Festive Cous Cous

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I served this alternative but festive couscous at my birthday party last year and it was a nice delicious surprise, ideal in small glasses as an aperitif, perfect for a healthier or vegetarian style.

As we are all invited to a Thanksgiving dinner party chez Joan, for this final Creative Cooking Crew’s challenge (then the group will take a holiday break until the new year) to bring an appetizer to have with a cocktail before dinner, I'm going to share again this recipe because it's so festive and celebrative: pomegranate adds a peculiar touch of party style in everywhere.

Pomegranate (Punica granatum) has always been considered the fruit of fertility, abundance and good luck. In fact XV e XVI centuries' painters often put a pomegranate in the hand of Jesus Child, alluding to the new life brought by Christ. In ancient Greece this plant was sacred to Juno (Zeus' wife) and Venus (goddess of love ). Roman brides used to weave branches of pomegranate in their hair. The significant number of its grains has inspired many legends: in Vietnam they use to halve the fruit whiich will bring two hundred children, Turkish brides throw the fruit to the ground and they will have as many babies as the grains released. In Dalmatia the husband takes a pomegranate plant from his father-in-law's garden to his own garden. In Indian they believe that the juice of this fruit is very active against infertility.

 

Serving 30/32 individual glasses:

half a kilo cous cous

3 or 4 big pumpkin slice

2 ripe pomegranates

walnuts and pistachios

pumpkin seeds

rosemary, optional

extra virgin olive oil

apple cider vinegar

salt



 

- Soak cous cous in lightly salted boiling water, following the instructions on the package, let cool and pass through fingers, drizzle with a little oil.
- Meanwhile, cut the pumpkin into small cubes (if you like you can leave the skin, is edible) and roast in a large frying pan with a little oil and a sprig of rosemary, at high heat for a few minutes, allowing a little crispy crust, and then at low fire and covered with a lid to soften inside, although it must remain crunchy, season with salt.
- Toast walnuts, pistachios and pumpkin seeds in oven a few minutes. Halve pomegranates and remove berries.
- In a bowl combine cous cous and pumpkin, then nuts and pomegranate berries, drizzle with a little oil and a few tablespoon of vinegar.
- Cous cous and pumpkin can be prepared and assembled  in advance, but add dried fruit and pomegranate just before serving.

Swiss Cheese Crackers

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All invited to a Thanksgiving dinner party chez Joan, for this final Creative Cooking Crew’s challenge, then a holiday break until the new year.

Bring anything about an appetizer to have with a cocktail before dinner, that was Joan request.

And as usually we always have all sorts of chips and tortillas to enjoy with different evergreen (referred not only to the color :-) dips, guacamole on top, I tried some other crunchy snacks you can serve with your favorite relish or chutney (you can find some suggestions here).

And you can prepare these crackers a little in advance, so they won't trouble you in the final rush of the speacial day.
I used two Swiss cheese, but any hard cheese could suit: Italian Pecorino, Parmesan or Caciocavallo, English Cheddar, Dutch Gouda, French Emmental or Comté, just go at your pleasure!

You need:

250 g all-purpose flour
250 g spelt flour
250 g water, room temperature
half a packet dry yeast
50 g extra virgin olive oil
half a teaspoon salt
100 g grated Gruyère
80 g grated Sbrinz
80 g seed mix
(flax, sesame, sunflower, nigella, poppy, pumpkin)
fleur de sel

In a bowl combine flour with cheese and baking powder, add water a little at a time, and then oil and begin to knead. Transfer onto the working surface and continue to knead until the dough is homogeneous and smooth. It can be done with the mixer.
Divide the dough into 4 pieces, spread out each piece with hands into 4 discs, sprinkle a little seeds on each then overlay the 4 disks each other. Leave a tablespoon of seeds aside for the final decoration.
Work together again until the seeds are well amalgamated into the dough.
Shape into a ball and let rest an hour/an hour and a half in a lightly greased bowl, covered and in a warm place .
Take a piece of dough at a time and roll it out into a thin sheet with a rolling pin (the dough is easy to work and you do not need to flour the work surface), place the dough stripe on parchment paper, trim the edges (cut offs can be kneaded again) and cut out the crackers as you lke (mine 5x15 cm. rectangles).
Transfer the parchment paper onto a baking tray, brush with oil and sprinkle with fleur de sel and seeds.
Bake at 180° for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.

 This recipe also goes to Susan's weekly YeastSpotting.

Black Cake - Fake Sacher - Torta nera - Finta Sacher

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Cooking with spirits is the challenge of the Creative Cooking Crew for this month.

I often use wine or beer or brandy in cooking, especially with meat or fish. Sometimes beer occurs for bread or pizza, but have you ever heard of a chocolate cake made with red wine?

Don't tell your guests in advance what the ingredients are, just let them guess, I bet anybody will be so quick to imagine!

Wine enhances the cocoa flavor of the cake and gives an extra relish.

It's a recipe from my Thermomix cooking book, but can be easily done by hand, both processes are given.

 

You need:

150 g all-purpose flour
60 g unsweetened cocoa powder
200 g butter
300 g sugar *
100 g red wine
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder

 * when Thermomix is not used, better substitute with icing sugar

By hand: melt butter with sugar, wine and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat, to get a nice smooth cream, stirring evenly for 5/6 minutes.
Set a third of the cream aside in a bowl.
Add the eggs, one at a time, to the remaining cream, then sifted flour and baking powder and mix well, no lumps allowed (you can also use a stand mixer).
Pour the mixture into a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake at 160° for 40/50 minutes.
You can either use a round mold or a plum-cake one.
Let it cool, then cut the cake in half and spread on half cream (of the third kept part), reassemble the cake and frost with the remaining cream. If the cream has thickened too much, just give a few seconds in the microwave to soften.
Garnish with finely chopped dried fruits (hazelnuts, pistachios, nuts, pecans, pinenuts) or sugar confetti at your pleasure.
Put the cake in the fridge for half an hour to thicken the glaze.


With Thermomix: in the bowl butter, wine, sugar, cocoa, 7 min. 5 ° speed 3 or 4.
Remove from the jug a third of the cream and set aside in a bowl.
Set speed 6 and add the eggs, one at a time, flour and mix mix for a couple of minutes, adding also baking powder.
Pour the mixture into a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake at 160° for 40/50 minutes.
You can either use a round mold or a plum-cake one.
Let it cool, then cut the cake in half and spread on half cream (of the third kept part), reassemble the cake and frost with the remaining cream. If the cream has thickened too much, just give a few seconds in the microwave to soften.
Garnish with finely chopped dried fruits (hazelnuts, pistachios, nuts, pecans, pinenuts) or sugar confetti at your pleasure.
Put the cake in the fridge for half an hour to thicken the glaze.

Torta nera - Finta Sacher

Una torta simpatica, facile, e per un ingrediente un pochino insolita.

L'avevo già postata agli esordi, definendola un must di sicuro successo delle ricette Bimby, ma facilmente adattabile anche a metodi tradizionali. Il vino proposto nella torta esalta il sapore del cacao e conferisce al dolce una marcia in più.

Finalmente i miei ragazzi l'altro giorno hanno esultato con un dolce dolce e tradizionale, senza tante strane alchimie salutistiche che cerco di inculcare nei loro palati!

Ingredienti:

150 g di farina 0
60 g di cacao amaro
200 g di burro
300 g di zucchero (a velo se fatta senza Bimby)
100 g di vino rosso
4 uova
1 bustina di lievito per dolci

Col Bimby: nel boccale burro, vino, zucchero, cacao, 7 min. 50° vel. 3 o 4.
Togliere dal boccale un terzo della crema e tenerla da parte.
Con velocità 6, nella crema rimasta nel boccale aggiungere le uova, una alla volta, la farina e mescolare per un paio di minuti, aggiungendo verso la fine anche il lievito.
Versare in una tortiera ricoperta di carta forno e infornare a 160° per 40/50 minuti.
Si può usare uno stampo rotondo o rettangolare da plum-cake.
Sfornare, fare intiepidire, poi tagliare la torta a metà e farcirla con metà della crema tenuta da parte, ricomporre la torta e glassare con l'altra metà di crema. Se la crema raffreddandosi si fosse troppo ispessita, riscaldarla pochi secondi nel microonde (o sul fuoco).
Decorare a piacere con confettini di zucchero o frutta secca tritata fine.
Mettere la torta in frigo mezzoretta finchè la glassa si rassoda.

Senza Bimby: in un pentolino e su fuoco basso sciogliere il burro con lo zucchero, il vino e il cacao amaro, in modo da ottenere una bella crema liscia, mescolando per 5/6 minuti.
Togliere un terzo della crema e tenerla da parte. Nella restante aggiungere le uova, una alla volta, la farina e il lievito, mescolando bene che non faccia grumi (si può impastare anche nel robot).
Versare in una tortiera ricoperta di carta forno e infornare a 160° per 40/50 minuti.
Si può usare uno stampo rotondo o rettangolare da plum-cake.
Sfornare, fare intiepidire, poi tagliare la torta a metà e farcirla con metà della crema tenuta da parte, ricomporre la torta e glassare con l'altra metà di crema. Se la crema raffreddandosi si fosse troppo ispessita, riscaldarla pochi secondi nel microonde (o sul fuoco).

Decorare a piacere con confettini di zucchero o frutta secca tritata fine.
Mettere la torta in frigo mezzoretta finchè la glassa si rassoda. 

 

 

Pickled Salmon, Nordic Style

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This month's challenge for the Creative Cooking Crew was Pickle it!

Still a few days to post your dish and send link and picture to Joan, as the round-up will be going live on September, 30th.

I am trying to pickle some else, something you can enjoy during long slow Winter and that might remind you of sunny and warm Summer days.

By now a simple pickle you can do every time of the year and just added to the Christmas parties' what-to-do list.

Raw spiced pickled salmon, well known as gravlax or gravad lax (Swedish), gravad laks (Danish), gravlaks (Norwegian, Danish), graavilohi (Finnish), graavilõhe (Estonian), graflax (Icelandic) is a Nordic dish consisting of raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar, and dill. Gravlax is usually served as an appetizer, sliced thinly and accompanied by hovmästarsås (literally steward sauce, also known as gravlaxsås), a dill and mustard sauce, either on bread of some kind, or with boiled potatoes (from wikipedia).

During the Middle Ages, gravlax was made by fishermen, who salted the salmon and lightly fermented it by burying it in the sand above the high-tide line. The word gravlax comes from the Scandinavian word grav, which literally means grave (in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish), and lax (or laks), which means salmon, thus gravlax means buried salmon.
Today fermentation is no longer used in the production process. Instead the salmon is buried in a dry marinade of salt, sugar, and dill, and cured for a few days. As the salmon cures, by the action of osmosis, the moisture turns the dry cure into a highly concentrated brine, which can be used in Scandinavian cooking as part of a sauce. This same method of curing can be used for any fatty fish, but salmon is the most common.

You need:

two fillets of fresh salmon with skin *
mixture of salt and sugar (2/3 and 1/3)
fresh dill
pink peppercorns

Put a parchment paper in a baking dish and sprinkle half of the mix salt/sugar.
Check out that any bones have been removed, in case a tweezer might fit.
Lay a fillet with the part of the skin in contact with the mixture of salt/sugar.
Sprinkle with dill and pink peppercorns and then place over the other fillet, flesh against flesh.
Cover with the mixture of salt/sugar left and pack properly. Store in the refrigerator, turning the package into the pan every day (a weight on top of the package might help to improve the marinate).

 

Once you have the desired marinate (usually 3 days), open the package and remove salt, sugar, peppercorns and dill and store the salmon in an airtight container (will be good for about a week).
Serve the salmon sliced or roughly chopped, accompanied by toast and butter or a dill sauce or boiled potatoes.

Dill Sauce (hovmästarsås): 2 tablespoons sweet mustard, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar cane, 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, 1 teaspoon finely chopped dill, lemon juice . Mix ingredients together, dosing the lemon juice as needed.

Black Rice Sea Salad ... in a fresh melon bowl

This month's challenge for the Creative Cooking Crew was Stuff it!

I'm still a newbie in this group, joined for the first time last month, but I really like so much the idea of a same theme for everybody and then see and virtually taste so many different performances about it ... cooking fantasy is definetely so wide and various!
Still a few days to post your dish (till July, 26th) and send link and picture to Joan, the round-up will be going live on July, 29th.

Small ripe sweet orange melons can be a fresh ingredient for an unusual sea salad, and the shell of the fruit an unusual but lovely fresh bowl to stuff!

You need:


black rice or wild red rice
melons, small and ripe
squids
shrimps
one or two scampi head
clams
garlic/parsley/pepper
fresh basil
fresh wild fennel
extra virgin olive oil
salt
files
white wine
carrots
corn grains
red or yellow bell peppers

- Boil the rice in plenty of lightly salted water for about 20 minutes or until cooked (I also had a handful of wild rice to give up and mixed with the black rice, but boiled in two different pots), drain, drizzle with a little oil and set aside. Rice can be cooked a day in advance as I did, just store in refrigerator (once cooled) in an airtight container.
- Halve the melon, remove seeds and take the pulp off, digging with care (for a more spectacular touch dig into many little balls with the appropriate tool). Spray a few drops of lime or lemon inside the shell of the melon and put it upside down on a plate to drain. Cut the flesh into small cubes and set aside.
- Rinse the shrimps, clean and wash the squids, making sure to remove  the entrails, eyes and the transparent bone and cut into rings (leave tentacles as they are).
In a pan heat a little oil, add squids and shrimps and cook on a low flame. Season with salt, sprinkle with just a  little of white wine and cook a few minutes, depending on quantity. Season with chopped basil and fennel and set aside.
- Peel the carrots and cut into small cubes, boil in lightly salted water, drain and set aside.
- Dice the pepper in cubes and boil in lightly salted water or fry in a pan with a little oil. Drain and set aside.
- Clams: put the clams to purge for a few hours in a bowl with cold water and a bit of salt. Change the water even 2/3 times, until the clams no longer leave the sand.
In a pan put a little oil, two cloves of garlic, chopped if you like, a little chili (optional), a tablespoon of chopped parsley and fry for a minute, then add the clams and sautée over high heat for a minute. Pour a dash of white wine, cover with the lid and cook 7/8 minutes until the clams are all open. Every now and then shake the pan so that all the clams take heat evenly. Do not add salt.
- Prawns: wash the prawns and cut with the scissors in the middle of the carapace along the lower side (the belly :-) so it will be easier then to be shelled. In a pan put a little oil and prawns, cook over high heat a minute or two on each side, with a lid.
- Prepare an emulsion with extra virgin olive oil and lime juice.
- Combine in a bowl rice, vegetables, squids and shrimps (without any cooking sauce). If the rice is cold from the fridge (as in my case), just warm it up a minute along with the vegetables in the pan. Then add the melon and drizzle with the oil emulsion and lime.
- Dry the inside shell of melons with paper towels, fill with the rice salad, arrange on a serving plate and garnish with clams and prawns.

Summer Red Passion - Strawberry and Tomato Salad for Creative Cooking Crew

For the first time I am joining a new cooking group on FB my dear friend Joan gently invited to.
This month's challenge for the Creative Cooking Crew was to create a complete dish with only one color.
Well, we are in Summer, the Queen season for choice of colored food with such a large variety to get your favorite!
And I straight went for red, red like passion, passion to food, to love, to life.

This is an unusual salad, but fresh and inviting, very special and quite an almost pungent flavor for the presence of garlic and chili. However, better not to abuse of, as the freshness of tomato and strawberry are the genuine flavors to be enhanced.

Ideal for a cold bruschetta or with your Sunday BBQ.

Ingredients:

 ripe strawberries

ripe cherry/datterini tomatoes

(or red round tomatoes)

lime

fresh chilli 

garlic

coriander or parsley

(or basil)

extra virgin olive oil

salt

If you use round tomatoes, blanch in boiling water, then put immediately in cold water, peel, cut into wedges and remove seeds.

For cherry/datterini tomatoes  simply cut them in half after they have been washed and dried.

Gently wash strawberries and cut into halves, or slice if they are big.

Finely chop the chilli (unseeded) with garlic and coriander/parsley leaves.

Combine everything in a bowl, season with lime juice, olive oil and salt.

Let the salad rest in the refrigerator, covered with foil, for a couple of hours to get amalgamated. 

Then serve with toasted bread.

My coriander plant was blooming and I had some tiny white flowers to garnish the salad.