Category: cooking

This is a dish that I thought I would never taste neither cook as always saw it with more than squid. Until I went to Galicia with friends and one day we ate arroz negro in a restaurant. I didnt see anything that could give me an allergic attack, although I wondered later on the day if they had used fish stock… but I survived 🙂

So based on that experience, I decided to try it myself at some point. And that was today. I found a video that matched my expectations of using only squid. I bought a couple of things I missed (nothing special) and already had the squid ink I bought online.

Ingredients:

• 400g frozen squid rings
• 1-2 tsp of squid ink (or more)
• 1 bunch of spring onions chopped
• 1 pepper chopped: I used an orange one.
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped (I forgot to add it!)
• 2 tsp of tomate paste
• 500m of boiling water with a vegetable stock cube
• 200g aprox (or a bit more) paella rice
• 1-2 tsp of turmeric
• salt

Process:

• In a hot paella dish, drizzle a bit of olive oil. Add the frozen squid rings. Add a pinch of salt.
• Keep stirring until you have crust in the bottom of the dish. Not burn!!! Drop the heat to medium-low.
• Add the spring onions and pepper. Mix continuosly, dont allow to burn!
• Add the tomate paste and mix.
• Add the rice and mix well for 1 minute or so. Dont allow to burn!
• Add the vegetable stock with the boiling water. Add a pinch of salt.
• Add the squid ink with a bit of boiling water to be sure it is not solid.
• Be sure the paella dish is completely black (In my case I should have added 1 more tsp of ink)
• Add the turmeric and mix. Taste it! Dont move the rice any more after this.
• Increase heat to high for 5 minutes aprox. Be sure you move the paella dish to be sure the heat is spread out evenly so the rice is cooked everywhere.
• Drop the heat to medium.
• Wait until most of the water is evaporated. With a tsp, try a bit of the rice to be sure it is cooked. You should be able to scratch the bottom and get the extra flavour!
• Remove from heat, and let it cool for a minute. Ready to eat!

Garlic Mayo

• 200ml sunflower oil
• 1 egg
• 2 chopped garlic cloves
• salt
• 1 tbsp of vinegar
• 1/4 lemon juice

Process:

• Put all ingredients in a tall glass and use a hand blender.
• Blend and taste! Need salt? Lemon?
• Put in a bowl and to the fridge

For my first time, really happy, better than I expected! Just add more ink next time 🙂

This is nothing new. I have made gazpacho for several years, it always taste nice but somehow I felt it wasnt as good as the ones I tried back home. And to be honest, I never bothered looking for a video…. I followed kind of the recipe from Simone Ortega.

But yesterday, I did my best by far!!! The difference, just three super ripe and juicy tomatoes!!! They filled nearly half of my jar of the blending machine with juice once I crashed them a bit… So this is just a note for the next time. Buy good tomates, they are a bit more expensive, but they are worth every f* penny Mazinger.

Ingredients:

• 3 super ripe/juicy tomatoes. Peel them
• 1 red pepper, try to peel it
• 1 green pepper, try to peel it
• 1 onion
• 1 cucumber, peel it.
• 2-3 cloves of garlic.
• salt + pepper
• 1-2 tbs of vinegar
• 100ml olive oil (aprox)
• a bit of paprika
• splash of water (optional- not necessary with good tomatoes)

Process:

• Put everything in the blender. Mix until everything is smooth.
• Taste it !!! Needs a bit more salt? olive oil?
• Put the jar in the fridge.

Enjoy it chilled! (or add an ice cube)

Some months ago had dinner with a friend in a Thai restaurant. I had Jay Pad Thai (tofu). And it was super tasty! so I had to try at some point.

As far as I can find, the ingredients are:

Wok noodles, tamarind sauce (tamarid pulp + palm sugar + dark soy sauce, etc), beansprouts, fried shallot, garlic chives, peanuts & lime, Wok broccoli, courgette, green beans & tofu.

But at the end I tried this video with several changes…

Ingredients:

• Tamarind paste: tamarid pulp + grated palm sugar + dark soy sauce (I didnt use fish sauce)
• Block of firm tofu (smoked optional) 250g
• soy sauce
• rice noddles + boiling water
• 1 big onion (better if you have shallots)
• 3 sliced garlic cloves.
• optional: fine chopper ginger (I didnt have that thai pepper)
• 3 eggs
• Cauliflower and broccoli (didnt have Chinese chives neither beansprouts…)
• Crashed peanuts
• Lime

Process:

• Cover the noddles with boiling water and set aside
• With some boiling water, mix the tamarind paste until it is a cream
• Add the grated palm sugar and dark say sauce to the tamarind cream and mix well.
• As the mix has tamarind pulp, pass it through a strainer using a spoon so you a sauce without solids. Taste it! Set aside.
• In a hot wok with some olive oil. Add the tofu, cook until golden. Add a bit of soy sauce.
• Add the onion, fry until soften
• Add sliced garlic and ginger. Cook for a minute, dont burn it!
• Add noddles and tamarind sauce, mix all well.
• In the wok, set aside a bit the noodles and the beaten eggs. Cook for a bit the eggs and then mix with the noddles.
• Add the cauliflower and broccoli. Mix well.
• Remove the wok from the heat, add the peanuts and and squeeze a lime.

The picture is from two days after and although doesnt look great, it is tasty (with room for improvement)

This is a sauce that I want to try to do more often. It is very tasty and easy recipe. Extra: you eat more cucumber. I forgot (again) dill 😛

Ingredients

• 500g creamy yogurt
• 1 cucumber
• 2 tbs white wine vinegar
• 1 clove garlic + 3 tbs olive oil
• salt + pepper
• dill

Process

• Peel and grate the cucumber.
• Add a 1 tsp of salt and 1 tbs of vinegar. Rest aside
• In a mortar, put the clove of garlic and oil. Crash it until you garlic is blended with the oil.
• Add the garlic oil to the yogurt and mix. Add salt and pepper
• Strain the cucumber with a cheese cloth or similar. Remove most water but dont dry it out!
• Add the cucumber to the yogurt. Mix well.
• Add the fresh dill. Taste!!!

And tasted good! As the video says, the key is the vinegar.

PD: tziki

I booked a baking e-course for this morning regarding Greek baking. At the end, I had only the instructions and couldnt join the session so I decided to go ahead myself anyway. So it was a nice way to wake up early and start the weekend.

Olive Bread – Elipsomo

Ingredients

• 400gr strong white bread flour
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 7gr dried yeast
• 250g water
• 30g honey
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 75g olives, pitted and chopped
• 1 tsp rosemary chopped

Process

• Pre-heat oven at 80C to help proving the dough later. Let it warm up for 5 minutes and then drop the temperature to the minimum.
• Put flour, garlic powder, salt and yeast in a bowl and mix well
• In a small bowl, mix water and honey until well combined
• Make a well in the center of the flour bowl and pour the water/honey mix. Combine well until a ball of dough is formed.
• Put the dough in a table and knead for 8-10 minutes. It should be smooth and pass the “window pane test”.
• Then add one tbsp of olive oil in the bowl and spread it around. Put back the dough, let it rest inside the oven. Be sure it is just warm. Let it be until it doubles in size.
• Take the dough out of the oven and pre-heat at 220C.
• Flatten the dough like a rectangle, add the chopped olives and rosemary. This is the difficult part because I wasnt sure what to do. I tried to make a ball again but it started breaking with the olives. Anyway, once shaped in a ball, let it rest for 5 minutes. I need to find a video to see clearly this part.
• Prepare a baking tray with paper and put the dough. Coat the dough with the last 1 tbsp of olive (I forgot this 🙁 )
• Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.

This is the result!!!

Clearly, I didnt spread the olives properly… It tastes good to be honest. Maybe next time I will try with a mix of white flour and rye.

Honey Cake

Ingredients

• 100gr brown sugar
• 100gr honey
• 125gr extra virgin olive oil
• 140gr water
• 150gr self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla paste

Process

• Preheat oven at 200C
• Put sugar, honey, olive oil and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil gradually and simmer for 2-3 minutes. I didnt get a syrup, it was still “quite” liquid. Remove from heat and let it rest
• Put flour, cinnamon, cloves and baking powder in a bowl and mix properly.
• In a cristal bowl, put the eggs and vanilla, whisk well. Then pour the liquid mix slowly always keep whisking.
• Then add the flour mix to the liquid mix. Mix well, and taste it!!!
• Pour the mix into a tin (with baking paper)
• Bake for 30-40 minutes. It is ready when you poke with a skewer and comes out clean. It has to be moist!!!
• Let it cold down

And not bad result. Very moist and tasty!

You can add some icing after the baking but I thought it was not necessary.

Bread is my favourite food and with water, I could live anywhere. I mainly bake sourdough with rye flour based starter. And never managed to get big open crumbs although I have watched many videos, I stick with the recipe I learned.

This weekend I decided to try a recipe for a loaf that looked easy to get open crumbs. I am not sure if it is really rustic but it liked the video and it was easy to follow.

Ingredients:

• 500gr strong flour (13% protein)
• 400gr water
• 3gr dry yeast
• 7gr salt

Process:

• In a bowl with the flour, make a well in the middle and add the water.
• Add the yeast to the water and mix. Then mix everything for a bit
• Add the salt and keep mixing until everything is fully combined.
• Let it rest for 1h. Cover it with a shower cap and towel.
• Fold the dough from the corners several times. Wet your hand with water so the dough doesnt stick too much. Let it rest for another 1h.
• Pre-heat oven at 250C
• This is the “difficult” part. In your work surface add flour, and pour your dough over it. Spread the dough in a rectangle. From the top side, start “wrapping” the dough. Then wrap the dough from one side until you have kind of a small square.
• Flat a bit the dough, and wrap it again starting from the top seam. Then again, fold it from one side. With your hand try to give a rounded form to the dough.
• Move the dough to a lightly floured tray with baking paper. Rest for 15 minutes
• Again, flour your surface, pour the dough, form a square and then fold again starting from the top seam. Pinch the sides and main seam to it looks “locked”.
• Move to the tray again and rest for 5 minutes.
• Score your dough with a razor
• Bake for 20 minutes at 250C and 30 minutes at 220C (or as much brown you want)
• Let it cool down and enjoy!

Unfortunately, the open crumb wasnt as good as in the video so a bit disappointed. So not really sure what I did wrong. At some point I will try again.

Taste wise, it is different from my sourdough loaf. I think I should have left it in the oven a bit longer.

In general it is a good bread, if one day I forgot to have my sourdough ready, I can have a fresh baked loaf in around 3h.

This is a recipe recommended by a good friend. It has been a long time since I have baked my choco brownies but I decided to try this recipe as I had my homemade tahini.

Ingredients:

• 100g butter
• 100g dark chocolate (85%)
• 15g 100% cocoa powder
• 3 large free range eggs
• 175g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 180g tahini
• 50g plain flour

Process

• pre-heat oven at 175C. I used a rounded cake tin (26cm diameter – a bit smaller is better). Cover the whole tin with baking paper and use a bit of butter on top of the paper.
• In a sauce pan, at medium heat, melt the butter. Then remove from the heat, and add the chocolate and cocoa powder, whisking until smooth.
• In a bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt until properly mixed and thickens up a bit. Add the tahini, mix well. Then fold the flour.
• Take 1/2 of the tahini mix to a different bowl. The rest, add it to the chocolate mix. Fold until fully combined.
• Pour the chocolate mix into the cake tin, spreading evenly.
• Then add on top the reserved tahini mix, with a stick, swirl the mix so you have bit of the tahini mix inside the chocolate mix.
• Bake for 25m or less. Check the center is moist and sides are set. If not, bake for a couple of minutes more.
• Remove from the oven and let it cool down for 30 minutes.
• Cut in squares and try.

To be honest, mine were a bit dry, no moist enough so it is better to check early than leave it in the oven too long.

The taste is different, the tahini gives it a nutty flavour. It is not very chocolatey neither sweet. I need to try again.

A very good friend of mine cooked Poha for me last week. It was delicious! I had ingredients left so I tried on my own:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flake rice
• 2 medium onion chopped
• 2 carrots gratted
• 1/4 cup of peanuts
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 2 tsp of mustard grains
• optional: 1tsp cumin seeds
• 1 small green chilli chopped
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 1 bunch coriander chopped
• 1 bunch curry leaves
• 1/2 lemon juice

Process:

• Wash the rice flakes in cold water for 10 seconds. Let is rest after that.
• In a hot pan, fry the peanuts with the coconut oil. Once a bit brown, take the peanuts out and let it rest.
• Add the mustard grains and tumeric in the pan, let them toast a bit, dont burn it!
• Add the chopped onion. Stir until if get a yellow color and soften up.
• Add green chilli, stir
• Add curry leaves, stir
• Add grated carrot.
• Add flake rice and peanuts. Add a bit of salt.
• Mix all well, rice should get a yellow color.
• Taste it, the rice shouldnt be hard. Add the lemon juice and retire the pan.
• Add the coriander and ready to server!

PD: This can be used as inspiration.

A couple of weeks ago I fancied gnochi. I have already done it before but this time I went free style and I did something from this video. Fry the gnochi for a bit to give them a crunchy texture.

As I didnt calculate properly, I made a massive potato dough so I tried three different methods with ingredients I had at hand.

Ingredients:

• 4 potatoes (that’s a lot)
• 1 egg
• plain flour
• salt + pepper
• olive oil for frying

version 1

• sun dried tomatoes
• broccoli
• fresh baby tomatoes

version 2

• sesame seeds
• just a bit of soy sauce

version 3

• broccoli
• courgette
• capers

I was quite happy with the result so I will try similar version or will experiment with anything I have around.

After dealing with too much meat lately, I fancied some vegetables and specially a paella. So I decided to do a paella with only veggies last weekend. I found this video that I liked but at the end I went a bit wild as I stopped paying attention and I didnt have fresh artichokes.

Ingredients:

• 1 big leek (instead of artichokes) sliced
• 5 garlic cloves (with skin)
• 1 bunch of asparagus
• 2 onions
• 1 glass of white wine ( I used red)
• 3 tomates grated
• paprika
• 1 carrot diced
• 1 red pepper + 1 green pepper
• 1 courgette
• 1 cauliflower
• 1/4 glass of soy (dark) sauce
• 1 stock veg cube + 1 .5l boiling water
• 1 cup of paella rice

Process:

• Heat up the paella dish, pour a gulp of olive oil once it is hot.
• Fried the garlic gloves a bit. Then add the asparagus.
• Once they are fried a bit, retire to a dish.
• Put the paella at low heat now.
• Fried the leek with the same oil in the paella dish. Till taking color.
• Then add the diced onions. Add salt and pepper. Stir all of them until taking some color.
• Add wine. Stir until it evaporates mostly.
• Add the tomate, mix well. Add paprika. Taste it!
• Add the carrot, peppers, courgette and cauliflower. Fry for a bit.
• Add the soy sauce. This will add quite a salty taste.
• Add the stock veg cube with the boiling water. Stirr all well.
• Add the fried garlic.
• After 3-5 minutes, add the rice. Spread the rice all around the dish.
• Dont stirr anymore. Increase the heat.
• Wait until the rice starts to come up on top.
• Try to move the paella dish so the water evaporates evenly.
• At the end you want a bit of a crust on the bottom (socarrat!!!)
• Once it is ready, put the asparagus on top.

In my case, as I used leeks, they can burn very easily but I was luck and it was just a bit.

It looked nice from outside. I had a bit of socarrat. And tasted good! Maybe the dark soy sauce was too much dark 🙂