Can't Get Enough of Cream Soups...
20 January 2010
I am totally into cream soups at the moment. It is cold and wintery outside, and my stomach longs for something tasty, creamy, hot, but rather light. The key is to use lots of fresh vegetables and cook them in relatively little water. When you blend it, the soup will get really creamy all by itself, without any need to add lots of heavy cream to get the texture right. Not only will this make the soup lighter, but also more concentrated in taste…
Though they're handy to make those cream soups take a little time to cook – maybe some 30-45 minutes, depending on the vegetable - and when I come home from work rather late in the evening I don't necessarily want to wait for that long. So last week I tried out pre-cooking a pot of thick and tasty zucchini and lemon grass cream soup on Sunday, so I just needed to warm it up the following days. To vary, I added an egg to the soup on one evening (lovely combination, very recommendable!); another evening I felt like having something more solid to bite, so I cooked some soba noodles to dip into the soup; and on the third evening I used the rest of the soup as the basis for a quickly-made mushroom sauce.
Although I’d had it several days in a row, I was not at all fed up with the soup at the end of the week; in fact I was rather sad it was all gone. This is definitely a concept I will follow during the weeks to come to make it through the "soupy weather"… I already have plenty of combinations in mind: kohlrabi-carrot-ginger, broccoli-saffron,… More to come!
Zucchini & Lemon Grass Cream Soup
| serves 4 |
| 4 courgettes (zucchini) |
| 1/2 stick of lemon grass |
| 500-600ml concentrated vegetable soup stock out of organic stock cubes |
| 1 teaspoon of red Thai curry |
| garlic powder to taste |
| 1 tablespoon of crème fraîche |
| some olive oil |
| soy sauce to taste, if necessary |
| optional: 4 eggs |
Coursely slice the courgettes and salt very slightly. Once they have softened, sweat gently with a little bit of olive oil in a soup pot. Finely chop the lemon grass and add to the pot, along with a generous teaspoon of red Thai curry powder as well as some garlic powder, and stir.
Pour over the vegetable stock, cover with a lid and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
When the courgettes are boiled really soft, blend everything in a food processor. Pass back into the soup pot, bring to a light simmer again and season to taste with some more garlic powder and a dash of soy sauce, if you like. Finally stir in a tablespoon of crème fraîche to refine.
Optionally you can add an egg for each person to the soup: Open the eggs gently so the yolks don’t burst, and drop the inside into the simmering soup. Let simmer until the white solidifies but the yolks stay liquid. When serving, make sure one entire egg lands in each person’s bowl. Eat immediately before the yolks get solid!
Christmas Rabbit, Exotic Style
27 December 2009
Just a quick note in the midst of our busy Christmas and New Year travel schedule. After visits to my parents in Austria and Simon’s parents in Switzerland we’re back in Munich today for a brief stopover before leaving again tomorrow, this time to Spain, where we’ll spend New Year with a bunch of friends, followed by a week of skiing in Lech, Austria, in early January.
This little gap today is indeed the first opportunity for me to post this recipe I cooked a few weeks ago, when Simon and I celebrated our private little mini-pre-Christmas before all the travelling started. It was a lovely piece of rabbit rack, which I prepared in a somewhat exotic manner, seasoned with ginger, soy and curry, in the style of a dish we had in San Francisco during our California tour last summer. The dish at the "Slanted Door" was cooked with chicken, and the idea of trying something similar with rabbit had been on my mind ever since.
Funnily, the waiter in San Francisco recommended us a German Riesling Spätlese wine called "J2" to go with our food, which, though we are usually no big fans of such sweetish-fruity flavours, we deemed an ideal match for this exoticly-spiced dish. In fact we enjoyed it so much that back in Germany we went to visit winery (which by the way is run by a really nice young and innovative couple) and bought a few bottles. We still found it a really good combination when we opened the first bottle at the occasion of this dinner.
Enough random talk – I have to finish packing now for Spain.
Happy New Year!
Ginger & Curry Spiced Rabbit Rack
| serves 6 |
| 4 filets from rack of rabbit (about 600g) |
for the marinade: |
| 1 teaspoon curry powder (medium spicy) |
| 3 dents of garlic, mashed |
| 5-6 tablespoons soy sauce |
| 1 tablespoon honey |
| 3-4 laurel leaves |
| about 10 juniper berries |
for the stew: |
| 80ml soy sauce |
| 150ml mirin |
| 150ml white wine |
| 2 teaspoons honey |
| 4-5cm of an average-sized ginger root |
| 1 stick of lemon grass |
| 3-4 teaspoons curry powder (medium spicy) |
| 2 carrots |
| 1 parsley root |
| 2 red peppers |
| some fresh basil |
to go with: |
| basmati rice |
Chop the rack of rabbit into bits of about 3 cm and place in a bowl. Season with a teaspoon of curry powder and 3 mashed dents of garlic and rub well into the meat. Combine the about 5-6 tablespoons of soy sauce with 2 tablespoons of honey and stir well until the honey has dissolved. Use to marinate the rabbit, and add about 10 juniper berries as well as 4 laurel leaves. Mix well, close the bowl with a lid and let rest in the fridge for at least a few hours.
In a saucepan, heat some oil. When hot, briefly sear the marinated rabbit while stirring heavily so the pieces get evenly browned. When golden, remove the rabbit from the pan and set aside.
Lower the heat and add the soy sauce, the mirin, the white wine and the honey to the pan you seared the rabbit in, and bring to a boil. Peel the ginger root and slice it as finely as possible. Slice the lemon grass just as finely and add both to the juice. Cover with a lid and let simmer for about 10-15 minutes.
Peel and slice the carrots and the parsley root and add to the sauce together with the marinated rabbit. Season with some medium-spicy curry powder, close the lid again and let simmer. Chop the red peppers and add after about 10 minutes to balance the cooking times. Let simmer with closed lid for another 15 minutes. Finish with some fresh basil and enjoy with basmati rice.
In Search of a Tomato Salad Substitute
09 December 2009
My first week and a half back at work after my looong break has passed in a blink of an eye. I’ve been busy since day 1 (which is good), I have interesting projects, my old as well as new colleagues are really nice, so I have no reason to complain.
But now that I spend 3 days a week at the office again my eating rhythm needs to change. Before I would usually skip lunch but have a biiig muesli for breakfast and warm dinner in the evening. Back at work I usually have lunch with my colleagues; as we are a small company there is no big canteen, but even better, we have a lovely lady cooking juicy risottos or yummy pasta for us in the office kitchen.
So having had warm lunch, which is always tasty but often carb-loaded, I usually feel like having something rather small and light in the evening (not that I have anything against carbs, but I can get enough of them). My beloved tomato salad would be the ideal choice, but to my deep regret, I have recently discovered that the raw vegetables and the sour sauce (and I like it really sour…) tend to make my stomach rumble at night, keeping me awake.
Last week I went about my search for a suitable substitute, which I soon discovered. The new dish needed to fulfill a number of criteria – it should be light, quick to prepare, not entirely raw, not overly sour, remind me of a salad but not actually be one.
So I briefly simmered/steamed some courgettes and aubergines to make them soft, and then added some tomatoes for the "salad factor"; mixing the cold tomatoes into the hot vegetables they became luke-warm, without entirely losing their shape. For the dressing I used some fine cold-pressed olive oil, and I found a slightly decadent solution to the acidity issue, by taking some aged, mild, reserve balsamic vinegar instead of the usual one. Whereas I actually prefer the younger, sourer version for a proper tomato salad, on steamed vegetables reserve balsamic vinegar is just loveley…
No doubt this (or slightly varying versions of it) will become my new quick & easy mini-dinner dish. A worthy replacement, indeed…
Luke-Warm Tomato, Courgette & Aubergine Salad
| quantities to your liking |
| courgette(s) |
| aubergine(s) |
| tomatoes (about the same amount as courgettes and aubergines together) |
| garlic powder |
| dried thyme |
| dried basil |
| some virgin olive oil |
| some reserve balsamic vinegar |
| optional: some Dijon mustard |
| freshly ground pepper |
Slice the courgette(s) and aubergine(s) and salt. Place in a sauce pan, pour over just a little bit of water so the vegetables won’t burn, and let simmer for 5-10 minutes with the lid half-closed.
Meanwhile cut the tomatoes into bite sized-bits. Once the courgettes and aubergines are soft, turn off the heat, add the tomatoes and stir well.
Now season to taste with salt, some dried herbs such as thyme and basil, a dash of cold-pressed olive oil and some fine reserve balsamic vinager; optionally stir in a little bit of Dijon mustard, too. Finish with some freshly ground pepper and eat luke-warm!
Yet Another Use for Coconut Milk
24 November 2009
Well, this will be my last regular Tuesday post. No worries, my page will keep running, and I will of course keep updating it in reasonable intervals. But I suspect that my "old, new" work may not permit weekly posts, so I will have to find a new rhythm.
After about 2 years of abstence (hard to believe it’s been so long!), a good part of which I spent with Simon in Japan, I will return to my old job at an M&A boutique in Munich next week. Since I am determined to keep up my studies of Japanese, my figure skating practice, and, of course, foodmeetslifestyle.com, I have opted for a part time employment, working 3 out of 5 days a week (and I am indeed lucky to have an employer to agree to this!). Yet I can’t promise to post once a week, and certainly not on Tuesdays, as this will be one of my usual working days; I rather expect to settle for an about bi-weekly routine.
In any case, there will of course be regular news from me, so please do continue checking in!
Anyways, administrative blah aside, I also wanted to talk about my newest recipe this week. As you may have noticed, an ingredient I have been using quite a lot lately is coconut milk. I add it to all kind of things; it makes sauces nice and creamy, and gives them a special touch (a case in point is a tasty shiitake cream soup I prepared recently – details to follow shortly).
Why not adding it to something sweet? The coconut flavour is certainly a good match for fruits; and once I had mixed it into my apple sauce, my next thought was to spice it up with a bit of curry, which I often combine with coconut milk in savoury dishes. Not too much, just a little hint. Really lovely, especially in combination with soothing vanilla ice cream and some toasted almonds.
Spiced-Up Apple Sauce (on Vanilla Ice Cream)
| yields about 6 portions |
| 4 apples |
| juice of 1 lemon |
| 1 tablespoon of brown sugar |
| 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar (1 pack) |
| 100ml white wine |
| 1 cinnamon stick |
| 1/2 teaspoon mildish curry powder |
| some powdered ginger |
| some nutmeg |
| a pinch of salt |
| 150ml coconut milk |
to combine with |
| vanilla ice cream |
| toasted almond sticks |
Peel the apples, remove the pits and chop or slice. Dress with lemon juice.
In a saucepan, gently melt the brown sugar. When liquid, pour in the white wine; the caramelised sugar will at first solidify, but dissolve again after simmering for a while. Add the cinnamon stick, the vanilla sugar and the apples. Cover with a lid and let simmer until the apples are completely soft and almost disintegrate. Remove the cinnamon stick.
With a blender, blend the apple sauce until smooth. Season with half a teaspoon of (mildish) curry powder, a pinch of freshly ground nutmet, a pinch of salt, as well as powdered ginger to your taste. Stir in the coconut milk.
To serve, heat up again, pour over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and garnish with some toasted almond sticks.