Chinese Saturday!

Gong Bao Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1kg boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into small cubes
• 2 red bell peppers, cubed
• 1 large red onion, cubed
• 3 scallion greens, chopped
• 1/3 cup oil for frying
• 1/5 cup Sichuan peppercorns, toasted in skillet for 30 seconds
• 6 dried red chillies, seeded
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
• 3/4 cup unsalted peanuts
  
  Marinade:
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
• 2 tablespoons potato flour
  
  Sauce:
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
• 2 tablespoons black Chinese vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon Sichuan fermented chilli-bean paste
• 1 tablespoon potato flour
  

Preparation:

•  Marinate the chicken for about an hour.
  
•  Grind half of the sichuan peppercorns and mix with scallion greens. Prepare all other ingredients. Mix sauce in a small bowl.
•  Heat your wok on high flame and add oil. When it's hot add your chillies and whole peppercorns. Be careful not to burn them - fry them about 15 seconds only, so oil gets fragrant. Immediately pour the oil from your wok into prepared bowl, using fine-mesh strainer. Discard peppercorns, but leave chillies for later use.
•  Heat your wok again and pour 1/4th of your oil, when it's ready. Put half of your chicken and let it rest for a minute. Then keep on frying one more minute, tossing constantly. It should be just barely cooked through. Remove and put it into bowl. Repeat with rest of the chicken (if you are increasing the amount of ingredients in the recipe, do it in batches, do not overcrowd your wok).
•  Heat another 1/4th of your oil and now throw in bell peppers. Let them char a bit, then add red onion. Cook for a while and add remaining oil, chicken, peppers and peanuts.
• Push your ingredients to the side, to make a well in the middle. Throw in garlic and ginger there. Let it fry for a while and then mix with other ingredients. Cook until meat is done and dish is aromatic.
• Add sauce and mix until everything is coated. Then add scallion greens, toss a few times and transfer to a serving dish :)
  
  Result:
  

Puff pastry weekend (3/3 - Bouchees with chanterelle-sole filling and poached eggs)

This is a great recipe for a Sunday breakfast or part of a dinner menu. Really fast and easy, when you have the dough ready.

Bouchees with chanterelle-sole filling and poached eggs

Ingredients:

• half of the puff pastry recipe
• eggwash (1 medium egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp milk)
• 120g butter
• 250g chanterelles
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1  sole, about 600g, filleted and skinned
• juice of 1 lemon
• 30g Italian parsley, snipped
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Preparation:

1. Roll out the dough, 3mm thick. Cut out eight 9-cm disks. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Chill for half an hour.
2. Arrange four dough disks on a baking sheet and brush with eggwash. Cut 7-cm disks out of remaining disk, so you end up with rings. Put rings on whole disk and press lightly to adhere. Brush with eggwash. 
3. Prick the center of the bouchees and bake for about 20 minutes at an oven pre-heated to 190 C. Cool.
4. Meanwhile prepare the filling: heat 40g butter in a skillet and cook chanterelles over medium heat, about 8-10 minutes. Add the shallot and season to taste. Keep warm.
5. Cut the sole fillets into 1-cm strips.Heat the remaining butter in skillet, until foaming. Add the sole and cook for a few minutes, until done. Add lemon juice, mushrooms and parsley, mix well.
6. Fill bouchees with the filling and serve at once.

Puff pastry weekend (2/3 - puff cookies with anything)

Continuation of puff pastry weekend - this post includes some suggestions for what to put on or inside the dough :)

Cookies topped with fresh fruits

Ingredients:

• Puff pastry dough
• Various fruits  (apples, bananas, peaches, mango, melons...)

Preparation:

1. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out on the lightly floured counter to about 5mm thickness.
   

   

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2. Cut out desired forms, transfer to a baking sheet and refrigerate for half an hour.
   

   

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3. Cut the fruit into thick slices and arrange on puff dough.
   
   
4. Bake until golden in an oven preheated to 190-200 C, about 15 minutes.
   
   

Filled puff pastry cookies

Preparation:
You will also need some lightly beaten egg for spreading over the dough.

1. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out on the lightly floured counter to about 5mm thickness. 
2. Cut out 5x10 cm rectangles.
   
   
3. Put the filling on one part of the dough.
4. Spread the egg on the edge of the dough and fold it over the filling. Press lightly.
   
   

   

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5. Transfer ready cookies on the baking sheet and refrigerate for half an hour.
   
   
6. Brush with eggwash.
   
   
7. Bake until golden in an oven preheated to 190-200 C, about 15 minutes.
   
   

Those can be sweet or savory, possibilities are endless.

Sweet suggestions:

• Chocolate
  
  
  
  
  
• Jam
• Fruits

Savory suggestions:

• Brie or camembert cheese
  
  
• Sausage with hoisin or barbecue sauce
  
  
• Minced meat
• Oriental vegetables

Puff pastry weekend (Part 1/3: Dough)

Here is a recipe for something that probably most of you are used to buying frozen at local supermarket. It's convenient, fast and it works. But you certainly won't get same results as with the real stuff. Sure, it's time-consuming and you have to plan ahead. But imagine serving someone that stuff, fresh out of the oven! This is a recipe from the probably most well-known cookbook of all-time - "Joy of Cooking". It simplifies initial step a bit, by introducing food processor, thus the recipe name. After that you will find some suggestions on using that base. It is indeed an idea to spend whole weekend in the kitchen :) (just joking, while it takes a lot of time to make that recipe, the actual time you spend in the kitchen is not so big)

Food-processor puff pastry

Makes over 1kg

Ingredients:

•  3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 cup ice water
• ~475g cold unstalted butter

Preparation:

1. Pulse 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour with the salt in food processor. Scatter over 75g (5 tbsps) cold butter, cubed. 
2. Pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle over the ice water. Pulse a bit longer, until dough comes together, 10-15 seconds. 
3. Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and form it into 15 cm square. Wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
4. Cut remaining butter into 1cm slices and freeze for a moment.
5. Place remaining 1 cup flour in the food processor and distribute butter over it. Pulse until it resembles coarse gravel, scrape the walls and continue processing, until smooth. 
6. Scrape out and shape into square about 2 cm bigger than the dough. Refrigerate.
7. Place the dough square on a lightly floured surface and roll into about 30x20cm rectangle, with shorter side facing you. Unwrap the butter package and center it on one half of the dough. Fold the dough over the butter, completely covering it. Press the dough together on the 3 open sides. 
8. Turn the dough so that the folded edge is on the left. Roll the dough into a 28x18cm rectangle, keeping a short side facing you. Fold the bottom third of the dough over the center of the dough. Fold the top third of the dough on top of the bottom third. Rotate the dough so that the folded edge is on  the left and roll the dough once more into a rectangle, same size as before. This time fold the bottom end up and the opt end down to meet in the center ( do not overlap), then fold the dough in half, to make 4 layers of the dough. This double fold is the second turn. Wrap the dough and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
9. With the folded edge on the left, roll the dough out again to 28x18cm rectangle. Make another double fold, wrap the dough and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
10. Roll the dough our and make another double fold for the fourth turn. Wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using.

American classic - carrot cake

Here comes a traditional American recipe, almost as classic as apple pie. Thanks to the spices it's similar to gingerbread, but carrots give it a nice moist texture. 

Carrot cake

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

The Recipe:

1. Mix first 9 ingredients thoroughly in a bowl.
2. Whisk oil with eggs and then, using rubber spatula, combine it with dry ingredients.
3. Stir in carrots and walnuts.
4. Scrape into pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 25-30 minutes at about 350°F.

Time to bake good cake!

Well... I'm sure that lots of you guys have moments like: "I must eat something sweet now!" and then you just check all your cupboards in the kitchen to find something that has a little sugar. But what will you do when you find that there is no candies and the only sweet thing is just one or two bags of sugar? If you have oven in your kitchen there is no problem with it - bake a cake!
Cheesecake is one of my favourite cakes. It's really simple and quick to prepare. I learned to bake this cake with a small, old book, where you can find a simple and very reliable recipes for the tastiest cakes in the world. And I'm not talking about those for which you need expensive ingredients, special decorations or something like that. Of course I don't assume that everyone has one kg quark in his fridge, but as you know, it's not a problem to go to the nearest store with dairy products and just buy what you need (at least in Poland :)). So here we go!

Exquisite Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 1 kg quark (cheese)
• 8 eggs
• 400 g (about 2 cups) confectioners' sugar
• 250 g butter
• 40 g (2 tablespoon) farina
• 15 g (1 tablespoon) potato flour
• 300 g (2 teaspoon) baking powder
• 1 g (1/3 teaspoon) lemon oil
• 100 g raisins - if you want, but if not just don't add them

The Recipe:
1. Beat egg whites till stiff.
2. Cream quark, part of sugar and butter.
3. Add remaning sugar to egg yolks and whisk until white.
4. Mix farina, baking powder and flour. Combine quark, whisked egg yolks, farina and flour and mix well.
5. Add previously soaked and drained raisins and lemon oil. Mix well again briefly.
6. Finally add egg whites and fold delicately (it's really important!)
7. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake at 170°C, 50 minutes.
8. After baking wait until it cool down and then put it to fridge for a few hours. Then you can be sure that the cake won't fall apart while cutting.

Thai-style chicken

Here is a nice recipe to use your freshly made curry paste :) I have never been to Thailand, so I cannot comment on authenticity, but it's as close as you can get to dishes from Thai restaurants. Mixture of curry paste and coconut milk gives it a distinct flavor. You can flavor chicken with additional spices (even something like berbere or pepperoncini ) for more kick :)

Thai-Style Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 teaspoons canola oil
• 1 medium onion, cut into  1/4-inch-wedges
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 teaspoon red curry paste
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 pound chicken breast tenders
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 (~250g) bottle roasted red bell peppers, drained and coarsely chopped

The Recipe:
1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Add onion, cook 4 minutes or until onion is golden, stirring frequently.
3. Stir in coconut milk, curry paste, and black pepper.
4. Add chicken, bring to a simmer. Cook 8 minutes or until chicken is done, stirring frequently.
5. Stir in cilantro and remaining ingredients, cook 1 minute.
Serves 4.