Week 2: Recipe 5: Rosemary Bread with Sunflower Seeds and Hazelnuts

Bread doesn't get more rustic than this.

And it's crazy delicious.

For fans of rustic food this bread is a must-try because it has everything a good bread needs. A thick and crunchy crust, rosemary seasoned dough, and roast nuts and seeds. It just doesn't get better.

Eat a slice with a bit of salted butter and you won't know what's happening to you.

Ingredients:

• 300 grams of self-raising flour + extra to dust
• 5 grams of baking soda
• 1 tbsp of rosemary, chopped fine
• 240 ml of buttermilk
• 2 tbsp unsalted sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp unsalted hazelnuts, chopped coarse

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 200°C or 390°F. In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, rosemary, and 1 tsp salt. Add buttermilk and stir until you have a cohesive dough. 
2. Knead half the sunflower seeds and hazelnuts into the dough. Shape dough into a flat, round bread of about 4 cm or 2 inch thick. 
3. Place bread onto a parchment lined baking sheet and dust with flour. Sprinkle the rest of the sunflower seeds and hazelnuts onto the dough, press a little. 
4. Bake for 20 - 25 min.

Week 2: Recipe 4: Lemon Cakes with Syrup

Recipe 4 of the 52 Recipes a Year challenge, and it occurs to me that I gravitate toward baking. Perhaps it's the December spirit lingering, but I find there is nothing like sharing a homemade treat wih family and friends. The fact that there is always a pack of flour in the house (leering at me), may have something to do with it. It's just too tempting to get my bake on.

Hence, these lemon cakes. 

Counting in the Fall Baking Challenge, these little cakes were among the best pastries I've made so far, which was a surprise. Since they look like muffins I expected the dough to be airy and the flavour mild (bland), but the lemon flavour was strong and the dough was substantial and tastefully sweet. (I must admit I did tweak the recipe a bit.) In short, these cakes are basically slices of pound cake disguised as muffins. As for the raspberries and the whipped cream, they were an okay but unnecessary addition. The whipped cream (unsweetened) added little to the texture of the cakes, which were moist enough to enjoy without additions, and the sour raspberries clashed a little with the sweet dough. Perhaps blackberries would have been a better choice. (Tweaked) recipe below, serves 6.

Ingredients:

• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 100 grams flour 
• 1 tsp. dried yeast
• 50 ml milk
• 2 whisked eggs
• 40 grams full-cream butter
• 100 grams sugar
• 50 ml orange liqueur
• 125 ml whipping cream
• 125 grams raspberries
• pinch of salt 
• 50 ml water

Directions:

1.  Mix lemon zest, flour, salt, yeast, milk, eggs, butter, and 60 grams sugar. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let batter rise in a warm place for 40 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 200°C or 390°F. Scoop batter into muffin molds. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix lemon juice, liqueur, 50 ml water, and the rest of the sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and let simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.
4. Take cakes out of the oven and put them in a deep plate. Pour hot syrup onto them and let cool 1 hour. While they cool, pour syrup onto them a few times more.
5. Beat whipping cream until stiff. Serve cakes with wipping cream and raspberries.

Week 2: Recipe 3: Vol-Au-Vents with Minced Meat and Onions

My third dish for the 52 Recipes in a Year challenge are these vol-au-vents. 

Since they are filled with a mixture of minced meat, onions, and bell pepper, they are more sausage rolls than vol-au-vents, but what's in a name? Seasoned with worcestershire sauce and powdered paprika, they're a simple but tasty treat to have for lunch. Recipe below (serves 10).

Ingredients:

• 10 puff pastry sheets of about 10 x 10 cm (about 4 x 4 inch)
• 1.5 onion, shredded
• 1 green bell pepper, shredded
• 3 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp powdered paprika
• 1 whisked egg 
• 300 grams of minced meat
• baking parchment

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 200°C or 390°F. 
2. Mix meat, onion, bell pepper, worcestershire sauce, and powdered paprika. 
3. Cut the corners round off the puff pastry sheets. Scoop a bit of the meat mixture onto the center of the sheet and fold. Press the edges together and brush some egg onto the dough. Bake for 25 minutes, turn halfway.

Bon appetit. 

Week 1: Recipe 2: Scallion Pancakes with Sesame Seeds and Hoisin Sauce

The 52 New Recipes in a Year challenge was originally meant as an easy challenge to try one new recipe each week for a whole year, but I can't stay out of the kitchen so I'm running ahead a bit. Today I tried the scallion pancakes with sesame seeds and hoisin sauce.

I was really looking forward to these because they are savoury and different from the sweet bite pancakes usually are. They didn't turn out quite like I expected, though. It'd be an overstatement to say they were a disappointment, but an extra teaspoon of salt would have done the scallions better justice. The hoisin sauce serves as a salty-sweet syrupy dip sauce, and is very strong of flavour, perhaps a compensation for the debatable blandness of the pancakes. Still, I'd have these for lunch again, but without the hoisin and with an extra scoop of sesame seeds.

The original recipe (serves 4):

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp sesame seeds
• 4 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 200 grams of flour
• 1 tbsp of corn starch
• 1 egg
• 6 scallions (sliced)
• 4 tbsp nut oil
• half a teaspoon of salt 
• 400 ml of water

Directions:

1. Heat a skillet without oil or butter and roast sesame seeds for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the hoisin and the sesame oil for the dip sauce.
2. Whisk flour, corn starch, egg, sesame seeds, two-thirds of the scallions, the salt, and the water. 
3. Heat nut oil in a small skillet and pour in about one ladle of the batter. Cook for 6 minutes, flip over after 3. Repeat with the rest of the batter. Garnish with the rest of the scallions and serve with the hoisin dip.

Week 1: Recipe 1: Raw Steak Salad with Arugula and Parmezan Cheese

Last fall I joined a baking challenge for which we had to bake 1 pastry each week for 8 weeks straight. I had so much fun with it that I decided to initiate a similar challenge for a longer period of time: the 52 New Recipes in a Year challenge. Basically, we try one new recipe each week, and by the end of the year we send each other the recipes per mail. I'll be keeping track here as well.

So, my first new recipe of the year is the raw steak salad.

The salad is a side dish but serve it on a baguette and it works well as a (fancy) lunch. The most dominant flavors are the garlic and lemon juice, but even those are mild. The pungency of the arugula is softened by the texture of the meat. Personally (as a raw, red meat fan), I think this recipe is a perfect mix of ingredients. Also, it's very easy and takes little time to make. 

The recipe serves 4:

Ingredients:

• 320 grams of raw rump steak
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• pepper and salt to taste
• 40 grams of arugula
• 40 grams of parmezan cheese flakes

Directions:

1. Slice meat in very fine bits.
2. Mix meat with half the lemon juice, garlic, oil, and salt and pepper. Toss and let rest for 10 minutes.
3. Mix arugula with the rest of the oil and lemon juice. Serve meat on a bed of arugula.