Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Fish Soup (#ReadCookEat)

I reckon you don't want to hear anything about snow right now, but ... I do it anyway. Where does it say that you have to read books playing in winter and with snow and winter and summer books in summer? Does this aid your imagination or what?
Well, I read a certain book, when I feel like it. There was it on my bookshelf: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow or as you would call it in the original Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne by Peter Høeg. What shall I say? For sure there are better short summaries of the book online somewhere, but I still give it a shot. 
Smilla, 37 year old daughter of a female Inuit hunter and a rich Danish physician lives alone in an apartment complex. One of the neighbours is an alcoholic. That one has a son called Isaiah. She forms a friendship with him. Suddenly Isaiah dies. The police explains it as an accident, the boy falling from the roof. However, due to his marks in the snow on the roof and some other facts, Smilla does not believe in an accident. She investigates, later together with another neighbour, called Peter. He is a mechanic. Whatsoever, there is some kind of conspiracy and ... the rest you have to read for yourself.
As Galina from Chez Maximka and I myself are still doing the ReadCookEat challenge, it is no wonder I also kept an eye on the food in the book apart from obviously following the real plot.
While I would have loved to go for a raspberry cake I decided for this ...

In one scene in the book the mechanic, Peter, is preparing a fish soup for Smilla and himself. The description of the ingredients and the preparation is quite detailed so I tried to reproduce it, although I stuck to the ingredients I could get more easily ... eh ... for what was in that one shop, when I went shopping for the dish.

Ingredients:
Splash of olive oil
1 onion
2 carrots
1 small bulb of fennel
1 leek
Various items of fish (I had: gilthead bream, haddock, salmon)
Hand full of prawns
Rice
2 Star anise
1 tsp. cardamom
2 tbsp. sour cream
Juice of half an orange
Salt and pepper

Method:
I prepared the rice in the usual way with the star anise and the cardamom. I did this in a separate pan. You know, double amount of water, bring to boil, cover, reduce heat to minimum or turn off and let it work for 20 minutes. Anyway, you may have a different method or even a rice cooker. Feel free to do as yo are accustomed to do.

Than start with a large pan to do the soup. Give a splash of olive oil to the pan, which you put on low to medium heat. Chop up your onion and throw it into the pan.
Afterwards go for the carrots. Peel, chop up and off to the pan. Now the fennel and finally the leek. Give the vegetables a good time in the pan to soften them a bit and to release some flavour, maybe 20 minutes or more. Just make sure, you don't burn anything.
In between season the whole thing with salt and pepper and Pour in 1,5 litre or water. All this you bring to the boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

It's not called fish soup for no reason. Therefore we need some fish in the pan. If you feel you just want to go ahead as I did (with little knowledge about fish) just use whole fish like I did with head, fin and bones and all (as was done in the book as well). However, that might get a bit messy, for later you don't want the head, fins and bones in the finished soup. For your convenience use fillets of fish. That will make your life easier, but you might have less flavour, if you can notice. Just one more thing, you don't want to have the scales of the fish anywhere near your pan. That, of course, if you have a good fishmonger should be no problem at all. I don't have ... a good fishmonger.
Fine, you put your pieces of fish into the pan, pushing it under the liquid and let the fish boil together with the rest for 10 minutes. If you need to remove heads, fins and bones afterwards ... your problem. 
Once all the undesirable parts are removed, add the prawns and cook them for another two minutes. After that you can finish the soup of with the sour cream and the orange juice.

Serve the soup together with the rice and if you like some bread as well.
That was one of the more expensive dishes, for you know, fish isn't that cheap. However, I got a good quality meal and finally some more fish for my health and a more balanced diet. Apart from that, there are some leftovers for another day ... or maybe too.
While eating I still discovered some fishbones in the soup - maybe that's why I don't have fish too often.
Whatever I say, I enjoyed the fish soup and am glad I have some more for the weekend.
Now that's something lovely for ReadCookEat.

Anyway, it wouldn't have been my fault, if the soup would have been terrible, for I followed most of the time Peter Høeg's description.

If it happens to be the case you have been reading something or are still doing so and you find any connection with food in that book and find the power to do a dish, then I see no reason, why you should not join ReadCookEat this month ...

Click here to go to the Link-up

Chocolate Surprise with Vanilla Mascarpone Topping

Do you like surprises? I guess as long as they are of the pleasant kind, who doesn't? Maybe you get a lovely gift from your mate or a friend. Your husband brings home some flowers for you - without you haven given a hint beforehand that he hasn't done so for quite a while now. Something else, you meet someone on the street you haven't seen for ages. Or you get a notification, that you won a price in a contest after you already have forgotten about it. 
What I mentioned last just happened to me. I won a new cookbook in a recipe contest. Well, they had sent the notification in a message via Facebook, but somehow I just got to see it nearly a month later. However, I still got the book.
Now we want to talk about a surprise in connection with a cake I came up with. It happened to be the case that I received some samples from Sugar and Crumbs. They have a wonderful supply for your baking needs.

With a part from these samples I whipped up this Chocolate Surprise with Vanilla Mascarpone Topping. When thinking about what to bake originally it wasn't my intention to use a bit of everything that Sugar and Crumbs had send me in one cake, but it just happened to be. Here is what I got the chance to test: Creamy vanilla icing sugar / plain chocolate blossoms / chocolate orange cocoa powder.

On Sugar and Crumbs they say: "Flavoured Cocoa Powder? At sugarandcrumbs.com we are committed to developing new products for the adventurous bakers! We have developed a UK first flavoured Cocoa Powder which offers you guaranteed flavour consistency for all your bakes and toppings."
Let's get adventurous then ... and on the way you will see where the surprise in the cake is. Go for it ...

Ingredients:
Sweet Pastry:
125 g butter
100 g creamy vanilla icing sugar (or just icing sugar)
A pinch of salt
250 g plain flour
2 egg yolks
2 tbs cold milk

Chocolate filling (the surprise):
100 g dark chocolate
50 g butter
50 g sugar (optional)
4 tbs chocolate orange cocoa powder (or whatever flavour you desire)
50 g plain flour
2 eggs
2 egg whites (I simply didn't want to store them)

Vanilla mascarpone topping (kind of):
250 g mascarpone
250 g curd cheese
4 tbs creamy vanilla icing sugar

Plain chocolate blossoms for extra decoration

Method:

The sweet pastry is a standard pastry, which you can find for example as well in Jamie Oliver's book The Naked Chef. I simply substituted normal icing sugar with the creamy vanilla icing sugar.
I enjoyed putting the dough together. You already get this lovely vanilla aroma while doing it. First you cream the butter with the sugar and the salt.
Then you get in the flour and the egg yolks and work carefully work it so you get a crumbly mass. Add the milk and somehow manage to get one lump of dough with too much kneading action. Best would be to just push things together, so you get this lump. 
Now I'm sorry to say, we need some time. Wrap the dough in cling film and transfer it to the fridge for one hour. What do you do with one hour? Find out for yourself ...

... the hour is over. You got a round cake tin and lightly oiled it with cooking oil. Fit the dough into the cake tin producing a one centimetre high edge at the wall of the tin. You can get another hour, if you want and put the cake tin with the dough for another hour into the freezer this time. Otherwise you can do this blind baking thing with chickpeas or beans ...

... say you got your tin from the freezer. The oven is hot with 180 °C. You transfer the cake tin to the oven for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile you set your mind on the chocolate filling. In a bowl over hot water melt the chocolate and add the butter, sugar (if you want) and cocoa powder and mix well. Once everything has transformed into a smooth chocolate mass, you can remove the bowl from the heat.
Thoroughly incorporate the flour, eggs and egg whites into the chocolate mass.
The first baking is already done? Good. Get your chocolate mixture onto the cake bottom and bake it for another 35 minutes at 180 °C. Enjoy the chocolate orange aroma while the baking takes place.
Remove the cake from the oven and allow time to cool down. You see, all this is taking quite a while. Will it be worth it? We have to proceed!
Mix the mascarpone, the curd cheese and the creamy vanilla icing sugar together. Oooooohhhhh, this tastes gorgeous!
Don't eat it like this right now, although you could whip such a cream together separately and have it for pudding. Nevertheless, in this case we are using it on top of our cake.
Finally we finish it off with the plain chocolate blossoms. I imagined making these blossoms by myself (which I have done before) with chocolate and a knife. Well, this is not funny. The chocolate starts melting before I'm finished and I always end up eating the unused chocolate. So, it's a very good and convenient thing to have these ready chocolate blossoms from Sugar and Crumbs.

Was all this work worth it? At least I liked it very much. There was a hint of chocolate orange from the cocoa powder - it really did it's job. The greatest punch, though, brought the vanilla mascarpone topping with the creamy vanilla icing sugar in it. 
I could imagine as well taking this chocolate surprise cake to a cake event, if I would get an invitation or get the chance to invite myself.

Now that you have seen the surprise - the well hidden chocolate center of the cake - how did you like it? You can surprise me with some comments about this ...

Clearance sale ... orange rice pudding

Here comes another one. Yes, this title again is totally misleading. I'm not going to sell anything, but ...
As I hinted to in my last post there are a few things I want to get rid of. Things are really weird in society. You always feel you have to buy buy buy ... I'm going to refuse. 6 days ago was the last time I bought something. Now I'm going on to do this or rather not to do this and keep living from the things I still have at home.
I found an awful lot of things in my pantry that need using up, so I'm going to improvise some thing over the coming days or, who knows, even longer.
We have so much, when it is so little we need - applies to other things as well.
At the same time I feel I have a lot to write about. I already have three other posts waiting to be written. For today a quick one: orange rice pudding.

The list of ingredients is ... manageable ...

Ingredients:
2 cups of rice (those kind you would use for risotto as well)
8 cups of orange juice
Poppy seeds
Sliced almonds

... and so are the steps of what you have to do ...

Preparation:
Well, simmer the rice on low heat with the orange juice for about 30 minutes.
In between roast the almonds a bit.
Serve the cooked orange rice pudding with some poppy seeds and the roasted sliced almonds. 
I didn't feel you need any extra sugar. That way you have the natural taste.
There are really a lot of things in my pantry that need using up. So, what are you going to expect? Something with pasta, cake and ... whatever else I come up with ...

Conquest of Paradise ... Paradise Cocktail Dessert

On the 3rd of August 1492 Columbus set sail from Spain with three ships the Santa María, the Pinta and the Niña to find an alternative route to India. In October 1492 he reached what we know today as ... hm ... eh ... the Caribbean. The conquest of paradise was about to start. At least that's how it is called sometimes.
Enough with history lesson. If you want to know more, read a book. That's still a very good thing to do. But wait, not now. Rather read on first of all. We are having our own conquest of paradise, though slightly different. We are having it for pudding.

This dessert is based on the cocktail called paradise, which is common all throughout the Caribbean ... that is if my Caribbean cookbook is right.
I guessed, we could use this for our Caribbean themed Bloggers Around the World challenge for this month. You have still a few days left to take part as well.

 

Let's go into some details. However, should it be the case - strangely - that you are not fed up yet with your plans for the new year with having a lighter diet and loosing some weight, then don't read on or ... do so at own risk.
After the recipe, I tell you some random facts about me in connection with the Caribbean.

Ingredients: 
Tin of peaches (about 800 g)
4 cl apricot brandy
1 sheet of gelatin
250 g mascarpone
4 cl white rum
4 cl orange juice
2 tbs fruit sugar

Instructions:
Cut the peaches into small pieces, while you pour the juices from the tin to a pot. Add the apricot brandy to this very pot as well. Of course, the small pieces of peach go in as well. Bring it to the boil and leave to simmer.
Meanwhile you put a sheet of gelatin into cold water and let it soak for 7 minutes. Then get rid of the water and put the gelatin to the pot. Keep stirring until the gelatin is dissolved. Then remove the pot from the heat and allow things to cool down.
Now focus on the mascarpone. Mix it with the fruit sugar, rum, and the orange juice. Put it into the fridge.
Once the peaches have cooled down sufficiently divide them between some dessert glasses (4-6 will do). When the peaches are cool enough you can also divide the mascarpone mixture between the dessert glasses and transfer the glasses to the fridge until the desserts have properly set.
You could leave them in over night, for several hours, or just eat one of them without waiting too long. 
Alternatively you can even have a paradise cocktail with some ice cubes, 4 cl white rum, 2 cl apricot brandy and 1 cl orange juice. It's up to you.

Here now 10 facts about me and the Caribbean.

1. A computer game made me want to go to the Caribbean. 
2. That visit actually made me learn Spanish. 
3. I visited the Caribbean several times. 
4. While going scuba diving I saw fishes being fed with bananas. 
5. I went on a trip with at least 19 people in a mini van. 
6. I was invited by locals to a wedding, had lots of sweet cake and had to dance Merengue all night ... strangely all the 'girls' wanted to dance with me.
7. Years later I was still remembered by my dancing ... kind of.
8. I guess that climate would be better for my chronic illness.
9. There was a 'girl' called Betania, well ... eh ... she wrote down a recipe for me.
10. History could have gone totally different for me ...

Now you know a little bit more about me. Do you have any connections with the Caribbean?

No sunshine? Have a Tequila Sunrise Tiramisu!

'The sun always shines on TV' - That line is taken by one of the songs from A-ha.
Whatever the case, at my place this is not the case. You may not always have sunshine, but I have a plan. I'm afraid, though, it's nothing for your kids, if you have any.
The sun may not alway shine for me, but I have been experimenting again in the kitchen and now it's possible to have a cocktail as pudding: Tequila Sunrise ... as tiramisu.
We could start arguing now, that a tiramisu needs sponge fingers, coffee, mascarpone and coffee. However, if you are reading this blog longer already, you might remember Cornish Strawberry-Rhubarb Tiramisu or Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu. Let's have another go now and try Tequila Sunrise Tiramisu. I won't bring the summer back, but ... who knows?!

Well, I already thought about a tipsy Thursday recipe feature on the blog, but I'm not quite sure about it. What do you think? Anyway, let's do this one ...

Ingredients (just multiply, if you need a bigger one):
6 sponge fingers
100-200 ml orange juice
4 cl tequila
6 cl grenadine
200 g mascarpone
1 tbs sugar
1 pomegranate

... and here we go:
Start by placing the sponge fingers at the bottom of your bowl of selection.

Pour about 100 ml of the orange juice over the sponge fingers to soak them. If they are still thirsty, add some more. Let it have half of the tequila and a third of the grenadine as well.
In a separate bowl mix together the mascarpone, the rest of the tequila, the sugar and another third of the grenadine together. Let it have as much orange juice as it needs to get nice and smooth ... but not too liquid either.
Then add the mascarpone creme to the sponge finger bowl.
Finally pour the remaining grenadine over it and spread some pomegranate seeds over it.

Now you only have to refrigerate the Tequila Sunrise Tiramisu and after that you can enjoy it, but don't get drunk!
Any other suggestions for Tiramisu?

From the Cake Laboratory: Orange-Almond-Chocolate Cake for Julia

Of course you remember the few things I did lately for #CookForJulia from Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. After all it was only a few days ago. How could you possibly have forgotten the flaming Crêpes? 

I had even a few inquiries to get some of those or to be invited to dinner by me. Well, I would love to, but ... you know how cruel reality is at times ... well, very often. However, who knows what the future will bring, what opportunities there will come up.

Until then I had to face the question on what to do with the leftover orange-almond butter I didn't use up for the crêpes. I guess I had been to stingy with spreading the butter on them. So here I am with quite some orange almond butter and have to come up with an idea to use it up without doing more crêpes.

What follows is the solution ... an Orange-Almond-Chocolate cake.

What I used (if I got it right):

250 g orange-almond butter (about 150 g butter, 70 g pulverized almonds, 2 tbs orange liqueur, zest and juice of one orange, 30 g sugar)

200 ml cream (I had a strange mixture of cream, milk and condensed milk - wanted to get rid of those)

2 eggs

2 extra egg whites (they were somehow lingering in the fridge, you could use 4 eggs instead, I guess)

100 g sugar

200 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

100 g dark chocolate

Zest of one orange

Some slivered almonds

How I did it (must have been like that):

Well then, I got my favourite cake form, the round one ready, properly greased and ready to go.

The orange-almond butter went to a hot pool of water in it's bowl, because I had stored it in the fridge. In solid form the butter would be of no use in the process.

First of all, the egg yolks (how many ever you may have) are creamed with the sugar. Then you add the flour (sift it, if you want) and the baking powder.

The butter has softened and can go in as well. Time to mix everything through, properly.

The egg whites are whisked as well until they look like they should ... you know, not going anyway when you tilt the bowl by 180°. Then you fold in the egg whites and let it all flow into the cake tin.

The oven is heated up at 180° or, if not, you have to wait until it is, of course.

Bake the cake for approximately 50 minutes. Check whether it is done. Remove the cake from the oven should that be the case and let it cool down a bit.

That gives you the opportunity to melt the chocolate and grate in some orange zest.

When you are ready and the cake as well, the chocolate goes onto the cake.

Throw some slivered almonds on top and grate over some more orange zest and ready we are.

If you would ask me, that looks quite gorgeous and delicious and ... but it would not be fair to ask me, I reckon, since it was my idea in the first place.

So let me know, what you think instead? Just leave a comment!

Crêpes Fourrées et Flambées - #CookForJulia

Previously on #CookForJulia ...

... cutting mushrooms ... simmering ... Lucy ... the Muppet Show ...

... as I said we are going to have some action in the kitchen with orange liqueur and fire for a dessert. Did you already recover from that Swedish Chef? Are you ready now? I hope so.

What is it it then, we want to do today? Eh ... just a moment ... I did it already yesterday! I just wanted to mention that detail.

Alright! Yesterday! It was: Crêpes Fourrées et Flambées. Or in other words (that is English): Crêpes with Orange-almond Butter, Flambées (OK, I didn't translate everything, but you get it anyway).

First of all we need the Crêpes batter. In fact Julia's book gives three variations: normal, with beaten egg white, or with yeast. Guess, which one I selected? I wanted some exercise.

It doesn't look too spectacular, but don't let you put off by this. We are working on it. In fact, it is not a quick thing. The lid goes on and the batter disappears for at least two hours in the fridge.

That gives as plenty of time to prepare a mushroom soup and ... the orange-almond butter.

Here you already see sugar and orange peel on a chopping board. I only wished I had taken the larger one ... well, cleaned the larger one to be able to use it.

Whatever, this one had to do the job. And it did, in a messy kind of way, but it worked.

Together with 250 g of softened butter and the juice from the oranges and orange liqueur (some of the liqueur already went into the batter) and ... of course ... pulverized almonds combine together with that.

About two hours later we can start with doing the Crêpes, after folding in some white substance taken from eggs. Now you can use different sizes of pans for that. You only need to be aware that things can go wrong.

So after a bit of trial and error I decided for the smaller pan. There things were looking already better.

After finishing a Crêpes and starting already the next one I spread some of the orange-almond butter on it and roll it together.

On the side an oven-proof dish is already waiting. A couple of these Crêpes join forces together in it and get sprinkled with sugar just before they make their way into the oven for a couple of minutes.

Now we get some orange liqueur (what? we already used some before? no worries!) ready and heat it up a bit.

Then there comes the time where the Crêpes return from the oven. That is the time for FIRE! We pour a bit of the alcohol over the Crêpes and light it.

Oops! That didn't look so impressive on the photo. If you look hard enough, you see some flames actually, but this is far from being action. What can I do about this?

Does this look better? Here you see the fire clearly, not on the Crêpes, though. We have to resist the temptation to pour more and more liqueur over the Crêpes, for they will taste or get rather boozy! You wouldn't want that, would you?
Anyway, those orange-almod filled Crêpes are absolutely a winner, wonderful flavour and dangerously yummy.I hope, you enjoyed it: "Bon Appétit!"

Orange cupcakes

No time for real cooking or baking, not even - what a shame - time for proper eating. Well in the end I got something nice to eat, but this day was not planned too well. It was a rushing from one appointment to the next. 

However, I got the chance to offer my orange cupcakes from yesterday to others.

The reaction was positive. They seemed to be nice. The taste was good, but as I see it they were a failure. I combined a recipe for orange-carrot muffins with an icing that was originally with lemon. I just switched the lemon with orange and failed. The icing was good to have it as a drink, but not to put it nicely for a cupcake. Therefore I didn't remove them from the baking moulds. Maybe good to serve them with a spoon. I think they look nice on the picture. Overall, though, it didn't work out as I wanted to have it. When experimenting things can go wrong. No pain, no gain!
The other cupcakes, I did some time ago were better: