Ajvar

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Ajvar is a Croatian Red Pepper paste which can be used as a sauce to accompany grilled meats or fish, or mixed with rice or pasta, as a dip or simply as a spread on bread. In Germany, it is widely available in supermarkets, but as it's very difficult to obtain here in the UK, I decided to make my own. There seem to be as many recipes for Ajvar out there as there are people posting them, so it really is very much down to personal preference- I decided to start off with the very basic ingredients and experiment a little with their amount and proportions.

I have thus come up with two kinds so far- the first is a very mild version which I served as a mild dip to go with cevapcici. The second one has a higher proportion of red peppers, chillies and garlic, and less aubergine, which gives it a less watered down consistency and is more of a paste than a sauce.


While the red peppers have to be roasted in order to be able to peel them, the aubergines can either be roasted with the peppers, as in recipe #1, or peeled when raw and then roasted separately as in recipe #2.

Recipe #1 (mild sauce, yields one jar):

Ingredients:

3 Red Bell Peppers
2 tbs Olive Oil
2 medium Aubergines
1 Red Chilli
2 cloves Garlic
1 Red Onion
6 tbs Olive Oil
3 tbs Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper
3 tbs Hungarian Sweet Paprika
Olive Oil to top up

Preheat oven to 200°C. Put washed Red Peppers, Aubergines and Chilli onto a baking sheet which has been drizzled with the 2 tbs of Olive Oil.

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Put on the highest possible rack in the oven and bake until the peppers' skins start blistering. Turn and repeat on each side until skins are blistered and blackened all over.

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Remove from oven and put in a bowl, and cover bowl tightly with cling film. Let rest for at least 10 minutes, or until peppers are cool enough to touch.

In the meantime, finely dice Onion and Garlic.

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When the peppers are cool enough to touch, core them and peel (the skin should now be easy to remove) and cut into chunks. Peel the aubergines and cut up. Carefully peel the chilli and remove seeds (if you prefer a spicier sauce, leave some seeds in). Put into a bowl with the Onion and Garlic and add the 6tbs of olive oil and the lemon juice. Either blend in a food processor or use an immersion blender until the sauce is at preferred consistency. Season with Paprika and salt and pepper to taste. Fill sauce into a jar and top up with Olive Oil. This should keep for a week in the fridge, possibly longer if topped up with more oil after each use.

Recipe #2 (moderate paste, yields one to two jars):

Ingredients:

5 Red Bell Peppers
2 tbs Olive Oil
2 small Aubergines
3 red chillies
3 cloves Garlic
6 tbs Olive Oil
5 tbs Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper
5 tbs Sweet Hungarian Paprika
Olive Oil for topping up

Preheat oven to 200°C. Put washed Red Peppers and Chillies onto a baking sheet which has been drizzled with the 2 tbs of Olive Oil. Put on the highest possible rack in the oven and bake until the peppers' skins start blistering. Turn and repeat on each side until skins are blistered and blackened all over.

Peel Aubergines and dice, then sprinkle with salt and let rest while the peppers are baking. When the peppers are done, remove from oven and put in a bowl, and cover bowl tightly with cling film. Let rest for at least 10 minutes, or until peppers are cool enough to touch.

In the meantime, rinse the aubergine cubes and pat dry with kitchen paper. Put onto the baking sheet used for the peppers and turn in the oil the peppers and chillies were baked in, which should now have nicely infused with some of the heat from the chillies. Put aubergines in the oven, and finely dice Onion and Garlic.

When the peppers are cool enough to touch, core them and peel (the skin should now be easy to remove) and cut into chunks. Carefully peel the chillies and remove seeds (if you prefer a spicier sauce, leave some seeds in). Put into a bowl with the Onion and Garlic and add the 6tbs of olive oil and the lemon juice. Remove Aubergines from the oven and add to the bowl as well. Either blend in a food processor or use an immersion blender until the sauce is at preferred consistency. Season with Paprika and salt and pepper to taste. Fill sauce into a jar and top up with Olive Oil. This should keep for a week in the fridge, possibly longer if topped up with more oil after each use.

Of course both of these can be adjusted to taste- some people like to add tomatoes or even carrots, and quantities can also be randomly experimented with. My favourite of the two above is Recipe #2 on a slice of toasted bread, but #1 served with Cevapcici is pretty nice too.

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Italian Garlic Soup

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A lovely warming dish for a cold autumn night, especially if your sinuses could do with some help, is garlic soup. Yes, it has cream and butter and cheese in it, but you can always tell yourself that the health benefits of garlic make it alright.


I have stolen this recipe from here, but have made a couple of very minor modifications to make things easier. This is very similar to the Silesian Garlic Soup my Grandmother would have made, the major difference being that in the Silesian recipe, raw garlic is added to hot water and served immediately, making the pungency a little more intense. The Italian version, while still fragrant, is gentler and recommended if you intend to be around people the following day.

Garlic Soup

Ingredients:

20 Cloves of Garlic - peeled
4 large Sage leaves
Handful Fresh Basil
2 pinches of Ground Cloves
50g of Grated Grana Padano Cheese (can be substituted with Grated Parmesan Cheese)
8 slices of Bread
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Salt and Pepper

In a large pot, bring 8 1/2 cups of water with peeled garlic, Sage, Basil, Cloves and Salt and Papper to the boil.

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Once water has begun to boil, cover with lid, lower the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes. Near the end of the 20 minutes cooking time, sprinkle your bread slices with grated cheese and drizzle with the olive oil.

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Add the bread to the pot.

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Liquidise with a hand blender. Add the butter and cream and stir together.

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Garnish with extra grated cheese if desired and serve.

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Delicious Gruyère Tart- don't let the crappy picture put you off

I really wanted my first proper post to be a recipe for brochettes, but unfortunately my latest attempt turned out a little dry, so it'll have to wait until I've tweaked it some more.

So, instead my starter post is a recipe I got from some friends about fifteen years ago, wrote down and then forgot about until I unearthed the notebook in my father's basement last winter.

This is a perfect dish for a light summery lunch out in the garden and goes well with a green salad and a nice crisp glass of white wine. It is also fairly quick, especially when the ground work is done the day before. However, this is not a recipe for the faint hearted, as just reading the list of ingredients will make you gain a pound or two! That being said; because it is so rich, a tiny slice is enough to fill you up, so it's not quite a calorific as it sounds.

I suspect the recipe comes from some German recipe book, but as Gruyère is a Swiss cheese, it may well be Swiss.

Gruyère Tart:

Ingedients:

For the dough:
200g flour
100g butter (unsalted)
pinch of salt
grease for the form
some flour for the work surface

For the filling:
275g Gruyère cheese
250 ml double cream
4 medium eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon flour
100ml milk
salt
pepper
ground nutmeg

Preparation:
Put the flour on a clean work surface and cut the butter into small pieces. Use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour, until you have a dough with a crumbly texture (will be sticky!). Slowly add salt and about 100 ml of water, and knead until you have a smooth, albeit very sticky dough. Put in the fridge to cool for at least 2- 3 hours, but better overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200° C.

Grate the cheese, then put aside. Mix the cream with the eggs and egg yolks. Mix the flour and the milk, then add to the egg mix and season to taste with the salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Lightly grease a tarte/ quiche tin. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the chilled dough. Put into baking tin and use a fork to press to the sides. Prick the bottom all over with the fork.

Add the grated cheese, then pour over the egg mixture. Bake at the bottom of the oven for 30-35 minutes until a golden brown. Serve at room temperature.

Welcome to my blog

Hi, I'm brochettes, welcome to my blog! I live in Leeds in the UK with my husband and two furry sociopaths (cats), and spend a lot of my time thinking about food, and trying to get the picture in my mind to match up with what's on the plate in front of me.

I am not a very disciplined person, so am not likely to post on here with any kind of regularity; but as I am prone to radom spurts of cooking activity, I hope this blog will help me keep track of the success stories in my kitchen. My cooking influences are pretty much divided into three categories: The first is the food of the places I have lived in (Germany, Morocco, UK), which is unsurprisingly what I feel most comfortable cooking and thus experimenting with. The second is any old recipe I come accross in a cookbook or online, and try to adapt to my own tastes. These are very hit -and -miss, and will only make it onto this blog once I've managed to eliminate the horrid miscalculations I am bound to make. Of course, these two categories cross into each other- I may start off with a German book on baking, alter things to adapt it to the way we used to make it in the family, and come out with something new. This often turns into my third food category: Accidental creations, also known as a desperate attempt to use what's left in the fridge before it goes off, bringing slighly unusual ingredients together or spilling icing sugar in a savoury chicken stew with some delicious results. These will be posted if they are either delicious, or at least interesting.
The two things that will not be found on this blog are brussels sprouts and raisins/ dried apricots, other than possibly in rants about a) Christmas food or b) common misconceptions about Moroccan food. Cookies on the other hand are likely to make a fairly regular appearance.