir frequently. Let simmer at low heat for about 15min till the sauce reaches a syrup like consistency.
5. Serve the mini pancakes with the blueberry sauce in the middle and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Print this recipe: