We have been travelling a bit, flying over the Atlantic ocean from Madrid, Spain to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There was a lot of running involved at the airport. At one point there was an employee of the airport shouting all the time at passengers that people with a European passport go to one line and other to another. I wonder for how long she made it. Anyway, it was a wonderful vacation with sun, sea, beach and food.
One day La Romana, Dominican Republic, we went to the mall and there was a cooking show going on with Gabriella Reginato. Well, I have never heard of her before, but hey ... it was about food and we still had a bit of time. The first dish she showed was Sangria without alcohol. There was some rosemary involved in this and it tasted good.
Next up was a salad with green plantain. That was very delicious and we thought we have to try it at home, just to have some other fine dish with plantains.
Therefore I had to adjust the recipe of Gabriella a bit to fit the ingredients we have available here and to have it written in English.
Ingredients:
1 green plantain, cut into small cubes
1/2 red bell pepper cut into small pieces
1/2 yellow bell pepper cut into small pieces
1 green pepper, cut into small pieces
Some leaves of coriander
2 spring onions, cut into small rings
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 lemon
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
Method:
To start with, we are going for the cooking of the plantains. Put them in salted water with the juice of half of the lemon. Bring to the boil and cook for 10 minutes. Then let them cool down a bit.
The rest is super easy, for as you have done all the chopping already. Well, don't call me lazy when it comes to writing up things. It's just the way it is. No, not the lazy part, but putting the dish together.
Put the plantains, peppers, spring onions, garlic, coriander in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, then add the remaining juice of the other half of the lemon. Finally add the olive oil and then you are ready to it, if ... you like it at room temperature. Otherwise you can put the salad into the fridge to let it cool down further.
Anyway, this amount of salad would serve for two people, but of course it is only a side dish.
I hope you try it out. Have a look also at the original version, when we tried it the first time in the Dominican Republic in the mall.
Again, another post comes to an end. It went quickly, just as the vacations. It seems that those always end to fast. Have a luvly time!
Hasta luego!
It is about time I start putting up some more food here on our blog. It has been quite a while of inactivity, which doesn't mean I haven't been active. In fact I have been very active and I have been doing quite some exercise, enjoying it together with my beautiful wife. Life is really good!
Now, though, it is time again for some other kind of exercise again ... food fitness.
Let's have some Spanish food today, which you could also use for a picnic, if the weather so permits.
Ingredients:
450 g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. butter
1 egg
1 tsp. honey
pinch of salt
lukewarm water
1 onion (finely chopped)
some chillies (to your liking, finely chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
500 g minced beef
smoked paprika
salt, pepper
2 tbsp. tomato puree
basil, rosemary, mint
3 spring onions (chopped in rings)
150 g grated cheese (whatever kind you fancy)
30 g sultanas
oil for frying
Method:
First of all we go for the dough, setting the tone for the whole thing, putting some energy in the preparation, for there will be much energy in the consumption as well, although I am not quite sure whether you want to hear it.
Put the flour with the baking powder in a bowl, rub in the butter. Then add the salt, honey and egg. Knead the dough in a fitness-like fashion adding as much of lukewarm water as it needs to bring the whole dough together.
Then let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. In case you also need that rest, I guess you have to give it some more time. Otherwise you can you the time wisely to already prepare the filling.
You start off with the onions in a large pan, let the chillies and the garlic join. After the onions are translucent you can put in the meat and season it with salt, pepper and the smoked paprika. Once the meat has gained sufficient colour you can add the tomato puree and go on frying as long until it is all relatively dry. We don't want the filling too wet to cause any problems.
Just when it is all ready that far, turn off the heat and add the basil, rosemary, mint, spring onions, cheese and sultanas. It might look a little bit like this ...
You have some time for it to cool off a bit. That will be the time to prepare the individual empanadillas and have some extra exercise. If you still feel you need more exercise, do some push-ups, squats or crunches later on, but here we go with good old food fitness ...
Try to make it thin. This way you will enjoy the filling much later when all is finished. Give it your all. You want to feel those muscles in yours so you can actually say you have done some real exercise. Get some round shapes out of the dough for the final empanadillas. We got a special tool for it here so it will work out perfectly with the shape and sticking in the filling.
Give every circle of dough, we had 15 in the end, a teaspoon of filling or a little bit more, as your conscience permits and as you will be able to seal them properly afterwards. We don't want any filling to exit while frying. We only want to let the filling exit in your mouth while eating.
If it looks like this you might be doing it right. To ensure they are securely shut, you can use a fork to seal them well.
Then enjoy the time for frying the empanadillas in sufficient oil and hopefully they are securely shut. I didn't do it so well, when I tried it the other week, but this batch went perfectly well without incidents ... for my wife was helping to make it happen just fine.
Now the only thing that remains is enjoy your empanadillas with some salad and a beer ... any kind of beer. It doesn't need to be Spanish, although I wouldn't mind a bottle of Estrella de Galicia.
We hope you had enough exercise preparing the empanadillas. As for my part I feel like I still have to do some more exercise. These days I am kind of crazy about doing some exercise. That's not bad, after all the body feels a lot better when it is filled with muscles and not with ... anyway, I don't want to suggest anything here, but just that I am always going to enjoy some good food exercise, when it also leads to some tasty results. It would really make me feel bad, if I would put in all the effort in preparing and eating if it wouldn't be worth it.
In this very case here of the empanadillas we can assure you that it was absolutely worth it and we are going to enjoy it any time.
We hope you are having a good time and are keeping healthy!
At some point I had bought some udon noodles. They have this lovely package, where you have these nice little portions inside with a small ribbon around. Anyway, I had them neglected for a while, so I thought it was time to bring on some Asian flavours.
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 ...
Goedendag! Hoe gaat het met jou? Ik wil je graag uitnodigen. Wat zegt u?
What? You didn't understand a thing? Well, it doesn't matter, my Dutch isn't that good either, anymore. In fact it never has been, although it should ... or maybe not.
Anyway, I want to invite you to have a soup together with me, a chicken apple soup. I improvised this recipe after a friend told me, he had tried something like this after having something like this in the Netherlands. Let's have a try then.
It might be Dutch, but then again, it might not be. I haven't taken the time to try. Nevertheless we leave it that way.
Ingredients:
150 g chicken breast, cut in bite-sized chunks
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp minced ginger
1 red bell pepper, cut into stripes
1 red chili, finely chopped
750 ml water
6 tbs apple compote
100 g pasta or rice (I had rice pasta ... he he he)
Salt for seasoning
1 spring onion, chopped in rings
Method:
First fry the chicken breast pieces from all sides and put aside.
Get yourself a sufficiently sized pot and gently fry the onion in oil. After a few minutes add the garlic and the ginger and let it go for a few more minutes.
Then it's the time for the bell pepper and the chili to make it's appearance on the cooking scene. Put them in the pot and proceed with the cooking for a few more minutes ... eh ... that is until the bell pepper has softened a bit.
Pour in the water and bring to the boil. After that reduce the heat and add the chicken, the apple compote and the rice pasta. Let it all simmer for about 15 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through.
Finally add the rings of the spring onions and turn off the heat ... ready to serve.
You can always try. Normally, maybe, you wouldn't put such things together, but you never know, if you don't try. It might be the case you discover some nice flavours.
Een fijne dag nog! Tot straks!
In my last post I wrote you about a cheesecake with lemongrass and carrots and ginger and things. I have to tell you something ...
... I ate it all up and I enjoyed it. Might need to think about some exercise, though. I guess taking the rubbish outside will not suffice.
However, that was not my original intention. No, I'm not talking about taking out the rubbish, nor was I talking about eating the cake. Whatsoever, you can't know what's on my mind unless I tell you clearly. I on the other hand can't tell you clearly, if I didn't arrange things clearly in my mind.
Ahhhh, forget about the last few sentences. I try again!
Originally I bought ginger and lemongrass for some Asian cooking. I go myself a Vietnamese cookbook called Vietnamese Bible by Jacki Passmore. I thought I could try a few recipes. So when I was out shopping I brought home some lemongrass and ginger ... that might come in handy ... or not ... or whatever.
Here is what I tried from the book.
That's called 'Ga xao dau phong' or in English 'Stir-fried Chicken & Peanuts'.
I have a lovely rice cooker at home. So I don't have to worry so much about the rice. Just wash and rinse it and then put it on cooking. When it's finished, it switches automatically to 'keeping warm'.
The rest you could just call fresh fast food. Apart from cutting the chicken breast into pieces and the spring onions into rings, the rest goes faster then you could warm up an instant meal in the microwave.
Once your pan or wok is heated up to high heat, you add some peanut oil and then stir-fry your pieces of chicken for four minutes. Then you add some fish sauce, the spring onions, some roasted peanuts and a few red chillies (which you have cut in rings as well ... sorry, I forgot to mention). Maybe some salt and pepper and ...
... eat! Right, you could of course add also some fresh coriander leaves, which I obviously did, although it was not mentioned in the original recipe.
On top of it, if you make more rice, you still have some left to experiment a bit ... I did some sushi rolls afterwards to get the opportunity to let some wasabi climb up my nose. That is very ... nice.
I only remember still when I tried wasabi the first time. "You have to use a fair good portion on your Sushi!" ... I'm glad I survived. Since then I use it only in moderation.
