Tip 3 - cooking with tomatoes

Thing that we should have to keep in mind when cooking dish that requires us to add fresh tomatoes or tomatoe paste is to add it at the very end of boiling or stirring.  Tomatoes contain more than 10 different types of acids which may cause our food to be undercooked!

Red pepper sauce

Great sweet-sour-hot sauce with multiple use. You can serve it cold as a dip for chips or crisps, spread it on a bake-roll or pizza bread before toasting or baking. I also love to use for soups, stews and goulash that need a bit of spicing up  ;)

INGREDIENTS:

- 3 kg red peppers

-1,5 cup sugar

- 3 tbs salt
- 3/4 cup rice oil

- 2 tbs freshly chopped chilli

- 3 bulbs garlic

- 60 dag of tomato paste (it's better to use fresh tomatoes but only in summer when they are the sweatest)

- 20 g dried basil

- 3/4 vinegar

PREPARATION:

Remove seeds, ribs (the white part inside the pepper), stem and inner membrane from the peppers. Blend them until they create a smooth liquid. Put it to the pot and add sugar, salt, oil and chilli. Boil over medium heat for 2 hours or until thickened and bubbly. Add the rest of ingredients and boil for another half an hour. Ladle the sauce into jars, place a sterile lid on them and  immediately flip the jars upside down. Allow the jars to sit in this position for 30-40 minutes. Remember to flip the jars back over and put your finger in the middle to see if they are sealed. If it pops, the jar is not sealed. 

Et voilà!

Cheese balls

Mardi Gras is coming quickly, so let it be sweet! I'm giving you my favourite cheese balls. I like them better than donuts, because they're so much moist (and have less calories;)).

INGREDIENTS(approx.20 pieces)

- 250 g white cheese semi
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 16 g vanilla sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1,5 tablespoons of cream (18%)
- 1 tbsp rectified spirit
- pinch of salt
- 1 lemon, zest only, grated
- 1 l rapeseed oil for frying

PREPARATION:

Mix flour with salt and baking soda. Put cottage cheese into a bowl and mash it with a fork until all the ingredients are well mixed. It is until they form thick, sticky dough :)

Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep, wide pot to 180 °C

Dip your tablespoon in the oil - the dough won't stick to it. Drop about 1 tablespoon scoops of dough into the oil, careful not to overcrowd the fryer.  Fry the balls, flipping them in the oil, for about 3-4 minutes or until they're golden brown. Use slotted spoon, to move the balls aside on a plate lined with paper towel sheets.

Spread powdered sugar on cheese balls while they're still warm.


Et voilà!

Tip 2 - making a yeast dough

Yeast dough thanks its lightness to thousands of bubbles of air trapped in pastry. It will develop more flavour and the greater number of times it’s being kneaded and allowed to rise before rolling out. Just remember not to do it more than 3 times :)

Moroccan filling baked "pierogi"

INGREDIENTS:

Filling

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 chicken breast,
• 2 cloves garlic,
• 1 onion,
• 300 g tomatoes (can be canned)
• 300 g of cooked chickpeas (can be canned)
• 1 tbsp grated fresh root ginger,
• 1 tsp ground cumin,
• 1 tsp ground coriander,
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp red paprika,
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsps flour,
• 2 tbsplemon juice,
• salt and pepper,

Dough

• 20g yeast 
• 0,5 cup warm milk 
• 2 cups flour 
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 pinch sugar
• 0,5 tsp pinch salt (0.5 tsp)

• 1 tbsp chopped parsley or cilantro for serving

PREPARATION

Filling

Put the chicken breast on the bottom of a pot. Add watter and heat up until it starts boiling. Add a tablespoon of salt and boil for another 3 minutes. Remove meat from the pot and tear it with a fork into thin strips.

Heat the remaining oil in a deep pan. Toss chopped onion, garlic and ginger and simmer over low heat until the onion is soft. Add the spices - cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika and cinnamon and fry everything stirring, until spices begin to smell intensively. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes cut into pieces, season with salt and pepper and cook another 10 minutes. Add the fried chicken in pieces and lemon juice. Finally, add the flour and fry briefly with the rest of the ingredients for a minute.

Dough

Warm up the milk until it's lukewarm. Pour it into a bowl. Add yeast and sugar. Start whisking slowly adding flour and salt until all the ingredients are well combined and the dough smooth and pliable. Set aside in warm place for 1 - 1,5 hour to rise. Roll out, cut out circles using a baking cutter or a glass. Put batter mounds onto the circles and close it forming semicircles. Heat up the oven up to 180 °C Line a baking tray with a parchment paper and place pierogi on it (remember that they will increase their volume!). Bake for about 20 minutes or until pierogi turn gold. 

Et Voilà!

Tip 1 - stirring watery vegetables

Vegetables with high water content (zucchini, squash, cucumber, eggplant, tomatoes) always stir on a large pan, turning up the heat after adding the veggies - this way they won't get sticky and keep the aroma.

Carrot patties

INGREDIENTS:

- 500 g carrots peeled and grated on bigger holes

- 200 g feta cheese

- 100 g cooked proso millet (or any other millet)

- 1 red onion thoroughly chopped

- 1 clove garlic

- 2 cm piece ginger root

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup bran (or blended cereal grains, i.e. barley, wheat, rye, oat)

- 0,5 cup sunflower seeds

- handful of chopped chives

- handful of chopped arugula/rucola

- peanut oil

salt, pepper, red pepper, cayenne

PREPARATION:

This one just cannot go wrong. All you have to do here is combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and blend them with a table spoon until they’re well mixed. From the batter form a patties and heat up the pan. The patties need to be cooked very slowly, so they wouldn’t fall apart. However, if they do, you can thicken the batter using more bran. Spoon 4 batter mounds onto pan, spreading them with a spatula. Cook for 3 minutes or until tops are lightly brown Carefully turn pancakes over; cook 1 minute or until bottoms are lightly browned.

You can serve the patties with a light salad. I used the arugula, cherry tomatoes and used vinaigrette as a dressing.  

Et Voila!