My Brother's Spaghetti All'Arrabiata - fresh from the garden...

A little while ago, I posted my uncle's version of Linguine All'Arrabiata. This seems to be a popular dish as now, I am posting a more traditional version from my brother. He used fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic and chilis from our parents' garden. He made this dish as we both were visiting our parents. It was a pleasure to see him prepare this delicious meal and be able to blog about it :) It was a nice family meal.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 small onions - finely diced
• 5 tablespoons red bell pepper - finely diced
• 5 tablespoons carotts - finely diced
• 1-3 chilis (to taste) - finely diced
• 6 cloves garlic - minced
• 3 big tomatoes - peeled and chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon tomatopaste
• 300 ml tomato sauce
• salt, pepper to taste
• 2-3 ladles of pasta water
• 1 cup small "currant" tomatoes
• fresh parsley - chopped

• 500 spaghetti 
• 500g parmigiano-reggiano cheese - grated
• white bread loaf

 

Preparation:

1. Start to boil the water for the spaghetti. Add the spaghetti when water boils. Do not drain the spaghetti when done, keep the water!
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add onions, bell pepper and carrots and saute till onions are translucent. Add the chilis and the garlic. Fry for another minute. Keep stiring and be cautious to not burn the garlic. 
3. In the meantime, boil some water, add the tomatoes for 1-2 minutes. Take them out and you should be able to peel them. Chop in big chunks. Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan and heat up for a couple of minutes. Add the vineagar and the tomatopaste and cook for another  2 minutes. Now, fill up the pan with the tomato sauce, stir and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let cook for 5 minutes.
4. Add 2-3 laddles of the pasta water. It will thicken the pasta sauce. At last, add the small currant tomatoes. They look like cocktail tomatoes, but have a distinct flavor. You can also subsitute cocktail tomatoes. Let cook till the tomatoes pop open. Add the parsley.
5. Drain the spaghetti, add to the sauce and mix. Heat up for another minute.
6. Serve the following way: Add a layer of parmesan on the bottom of the plate. Add the spaghetti and top it of with another layer of parmesan. Sprinkle with freshly grounded black pepper. Serve with slices of white soft bread.

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Poğaça - Turkish breakfast rolls

My Turkish work-colleague showed me a little bit of her culture. I had so much fun baking with her those traditional little pasties, called Poça or Poğaça. They are very common in Turkey, Hungary and the Balkans. I read that it typically is a breakfast dish in Turkey, I myself rather ate them as an appetizer. They were delicious.

They come in a varitey of shapes and fillings. We used a cheese filling, but they can also come with ground beef or potato. They can look like little round pasty balls where the dough is closed and the opening hidden on the bottom, half moon crescents that are closed on the side (like we did), or shuttle like forms with the opening on top where the cheese is visible and oozing out.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 2 eggs
• 800 mg flour
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups milk (maybe a little more)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon dry-yeast (or baking powder)
• 1 cup oil (or 200g butter)
• 1 egg yolk 
•  optional: sesame seeds

Filling:

• 300 g feta cheese
• 1 tablespoon parsley (chopped)
• pepper, paprika (to taste)

Preparation:

1. Prepare the dough. In a large mixing bowl, start with the flour. Add the milk, eggs, salt, sugar and yeast and mix with your hands (optionally you can also use a blender). Add the oil. Knead till you have a firm dough. If too dry you might need to add a little more milk, if too sticky you will need to add a little more flour. Form the dough into a big ball. Cover the bowl with a towel. Let the dough rest for about 20 min in a warm place, it will increase in size.
2. Prepare the filling in the meantime. Crumble up the feta cheese in a bowl. Add the parsley, pepper and paprika to taste.
3. Form and fill the pasties: There are different ways to form those pasties. The most common one is probably to form little walnut sized balls out of the dough, flatten them by hand, fill them and close the sides, so that you have a little ball. However, we took a slightly different approach this time. We formed the entire dough into 3 medium sized balls. Then, we rolled them all out, took a small round glass and cut out little circles. We put a tablespoon of filling on one half of the circles, pulled the other half over it, folded it so that the ends came together. We pinched the sides closed. Now we had small half moon formed pasties (instead of pastie balls). 
4. Place all the pasties on a baking rack. Whisk the egg yolk. Use the egg wash and brush over the filled pasties. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Let rest for another 20 min before baking.
5. Bake the pasties in a preheated oven at 175 degree celsius for about 15min till golden brown.

Note: You can also add some plain yoghurt to the dough and reduce the milk. If you want a real fluffy pastie, add some mineral water (or soda water). And instead of the feta cheese you can use ground beef as a filling. 

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My Mom's marinated Zucchini Antipasti - fresh from the garden...

This is one of the newest recipes from my Mom. She is really proud of it. It's simple and fast to do, and just delicious as a cold appetizer during lunch or supper. We used the zucchinis from my parents' garden.

Ingredients

• 2-3 zucchinis
• salt, pepper
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 4 tablespoon oil
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon honey
• 2-3 clove garlic (minced)

Preparation

1. Slice the zucchinis lengthwise. Heat up a grill pan. Fry the zucchini slices on both sides till they get soft. Take them out and place them on a plate. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Prepare the dressing: Mix the vinegar with the honey, garlic and oil. Brush on top side of the zucchini slices. Let cool down and serve. 

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My Mom's "Tomaten Salat mit Zwiebeln" (Tomato Salad) - fresh from the garden...

As my parents had so many fresh vegatables from their garden, we tried to use some of them. My Mom makes a very simple but delicious tomato salad which tastes even better with those tasty tomatoes from the garden.

The tomato salad is a perfect little addition/side dish to her Ćevapčići (an oriental dish of grilled spiced ground beef roles - traditional recipe from the Balkans with origin in former Slovenia where my father was born).

Ingredients:

• 3 big tomatoes
• 2 medium onions
• 2 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoon pumpkin seed oil
•  salt, pepper

 

Preparation:

1. Half the onions and the tomatoes and slice them. Add them to a bowl.
2. Add the dressing. Start with pouring first the cider directly over the salad. Then pour the oils  and spice with salt and pepper. Mix the salad strongly. My Mom always adds the vinegar, oil, and spices directly over the salad but you can also prepare the dressing separately. However, always start with the vinegar as it mixes easier as when you start with the oil.

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Fresh from the garden...

My parents have a nice little garden. It's not a perfect stretch of even ground, it is a little on a slope and basically has three levels on the right side and one level on the left side. I like it because it is kinda wild and has everything. On the right side, on the middle level there is even an apple and two plum trees. Also, we had re-planted two of our old little christmas trees in the garden. Both of them re-connected to the ground, and one already got really huge!

This year, they planted a lot of strawberries, tomatoes, zucchinis, different kinds of peppers, onions, garlics, cucumbers, pumpkins, brussel sprouts, lettuce, lavender, and some herbs such as bay leaves, chives, rosemary.

Here are a few pics:

Right side, upper level: Some broussel sprouts in front and the Christmas tree in the back

Right side, middle level: Plum and Apple trees and some cucumber and peppers in front

Right side, lower level: Lavender, chives, zucchini, strawberries and more

Left side of the garden: Tomato plantage

Semolina Flummery (Grießflammeri) with Strawberry Coulis

I was inspired to this recipe by my former work colleague Annette and her story of overboiling milk :)

A flummery is a sweet soft dessert pudding which was boiled with water and thickend with a starch based ingredient. It is not completely clear, where the name came from, and it kinda has different meanings the further you look back for its origin, but one possible origin is from the early 17th century in Britain and refers to a dish of oatmeal boiled to a jelly.

Nowadays, a flummery is equally used for the word pudding. However, there used to be differences between a flummery and a pudding. A flummery used to always be a sweet treat and as a binding ingredient they used gelatin whereas a pudding could be sweet or savery and they used egg yolks as binding ingredient.

Ingredients:

For the Flummery

• 500 ml milk
• 1 pinch of salt
• 50 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon peel
• 1 vanilla pod
• 75 g semolina
• 2 Eggs - seperated
• 50 ml heavy cream
• optional: roasted almond slices

For the Strawberry Coulis:

• 2 cups fresh strawberries - hulled and haved
• 1/3-1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon fresh pressed lemon juice

Preparation:

Flummery:

• Bring the milk, salt, sugar and lemon peel to a boil. Cut the vanilla pot open lengthwise and scrape out the core, add to the mix. Stir and stay with the milk, as it can easily overboil.
• Add the semolina when it boils, stir till it thickens, then take it off the heat.
• Mix the egg yolks with the cream and stir into the semolina-milk mix. Beat the egg whites and fold it into the mix. 
• Pour the mix into bowls or jars. If you want to turn the cold flummery upside down on a plate later, you need to wash out the bowls with cold water before pouring the mix in.
• Let the flummery cool down. Serve with strawberry coulis and roasted almond slices on top.

Note: If you want it a little more like a pudding, use less semolina and use the gelatine instead of egg yolks for binding. Then it also looks smoother when you turn the cold pudding upside down on a plate.


Strawberry Coulis:

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil, disolve the sugar. Add the strawberries and lemon juice and cook for 5 minutes till soft.
2. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend till smooth. 

Note: If you want it smoother and thinner, add more water and strain through a fine meshed sieve. 

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