Garlic sauce by Aleksandra

My favourite sauce/dip for warm sandwiches, meat, etc. 

Ingredients:

0.5 cup of mayonnaise

0.5 cup of double cream or thick yogurth

2 cloves of garlic (pressed by garlic press)

Half tablespoon of chopped parsley

Black pepper

Red pepper powder (paprica)

Salt (optional)

Mix well all ingredients. 

Before serving add to fridge for about one hour. 

Bon Apetit!

Bigos - Polish traditional dish

Poland is country where we have cold Winters and very hot Summers. That is why Polish cuisine is reach in different types of food. We have light fruits soups for warm time and full of meat meals for cold months. 

Today I liked to share with you my Mums recipe for Bigos. This is heavy food. Will keep your body strong even outside is -15C. 

Every family in Poland has different recipe for bigos. You can experiment with ingredients (some of people add red wine, dried plums). Near is recipe of Chrebor family (my Mum's family :) )

"Kielbasa Jalowcowa"

Before you will cook bigos, you will need to visit Polish shop or Polish shelfs at Tesco (most of Tesco store have them). You will need to buy there Sauerkraut (Polish name "Kapusta kiszona" or "Kapusta kwaszona") and sausages (they are full of smoked/herb flavour. Different than English). Just ask at shop which type of sausages are the best for bigos. In my opinion the best to buy are "Kielbasa Slaska" and "Kielbasa Jalowcowa" (write down names and show to shopping assistant at Polish store). 

Good sausages are also: "Krakowska" and "Slaska".

Prepare very large pot and be prepared for very long cooking.

Bigos is great for freezing.

Ingredients:

2.5 kg of Sauerkraut

0.60 kilogram of unbones meat (could be pork or beef). Cut into small cubes

2 cups of broth

4 cloves of garlic

Cup of dry boletuses or any other mushrooms

1 cup of chopped bacon (best will be smoked one)

2 big onions. Chopped

Salt, Black pepper

0.30 kilogram of Kielbasa Slaska. Cut into small chunks

0.30 kilogram of Kielbasa Jalowcowa. Cut into small chunks

1 cup (you can add even 2 cups) of canned tomatoes (with juice). Chopped

You can add smoked ham (optionally). 

5 allspice

Half tablespoon of marjoram

Oil

4 bay leaves

Juniper (few of them)

Half tablespoon of caraway seeds

1. Fry bacon, sausages and meat on pan. Put them to pot. 

2. Boil mushrooms. Cook the until get soft. Strain water. Chopped mushrooms. Put them to pot. You can use water from mushrooms for bigos. 

3. Wash sauerkraut at the cold water. Chopped it for smaller pieces. Put to pot with 2 cups of broth. 

4. Put every herbs and spices to brace. 

5. Turn on the cooker on the lowest fire. 

6. Cook for one hour. Pot should be covered. If you will see that there is no more water in bigos add warm one (it should not cover sauerkraut. Bigos is not soup). Remember to stir bigos (look after first of all at the bottom of pot)

7. Add tomatoes. You can replace canned tomatoes with tomatoes puree. 

8. Fry onion on oil. When golden-brown add to sauerkraut. 

9. Cook for 2 hours. 

10. Turn of the cooker. When bigos will be cold put it to fridge. 

11. Next day put pot on cooker and boil for another few hours (remember about adding water and stiring!). Season bigos.

12. Serve hot with bread. Some people eat bigos with boiled potatoes. 

You can keep bigos for a few days in fridge. You will see that everyday it will get more taste! 

As I wrote before you can freeze bigos for few months. 

Bon Apetite!

GREEN BEANS WITH BREAD CRUMBS

I love vegetables. Green beans are great source of vitamins: K, C, A and manganese. This dinner is quite common in Poland. You can serve it with potatoes and roast meat.  

500G of green beans
3 tablespoons of bread crumbs
Salt
Grease (for example: butter, oil or margarine)


1. Wash green beans. Cook vegetables with smaller 1 tablespoon of salt (you can use it less or more salt)

2. Cook beans for about 30 minutes. Ready ones are soft. 

3. Strain water.

4. Move beans to fry pan. 

5. Add bread crumbs and butter. Mix ingredients. 

6. Fry until bread crumbs will be golden-brown. 

7. Serve hot. 

Bon Apetite!

Alexandra's perfect roast chicken

Traditional Polish Sunday dinner: chicken soup and roast chicken with potatoes. This recipe is my idea. I like chicken with garlic and mushroom flavour.

You can serve it with rice or mashed potatos, fresh salad.

We need:

1 large organic chicken
7 mushrooms
1 red pepper
1 large onion
5 garlic cloves
black pepper
marjoram
chopped parsley
hot paprika powder
oil
few potatoes

1. Wash and dry chicken
2. Choped: half onion, 2 garlic cloves,  2 mushrooms. Mix them with half tablespoon of marjoram, salt and pepper. Insert mix inside chicken.
3. Prepare marinate: 2/3 cup of oil, teaspoon of marjoram, teaspoon of parsley, salt and pepper, half teaspoon of paprika. Mix ingredients. Use garlic press for 3 garlic cloves. Mix with marinate.
4. Use spoon and spread marinate over the chicken.
5. Cut rest on onion and half a red pepper. Put them around chicken.

6. Cover dish with aluminium foil. Place dish for few hours to fridge. 

7. Preheat oven to 200C.

8. Place dish to oven. Cover with aluminium foil. 

9. You will need to roast chicken for about 2 hours and 40 minutes. In my family we roast for about 3 hours. 

10. After 1 and a half hour remove foil. Add sliced potatoes, rest of red pepper and whole mushrooms. 

11. Keep chicken in oven for 1 hour more or more. If you want meat to be juicy, every few minutes baste with fat from dish.
12. When chicken skin will be golden-brown, meat will be ready.

Bon apetit!

Baking adventure :)

3 years ago I have moved to United Kingdom (so now you know why my English is such poor :) ). Start my life in here. My family left in Poland. Suddenly I need to look after my life by myselfe. I really missed taste of my mum's cakes, dinners. 

So 3 years ago I have decided I will try to learn how to cook and bake. Baking start to be my big passion. I am enjoy it so much! When you start to thinking about any hobby you realise that you need to buy lots of new things, for example cake tins, pans, mixers. Till now I do not have everything which I really want (my the biggest dream - Kenwood stand mixer). Usually I am shopping from websites. You can find there very good deal. 

I found CSN online Stores (they selling everything for kitchen (they have my Kenwood dream!), Lighting, and furnitures!), which I like the most. I think I am addicted to online shopping :). 

My wishes list is still long one:

Kenwood stand mixer

Madeleine tins

Cooling rack

One-hand flour sifter...and my list everyday getting bigger! 

I hope one day I will have my idyllic kitchen like on picture above

I think I need sponsor :D. 

Best wishes to all of you!

Come back this week to my blog, because I am planning to bake something very yummy!

Man's kiss

I ate this cake few years ago in Armenian cake shop. I have been looking for recipe in Armenian, Czech, Slovakian websites (trust me is quite hard if you don't know Armenian alphabet). 

I am proud to show you result of my work. This cake was baked by my mum and brother. 

I hope you will like it as we are :).

Ingredients for cake:

100 gram. of unsalted butter

2 tablespoons of honey

2 large eggs

250 gram. of sugar

1 teaspoon of vinegar

3/4 tablespoon of baking soda

600 gram. of flour

Ingredients for icing:

250 gram. unsalted butter

grounded walnuts

coniac (optional)

1 tin of sweet evaporated milk (put close tin to pan with boiled water and cook for about 3 or 4 hours. You will get yummy toffi! I do not know if in England you can get sweet evaporated milk. If not go to Polish shop and ask for "Slodzone mleko skondensowane".)

Decoration:

grounded walnuts

grounded any honey, ginger cake (you can by the best in Lidl, I think)

chocolate glazing

grounded crumbs of Man's kiss cake

STEP BY STEP:

1)      Cake:

a)      Combine soda with vinegar, leave mixture aside

b)      Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius degrees.

c)       In high pot stir together butter, honey, sugar while boiling. When all ingredients combine pour soda mixed with vinegar, then eggs, keep on stirring. When you will notice foam on the top of mixture remove from heat. Sift flour to mixture and mix. Take content of pot out and knead on table. Divide for 8 parts. Each part roll and cut a form cake will have. Put each part on piece of baking paper and put into the oven for approximately 3 minutes. It ought not to be baked too long, unless we want our cake hard and burnt. Leftovers from cutting you can also bake and then grind.

d)      Cool baked parts.

2)      Cream:

a)      Mix butter (not melted) with tin of boiled condensed milk. If you like you can add also grinded walnuts and cognac.

3)      Final activities:

a)      Spread icing on the cake. Put next cake and spread next layer of icing till last cake. Then sprinkle nuts and grinded, baked leftovers on the top of the cake.  If you like you can garnish top of the cake with melted chocolate. 

Brutti ma buoni

I have got idea to make brutti ma buoni from Emilio Cugnetto. I have little bit changed his recipe.
Brutti ma buoni means "Ugly but good". In my opinion those cookies are adorable! I love their taste. Very good to eat them with cafe latte or cappucino.

Ingredients:

250 gram. of walnuts
200 gram. of any of your favourite nuts (for example hazelnuts, pistachios)
1 cup of icing sugar
5 eggs whites (room temperature)
4 tablespoons of sifted flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla esence.

1. Preheat oven to 170 Celsius degrees
2. Whisk egg whites for about few minutes. When you see they are start look like foam add sugar.
3. Whisk for about 6 minutes on medium speed.
4. When eggs whites change consistency to silky, smooth they are ready.

5. Use spoon and gently mix nuts, flour and vanilla extract with batter.

6. Grease baking pan and sprinkle it with flour or bread crumbs.
7. Drop batter from a rounded teaspoon. Live space between cookies.

8. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden colour.
9. They crush easily so be very careful with brutti ma buoni.

Bon Apetite!

Must have from Polish shops

Hello my dear readers :)

Today I would like to show you three products which helps you to bake cakes and make nice desserts.

1. Smietan-fix

This powder helps you to get perfect whipped cream. Ideal for sponge cakes.
You do not need to use gelatine anymore.  I do not like gelatine because you need to spend little time to do it and also it has strange taste.
Smietan Fix is so easy to use: while you whipping cream add powder and voila!






2. Budyn

I know than people in United Kingdom love custard. Polish people to. "Budyn" you need to add to boiling milk and cook for awhile on low heat.

In Polish shop you can find big choice of budyn's flavours. You can buy: cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cherry, caramel, banana, straciatella, and many more.

You can eat budyn warm or cold (I prefer second one. decorate it with whipped cream and fruits). You can use it also as a filling for pancakes (like my grandmother did).








Budyn is also ingredient of some cakes fillings.

3. Galaretka

Galaretka is just jelly. You can use it for cake decorations or as a dessert. 

You need to boiled water then add galaretka to it. Stir water and wait until galaretka will be thick.  You can cut different colours of galaretka and then add to cake filling. Cake will look like stained-glass window.  My favourite galaretka is gooseberry flavour. Yummy!

Rose Cloud

Inspired by the cake, which I tasted a few months ago I decided to try to make it at home. It outcome of the experiment is very satisfactory. Exceptionally simple cake. I guess you could mix a rose flavor with strawberries.

Ingredients for sponge cake:

6 large eggs 

1 1 / 3 cup of powdered sugar (sifted) 

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

1 cup and 2 tablespoons of cake flour - (sifted), 

a pinch of salt 

Ingredients for icing: 

2 and a half of cups of thick double cream 

2 / 3 cup of icing sugar 

2 tablespoons of rose water 

half teaspoon of freshly grated lemon zest

smietan fix (you can buy it in Polish Shop) or gelatin

For decoration grounded walnuts and chopped pistachios. 

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius degrees. 

2. Separate the yolks from the eggs whites.

3. At the fastest speed of mixer blend egg yolks with 2 / 3 cup of powdered sugar and vanilla. Dough is ready when turns to be very creamy and fluffy 

4. Whip  the egg whites on the medium speed of your mixer. When it starts to looks like foam add the rest of the icing sugar. Increase mixer speed to medium 

5. Ready-mix foam gently with egg yolk (preferably with a wooden spoon mix).

6. Fold sifted flour and salt with batter 

7. Prepare pan: grease with fat and sprinkle with breadcrumbs 

8. The dough should not go too high because it has no baking powder 

9. Bake until the dough change colour to gold. Switched off the oven and keep cake in it. 

Icing:

1. Whipped the double cream. In the middle of mixing add the rose water, smietan fix (or gelatine), powdered sugar and lemon zest 

3. Everyone knows how whipped cream should looks like :)

4 * If we know that the cake will be eaten quickly, you do not need to add gelatine or smietan fix. 

5. On the clean kitchen towel put cake. On the bottom of it spread icing. Using towel roll cake. 

6. Spread icing on the top of the roll and sprinkle nuts. 

7. Before serving put the dough for a few hours in the fridge.

Bon Apetite!

Spicy chocolate cake with chocolate icing

Ingredients for dough:

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

3 cups of flour

1 cup of milk

4 tbs of cocoa

Half jar of jam (I prefer from strawberries)

2 teaspoons of baking soda

1 or 2 tablespoons of grounded cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger mixture

Chocolate icing:

Double cream (approximately 200 millilitres)

Chocolate (200 gramme) use with high cocoa %

Icing sugar (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius degrees. 

2. Combine all ingredients for dough. Blend it until you will see air bubbles. 

3. Pour the batter into buttered ad sprinkled with bread-crumps cake tin. 

4. Bake it in the middle oven shelf for about 40 minutes. Ready cake will come off tin's edges.

5. When the cake has cooled completely, cut it in half. 

Icing

1. Break the chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Add cream. 

2. Heat 6 cm (little more than 2in) of water in a pan until it is bubbling. 

3. Put bowl with chocolate in the pan. Chocolate will start melting. While melting blend it with mixer. At this level you can add icing sugar, but in my opinion it is not necessary.  

4. Let fluffy icing cool. Then put to fridge. 

5. When you will see icing is getting thick take it out from fridge. 

6. Spread it on the cake.

7. Put the other cake. 

8. You can decorate top of the cake with icing or icing sugar. 

Bon Apetite!

3 e

Ghorme Sabzi - Persian stew

Maybe this food don't looks preety, but it's absolutely tasty! I use reciepe from Javaneh's blog.

Before you start cooking Ghorme Sabzi you need to buy few ingredients from Persian or Oriental shop. 

This recipe is for 2 people.

Ingredients:

250 gr's of lamb

medium onion (chopped)

3 whole dried limes

water

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon of turmeric

tin of red kidney beans

special ghorme sabzi dried herbs

Dried limes

1. Fry onion until gold. 

2. Cube the meat then fry together with onion. 

3. When meat become brown add salt, pepper and turmeric. 

4. Add hot water just to cover meat. 

5. Add dried limes (make few insertions on them). Cook more than one houre or until meat will be tender.

6. 5-6 tablespoons of herbs soak in hot water for about 10 minutes. Squeeze them with your hands to remove water. Fry them on pan. At the beggining without water or oil. After steam gone add little fat and fry until brown. Add herbs to stew and cook for 30 minutes. 

7. Wash beans and add them to ghorme sabzi. Cook another 20 minutes. 

8. Serve hot with rice. 

Bon Apetite!

Pierogi ruskie with cottage cheese and potatoes.

This is recipe for traditional Polish dumplings, calls "Pierogi ruskie". 

I absolutely love them! Usually people it them boiled, but I prefer fry. 

After boiling or even before you can easily frozen this food. My mum always making nearly 100 of them. You can eat it all year round!

Ingredients for dough: 

2 cups of flour

very warm water (about half a cup) 

bigger pinch of salt 

2 tablespoons of olive oil 

Ingredients for filling: 

boiled and mashed potatoes (about half a kilo) 

250 gram of cottage cheese (white cheese)

chopped large onion 

salt pepper 

chopped parsley (one tablespoon)

What you need to do now:

Stuffing:

Fry onions in oil. When he is ready to combine all the ingredients together. Filling should be little spicy.

Dough:

1. Combine all the ingredients on pastry board. Carefully add water to flour. Dough should be very soft. 

2. Divided into approximately three parts. Rolled one part (for about 3 millimetre). The other two have to be cover with aluminum foil, because the dough dries out very quickly. 

3. With a glass cut out rings from dough. On each put the stuffing. Stick together edges of rings. 

4. Cook in boiling salted water. When the dumplings float to the top of the water, they still need to be cook for about 5 minutes. 

5. Boiled "pierogi" serve with fried onions and becon. If you like fried eat them with sour cream.

Instead of cottage cheese you can eat pierogi with fruits (like strawberries), meat or mushrooms.

Bon Apetite!

Fast and easy cinnamon-chocolate muffins

I love muffins! My offer for today are cinnamon-chocolate so simple to make muffins. 

Enjoy this great taste! 

Ingredients:

·         

3     3 eggs

·         1 glass of sugar

·         3 glasses of flour

·         1 glass of oil

·         1 glass of milk

·         3 tablespoons of cocoa

·         Half of jam-jar

·         2 teaspoons of baking soda

·         Cinnamon (add how much you prefer, I usually add 2 – 3 teaspoons)

·         Chopped walnuts optionally

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius degree. All ingredients combine with mixer. Pour the batter into buttered and sprinkled with bread-crumps special baking forms for muffins. Put forms into the oven. They are baked very shortly.

Chilled muffins can be garnished i.e. with chocolate cream, icing or whatever you would like to.

This recipe lasts for approximately 30 muffins. However, it depends how big are your forms.