Tuesday 20 December 2011

Roasted chicken with carrots and baroa mash

Living in a tropical country means that more exotic ingredients are available, especially fruits and vegetables. One of our favorite roots is called baroa potato, and it looks like a yellow carrot. It is different than any other vegetable and it also has a very different taste.


Ingredients

Roasted chicken:

Chicken pieces
1 garlic clove
1/2 onion
A pinch of black pepper
Herbs mix

Chop the garlic and the onion in very small pieces, and mix them with the herbs. Put the chicken inside a non-inflamable bag (prepared to go inside the oven), and add the seasoning mix. Gently, shake the bag so the mix spreads all over the chicken. Close the bag leaving as little air inside as you can, put it inside the oven and roast it for about 1h at 200 ºC. To give the chicken that beautiful golden color make a hole in the bag 10 minutes before it's done.

Baroa mash:
3 baroa potatoes
1 cup of milk
2 table spoons of butter
A pinch of salt
A pinch of black pepper

Peel off, chopp and boil the baroa potato until is soft. Remove the water and mash the potatoes with the butter and pepper. Add some milk and mix the mash with the beater heating it at low power. Add more milk until you get the consistence you want.

Notes:
If you can't find baroa potatoes use normal potatoes or some other vegetable's mash.


Saturday 10 December 2011

Saffron risotto

Risotto is Italian.
Risotto is good.
Risotto can be made of anything and it goes with almost everything.
No need for more words...


Ingredients (serves 2 people):
300g of parboiled rice
1/4 of onion
1 tablespoon of butter
100g parmesan
White wine
A pinch of saffron
A pinch of salt
Olive oil
Vegetable broth

Vegetable broth:
Chop different vegetables into big pieces (e. g. carrot, onion, leek, coriander). Leave them boiling at low power during the whole time you are cooking the risotto.

Risotto:
In a thick bottomed pan cook the onions in the olive oil for a few minutes. Add the rice and stir. Add the white wine until it almost covers the rice and leave it to evaporate. Afterwards, add the broth until it totally covers the rice. Leave it boiling at low power until it evaporates, stirring from time to time to make sure the rice doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Add the saffron and repeat this last step until the rice is cooked (18 to 20 minutes starting when you added the wine). In the end, when almost all the broth is absorbed, turn off the fire, add salt, butter and parmesan cheese.
Serve with extra parmesan on top.

Notes:
It is commonly assumed that you should never stop stirring risotto when you make it, so you extract all the amide contained in the rice. However, that's the role of the wine, and in this recipe you only need to stir from time to time.
The last step, after the fired has been killed, is important to provide some creamy texture to your risotto.


Tuna pate

This is not a gourmet recipe or what so ever, but not everyday is a gourmet day. This is a recipe I learned in a magazine many years ago. Everybody always liked this starter, so I keep doing it until today. And it is still a big hit.


Ingredients:
1 can of tuna
1/2 onion
4 crab sticks
2 spoons of mayonnaise
A pinch of black pepper

Chopp the onions and the crab sticks into very small pieces. Add these to the tuna and squash everything. Add the mayonnaise and the black pepper and mix it all together. Serve with toasts or bread.

Notes:
Get rid of your old bread and serve it toasted with the pate instead of industrialized toasts.


Wednesday 7 December 2011

Stuffed tomato

In the days we get home later we prefer to eat something smaller and lighter. The recipe of today works either as a starter or as a small snack. Eat it followed by a plate of soup, and take a rest afterwards without feeling as an elephant.


Ingredients:
1 tomato
1 carrot
1/2 leek
1/2 onion
1 egg
Cheese
Olives
Olive oil
Chinese seasoning (optional)
Oregano

Preparing the filling:
Start by boiling the egg. At the same time heat a frying pan with a few drops of olive oil, and add the carrot, the leek, and the onion chopped in small cubes. Add the seasoning and cook them slowly for about 10min. 

Stuffing:
Cut the tomato in halves and remove the seeds. Stuff the tomato with the vegetables mix, cover with cheese and add an olive. Finally, put the stuffed tomatoes in the oven until the cheese melts.

Serve with a boiled egg and with some of the vegetable mix.

Notes:
Use your favorite ingredients! It works with any kind of cheese and with different vegetables.
Use any kind of seasoning. We used chinese seasoning (that we don't know what it is made of, since everything is written in chinese) because we got it from a chinese friend.


Tagliatelle with Salmon and Spinach

Pasta is so simple and so versatile at the same time.
It is something you can cook quickly, beautifully and tastefully.
Here is a simple recipe that we really like and often cook.


Ingredients (serves 2):

250g of smoked salmon
1 bag of spinach
200ml cream
250g tagliatelle
1/2 lemon or lime
A pinch of salt

Start by cooking the tagliatelle al dente, strain it and set aside. Afterwards (or while the pasta is still boiling) put the spinach in a frying pan with only a few drops of water. Take off the pan from the fire when the spinach is done. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pasta and fire it up again using low power just so the salmon gets that beautiful pink color. Finally, squeeze the half of the lemon on top of everything.

Notes
If you can't find smoked salmon, normal raw salmon also works. However, it takes longer to cook, so it is better to use the frying pan first, and afterwards add the salmon already done to the pasta and the rest of the ingredients.


Tuesday 6 December 2011

Peach Pancakes

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In the weekends, with some extra time to spare, it feels good to prepare something different (for us anyway). Last weekend we made pancakes.


Ingredients (serves 1 hungry person):
1 cup of flower + yeast
1 cup of milk
1 egg
1 medium peach
A pinch of salt

Mix everything in a bowl, including the peach already grated. Heat a non-sticky frying pan and pour a ladle of the mix onto it. Let it cook for a couple of minutes (until you can see some bubbles on the surface), and flip it to cook on the other side as well. 
Serve warm with different fruit gems, cinnamon, honey or anything else you feel like.

Notes:
The peach can be replaced by any other fruit that you like.
If you don't have a non-sticky frying pan you can use butter so the pancakes don't stick to the pan.


Let's start...

 






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Our passion for photography,
Our passion for each other.


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