Miso Maple Salmon Recipe - this is delicious, try it!

Fresh Rice Salad

What you need (serves four people) :

- a handful (or mug) of rice, per person

- pickled red peppers (a jar), and one small, fresh red bell pepper

- parsley, ruccola, dill

- peanuts (preferably unsalted)

- sweet corn

- a handful of black olives (if you can get the ones with the kernels removed, it helps)

- some good old extra virg, vinegar, salt and pepper

Boil your rice the usual way, salting it lightly. Meanwhile, you need about 4 pieces of pickled pepper from the jar - chop them up finely, and set aside. Chop up the herbs and the fresh pepper. I should probably mention all the quantities were to taste, so everything is rather arbitrary :)) either way, prepare your ingredients (corn, peanuts, pepper etc) to taste, but make sure they won't overpower the rice. Once the rice is cooked, drain it and let it cool off a bit. Then throw it back into a bowl or pan, add the peppers, peanuts (i used a handful), corn (i added 3-4 spoons to my salad), olives and herbs. You need to dress the salad as you would a normal green salad, but you need to increase the proportion of the acid in the dressing for this one, as the rice soaks up much of the vinegar. Season the dressing to taste, then add to the salad and mix. Taste it, make sure there's a hum of vinegar in each bite, but it shouldn't be overpowering. You can probably use the seasoned vinegar inside the pickled pepper jar (if it's good quality) to make the dressing, too, or just use some of it to top up the salad if the vinegar isn't strong enough.

This, of course, is just the basic version. Feel free to add cucumber, tomatoes, really anything you fancy as long as you keep it fresh and delicious.

Enjoy!  S x

Making Lasagna

My Sunday Chicken And Pasta Curry

First of all, this is not a curry per-se. But it's a great example of what you can do with a little improvisation and ingenuity in the kitchen. I was hungry and wanted something comforting, and my mind was on mushroom and cream chicken, but I didn't have everything I needed. So I looked around the fridge and the pantry: I had pasta, chicken, some veg, and my trusty supplies of spices. So I decided to combine a little of each and make a rich, delicious yet light and comforting food. When I started to prepare the pasta and defrost the chicken, I had only a general clue as to how I was going to combine them. But as the dish progressed, it began to take shape as a personal twist on a tomato-sauce based chicken and pasta dish.
 Hope you'll enjoy it!

What you'll need:
- a pack of chicken breast
- a couple of sticks of celery
- a small white onion
- a couple of cloves of garlic
- a thumb-long piece of zucchini
- a handful of frozen vegetables (I used cauliflower, peas, green beans and carrot)
- 150-200g of penne rigate
- olive oil (a couple of tablespoons)
- one chilli (however hot you want it to be)
- half a cup of cream
- a can of tomatoes
- spices: curry powder, a bit of nutmeg, dried thyme and parsley
- salt and pepper, ofc

First off, defrost the chicken if you have to. Put a pan with water and salt on the stove, to boil the pasta. While the chicken is defrosting and the water is warming up, wash and chop the celery, the zucchini, the onion, the chilli and the garlic.
Once the chicken is defrosted, and the veggies are chopped, the water should be boiling. Add the pasta and cook for a bit shorter than the package instructions (i cooked mine 6 minutes instead of 8). Put another large frying pan or non-stick pan on the stove and let it heat up. Add oil when it's nice and hot.
Meanwhile, halve the chicken breast and then cut each piece diagonally, in piece about a finger in thickness. Season the chicken with sea salt and pepper. Put the veg in the pan, stir for about a minute, then add the chicken pieces and mix and turn them until the meat is white on all sides. Stir frequently.
By this time the pasta should be cooked. Drain it very quickly and add it to the pan, then add the handful of frozen veg. Stir for 20 seconds.
Next step, add the cream, the can of tomatoes and spices (to taste; I used about 2-3 teaspoons of curry powder, a tablespoon of nutmeg, a tablespoon of dry thyme and about a handful of chopped parsley). Stir and simmer for about 5minutes, until sauce is reduced and you achieve a nice, rich thickness to it.

Serve with a nice sprinkle of fresh or dry parsley and a refreshing lemonade.

Enjoy, S X

Fantastic...

awesome spinach and ricotta cannelloni | Jamie Oliver Recipes (UK)

awesome spinach and ricotta cannelloni | Jamie Oliver Recipes (UK)

incredible sicilian aubergine stew (caponata) | Jamie Oliver Recipes (UK)

incredible sicilian aubergine stew (caponata) | Jamie Oliver Recipes (UK)

Jamie Oliver's Birthday Challenge

LINGUINE WITH LEMON, GARLIC AND THYME MUSHROOMS | Recipes | Nigella Lawson: Nigella Lawson's official site for recipes, books and latest news

LINGUINE WITH LEMON, GARLIC AND THYME MUSHROOMS | Recipes | Nigella Lawson: Nigella Lawson's official site for recipes, books and latest news

This is crazy delicious!

Rocket And Radicchio Salad

Radicchio is a bitter salad leaf (think of endives), but it can be properly prepared to balance that bitterness with sweet or flavored aromas, or salty or peppery ingredients. Whenever you have endives, or radicchio, or treviso, balance it out with balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice and mix in other herbs and salad leaves that complement the taste: crunchy iceberg, peppery ruccola, orache (french spinach), spinach leaves...
What you need to do for this basic salad is get yourself a radicchio head and quarter it, then chop it finely - just slice the radicchio quarter thinly and then wriggle the strips free. Get yourself a handful of fresh rocket (every supermarket these days has bagged rocket that stays fresh for about a week) and mix it in, together with some salty crunchy cheese like parmesan (or pecorino, my personal favorite for this recipe). Then get a jar and prepare a quick dressing for the salad: 1 part balsamic to 3 parts extra-virg. Add salt and pepper, shake, and then mix it in with the salad (just enough to coat the leaves, not to soak it).

This is of course the basic version of this salad. You can add different things to complement the radicchio and rocket: smoked meat such as bacon or salmon is a nice companion, but so is anything roasted or toasted. Grilled ciabata (you can even plop the salad onto a grilled piece of italian bread and turn it into a dressed radiccio crostini), pangratatta, grilled fish, grated walnut, fresh thyme... You can add other salad leaves as well (spinach, endive, iceberg, bok choi, french spinach).

Am I a food geek?

Last nite's bad dream included the shocking realization that my folks had used up most of my extra-virg olive oil.

Cauliflower Risotto

This is an absolutely delicious recipe. It’s quite unusual, and the best thing about it is that it makes a hero of the much-underloved everyday cauliflower. If you’re down the farmers’ market, or at the supermarket, have a look around for a Romanesco cauliflower – it’s a similar size to a normal cauliflower but spiky and green. It also has a delicious flavour. The reason I love this dish is because it takes some all-time classic ingredients and puts them together in a great way. In Britain we normally eat cauliflower baked with cheese, and in Italy it is baked as a parmigiana with cream, cheese and anchovies. All these flavours are in this risotto, with the added bonus of really crunchy chilli pangrattato sprinkled on top – it gives an amazing kick.

Whiz the bread in a food processor with the anchovies, the oil from the tin and the chillies. Heat a frying pan with a splash of oil and fry the flavoured breadcrumbs, stirring and tossing constantly until golden brown.

Trim the coarse leaves off the cauliflower and cut out the stalk. Chop the nice inner part of the stalk finely. Start making your risotto bianco, adding the chopped cauliflower stalk to the pan with the onion and celery at Stage 1. Add the cauliflower florets to your pan of hot stock.

Continue to follow the basic risotto recipe, adding the stock bit by bit until the rice is half cooked. By now the cauliflower florets should be quite soft, so you can start to add them to the risotto with the stock, crushing them into the rice as you go. Continue until the rice is cooked and all the cauliflower has been added.

At Stage 4, when you add the butter and Parmesan, stir in the parsley, taste and season. Sprinkle with the anchovy pangrattato, grate some more Parmesan over the top and serve. So, so good!


From jamie's website
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/risotto/cauliflower-risotto-risotto-ai-cavolfior

A Lesson In Bruschette

Bruschetta is a lovely, lovely Italian food. It's basically grilled bread rubbed with garlic and topped with olive oil, seasoning and various other toppings, a kind of open sandwich.

What you need is some nice round, rustic style bread that is stale (fresh, moist ones won't work). If you can get Italian sourdough bread, that would be perfect. Otherwise, feel free to use any kind of stale bread - including baguettes which you can turn into crostini (similar to bruschette but they're smaller slices).

The best way to get good bruschette is to toast it, 1cm thick, on a barbecue. You can of course do it on a griddle pan at home. Once they're nice and done, with wonderful black char marks across them, take them out and rub them gently on the top side with a halved clove of garlic, then drizzle it with good quality extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt and pepper to taste.

Now, on to the topping. You can make it either very simple or lush and rich - it's up to you. You can just add chopped herbs, or tomato and basil, or vegetables (cooked or fresh), or cheese, or prosciutto, or sea food, or... There are no rules - except that you should always use fresh food.

Now, here are a few of my favorite toppings:

My Classic Tomato Bruschetta

This is, in my opinion, the basic bruschetta. This is a stepping stone to the more complicated ones and it's a good basic recipe to master. All you need is your crostini or bruschetta (crostini are smaller slices), a couple (or more, depending on how many people you serve) ripe tomatoes, fresh or dry basil - fresh works better though) and the usual other ingredients. Toast your bread and in the meantime chop the tomatoes and the basil, add them in a bowl with s&p and extra virgin double O and mix them up. If you like it more rustic, chop the tomatoes in larger pieces and scrunch them up with your hands while dressing them. Then add to the garlic-rubbed warm crostini or bruschette, and serve immediately.

Alternatively, you can also grate some parmesan or tear up some mozarella on top and pop them in the oven for a couple of minutes (or nuke em in a microwave) until the cheese melts. Top with some more basil or double O if you like it flashy. It's simple and always gets the job done. Try it for breakfast or before a comfort lunch.

Aubergine Bruschette

You're going to need the usual ingredients plus some white wine vinegar, a handful of parsley, mint, 1 clove of garlic and 2 medium firm aubergines, which you have to slice lengthwise decently thin (a few mm). Grill the aubergine slices on the griddle pan or barbecue and put them aside in a bowl until all are done. Meanwhile, grab another bowl and add the about 8 tablespoons of double O, 3 tablespoons of vinegar with the chopped parsley mint and garlic and season it with s&p. When the eggplants are done, toss them in with the dressing then divide on among your bruschetta or crostini slices. Be sure to push them into the bread with your fingers. Enjoy!

Peas, Broad Beans and Cheese Crostini 

Get yourself some fresh peas and broad beans, together with a handful of mint and mash them up in a pestle and mortar (or food processor), then add a handful of grated Parmesan or Pecorino (or any salted, sharp cheese), double O and a little lemon juice and s&p. Spoon it on your crostini and (honestly, i just do this for looks) grate some more cheese on top. Totally delicious.

Spicy Mozarella, Red Chilli and Basil Crostini

This one's easy and delicious. Tear some mozarella balls or pieces into smaller chunks, then top the crostini with them. Chop a red chilli and sprinkle it on top, add some s&p and double O. To finish it, grab some basil leaves and tear it over the crostini - or chop it up and sprinkle it. Try it x

(Sometimes i add dried oregano or grated lemon zest to flavor - you could give that a go too)

Love, S x

(some pics taken from jamie's website, btw)

Jamie Oliver - Jamie Does - Stockholm 1:4

Jamie Oliver - Jamie Does - Venice 1:4

Gennaro Contaldo making pesto

Pesto

How to Make Creamy Mushroom Soup - Cream of Mushroom Soup Recipe

My Post-d20 Refreshing Salad

This is exactly the kind of thing after a night of rolling dice and making hunger checks. This is what I used:
- iceberg lettuce, a handful of leaves clicked off the salad head, rinsed and spun to remove excess water
- half a tomato
- a thumb-sized piece of cucumber
- a handful of steamed green beans (you can get fresh or frozen)
- half a small red onion
- half a lemon
- a handful or rocket leaves (some people don't like rocket - try parsley or dill)
- salt and pepper, olive oil (i used truffle-infused olive oil for this one, but it was just an experiment)
- some left-over grilled chicken or turkey breast (or salmon)
- a teaspoon of organic horseradish mustard (or regular)

Chop up all the fresh greens (taking the customary Reflex save to avoid taking off your finger tips), and place them in a bowl. Add the diced or sliced chicken breast, season with salt and pepper, then grab your lemon half and squeeze it in. Dress with olive oil, mix it up with your hands (or use a fork if you're squeamish) then plate it up. Simply pile the steamed beans on top and sprinkle a few leaves of rocket.
Done!

Jamie on using herbs, 30-Minute Meals

Salmon Tikka with Yoghurt

Happy days!

Just got me one of these babies - a Kitchen Craft Italian Collection Deluxe Double Cutter Pasta Machine. :D
I'm so very happy about it!
Thanks to all my friends for this lovely gift. I promise i'll put it to good use soon!

Leeks are amazing

A lot of people probably don't give leeks a second chance when it comes to cooking. But they're amazing when cooked in proper ways and with the right ingredients.

Besides what Jamie suggests, I'd add my own recipe of leek-onion soup that I might do for the blog someday.

Crazy about salads

My Quick Beef&Veg Stir Fry

Hi guys

I just made a kick-ass stirfry in just under 20 minutes and it came out delicios. This is what you'll need:

- About 200g of beef sirloin (or any cut you want, really, as long as you remove the fatty bits)

- Fresh veg: a couple of spring onions, some parsley, half a green or red chilli, a bit of bell red pepper, some frozen green beans and a few slices of zucchini (I'd recommed mint or coriander, but I only had parsley). You can swap these with any veg you like, really: broccoli, peas, cauliflower, butternut squash - anything!

- Vegetable oil (olive oil isn't good for stir-frying because it will start to smoke)

- As usual, salt and pepper and spices to your liking (I used powdered ginger and nutmeg). You can replace the powdered ginger by throwing in half a julienne-cut ginger in with your veggies

- Half a lemon or a small lime

- A handful of rice (you can use basmati or plain rice)

- Soy sauce and an egg

This serves two people. First thing you need to do is to put the rice to boil in a salted pan of water.

 Cut the meat into strips then even them out in size - I had to cut the bigger pieces into thinner strips.

Chop up your veg into similarly sized chunks (note, I hadn't chopped the beans yet in this pic) - include the parsley stalks. Put your wok or thick-based non-stick pan onto your stove to 3/4 whack and let it heat up. The key to this is a very  hot pan so don't be afraid to leave it on the fire for 4-5 minutes.

 Once your rice is cooked, you'll have to drain it in a collander and refresh it with some cold water, then rest. 

 Pile your cut strips of beef onto  a plate with the chopped veg. Sprinkle with vegetable oil and add seasoning according to your taste.

Once you've mixed all these beauties up, throw them into the pan and cook while stirring frequently until the meat is cooked (it has to be browned, since it's thin it will cook faster than you probably think), and add a bit of soy sauce. Don't overcook it - you don't want stringy bits of beef everywhere.

This is what you should end up with. Set it on a plate and let it rest while you prepare to stir fry the rice. 

Throw the egg into the hot pan and stir for about 10-15 seconds like you'd be making scrambled eggs. 

 Without allowing the egg to cook yet, add the rice and a handful of parsley leaves, and stirfry for 30 seconds.

Once you've done that, add in the other stuff and after 15 seconds, squeeze in your lemon juice, then cook for another 30.

You'll end up with a beautiful, zingy dish. Enjoy!

Mozarella, chilli and lemon crostini

antipasti of mozzarella, chilli, and lemon crostini

starter | serves 4 
Heat a griddle pan until it’s really smoking hot, then griddle each slice of ciabatta for a couple of minutes on each side until they are nicely charred. 

Cut the garlic clove in half, rub each ciabatta slice with garlic and drizzle with a little olive oil. Tear the mozzarella evenly over the 8 crostini. Season well with salt and pepper, sprinkle over the sliced chilli and basil leaves and grate over the lemon zest. Finish with another drizzle of olive oil.

ingredients

• 8 slices ciabatta bread
• 1 clove garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 balls of buffalo mozzarella
• Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
• a small handful of fresh basil leaves
• 1 lemon for zesting

This recipe is from jamie's site

Basic cooking - Quick and simple carbonara

Ham and parmesan chicken breast

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How to prepare a fresh chilli

Basic cooking - Omelettes from Jamie does...

Basic Cooking - Egg Noodles

Now, these aren't the typical egg noodles you'd expect - that is to say, fresh pasta made with egg. These are actually egg noodles - made entirely from egg.

You start them out as your typical omelet - whisk a few eggs in a bowl until homogeneous, add salt and pepper to your liking, and you may even thin it with water or milk. The reason you need to do that is that you'll cook this like pancakes, pouring one thin layer at a time in the frying pan. 

 You should get a few egg pancakes in the end, wafer thin and nice and round.

Roll them up together, like a cigar, then grab a knife and cut it in 1cm roundels.

This is what you should get - wonderful roundels of egg noodles - break them up with your hands and add them to your salad, sandwich or breakfast.

Enjoy!

Breakfast of Champions?

Since I'm on a diet, this is what my breakfast usually looks like nowadays. No worries though, it's sort of a challenge to work with the diet restrictions and still provide something tasty.
It's a simple dish: the toasted ciabatta slice is rubbed with a little garlic, the meat is left-over grill from the night before and the radish, diced red pepper and lettuce leaves are sprinkled with a bit of lemon juice.

Quick Rosemary Pork

What you'll need:
 - 2-3 pork cuts (shin, sirloin, really whatever is to your liking)
 - 2-3 sticks of rosemary
 - salt and pepper
 - olive oil

Turn on the hub and put your grittle pan on the fire, and let it heat up while you prepare the meat. It needs to get screaming hot so you won't burn your meat and smoke up your kitchen - and don't oil it!

Get your cuts of meat and sprinkle them with a good amount of sea salt and pepper, on both sides. Break off your rosemary on top of the meat so you cover the top side, then throw in a few swigs of olive oil - then go on and rub the seasoning into the meat. Use your hands, don't be afraid to get messy!

Cook the meat to your liking. I usually prefer mine medium-rare but be sure to turn the meat on each side. Give it one minute on the side without rosemary, flip them, add rosemary to the bottom side now turned up, and repeat until cooked. It usually needs 1 minute per cm of thickness.

After you've cooked it, let it rest on a wooden board and add a few more swigs of olive oil. Leave it for about 2-3 minutes, then cut or serve directly. Gather up the juices and oil on the board, mix it up with your finger then pour it on top of the meat.

Brilliant!

Making your own fresh pasta - Try it!

Stir-frying tips

Chopping an onion

How to prepare garlic

An essential video on essential knife techniques

Thanks, Jamie!

Tips For Cooking The Best Pasta

   

Pasta is one of my favorite dishes, and it's dead simple to cook. Follow these instructions to get great results:

• Always allow the water in the pot to come to the boil before  adding your pasta.

• Make sure to always season the water with salt. This seasons the pasta from the outside, and after it's cooked you can't season it anymore.

• You should try cooking your pasta al dente (‘to the tooth’). It should be soft but still have a bite and firmness to it. Take a look at the cooking time on the pasta packet, but use that as a guideline and try to cook it slighlty under that time (say, 8 minutes for a 9 minute variety)

•  Don't allow the pasta to cool off or drain it too much. A lot of people throw their pasta into a colander an run cold water over it for 4-5 minutes, or let it rest for a long time. If you have to drain it, do it quickly and then serve them immediately - or throw them into the pan with your sauce.

Generally, ravioli or tortellini (any kind of non-string, filled pasta) usually goes better with thicker, richer sauces such as cheese-based sauces, carbonara, and so forth, because their shapes retain more of that rich, flavored sauce. Tagliatelle, fettucine, linguine, etc are usually associated with red sauces (generally variants of the meat ragu or tomato basil sauce) or fresher, lighter dressings.

To go with some simple pasta try these two very basic sauces:
Pesto : http://www.jamieshomecookingskills.com/recipe.php?title=classic-basil-pesto
Tomato: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegeterian-recipes/the-quickest-tomato-sauce

Chilli Con Carne & Healthy Cracker Salad Cookout

This is a cookout my and my mates did three weeks ago, where I made chilli con carne and a side of salad (cabbage, carrot, kiwi, tomato, chilli, peppers and cheese, with a yogurt-lemon dressing). Thanks to all the guys for sharing in the costs and of course, for loving the food!

Hugs

And here's a clip of Andrei messing around and also dissing my food :)

Principles of superb salads

A (Quick?) Guide To Pasta

Pasta is by far my favorite food. It's typical for many cultures and cuisines, but the mother of all pasta is Italy (that's where term pasta  comes from, derived from the latin name for dough or pastry cake). There is a considerable variety of Italian pasta out there, and for those of you who are slightly confused by this bewildering assortment, here's a quick visual aid.

Gnocchi are the thick, dumpling-style pasta made from semolina or wheat flower. They come in smaller versions called gnochetti.

Tortellini are ring shaped and usually stuffed with ingredients such as cheese or spinach.

Agnolotti is a variety of ravioli shaped like a crescent or semi-circle.

Vermicelli are very thin pasta, also called orati, pancardelle, minutelli and fermentini.

Canneloni start out as rectangular sheets rolled into a tube. They're absolutely delish in oven-cooked pasta dishes (try canneloni con spinachi al forno)

Linguine are basically flattened spaghetti, but they're just as raving delicious.

 Pizzocheri are very short tagliatelle made from buckwheat flower.

Bucatini are long, pierced pasta - hence their name, derived from bucato (pierced).

Spaghetti - when somebody says pasta, this is probably what you think of first.

Macaroni are machine made and usually do not contain egg in the dough. The name macaroni only refers to the dough type, so they come in many shapes and sizes.

Tagliatelle are one of my favorite pasta, similar to fettucine but broader - and they're amazing with bolognese.

Farfalle are the well-known bow tie pasta, easy to make and absolutely delicious.

Fettucine is italian for little ribbons and are probably the best choice for a meat ragu. Pappardelle are very
 broad fettucine.

Fussili are the archetypal corkscrew-shaped pasta.

Ravioli are pocket-shaped filled pasta, cousins of the agnolotti.

Lasagna is a classic sheet pasta and one of the best things to stick in an oven.

Mafaldine look like ridged fettucine, named in the honor of Mafalda of Savoy - little queens indeed.

Capellini is one of the thinnest type of pasta, similar to spaghettini or vermicelli.

Penne are cylinder shaped pasta that come in smooth and rigata (ribbed) versions.