Category: cooking

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 🙂

I have two very good memories from my childhood regarding to food: baking at my mother’s hometown and making chorizos.

Last winter I managed to go back to the bakery and refresh those memories. I am super happy I did it.

Now it was the turn for the chorizos. But I was cautious about this so I join a course for making sausages from a well-know company so I could get some intro and refresh.

The process that my mother followed was very simple. Ground a ham (by my parents best friends who were butchers), salt, (sweet) paprika and I think some garlic. Mix all together very well. Fry a portion of the mix to taste the spices. Then using pig’s intestines with a sausage filler/stuffer, make the crorizos. Then using a cord, make the portions. Finally, hang them and let then dry for around two weeks.

So in this course we made only sausages with different spices but the process is the same as chorizo, only the spices change.

I enjoyed the course, I brought some flashbacks from my childhood about mixing the meat, stuffing, tasting the mix (that was super delicious!!!!) and then the patience to let them dry. These were the only chorizos I liked. Anything else, was tasteless or had too much fat.

So I brought home several kilos from the course. I some some for cooking my week lunch and frozen others for another occasion. But most of them, I decided to dry them like my mother used to do. I felt so humble when I saw the result. It was like back home.

So I kept the sausages hanging from a sweeping stick wrapped with newspapers. Out of direct day light and using a heater at night while I was at home. For two weeks.

And they came out fine!

Although, they have too much fat. They are not chorizos, it is more like small salchichon.

As they are too manhy for me. I am keeping them in glass jars. They will not last many months though. But use to eat them quickly and cry when some chorizos went off. I was thinking in put them in oil but I wanted the dryness.

This reminds me biltong. Very similar idea, but I havent tried in a couple of years.

So I am happy with the experience and I am decided to make properly chorizos next winter. Try to call the butcher where I did the course, tell them I want to buy a minced ham (with very few fat, I dont care what people say) and the intestines, then do it at home like the old times.

This is another typical sweet from my hometown I like a lot and it was in my to-cook list. After several failed attempts with magdalenas, I decided finally to give it a go. I had good memories from last December in the bakery so I followed a recipe from my aunt and see.

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 200gr sugar
• 170ml olive oil
• 1 lemon zest
• 4gr bicarbonate sodic + 4gr tartaric acid
• 400gr-500gr+ plain flour

Process:

• Whisk eggs and sugar very well. Until the mix is foaming
• Add olive oil and lemon zest. Keep whisking
• Add bicarbonate and tartaric acid, keep whisking
• Add flour, shifting it, bit a bit into the mix.
• Pre-heat oven at 200C
• At one point, you will have to use a wooden spoon to keep mixing. This is a critical point. I added the 400gr of flour, and the mix was still too wet so I keep adding bit a bit more flour until I had a dough no too sticky. Keep in mind you need to be able to use a roller and a cookie cutter. So at one point, I pour the dough into the table and tried to knead it adding bits of flour. I was lucky because I had some flashbacks from I was a kid doing the same thing so It helped me to carry on until I had that kind of playful dough but still a bit sticky. If you add too much flour, the biscuits will be hard as stone.
• So once you have the dough ready, use a roller to spread the dough around 1cm thick and use the cookie cutter. In my case it was a round one, in my hometown use a rectangular one with round corners. I may try to “build” something.
• So always putting flour in the surface before spreading the dough with the roller. Use the cutter, and transfer the biscuit to a baking tray with a bit of flour to avoid sticking. When you use the cutter, the biscuit can’t be too sticky, if so, you need to add a bit of flour.
• Once you can’t cut more cookies, form a ball again, and a bit of flour in the surface and roll it. Cut and repeat until you use up all dough.
• Bake the cookies until golden on top. 20 minutes or so.
• Let them cool down, it is very important!

This is before getting to the oven.

This is after the oven.

And these are the real ones I try to match!

They dont look very similar but still I was quite happy with result. For being the first time, it was tasty! I could add more sugar?, maybe a bit less time in the oven?

It is a simple recipe, basic ingredients, and brought me good memories. What else?

And this is a snapshot of how it is really done by the real bakers!

This is a recipe that a very good friend recommend me but using smoky tofu instead of bacon. So I decided to give it a go:

Ingredients:

• 1kg of fresh spinach
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 250g of smoky firm tofu
• 150g of cheese (of your taste)
• 1 cup of rice (paella or risotto style)
• 1 can of tomate sauce
• 200ml of cream
• 1 cup of chicken/veggy stock.
• 1 cup of plain flour
• 3-4 eggs

Process:

• In big sauce pan, add boiling water and cook all spinach. They will reduce a lot. Once they are soft, drain the spinach and chopped them very thinly.
• In another sauce pan, add some olive oil and fry for a bit the chopped garlic cloves. Then add the rice. Fry everything for a bit, then add two cups of boiling water to the rice and let it cook at low-medium heat. Try to get it as much dry as possible to hep making the balls later.
• In a frying pan, add a bit of oil, at medium-heat. Add chopped onions, and fry until golden, then add chopped tofu. Fry everything, try to get a golden color from the tofu.
• In another frying pan, add the tomate sauce, stock and cream. Mix well, and let it cook at low-medium heat.
• In a big bowl, put the chopped spinach, rice, tofu and cheese. Mix everything very well. Make you a big favour, let it cool down! Put it in the fridge, outside, whatever.
• In one plate/bowl add the flour and in another the whisked eggs.
• From the spinach mix, start making some balls, then pass them through the flour, cover properly, remove any excess and the pass through the eggs. Prepare all balls before frying. If you let the mix cool down, it shouldnt be much effort, and then frying would be easier.
• In the small frying pan, some a bit of oil and heat up. You dont need to deep fry.
• Then in the small frying pan, put 3-4 balls and fry them until golden in all sides. Them add to the tomate sauce mix.
• I filled the tomate sauce pan with spinach balls, so I used the left over and did some other balls and “omellete”.
• Keep the spinach balls in the tomate sauce until it thickens up a bit.
• Then you can remove from the heat, and ready to eat!

The recipe is very tasty. I didnt manage to get a good ball form, I think my rice was a bit too wet? In the video the balls look super rounded. But anyway, I had a good lunch the whole week!

It was normal to have a small snack or tapa in most bars in Spain, from a small plate of crisps, salty peanuts or fried almonds to some seafood. Even buying a 1kg sack of almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts wasnt that expensive.

Now, when I go to Portugal or Spain, I try to buy some small bag of fried almonds. But now I wanted to do it myself because I had the gut feeling that it couldnt be that difficult. I found this video and I used it as reference.

Ingredients:

• 200gr almonds (with skin)

• pinch of salt

• olive oil for frying

Process:

• Put the almonds in a sauce pan with boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes.
• Remove the almonds from the water, let it cool down for 1 minute and then remove the skin. It should be quite easy. Recommended to push with your fingers from the side of the almond, not the tips.
• Dry them in kitchen paper.
• Put a frying pan at medium heat with the oil. Once the oil is hot, add the almonds and kit stirring.
• Once the almonds get golden, remove the pan from the heat and take the almonds for the oil, trying to drain as much oil as you can. Then put again in kitchen paper to soak up more oil.
• While warm, add salt to the taste of the almonds.
• Once they are cool down you can store them in a glass jar.

Really tasty!