Winter Salad - 2013/I

I adore crunchy salads. 
Even more so in the winter. 
Each salad should be unique, gaudy and treated with the best, most luxurious dressing. 
The best dressing consists of the best olive oil and vinegar that you get hands on. 
It is simple as that.

Today's improvised salad consisted of chicory leaves, Romaine lettuce, orange filets, shaved fresh beetroots, pears, red onions, leeks, parsley and feta crumbles and the best mustard dressing.

There are more refined versions to come. So stay tuned!

  



   

kale salad with garlic-chili-oil

The minute I saw Miss Boulette's flavored oil, I knew I had found what I was looking for: a suitable dressing for raw kale. The oil is sensationally simple, strong in flavor and makes up the perfect match for the rustic texture of kale (if you prefer it tender, let it sit marinated for a day).

I kept my oil basic so that it can be complemented with different condiments from case to case.

Garlic chili oil adapted from Miss Boulette

Chop

• 1 red chili,
• 1 small spring onion,
• 2 cloves of garlic, roughly the same amount of
• ginger
  

ultra fine.

In a pan heat

• 2 tbsp butter (for a clear optic use clarified butter) with
• 1/2 cup olive oil.

As soon as the butter has melt completely, turn off the heat and add the garlic, ginger and chili.
Add 1 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp salt and the spring onion. It will yield to one small cup of chili oil.

Before using the oil you can add (1 tsp - 1 tbsp to taste)

• soy sauce (for sweetness and umami) and / or
  
• gochujang (korean red chili paste for fruity sweetness) or
• sesame oil (for a nutty flavor).
  

Kale Salad with Chickpeas

For a big bowl of salad

wash, spin dry and cut 200 gr of kale.

Slice the stems thinly.
Toss the kale with 3 cups of precooked chickpeas with at least 1/2 cup of the garlic-chili-oil (I mixed it with 1 tbsp soy sauce).

If wanted, add a dash of lemon juice (I didn't).

Don't be frugal with the dressing! Everything should be coated heavily with the oil so that it becomes a glossy, indulgent salad.

The salad will stay crisp for a couple of days in the fridge and is good to take away (then best eaten with chopsticks :)).

pan fried dumplings with corn salad and braised pears

I love it when you crave for a dish badly and you have everything on hand (with minor deviations) to go for it right away (ok, I waited till daylight). And when the recipe works out like a charm and the result tastes as good as it looked on the picture. Who wouldn't.

These pan fried dumplings (Kaspressknödel, consisting of old bread and cheese) with plain corn salad, fried onions and braised pears made up a beautifully balanced, beautiful winter dish.

I tried it with and without sour cream and found the cream unnecessary.

Rough directions:

Soak old bread (I took toasted whole meal toast which was fine and reduced the soaking time) in some milk and 1-2 eggs. It should yield to a kneadable consistency. Add 1 grated clove of garlic and grated hard cheese to taste.
Add chopped parsley and 1 small chopped onion.
Add salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

Mold flat dumplings out of the dough and fry them in a pan with butter.

In the meantime braise some slices of pear in lemon juice (i took some cubes of frozen lemon juice) and little agave syrup.

Fry some onion slices.

Serve all with corn salad, sour cream if wanted and additional grated cheese.

roots spaghetti salad

I have slightly amended my opinion on vegetable spaghetti:

They are very impractical to eat.

And if served to guests they can evoke wrong expectations in so far as somehow they are supposed to taste better than ordinarily cut vegetables. But they taste exactly the same :)

As in these winter days one can never get enough ideas for fresh dishes, I present you this salad still.

And again devote it to Ms Bushcook, who has been recently featured in this lovely interview.

Roots salad (beetroot, kohlrabi, little parsley root, salsify, carrot)

with toasted and ground almonds and

a dressing of chopped herbs, orange juice, olive oil, fleur de sel and orange zests.

Chinese Cabbage and Carrot Salad

I can't stop eating this salad. I don't know if anybody could. I don't know either why one should.

A handful of humble ingredients (I added parsnip), foolproof to make and just divine.

Besides: you can spoon it. And salads that can be spooned falls in the comfort food, soul food category - just in case anybody wonders about the label :)

Chinese Cabbage and Carrot Salad adapted from Heike's Blog (= blog for esthetic German cooking :))

For 2 servings, prep time 10 minutes

Finely slice 5 Chinese cabbage leaves and 1 onion.
Grate 1 large carrot.
Mix all in a bowl together with canola oil (1 tbsp), white wine vinegar (2 tbsp), double cream (3 tbsp), sugar and salt to taste.

Let sit for a couple of minutes and (optionally) serve with crushed nuts as topping.

Update for the diary free folks - you can yield to an equally tasty result with coconut milk.

greener kale soup

For a long while I thought of kale as just the vegetable with the mud color. Then a couple of years ago a friend made a kale soup for me at her home in Budapest that was fresh green in color and fresh in taste. Thereafter I thought back of the soup a lot of times but had no idea how to make it and never gave it a shot on my own (the friend and I didn't keep in touch frequently and somehow I thought that if I contacted her out of the blue, I should not ask for a recipe...:)).

In my quest I got a hint by Sybille-Anna (thank you!) who is familiar to Hungarian cuisine as well as all other things food-related, I am sure :)

So with her directions I made my first kale soup - being very attentive not to overcook the green. I have no idea if this is Hungarian or if the soup in my memory was. I am not even sure if this is the taste that I was seeking for as there have been many years in between... But I am happy with the result. And pity for those winters beforehand without having rejoiced in this color and the lovely bitter aroma. It made up a fine match with orange.

basic kale soup

prep & cooking time 20 min.

1. thoroughly rinse the kale (as much as fits comfortably into a big pot), tear the leaves into smaller sizes and slice the stems finely. salt the kale a little.

2. dice 1 onion and 3 potatoes and sweat all in a large pot with 1 tbsp butter.
add the kale and sweat for around 5 minutes.

4. add 1 l vegetable broth , close with a lid and let everything simmer for around 10 min until the kale gets soft. stir from time to time.

5. add pepper and if needed, additional salt to taste. puree the soup.

6. serve with sour cream and optionally with dried or fresh orange zests.

Last but not least, I dedicate this dish to this very talented lady who appeared in a television cooking show last year and is a celebrity in the blogosphere now :)

The one and only Applesauce

In the last weeks during which i abstained from cooking it seemed that every person was doing something with either pomegranate, cranberries, beetroots (less surprising with regard to the season) or this totally surprising oven roasted apple sauce (basically consisting of apples only and originating from a french recipe).

As i am always smitten with recipes that include a minimum of ingredients and because everything tastes better, when slowly roasted in the oven, the apple sauce turned out to be the first kitchen task of this year.

Directions:

Mix a huge amount of peeled sour apples (like 2 kg) with a pinch of salt and 2-3 spices (for example vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, nutmeg, cumin...).

Bake it in a roasting tin with the lid closed for a couple of hours at 160 ° C (it took me 3 hours) until the apples are dark brown and caramelized.

It will yield to the most fragrant luscious apple sauce with a little texture left.

advent calender

anne & annette: THANK YOU!!!!! :) :)

wake up salad

lacking time is no excuse not to eat your veggies, okay? what is easier than eating raw food??

just as foggy winter weather is no excuse.

if you are lulled because of too much time spent in heated rooms and because of insufficient daylight, devouring hot stews or dampfnudeln is contra-productive. afterward you will long for the bed even more. i am speaking of own experiences ;)

instead a crunchy sour salad will wake you up like one round outdoor swimming. so why not start a day with it.

in the picture: some spinach, slices of celery stalks, spring onion, parsley, 1/2 blood orange, black pepper with 1/2 mashed avocado (no dressing because of laziness).

winter salad

most likely i cannot settle back until i possess all the acclaimed new cook books of this season. the vegetarian cookbook by alice hart is no exception. full of beautifully presented unfussy recipes with a twist. what's not to like about it?

i had kept cooked spelt in the freezer since a longer while and have finally found out what to do with it. this wonderful spelt salad from the book consists of oven roasted shallots, carrots, walnuts and dried apricots (switched to them for the suggested plums) and is mixed with goat cheese, cress (instead of the suggested parsley as i had none) and a garlic-mustard-vinegar. nice takeaway, too.