No, don't expect any kind of history lesson, although this was one of my favourite subjects before I went to school and maybe the first few years while in it. That would be ancient history then with the pyramid building Egyptians and the Romans, yes, even Julius Caesar.
Indeed, 'alea iacta est' - 'the die has been cast'. Apart from that phrase and a few others, my Latin isn't that good anymore. Another one of my favourites is ... you probably think 'veni, vidi, vici', but no, it's 'mihi equus est', although that has never been true for me. I never had a horse.
'Alea iacta est', but not in the meaning of 'I have reached the point of no return', although that might be more true than the horse thingy. I guess, I better get on with my point then. 'Alea iacta est' can only mean one thing in my case: 'the die has been cast' and that in a literal kind of way. It's time for random recipe again. For that I always use my 100-sided die to determine a random cookbook.
However, it wouldn't be random recipes, if there weren't another trick to come. Well, it would be random recipes, too, but it's more likely it comes with an additional twist.
This time it is that Dom has teamed up with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes. The result of that is a random recipes and AlphaBakes combination. According to that we are heading for a random recipe starting with the letter 'A'.
Well, the first book that came up, didn't have any recipes with a letter 'A'. So I decided to roll the die again. Once more 'alea iacta est'. The second book was one that features dishes for 1 person. At least that would help not to eat too much this time, but would it be something lovely? Edible, sure, but would it be delicious and enjoyable?
There were indeed four recipes starting with the letter 'A', two sweet one including apples and two savoury ones. Fine, one of the savoury ones included apricots, but the die stopped on the final one ...
... Avocado Salad with Egg and Salmon. Oh, I might try that book again. The avocado salad was good and there was really not much effort involved to prepare it. In fact it took longer to randomly pick a recipe than actually making it.
You just have to have a hard-boiled egg and cut it into small pieces, peel and cut an avocado, cut some smoked salmon into stripes and whip up a dressing with a tbsp. of oil, the juice half a lemon, one tsp. of mustard, a pinch of cayenne pepper, a tsp. of rosemary and salt and ... there you go, a quick and light lunch, kind of.
I have another one for you ... 'errare humanum est' ... wait, one more ... 'in vino veritas', not that I am suggesting you are having some wine with the salad or that you I am going to reveal all my secrets, when you fill me with a bottle of wine.
Enough then with our Latin lesson, although you might need one or the other word of Latin in your life at some point.
Anyway, AlphaBakes random recipes ... I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did or ... well, it suffices already, if I enjoyed it, but there is no harm in making others enjoy things ...
Did you know that you use a lot less than 1 % of the capacity of your brain? Or that the brain processes about 100 million bits of information every second? Or that the brain makes up only 2 % of the body's weight (of course only if you are not excessively over-weighted)? Or that the billions upon billions of nerve cells in your brain make about as many as a quadrillion connections?
For sure you do know, that oh so very often that you are not able to find things in your brain, although you know it has to be there. What about finding things you didn't know they were there?
Before this month is over, I have another post for Bloggers Around the World: Russia ... although the Olympics are over by now. I recently made some blini and topped them with caviar and smoked salmon respectively.
Now I was looking for a title for my blog post ...
On our current part of our virtual food journey for Bloggers Around the World I asked everyone to do something Japanese, or with typical Japanese ingredients, or ... whatever, let's go on with it.
I hope you are all busy ... brains working what to do ... or already cooking or baking ... or even writing up something. Whatever you do: Have fun!
I was thinking and looking around, too. So I came up with some rice balls with a spring onion an smoked salmon filling.
All we need is cooked rice, smoked salmon, spring onions, some sesame seeds and a bit of ginger, if you like. No big fuss about it! Pure and simple!
A good thing, that I have a rice cooker. So I simply put in three cups of rice with sufficient water and let it do it's job, while I relax and do something else.
Oh, the rice is already done. No worries! The cooker will keep it warm. So I head over into the kitchen and cut the smoked salmon and the spring onions in a very relaxed way. Here goes a bit of ginger in it.
In fact the rice could be a little to hot. So I better turn the cooker off and open it a bit before I proceed.
With wet fingers I take a handful of the rice and form it into a ball. Then I make a hole into it to squeeze in one or two teaspoons of the spring onion and smoked onion mixture. I just need to make sure the rice closes around the filling.
To serve them I sprinkle a few roasted sesame seeds on them. That's it!
You can have them anytime. I even had some for breakfast. Above that, I reckon, you can also go for a different filling, like maybe a total veg version. What about cucumber or zucchini or ... you will get ideas.
If you have the feeling, you might need some kind of sauce with the balls, why not mix some wasabi and soy sauce together, and there you go.
So far for my contribution to the current Bloggers Around the World. I never have been to Japan, but I suppose it would be very interesting. However, you can't have everything or go everywhere.
Now it's still up to you. There are still 12 days left to do something Japanese for Bloggers Around the World. I'll be waiting on you ...
