Category: cooking

This was my standard bread for several years in London. I learnt it in BreadAhead.

Day 0: Feed starter

75g water room temperature
75g rye flour
Mix all well, and let it at room temperature covered with a lid but not airtight. 24h in winter, 12h in summer

Day 1: add flour

Starter should be active. Kind of double in size. Best test, it is take a tea spoon of starter and check if it floats in a glass of water
500g strong white flour
320g water room temperature
10g salt
150g starter

• Mix starter and water well.
• Add liquid to the flour, mix roughly with the hand or a fork. Not over do it!
• Wait 1h and then add salt. Push it with wet fingers
• cover and let it rest in the fridge for 24h

Day 2: Folds

• Take the dough out of the bridge. Wet your hand and give it a full fold (4 corners)
• Let it rest 30 minutes
• Another fold
• rest 30 minutes
• Last fold.
• Tap the dough into a work surface and shape it. Try to get a tight dough.
• Transfer the dough to a basket that has been cover with semolina to avoid the dough to stick to the basket.
• Put it in the bridge for 24h

Day 3: Bake

• Preheat oven at 250C with a tray inside.
• Take dough out of the oven 5-10m before the oven is ready
• Once the oven is ready, take the tray out of the oven. Use a bit of semolina.
• Flip the dough from the basket on the tray. Score it!
• Put the tray back in the oven.
• Water spray the oven. Very important for creating the crust!
• Bake at 250C for 35m aprox.

It was a good bread. I liked it and people who tried it always said good things. But never had the open spring I saw in other breads in bakeries, books and videos.

I wanted to cook risotto and i noticed that i didnt remember how to do it /o\ although I had the ingredients…

Found this video, looked nice, so went for it.

This is my result:

Some years ago, I tried an amazing roasted cauliflower in a roof top, and wanted to try one day. I watched this video and then I had to do it.

INGREDIENTS
Whole cauliflower head

Cooking liquid
2 cups cheat white wine
2 cups veggoe stock
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
5 cloves garlic, slightly crushed
2 bay leaves
1 onion, in quarters
salt and pepper

Flavor Paste

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 any dried herb blend
• 2 tbsp fresh grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp tomate pure

Garnish

• 2-3 tsp fresh grated parmesan cheese
• fresh chopped parsley

DIRECTIONS
– Mix Cooking Liquid ingredients in a large stockpot and bring to a boil
– Once boiling, reduce heat to medium low and place cauliflower head in the pot and baste with a ladle once or twice as it cooks covered for 10-15 min.
– Preheat oven to 180C. Convection setting on if you have that option.
– While cauliflower is steaming in the stockpot, mix Flavor Paste ingredients in a small bowl.
– After cauliflower has cooked in the stockpot for 10-15 min, remove and transfer to a baking sheet with a raised grate.
– Spoon and spread Flavor Paste all over cauliflower head. Spray lightly with olive oil.
– Place cauliflower in preheated oven for about 30 min.
– Remove from oven and grate parmesan cheese all over and spray again lightly with olive oil
– Place in oven for another 15-20 min or until deep golden brown.
– Transfer to serving platter and garnish with fresh chopped parsley and enjoy!

And this is my result:

My coating wasnt great and I had it for lunch next day so it wasn’t the same, but still it was good. And as usual, room for improvement!

Still It is not the same roasted cauliflower I had that time…. need to do proper research.

I have done it before but I watched this video and wanted to do it like him, with homemade lasagna sheets.

FOR THE EGG LASAGNA SHEETS
Durum wheat semolina flour 350g (just used fine semolina)
Cake flour 150g (I just used normal wheat white flour)
Spinach (raw) 250g
Eggs 2
Egg yolks 3

FOR THE RAGÙ (MEAT SAUCE)
Minced beef 300g
Pork pancetta 150g (I used a bit of chorizo as didnt have it)
Carrots 50g
Celery 50g
Onions 50g
Red wine 1/2 cup (100g)
Tomato puree 300g
Vegetable broth to taste
Salt, pepper and olive oil

FOR THE BÉCHAMEL SAUCE
Butter 70g
White flour 70g
Whole milk 1 liter (likely I used much less)
Salt, pepper and nutmeg

TO SEASON
Butter to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese: 270g (I didnt have that much and used a mozarella)

Making lasagna sheets with a rolling pin is not the same 🙂

It doesnt look like the video, but it was nice:

Definitely my pasta wasn’t great, too thick?

Need to repeat again!

A.k.a rolled croissant dough with Cardamom cream. Nice video.

Mistakes:

• I should have used my croissant recipe for the dough and the rest from this video.

Ingredients for 8 rolls/snails aprox.
  – 250g wheatflour (12,5g protein)
  – 125g whole milk
  – 1/4 medium whole eggs
  – 16g sourdough levain (at peak)
  – 3.7g fresh yeast / 2g dried yeast
  – 27.5g sugar
  – 6.25g salt
  *Try to keep all ingredients as cold as possible
  —
  25g butterblock
  —

For the remonce creme
    45g sugar
    45g butter (room temperature!!!)
    2.5g cardamon seeds
    5g flour (important for not leaking)

For the syrup
– 30g water
– 30g sugar
– 1 cardamon pods
– 1 star anise

Mix everything and boil for 5 minutes.

Process:

Mix all wet ingredients + yest + flour + salt + sugar + mix all

Knead until you have a elastic/strongh dough and no very sticky. The video uses a machine and my dough after a long time never got to that consistency but I thought it was good enough and put it into the plastic container and then rest in the fridge. For 1 or 2 days. Mine was 1 day.

With a rolling pin, flat your butterblock, keep it cold

With a rolling pin, flat your dough, use a bit of flour as non-stick.

Put the butterblock in the middle and fold it with the dough.

Cut the sides to release the tension of the dough (I forgot it each time…) each time you make a fold

Do two folds like the croissants. Put the dough in the fridge for 30-45 minutes

Make another fold and spread the dough as a thin layer: 3mm aprox?

Make the Cardamom cream: Mix butter, sugar, flour and cardamom.

Spread the cream over the whole surface of the dough.

Roll the dough like a giant cigar. You can put the dough back in the fridge to continue next day (I did that)

Cut each roll: 4cm thick / 110g aprox

Put then in a tray with baking paper / or spread some flour over the tray.

Let is proof for 3-4 hours

Pre-heat oven at 190C. Bake for 18m or until brown/golden

Apply syrup immediately after taking the rolls out of the oven

Before oven:

After baking! (and applied syrup immediately for the shiny touch!)

Although It was quite far from the video… it was actually tasty! As mentioned earlier, I need to try with my croissant dough recipe, I think it would be much better.

A friend of mine prepared this dish once and it was super tasty. So I wanted to try myself at some point. This is the video I followed.

For making onion tomato puree
Ingredients:

• Ghee 1 tbsp (I used a piece of butter)
• Onions 3-4 medium size (sliced)
• Garlic cloves 8-10
• Ginger 1 cm
• Green chillies 1-2
• Tomatoes 2 medium size (roughly chopped)
• Cashew nuts: 1/4 cup (I used a mix of nuts… mistake?)
• Water 200 ml
  Methods
• Set a deep pan or a wok on medium flame, add ghee and onions, cook the onions until its golden brown.
• Add garlic cloves, ginger and green chillies, and sauté for a minute.
• Add tomatoes, cashew nuts and cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Add water, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes, switch off the flame and cool down to room temperature, transfer it to a grinding jar and grind to fine puree, strain and keep aside for later use.

For making kofta balls
Ingredients:

• Boiled potatoes 4-5 medium size
• Paneer ½ cup (grated) (I used mozarella maybe a mistake?)
• Corn starch 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste
• Red chilli powder 1 tsp (I didnt have all the spices so I improvised a bit…)
• Coriander powder 1 tsp
• Anardana powder 1 tbsp
• Garam masala ½ tsp
• Flour for coating
• Oil for frying
  Methods:
• Grate the boiled potatoes and add them in the mixing bowl, further add paneer, corn starch, salt and powdered spices, mix and combine well.
• Take a spoonful of mixture and shape into small roundels, coat it with dry refined flour and dust ff excess flour.
• Set a pan filled with oil on medium heat, deep fry these balls until golden brown in colour, remove it on ab absorbent paper and keep aside for later use.

For making the final gravy
Ingredients:

• Ghee 1 tbsp (I used butter)
• Turmeric powder 1/4th tsp (again, didnt have all spices)
• Coriander powder 1 tbsp
• Red chilli powder 1 tbsp
• Strained tomato onion puree
• Fresh cream ½ cup
• Kasuri methi 1 tsp
• Garam masala ½ tsp
• Kofta balls
• Fresh coriander leaves 1 tbsp (chopped)
  Methods:
• Set a pan on medium heat, add ghee, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and coriander powder, add the strained tomato onion pure, add salt, stir and cook well for 4-5 minutes.
• Add fresh cream, kasuri methi and garam masala, stir and cook for another 2-3 minutes, add the fried kofta balls and stir gently without damaging the delicate kofta balls.
• Continue to cook further for 2-3 minutes and add freshly chopped coriander leaves.

Mistakes:

• My sauce was quite far from the video
• I didnt want to deep fry the balls so I just fried with a bit of oil and they kind of melt. Then when adding to the gravy, they mixed up.

My result was quite far from the video, but it was tasty anyway!

This is part of the process just as a reminder for next time.

I want to try to visit one bakery from time to time and see the new city. First some old visits for this year:

Fortitude: I went there last time I was in London…. I tried two things, they were nice. I dont remember the names though (like girls 🙂 The one below looked big but it was mainly the cream.

Arome: I went early this year I think. It was a bit late and I tried the best seller that is like a thick slice of bread caramelised. It was nice, super crispy outside and juicy. And looked simple.

From this video, you can see both places above. Although, I should try others mentioned in the video.

And this is the page I am following to plan my visits in Berlin:

Sofi: I wen there today. Really impressed with the “pain aux raisins”style pastry but it was really cardamon… super crispy.

I bought a piece of rye with seeds bread too:

It is nice, and I have similar recipe so I can do it.

Domberger Brot-Werk: I went there last week, very nice place. I didnt take any picture but I tried:

• Vinschgerl: small bread roll, rye flour and spices.

• zimtschnecke (sticky cinnamon roll)

Johann Backerei: It wasn’t in my plan this weekend but I went there and I tried a “pain au chocolate” that was good and 1/4 of big piece of bread. And that was amazing!

The bread was still warm! (and I bought it after 2pm!) I think it is wholemeal flour because it is darker than mine, very dark crust. I am not sure if it has some spieces? The webpage doesnt say much and then you just have IG……

KEIT: I tried the “Toast” bread that is not actually the standard toast bread. I got a bit late and they didnt have small pieces of the bread I wanted to try. I managed to have a conversation with the shop assistant as there was nobody waiting and she recommended that.

And too be honest, I was quite surprised. It was very tasty, spongy and moist. So definitely not the standard toast bread. Based on the webpage, the ingredients are: natural sourdough, oat porridge, spelt flour (Dinkel) 630, water, thermal salt. At some point I want to try new recipes of sourdough.

Albatross: I bought a piece of bread and a pastry (queen a). The pastry was good, but I wouldn’t go there again just for that. But the bread was amazing! It was the house bread.:

Ingredients:
80% Wheat
15% Wholegrain Wheat
5% Rye

So jealous… the crust, the crumb, the taste. Every perfect.

This is dish I wanted to try for some time. I knew about it by chance after reading about the favourite dish from a football player and then by chance, having it by lunch one day at work. It was very tasty, looked healthy and not very complicated. So finally, this weekend I tried it.

I followed this video but not to the dot as I missed/forgot some ingredients. Still, the result was quite good. I only did the tomate sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas (I didnt use because I had too much food)
• 3/4 glass of green/brown lentils
• 1 can of good pasata
• 6-7 minced garlic cloves
• 3/5 glass of rice (I used basmati)
• 1 glass of pasta
• 7 small onions, sliced (not diced)
• Pepper, salt, ground coriander, chilli flakes
• Olive oil
• 1 glass of sunflour oil for deepfrying.

Process:

• In a bowl, put the sliced onions with a bit of salt, pepper, ground coriander and chilli flakes. Toss it to be sure everything is well mixed. The idea is to make the onions to sweat a bit.

• Cook the lentils in a deep saucepan. Add two parts of boiling water for 1 part of lentils. 1 tsp of coriander and salt + pepper.
• Dont over cook it, something “aldente”
• Keep the water of the lentils to cook the pasta. Let aside the lentils.

• Cook the pasta with the lentils water. Again, till “aldente”. Set aside.
• Save the water for the last step.

• Heat up a a frying pan. Once hot, add some oil and the minced garlic. BE CAREFUL dont burn them!
• Add the tomate pasata to the garlic. Add some salt/pepper. Taste.
• Let it cook at medium heath until thickened. Set aside

• In the deep saucepan used for the lentils, heat up the sunflour oil
• Once it is hot, add a handfull of onios.
• NOTE: Leave a hand of onions without frying for next step
• Let if try for over 10 minutes or until brown (but not burned!)
• Remove the onions and let them dry with kitchen paper to absorve the oil. Separate them so they dont stick each other.
• Repeat the process with another batch of onions untill all are done.

• In the same saucepan as the onions. Remove some oil, try to clean any debris.
• Once is hot again, add the leftover onios. Fry until golden.
• Reduce to low-middle heat.
• Add the rice, mix very well so it doesnt stick to the bottom
• Add a couple of tbs of tomate sauce
• Add the pasta water. Top up if needed.
• Once the rice is done. Add the lentils and pasta. Mix all carefull

• For serving, add the rice/lentil/pasta base
• Add some tbs of tomate on top
• Add some crispy onions on top.

In the middle of the process:

Final:

It didnt taste like the one I remember but it was quite good.

For next time, I need to make the Dakkah, Garlic Vinegar sauce.

Original Wiener Apfelstrudel: (ok, this is Austrain) recommended recipe

Franzbrotchen: typical sweet from Hamburg. This recipe?

Ameisenkuchen.

Off topic: Deutsches Sprichwort

Bei drei Dingen lernt man einen Menschen am besten kennen: In der Liebe, beim Spiel und beim Wein.

There are three things you get to know a person best: love, play and wine