Asia thinks things

 Here I present another dish for the Irving competition. Telling the truth, when I first heard about it, a single recipe couldn’t come to my mind. I thought of jellies or ice creams that I may make using tea but not about the real dishes. The longer I thought, the more ideas started coming into my mind. First the muffins with wild strawberries and vanilla tea and today the salmon with citrus-ginger marinade.

For that marinade I used the Irving tea that I knew before, which is citrus with a hint of ginger. It is really good and perfect for a rainy day like the one that we have today in Poland :)

Ingredients for 2:

0,5 kg of salmon fillet

Irving tea cocktails Citrus with a hint of ginger about 0,5 cup

3/4 of lemon + lemon peel

0,5 teaspoon of peeled ginger

salt and pepper

How to make it?

We begin with a marinade. We make some tea and put it into fridge to cool down. Peel lemon and press some juice.

Add tea and peeled ginger. Pour it over salmon, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put into the fridge for about 1 hour.

After that time we begin the frying part. The best dishes need time, so to make a real good salmon you need to fry it for about 15 minutes.

The instructions how to do it best you will find here: http://www.ehow.com/how_4575666_fry-salmon-properly.html

I served my salmon with potato and bean salad, but that recipe I will keep for the next post :) Easy right? Now! Keep your fingers crossed! :)

Thank you!

Stawberries!!!!!!!!

They made us wait so long for them. I couldn’t wait to go to the market square and see them for the first day in almost a year! And today was the day. I was wandering along the market, looking for an inspiration for a recipe that I’m gonna use for a competition organized by Irving tea on one of Polish Cooking Bloggers Society.

And I saw them!

They were saying “buy me”, so I bought.

A kilo.

I had two options. Either to eat them all and probably die or make something of them. So I decided to bake muffins and try to make them adding some tea. They were delicious!

Ingredients:

0,5 kg of fresh strawberries

100 ml of Irving tea cocktails Wild strawberries with a hint of vanilla

110 g of butter

1 egg

2 teaspoons of baking powder

150 g of brown sugar

220g of all purpose flour

120 ml milk

pinch of salt

How to make it?

Make tea and leave it somewhere cold to cool.

In the meantime mix butter with sugar until creamy. Add an egg. In another bowl mix flour with baking powder and salt.

Add flour mixture, milk and tea alternatly to butter mixture.

Remember than muffins DO NOT like overmixing.

Pour 2 spoons of batter into muffin pans and and diced strawberries. Pour one more spoon of batter and decorate with some strawberries.

Put into the oven preheated to 180ºC for 20-25 min. Serve with tea :)

Dishes with barley are usually boring and don’t make you hungry. Probably you would never make a barley dish for a dinner with friends, because it’s not delish, jazzy, trendy and glamour. Well, maybe you thought so, because here comes something absolutely amazing and delish and outstanding, that your friends are going to LOVE!

Orzotto. Kind of risotto, but except of rice, you use pearl barley. Interesting?

No…boring…

but add some mushrooms!

… Nooo, still boring….

pour wine?

….hmmm…ok, go on…..

and sprinkle with parmesan. OK!!! I want to eat it! Now!

Ingredients for 2:

1 glass of pearl barley

1 glass of white wine (semi/dry)

6-7 champignons

1/2 of onion

2 garlic cloves

Olive oil

Parmesan

2 l of broth

How to make it?

Begin with broth, the fastest way is to boil 2 l of water and add 1/2 of broth cube.

Pour barley into a pan and fry for a minute on olive oil. After a minute pour one ladle of broth, keep adding ladlefuls of broth stirring from time to time allowing each ladleful to be absorbed by barley before adding another one. It will take around 25 min.

In the meantime chop champignons, onion and garlic cloves.

Fry garlic with onion, add champignons and fry it for about 10 min.

When barley is almost ready to eat (al dente) add champignons, onion and garlic, pour 1 glass of wine and let it evaporate.

Serve sprinkled with fresh parmesan.

Are you hungry? :)

Today is the International Day of the Book so let’s talk a little about the books.

I  present to you my favourite collection of cookbooks. So far, I’m in possession of 5 of them, but there are a lot more and I just need to buy them, they are so great!

The collection is called Culinaria, every book describes cuisine of different countries. What you will find there are not only the recipes typical for the regions. Those books describe in precise detail food processes, traditions of production, regional specialties, food groups, etc. What is fantastic is that every chapter covers some interesting stories and beautiful images. You will learn about specific vegetables, cheese, wine, fruits or spices.

One of my favourite is Culinaria Italy, maybe it is because I simply love that country, cuisine, people, language and one day I really wish to buy a house in Toscany and have my own vineyard :)

In Culinaria Italy there are 8 pages where you can learn all about pasta. I discovered that there are so many different kinds of pasta I have never even seen in my life. Did you know that there are 5 different kinds of penne? After learning about pasta you should know what are the best cheese graters – which is another thing you will know when you read that book.

Of course there is also a chapter concerning grappa, and after reading it you will know what real grappa is all about and Caffè corretto will become your favourite ;).

Culinaria are for sure one of the most heavy cookbooks but hello, there are not many books that cover all of the regions of specific countries.

I recommend it to you, whether you like cooking or not. There are so many interesting stories and facts that to me, it is worth reading it before going abroad for vacation. They don’t describe just the most common dishes of facts, but also some that are very surprising.

I hope that I convinced you and the next time you will step into a bookshop you will take a look on one of these books.

What are your favourite (cook)books that you can think of on that very special Day?

Banana smoothie! Yummm!

Delicious breakfast, after having it with croissant, you don’t need to eat anymore for at least 6 hours. Why not trying it for Sunday breakfast?

You can make it with soya or regular milk. 5 minutes and voila!

Ingredients for 2 glasses:

2 bananas

400 ml of milk (regular or soya)

2 tablespoons of yoghurt

1 tablespoon of honey

Blend everything together and serve with fresh croissants!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Recently my friend Asia asked me for the recipe for muffins. Here it comes!

Since there are still no raspberries or berries, I used frozen ones.

Before you make your muffins remember:

1) muffin batter does not like overmixing, so just combine all the ingredients.

2) when you use frozen fruits, do not let them thaw because than your batter will change color from brownish into bluish (what happened with mine ;)) )

Ingredients

150 g of berries

150 g of chopped raspberries

100 g of white chocolate (chopped or use chocolate chips)

250 g of all purpose flour

125 ml of grape oil

3 teaspoons of baking powder

1 egg

250 ml of milk

100 g of cane sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

pinch of salt

How to make it?

Mix dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and chocolate chips.

In another bowl combine (whisk gently) wet ingredients: milk, egg, oil, lemon juice.

Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients, add berries.

Fill 3/4 of each muffin tin with the batter.

Bake for about 20-25 min in the oven preheated to 180° C.

And that’s about it :)

Bon appetit!

Broccoli flan – I love the name of that dish, flan sounds so French and dignified. I always thought that flan is reserved for the world’s best chefs and not for regular people walking down the streets. Lately I discovered that making it is not that hard at all. That’s why I decided to change into a Michelin star Chef and make it myself :). It turned out excellent and had wonderful green color thanks to broccoli.

You can have it for lunch, serve as and appetizer or as a side dish.

Ingredients:

1 medium broccoli

1 white onion

3 eggs

3 tablespoons of sour cream (12%)

fresh salt and pepper

curcuma

nutmeg

How to make it?

Cut broccoli and onion into pieces and boil. Broccoli florets should be taken out after 3-4 minutes, onion and the rest of broccoli should be boiled for about 10 minutes (until soft).

In the meantime separate egg yolks from egg whites. Beat egg whites. Mix egg yolks with sour cream, salt and pepper.

Take broccoli and onion out of water and blend it, cool it down.

When the vegetable mixture gets cold, mix it with egg yolks/sour cream mixture, add whipped egg whites, curcuma and nutmeg and mix until smooth. Curcuma gives the flan beautiful green color.

Pour it into a bread pan and bake in the oven preheated to 180°C for about 20-25 minutes.

As you can see, making flan is pretty easy and you can make it for your friends and amaze them with something unusual. How do you like that idea?

Great recipe of banana bread by my cousin Agnieszka, made by my Mom.

It contains eco oat flakes, spelt flour, it’s sweet though it doesn’t contain much sugar.

Perfect as spring snack for those who want to be eco, healthy, slim and sexy ;)

Ingredients:

3 bananas

160 g of eco spelt flour

40 g of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

3 teaspoons of vegetable oil

2 eggs

130 g of eco oat flakes

How to make it?

Beat egg whites

Cut bananas into pieces

Mix flour with oat flakes, sugar, cinnamon, salt, egg yolks and oil.

Add bananas.

Finally pour whisked egg whites and mix everything together.

Put it into the oven preheated to 180° C and bake for 45-50 min.

I hope you like it! If you have your own recipe share it with me.

Bon appetit!

Last weekend at the Polish seaside, in Gdynia, I stepped into a small smokehouse where an old fisherman was smoking fresh fish. Because it was around 2 p.m. the only fish he got was smoked salmon. I could buy either a salmon fillet or salmon belly which I never tried. I asked him which one is better and he asked “Are you on a diet?”, I said “Not on that weekend”. He said that that’s good because salmon’s belly is extremely fat but therefore it contains loads of Omega 3. So I bought it, and today I made a salad. Really good one.

Ingredients:

300 g of smoked salmon

1 grapefruit

1 avocado

3 handfuls of lamb’s lettuce or rocket

1/2 teaspoon of dried grated ginger

1/2 of lemon

pinch of salt and pepper

Mix lamb’s lettuce with salmon, grapefruit (peeled and cut), avocado (peeled and sliced) and ginger. Season with salt and pepper. Add some lemon juice as much as you want (to me, lemon juice out of less than a half of lemon is enough).

Serve with fresh bread.

Bon appetit!

Asia

Spring has come so we need some low fat recipes to get back into beach shape.

Here comes something sweet and delicious and …….. low fat and……HEALTHY! yes! :)

Ingredients for 4 glasses:

500 ml of low fat yogurt (can be regular as well)
2 teaspoons of cane sugar

4 tablespoons of mango juice (you may as well use maracuia  or other tropical fruit juice)

8 ladyfingers (biscuits)

150 g of blackberries (you can use as well raspberries or strawberries)

2 tablespoons of toasted almond flakes

How to make it?

Take a bowl, pour yogurt, add sugar and mango juice and mix it well.

Prepare four glasses.

Layer: 1/3 glass of yogurt mixture, biscuits, blackberries, repeat.

In the end pour the rest of yogurt mix.

Decorate it with some blackberries and toasted almond flakes.

Put it in the fridge for one hour.

Bon appetit!

Asia