Lamb and potatoes

Sounds boring, huh? But if I tell you it's a rack of lamb with breadcrumbs, parsley and lemon á la Bill Granger (Open Kitchen) and the best potato dish I can imagine, it sounds different, doesn't it? :)

So, the lamb, true to Bill, is very easy to prepare. You need
slices of sourdough bread
parsley
1 garlic clove
zest of 1 lemon (I substituted lemon juice for this)
olive oil
salt & pepper

Toast the bread in the oven, then crumble it (easiest to do in the processor), add chopped parsley, sliced or grated garlic, lemon zest (or juice) and some olive oil to bind.
Then salt&pepper the rack of lamb and fry it for a few minutes in a pan, on some olive oil, then rub in 1-2 tsp Dijon mustard, and press on the breadcrumb mixture. Place it in a pre-heated 180C oven and cook for about 30-40 minutes for a pink meat.
Since I don't like pink meat, I cooked for almost an hour and the thicker part was still not completely done, which is a shame because there's nothing worse I can imagine than bloody (sorry, no cursing here LOL) meat.Otherwise, the combination of breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic and lemon is just great, and I will give it another try with a longer cooking time on another occasion.


As for the potatoes, I honestly believe this is the best that can happen to the first young potatoes of the season. This is always the first dish my mum prepares with them once they appear in the market and this is something the whole family looks forward to every year, me especially! So much so, that on Saturday, when we usually go round to my parents' house for dinner, my mum was sorry to inform me that she couldn't get any to make this dish with the Wiener Schnitzels she made. So I was even happier that I had found some young potatoes and huge bunches of parsley in the market that morning :)

My mum's parsley potatoes

1 kg young potatoes
olive oil and butter, 1-2 tbsp of each
a huge bunch of parsley, chopped
salt

Melt the olive oil and butter in a big pan, then add the chopped parsley and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Add the peeled and chopped potatoes, add so much water that it doesn't cover the potatoes completely, bring to the boil, add some salt and let it simmer until the potatoes absorb all the juices and become tender. (It is important not to add too much water or they will go too mushy).
The result is soft, fragrant, jade-coloured potatoes which are a perfect accompaniment to any breadcrumbed meat and should be followed by something sour (pickled gherkins) or something sweet and tart, like Bill's cucumber relish (Open Kitchen). Though I don't even mind eating them as they are, snuggled on the sofa. My idea of comfort food...


Cucumber relish

Heat 1/2 cup sugar with 1/2 rice or white wine vinegar in a pan. Until it cools, quarter a short (Lebanese) cucumber and slice it thinly. Slice 2 shallots and a deseeded red chilli thinly, too. Put all these in a nice dish and pour over the sweet vinegar. I like to add 1/3 cup of water too, to make it less tart and this time I left out the chilli. Mmmmmmm.....

Easter medley

Easter used to be so different when I was a child. In Hungary, there's a tradition of sprinkling girls and women on Easter Monday, so that they do not wither LOL No, actually this tradition can be traced back to fertility rituals. In my grandmother's days boys sprinkled the girls with buckets of cold water, there was no escaping them, no matter how hard they tried! In exchange of sprinkling the boys got Easter eggs painted by the girls themselves.
Later, buckets of water were substituted for eau de cologne, and the boys cited Easter rhymes (funny, coquetting little poems) and in exchange they got painted or chocolate eggs, or even some pocket money.

I grew up with this tradition. I was preparing painted eggs for the sprinklers, bought chocolate eggs and helped my mum with the preparations. On Easter Monday it was my father who sprinkled me first, later accompanied by my brother. The first guest to arrive was always my grandfather and then there was no stopping till late in the afternoon: relatives, neighbours, friends, old and young came along, spent a little time at our house chatting, eating and drinking. Even though we women all stank by the end of the day and couldn't wait to put our heads under the tap, these were lovely times, on looking back.

Unfortunately, in our modern world people don't seem to find time for traditions. Easter has become a bore, a chore and everyone's trying to get away from it. Some people take a mini-break, some just go on trips on Mondays.
It just doesn't feel right any more, it has ceased to be the cosy event it used to be, which is sad.

Foodwise, however, I try to keep up the tradition, even if I don't have many guests these days. Mornings are started with boiled ham and eggs, accompanied by various mayo salads: potato, sweetcorn, or "French". I made French salad this year, which is cooked peas, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and raw apples diced, covered in sauce tartare. Bread and/or milk loaf are also served along. In my family there is never a proper cooked meal on Easter Monday, we just have servings of this and that during the day. Honestly, I still cannot imagine anything better than ham and eggs all day at Easter!

29 years together

Easter Sunday coincided with my parents' 29th wedding anniversary this year. So even though I never make a proper cake for Easter, this time there was an excuse to make one :) And again thanks to Kelly-Jane I had these cute Cadbury choc eggs to use up, so I decided to make Nigella's Easter egg nest cake from Feast. I checked the recipe twice and even read the choc cloud cake recipe, which is basically the same I was told, but still went on sceptically preparing this flourless(!) cake. It is very easy to make, you just melt the chocolate with the butter, then beat the egg whites with sugar. After beating the yolks with sugar,too, you add the melted chocolate and carefully fold in the whites. It took me longer to bake than the stated 35-40 minutes because I used a 22cm pan, that was what I had.

Since several people told me it was quite a rich cake, I only used some cocoa powder in the whipped cream for colour instead of another bar of chocolate.

The result? Hmmm, not bad, but I'm afraid it was too dense for me even without the chocolate in the topping. Everyone else loved it though, so no problem with that ;)

Easter preparations

This Easter has arrived so quickly, I hardly noticed and hardly had the time to plan beforehand, so I was just going with the flow, not really having an idea what to bake (me, imagine!). But yesterday settled it and today I started my happy pottering in the kitchen.

Since the lovely Anna sent me a bottle of lemon oil, I have been searching for an occasion to try the lemon cupcakes from Forever Summer and I was craving something lemony this Easter! So cake No. 1 was quickly settled, as the muffins were a breeze to make in the processor. Since I can't get royal icing, which the recipe suggests using and my favourite frosting is cream cheese, I just whipped up a batch of those, using 125g cream cheese, 50g butter and about 4 tbsp icing sugar, and I added some of the lemon oil, a tbsp lemon juice and some zest as well. Mmmmm, so heavenly citrusy! Now I'm thinking of making it as "blondies" in a pan next time, with some lime juice and zest added and the same cream cheese topping. Drooling just at the thought of it...
(Cupcake cases courtesy of Kelly-Jane, aren't they cute? Thanks again!)



I was so desperate yesterday about not having ideas I turned to my hubby for help. Guess what his answer was at the question "What would you like to have?". If you read carefully so far, you'll know it by now: curd cheese. Actually he named this cake but I wasn't giving myself so easily (what about creativity?), so I chose his all time favourite cake, which I've only ever attempted once in our 10 years together: curd cheese squares Rákóczi style. The reason for my not making it is not because it's extremely difficult or fiddly to make. It is simply that I don't like it that much. Or much rather that I can't find a recipe which reminds me of my childhood memories of this cake: soft sponge divided by a thin layer of apricot jam, curd cheese and a huuuuge, sometimes over 7cm(!) layer of marshmallowy soft meringue, sprinkled with chocolate shavings. Mmmmmmmmmm! Whenever I went to the cake shop, I'd ask for this cake, it was made so brilliantly in my hometown.

This recipe doesn't come any close to the above mentioned taste memory either, it is the traditional and home-made version but it did turn out to be the best of the kind I've tasted so far.
I followed the recipe faithfully except that I made 1.5x amount of the dough because it seemed too little for me for my pan and I used 4 extra whites (from the freezer) and proportionately more sugar, because we like a thicker meringue on top. The result: a few hours after the cake has come out of the oven, half of it is missing already. And this time it's not me getting nearer to a broader waistline ;)


In fact, I'm still craving that familiar taste...

Nigella's fresh gingerbread with lemon icing

I associate gingerbread with cold weather in general but somehow I tend to make it this time of the year, it seems, although this is only the second time I've made it LOL The first time was around March last year, simply because the black treacle I had bought months earlier was getting close to its expiry date. So far I know of only one single shop that stocks it, and that is almost 200km away so you can understand I was cherishing it :) Almost too long...

Anyway, I had to use it up and I didn't suspect what impact it would have on my life! If I was given the difficult task of choosing my favourite cake, this would be in the first three. Honestly, it is amazing. And you can imagine the odours filling your home when making this: treacle, golden syrup, fresh ginger and cinnamon... Mmmmmm! The lemon icing is really the icing on the cake: it counterbalances the chewy sweetness and velvety deep treacle aroma of the cake.

Since a friend of mine happened to visit the shop where treacle can be found and she bought me two tins(!) I had another long-awaited occasion to have a go at this recipe.

It is extremely easy to make as well. You just melt the butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, treacle, cinnamon and fresh ginger in a pan, then taking it off the heat add the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the flour and baking soda (dissolved in warm water), pour the mixture in a tray and bake for 3/4-1 hour.

The icing is made of icing sugar, lemon juice and hot water simply, though I find it always too little for the cake, you could easily double the amounts stated.

This is why I consider Nigella my baking queen: How to be a Domestic Goddess is full of these kinds of recipes which inevitably make you feel a Domestic Goddess yourself, with this little effort!

Liptauer

Liptauer comes from Slovakia but I'm sure if asked, most Hungarian people would say it's a Hungarian speciality.The reason for this is because Liptau and the neighbourhood used to be a part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
My mum makes excellent Liptauer so I've never looked for a recipe in my life, just try to imitate that - sometimes with more, sometimes with less success, just as it is the case with grandma's recipes. They always taste "better" ;)

Liptauer

100g ewe's cheese (Bryndza)
250g curd cheese
100g soft unsalted butter (or a bit more if your cheeses are too dry)
1 tsp grated brown onion
1 clove of garlic, grated
paprika, ground pepper to taste
a hint of ground cumin
and carefully added salt (the amount depends on how salty your ewe's cheese is, you must be very careful or it turns out inedible - it has been the case with me before!)

Just beat everything thoroughly either by hand or in a KA. Serve with fresh bread and veggies if you please.

In the mood for Irish!

I blame it on Mannix. It all started with his newsletter for St.Patrick's day. I was drooling all over the keyboard by the time I'd finished reading it. So I knew that once hubby gets home, I must try something Irish.

It wasn't really difficult to justify trying any of these dishes. Even though I don't like any kind of beer, I've been toying with the idea of trying Nigella's choc-guiness cake for ages. However, Mannix's seemed equally tempting and simple and I couldn't resist - sorry Nigella :) I used a bigger tin (22cm) because I wanted a less formal-looking cake and it was fantastic! Super moist, oh-so-chocolatey, simply what many people would call moreish, I think ;) The whipping cream and the whiskey toffee sauce complemented it perfectly - to the greatest pleasure of my pregnant friend, who could justify having some booze at least in this form LOL


We love savoury bits now and then and as we had a few friends coming over for the evening, the beer and cheddar scones looked just perfect for the occasion. It was the first time I made scones so am not sure if the dough turned out too sticky and soft because I added too much beer or it was supposed to be like that. I didn't use cheddar because of its revolting price, only a similar one - I guess the taste would have been more characteristic with cheddar, but anyway, we could hardly stop eating these!


Passing Saturday in an Irish mood didn't satisfy me completely, so I planned some more Irish for Sunday as well. But this time, however inspired by Mannix's Guiness braised beef, I turned to an Irish stew recipe from the good food site, simply because I had some neck of lamb in the freezer to use up. Ok, confession time: I couldn't deny my Hungarian roots and seeing how pale the stew looked - at least for me it looked a bit sickly pale - I added some paprika paste LOL It ended up looking very-very similar to our goulash but the taste was different due to the lamb and the spices used, and refreshingly light compared to our hearty, fat stews. It felt right to eat for dinner which wouldn't be the case with our traditional stew - unless you are not concerned about your weight, of course.


I made some rye bread to go with the stew on Sunday morning. I had leftovers from different flours, so I added all and the recipe looked like this:

300g strong flour
100g rye flour
50g semolina
150g plain flour
360ml tepid water
1-2 tsp salt
1 tsp honey
20g fresh yeast or corresponding amount of instant

The dough got to be kneaded by the bread machine, then let to prove for 20 minutes, then kneaded again. I took over from here. I shaped the dough and cut it across and let it prove for about 20-30 minutes, then transferred to a hot oven (200 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Then I turned it down to 180 degrees and baked for another 20 minutes or so, brushing it with water once mid-baking time. Nice, not too crusty bread, lovely with the stew.