Red Marmite with Orach, Lovage & Wild Garlic

I have started paying heed to the weather forecast, constantly hoping that "next week will be better". There is nothing wrong in hoping, but lately the sun has been playing hide and seek with me. In the meantime, I am making the most of what I can (feebly) call a spring: everything is brand new, green, and fresh.

Anyway, this is my first spring in three years. Saudi Arabia doesn't have a spring in European terms, strictly speaking. March/April marks the sandstorm season, with sudden showers, and temperature is quite high at this time of year. I was pining for spring when I was living in Riyadh. 

So I am still eagerly waiting for the perfect spring to come. I love the (normally) mild weather of April with its sunny days, when happy kids ride their bikes in the park, and beautiful cherry trees are in bloom.

As you know by now, my beloved blog is bursting at the seams with these wonderful seasonal plants: wild garlic (ramson), parsley, nettle, spinach, orach, spring onions... Mixed and combined, they offer an explosion of tastes and textures. Over the weekend I was made to drool over a traditional Romanian soup that I stumbled upon in foodie.ro. I discovered a Transylvanian Orach Broth, soured with vinegar. And so I went down memory lane and suddenly remembered my mother's Orach soup with cream. Oh, memories! Funnily enough, as I was making my own marmite, my mother called me to ask us over for dinner. She was making orach soup as well :)

 Marmite with Orach, Lovage, Wild Garlic and Beef Cubes

a big piece of beef bone with some meat on it (to make the stock)

1 carrot

2 small red onions

..........................................

2 small bunches of orach

2 bunches of ramson (wild garlic)

1 small bunch of lovage

1 small tomato (diced) or 2 tsb of diced canned tomato

1 extra cube of beef stock (optional) or salt

the juice of 1/4 of a lemon 

Type of cuisine: (new) Romanian

Preparation time: 2 hours (blame it on the beef stock)

Difficulty: easy

Preparation

To make the stock, boil the bone for at least 1 hr 45 mins. Drain and discard the veggies. By now they should have become a mush. Scoop the lean meat off the bone and cut it in small cubes. 

Wash the orach, lovage and wild garlic. For nice layers, chop the wild garlic Asian style, tear the orach leaves off their stem leaf by leaf, and cut the lovage finely. (Lovage is vaguely similar to parsley, but has a distinctive taste.)

          tomato, beef & spring yummies

Method

Once you drain the soup in a separate pot, work on your marmite. Add the beef cubes and the diced tomato, season with salt or, for a richer taste, a cube of beef stock. Work in the orach, lovage and wild garlic and let simmer for 10 minutes before serving. Sour the soup with some lemon juice. 

The combination of lovage and lemon juice is a killer :) - it wowed me and Mike, who thought at first that he was tasting miso. 

The orach will turn the soup dark pink bordering on crimson. It's a delicious and appetizing colour.

In Romania people make orach borscht with single cream. My version is much lighter so I didn't pour it over the simmering marmite. 

It was such a great dish that I hope that tomorrow when I go to the farmer's market, I'll be able to find more lovage and ramson, and that their season isn't over. (Isn't spring wonderful?)

                                                                                                                          xoxo

beautiful cherry tree in bloom

Cheat's Maultaschen

It's been more than two weeks since I posted anything. I have been down with a bad cold :( and I couldn't focus on cooking nor on taking photos. It seemed as if time flew, but how many things have happened in that space of time: a merciless earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan and a war in Libya. 

On a brighter note, spring has finally arrived, so, with new-found strength, I went to the market and bought a bagful of spinach, orach, ramson, celendine, radishes, spring onions, parsley, and beetroot. Isn't spring wonderful? Yesterday, I made a delicious spinach and ramson salad with oranges and toasted nuts, which I'll post here some time soon. 

I have been thinking about Maultaschen for a while (yes, I miss Germany), but since my baking skills are pretty bad at the moment and the dough didn't come out as smooth as I wanted, I decided that I had to cheat with my Maultaschen! Hmmm.... 

Maultaschen is a traditional Swabian dish which is similar to Italian ravioli or Chinese dumplings. It consists of dough pockets filled with minced beef and spinach. I first had Maultaschen in Stuttgart three years ago and I love it so much that I just can't imagine visiting Bavaria and not having this exquisite dish, cooked either in a clear broth or with steamed cabbage.

Cheat's Maultaschen with Beef Cubes and Fresh Baby Spinach

Type of cuisine: German/European


Cooking time: 2 hours (1.45 h for the beef stock, 15 minutes to put everything together)

For the beef  soup, you will need

2 beef bones with some meat on them

1 carrot

2 small onions

1 small cube of beef stock (for extra flavour) - optional

2 spoons of tomato paste

1 small diced tomato

a pinch of nutmeg

20 spinach leaves (the smallest in the bunch- they are sweeter)

1 small packet of fresh tortellini or ravioli (250 gr)

Method

Boil the bones, the carrot and the onions in 2 liters of water for at least 1 hour 45 mins. Drain the soup into another pot. Discard the carrot and the onions, as well as the bones. If the bones have some meat on them, scoop and cut it into small cubes, and put them back in the soup. Add a small beef stock cube for extra beef taste, the tomato paste, the diced tomato and the nutmeg.

Open the packet of tortellini and boil the pasta in the beef soup. Cut the spinach leaves lengthwise and boil them with the tortellini for 5 minutes before you serve the dish. 

tortellini filled with ricotta and spinach and small beef cubes

Even though it wasn't the real thing (no ready-made pasta can compare to home-made pasta), the beef soup and the fresh spinach certainly make up for this. I loved the rich taste of beef zest, the small bits of tender meat and the baby spinach that brought the sunshine and the spring onto my plate.

People who know me know that Germany is one of my favourite countries in Europe. What a great people! I love German hospitality and the wonderful German specialities: the cakes, the bread, the soups and the earthy dishes.

shopping street in Reutlingen, BW

downtown Stuttgart

a small hidden restaurant, pour les connaisseurs :)

Maultaschen in a tiny family-run restaurant in Filderstadt, BW

Ginger up! Spiced Cauliflower Soup

Lunch time today comes with a velvety spiced cauliflower soup. It's the easiest thing in the world to make when you are hungry, as it cooks so quickly. 30 busy minutes in the kitchen are over and it's time to call your family for lunch :)


Type of cuisine: Indian/Vegetarian
Mildly hot
Cooking time: 30 minutes


Oh, I never liked cauliflower :( ....until I discovered Indian cuisine. One day, I came across and fell in love with Aloo Gobi (an enchanting mix of cauliflower and potatoes with selected spices). 
The other day I had a fresh cauliflower in my fridge and going through the options, I made up my mind to turn in into a soup.


A hot soup with spices and pungent flavours is best recommended on cold, gloomy winter days.

The spices

2 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger root

2 tablespoons of turmeric

2 tablespoons of cumin seeds (use them for decoration at the end)

1 tablespoon of (yellow) mustard seeds

2 tablespoons of coriander seeds (keep some to use for decoration at the end)

1 tablespoon of onion seeds

You will also need

a cauliflower head (fresh)

chicken or vegetable stock

single cream or yoghurt (I use single cream)

a small onion

Preparation

Break the cauliflower into florets and boil them for 15-20 minutes. Drain (but keep some of the water)

Method

In a pot fry the onion and the spices (ginger root, cumin, mustard, coriander and onion seeds) and cover- they will pop and splatter your cooker with hot oil! (And you could get burned as well).

Pour the water in which the cauliflower has boiled in over the spices and mix.

Add the cauliflower and use a vertical blender to puree the soup.  

In a small bowl, take some soup from the pot and dissolve a chicken/vegetable stock in it.  Add to the soup and let it simmer. 

Work in the cream/yoghurt and add the turmeric.  

To serve use the some cumin, coriander or onion seeds to decorate. 

The result should be light, creamy and very tasty. 

The ginger is the base of this delightful soup and it will give it a mild spicy flavour.  

As I can't handle hot chilly too well, most of my Indian dishes tend to be mild. This dish will surprise you with its edginess, given by the fresh ginger root. Don't substitute it for dry powder ginger from the supermarket. It will ruin your soup. Store the ginger in a cold place. It will keep well in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

From the Land of Milk and Butter: Brussels Sprouts Soup

I would like to start today's entry with Once upon a time... but I won't because there is no conflict in this story, nor a witch, nor a step mother to come, to meddle and ruin this culinary relish that is relatively easy to make and will definitely bring a smile to your face.

When I say "relatively easy", I mean you will have to cook slowly and be patient.  You'll see why.

Type of cuisine: French w Indian spices/Fusion

Time: 40 minutes

Availability of ingredients: it is recommended that you use fresh brussels sprouts, though, if you are stuck, you can use frozen sprouts :(

this soup is great accompanied by Dijon mustard on fresh baguette 

What you need to tick before starting 

400 gr of brussels sprouts (approximately 20 heads)

4 small potatoes

750 ml of milk

250 ml of water

butter (just a knob)

4 cloves of garlic

1 small onion

cumin

turmeric/saffron

1 cube of chicken stock

onion seeds (for decoration)

Preparation

Melt the butter, dice the onion and crush the garlic. Fry them lightly in the butter. Add the cumin seeds.

Pour the milk and mix slowly. Set aside. 

Boil the brussels sprouts for 5 minutes in a cup of water (250 ml).

Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes. Drain. 

Method

Pour the water you used to boil the brussels sprouts into the milk and butter soup. Dissolve the chicken stock and add the brussels sprouts.  Use the vertical blender to bring the sprouts to a silky consistency.

Mash the potatoes very finely and carefully. DO NOT USE THE FOOD PROCESSOR to puree them. It will break the molecules and it will make the mash gluey (arghhh...)

Add the potato mash to the soup. Add the saffron or the turmeric and another pinch of cumin seeds (if you like). Stir over heat until hot. 

To decorate, before serving, sprinkle some onion seeds. I also used some leaves which I had peeled and boiled for a couple of minutes, then placed them in iced water (to stop the cooking process and help them retain the colour).  

My opinion

This soup is absolutely wonderful when it's cold and you are snowed under. The potatoes will make the soup smooth, the milk and the butter will give it the tenderness of silk, while the brussels sprouts will colour it in the delicate hue of raw pistachios. 

Potage St. Germain with Strips of Chicken Marinated in Garlic & Coriander

It is a well known fact that, when under the weather, you feed a cold and you starve a fever. And rightly so, at least as far as feeding a cold is concerned. When it's cold outside and you have a cold, there is nothing better than a velvety chicken soup to tickle your sore throat and warm you up. 

Type of cuisine: French/European

Difficulty: easy peasy

Time: 10 minutes preparation time and 30 minutes cooking time

Traditionally, Potage St. Germain is made with the first fresh peas and lettuce of the season. Therefore, it heralds spring.  The site www.mahalo.com traces the history of this potage back to the time of Charlemagne, le roi des Francs.

"Charlemagne is credited with first bringing peas to France, but they were usually eaten dried. It was the Italians in the 14th century [...] who first grew “piselli novi”, “new little peas”, that were eaten fresh rather than dried. When Catherine de Medici married Henry II of France in 1533, fresh peas were [...] brought [...] to his court. [...] Within her lifetime France became known for “petit pois”. It wasn't long before someone thought of substituting the new green peas for the dried ones, and Potage St. Germain was born."

my version of Potage St. Germain

Since it was right after NYE and I hadn't seen the inside of a supermarket for a week or so, I made this soup with what I found in the cupboard/fridge/freezer. 

Here we go.

From the cupboard: garlic, onions, coriander, a handful of green lentils, a cube of chicken stock. 

From the fridge: 2 carrots, 1 pepper, a celery root (just a slice, for the flavour), parsley, and some cream

From the freezer: frozen peas and chicken breast (you'll only need a half)

Method

Fillet the chicken in very thin slices, Asian style. In a mortar and pestle crush the coriander seeds and the garlic. Mix and let it rest.

If there are any fatty bits, remove them and boil with more 2 slices of chicken breast to make your own chicken stock. Add the parsley for more flavour. 

Fill a pot with water and boil the vegetables.

When the vegetables are soft, remove them. Keep the peas. Sift the vegetable soup in a different pot. Add the natural chicken stock and dissolve the cube in this thin, clear broth. (Yes, the taste will be divine)

Mash half of the peas with the vertical blender or in the food processor. The rest of the peas will be added towards the end.

Now it's time to add the chicken to cook for 15 minutes or so. Add the mashed peas (and mix slowly) and then the rest of the peas. 

Before serving, add a spoon of single cream to make the soup smoother and softer.

chicken, green lentils, sweet peas

Mop it with a fresh baguette. And a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice will certainly chase the cold away. 

As a matter of fact, according to www.dukehealth.org, the expression "feed a cold, starve a fever is one of the many pearls of wisdom passed down through the ages by our well-intentioned but unscientific mothers." [...] "The rationale behind “feed a cold, starve a fever” may have been that eating food and drinking tonic helped the body generate warmth during a cold, while laying off the calories helped temper the inner heat during a fever."

chicken islets floating in a green sea

No matter where the truth lies, somewhere between myth and truth, there is no denying that this traditional French sweet soup is good both for the body and the soul.