No Need to Argue - Braided Herb and Cheese Bread

If there is one thing this blog and my blog posts are known for, it's the ridiculous thoughts I have time  and again. However, you shouldn't take everything I said so serious. That would just be a disappointment. You know, I am not twenty one anymore and I am not so sure, whether I could or should be dreaming my dreams. Whatever the case, this blog will never be empty or devoid of food and I hope I will not be changing into a food writing zombie (whatever that is). Don't be so sad, though, if I can't be with you all the time. Right now, I am having a good time, it's summer, the sun is shinning and if I look outside it's not the time to watch while the icicle melts.
By now you should have found out, that there really is no need to argue. Nevertheless, I have no idea nor plan how ever I could use the terms Yeats's grave and daffodil lament in any causal sentence here during this blog post, even if I would include an ode to my family.
While I like writing song based blog posts, I would like to dedicate this one to The Cranberries studio album No Need to Argue. But why is there no need to argue? I like to be frank with you. I love carbs, gluten, wheat, yeast, bacon and all that stuff. While I have no problems with others eating gluten free or low carb, you don't need to argue with me about these things, I just love my dough.
For that I have some bread for you with all the lovely things.

Fine, go ahead, start arguing about the quality of the photos. Well, sometimes things are good and sometimes they are not

Ingredients
300 ml tepid water
7 g yeast
tsp honey
300 g flour
200 g semolina
salt
basil, sage, mint, rosemary
200 g mozzarella, grated
125 bacon, cubed
pepper

Method
We start with the tepid water in one bowl or measuring jar, as I usually do. We add the yeast and the teaspoon of honey. Let the yeast do its magic. Meanwhile get a larger bowl for the flour, semolina and a pinch of salt.
Then it's time to mix the yeasty water with the flour and get things together for a dough.

Get your share of food fitness by kneading the dough for a while to release the glutens (here we go). At the same time you fry of the bacon cubes for a while to give them some extra colour and all that you want.
Chop up the desired amount of the above mentioned herbs, chop them really finely. Then you can work them into the dough. Yes more kneading. After that you get 100 g of the mozzarella cheese and knead it into the dough as well. Follows the bacon and even more kneading until you have all the goodies evenly in your dough.
I reckon, it's time for the dough to do its thing and rise. Meanwhile you can ... no need to argue .. do whatever you like. Maybe you could watch an episode of your favourite series. While we are talking about it ... nah ... whatever.
Just get it over with. I suggest one hour. Then separate the dough into three even balls.

Get a baking tray with some baking parchment ready. You might want to heat up the oven to 200 °C.
Turn the three balls of dough into ... eh ... three sausages of dough, just a little longer then your baking tray. After that we can go for the fun part, braiding the bread. In my opinion, with hair this braiding is a bit easier and ... if you really have to ... but then again no need to argue ... if you look at the fotos the braiding didn't work that out that pro on my bread, but this in no way diminished the taste.
Once the braiding is finished ... for good or for bad ... spread over the remaining cheese and add some pepper on top and transfer the baking tray to the oven for 20 - 30 minutes. The bread is looking golden brown and ready for ...

... the time to enjoy. For sure you will find a good way to do so. You will find something lovely to eat on the side.

That whole thing might be a bit dangerous for me as I could go ahead and finish off that bread just that. No need to argue!

Semolina Fufu and Nigerian Chicken Soup

Do you have a bucket list? I mean are there some things you still want to do before you kick the bucket? Eh, we don't want to talk about kicking the bucket, rather about kicking the ball, but then again not even that.
Whatsoever, I don't really have a list of things I still have to do, but there are certain things I wanted to do and when it comes to this blog, today I can say I have written about one of the things I already had thought  of for a long time. Sometimes, you just need some extra motivation. Thank you to everyone for having such a great share in the Bloggers Around the World World Cup challenge this month. It's a great motivation to go for it and try out things from different countries.
Once again, I don't bring you Currywurst today, but rather take you down to Africa, to Nigeria to be more precise. What I still wanted to write down on this blog, was something about Fufu. What's that? Come and see ... and while we are already at it and we need some kind of soup to go with it I bring you my version of an Nigerian Chicken Soup with it ...

I will tell you what you need for it and how to make the soup. In order to find out, how to make the fufu itself, I guess it is best to refer you to an external video, although in my opinion it's not too hard to make the fufu itself.

Ingredients:
Knob of butter or ghee (I used ghee)
1 onion, chopped up in stripes
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1-3 red chillies (depending on how hot you like it)
2 chicken thighs
400 g tinned tomatoes
600 ml chicken stock
Salt and pepper

For the fufu you need water and semolina

Method:
Heat up your butter in a pan. Then add your onion, garlic and chillies and lightly fry them off. Add your chicken thighs and let them taste some heat, too. If you are cooking for more people, you could use in fact a bigger pan and throw in a whole chicken or one you have cut into smaller pieces, but with bones and skin still on it.
Anyway, I said, I have two chicken thighs and I am tired of waiting for too long. Therefore I pour in the tinned tomatoes and the chicken stock quite early and season already a bit with salt and pepper. You can adjust it later on further, if need be.

Now let things really going while you bring the soup to the boil. You can put on the lid in between. According to the way you like it, you can reduce the soup later on by removing the lid.
In the meantime you could do your semolina fufu. Either watch the above mentioned video or bring a litre of water to the boil. Then reduce the heat and add your semolina to the water, stirring all the time. Keep on stirring while the semolina thickens. You have to get it to a consistence, so that you could take a bit of the fufu and roll it to a ball in your hand and it stays like that. However, after you remove the fufu from the heat and let it slightly cool down, things will still work in your favour a bit.
All that stirring for the fufu is again a bit of kitchen exercise or I simply need to train my stirring muscles a bit more. Call it kitchen workout. It helps you to burn some of the calories you are about to take in or the previous one, of course count as well.
When everything is ready you can serve it. As far as I know it ... as I had this meal before together with some people from Africa ... you can place the fufu and the soup in the middle of your table and everyone will eat with their hands from those pans. Or was it just the fufu in one bowl and the soup on individual plates. I can't remember exactly.

Like it or not, but somehow like this is how you eat it. Now you start to wonder, how am I going to eat a soup with my hands. So, get a piece of fufu in your hand. Roll it into a ball or not and dip it into the soup.
Now I wonder myself how to adage to eat a soup with my fingers. Either you figure it out by yourselves or you just add a spoon to the image. Get a bit of fufu on your spoon and eat it together with your soup.
Now I reckon I got this dish absolutely right for it was exactly as I remembered it from my memories. Even the taste of the soup itself. However, I prefer the chicken thigh version and not the one with the whole chicken. It could be a little awkward with all this bones in the soup. Right, even with the thighs you have bones, but with a whole chicken roughly cut into small pieces, who knows what to find. The individual chicken thighs can be better controlled and you can have one each and remove it in its entirety from your serving of the soup and eat it as you would eat it otherwise.
Ah, that was another trip down memory lane for me and for you it was the presentation of a typical Nigerian dish, which you might want too try or not.
Anyway, as Nigeria is going to play in the World Cup later today ... for some it might even be tomorrow ... you know what to expect ...

No, I don't necessarily mean that Nigeria is going to win the match against Bosnia ... I'm not really predicting the outcome of the matches with my cooking, but if Nigeria is going to win, I start to get scared myself ...

Christine & Christian - Episode 3: Use your Imagination

Just imagine: You are sitting relaxed at a beach in the shades of a palm tree. There is even a cool breeze, as well as a cold drink in your hand. You take a sip. The sound of the water of the ocean hitting the beach makes you feel even more relaxed. The sky is shining brightly and everything is perfect.
Did it work? Did you see yourself there at this beach with this pure fine white sand? No? Maybe you need to close your eyes in order for it to work or the description wasn't vivid enough.
Anyway, that is not going to happen!
But since you trained your imagination a bit now, we can go on with step 2. Let's get Tasting India ready and have some Curd-cheese Balls in Rose Syrup. How does that sound? Use your imagination ... for that is not going to happen either.
Let me show you a picture and you might get a faint idea ... or simply faint.

While looking for some easy going recipes to start things off with, I selected to make these Curd-cheese Balls in Rose Syrup. They looked lovely in the book and I imagined them to taste that way as well ... with a nice almond surprise in the center.
However, as you have seen from the picture ... eh ... there was a different surprise and ... eh ... well, you haven't seen any balls.
What happened?
Hm ... good question!
Maybe at first it was the syrup going into a wrong direction ... turning into candy rather. Nevertheless I got things simmering again and was ready for the balls to be poached.
Carefully placed and resting in the simmering syrup-like water they decided to do something else ... falling apart.
In the end it was just a gooey semolina curd-cheese something. I added another splash of rose water, stirred until everything was smooth and spooned it into a bowl. Tasting! Well, it has a nice rose water taste. Now it was rather a semolina pudding. I thought, a few fruits on top would be nice. Then there where these coloured chocolate sprinkles. The least I could do. Make it colourful. That gives it an Indian touch probably.

If I get chance, I have to try it again and get some real Curd-cheese Balls. Could it be, the semolina wasn't coarse enough? Just use your imagination ... I'll be off to the beach ...